The Mountain Goats

I actually like it quite a bit, but I have never heard any of the previous material. I was jarred a bit by what I actually heard, because my expectations were something very different after seeing the "4AD" on the cover. After I recovered, I decided I enjoy it quite a bit: John's voice takes a bit of getting used to, but I love the stories he's telling on this one, and the conflict. Even if the similes get a bit out of hand, some of them are still amazing. And I still contend that "No Children" is one of the best songs of the year. The whole album (Talahassee) is both disturbing and hilarious, all at the same time.

Sweden
Zopolite Machine
Full Force Galesburg

song search:

"Going To Georgia"
"sept 19 triple x love! love!"
"prana ferox"

(Me, I love the three singles/rarities collections to bits.)

**** MODERATOR: REMOVE BELOW WHEN PROMPTED:
(i hope i never have to hear that leonard cohen cover from the last extra glenns record ever again)
****

john i love you and your crazy ass stories.

two releases last year that did it for me are Ghana and All Hail West Texas.

John, I hear you are playing Macrock this year in Virginia? Is that true?

As far as S/D, search the new one & the one before it, All Hail West Texas, & also the cassette "Yam, the King of Crops." Destroy with extreme prejudice the song where I say I never liked Morrissey, maliciously mispronouncing his name, because I have since come to my senses and am a Mozz booster of the first order

S: pretty much everything, but especially Hot Garden Stomp, Beautiful Rat Sunset, Taking The Dative and All Hail West TX (haven't heard Tallahassee yet)

D: nothing comes to mind

I heart John.

If you don't like any of that, it's pretty safe to say that they ain't your bag, etc., as that represents a wide array of styles.

And "Going to Marrakesh" and "Someone Else's Parking Lot in Sebastapol" from The Extra Glenns' MARTIAL ARTS WEEKEND.

Still digesting TALLAHASSEE. That Scrawl CD just finished playing, so I think I'll throw it in now.

John, come play in Portland sometime.

Search: yes

yay! where? also do a reminder HYPE thread the week before if possible...

there's a whole lot of similes that connect romance to terrorism-kinda stuff but I don't recall any account of actual incidents that would explain why the relationship is LIKE terrorism. I'd kinda like to hear "you shot my cat, you bastard" next to "oh, you are like someone making a bomb" cuz it can kinda sound like zeitgeist exploitation. but the uptempo drummer on that one track was great idea! And I really usually listen to an album at least twice before talkin' about it, but it seems an opportune to bring it up (and it would look weird if everybody was ravin' wildly).

jesus, I gotta go die now. sorry. this wasn't easy for me, folks, so go easy on the flamebacks.

(i.e. don't be sorry for heaven's sake we're all friends here)

In re: "a lot of terrorism similes" I must defend myself howevah: that's just one song as far as I know. And now I should stop reading this thread as it is in poor form indeed to participate in a discussion of one's own writing/music/whatevah

(quickly answering questions before scramming: I really want to go back to Dublin but there just won't be time which makes me really sad because I love Dublin a whole lot, no plans for any pre-Zopilote Machine reissues, hoping to come to Portland sometime this year, and the L.A. show is opening for Tortoise which is funny for a whole lotta reasons)

I will give another listen and see if I have the same reaction.

Thanks for being a good sport. Whew!

1. Cubs in Five
2. Family Happiness
3. The Fall of the Star High School Running Back
4. Going to Port Washington
5. Going to Alaska
6. Going to Marrakesh
7. Golden Boy
8. No Children
9. Billy the Kid’s Dream of the Magic Slippers
10. Itzcuintli-Totzli Days
11. Neon Orange Glimmer Song
12. Anti-Music Song
13. Sept. 19 Triple X Love! Love!
14. No, I Can’t
15. Orange Ball of Hate
16. Are You Cleaning Off the Stone?
17. Standard Bitter Love Song #4
18. Standard Bitter Love Song #8
19. Love Cuts the Strings
20. Seed Song
21. Water Song
22. The Window Song
23. Jam Eater Blues
24. Two Thousand Seasons
25. The Best Ever Death Metal Band from Denton
26. The Sign

...and maybe yes. Though keep in mind my extremely non-canonical vision of Mr. Dylan. ;-)

the L.A. show is opening for Tortoise which is funny for a whole lotta reasons

Yes it is. The funniest of which will be me spraying the crowd with whipped cream and silly string before Tor-Twah take the stage to forcibly loosen them up and make them laugh. Then I'll do the same to the band.

http://www.bravenewwaves.ca/bnmedia/archive_i_mgoats.shtml

I have no further contribution to make to this thread.

Okay, I'm swearing off this thread before I "bring the negativity" to Darnielle LoveFest '03.

Live it's a lot of fun (even when kicked off stage & forced to play on the pavement outside the venue). Can't wait till the forthcoming UK gigs & SxSW show, 'cos it's been a long time.

Enough already.

Loved your cover of "I saw the Sign"

horace, mostly similar, but the newest album "tallahassee" has a much more polished full band and studio production, and there are surely songs on there that you could play on the radio. john peel gets away with it, anyway, but that may not seem any guarantee of radio-friendly production. (i wasn't sure i liked it as much as the other albums i have at first but it's really grown on me.)

i say YES to "cubs in five" and "best ever death metal band out of denton" and i note that "anti-music song" is on that best-of cdr and that i kind of like it myself and never thought it implied any real dislike of morrissey, whom i quite like, on john's part. i only have a few of the albums and i can't really pick a favourite out of them, they're all good.

That really would be the best thing that could ever happen to a Tortoise fan.

I HAVE A VISION. I thank the Holy Prophet Dan for showing the way and Nicole for the encouragement.

[Likely enough I will simply do the honorable thing and leave after the Goats take their bow, thus beating the traffic -- assuming whoever I'm with wants to leave as well.]

God, I hope not.

3) Mountain Goats - Tallahassee (4AD)

4AD are going exactly the same way as original, life affirmingly INDEPENDENT allies Mute by signing pretty hopeless bands. If The Mountain Goats are the new Pixies then that pig really DID just fly past the window. More up Clint's street are these and even he thinks they're a bit pants. The band's new CD, 'Tallahassee' is out this week. Supposedly their 12th album, previous efforts have been on little US indies, this 4AD debut is average alt-country tinged lo-fi strum rock. Some might find some nuggets of gold up in them thar mountains but all I found were some old Yak droppings. Gorgeous packaging like but the words 'polish' and 'turd' spring to mind (again)....

Please.

Thank you.

Also, if you play Portland, please play "Golden Boy", as it would mean a lot to my roommate/bandmate, who sings it to her godson to get him to go to sleep, and is anyway one of your absolute best songs, even better than "Fresh Berries For You".

There. I am done being such a fanboy. Oh, except to note my friend's observation about how awkward it is to scream out "ABSOLUTE LITHOPS EFFECT!" as a concert request.

IS THIS SOMETHING YOU'D LIKE TO SHARE WITH THE WHOLE CLASS, MR. NORDIC?

i was a pretty big fan in high school with a couple tapes, an lp and a cd but i haven't had much of an urge to listen to any of it in at least four or five years and haven't heard anything since sweden or nothing for juice.

i still get a little thrill when i see j*hn's name come up on a thread though. feels like hollywood.

this is all i know: perfect harmony, great bassplaying, takes the lead on "going to queens".

also what reggae song is the snippet from the beginning of "sept 19 triple x love! love!" from?

(ps J0hn somehow I hadn't heard this stuff for long time but am now the proud owner of All Hail West Texas which is friggin fabulous and really helped me not feel like a reanimated corpse yesterday morning)

Hurrah for Nickalicious! A fine album, is it not? It and Tallahassee are nicely complementary without being specifically paired.

Hurrah!

01. Some Swedish Trees
02. Raja Vocative
03. Color In Your Cheeks
04. Going To Port Washington
05. Korean Bird Paintings
06. Alpha Incipiens
07. New Star Song
08. Baboon
09. Alpha Rat's Nest
10. Pure Heat
11. Going To Queens
12. Jenny
13. Cheshire County
14. It Froze Me
15. Raid on Entebbe
16. No Children
17. Neon Orange Glimmer Song
18. There Will Be No Divorce
19. Distant Stations
20. Nine Black Poppies
21. Alpha Omega
22. Going To Georgia
23. The Alphonse Mambo
24. Soft Targets
25. Commandante
26. Going To Chino

and John, for the love of god, give Iowa one more dose of the rock before you jump ship. don't make me go to Omaha, man!

Alexander Kowalski's on now, so I'm gonna have a dance.

(I almost cried when he played "it froze")

Yay, does this mean I'm not the only one on ILM that loves that album???

http://www.kuci.org/~brianm/ile/goats/019_death_crew.jpg

Also, wasn't he finally moving?

But how I wish he were here to dance, sing, and make funny for all of us.

Where's he moving to?

http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/issues/2003-12-25/music3.html/1/index.html

Hopefully this will translate to more GSO shows. One a week? Is that asking too much?

Raise Up, j0hn! Take your shirt off/twist it 'round yo hand/Spin it like a helicopter!

well. its doing it now. This is one GREAT cd. i know you dont post anymore, but if you're reading, thanks j0hn.

Mr. Mat0s did in fact post briefly on the Stranger/Seattle Weekly thread over the weekend.

j0hn has set a board at LPTJ, and some ilxers are posting there. I'm sure he's lurking tho'. Ditto everybody who has 'left'.

i wonder if we'll ever get to hear the "behind the music" story of rachel...

ITEM! Rachel was at the show last night and sang backup on "Going to Georgia!"

1995 all over again, visions of young people in the pomona arts colony, a blissful state, fair youth. Sweden is the greatest record.

it's almost hard to listen to for me, i wonder what would happen to me if i got divorced or my wife died. i wouldn't know what to do.

it is called "elijah"

Yeah, same here. I went back to it because any record with No Children on it can't be all bad, but I can't believe I didn't pay more attention the first time - the run from Game Shows Touch Our Lives (! ! Jesus, what a song! Fuck! Christ!) down to See America Right is fantastic, and Oceanographer's Choice is an amazing closer to the album.

Classic new old song: Counting Song for Bitter Children.

YSI & explanation in the tMG forum (scroll down, 4th last message on this page: http://www.mountain-goats.com/forums/read.php?2,10338,page=4 )

I've been in a really big Mountain Goats phase lately. this week I resolved to stop smoking, drinking caffeine, and buying Mountain Goats albums. guess which one I relapsed on first?

but on the plus side, I've converted several people in the past week, including my mom, who "Could see how (she) would've been a huge fan of these guys when (she) was (my) age".

I find it nearly impossible to read Mt. Johnny's Marooned piece without imagining King Goat himself singing it; like something off of We Shall All be Healed, say.

They're like Bright Eyes, right?

In a perverse alternate universe, perhaps.

WHOAAAAAA my living room is a perverse alternate universe

I thought it might be.

What a crap name, though. "Mounting Goats" would have been slightly better in a sub-Throwing Muses sort of way.

Honestly can't be bothered to check out a band with such a lame aesthetic as regards naming themselves. I suspect they only chose "Mountain Goats" because they didn't think of "Toilet Seats" or "Supermarket Trolleys" until it was far too late.

Only possible up-side is that in France they may be known as "Les Chamoises" which is waaaaaay better. If such monickered records exist, I suggest they begin importing them into the anglophone world asap.

ok waht

PhilK is a fake.

He's brothers with JeffK

http://i3.tinypic.com/63trk0o.gif

J'adore Les Chamoises

"Mounting Goats", tho...?

Reserved for tribute band.

obv.

"Mounting Goats" is a retarded name.

they were originally named The Goats but then they had to change it. They were located in Denver at the time so the Mountain thing is a reference to the time zone, sort of a joke on The London Suede.

I wonder if J0hn would be up for a beer this weekend, looks like he'll be around these parts.

That yell of "It's 2:20, smoke up!" at the end of the first album is a cryptic ref to the roots of the name change.

The tribute band should be The Musk Oxen.

The Denver Boots!!!!!!

There you go, that should have been it.

The clamped-down sound of the The Denver Boots. Stopping traffic in a town neat you.......

near

Mountain Goats playing in Milwaukee tonight. Why not Madison? We like you here.

I do wish he would return to Knoxville.

never once have mountain goats played here in oak bluffs. what's up with that?

people would turn out for a madison show. in the past two weeks we've hosted

-mono
-high on fire
-dianogah
-drive-by truckers
-architecture in helsinki
-melt banana
-devin the dude
and
-del tha funkee homosapien

why no badger show for you, j0hn D?

i like the mountain goats.

He played here two nights in a row once. It was great.

If you got the loot and a place with a dressing room, I'm sure he will rock you eventually. But the dressing room is key. Why he wasn't in Philly for like three years.

But...he played at the Tomato Head here (pizza restaurant)!

I guess that is just because Knoxville is awesome, though.

dear j0hn d, the high noon saloon has a dressing room and sells pizza. greater metro madison has the #1 rated brewery in america, too
http://www.capital-brewery.com/

CD-R I made for my young son a couple years ago:

1. Going To Georgia
2. The Mess Inside
3. Palmcorder Yajna
4. See America Right
5. Grendel's Mother
6. Going To Scotland
7. Sinaloon Milk Snake Song
8. No Children
9. Linda Blair Was Born Innocent
10. Love Love Love
11. Your Belgian Things
12. Pale Green Things
13. Peacocks
14. Orange Ball Of Love
15. Orange Ball Of Hate
16. Alpha In Tauris
17. Song For Tura Satana
18. Heights
19. Color in Your Cheeks
20. Source Decay
21. Moon And Sand
22. Mole
23. Tallahassee
24. Million
25. Dilaudid
26. Cotton

He loves this mix, plays it a lot, ad even played some of it to his guitar teacher who had never heard of the MGs, so we be spreading the word, etc.

Seriously, though, bless Darnielle for both his music and his passionate musings on music.

"Hold on. Did this actually happen? Did someone just mention one of their favourite band's songs that they liked but couldn't find, and the artist actually remembered ALL the lyrics and chords and recorded a new version for everyone to hear? "

Something like that. Song from 94.

If you are a person who got to that YSI in time, would you mind re-YSIing it?

yep, here it is - m4a though, that was the format it was in originally:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/8ltgvy

Bad news for Mr. D. : the album leaked :-(

That is bad. Is that the fault of the label?

I don't know how it happened

Great, great album - a little more produced than I expected, but typically great songwriting (probably even better than Get Lonely)

haha way to help j0hn out by keeping the leak a secret.

i am already selling chopped and screwed versions on the corner along with I Am Legend DVDs.

people are talking on the official site's forum too, but ok

xpost

stan why do you want to bankrupt j0hn

Looking forward to (legally!) downloading Heretic Pride. I loved The Sunset Tree, especially Lion's Teeth. Such a powerful, sad song (e.g., "There's no good way to end this/Anyone can see/There's this great big you/And little old me."). eMusic just got a truckload of older MG discs, so I nabbed All Hail West Texas, which is v. good, too.

(I totally missed Get Lonely, tho.)

I don't know! Maybe I'm just evil :-(

xxpost

Agreed with Daniel about The Sunset Tree--one of my favorite albums of 2005! Get Lonely seemed a bit too stark (depressive?) for me at the time, though--so much so that I couldn't actually listen to it all that much. Can't wait to buy a copy of the new one! Go Johnny Go!!

It sounds really awesome, nice to hear some prominent drumming in the mix.

I will totally pimp this on my radio show.

as I said upthread, four or five years ago:

I try to avoid talking about my own stuff on ilX0r

but regarding the leak 'n' all: I don't think talking about a leak really does me or anybody any harm. Leaks are part of the life of a release now; they're expected and anticipated. (A lot of people like to tell each other that "the labels" [always plural, very mysterious conglomerate known as The Labels] leak whole albums on purpose for buzz, but none of the indie labels I know do that; could be true in other genres/strata, I don't know.)

however yes people who download & enjoy it but don't then follow through with a purchase = not "evil" (that's self-congratulatory), just kinda bein' dicks imo

j0hn you have pretty far ranging tastes, e.g. metal + most everything else; have you, or have you considered, making music in a different idiom? (not that there's anything wrong with your current one--just wondering.)

if you say no due to instrumental dexterity i will not believe you.

yeah it's crossed my mind, world enough and time you know. just doing what I'm already doing takes up most of my time. I don't have any desire to make metal though - people ask me that a lot, but I prefer to be a fan. once you leave the fan role and become a participant it changes your relationship to the genre you're working in, and forever as far as I know. I would rather remain a metalhead in the pit or at least at the bar and leave the shredding to the people who are really good at it.

I still have a load of stuff to catch up with from 2007 so I can wait (probably) til February to pick this up with real life £££ (or possibly $$$).

We Shall All Be Healed I have probably listened to more than anything else I have ever owned and Linda Blair Was Born Innocent is quite possibly my favouritest song ever; The Sunset Tree I also gave a good outing to but not perhaps as much as I should have; I left my copy of Get Lonely in the US and haven't gotten round to buying another (gave it an aewsoem review tho) but fully intend to along with all the other bits that are missing.

I'm incredibly annoyed at myself for missing the show in London earlier this month - any possibility of another one this year or maybe a festival appearance or two?

'Surrounded' is great btw.

A friend just asked which MG album to start with; I recommend ...Healed. It's my favorite, the first one I bought, thus very speical. Reminds me a bit of Joan Didion: an attempt to pin down a nameless dread that the narrator's seen but is still too spooked to delineate.

"an attempt to pin down a nameless dread that the narrator's seen but is still too spooked to delineate."

wow, john has seen my dad naked? i should get that one.

So a mountain goat goes up to another mountain goat and says "Who was that lady I saw you with last night?" And the other goat goes "That was no lady! That was my kid!"

So J0hn once said that he wasn't "that J0hn D," and now I realize he must have meant he wasn't the rap journo.

May a disappointed fan inquire ofa certain someone as to whether the cancelled Northampton show will be rescheduled in the foreseeable future? Please?

From the forum:

Quick request from yrs truly, who again is actually kinda relieved about the leak - I'm very proud of this record and I think people who dig my stuff are gonna be pretty into it - if you're gonna d/l it as soon as you find it, would you kindly preorder it? like, at the same time as you're downloading it, instead of "maybe I'll buy it at a show or something"? it would be very rad if y'all who're gonna grab it and intend to buy it would do this. You would be doing me a real favor. Those of you who aren't gonna buy it anyway no matter what, nothing I can say is gonna make any difference anyhow, so this isn't about that. But the rest of you, may I remind you that them there pre-orders are right here?:

www.beggarsgroupusa.com

I just preordered the digital album for what seems like a very reasonable $8.

The "Coming Soon" box says it will appear on eMusic on 02.19.08.

J0hn D., why is your book not about Chocolate Factory? I find this immensely disappointing.

Played this earlier for first time, sounded good.

Is the sleeve supposed to have a black metal vibe to it or what?

Where do non-Americans register for that preorder?

I'll be buying this the day it comes out, on CD; really looking forward to it, as I've enjoyed all the 4AD stuff and am dipping my toes into the earlier material as i come across it in the used shops.

& if John wanted to branch out into a different realm, he could always go Dashboard-style emo, and do pretty well imo. But I'd prefer that he didnt.

I think he should but perhaps under a different name. doodz are easily confused.

Does anyone have an extra ticket to the Philly show?

Digging the new record more with every listen.

And I now know what an Autoclave is.

Still need to pick up Heretic Price, damnit...

(Heretic Pride, even)

going to catch the mountain goats on 12 april

'the sunset tree' has been tiding me over very nicely just recently. i should give the new one a close listen too.

Get well soon, Mr. D.

( http://www.mountain-goats.com/archives/2008/03/australian-tour.html )

get well soon J0hn, you are rad.

Get well soon.

What they said.

yikes j0hn hope u are ok

bump for more good vibes & because J0hn is one of the awesomest dudes on ILX

Too bad about that. NY Times gave a very good review today of Tuesday night's show.

i heard the show last night (wed) in williamsburg was really awesome. my good friend laura went who is a huge fan. said the electric guitar and drums worked well.

i really like heretic pride a lot.

Wishing John well, he's a real inspiration.

yeah get lonely & heretic pride have been spinning in my car for like 2 months now. get well soon dude.

Thank you everybody. Kind of in a really dark tunnel right now which keeps getting darker. It is kind of not my style to air this sort of thing out publicly online both for antiquated reasons of decor & because it's weird when I say something somewhere and it ends up as part of the generally-received bio or something. Sort of have to be prudent about saying "here's what's going on with me" too much.

Really can't tell you how much I appreciate your kind words. More than I can say!

Because I have had to cancel one tour and stop booking another in order to be home, you will all have the chance to get way tired of me & my strident ways over the next couple of months tho LOL awesome hit me back yo

j0hn!! i started spinning heretic pride again like literally 5 minutes ago lol. it is great. get better.

Very sorry to hear about your hard times. I hope you come through more or less intact. Though I don't really know most folks here too well, I'm pretty sure I speak for more than just me when I say, let us know if there's anything we do.

get better u are loved

:( get better J0hn. Haven't listened to the new album yet but I am going to!!!

yer a good dude, hope all turns upwards and well

Best wishes for you, J0hn, and whatever yr situation happens to be.

Earlier today, iTunes shuffled "This Year" into "Self-Destructive Zones" by the Drive-By Truckers. They have the same chord progression - an admittedly common one, but it was a cool reprise anyway.

Hope everything starts looking up for you.

Gah, I really wanted to see you in Philly tonight. Get well soon, JD.

was looking forward to catching one of your shows finally, but understand the circumstances for sure. as compensation, i'll keep spinning the discs.

John, saw you on Tuesday at Webster Hall, you played a great show. Get better soon. You're one of my favorites.

Get well and stay strong.

'Sax Rohmer #1' is perhaps my very favourite thing ever just now. Great video, too. I already liked the concept in the first few seconds, and then it KEPT GOING!!

Every time I listen to Heretic Pride I give myself another little kick in the ass for not shelling out to see TMG in Glasgow in December. Any future shouts I make for "J0hn Darn1elle shreds!" will be so much less topical than they would have been then. :'(

Get well soon, John.

get well soon, J0hn

All the best, John. Looking forward to sparring amicably real soon.

Best wishes, J0hn.

so that line in marduk t-shirt men's room incident about 'i let myself imagine she was you' is totally fucking devastating and awesome fyi.

get well john

Ugh, keep getting bad news lately. Good thoughts sent in your direction, J0hn.

Nice show in DC tonight. Loved the emo intro with the reference to Rites of Spring, and the Mr. Rogers story. Sorry about your health. Best wishes.

wishing u good stuff

Good luck, John, yr the bestest.

all health, j0hn - hope you get to make it down here soon enough.

thanks for the great show last night! you looked the picture of health, fwiw. all best wishes.

just got the PR about the resched - glad to hear you're still playing Manning, was really looking forward to seeing youse (and Wurster!) there

I am hearing them now, on last fm, a song called 'Source Decay'. It sounds like one fellow singing over one rough acoustic guitar. The recording sounds prety rough too, I don't know why that is.

maybe cuz it wasnt recorded v well

i think the early stuff is pretty much on the rough side.

yeah, man, start with Tallahassee and explore from there if yer at all interested.

"tallahassee" is the one about that couple breaking up, isn't it? that album is amazing. going into very dark regions of the soul.

yep. that one and the following two are my all-time faves by J0hn.

In true fickle form, my favorite MG album is the last one I played.

i just discovered "the black ice cream song" from zopilote machine on shuffle. i have a bunch of albums, but except for sunset tree, which i know front to back, i pay attention to one or two tracks for a long time and then keep finding what seem like new tracks.

I always recommend All Hail West Texas as a starting point for some reason, I've never really thought about why, just seemed reasonable. Maybe because the first thing they hear is the Best Ever Death Metal Band Out of Denton and that track seems to appeal pretty bluntly to most people? Er...

Oh, and they sound rough because he recorded that early stuff on a boombox (multi-xpost)

yeah, but that album sounds pretty one-note.

in terms of...?

style, sound, 'production', song-writing, you name it.

I've never got much beyond Tallahassee (although I own about half-a-dozen), but by golly, Tallahassee is a fucking extraordinarily good record.

huh, my thoughts on it all were more along the lines of "cohesive" or "consistent", but I suppose I can see what you're saying (xpost)

well, yeah, that's exactly what i meant; it's all consistently one-note. th real problem for me, actually, is that it gets kinda hard to pay attention after the awesome opener. for me, it just ends up sinking into the background pretty much from that point on. i actually kinda wish J0hn would remake some of the stronger songs, or at least release live versions maybe.

In hindsight you might be right...if my memory is accurate (though it's been a few years, and it isn't), all my favorite tracks are in the first half of the disc.

it's a pretty great one-two punch to open all hail west texas. those just-slightly-poetic codas —"if you punish a person," etc., and "your grandfather rode the boat over from ireland"—really punctuate the suburban drama.

at least release live versions maybe

Been falling in love all over again with 'Tallahassee' and 'The Sunset Tree' lately. "I'm gonna make it through this year, if it kills me." *heart*

so this Last Night of Your Life tour with Kaki King, what's it like? taking turns, playing together, her material, his material, the collaborative songs? excited...

there're lots of links to great live stuff on the Mountain Goats' site.

oh, and, uh, best band ever, etc.

glad to hear you're still playing Manning

Rescinding this – it’s $52 at the uni and $20 in a depressed coal-mining port, so driving up the coast to see them. But mainly posting to alert J0hn that although Jester’s Pies have gone bust, while he's in the area today, the franchisee in Newtown bought out the location and it’s running as Janet’s Pies with similar, but not quite as exciting, pastry-encased vegetable matter.

went to the morrissey fan site to check out some new album stuff and saw a story that linked to the goats doing "suedehead"! : )

http://gawker.com/5169038/writing-about-good-music-is-hard

food 4 thought

kind of an annoying article. those pieces happen, what's the big deal? sure they're kind of obvious, but i don't believe they're completely lost on the artists in question. w/r/t to the goats piece, an avid fan (friend of mine) was really excited to see it.

not feelin that gawker thing at all

"In fact, profiles of super-cool independent musicians in mass-market consumer magazines almost inevitably turn out to be cringe-inducing, forced exercises in justifying the relevance of an artist that often doesn't really care about being relevant to begin with."

so non-mainstream musicians don't care about being relevant? hmmm

it's weird to throw the new yorker profile in there also, they have profiles of lots of pretty obscure ppl right? also that article was dope

(the nyer one i mean)

they have profiles all the time, obscure or not. it's like he's annoyed that these artists are getting mainstream attention -- "i liked them before you did!!"

yeah that's really the only reason i can think he would have bothered writing this

anyway like someone said in the comments, the reason why he can do this list is bcz profiles generally follow a formula (no matter who's getting profiled)

I really didn't like that New York magazine article. One of the reasons I like The Mountain Goats so much is that for the most part, John's songwriting doesn't fall into the "sensitive acoustic troubador" category. That's why I got into them so much, it was so weird to hear a lone-wolf-with-acoustic guitar guy who wasn't just all "I'm so sad," but instead wrote these wry, literary songs about fictional people's sadness. I mean that's sort of changed these days, since The Sunset Tree and all, but I feel like the NY mag article is trying to pigeonhole John, trying to fit him into a category to which he never belonged.

I could be dead wrong, of course.

No, actually you're dead right and I'm with you.

I didn't really like the New York mag article because, well...

Wesley, of course, read from the Book of Darnielle, while the next girl read the lyrics of Conor Oberst, a.k.a. the folksinger Bright Eyes. Wesley was disgusted. “Bright Eyes is not a man, he’s just a boy,” Wesley told me. “Bright Eyes is just this over the top ‘I am wussy man, hear me roar.’ Did you know the word virtue comes from the Latin word for man? You get too sensitive, you lose your strength. And his stuff is so vague. John once wrote a song that has a line ‘I love you because you gave me sausage and cheese when I was hungry’—it’s earned because it’s a concrete thought: You fed me, that’s why I love you.”

lol at the comments on the new yorker piece:

Ew.
By ping on 03/04/2009 at 6:35pm

Sappy and pathetic and please no more.
By ELECTRAfied26 on 03/08/2009 at 10:45pm

What did I just read?
By whygodwhy on 03/09/2009 at 7:03pm

I mean explain it to me, in a way a stoned person could understand.
By whygodwhy on 03/09/2009 at 7:04pm

lol

but it seems the problem is more with the publications overall, than with how they tackle INDIE music, no?

i mean sometimes i have a problem reading anything in the new yorker

that was retarded

i think the authors point isnt "oh how passe and lame and uncool of you to write about neko case"--i think the point he wants to make is "writing, as a journalist, about bands for which you have a deep & abiding affection doesnt make for very good journalism."

there are all sorts of sub-issues he has with that--like, deciding to write a piece abt your favorite band will often lead to paper-thin justifications for writing about that band so as to avoid the appearance that youre just writing about the band because you like them--and also that writing a piece about a band you love is a lot more likely to lead to the kind of cliched darkness-success-redemption story arc than writing about a band for a different reason (say, they have a new & compelling arc to their career, or you can make a successful argument for their uniqueness as a band).

obviously this is all subjective--to wide-eyed fans of neko case, john darnielle, etc., these artists are so compelling just on the face of it that you shouldnt need a justification to write about them! but to the other portion of the population (say, me) who dont really care too much for andrew bird, i need more of a reason than "hes really good" to read about him (in a journalistic setting, of course; criticism is a different animal, at least in the eyes of the blog post)

i guess i kind of agree with him.

when i say kind of, i mean, the darnielle piece wasnt poorly written, just poorly conceived, and i basically disagree about the bonnie prince billy piece for a couple reasons, incl. the new yorkers tendency towards hook-less articles that stand on the strength of their writing, and oldhams comparative stature vs. case, bird, darnielle (no offense john)

let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

or something.

on a more positive note, my sixteen year old cousin is coming to visit me in a few weeks so she can go see the mountain goats thing with slice-of-key-lime-pie. her father is dying of cancer (soon) and she really needs to get outta the house for a while.

i guess that wasn't positive.

The justification for writing about anything is always "I find this interesting/informative/entertaining" (delete where applicable). There isn't really anything else to it as far as I can tell, regardless of the subject or the setting, so I don't get where you're coming from, max (the disconnect appears to be between what you find intersting/informative/entertaining and what NYer editorial finds i/i/e).

the gawker deal is pretty much ridiculous because a) it means the author has bothered to read all the articles he claims to despise and b) it's barely readable sub-undergrad compare-and-contrast bullllllllshit. you think he'd have found better, more informative pull quotes if he'd dug 'em out of the Wire, the Believer and Rolling Stone? Doubtful.

i guess what i'm trying to say is: the problem is not with the publications particularly, but with a tendency towards laziness and easy questions in rock n roll journalism as a whole.

the canonization of the subversive musician

there is nothing particularly subversive about neko case though, amirite? and why do people attach such importance to these musicians being profiled in mainstream, middle-brow publications? the mtn goats, oldham etc haven't been obscurities for many, many years now.

apparently the neko case album debuted at #3? pretty weird to say 'only the write cares abt her' or whatever

*writer

and why do people attach such importance to these musicians being profiled in mainstream, middle-brow publications? the mtn goats, oldham etc haven't been obscurities for many, many years now.

― ian, Monday, March 16, 2009 11:30 AM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i think that's exactly why -- cuz they have already established their own sort of relevance, and people get annoyed that these publications approach them like a sort of discovery. but the thing is, for a lot of people, they still are! it's kind of an audience issue.

The justification for writing about anything is always "I find this interesting/informative/entertaining" (delete where applicable). There isn't really anything else to it as far as I can tell, regardless of the subject or the setting, so I don't get where you're coming from, max (the disconnect appears to be between what you find intersting/informative/entertaining and what NYer editorial finds i/i/e).

― Wes HI DEREson (HI DERE), Monday, March 16, 2009 11:23 AM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

well, yeah, this is absolutely true, and i acknowledge the subjectiveness of the argument being made in my post.

but there are very, very few publications out there where you can successfully pitch an editor on a story with just "hey, i love neko case, can i write an article about her?" (the ability to pitch like that probably has more to do with the writer him or herself--john mcphee, for example--than the publication). at the very least youre going to need "she has an album coming out"--and even then the editor is going to want more, since god knows how many people have albums out in a given month. arguably, case is big enough (#3 album etc) to warrant that kind of coverage--in fact, this is absolutely the case, since the writer was able to pitch the story to the editor successfully.

but then the article comes out and its structure is almost exactly the same as the structure of 3 other articles about musicians working in roughly the same melieu! and its like, what exactly is the threshold of 'interesting/informative/entertaining' here? if the pieces match so completely, is there really something interesting enough about the subjects to be worth writing about?

but there are very, very few publications out there where you can successfully pitch an editor on a story with just "hey, i love neko case, can i write an article about her?" (the ability to pitch like that probably has more to do with the writer him or herself--john mcphee, for example--than the publication). at the very least youre going to need "she has an album coming out"--and even then the editor is going to want more, since god knows how many people have albums out in a given month

The Gawker piece was awful, and this is the only defense for publishing Neko Case, Darnielle, and Bird articles in mass-market publications.

I do wish articles like the one in Gawker would stop impugning the motives of these writers, the quality of their essays notwithstanding. I like Neko Case, so if I worked for The New Yorker and knew she had an album coming out soon, I'd pitch an article. What's so hard to understand?

btw am i supposed to like know neko case? cuz apart from the name, i don't :/

Next time you run over to Starbucks for a toffee bar, you'll know.

Neko is gonna be heartbroken, sur

smoky alt-country chanteuse, you might like her. in that new pornographesr band IIRC. xpxp

I do wish articles like the one in Gawker would stop impugning the motives of these writers, the quality of their essays notwithstanding. I like Neko Case, so if I worked for The New Yorker and knew she had an album coming out soon, I'd pitch an article. What's so hard to understand?

― The Screaming Lobster of Challops (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, March 16, 2009 8:54 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

huh? it's pretty easy to understand that writing about an artist just because you like him/her and then reaching for other flimsy reasons/justifications in the article makes for bad/self-indulgent/puffy writing, no matter how ok of a stylist you are.

pls. notify me when someone does one of these pieces on xasthur or the ying yang twins or any artist that does not slot somewhere in comfortable singer-songwriter modes of expression.

i mean how is that not writing about "culture" 101

x-post

it's pretty easy to understand that writing about an artist just because you like him/her and then reaching for other flimsy reasons/justifications in the article makes for bad/self-indulgent/puffy writing, no matter how ok of a stylist you are.

You must not read much rock journalism then, eh?

lololololol @ the idea of someone writing a piece like this on xasthur

Better an emotive ode than a rehashed press release.

i rarely post here, but i was thinking about the mg and bpb pieces a lot recently, so i felt compelled to jump in --

the nyer/nymag profiles bugged me because all they did was corroborate the same reputations of these guys that exists on the underground level, i.e. oldham: the "enigmatic," rootsy, shapeshifter and darnielle: the balance of hyperintimacy and cerebral detachment.

i don't mind major-mag profiles of these guys -- they totally deserve it. i just wish that the writers had done *some* kind of work to depart from what has already been written about the artists. the MGs one felt like a huge missed opportunity to actually do a little critical thinking about *why* darnielle's fans might love him so much (the superfan is a devout christian -- is it some kind of coincidence that darnielle actually writes about religious material and regularly lays down spiritual subtext in his songs about Normal Folks? duh.). also, for articles about "iconoclasts," they didn't really situate these guys within a landscape -- i.e. to say why they're different or unique. the nyer one was better, in this respect, but i still put the mag down wishing it had somehow been more "definitive" (this might be because i think kelefa s. really does write some good, concise criticism sometimes, and this piece, being a "profile," didn't seem to think that some criticism was within its jurisdiction or something).

pls. notify me when someone does one of these pieces on xasthur or the ying yang twins or any artist that does not slot somewhere in comfortable singer-songwriter modes of expression.

Remember the "Wait" controversy a few years ago?

that new york times article on DEATH (70's proto-punk hard rock african-american power trio) this weekend was excellent!

sorry, just didn't know where to post that. maybe on the black acid rock thread...

WHAT IS FURDEST FROM CDS I HAVE, HEAVY METAL AND HIPPITY HOP

many x-posts to alfred well yeah because by those standards a lot of it sucks! but some of it doesn't (i.e. does something else besides 'here is a person, they did some things, they play nice music'), and i like that.

the nyer/nymag profiles bugged me because all they did was corroborate the same reputations of these guys that exists on the underground level, i.e. oldham: the "enigmatic," rootsy, shapeshifter and darnielle: the balance of hyperintimacy and cerebral detachment.

this i actually agree with heartily

this speaks to a larger trend of pigeonholing artists like this, with cliched terminology

A lot of these disappointing profiles are shaped by the attitude of editors too. A piece on Darnielle in New York would produce exactly the kind of collision of sensibilities we'd expect.

not all music journalism can be good music journalism, guys.

the MGs one felt like a huge missed opportunity to actually do a little critical thinking about *why* darnielle's fans might love him so much (the superfan is a devout christian -- is it some kind of coincidence that darnielle actually writes about religious material and regularly lays down spiritual subtext in his songs about Normal Folks? duh.).

From the article:

If Wesley’s explanation of Darnielle’s appeal isn’t especially complex, it’s certainly heartfelt: “His songs are all full of literary allusions and Bible references. Everything that I’m into, he writes about. A lot of them are about people feeling isolated, and I knew what that felt like.”

[...]

Wesley loved that while Darnielle wasn’t a practicing Christian, he still had an encyclopedic knowledge of the Bible. One day, Wesley played for me the song “Pigs That Ran Straightaway Into the Water, Triumph Of.” “That’s a reference to Matthew 22:6,” Wesley told me. “That’s where Jesus casts the demon into a herd of swine. That he can work that into a song is so cool.”

critic on critic jackoff sesh

Remember the "Wait" controversy a few years ago?

not specifically...was it about more than the content of the song? is there a new yorker profile of the YYT i need to track down?

xpost, but did you just equate a fan's testimony with "critical thinking"? i mean, fan testimony is important, especially in an article about fandom, but i don't think that it should stand in for the writer's commentary.

the obv. explanation for why people wanna write profiles about me is because I am so impossibly attractive that once they've laid eyes on me they just can't help themselves

i mean i'm kind of joking w/r/t xasthur or yyt but if these publications actually wanted to do something constructive they would indeed profile interesting musicians from outside the npr set or explain why metal is probably the most vital and interesting genre going these days or something. treating this "trend" as anything other than a back-pat affirmation to the 20- and 30-something readership that mags think they need to survive (lol not that it's going to make a difference) is kind of silly.

dude described you as being "stocky"
xpost

If I am reading a profile about ANY artist, the last thing I want to read is the writer's commentary.

<3 john

treating this "trend" as anything other than a back-pat affirmation to the 20- and 30-something readership that mags think they need to survive (lol not that it's going to make a difference) is kind of silly.

― He grew in Pussyville. Population

i kind of agree with this, but again, maybe they're not targeting these articles toward the 20/30 readership set?

i dunno

If I am reading a profile about ANY artist, the last thing I want to read is the writer's commentary.

― Wes HI DEREson (HI DERE), Monday, March 16, 2009 1:08 PM (31 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

why not just read the wikipedia article?

i'm writing post replying to posts about an article about several articles about some musicians who wrote songs.

anyone who argues stocky ain't sexy has to take it up with me personally

"stout" is the new sexy

If you are doing an essay analyzing the themes of a musician's lyrical output and how that relates to their fandom, then go right ahead, but that falls outside of what I would call an artist profile; sticking it into an artist profile tells me that you are more interested in showing people how smart you are than you are in writing about your subject.

why not just read the wikipedia article?

xp: I often do. I've stated before that I think most music writing is useless.

surm i try not to be much of a cynic but it's real hard not to see these as anything but a grab for younger readership. i would welcome ideas to the contrary.

the obv. explanation for why people wanna write profiles about me is because I am so impossibly attractive that once they've laid eyes on me they just can't help themselves

― Just one thing I was thinking about as I was getting on the copter (J0hn D.), Monday, March 16, 2009 12:04 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark S

i'm not sure this is true!

;)

lol why are you even bothering then dan

I'm bored

and avoiding work

i admire ur conviction that writing is about showing off how smart u are

It's true, though.

nah

Or rather, it's true of 90% of what I've seen in the past 10 years.

that's why i have trouble reading the new yorker

I thought people wrote because they got paid because to write about stuff they sometimes liked to talk about on their own, woops

it would help if i used grammar

talking was invented so people could impress potential mates by showing off how smart they are

i thought that's what showing yer junk was for

i buy that a lot of internet music (and other) writing tends to come across as... show-offy, in some way. and maybe even a fair amount of music writing in print.

but surm it baffles me that you could think of the new yorker as show-offy in that same way! the magazines tone is so, um, even, or level--i dont understand how you could read it and think that its writers come off as trying to show off how smart they are!

It wouldn't be as annoying if the people doing it were all amazing writers, but since they aren't (and particularly since the nu-media revolution heavily promotes quantity of pieces over quality of pieces), well... you basically have The Legacy Of Pitchfork laid out for you, where people think it's valid to criticize a piece that is intentionally written as a moment-of-time meeting between an artist and one of his fans with biographical information about both that shows pretty clearly why the fan latched onto the artist because the author didn't spend enough time deconstructing the entirety of the artist's fanbase.

although that isn't even fair, this has been going on way longer than Pitchfork has been around (see: Simon Reynolds)

j0hn needs to hook up with winona and be like IN YOUR FACE GAWKER LOSER

otm

max i think i need to delve into it again now that ryan got us a subscription. haven't read it in a while, so i'm probably way off.

you might be thinking of people who read the new yorker and feel the need to show off how smart they are? see also: the economist.

If you keep a New Yorker on your coffee table, Surm, visitors to your home will assume you're Cultured.

I keep mine there because it saves money on coasters.

i generally don't have a huge problem with the new yorker (though i think the cartooning sucks, have virtually no use for the event listings etc, i can still usually find one or two things to read & enjoy per issue) i DO have a problem with people who read/carry/use the new yorker as a way of showing off how smart they are. xpxpxpxp otm

HI DERE: I think you would have a good point except that it's not really "a piece that is intentionally written as a moment-of-time meeting between an artist and one of his fans"; or rather, it is, but it dresses itself up as some kind of broader 'hey check out this crazy youth cultural phenomenon!' thing, and kind of rings hollow in that sense.

or in other words: given the choice between a good piece that would only be interesting to people who had heard of/cared about/were fans of the Mountain Goats, or a kinda-crappy piece that would have (slightly) broader appeal, this leans towards the second.

btw while i DO think there are probably a lot of people who read the new yorker in a large part because it is a STATUS SYMBOL of some kind i think the number of people for whom that is the ONLY reason they read the magazine is VASTLY OVERESTIMATED--maybe this is because i am something of a nyer stan, but it is, for real, a REALLY GOOD MAGAZINE, and id like to believe that people read it because of its quality more than any other consideration

i DO have a problem with people who read/carry/use the new yorker as a way of showing off how smart they are

how can you tell these people apart from those that "actually" like reading/carrying/using it

yea, point taken re: the new yorkers' audience base (and the economist). ryan was reading it on the subway yesterday and i was afraid people would get the wrong idea! ;)

in fact it strikes me that oftentimes people read the new yorker both because it is a really good mag and also because it confers a certain kind of status on them--that maybe in fact these reasons are not as separate as we might like to think

i smell a junior lit paper

I think you would have a good point except that it's not really "a piece that is intentionally written as a moment-of-time meeting between an artist and one of his fans"; or rather, it is, but it dresses itself up as some kind of broader 'hey check out this crazy youth cultural phenomenon!' thing, and kind of rings hollow in that sense.

I don't think it does that at all. I think, if it has a broader point, it is saying, "fandom still exists and it hasn't changed".

I think it is a well-written, banal piece. I enjoyed reading it because I like the way the author wrote it but it didn't tell me anything I didn't already know about J0hn, the way some of his fans act, or the way fandom in general works. More to the point, I don't think it was trying to say anything new; it was trying to pull a human center out of a story that is simultaneously unremarkable and touching.

this is my favorite part of the article... hey indie musician who built your fanbase through years of gigging and releasing albums, your persona is not appealing! plz leave this stuff to the pros who know how to blow it up, like katy perry.

John Darnielle is a wonderful songwriter and deserves many happy turns, but the cruel fact remains: On the scale at which New York usually operates, he is a commercially marginal musician. He is not about to blow up, nor will he soon appear in the pages of Us Weekly on the arm of Winona Ryder. He makes very, very good records that not very many people, relatively speaking, will ever hear. The same is true of Case, Oldham, and Bird. None of them feel compelled to do the things that actually famous musicians did in order to get famous, like create an appealing persona and deliver it to a fascinated reporter.

i know, weird right?

so, indie musicians don't care about their persona, or their cultural relevance.

He is not about to blow up, nor will he soon appear in the pages of Us Weekly on the arm of Winona Ryder.

we all know how this worked out for dave pirner. wtf john?

i was gonna say "he'd have a point if he replaced 'create an appealing persona' with 'take your shirt off' and 'fascinated reporter' with 'lad mag'" but neko case has done that.

xp yeah but wasn't it presented as "The complex bond between the Mountain Goats’ John Darnielle and his sensitive fans," and didn't it make plenty of generalizations about people who listen to him? i have no huge problem with sociological inferences or broad statements (if it seems like the writer was thinkin'), but i wasn't sure if i was supposed to be reading about all MG fans, this one MG fan, or this one MG fan as a representation of all MG fans.

what should musicians do in order to get famous?

a) create an appealing persona and deliver it to a fascinated reporter
b) make good music

sigh... I expected so much more from a site named gawker

i can't bring myself to read gawker, in general.

i like gawker for the most part

gawker has become a whole hell of a lot less fun since new york media started getting bulldozed.

look max, you're not gonna turn me into a new yorker readin, gawking 25yr old OK?

:P

last time I saw Neko was at this tiny sold out club called Irving Plaza.

look, if she gets famous it's because she finally figured out how to make her persona more appealing to fascinated reporters, while oldham, bird, and darnielle remain sitting in their tearstained undies puzzling over the rubik's cube that is worldwide renown in the 2009.

i actually really liked the oldham article.

i mean i get what the gawker thing was saying about the sort of cliched "oh we hung out thing" but oldham has been so evasive for so long it WAS actually kind of a big deal for his long time fans....plus, the whole thing with the weird concert down by the lake was super rad i thought....him havign a "work house" and a "sleep house", stuff like that was fascinating...his mom seemed cool.

and just to one-up y'all in the "writing about neko case apparently makes writers turn retarded"...here is one from the new newsweek....manages to one up that racial miscengeny one with the weirdo claim that in 2009 Neko Case has returned melody in "alternative rock"...wresting it from the hands of noiseniks like....nirvana....and...green day? hed asspllode

http://www.newsweek.com/id/187782

Acts such as Bon Iver, Iron & Wine and Antony and the Johnsons have been bringing pretty back, to paraphrase Justin Timberlake.

i hate this so much.

...right now.

But whereas Kurt Cobain once felt the need to hide affection for R.E.M. from his underground peers lest he be booted from their secret society, today's alternative acts no longer look at melody as the love that dare not speak its name.

Cobain was so terrified of this secret society that he confessed this affection in the noted indie zine Rolling Stone.

I'm trying to figure out whether j0hn will be mortified or honored that we are using this thread to mock a) mainstream coverage of corny indie fuxx0rs and b) those who mock mainstream coverage of corny indie fuxx0rs

I enjoyed the attention of the New York piece, but really, I demand my Newsweek piece immediately, and it has to be super-long with sidebars and plenty of pictures

and the cover, I want the cover

http://www2.warnerbros.com/willywonka/img/gallery/wonkpic8.jpg

i want a party with roomfuls of laughter
ten thousand tons of ice creaaaaam

this makes me so happy today

J0hn, trust me. You REALLY don't want to be drawing attention to Veruca Salt here.

ok how about freddie then

disappointed that "He looks more or less like the rest of the assembled Mountain Goats faithful, a cross section of earnest young poet boys, geeky music-philes, and self-styled off-the-grid types carrying messenger bags—nearly a thousand of whom have gathered here tonight to bathe in Darnielle’s light" wasn't followed with a "if I can't piss on my fans, I don't want to be famous" quote.

we need to create an uber-ma+m0s fan as article bait

i saw a fan go up to oldham with the "you're such a genius" shtick, it was really awkward until the guy asked if he knew where the bathroom was and oldham said "so you really like my music and you gotta take a piss?"

I'm trying to think of any examples of music profiles, other than Bill Buford's dirty-fighting takedown of Lucinda Williams, that don't just perpetuate the image the musician has already created a la written equivalent of an Annie Liebovitz photo.

That's why they're called "profiles" and not "exposes".

point taken

i remember some rolling stone article in the 90s where they sort of went into detail abt what a fraud they thought eddie vedder was

fuckin guy doesn't even WEAR flannel.

http://www.field.ca/images/large/mountaingoat_lg.jpg

In fact, profiles of super-cool independent musicians in mass-market consumer magazines almost inevitably turn out to be cringe-inducing, forced exercises in justifying the relevance of an artist that often doesn't really care about being relevant to begin with.

My usual problem with them, actually -- and this applies to some but not all of the pieces in question -- is that they're so often written by people who don't cover music.

That's not inherently a bad thing, depending on who you are. Most of these articles aren't really aimed at people who'd know or care a ton about the artist to begin with -- they're taking well-known figures from the music world and (often) hiring the feature and profile writers already in their address books to introduce those figures to a broader audience. (I have faith that there are plenty of music writers who could produce great magazine-style profiles; I assume they're just not always in the loop of the general-interest publications that run such things.)

But like someone said above, it does often turn into a case of a culture writer sort of parroting received wisdom about the artist in between gushing about how moved they are by the music, and how fascinated they are by the musician. They explain the mythology of the artist in ways that those in the artist's field have already started complicating. They make the artist's "cult-like" status sound like something particularly magical, whereas people who follow such things tend to be aware that the same article could be written about any number of the artist's peers. And in a lot of cases, it can lead to odd bits of misinformation, or semi-misleading emphasis of information, or the taking for granted of claims about music that a music writer would (hopefully) be more curious or critical about.

The one that most got me on this front was the Andrew Bird article, which contained claims like this:

He had lost interest in classical concertos, but he couldn’t relate to the stark, self-consciously simplistic sound of the post-punk scene that flourished in Chicago in the 1990s.

I'm not even sure what this is referring to: Chicago's popular alt-rock bands? the Chicago no-wave hardly anyone listened to? a 90s Chicago that contained no post-rock? This might seem like a nit-pick -- it is, really -- but it's the sort of thing I come across and don't understand why I couldn't be reading the same piece as written by someone who has enough connection with the material to unpack these things ... as opposed to what seems like a magazine guy who just happens to like Andrew Bird a lot:

Jonathan Mahler is a contributing writer. His most recent book is “The Challenge: Hamdan v. Rumsfeld and the Fight Over Presidential Power.”

I don't mean this to sound elitist, though I suppose it might technically qualify. It's just that ... I get the sense it's a lot harder for music critics to pitch stories about Hamdan v. Rumsfeld than it is for people to go in the opposite direction, and I'm not sure editors know some of the things that go wrong with the pieces that result.

^^those kind of "exposes" are bullshit imo because yeah it's usually at the level of just that xxp

that goat is stocky

I think he's referring to the post-punk Lounge Ax/Touch & Go scene circa 1999.

Wait, Eazy, you're being sarcastic, right?

um, that's what i assume the writer is referring to

I mean that as early as 2000 he was getting booked by Billions, and the particular music scene he was around at the time was making music that played against the strengths of what he was doing.

(But he was also pretty much part of the Hideout/alt-country world here in Chicago, played at a Doug Sahm tribute at Lounge Ax, and toured with Neko and others around that time, so he wasn't an ostracized guy at all; just didn't fit into what Billions and T&G were championing at the time.)

andrew bird, comfortably splitting the difference between concertos and simplistic chicago post-punk.

I don't understand how it would make sense to posit it as some formative thing that Bird wasn't attracted to the "flourishing" of a small group of Chicago post-punk bands.

xpost - by the way, we're talking about the mid-90s here

Honestly, I'm pretty sure that sentence is the writer's (non-music-jargony) way of referring to the alt-rock at the Metro, which it might make sense for Bird to react to. And I suspect the writer isn't otherwise aware that there was plenty of flourishing of complicated music on non-rock instruments happening in Chicago at exactly that moment. I suspect Andrew Bird told the writer he felt alienated from the rock/punk stuff going on in the city at the time, and the writer then assembled a sentence that made Bird sound, somewhat romantically, like a lone dissenter or misfit in a rock scene. Which makes for nice copy, but doesn't seem like a complete claim at all.

I don't understand how it would make sense to posit it as some formative thing that Bird wasn't attracted to the "flourishing" of a small group of Chicago post-punk bands.

that's not what the writer is saying. the writer is saying (as I read it) Bird wasn't interested in concertos, and he wasn't interested in Tar/Shellac whatever etc etc

Well, a lot of Chicago bands around him were fitting in with the sound of the labels here at the time: so there were Bloodshot bands, Touch & Go bands, and Thrill Jockey bands. What he was doing didn't fit in with those, and he was never on a local label, unlike a lot of his peers at the time.

I dunno, guys: keep in mind that this is a general-interest article written by someone who doesn't appear to write about music.

Que, the sentence is organized to suggest, pretty strongly, that the stark/simplistic "post-punk" that Bird couldn't relate to was somehow the dominant Chicago scene -- that it was the sound that "flourished" in 90s Chicago, leaving Bird somewhat romantically trapped between his concertos and the rock kids.

Now, no matter what we think he's referring to, or what elements of felt truth there might have been in that, we're talking about an era in Chicago where one major thing that was "flourishing" involved like Jim O'Rourke making pop and the Sea and Cake and such, so the suggestion that Andrew Bird was somehow an outcast from the mainstream of the scene seems really odd to me (even before the Bloodshot/Hideout stuff comes into view).

I'd reiterate that this is a non-music journalist in the NYT Magazine -- I really don't know that he himself exactly has Shellac in mind. Like I said, my guess is that a general expression on Bird's part of not being able to relate to some rock scene has just slipped onto the page, making for nice copy, without the writer's thinking: wait, was that the main scene happening at the time? Is anything else missing from this picture?

i think you're totally overthinking it. i think Shellac and the Sea and Cake and Jim O can all fall under post-punk/simplistic label (esp. if you're, as you say, a NY Times writer who doesn't write about music all that much) without too much trouble.

ay yi yi, this thread. Happy Birthday, John! Hahahahahaha!

O'Rourke records are too "stark" for Andrew Bird to relate to???

http://images.nymag.com/arts/popmusic/features/mountaingoats090309_3_560.jpg
<3 this pic haha

who is this andrew bird character anyway? someone i should have heard of? (not gonna read the nyt piece.)

hes a squirrel nut zipper

more like andrew turd

is he related to larry bird

he's good, you might like him. violin, loops and experimental vox. i hear the new one is good.

but does he poo clouds?

a quick gis reveals him to be DASHING, even when disheveled.

he does poo clouds, yes. pretty sick.

that goat is stocky

― velko, Monday, March 16, 2009 4:29 PM

like his fanbase ;)

Anyway, though, I'll try not to belabor the one sentence -- I just get this sense, when general-interest writers do these musician profiles, that certain impressions go wrong somewhere in the translation; probably the same way science buffs feel about science articles. (There are other details in the Bird piece that seemed odd to me: some fretting about playing large venues when I'm pretty sure he's played larger; some of the obligatory wrap-up conclusions; little profile details about songwriting process that seem like they'd be true for half of the musicians you talked to, etc.)

i saw a fan go up to oldham with the "you're such a genius" shtick, it was really awkward until the guy asked if he knew where the bathroom was and oldham said "so you really like my music and you gotta take a piss?"

― bnw, Monday, March 16, 2009 4:05 PM (59 minutes ago) Bookmark

I like to think that this fan views oldham as some all-powerful all-knowing oracle who can answer any query at hand

"will, what's the population of guam?"
"will, where will I go when I die?"
"will, where did I park my car?"

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=53098479

Jeremy
Mar 3, 2009 4:05 PM

More like Andrew Turd.

lol

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/MountainGoat08.jpg

nabisco's totally right, btw -- general-interest profiles of musicians often get things slightly or totally wrong. it has been thus forever. right?

mountain goats are pretty amazing looking! wow.

http://https%3A//www.abugames.com/images/products/5thedition/mountaingoat.jpg

http://mtg.windswalk.com/images/set_en/PT/146.jpg

http://mtg.windswalk.com/images/set_en/5E/252.jpg

nabisco's totally right, btw -- general-interest profiles of musicians often get things slightly or totally wrong. it has been thus forever. right?

how about: journalists get things slightly or totally wrong all the time etc etc etc

http://www.irreplaceablewild.org/media/gallery/mountaingoat.jpg

srsly i don't think anyone is disputing the idea that journalists often write inaccurate or biased pieces. for a wide variety of reasons! ignorance or self-indulgence are only two of many possibilities.

i am def gonna get some curry goat for dinner btw.

how about: journalists get things slightly or totally wrong all the time etc etc etc
nah, don't think that's true ... (kidding: yes.)

http://images.nymag.com/arts/popmusic/features/mountaingoats090309_3_560.jpghttp://www.huntinglodgesale.com/images/Mountain-Goat-Hunting.jpg

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/music/archives/2009/03/the_mountain_go.php

How funny, I happen to be an 30yr old obsessed Mountain Goats fan and former Juggalo, the two are not that far apart

Posted by: hanuman at March 3, 2009 2:41 PM

I think what's odd to me about it in these cases is that I'm pretty sure there are plenty of people who could write excellent general-audience profiles of Bird, from a perspective that's maybe more in the music field, most of them probably cheaper than regular NYT Mag contributors -- but that gap doesn't get filled often, does it? Beyond like SFJ and Kelefa and a few newspaper people. It's not that I think music can only be written about my music writers, but it always feels like there's an unnecessary disconnect on this front, a weird lack of bridging between the music realm and the general-audience stuff.

can we all at least agree that without getting into the validity of not of the gawker article that it reads like it was written by a child?

it = the gawker article

How funny, I happen to be an 30yr old obsessed Mountain Goats fan and former Juggalo, the two are not that far apart

dan's lying about his age, now?

the only similarity i see between mtn goats and insane clown posses is that they are both jesus lovers.

also both claim to have eaten dead bodies

TS: The Sunset Tree Vs. The Riddle Box

by virtue of being churchgoers, or something more sinister? xp

What is a mountain goat?
Lemme think for a second. (well? )
Oh, he gets butt naked.
And then he walks through the street winkin at freaks,
Wit a two-liter stuck in his butt-cheeks!
What is a mountain goat?
He just dont care.
He might try to put a weave in his nut hair.
Cuz he could give a fuck less what a bitch thinks,
He tell her that her butt stinks, and all that,
What is a mountain goat?
He drinks like a fish,
And then he starts huggin people like a drunk bitch,
Next thing hes pickin fights with his best friends,
Then he starts with the huggin again, fuck,
What is a mountain goat?
A fuckin lunatic.
Somebody with a rope tied to his dick,
Then he jumps out a ten-story windowéééoh!
(chorus:)
What is a mountain goat?
A mountain goat? if thats what it is, well fuck if I know.
What is a mountain goat?
I dont know, but Im down with the clown, and Im down for life, yo.
(end chorus)
(chorus)
(vocal breakdown)
What is a mountain goat?
A dead body.
Well he aint really dead, but he aint like anybody
That youve ever met before.
Hell eat monopoly and shit out connect four.
What is a moun-
What the fuck? connec-man, that shits wack.
Dont worry bout my shit, just rap, mutha fucker.
What is a mountain goat?
He aint a bitch boy.
Hell walk through to the hills and beat down a rich boy.
Walks right in the house where ya havin supper,
And dip his nuts in ya soupéébloop!
What is a mountain goat?
Well he aint a phoney.
Hell walk up and bust a nut in your macaroni.
And watch you sit there and finish up the last bit,
Cuz youre a stupid-ass dumb fuckin idiot.
What is a mountain goat?
Hes a graduate.
He graduated from......well,
At least hes got a job, hes not a dumb putz,
He works for himself scratchin his nuts, ha!
What is a mountain goat?
A hulkamaniac.
He powerbombs mutha fuckas into thumbtacks. (bwa!)
People like him till they find out hes unstable.
He sabued ya mama through a coffee table. (oh my god!)
(chorus)
(vocal breakdown)
(chorus)
(chorus)
(vocal breakdown)
What is a mountain goat?

both stab people

pretty certain i just ensured that i will never be on the J0hn D christmas card list

what are you even talking about, you just bought yourself lifetime guest list

What is a mountain goat?
He just dont care.

HELLO FALL 2009 TOUR SHIRT

J0hn, I posted a birthday song/lyric on your Facebook, do I get lifetime +1 guest list also?

referring to the Mountain Goats on my facebook gets you barred from the door forever, actually

it's been a ban-ner week for our man ilxor

Dang it.

How funny, I happen to be an 30yr old obsessed Mountain Goats fan and former Juggalo, the two are not that far apart

Posted by: hanuman at March 3, 2009 2:41 PM

After reading this article, I had a brief, worrying flash of "Oh god, do I just enjoy the Mountain Goats because they're some weird cult that has sprung up to replace Phish?"

It also didn't help that I downloaded a live show from archive.org and there was some background audience chatter. You can hear a guy saying "Oh yeah, they played that last night in Philly" or something

I 've never been to one of their concerts, but if it turns out that j)hn has a bitchin' light show, I'm really going to have to stop listening to his music.

None of them feel compelled to do the things that actually famous musicians did in order to get famous, like create an appealing persona and deliver it to a fascinated reporter.

Like, oh, Amy Winehouse?

http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/4774/amyw.png

laura says the NYC show this past Friday night was amazingly acoustic and intimate.

No one commented on the use of "stannery" in that Voice response article?

Hey J0hn you should book a show in MN on this tour.

stannery o'connor

holy shit how did I miss that epic MG/ICP interpolation

Hey J0hn you should book a show in MN on this tour.

Hay no worries, jjjusten, I fixed that typo for you.

Actually...

Hey J0hn you should book a show in MN TX on this tour.

Better.

*ducks*

This new one really is amazing. Right up there with the best of them for me.

Having trouble remembering the song titles, of course, but the Ezekiel one is particularly remarkable.

will be interesting to see how they translate to a live beatdown experience

^^

i love "genesis 3:23"

v. excited for first Mountain Goats show in Madison since I don't know when

v excited for the Boston show as I've never been in the Wilbur Theatre before

excited to be beaten within an inch of my life at the cedar cultural center

FINALLY

yeah, i've missed the MGs in madison like three times before. but now my gf is a huge fan, so i've got tickets.

xp: your beatings bingo card will at last be full

I am annoyed that I am missing a Boston show for the second time this year (I get back from a week away about an hour after the show will end, and I missed Somerville for similar reasons).

And I missed Zoop in exactly the same fashion. A year of failing to see the Mountain Goats, basically.

perhaps you can arrange for a mail order beatdown

Looking forward to the ATX show. Is this already out??

early October I think?

10.06.09.

Pitchfork: How's it going?

John Darnielle: I'm doing pretty good. Actually, I don't know if you're aware of this-- the album leaked today.

Pitchfork: I was not aware of that.

JD: Yeah. A few years ago that would have been, (gruff voice) "Oh no." But I live in the real world. It kind of takes a little pressure off when the album leaks.

Pitchfork: So are they going to start selling it online early or anything?

JD: No, no. Any thoughts I have about that stuff are just clod-talk. My stance on that stuff is that I have all sorts of weird ideas, and if I say something and somebody wants to run with it, that's cool. But I pretty much just focus on making the records-- unless I'm self-releasing them, then I do my own thing. But at some point, you have to stop worrying about chains of distribution or it takes out of your time to write.

Pitchfork: Have you been getting a lot of texts about the album today?

JD: Yeah. (laughs) There's a person in my chat list-- I don't know who they are, they only appear by screen name, but the chorus to the second song of the album suddenly popped up as their status. (laughs) "Oh, well, I'll be damned. It must be out there."

Pitchfork: That's one way to find out.

Ha

This is awesome, btw. I had "1 Samuel 15:23" on repeat for like an hour last night

Looking forward to this. It's going to get me to read as least 12 passages from the Bible.

This is his best album since The Sunset Tree.