CLAMMING UP

BRING THEIR PUNK-EDGED R&B FEELS TO YEAR OF THE SPIDER

Oakland’s cult-heroes spin a spooky doo-wop web with their sixth studio album

By Meg Crawford

Bay Area legends Shannon and the Clams’ groove sits somewhere between garage-punk, doo-wop and surf guitar – think Kid Congo Powers and the Pink Monkey Birds and JD McPherson, with a side serve of the Slits. If anything, on their latest album Year of the Spider the quartet gets leaner and meaner. It’s a sound cultivated over a decade of collaboration between the band’s singer-songwriters, Shannon Shaw (bassist) and Cody Blanchard (guitarist). Originally, the pals met at college where Blanchard was a creativewriting major (which explains a lot about the narrative nature of his songwriting), while Shaw was a watercolour painter and an illustration major (you can admire Shaw’s handiwork on Year of the Spider’s album cover). However, it wasn’t a case of best mates, just add water. “I didn’t really care for him at first, just because I thought he seemed very aloof and rude to our teacher who I really liked,” Shaw says. “She was a sensitive lady.” “One time she wept in class,” interjects Blanchard. “It wasn’t because of me though.” “No, it was one of our other friends,” Shaw continues. “Anyway, she was a very sweet soul, and I thought Cody was a brat.” Happily, the divide was conquered when the pair completed a video project, and Blanchard’s brilliance swung Shaw. “I was like, ‘Wait, this guy is way cooler than I thought he was. Maybe this is someone that I should try and be friends with’.” In the background, Shaw was toying with a lineup for her band. “All these friends of ours were like, ‘You should have Cody in your band. He gets your sound. He loves your music. He would be a much better fit than who you have in there now’, she recalls. “Eventually, we tried it out and it was like, ‘Oh my God, this person totally gets me and my taste and what I’m trying to do’. “I have no musical background and don’t have the language to explain myself. So, usually the way I talk is really descriptive or I’ll see a guitar part, or I’ll reference other songs to get someone to understand what I’m going for and Cody’s just always been able to translate. Which is awesome, because if I had never given Cody a chance to play guitar for the band, I doubt I would be here right now. I mean, maybe I would still be putting out music, but he’s always been very patient with my rudimentary skill level – hang on, what’s less than rudimentary?’.” “Remedial?” asks Blanchard. “Yeah, exactly, remedial skill level,” Shaw concurs. “So, the rest is history.” Covering themes spanning death, love, loss and the impact of the absence of community, the album sounds for all the world like a pandemic baby. But no. Shaw began writing the album in 2019 when she was in the thick of a really tough year. Among other things, Shaw’s dad was battling it out with cancer, and Shaw was being stalked by the neighbourhood peeping tom. “It was a really rough time personally,” Shaw confirms. “Which is just great album fodder. It’s interesting though, because I feel like so many themes that come up on the record were kind of foretelling the future.” While the band’s sound is shaped by Blanchard and Shaw, their approach to songwriting couldn’t be more different. Shaw’s tack is heart on sleeve. “I’m so personal when I’m writing the songs and sharing my music, I reveal a lot of myself. I want to spill the beans on everything, but you got to keep some things to yourself.” In contrast, of necessity, Blanchard takes a leaf out of the Dolly songwriting book and writes standing in another’s shoes. “Shannon writes everything from a very personal perspective and from her real life,” he notes. “If I try to do that, I just get writer’s block. I don’t know how to do it and make it sound good and real. To me, the trick of writing someone else’s stories means that I can write the lyrics for several songs in a row, really fast.” With that in mind, it was Shaw’s arachnophobia that spurred the title track and a central theme for the album. Maybe it’s also a precept for days of doom scrolling. Shaw explains it thus. “Spiders have always been this source of extreme fear to me. My mom has told me over and over again that ever since I was a baby, they’ve been really drawn to me. She said they just dropped right in front of my face. That always scared me. Like why? Why are they drawn to me of all people? Anyway, I just decided – because I had so many crazy, terrible, terrifying things happening in my life – to look to the spider as a symbol of something to reframe. I was trying to think of ways to turn around the stuff that was happening to me, use the momentum and roll with it, instead of pushing against it and freaking out.”

PHOTO: By Kristin Cofer