The "dude with a guitar" motif has been a lasting staple of American music for a while now. In fact, it could be said it's getting a bit old. From, you know, that guy that plays guitar for tips on Thursday nights at your local Starbucks all the way up to John Mayer, the axe-toting white guy who croons about lost love is not all that exciting.
But every once in a while a musician comes along that transcends the usual stereotypes, and Iron & Wine's Sam Beam is certainly one of them. Coming from the lo-fi sounds of his 2002 debut The Creek Drank the Cradle, Beam has transitioned his one man band into a folk and indie powerhouse. Iron & Wine's latest release, Shepherd's Dog, is a departure from the stripped down sounds of Beam's past, but still maintains the intimacy and interplay between guitar and man that Beam's previous releases established.
Although Shepherd's Dog brings in many new instruments and more complex compositions, it's not a surprising change. Iron & Wine's brief stint with Calexico in 2005's In The Reins showed that Beam's musical tastes go beyond the guitar. Shepherd's Dog shares many of the eclectic styles of In The Reins, but still has a sound of its own. Some of the instruments Beam uses in Shepherd's Dog include the sitar, banjo, drums and other percussion, accordion, and of course the guitar. It's not that out of the ordinary, yet it has something unique about it.
Of course, none of this would work if there wasn't something familiar about the sound. All of the elements of a great Iron & Wine album are here, just with different (or should I say more?) instruments. Beam's vocal style, the same style that made listeners overlook the analog hiss of his earlier work, is as strong as ever; in fact, Beam's vocals are some of the best of his career.
Songs such as "Lovesong of the Buzzard" show that even with more intricate compositions, Beam doesn't miss a note. In "House By the Sea," Beam's harmonizes on top of a beautiful vocal style that complements the fast rhythm of the song instead of overpowering the listener.
Another important aspect of an Iron & Wine album is the artistry of the lyrics, and Shepherd's Dog delivers lyrics full of imagery and allusion. While delivering the same intimacy and emotional intensity of previous albums, the lyrics on Shepherd's Dog are more ironic and at times humorous.
Article comments
1 - NIk
Great review, I'm really interested in hearing this one and Beam's broader sound, love the last disc.
2 - Ian Heyting
The earliest known crokinole board to date was built by Eckhardt Wettlaufer of Sebastopol, Ontario, Canada as a fifth birthday gift for his son, Adam, who was born on December 31, 1871. The board now resides at The Joseph Schneider Haus Museum in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada as part of their Harvest Collection. Several other home-made boards of south western Ontario origin, and dating from the 1870s, have been discovered since the 1990s. It seems to have been patented on April 20, 1880, in New York City by Joshua K. Ingalls.
Crokinole is often believed to be of Mennonite or Amish origins, but there is no factual data to support such a claim. The reason for this misconception may be due to its popularity in Mennonite and Amish groups. The game was viewed as a rather innocuous pastime - unlike the perception that diversions such as card playing or dancing were considered "works of the Devil" as held by many 19th-century Protestant groups. The oldest roots of crokinole, from the 1860s, suggest the British and South Asian games are the most likely antecedents of what became crokinole.
In 1899, Crokinole was revolutionized by what is still known today as the "Eagan Opening". Thomas Eagan developed a complicated, 3-turn hybrid opening sequence in Tottenham, Ontario that confused, and ultimately defeated, the Perth County players. The Eagan Opening has never been published, but appears to have been passed down generation by generation to Thomas Eagan's descendants by word of mouth. What is known is that, on the initial shot, the "20" is missed on purpose, with the disc being left on the edge of the 20-hole. Then, depending on the opponent's response, the second or third shot is left behind the player's front-left peg that requires absolute precision for the opponent to remove. Even if the opponent was capable of "breaking through" the Eagan Opening, which the Eagan family themselves were experts at, it often caused such mental exhaustion that it resulted in defeat over the course of the game.
In the late 1940s, a crokinole playing family from North-eastern Newfoundland named the Fitzgeralds visited Tottenham on a cross-country tour. They introduced the Eagan family to the "Coachman's Screen", which purposely lulls the play into the 5-point area on the opponent's cross-side. The Eagan and Fitzgerald families soon learned that the Eagan Opening and Coachman's Screen, when used together, made them virtually unbeatable. Within the local church, after the Catholic mass on Sunday morning, they taught each other the angles and the succession matrix of each technique. This became known as the Eagan-Fitzgerald Cabal.
In 2006, a documentary film called Crokinole was released. The world premiere occurred at the Princess Cinema in Waterloo, Ontario, in early 2006. The movie follows some of the competitors of the 2004 World Crokinole Championship as they prepare for the event.