My Merge Day Five: Overview

Back in May, Ms. DB and I took a two-week long vacation over in Italy. This trip was easily the best vacation that I’ve ever been on and for those of you who have never been, I highly recommend trying it on for size. We kept commenting that if we ever won the Lotto big that the first place we’d look into buying real estate was somewhere in Tuscany. Absolutely beautiful.

In any case, because we knew that we’d be traveling around the Tuscan region via automobile for the better part of a week as well as not being sure of what, exactly, the status of Italian radio stations were, I figured it’d be best to load up on various compilation CDs that we could throw into the player and let run while taking in the sights.

One of those compilations was the 2009 Merge Records Sampler which I received this past April in my bag of goodies from Laurie’s Planet of Sound on Record Store Day. The compilation itself is a pretty nice overview of the Merge Records “sound” and it pretty much became the theme CD of our trip; I know that I lost count as to how many times we actually listened to it but it was a lot. So much that I have many different memories to choose from when hearing any particular song from it and probably always will.

I’m a tad embarrassed to admit that Spoon has been a recent discovery of mine. Despite having bought A Series Of Sneaks upon its release in ’98 as well as seeing the band on the Kill The Moonlight tour, I never really took the time to listen and get in to any of the other material until taking a chance several months ago on the Girls Can Tell record. My goodness it’s terrific and it quickly turned me into a Spoon convert. "The Underdog," from 2007's Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, shows up on the Merge Sampler, quickly became Ms. DB’s favorite’s to bop along to while coasting through the countryside.

My two favorites from the trip were from some of Merge’s more recent releases: Telekinesis’ "Coast Of California" from their self-titled debut as well as the Broken West’s "Perfect Games" which came out on last year’s Now Or Heaven album. Both of these records showcase a wonderful collection of roll down the car windows type of summer power pop.

And for those of you completely unfamiliar of the type of records Merge has put out over the years, I recommend going out and picking up their 5th, 10th and 15th Anniversary compilations, Rows Of Teeth, Oh, Merge and Old Enough 2 Know Better as well as the three volumes of their Survive & Advance series. All of these will set you back about $35 and I couldn’t think of a better way to spend the money.

Spoon – “The Underdog” (mp3)

Telekinesis – “Coast Of California” (mp3)

Broken West – “Perfect Games” (mp3)

(from the Merge Records CD, 2009 Merge Records Sampler, 2009)