Teenage Fanclub's "On This Good Night"

Here's my weekly reminder to listen to Sinking with Sylvia (and Sometimes Todd) on Little Radio tomorrow from 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM PST. Tomorrow their guest will be Brian from the Little Ones. The Little Ones recently released a single in the UK and they're headed down to SXSW next week for a couple of shows.

Each week I pick a song, Todd and Sylvia play it, and I eventually write about it here. On February 7th, they did a 7" show and my pick was Teenage Fanclub's "On This Good Night." The song was released in 2000 as the B-side to the "I Need Direction" single.

I first got into Teenage Fanclub around 1991 when Spin magazine named Bandwagonesque their album of the year. I assumed the album must be incredible if Spin put it ahead of Nirvana and R.E.M. At the time, I thought Spin was crazy (and not for the reasons you might think that today). It was 1991 and I hadn't embraced Teenage Fanclub's main influences: the Byrds, Beach Boys or Big Star. I immediately liked "Star Sign" but most of the songs were lost on me. Back then, when you bought a CD it was a bit of an investment (not completely disposable MP3 files like it is today). So fortunately I kept listening, it sunk in and I'm a lifelong fan.

Teenage Fanclub is one of those unique bands with three songwriters/vocalists who are pretty much equal. Norman, Gerard and Raymond are all incredibly consistent and I enjoy all their records from Bandwagonesque on. The fact that a song as great as "On This Good Night" was only a B-side shows the breadth of their talents. Unfortunately I don't have an MP3 burn of it, so you'll have to take my word for it (or hunt down the single).

Download a podcast of the 2/7/08 show.