Will Oldham/Palace/Bonnie Prince Billie: S&D

i went to a fair in a small and quaint english town once & all the villagers were wearing costumes & among them walked bonnie prince billy

i have a picture somewhere

it was nice because there was a moment when we pointed across the harbour while we were eating at a man with a big beard wearing all denim, & said that he looked like bonnie prince billy, this amusing because bonnie prince billy's look is that of the strange man of the village, probably at least approximately replicated in most small and quaint villages

but it was bonnie prince billy

o hey

http://i.imgur.com/LfATSmo.png

I'm pretty sure I saw him on the street in Chicago with a large Jamba Juice. At the time I thought can't be but of course it could have been.

Oh, and I'd forgotten but I did meet him at a Blowfly show. He recommended a taco place down the street, a shack that was thick with pot smoke and good tacos, forever after known to me as the "Will Oldham Taco Place."

Meanwhile, a new interview:
http://bombmagazine.org/article/2000011/will-oldham

fiddle does wail in that new black rich vid.. striking lead, 2 minutes in

I've seen him in Louisville bars, but never felt like disturbing him. I thought of posting that Bomb interview: given how often writing about BPB lingers on his eccentricities, the most interesting part of the interview for me was his stress on decentering the performer's emotions for the sake of the song (shades of the way Bresson used actors):

At that point, your body has learned to do this thing, the releasing of the song out into the world, which is not about what the performer feels, but what the listener feels. The performer at some point will feel that they failed to make a point because they are not doing their best to communicate the power of the song, but it might be best when all of the emotional baggage is out of the way and the performer just plays the song. In the same way, a director might make an actor do a scene thirty, forty, or fifty times, if they want them to get the technique out of the way and have it all be second nature.

that's probably an allusion to bresson (ozu also did that btw)--oldham's a major cinephile.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_Music_%28horse%29

That's interesting; I think Oldham's said that his project was named after the Palace Flophouse in Steinbeck's Cannery Row, but it seems possible that he could have also been aware of the racehorse.

Bob Nastanovich moved in to a house across from the Downs in 1992 and Will was a one time roommate of his.

can't help repeating myself but I love "Whipped". as funny as it is affecting, like much of w.o.'s best stuff

the new LP versh is great but I still prefer the bombast of this one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vSvyxlUdb8

"it's valentine's day / and i'm catatonic" is such a great line

i really like the album he did w/tortoise too

https://soundcloud.com/temporary-residence-ltd-1/bonnie-stillwatter-the-devil-is-people

Will backed by Britt Walford on drums and Zac from Grails on guitar.

and here is the b-side remix by Bundy K. Brown:
https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/202066152%3Fsecret_token%3Ds-ruIxW&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true

*imagining a 'conceptual collaboration' between Will Oldham, Stephen Stills, & these guys
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/5d/Sweetwater_sm.jpg*

finally picked up ease down the road, it is pretty good

i like it way better than master & everyone

i could imagine it being a letdown after darkness but 15 years later when it is just another title among oldham's 20-odd albums it is very good

kind of reminds me of "joya", mid-period oldham that is somewhat minor but still interesting and pleasant

wasn't joya the first lp under the will oldham name? it felt momentous to me (at 16) for that reason and so looms large in my personal palace cosmology. really good record still i think. i need to revisit ease down the road.

I like both Joya and EDTR. They're records that could only have been made by a guy in his thirties. Anyway, that's how I like to think of them.

The s/t album from 2013 is, I think, his strongest work in years.

I went back to Master & Everyone a few weeks back and found it really dull. I always confuse that one with Beware (which iirc is pretty good)

oldham sounds so good on this new joan shelley song: https://soundcloud.com/noquarterrex/stay-on-my-shore-by-joan-shelley

He did a low-key show in Louisville the other night, would have been great to be there.

Ease Down The Road is my favorite. And perfect one to listen to this time of year. Pajo's Allman-y solo on "May It Always Be" followed by the line "And in the morning we'll wrestle and ruin our stomachs with coffee."

The only blight on that record is "Just To See My Holly Home." I always skip that one.

nah. that's one of the better songs on that album imo.

ent back to Master & Everyone a few weeks back and found it really dull. I always confuse that one with Beware (which iirc is pretty good)

― Wimmels, Tuesday, June 30, 2015 11:08 AM (30 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i confuse them too. i have never been able to get into master & everyone, it definitely seems super dull and boring, i don't know maybe it will click for me one day

i love holly home!

M&E is like a balm/relief for a troubled psyche, it's soft, tenuous, warm. there are nice subtleties to mark nevers' production.. he also recorded is a woman by Lambchop, which is remarkably lush and spare.

definitely a lot of beautiful and subtle touches poured onto M&E, but the songs (outside of The Way, which is gorgeous and crushing) never really stuck with me.

been many years since i've listened though. should really revisit.

"maundering" resonates, w/its lyrics, and a lean, ranch fence-styled guitar lead.. a minor highlight of the album. weed helped to synchronize with the general wavelength/vibe of the album.

caught them live, maybe a year or so after master and everyone was released. the songs def had more weight and power, spruced up and rocked out somewhat. it helped to be already familiar with the material as well.. they played at one of the better venues (the zephyr) in salt lake city, before it closed down. I believe ZWAN had also played in town that day, as some of the members were in the audience.

http://www.dominorecordco.com/pondscum/

Saw him last night at the Vic in Chicago. He's got an astoundingly gifted band with him right now. The last song -- a medley of "Jolly One (2/15)" and "New Partner" that included harmonies from Maiden Radio (including Joan Shelley and Cheyenne Mize) -- was just gorgeous.

Having heard him in the early days then sort of checking out for good twelve or fifteen years, I'm blown away at the artist he's turned into. The thing that kind of blows my mind is that he still has a long career ahead of him. Really curious where he'll be creatively in another ten years.

Nice, he's been doing that as a set closer for a while:

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

So majestic when he's hood flies off at the end of the song. Surely staged.

Will Oldham can control the weather. Next steps in career: mainstream country success, own line of eyeliner, meteorokinesis.

I've been aware of Oldham since his earliest output, which didn't do much for me back then, and in the ensuing years I've dipped in and out of his vast discography. Some albums are good, some not as good, but for some reason I'm one of those guys for whom "I See a Darkness" is the only Oldham I'll ever play. The guy is certainly gifted, but I sometimes feel like there is a secret language I'm just not understanding, or other people are pretending to understand. Is it me, or is it him?

A sentence I have not heard anyone utter in at least twenty years: "There's a song on the new Bonnie Prince Billy album you've just got to hear." Talented chap but has been coasting / resting on his laurels for a long time.

It was a while ago but I think Superwolf has some must-hears.

I really want that album he did with Bitchin Bajas with the fortune cookie lyrics

josh - i think, at least to me, the 'secret' language you allude to is rather just the 'world' of palace/bonnie itself. will's skew-whiff delivery aside, the appeal for me is how he fluidly embodies his work... the way he just seems to breathe and live everything thats inside him. it can seem cryptic on the surface. really i think its just existential. i feel the same way about jandek, who's existential throughout his catalogue, too. while jandek's a tough listen, sometimes, i can sit and read jandek's lyrics for hours on end. digressing a bit, but... i suppose that's as succinct as i can try to be about will. maybe it sounds like im talking out my arse... im just trying to articulate what you picked up on a bit.

I think the best record he did was the one with Nashville session guys, Sings Greatest Palace Music. I didn't mind Singer's Grave a Sea of Tongues, but whatever. I've always found him just a bit...ahh, ehh. He's got good taste in stuff, for sure.

Ease Down The Road is my pick. Also, his book-long conversation with Alan Licht is pretty good at articulating the choices of persona, arrangements, etc.

fave thing he ever did was that version of Hot Chip's I Feel Better, "I Feel Bonnie"

How does this thread have no mention of the gorgeous, moving, lyrical The Letting Go? Dawn McCarthy brings ellipsoid, inverted harmonies from another dimension, Valgeir Sigurðsson's production and orchestration is sympathetic and minimal, and the songs are understated and absolutely devastating.
Oldham's greatest work bypasses form and makes an unusually direct emotional connection. If you don't feel it, you don't, but I do.
Seek: Days in the Wake, Hope EP, Viva Last Blues, Arise, Therefore, Black/Rich Music, Lost Blues, I See a Darkness, Little Lost Blues, The Letting Go
Destroy Sings Greatest Palace Music (sorry, I know many like it) - apart from TLG he kind of lost me after that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsddBLr6pFc

yeah there are tons of great songs in his stuff from the last decade... he just releases a lot of stuff, which i think minimizes the market/word-of-mouth impact of any one album or song.

I was completely obsessed during my college years. Yeah, as beautifully articulated above, it's less catchy jams and more about a lilting, dark/light mystic world that he conjures and inhabits. I think he's a brilliant lyricist and persona.