Recorded Live at a Sloan Party! was a rare album release by Sloan; it was released in the United States in February 1997 as a bonus album to March Records' release of One Chord to Another.[4] It was also packaged with initial US pressings of One Chord to Another through The Enclave label,[5] and was later released in Japan in a one-disc package with One Chord to Another on Universal Records.
Although the album is called Recorded Live at a Sloan Party!, and background noises and conversations between the songs suggest that the album was recorded during a party attended by Sloan and friends (including Jennifer Pierce from the band Jale, and Joel Plaskett), the four members of Sloan now admit that the album was recorded in a studio.[4] The background noises were in fact recorded at a party where Sloan and friends were present, at Cafe Mokka in Halifax, but the noises were simply dubbed over the music.[4] The gimmick is given away in the middle of the "On the Road Again/Transona Five" medley, where Jay Ferguson "walks outside" and talks to an over-enthusiastic fan in the middle of the song. Guitarist Patrick Pentland de-mystified the Party Album on the official site, letting fans know the truth about the studio recordings.
Conceptually, the album is intentionally similar to The Beach Boys' 1965 album Beach Boys' Party!.[4] According to the band, the original idea behind recording the album was that because the US release of One Chord to Another took place several months after the album's release in Canada, Enclave wanted to package it with bonus material to help sales since they presumed that many of the band's American fans would already have bought the imported Canadian release.[5]
In 2016, Sloan released a four-disc 20th anniversary One Chord to Another box set, featuring Recorded Live at a Sloan Party! as the third record.[6] For the release, Sloan released it with new album art similar to that of the Beach Boys record.
