SONG OF THE DAY

“Satel­lite” — Guster (Gang­ing Up On The Sun, Reprise Records, 2006). Writ­ten by

INTERESTING FACTS (from wikipedia)

- The song received sup­port from US alter­na­tive rock radio, includ­ing WFNX (Boston), but failed to chart on the Mod­ern Rock Tracks chart.

- Gang­ing Up On The Sun is the fifth stu­dio album by rock band Guster.

- The album became Guster’s most suc­cess­ful release to date, debut­ing on the Bill­board Top 200 Albums at #25.

- It is Guster’s sec­ond stu­dio album with Joe Pis­apia, his first as a full mem­ber. Pis­apia is from the band Joe, Marc’s Brother (whom I adored in col­lege, espe­cially the song “Spin­ning On An Axis”). [More hyper­links, please.]

- The name of the album, Gang­ing up on the Sun, comes from a line in the song “Man­i­fest Des­tiny” which says, “The moon and stars are gang­ing up on the sun… rebellion.”

- Guster is an Amer­i­can alter­na­tive rock band formed in 1991while attend­ing Tufts Uni­ver­sity, and is known for its live per­for­mances, humor, and cult following.

- In the 2001 film Life as a House [one of my favorites—SEE IT], sev­eral allu­sions are made to the band and their music is used on the soundtrack.

- Along­side Gang­ing up on the Sun, the band released a doc­u­men­tary com­edy series called Joe’s Place on its Web site.

- The group, along with the Bare­naked Ladies, par­tic­i­pated in the Ships and Dip cruise in 2008. In 2009, Guster will take part in a sim­i­lar event with musi­cian John Mayer called May­er­craft Car­rier 2 aboard the Car­ni­val Splen­dor. [Have you heard about these musi­cal cruises…OI think this is a very weird trend in live music and performance.]

- Brian Rosen­wor­cel, the band’s per­cus­sion­ist (affec­tion­ately dubbed the Thun­der­god by fans), adds to Guster’s unique sound with a com­bi­na­tion of bon­gos, cym­bals, and other drums, play­ing live shows using only his bare hands.

- Guster’s live shows have a style all their own. For encores, the band has some­times fea­tured drum­mer Brian Rosen­wor­cel, who is not known for his vocals, mov­ing to the front micro­phone and singing humor­ous cov­ers. These have ranged from 4 Non Blondes’ “What’s Up?” to the theme song from the TV show “Cheers.”

- Guster has toured with many other artists, such as Ben Folds, Nickel Creek, Ben Kweller, Pete Yorn, Nada Surf, John Mayer, Rogue Wave, and Rufus Wain­wright [All bands I love!!!]

- Dur­ing a 2001 show in Rochester, NY (which was oddly enough opened by Joe Pisapia’s band Joe, Marc’s Brother), the band started their show with an empty stage. The music to The Price is Right played over the sound sys­tem, and a voice called each of the band mem­bers down from where they had hid them­selves in the audi­ence. Upon hear­ing their name, each mem­ber played the part of an enthu­si­as­tic game show con­tes­tant all the way to the stage.

- In 2004, Guster gui­tarist and vocal­ist Adam Gard­ner and his wife Lau­ren Sul­li­van co-founded Reverb, an orga­ni­za­tion ded­i­cated to assist­ing tour­ing artists by mak­ing activ­i­ties more envi­ron­men­tally sound. It oper­ates from within the music indus­try as well as the envi­ron­men­tal world. Reverb greens artists’ tours and the music busi­ness at large while rais­ing aware­ness and sup­port for the envi­ron­ment through an inter­ac­tive eco-village. Since its incep­tion, Reverb has worked with artists such as Jack John­son, Bare­naked Ladies, Bon­nie Raitt, John Mayer, and the Dave Matthews Band.

MY TAKE

I first heard this song on the sound­track of the 2007 film Mar­t­ian Child (with John Cusack). Though I loved the film and truly rec­om­mend it, I am ashamed to admit it as my path of dis­cov­ery because I do truly con­sider myself a Guster fan. When I look back on 2006–2007 though, I under­stand why I may have missed the release of their album: I had exactly twelve months in Brook­lyn to work and get 33 grad­u­ate credit hours (all but the­sis). There wasn’t really time to mess around with any­thing out­side of my tiny art his­tory major world, and even things like eat­ing and sleep­ing were often pushed to the side.

Any­how, I missed this album’s release but I, of course, even­tu­ally found out about it and con­se­quently became addicted to it. Guster has a spec­tac­u­lar sound—their tight har­monies, their falsetto vocals, their occa­sional string accom­pa­ni­ment, their sick per­cus­sion, their play­ful and sur­real lyrics—I love this band. My cousin Matt intro­duced me to the song “Two Points For Hon­esty” while I was a mere child in high school, and I’ve been gen­uinely hooked ever since. Great, now I’m all excited about them and I have to do a Top 10 list. But once you go through the youtube.com playlist and here these songs, I think you’ll really get what I mean, and why I have loved this band since 1999.

TOP 10 GUSTER SONGS

1. Two Points For Honesty
2. All The Way Up To Heaven
3. So Long
   
4. Fa Fa
   
5. Rock­et­ship
6. Bar­rel Of A Gun
7. Either Way
8. Ams­ter­dam
9. Satel­lite
10. Hap­pier
    

VIDEOS OF THE DAY

Click here for the Guster Top 10 youtube.com video playlist.