Eric's Trip :: Love Tara

Long before I’d ever heard a note of Daydream Nation I wore out my copy of Love Tara by Eric’s Trip. The first Canadian band signed to Sub Pop, Eric’s Trip was comprised of Julie Doiron, now a successful solo artist for Jagjaguwar, and singer/guitarist Rick White. I first heard of the band when they were name-dropped in the Tragically Hip song “Put It Off”, from Trouble At The Henhouse. At the time the Hip were my favorite band, and the line went “I played Love Tara by Eric's Trip on the day that you were born,I had to find the cuteness in the unadorned, but I was torn.” I was intrigued, and picked it up soon thereafter.

It was a tricky first listen for these naïve ears. It was the early-to-mid 90s and I was waist deep in my jam-band phase (weak, I know), one that would continue for a few more years until those shimmering alt-country chords found and redirected me. Eric’s Trip’s lush bedroom melodies were interspersed with bursts of white guitar noise. Their songs were 2 minutes long instead of 12, filled with passion over precision, and sounded like they were recorded “Behind the Garage”, as the lead-off track was called. But I kept after it, and soon enough had fallen so deeply for the album that it was practically all I listened to for a few months in 1994.

The name of the band, as I would later learn, was lifted from a Sonic Youth song from the classic Daydream Nation. And although I wasn’t familiar with the term at the time, Love Tara was my first “lo-fi” listening experience. The songs were equal parts heartbroken melodies and angst-fueled guitar noise, like a shoe-gaze band with punk rock roots. The production was murky enough to make the beauty Hip singer Gordon Downie sang about hard to find at first. But it’s there alright. Listening now I’d call Love Tara a place where Bee Thousand meets The Creek Drank The Cradle meets Daydream Nation, if such a place were possible.

MP3 :: Behind the Garage
MP3 :: Secret For Julie
MP3 :: Sunlight
(from Love Tara. Buy here)
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