A couple of tracks from the upcoming (Oct. 9 release) Ryan Montbleau Band album, “Patience on Friday,” are up on the band’s website, and I’m sitting here now, listening to “Maybe Today” before I have to head back out into this Saturday scene kind of city for the day and evening.
This is one of the two songs I’ve been anticipating most – “Maybe Today” and “Grain of Sand” – and listening to it…it’s surprising to me to discover that the band’s temporarily changed my typical “keep it simple” mindset. Can it be? Who would have thought?
I’m the kind of listener that must be pretty frustrating to an artist. I’ll just about always take live performance over studio, so when the time comes for a live act I dig to put out a studio release, it’s quite impossible to please me. I hear “studio,” I think “polish and things that the songs don’t need.” So as a musician views the options available to him as parts of an electronic candy store, I view those same options as things that could go and completely screw up a song.
(An example? That’s easy. John Mayer, “Room for Squares.” Game, set, match.)
The “PoF” version of “Maybe Today” has a lot going on. Funk grooves, drumsticks a rat-a-tatting away, complex mouthfuls of lyrics (some of my favorite lyrics yet, I should note), a hazy dazy kind of lilt to its melody, contributions from horns…it’s a busy, bustling kind of song.
I’ve enjoyed the relatively simple version of the song I’ve heard live, so it would be characteristic of me to grimace a little and wish that the band could have adhered to the K.I.S.S. theory (as opposed to the KISS theory, which would involve facepaint and dagger-like tongues – um…).
But know what? I dig it. At first, I was hesitant, but then I started to kind of enjoy it and by song’s end, I was grinning. There’s a lot going on, true…but it seems as if it’s layer upon layer, nothing hastily added without the contemplation that seems to take place each time the guys take a step forward.
I, as a rule, don’t enjoy type of song production.
But there must be an exception to every rule, right?
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i can’t wait for this. the last one was impressive, but the new songs i’ve heard live since htat release show the band’s remarkable evolution.
i’ll be in boston the week of the 9th – any idea where i could buy this?
I can’t wait for you to be here, I need to note. That said, I honestly don’t know where they’re going to be selling it – Newbury, maybe? I’d say best bet would be perhaps to shoot Ryan an email…if I hear anything in the coming couple of weeks, I’ll let you know. I’m going to be eager to buy it as well.