So it’s not every day that your favorite band puts out a new album, and the real truth is that I am typically pretty on top of these things in the manner of anybody who grew up claiming that music changed his life and is now thirty-one and would still probably hold on to this fact. So it was strange to the point of feeling disconcerting when I got the Insound newsletter today and it mentioned that yes, that crazy* bible-themed new Mountain Goats album, The Life of the World to Come, came out today.
Needless to say I have never been more on time as far as leaving for lunch break in my life.
I really didn’t think I would end up posting anything about Michael Jackson, to be quite honest. I think as a midwestern boy growing up, he sort of represented in a human being all the cries of “Faggot!” that boys grow up with as well as scary city stuff, all wrapped up in a man who had two massive faces–the weirdo my mom would probably group in with David Bowie and a few others, and the genius that no one could escape.
He was one of those transcendent musicians who still trigger indiscriminate memories (seeing Alfonso pretend to be him on “Silver Spoons”) as well as memories that understandably seemed big enough at the time to still be rattling around in my 31-year-old brain (being envious yet fascinated when a classmate could dance like him; watching as my TV broke the scandal about “markings” a young boy could identify)(a story breaking, as I recall, at a time also scarred by the Magic Johnson announcement).
Is Michael Jackson what I hope to hear when I go to Soul Night? Of course. There’s no question that, now that the 80’s no longer seem so kitschy, his music still makes people put their drink down and get back to dancin’.
But really, I wanted to write a post simply because I read this over at Said the Gramophone, and it simultaneously showed the strength of that blog while also reminding me of the greatness of a man so wrapped up in so many things beyond “just” making shockingly good music. It’s a post worth sharing, and the demo of “Billie Jean” accompanying the piece will make you smile. I really hope you all will read it.
The first impression I had was that I didn’t see any names that I recognized. I was hoping that they’d bring back Mike Daisey, of course (I did call him the darling of the festival last year, and he mentioned trying to do a 24 hour performance–something that I’d love to see), but also, it’s pretty unusual that they don’t have any repeats.* When you add the popularity of Superamas and the Reggie Watts fest of last year, I’d have expected at least one of those three artists to be back. Who knows how busy any of those artists are, but I’ recalling the back-to-back years that Nature Theatre spent here as an example.
There have only been a few performers (most notably, Laurie Anderson) that I have known before hearing about them in conjunction with this festival, and this year continues that pattern. A quick scan of the lineup and I’m already excited about seeing Erik Friedlander (I’m hoping he’ll collaborate with the Portland Cello Project at the Works), the Back to Back Theatre piece sounds intriguing, and another piece has…vampires? Pan Pan Theatre’s production, looking at living life publicly online, hits home for obvious reasons as well.
At any rate, after stepping up my volunteering for two years, and then becoming a blogger last year, I’m really thinking about taking the week off and getting a (non press) pass this year. I want to be able to attend the late night stuff as well as the regular shows, and really, I have told multiple people that if I ever move away from Portland, the TBA would keep me visiting annually. I’d still like to blog, but it also looks like it might be time to take the plunge and grab an audience pass.
*Granted, I’m basing this one what I’ve seen and remember. No fact-checking here! There are TBA alums, but none that rang a bell for me.
Today I went to see Ben Kulp play at Scratch PDX, which the organizers bill as “Portland’s Performance Playground.”
Like a lot of performance nights in that vein, Scratch PDX had a range of talent, depth, and quality. Some stuff was pretty *wink wink* but overall, the performers were committed and the audience was generally apt to love what they were seeing.
I’m always fascinated by how the audience for something like this (or really anything) has a core group of regulars. It’s amazing because you think about this shared, communal experience, people going weekend after weekend to see 30 plays in 60 minutes, or, in this case, once a month for the non-summer months of the year to see the community at large perform works of varying polish. I found myself wondering what would happen if I decided to go for a year without listening to or viewing anything that was prerecorded.
[Side note: Ben was great. It was nice to see his first performance ever. It was fun to see public reaction, and see him control what he could and shrug when he couldn't.]
A night like this does two things for me, and I doubt I’m the only one who would say these things. First, it makes me realize there is a community out there for performance, and gives me a bit of a “wow, this was here all along, why have I never gone before?” response. Secondly, it inspires me to make work of my own–and in this case, it reminds me that I’ve got a background and a lot of training in this, and that I could so something worthwhile.
That’s exciting stuff. I’m glad I was there. I might be there next month, if they’d have me, to perform.
Bill Callahan’s “Sycamore” exemplifies the kind of song that completely derails your intention to listen to a full album. I swear, I still fully believe that Woke On A Whaleheart is a brilliant album, but when you put “Sycamore” fourth (right after the stellar “Diamond Dancer,” too) on it, you’re basically asking a listener raised on CD’s to listen to the first four songs on the album over and over.
The song starts out with the looping, swirling, complicated-but-not guitar lick that Callahan comes back to again and again, and then straight into the lyrics:
There’s sap in the trees if you tap ‘em
There’s blood on the seas–if you map ‘em
Christian, if you see your papa–tell ‘im I love ‘im
And he goes from there, short pithy sayings that make you feel so much like he owns his lyrics, like he can pull them off and make them amazing and no one else could. He’s like a one man mythos every time out, and “Sycamore” is no exception.
Other than that, you’ve got the basic drumbeat, understated gospel backing vocals (how often can someone say that?), and lyrics that just continue to somehow be killer and yet not wordy at all. Callahan doing “basic” equals simple that defies you to write something so great. He’s also got the guitar solo that fits somewhere between caffeinated country and the cherry music from Mr. Do!, a man playing guitar that sounds like 8-bit video games…and also, aw hell. Eff the critic-speak.
You know what? It’s just a damn good song. A great song. The one song that I remembered from the time I saw him open for Joanna Newsom to the time the album came out.
Simple, complex, catchy, twangy, clean.
It’s perfect.
***
I’ve got about 10000 songs in iTunes, and about ten of them have made the “Perfect” playlist. This is one of them.
