Continuum Books “is the trade and academic imprint of the Continuum International Publishing Group, a growing family of religious, trade and academic publishers headquartered in London, with offices in New York, Harrisburg, Denver, Bristol and Poole.” (or so says the website…). Regardless, because of this, I’ve just connected my interests in the indie rock band The Decemberists and The Replacements Let It Be album.
Continuum is the publisher of the Thirty-Three and a Third series which are short books written about favorite and critically acclaimed albums from the last 40 years. Says Continuum:
By turns obsessive, passionate, creative, and informed, the books in this series demonstrate many different ways of writing about music. What binds this series together, and what brings it to life, is that all of the authors–musicians, scholars, broadcasters, and writers–are huge fans of the albums they have chosen.
The series began in 2003 and will include several new titles this year. Colin Meloy, leader of the Decemberists band, has written a volume devoted to the ‘Mats Let It Be album. As I mentioned in a recent post, the Let It Be album is on my top 11 desert island discs list. This CD takes me back to the mid 80’s when I lived with my band mates in West Philadelphia as we plotted our career in the world of “college rock”. The Replacements, along with Husker Du and the Minutemen , represented a certain level of success that we aspired to. We were lucky enough to get to play some shows with all of them, and I look back to those days as some of the best (and toughest) times of my life.
The Decemberists (great band name!) began in 2001 and are based in Portland OR. I like the unusual combination of instruments such as Hammond organ and accordion along with the usual drums, guitar and bass as well as Colin’s up-front/out-front singing. Two songs are available on the Kill Rock Stars fact sheet page: The Soldiering Life [mp3] and Here I Dreamt I Was an Architect [mp3].
