I am spending a quiet San Francisco morning here in this high rise building, the sun and the clear breeze from the outside coming in the open patio door, along with the faint smell of cigarette smoke drifting from a neighboring porch. I am listening to, and completely fascinated by, the new album coming from The Mountain Goats and the pen of John Darnielle.
I’ve long been fascinated by the thoughtful, turbulent, honest undertones of faith that can permeate Darnielle’s songwriting.
Lines like these intense ones from “Love, Love, Love” have always revealed a fluency in the language of Biblical allegory and wrestles with theological concepts with transparent authenticity. The newest album, The Life Of The World To Come goes even more deeply than he ever has before. Every song on the album is named for a Bible verse reference, but it is “less a profession of religious faith than an immersion in Biblical poetry and imagery,” and these songs “take their names from verses that informed or inspired them, or which, sometimes, came up against them at right angles.” I expect, and get, honesty from Darnielle here.
Somewhere in between 2007 and 2009 the same stuff started happening in John Darnielle’s life that happens in everybody else’s life: some people got sick, and some people stayed sick, and some people died young, and John started doing what he does when things go south, i.e., turning to old religious texts both musical & otherwise and trying to take comfort in creeds and prayers that he can’t wholly buy into. In what friends (wrongly, in John’s opinion) thought an excessive gesture, he bought an Amy Grant box set. He learned about an amazing songwriter named Rich Mullins, who largely gets overlooked by people who don’t listen to Christian music, and he listened to Vaisnava Kirtans, and he listened to Yolanda Adams. He played hymns when he could, and he prayed the odd prayers of the faithless, and then sat down and wrote songs about what happens when you feel sick in your spirit but you’re not sure if “spirit” is really a meaningful term.
The songs that flowed out of him to make this album brewed from all of these influences converging in his time of need. He dug deeply into his longstanding love of the Bible, and tried to write honestly about wanting to believe. The songs that came out are about losing people you love, and leaving places to which you can’t return, and about things from which people don’t & can’t recover. They are about faith and doubt and the long dark hallways that run between the two.
I am completely intrigued. First listens are gorgeous, laden more heavily with piano than ever before, and most of all — what I want in any exploration of matters of the heart and soul: honesty.
The Life Of The World To Come is out October 6th on 4AD Records.
Formerly of the band Street To Nowhere (who knocked my socks off that one time I saw them live at the downtown club with the Elvis pinball machine), Dave Smallen is now pursuing a solo career and releasing his songs one by one for a small fee. Each comes complete with distinctive artwork, and are really good.
By way of example, I will confess to having listened to this song a dozen times this morning alone – super solid pop skeleton (sha la laaaaa) with a hint of a sharp edge through Dave’s raw vocals. On this tune, I am reminded strongly of Bright Eyes meets Wilco. It makes the sky sparkle, this song.
I Think It’s Getting Better – Dave Smallen
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He has a new song out now called “With The Sky All Blue” that he wrote for a Crayola commercial and they rejected it for being “too dark.” True (and awesome) story.
This weekend, the second annual Outside Lands Music & Arts Festival explodes into Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. I was on the maiden festival voyage last summer, so to speak, and despite a few technical hiccups here and there I had an amazing time at this unique and distinctly regional fest.
Last year I shot photos for Stereogum (looked like this, and ha – I totally said this!), but for 2009 I am looking forward to going rogue, and the flexibility that implies. The plan is to minimize the number of bands I see that I know I love and have seen live before (The National, Blind Pilot, The Avett Brothers, Conor Oberst) and try to wander a bit, trust in kismet, see many bands I don’t know (thanks Ranger Dave!), and hopefully have a lot of fun new discoveries to report back. This year I am also bringing several sweaters, since I nearly froze to death during Radiohead’s jawdropping set last year.
If you’re coming or thinking of coming, here are some acts I’ve never seen live that I am hoping to wander into: Nortec Collective (Tijuana electronica?), Matt & Kim, Thievery Corporation, Extra Golden (Kenyan benga music + rock), Raphael Saadiq, Portugal. The Man, Bat For Lashes, SambaDá (Afro-Brazilian samba funk!), Lucinda Williams, Bettye LaVette, and holy lord definitely Tom Jones. Tenacious D (“the best band in the world“) closes out the fest on Sunday night.
Earlier this month, one of my favorite thoughtful, eclectic music blogs returned. Everybody Cares, Everybody Understands is now tumbling on tumblr, and Chad recently posted a bittersweet bluegrass version of one of my favorite childhood classics.
For some reason, as Ernie dangled his puppet feet off the edge of the crescent moon, my 6-year-old self felt, and now my 30-year-old self still feels, a pang in the part of us that is always searching for a home. This humble version by actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt (you totally know him) is marvelous.
Even if you have zero interest in any sort of “kid’s music,” I highly recommend you take a second to listen to this one:
Yesterday in a special session at the college where I work, I got a rare chance to sit around and discuss poetry (hence the Star block post), and my comment “in class” was about how we can use simple or childish conceits to get at deeper truths and longings that our adult selves shy away from expressing. This song falls under that header, and truly is one of my unvarnished favorites. I Don’t Want To Live On The Moon – Ernie & Aaron Neville
“…but an oyster and clam aren’t real family, so I don’t want to live in the sea…”
…and with those seven huge and addictive beats, so begins my favorite track on the newest album from theHandsome Furs — one of my favorite albums of the year. Face Control is unrelenting in its danceability and brilliant in its rock and roll hope, replete with sloppy ragged guitar riffs and visceral howls, all bound up with sharp electronic beats that never quit.
In June, this married pair of (short story author) Alexei Perry and (Wolf Parade’s) Dan Boeckner came to Denver’s Larimer Lounge and nearly caused the place to burst. We all danced and yelled along, while the band did calisthenics up the walls and the stage hummed with a palpable sexual energy between the two.
I sat down with them before their set, after photographer extraordinaire Todd Roeth took advantage of some crazy post-tornado light, and we discussed the Cold War influences on the new Handsome Furs album, rallying against despair through music, and butterflies and underwater candy unicorns in songwriting. Seriously.
This was one of my favorite conversations about music in a long time.
HANDSOME FURS INTERVIEW: Dan Boeckner & Alexei Perry
LARIMER LOUNGE, DENVER COLORADO
JUNE 2009
F/F: I’m interested in the emotional barometer of (your latest album) Face Control. It seems like it’s applying the metaphor of the Cold War to interpersonal relationships. I’m wondering if that is an accurate read on the record?
Dan: That’s a totally accurate representation – I think like Cold War and post-Cold War, and the idea of places like Serbia or Latvia appropriating this mantle of freedom that maybe they weren’t ready for. Or not ready for, but maybe just like jumping in with both feet into something and just accelerating the culture to the point where it’s almost a parody of Western capitalism, or hyper-capitalism.
I guess you could apply that to an interpersonal metaphor as well, like maybe falling in love for the first time or trying a new personality. You know? Changing yourself. Most of the record was a document of what we were doing while we were touring in Eastern Europe.
Alexei: …and what we were witnessing there.
F/F: To me, if your music could sit with certain artistic movements, I hear a sort of Bauhaus minimalism, blended with this streak of wild romanticism.
Alexei: Yeah, I think I frequently feel dissatisfied with how clinical life seems sometimes and what you have to do within it to feel alive.
Dan: And what we saw in Eastern Europe, too, I mean like the juxtaposition of the blocky sort of soul-crushing, utilitarian, socialist architecture.
Alexei: It’s totally dehumanizing. I mean you’re always the smallest thing. When we were in Warsaw, one of my favorite things that we did was we saw the building that’s nicknamed the Stalin’s middle finger. It’s huge. It was his gift to Warsaw and it’s the tallest thing in the skyline. And you stand in front of it you feel tiny. And yet now things are so changed and all these artists that work around that building want to do all these different things in that area and do different things with that building. Like there’s been these projects about wrapping the whole thing in like brown paper, like weird things. People have all these great ideas that spring through.
Dan: I was thinking about the electromagnetic factory in Bucharest that we went to. That juxtaposition of the music, like what we were trying to get on the record was, and this is a good example, is there was a factory that made magnets for motors, like electromagnetic parts. It’s now completely overrun by dogs. It’s totally decommissioned. And these kids were playing the craziest rock music I’ve heard in a long time in the basement cause they took the basement over, which still has the workers’ showers. So you’ve got that organic, uncontainable art in this awful place.
Alexei: And that’s just how I feel about making art in the world right now. The world isn’t representative of how I want it to be, so I have to always rally against it. And that’s what I want on the record.
F/F: I hear that in the music, very much so. A lot of the songs are pretty unrelenting, minimalistic, and then you’ll have this chorus or guitar riff that just cuts and rises up through that. Alexei, as a writer by trade, are there things you like better about writing songs versus writing a story?
Alexei: Um, it’s been an incredible challenge for me to write lyrics just cause it’s not at all what comes naturally to me. But I think that’s an important challenge and one I really, really like. You have to make things succinct, and you have to make them something that can be twinned with, and something that Dan can emote. Like that he can sing out and have them make sense, no matter whether the words actually do as written on a page. They frequently don’t, but because of how he pushes them out there they do.
Dan: For me, the personal sort of approach to songwriting is not one of sitting at home and inventing a fictional character or using whatever fairytale metaphors to get something across. I’m also not good at doing that other stuff. I can’t, I mean — I’d just feel like a fraud writing like, “the prince came down and the butterflies exploded from your hair and you were dreaming underwater of a fucking candy unicorn.” Grecian metaphor and literary allegory – I can’t do that. Other people can do that really well. Carey Mercer from the band Frog Eyes is kind of one of the masters of that. I love his songwriting. Spencer from Wolf Parade too, God bless him, is really good at that. And I just don’t know how to do it.
I really believe there’s this language of rock, right? Like rock and roll music has been around long enough that when people say stuff like…you take the guy from Spoon. In so many of his songs, he says stuff like “uh-huh” or “yeah,” but it’s just the way he says it, that word ceases to have the same meaning that it does on paper. And it can be interpreted depending on how he inflects it or what point in the song it comes. So, I like that minimalist lyrical school – it works for me.
F/F: Tell me more about the connection you made when you were touring in Eastern Europe with the underground radio station in Belgrade, and what that’s meant to you guys.
Alexei: When we were in Belgrade, there’s a station called B92, that is basically a guerilla radio station that was anti-Milosevic, and they were the people that basically motivated all of the demonstrations against Milosevic. They were the promoters that brought us over.
Dan: On the first visit we became really good friends just right off the bat. One of the actually traveled to Texas to come and see our show at SXSW! I consider them some of my best friends now. We’ve gotten to know a few in particular really well, like Milos and Svetlana. They’ve all had different but equally, completely and totally heartbreaking lives you know.
F/F: How old are they?
Dan: They’re in their mid-30′s. About 35.
F/F: So they’ve grown up with conflict?
Dan: Yeah. And so the first time we went over we became good friends. There was just a real connection between all of us. Then the last few times we’ve seen them it’s grown into this, I mean music, the show is the things that they are putting on and the show is what we a communicating with these kids who are coming out.
But the best part of the visits for me beyond the show is staying up all night getting completely piss fucking drunk and talking politics with them and talking about their lives and them asking us about our lives.
And that’s the whole reason I got into this thing in the first place, is just to be able make connections with people. And I never, never ever thought we’d be able to go somewhere as far away as Serbia and make connections with people there. I mean, who knows when people are going to stop giving a shit about what songs we write. But these connections, they’re permanent.
F/F: It reminds me of a book I loved about the same region called Fools Rush In – just the way that music shines through. There’s this indomitable characteristic of people that wants to play music and be in bands and go out and make love and and do all these things that embrace life. And you have to stay away from the windows so you don’t get shot, or run to the club, to avoid snipers. Meeting people that have lived through that firsthand must have just been really powerful.
Dan: Themes like that really inspired the record that we made, and then to go back — I mean the last time we were back we played for maybe seven or eight hundred kids in Belgrade and to sing those songs about the places that we’ve been to.
Alexei: I was crying after the show.
Dan: …And the shows have been really intense over there. You know like a lot of audience interaction.
Alexei: ..Yeah you got a scar from it.
Dan: It was one of the last songs we were playing in Belgrade. It was at this club called Academy, which has been around since the ’60s. And at the end I had thrown my guitar, and I grabbed the mic, and I was out in the audience. I had twisted and fallen off the stage and cut my head open on the monitors. There was a mosh pit and when I got up…
Alexei: …Suddenly the mosh pit just like moved back like, “What?!”
Dan: Yeah I was gushing blood. But our friend Milos grabbed me after the show and started stitching me up, and I didn’t know what to do. I was like, ‘How do you know how to do this?’ And he said, ‘I cleaned people up after the NATO bombing.’ And I was like, ‘Alright, well, this is slightly more joyful.’ And then we got drunk.
[Interview first appeared in conjunction with gigbot.com [R.I.P.], and all marvelous photos by Todd Roeth]
This new short film about Mason Jennings was released yesterday, detailing the creative process behind his forthcoming album, Blood of Man (due Sept 15th on Brushfire Records). I’ve gotten to sit with this album for a few months now, and it definitely is darker and more brooding than much of his previous work. Mason has always been a storyteller capable of great depths in his songs, but this album plumbs some of the blacker ones. But still – the songs feel rich, and many leave a lasting gorgeous vapor.
UPDATE: Here’s a brand new track from the album! The Field – Mason Jennings
MASON JENNINGS FALL TOUR DATES
08.30 – Montauk, NY The Surf Lodge
09.15 – Solana Beach, CA Belly Up Tavern
09.16 – Solana Beach, CA Belly Up Tavern
09.17 – Tucson, AZ Rialto Theatre
09.19 – Los Angeles, CA El Rey Theater
09.21 – San Luis Obispo, CA The Downtown Brewing Company
09.22 – Santa Cruz, CA The Catalyst
09.24 – Eugene, Oregon McDonald Theater
09.25 – Seattle, WA – Showbox at the Market
09.26 – Vancouver, British Columbia – Commodore Ballroom
09.27 – Portland, Oregon – Wonder Ballroom
09.29 – San Francisco, CA – Great American Music Hall
09.30 – San Francisco, CA – Great American Music Hall
10.09 – New York, NY – Music Hall of Williamsburg
10.10 – Hoboken, NJ – Maxwell’s
10.11 – Troy, NY – Revolution Hall
10.13 – Pittsburgh, PA – Mr. Small’s Theater
10.15 – Boston, MA – Somerville Theatre
10.16 – Portland, ME – Port City Music Hall
10.17 – Northampton, MA – Pearl Street
10.18 – Philadelphia, PA – Theatre of Living Arts
10.22 – South Burlington, VT – Higher Ground
10.23 – Toronto, Canada – Mod Club Theatre
10.24 – Detroit, MI – Magic Bag
10.26 – Bloomington, IN – Bluebird Nightclub
10.27 – Champaign, IL – High Dive
10.28 – Cincinnati, OH – 20th Century Theatre
10.29 – St. Louis, MO – The Pageant
10.30 – Chicago, IL – House of Blues Chicago
There is no such thing
as star block.
We do not think of
locking out the light
of other galaxies.
It is light
so rinsed of impurities
(heat, for instance)
that it excites
no antibodies in us.
Yet people are
curiously soluble
in starlight.
Bathed in its
absence of insistence
their substance
loosens willingly,
their bright
designs dissolve.
Not proximity
but distance
burns us with love.
On Sunday afternoon, my folks snagged some sweet birthday tickets for us to see the Rockies and the Giants play in Denver — fabulous seats, about six rows back on the third base line. Despite the 90+ degree scorcher of a day (and some family rivalry), the seats were filled, and some of my favorite fans were the eight and nine year-old boys waiting by the Giants dugout for autographs from players before the game. I think so often as adults we feel bereft of heroes, and it was amazingly refreshing to stand next to these kids in their team jerseys and hear their shouted, squeaky-voiced enthusiasm when, say, Tim Lincecum walks out from the dugout to warm up. This sign that the kid next to me made reaffirmed my faith in believing in things — even though the Giants lost (“Go both teams“).
Ahh, a Sunday well-spent.
I haven’t done a Monday Music Roundup in a while, but today there seems to be a glut of good new songs that I’d love to share with you and your eardrums. Shall we?
Flaming Arrow
Jupiter One
Just tapped by the lovely, quirky Regina Spektor to open her upcoming North America tour, NYC’s Jupiter One is a duo with folksy roots and Seventies AM radio leanings. This song is all lemondrops and summer street strolls, over lyrics about burning buildings. What an odd, totally successful juxtaposition. I can’t get enough of this song lately. Sunshoweris out September 15th on Ryko.
In My Dreams
Eels
Since we last talked about these things, Mark Oliver Everett, aka EELS, has released a new album called Hombre Lobo – “Wolf Man” for those who remember things from Sra Navarro’s Spanish class junior year, or the equivalent. He’s one of the purest, cleverest songwriters we got around, whether he is being sardonically prescient or heartbreakingly earnest. He did one of them MySpace Transmissions sessions (the same place that produced this moment of stunning awesomeness), where E played three new songs (like this one above, with such purdy piano), an older tune, and a cover Bob Dylan’s “Girl From The North Country.” For the price of free, this is a nice little download. Send me a note if you’ve never gotten into Eels and I’ll suggest a few places to start, because really — you should.
My Will Is Good
Port O’Brien
When I was sailing on a boat, I listened to the nautical sounds of Port O’Brien often in my head (not on my iPod for reals because they were not allowed on board). I used the Port O’Brien song “Stuck On A Boat” for my seafaring mix, complete with the lapping sounds of the waves against a hull, and have been drawn for a long time to the mariner’s world they sketch out for us (frontman Van Pierszalowski was a commerical salmon fisherman). From Oakland, CA, Port O’Brien has a new album coming out called Threadbare (due October 6, TBD Records), which flirts with melancholy and weightier themes, and shows a new maturity to their sound due to some sad life circumstances the past year. See what you think of it; I like the seasick jitter of this song, with the humming voices in the background — kinda like a sea shanty. Yeah.
Gee, I Really Love You
Heavy Trash
I first stumbled across this side project of Jon Spencer (he of the Blues Explosion), and its effortless bad-ass-ness two years ago, appreciating that retro garage rock, notable yowl, and filthy reverb. As I wrote then, Heavy Trash have a “rough and tumble rockabilly punk sound that makes me want to drink, smoke, and fight. And I don’t even do two of those three things.” I found this new stuff over on Bruce Warren’s blog, and he described them as “Blues/rock/soul/punkrock/garage/R&B colliding all together in one big New York City kind of rock mess of hotness.” I can dig that. Midnight Soul Serenade is out in October on Big Legal Mess Records.
Run With Me Run
The Black Hollies
With songs to their credit like “Gloomy Monday Morning” and “Paisley Patterned Ground,” it should come as no surprise that Jersey boys The Black Hollies are still championing a spacey, mood-ring vibe on their newest efforts. These whippersnappers are a band Rolling Stone once said “would bring a smile to Brian Jones’ face,” and the first single explodes in a shimmering kaleidoscope of organ melodies and shiny happy harmonies. Softly Towards The Light is out October 6th on the Ernest Jennings Record Co label (Takka Takka and O’Death are labelmates), and you can catch The Black Hollies on tour with Benjy Ferree in the coming weeks.
This toe-tapping song sparkles effervescently, with just the smallest hint of a western Texas twang. It’s peppered liberally with fantastic handclappy percussion (it kicks into full glory about 1:15 in) that reminds me of my favorite Simon & Garfunkel moments — or actually, Art and Paul with a fresh twist, like the Local Natives playing the backyard. It’s also thoroughly drenched in golden ’60s summer surfing harmonies.
After listening to it a handful of times, I was already singing along.
“I counted twenty-seven birds up there today; I’m thinking that’s why I still love it here, I’m thinking that’s why I still love it here….”
Good Old War is a trio from Pennsylvania, and this track is off their 2008 album Only Way To Be Alone. A few folks have written to me, urging me to take a listen, including one fella who breathlessly declared it his favorite album of the summer, maybe the year. Okay, I’ll happily bite, if this is a sample of what’s to come.
Aug 26 – Charlotte, NC @ The Milestone
Aug 27 – W.Columbia, SC @ New Brookland Tavern
Aug 31 – Tallahassee, FL @ Big Daddy’s
Sep 02 – Little Rock, AR @ Sticky Fingers
Sep 05 – Tulsa, OK @ Marquee
Sep 06 – Dallas, TX @ The Prophet Bar
Sep 07 – Shreveport, LA @ 516 Soundstage
Sep 08 – Austin, TX @ Emo’s
Sep 09 – Albuquerque, NM @ Launchpad
Sep 11 – San Diego, CA @ Epicentre
Sep 12 – Los Angeles, CA @ Knitting Factory
Sep 13 – San Francisco,CA @ Bottom of the Hill
Sep 14 – Orangevale, CA @ The Boardwalk
Sep 16 – Seattle, WA @ Studio 7
Sep 18 – Boise, ID @ The Venue
Sep 19 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Avalon Theater
Sep 20 – Denver, CO @ Marquis Theater
Sep 22 – Lawrence, KS @ The Bottleneck
Sep 24 – Minneapolis, MN @ Triple Rock
Sep 25 – Dekalb, IL @ House Cafe
Sep 26 – Chicago, IL @ Reggie’s
Sep 27 – Covington, KY @ The Mad Hatter
Sep 29 – Pontiac, MI @ The Crofoot
Oct 02 – Harrisburg, PA @ Whittaker Center
Oct 03 – Allston, MA @ Harpers Ferry
Oct 04 Rockville Center, NY @ The Vibe Lounge
Oct 06 Hoboken, NJ @ Maxwell’s
[thanks Joe for the tip, song originally posted over at Tympanogram]
I’ve been feeling a bit reclusive lately into my own quiet endeavors, simply digesting the music I have and easing off on the rabid consumption just a smidge, before it consumes me. It’s a mini phase, arguably tied with getting old, older (I am 30 today) — or perhaps just a symptom of the end of summer and the start of school with a hint of coolness in the air after sunset.
As the first suggestion of autumn nights creeps in, this new song by Josh Ritter instantly knocked the wind out of me tonight, and made me tear up (just a little — shhhh!) on my birthday, but I never mind it when music does that to me. I love the worlds Ritter creates, even though they are so often loaded with longing. This song is staggering.
I don’t remember what I dreamed last night, other than that there were words of optimism scrawled in black ink down my side. I’d fallen asleep with a head full of good thoughts and sparkling conversation, and woke up in a patch of sun, with a smile on my face for the decade to come. But somehow the ache and melancholy in this song strikes just the right chord with me tonight.
I had a dream last night, dreamt that I was swimming
and the stars came up, directionless and drifting
and somewhere in the dark, the silence and the thunder
around me as I swam, the drifters who’d gone under time, love
time, love
time, love
it’s only a change of time
I had a dream last night of rust, and far below me
battered hulls and broken heartships, leviathan and lonely
I was thirsty so I drank and though it was saltwater
there was something ’bout the way it tasted so familiar
time, love
time, love
time, love
it’s only a change of time, love
[unknown bridge about sails and silence, whitecaps of memory...]
I had a dream last night, and when I opened my eyes
your shoulderblade and spine were shorelines in the moonlight
new worlds for the weary, new lands for the living
I couldn’t make it if I tried
I closed my eyes, I kept on swimming
time, love
time, love
time, love
it’s only a change of time, love
An earlier live version, missing some verses but still gorgeous:
Name: Heather Browne Location: Colorado, originally by way of California Giving context to the torrent since 2005.
"I love the relationship that anyone has with music: because there's something in us that is beyond the reach of words, something that eludes and defies our best attempts to spit it out. It's the best part of us, probably, the richest and strangest part..."
—Nick Hornby, Songbook
"Music has always been a matter of energy to me, a question of Fuel. Sentimental people call it Inspiration, but what they really mean is Fuel." —Hunter S. Thompson
Mp3s are for sampling purposes, kinda like when they give you the cheese cube at Costco, knowing that you'll often go home with having bought the whole 7 lb. spiced Brie log. They are left up for a limited time. If you LIKE the music, go and support these artists, buy their schwag, go to their concerts, purchase their CDs/records and tell all your friends. Rock on.
Name: Heather Browne
