Tigercity
Good Times Lived, Sparks Divided
Nov 24, 2009
Words by Sean Moeller
Illustration by Johnnie Cluney
Sound engineering by Patrick Stolley
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Welcome to Daytrotter
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A Better Place
original version appears on Ancient Lover
We wanted to write a bouncy, David Bowie inspired pop song here. We love Roxy Music and that kinda shines through in this one.
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Suzanne
unreleased
We were asked by NPR to cover a Leonard Cohen song at Waterloo Records/SXSW showcase last year. We thought it was interesting they wanted Tigercity for this because we really sound so different from Leonard Cohen. It's always fun to learn other people's jams and figure out how other artists put songs together. There's a video of us performing this live at Waterloo somewhere floating around the Internet.
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Matter of Time Pt. 1
original version appears on Ancient Lover
This is a song we've never played live (except here). We decided to deconstruct it, and play it in two parts. Andrew played a small tack piano, and Aynsley played an old church organ. 'Matter of Time' is the last song on our new record, "Ancient Lover," and it's totally different from anything else we've recorded. Bill tracked vocals for the studio version in an 11th story, creep-out stairwell. BIG REVERB.
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Matter of Time Pt. 2
So here's how this afternoon went. It was getting late in the day and we had an hour, maybe an hour and a half to tape this session with Tigercity, prior to them playing a show later in the night in Rock Island, at our now nearly famed pizza parlor. The Bay Area band Sleepy Sun were in the studio before them and Tigercity lead singer Bill Gillim was sporting a huge tuft of black beard that he didn't have growing from himself the last time he, Joel Ford, Andrew Brady and Gregory Settino came to Rock Island over two and a half years earlier. They sauntered into the studio, surveyed what was there, hauled in what they felt they needed and began playing "A Better Place," a song that, at the time was unreleased and relatively untested. It begins with a shuddering phrase of high hat and snare, a deep-in-your-belly bass line that perks your interest immediately and makes you want to get a drink in your hand as quick as possible, hastening the night. There are faint chimings and flippant guitar sprees in bursts that make the song sound like an ode to the holiday season we're all about to enter, as well as those sorts of nights where - at the end of them, or in the middle of them - an epiphany strikes and suddenly we're thinking what a glorious thing it would be to just up and reinvent ourselves. There's so much promise of improvement and better times on the horizon in this Cure-Roxy Music-sounding beauty that it should just be played over and over with the heartfelt belief that such an action will bring forth the desired results. The lights will be brighter and the colors will be richer and visible in breathless clarity. It's a song that will double you over and make you move parts of yourself that have been in hibernation for as long as you can remember. It's the reason why, on this afternoon, when they started and stopped the song half a dozen, if not more times, tweaking with levels and vocal effects, etc. that it was such a pleasurable experience. Hearing the intro to "A Better Place" bust through the speakers is akin to a face lighting up when you walk into the room, only this is your face and your lighting. It reminds you of certain magical evenings past or to come and Tigercity, in its entirety, is a refresher course in the good times that are wont to be relived and those that are always on the cusp of being liveable.
Tigercity MySpace Page
Tigercity's Debut Daytrotter Session
