I Am The Decider

... and I've chosen to stay home and take it easy tonight after seeing 6 concerts in the space of 8 days. Luckily for you, though, I'm not too tired to blog, and I'm here to tell you about a nice little discovery I made tonight.

As you know by now, I love The Frames. I first discovered them at an amazing CMJ Festival show at Irving Plaza on November 1, 2002 (that's the internet talking, kids, not my memory). That show was headlined by Idlewild, and included another great opener I'd never heard before, Brendan Benson. I fell in love with the band right away, and immediately searched out all of their albums.

I soon discovered that The Frames weren't some new band trying to make a name for themselves. To the contrary, they were a very old band trying to make a name for themselves. By the time I found them, The Frames had been a band, in one form or another, for more than a decade. And while the bulk of their recorded output had been released after 1996, there was one very early album called Another Love Song that had been released way back in 1991. And I couldn't find it anywhere. I looked everywhere I could think of -- Amazon UK, Road Records in Dublin, etc. -- with no luck. I figured it was out of print and just gave up.

Then, about a year or so ago, I discovered that the band had put the album up for download on their website. I downloaded it right away. Unfortunately, I was in Japan at the time for a 4-month work project, and when we weren't working, we were generally drinking. A $130/day food and drink stipend goes pretty far to helping you achieve a permanent buzz, and to help you forget just about anything that wasn't in a Suntory Malts can (best beer in Japan). So I ended up completely forgetting about the album. And then my hard drive died. When I finally went back to The Frames' website to download it again, I couldn't find it anywhere. So, again, I gave up on ever hearing it.

This is all a very long-winded way of saying that I discovered tonight that the band has re-posted Another Love Song on their website. Go download it. I'm listening to it for the first time ever right now. It's definitely The Frames, but it's much, much rawer, and the production is very 1991. And there's strong, strong Madchester undertones. But it's also very good, and at times it's excellent. Just listen to "Picture of Love" or "Masquerade" for proof.