North of the border, up Halifax way

In honor of Canadian Thanksgiving Day, here are SEVEN GREAT THINGS ABOUT SLOAN...
1. All four band members, bassist Chris Murphy, guitarists Jay Ferguson and Patrick Pentland and drummer Andrew Scott, take turns writing songs and handling lead vocals.
2. When Geffen records stupidly dropped the Halifax, Nova Scotia band after 1994's "Twice Removed," Sloan nearly broke up. Instead, they hung together, formed their own independent label Murderecords, and released the masterful "One Chord to Another" in 1996.
3. The line "I told her affection had two F's, especially when you're dealing with me" from Murphy's song "Underwhelmed."
4. The siren that heralds the beginning of Ferguson's song "Money City Maniacs."
5. Pentland's quote about selling a Sloan brand of men's underwear, from issue 55 of The Big Takeover magazine: "We made men's underwear that says 'Nothing lasts forever anymore.' As you could imagine, that one's not flying off the shelf."
6. The video for "The Other Man" (view it on this Web page, here), hints at the machinations within a youth orchestra.
7. Murphy's answer to the this Big Takeover interview question, also from issue 55:
Q: If you guys existed in the 70s, when Cheap Trick and KISS were at their peak, do you think you would be playing arenas as well?
A: Personally, I think those bands would have been opening for us.