Counting Crows Album Due for Landing

Unlike 95% of the world, I only got into the Counting Crows recently, after years of writing them off along with the countless uninteresting ‘90s radio bands that infiltrated my high school years. Their laid-back, commentary-from-the-hookah-lounge nonchalance didn’t fit the mold of what I wanted out of music, because they were relaxed, and I wanted fun, not relaxing.

College and the work world fixed that, along with bills, drama, traffic, planning, money, crime, pollution, politics and bad water pressure, and now relaxing music doesn’t seem that bad. That’s why when I overheard the first few chords of “Mr Jones” coming out of someone’s computer at work as he quickly fuddled to stick the headphone jack into the port, I realized I wanted to hear more.

OK, to dispense with the poetics, Music-News reported Monday that the end-all, be-all of mellow, dreadlocked Berkeley bands is coming out with their first album in five years. The disc, titled Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings, is a two-part project. The “Saturday Nights” theme deals with losing oneself in the dizzying late-night spiral of booze, smoke and partying – apparently familiar stomping grounds to lead singer Adam Duritz who, as was revealed to me by a certain knowledgeable music editor, is the only living person to have hooked up with both Jennifer Aniston and Courtney Cox. The “Sunday Mornings” part, meanwhile, introduces the next day’s realizations and reflections, as one ponders the “why” of it all, while stuffing Aniston’s/Cox’s left-behind panties into a drawer.

The album’s bipolarity continues to its production. Longtime band friend Gil Norton, responsible for Echo and the Bunnymen, the Pixies, and the Crows’ second album Recovering The Satellites, handled the “Saturday Nights” half, while the “Sunday Mornings” half went to Modest Mouse producer Brian Deck, pursuing a modern folk-based, unplugged sound – i.e. the soundtrack for a hangover, as only a Modest Mouse producer knows how to do it.

And as my newly discovered relationship with the Counting Crows blossoms, we’ll see if this disc ends up in my player, or on the bedroom floor under a pile of Courtney Cox’s dirty laundry – at David Arquette’s house. Geeez.