August 28 — “Lunch at Sara’s” by Shark Quest

Shark Quest

Our focus will continue to be on bands who will be playing at the 2012 Hopscotch Music Festival in Raleigh from September 6-8. Of the 175 bands playing, roughly a third are from the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill area, and Shark Quest is one of those local bands.

If you only listen to one song today, make it “Lunch at Sara’s” by Shark Quest (1998, from the album Battle of The Loons).

Shark Quest is an instrumental indie-rock band from Chapel Hill and Durham. They’ve been together since at least 1997. They released their debut album —Battle of The Loons— on Merge Records in 1998. I first learned about them in the summer of 1999, when Merge Records held their 10-year Anniversary festival. I think there were about 25 bands, playing over a span of three days at the Cat’s Cradle. I remember liking their set as much as I liked Superchunk’s. And that’s saying a lot. I left with Battle of The Loons, and I played it a lot in the following weeks and months.

In the next five years, they put out two more records, but for some reason, I never got around to getting them. They also composed a film score for a 2003 documentary about clay animator Bruce Bickford.

Since 2004, they haven’t recorded anything new as Shark Quest, and they haven’t played together much either. They’ve played some sporadic one-off “reunion” shows, but that’s about it. At Hopscotch, they’ll be playing Saturday night. They have the 9:30-10:30 slot at Kings Barcade.

Today’s song comes from that first album
“Lunch at Sara’s” by Shark Quest

I love the cello that runs through it. I love he changes of pace. I love the sudden stop at 2:42 and the pause for three or so beats before the cello leads it into the slightly post-rock coda.

You can buy Battle of The Loons from the Merge web store here. Remember, there’s no shipping charges for orders mailed to US addresses.