I was walking home from the bus stop today for the first time in weeks (I have been getting picked up since I did my ankle), as I was walking past one house I looked up over the tiled roof to the blue sky and though to myself it really is a prefect day. I am walking home from the bus stop, the cake box under my arm is empty, my hair is down, I walked out of work at 4pm and my desk was clear, the sky is blue after it was washed this morning and the temperature is just right. Oh and I was also listening/singing along to This Year. That last bit might have had a slightly bigger impact on me realising that today is a perfect day than say the empty cake box.
It also wasn’t just any This Year that I was listening to either it was from the show at Bottom of the Hill in San Fran last week. One thing I have noticed from listening to the recent shows on archive.org and reading blog reviews is that the shows are becoming more and more a big singalong. Am I complaining? No. Incidentally the Mountain Goats are one of two artists who I have never felt uncomfortable singing along to at gigs, the other is Peter Combe, he is/was a children’s artist, that is expected. A ‘Goats show is really just one big family reunion or perhaps it is the growth of a cult, we all look at this man on stage (JD) and his disciples and we say those words along with them. Saying those words from the bottom of our heart. Where it is ok to say those words, not those gigs where people around you look at you and start “bumping” into you if you start singing along at any level above a whisper. Saying those words like they are going to deliver you from salvation. mmmm perhaps I should just put The Mountain Goats in the religion box on facebook.
Which leads me to the The ‘Goats and their upcoming tour. In just about a month exactly I am going to flex off early from work on Friday and fly down to Newcastle see them play and then go to Sydney for the Saturday night show before coming back to Brisbane on Sunday, catching their Tuesday show at the Zoo before going up to the Sunny Coast on Thursday for the last show. Crazy perhaps but as Mum tells me I am footloose, fancy free and working the 8-4. I haven’t bought my plane tickets or show tickets yet but I will be doing that in the next few days.
This is a photo I took on the way home today. A little lost shoe.
It is Feb 18 and I have known what my top three albums of 2008 will be for about the last six weeks. These are three albums that I have been looking forward, one for years, the others not so long. These are albums by three artists who have each made significant thumb prints on my musical taste. I have vivid memories of the first time that I heard/saw each of these artists. I remember sitting in front of the TV watching a clip on RAGE and going woah! Or listening to some random US college radio stream and googling the song lyrics with more haste than I ever have before. The other I remember sitting on the floor at The Troubie grinning and going Man oh Man, where has this person been hiding? These are albums that will be played and are been played endlessly on repeat. Those albums that you make numerous copies of so that you have one beside every CD player you frequent. The album that no matter how many times you listen to it through you still smile at the opening strains of a track.
This post was originally planned as one large post with all three albums in it. However, one album came out today, the other comes out in two months and the third sometime in June and as a result I have typed a fair bit about the album that was released today but not much about the other two. Which is not very fair is it? The album that came out today I have been listening to on non-stop repeat ever since I got the leaked copy, the others I have heard a 60 second clip of one track and the other I know some songs due to a promo single. Anyone who knows me and has actually listened when I have talked about music in the past few years will quite possibly know the three albums I am talking about now.
I rang a few stores today to see who had this album in stock, Rocking Horse told me that they had it on the shelf since last week! The other stores were still waiting for it come in. I went to Rocking Horse after work today
As soon you read that line though you knew didn’t you. The ‘Goats (as I refer to them) show back on September 10, 2005 at the Zoo marked a turning point for me. I was so hungry to see this band play that I bit the bullet, walked into Rocking Horse bought a ticket and went to my first real gig by myself. Just after the second time I witnessed them play in April 2006 I made this comment in a blog post. It was also probably my first time taking gig photos.
However, there is small group of bands that you love on a whole other level. They are the ones where the songs reverberate through your soul, you smile/frown/cry/get angry/laugh at their songs. They are bands in which you feel connected to every other person at the gig, knowing that you are a select group of people taking part in something special. They are the bands that don’t need pyrotechnics, fancy lighting or 99 costume changes to make music. All they need is themselves and their instruments to create music that you can feel in the air. It’s music that tells a story, it’s what makes me live.
JD put a copy of the opening track Sax Rohmer #1 on the ‘Goats blog. I googled it to see what others had said and found out that the album had leaked. My fingers quivered over the keyboard, to grab a copy or not, I got a copy. Man o Man x 254. So looking forward to the ‘Goats tour in April. The Zoo will go off and wherever else I might see the show…..
Back to the album.
This is one hell of an album. It is no Sunset Tree that doesn’t mean it is bad it is anything but. I think I love it more than Sunset Tree, to my ears it flows together better as a whole album when playing it through. It is a few years after The Sunset Tree. It is an older album. It is grown up. I hear promises in it. I hear life and love and lost love in it. Stereogum posted a premature evaluation I agree with parts of it but not with other parts. Perhaps because I just disappear into a smile when I listen to the CD, I love that album unconditionally.
Hearing the opening strains of San Bernardino my heart starts to flutter at the joy that song holds. Then there is Sax Rhomer #1 that just whispers to me to sing the chorus line “I’m coming home to you if it’s the last thing that I do”. and oh the video clip for Sax Rhomer #1 is such an interesting clip.
Michael Myers Resplendent is perhaps the song that has grown on me the most. It has those grand orchestral feelings. I can just see JD and PPH in my mind doing a Tim Freedman/Ben Folds with any of the state orchestras. It just feels so grand.
I have a feeling if JD was born a 100 years ago, he would have been one of the great novelists or poets of the modern world. We would not talk of Hemingway or Huxley but of Darnielle. His lyrics are just so perfectly written, so illustrative yet full of hidden meaning.
The Mountain Goats are not for everyone but oh if you love them you love them so much it hurts.
Yeah, that is an employment contract on the right of the frame. Yeah, I now have a full time job working in medical admin as part of the Defence Force Recruiting organisation. I am working with a great bunch of people including one girl who was a few years below me in primary school. I also have a very nice view from the twelfth floor out to the Spring Hill end of the CBD. Things are starting to look up. 2008 is going to be a good year I think. It may not have started very well at all but things happen for a reason.
Thursday evening after buying my car, I went over to Thor’s. Tom and Tiana had arrived in town a few hours earlier ahead of the gig up at Eumundi tonight (my car’s first road trip). Before I had even walked in the door I had hurt myself. Thor has a first floor flat, you walk below her balcony to the stairs, they were sitting out on the balcony. I said “hooroo, buzz me up will you as I have no intention of climbing the wall up”. Thor joked about letting down her hair and I could climb up on that. I did a little leap as if to grab the hair as it was been let down. I missed the imaginary hair by a mile. I landed in the garden, my ankle landed on the concrete. My ankle went ouch, I went cripes my camera. Camera all fine, ankle very sore. What a way to make a first impression on Tiana. That is life though. RICE is making it ok though, swelling is down a bit and a lot of the pain has gone.
I am listening to ZOOP at the moment. It is something magical. I wish I had pocket sized JD and PPH to keep in my pocket. Then when I needed some ‘Goats, I would carefully lift them from my pocket, place them in the palm of my hand or on my desk and listen to them weave their magic.
