Bill Callahan - Dream River

oh cool! feel like there's always been a pretty significant VU influence in his work tho

also, maybe it was in the teenage spaceship thread, but there was a lot of talk recently about his increased level of exposure now, more critical awareness, etc. i feel like part of the reason is that bill is more actively promoting himself now? doing more interviews, the documentary, special concerts, etc.

i mean, in addition to making somewhat more accessible music

he certainly seems less scary these days. i interviewed dan bejar a million years ago, and he was talking about how much he loved smog, but he said something like "i feel like you have to be some kind of sociopath to write those lyrics." which is interesting -- i probably agreed at the time, but his recent work is kind of making me re-assess the vibe of the smog years.

Speaking of bejar, I saw him solo acoustic the other day and he was surprisingly talkative. He maybe said 3 words the previous times I saw him

re: the pitchfork piece, would it be so terrible for music publications to impose a ratio of direct-artist-quotation to thoughtful-author-musing in interviews? i am totally psyched to hear about the contents of that borrowed apartment & how much the guy gets a kick out of teenage spaceship & how bill is famously a prickly & laconic interview subject although lately is not so much & in this instance & in fact generally now by large is actually not, but it sucks to have a ~career spanning retrospective~ that has like four lines of direct introspectiveness

hyped to hear about the hexxxx/smog show tyler, report back at length

totally. missed the last hex denver show, shamefully.

ha ya i wasnt sure why it went into so much detail about like... an apartment that wasnt even his... and never mentioned even where he actually lives?

The Spin article was way better.

yea totally. i like that writer (mark richardson) but less so in his formal writing for pitchfork. much prefer his informal stuff on his blog. i also feel like the p4k article didn't tell me anything new at all, either about callahan himself or even novel or thoughtful takes on his music.

would it be so terrible for music publications to impose a ratio of direct-artist-quotation to thoughtful-author-musing in interviews?

otm. so disappointing when i see an "interview" that is like 80% the writer talking about the artist and 20% the artist talking.

been listening to Fred Neil and Silver Jews with drinks. I don't think my gf enjoys this kind of thing. I'm that dude with imaginary gurus, dragging his gf along for the ride tonight.

she dragged me to cold war kids tbf

I once filled in for a guitarist in a rap/reggae band opening for some dude from "slightly stupid" and some dude had dragged his gf like 200 miles to see said dude

Opened with white light/white heat. Followed with javelin. Good show! Picked up dream river.

Had no idea ilxor some dude was either in or into Slightly Stoopid.

I didn't expect this:
http://adamcarolla.com/bill-callahan-and-robert-patrick-lewis/

He did CBB too

show in Denver this week was excellent -- opened with white light white heat w/ neil hagerty shredding behind him. all of the dream river stuff sounded great, but the highlight for me was the lonnnnnnng "one fine morning," which felt like one of those epic van morrison tracks. worst part of the evening was that I arrived just before 9pm to learn that the howling hex had already played! embarrassing, since i think i'm the only howling hex fan in denver. 9pm though! I wouldn't have been able to make it down earlier if i had known...

this got mojo album of the year btw, which is surprising. i love smog but ive yet to hear the guys solo records yet

they are all solo records, really

also does anything else think the big extended cover of percy mayfield's "please send me someone to love" they've been doing on (every stop on?) this tour is kind of a mess? for one thing, bill cannot sell those lyrics at all. i mean, obviously it's kind of purposely a mess, almost a piss-taking thing where callahan "solos" on a blues number. but for that reason it's not much fun to listen to. i was kind of psyched when I heard he was doing this cover on the tour, b/c i'm a huge percy mayfield fan, but i was way disappointed.

i mean the earliest smog stuff is literally solo.

yeah, the idea of the "please send me someone to love" cover was better than its actuality...

well i think a lot of specialness of the original is in mayfield's delivery and while bill has many strengths as a singer he just can't pull it off with the same emotional dexterity. he should probably stay away from songs in the R&B tradition, it just reveals his limitations.

it's a mix of despondency and wry humor, and the way mayfield goes up and down his register, bill just can't compete. dig:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqg_h51y4cI

it's a nice gesture, though. i sometimes worry i'm the only one under 60 that remembers and loves that sort of postwar R&B.

i do worry that in a decade or two my enthusiasm for this stuff will be like people in the 1960s who dug turn-of-the-century record artists like nora bayes, i.e. totally marginal and weird.

well then i've got some bad news for ya, buddy

lol http://www.dragcity.com/products/have-fun-with-god

hmmm, i didn't listen to that dub single, was it good?

eh

it was kinda cool to hear but i didn't feel like it was totally worth revisiting

x-post a few posts up

it's a nice gesture, though. i sometimes worry i'm the only one under 60 that remembers and loves that sort of postwar R&B.

― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Thursday, November 28, 2013 8:56 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

A few of us do...But I understand the feeling

will buy this for the sleeve

http://exclaim.ca/images/bill21.jpg

ha that owns

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/18866-bill-callahan-have-fun-with-god/

can someone shed some light on "I've got limitations/like Marvin Gaye"?

Thank christ "Sing" doesn't have a flute murdering it. Great song.

http://www.freep.com/article/20131009/ENT04/310090011/

http://rock.rapgenius.com/Bill-callahan-the-sing-lyrics#note-2415360

detroit free press my ass, stupid paywall

here ya go:

http://permanentsmile.tumblr.com/post/63760595214/bill-talks-songwriting-guitar-greatness-and-marvin

thanks Sufjan. i figured it was something like that but thought it may be a specific lyrical reference.

np. Since my partner would prefer not to hear Bill playing in our small apartment, side A of this record has become my every morning ritual. "The Sing" really is awesome, but I don't mind the flute on other tracks. I'm not sure that I prefer the flute, but I don't mind it.

love the flute

sufjan how attached are you to this partner

haha, very! I even enjoy a bit of music disagreement, though.

what's her Bill beef?

she thinks he "talk sings". she has vocal hangups. she's not into Mountain Goats or Silver Jews either. But she saw both Bill and MGs live with me, so I don't think she minds too much. I just give her veto privs so I can maintain my own veto privs. otherwise I'd be hearing THAO & THE GET DOWN STAY DOWN a lot more.

I also thing I overplayed A River Ain't Too Much To Love on a roadtrip to San Diego, and she's never quite forgiven me

he does sing talk, that is why he is great

beer.

thank you.

i guess one person's sing talk is another person's jazz flute