SONG OF THE DAY
“I’ll Be Here When You Wake” by The Reindeer Section (Son Of Evil Reindeer, Bright Star Recordings, 2002). Written by Iain Archer, Paul Fox, Bob Kildea, Gary Lightbody, Colin Macpherson, Jonny Quinn, Jenny Reeve, and Gareth Russell.
MY TAKE
This band is the most profound example of musical catch-22: these brilliant artists from a wide array of Scottish bands get together on what is pretty much a dare/ collaborative performance art challenge, and for a few brief months in the early aughts, they pool their create talents to create two brilliant albums, both perfect in every way AND both forever making me want more. I know the brilliance of this collaboration couldn’t last forever—once the concept became a reality fleshed out it took hold of several major Scottish bands, and of course I’m sure they wanted to get back to it after awhile—but I sincerely wish it would. Catch-22 = brilliant harmony found in music-making by a collaboration that could not last.
This song, as with both of the band’s albums, is so authentically derived from all the things we share in love (them and I)—Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, folk music, etc. Oh, it breaks my heart every time I hear it because it’s sweet and sincere and quiet and beautiful and I just simply want more and can’t have it.
INTERESTING FACTS (a la wikipedia)
- The Reindeer Section are a Scottish indie rock supergroup formed in 2001 by Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol.
–They released albums and toured in 2001 and 2002.
- In a 2006 interview with Times Online, Gary Lightbody did not rule out making a future album.
- Lightbody describes the band’s sound as “pretty much all very slow, quiet, folky-type stuff. Stuff that I really love listening to, like Low, for example, and Neil Young and Joni Mitchell and all that end of things. It’s sort of inspired by those records rather than by the American rock music that inspired me to start a band in the first place.”
- Son of Evil Reindeer is the second studio album by Scottish indie rock supergroup The Reindeer Section, released on August 13, 2002. It was recorded in February earlier that year. An alternate version was released in Japan, containing 3 bonus tracks.
- The Reindeer Section arose — according to Lightbody — out of a chance get-together of musicians at a Lou Barlow gig in Glasgow in 2001, at which Lightbody drunkenly laid down the challenge to others to “make an album together”, to which everyone said “yeah yeah”.
- Lightbody “went home and next day wrote the album” and later convinced Johnny Davis of Bright Star to fund a recording session and release the proposed album.
- The group met over three days of rehearsal and ten days of recording to produce the first album.
- Their first album Y’All Get Scared Now, Ya Hear! was released on 20 October 2001 with a mini tour, the first venue of which was Belfast’s The Limelight.
- Son of Evil Reindeer was released ten months after the critical acclaim of the first, with a slightly different line-up.
- The band’s most recent gig was on 14 December 2002 at the Queen Margaret Union in Glasgow.
- Some of the bands/ members who’ve been involved in the collaboration:
- Alfie (Ben Dumville, Lee Gorton, Sam Morris)
- Arab Strap (Colin Macpherson, Malcolm Middleton, Aidan Moffat)
- Astrid (William Campbell, Charles Clark, Neil Payne, Gareth Russell)
- Belle & Sebastian (Richard Colburn, Mick Cooke, Bobby Kildea)
- Cadet (Iain Archer)
- Eva (Jenny Reeve, Sarah Roberts)
- Idlewild (Roddy Woomble)
- Mogwai (John Cummings)
- Mull Historical Society (Colin MacIntyre)
- Snow Patrol (Gary Lightbody, Mark McClelland, Jonny Quinn)
- Teenage Fanclub (Norman Blake)
- The Vaselines (Eugene Kelly)
- The Moth & the Mirror (Stacey Sievwright)
- Michael Bannister
- Roy Kerr
- Paul Fox
- Marcus Mackay
- Gill Mills
- The Noisy Geese
- Pete Mugleston
- Chris England
- Chris Healy
- Jack Donnelly