The Mountain Goats

I am totally not faking when I say that I don't get what's supposed to be wrong with the Spitznagl interview!

my 8 yr old daughter chimes in:

"what the... this is kind of annoying. going to georgia?? i thought your voice had to be good to have a CD out. how does this guy have a CD?... we need to get rid of this one... get rid of it, delete it from your computer at least, dad."

your daughter is kinda a dick

apple, tree, et cetera

Pretty much my favourite band ever. Had a wonderful bonding moment with my really surly 16 year old brother on holiday a few weeks back. I absent mindedly started singing Birth of Serpents in the car, he turns to me and asks why I was singing it, I was surprised he knew what it was, and then boom, he tells me about how much he loves the band, how he's got tonnes of their records etc. I've never got on with him better, so thanks John Darnielle!

that's my favorite mg song -- wtf little ilxtress

love TMG stuff, esp. as summer begins to fade into fall.

I love High Hawk Season, but I am biased

ha

i went to see their dublin show with some friends, we had a ball. suspiciously timed with the obama visit tho i must say

did u mean to say o'bama

looooooool ilxor

ní féidir liom xp

loool djp

i do like tmg

I love High Hawk Season, but I am biased

one of the best things ive heard all year. i am not biased!

http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ltowrfU1Ej1r5v7auo1_500.jpg

too much time on ilx imo

New track!

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/tracks/12730-thucydides-ii-58/

i try not to be a pushy fan but man if there was a whole now-cancelled mountain goats project of songs based on passages by classical historians i am going to be slightly rueful

Ooh!

that show is right at the start of EMP, ja

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roQj2eSRlXE

isn't that just the greatest thing ever? ^

That is great! Thanks for sharing

a JD/OP duet album would be VERY welcome round here and with me

as long as we get more sweet djp action too

(also what are matmos up to these days?)

the Anonymous 4 collaboration rolled out tonight was unbelievably good. I feel the need to hear it all again, since the arrangements were so intricate and perfectly attuned to the songs that each piece had a couple of moments I almost needed a breather after to take them in. Also v nice to see Mr Mountain Goats be so clearly thrilled by the occasion, and Owen Pallett perform in such a different situation, as a fill-in with A4 themselves (he looked increeeedibly nervous beforehand, but to my untrained ears it sounded great). Also thanks for finishing fairly early, as it meant I had time to run up the road and catch all of When Saints Go Machine's set.

v much worth dragging myself out of bed for as I continue to fight a bug, but I feel I'm going to need about 15 hours of sleep now.

Co-sign, especially about the need to hear it all again. If this stuff doesn't get recorded & released I might cry a little.

The quintessential @mountain_goats moment: Someone requests "Fault Lines," JD demurs, claiming lyrical ignorance. Fan hands him her iPhone.

next time i see dude i'm gonna bring a printout of 'song for cleomenes'

woohoo! http://pitchfork.com/news/46347-the-mountain-goats-reissue-old-cassettes/

"The songs you find on this compact disc originally appeared on two cassettes. To elaborate further about that—to say, for example, that the songs originally appeared 'on two cassettes that were released in ____ and ____'—would misrepresent the spirit of their time. These tapes did not have release dates. No one anticipated their coming into the world, and very few noticed or cared. All previous eras cross at some point into the territory of the unimaginable, and so it is with the days of tape-trading. The obscurity in which these songs were incubated and born and brought into their faint light is a state of being which has passed into history."

wow, I still have these cassettes floating around somewhere, but they are nigh-unplayable. Will buy the reissue, definitely.

New album in October:

http://www.mountain-goats.com/archives/2012/07/just-under-1000.html

SO EXCITED for the cassette reissues, somehow missed news of these but will get them today!

Is it possible that the songs with the drum machine and the keyboard are actually his very greatest work?

was listening to one of the recent solo shows and was impressed with the piano playing! very very nice.

xpost some definitely are--cant remember the name right now but whichever has the refrain "it won't be necessary" is all-time

"california song" up there for me

Sweden is just too much.

YOU'RE MEAN TO ME!
WHY MUST YOU BE MEAN TO ME?
YOU SHOULDN'T FORGET, YOU SEE, WHAT YOU MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAN TO ME!

Fantastic piano playing!

hey owen, can you say how involved you were on the new record? (its cool if you wanna just make us wait for liner notes)

actually, sorry for asking that. i know aero and i think yrself have said in the past to not talk directly about the day job

I heard the Desmond Child penned songs on this are great

would usually say "hey let's leave a classic like 'dude (looks like a lady)" alone, but the version here really brings the pain

As far as I know, Steven Tyler is pretty OK with talking about his day job round here

But getting back on topic, no, I contributed nothing to the new Mountain Goats album. They asked me to do some arrangements for two collaborative concerts with a capella group Anonymous 4, in March. I arranged three songs for guitar, voice + SSAA, four for piano, voice + SSAA, and one for voice + SSAA. (There were no string arrangements, as was reported.) I'm pretty sure NPR recorded the NYC performance and iirc the songs "Lakeside view apartments suite" and "Counterfeit Florida plates" were especially strong

(And for the record I'm OK with talking 'bout my day job so long as it's limited to clarifying already available facts and expressing positive opinions i.e. "he's a blessing and an inspiration")

Owen, thanks for making my brother's first ever gig (the Anonymous 4 show at the Barbican) one he'll never forget.