The Holey Trinity (sic)
Feeling mellow this AM, and thought i'd dig up a few tracks from a few of my favorite artists:
1. Good Ol' Will Oldham - doing a live recording on Dutch radio, the sound quality is as good as an album, as is the performance - could be straight off of "Master". Watching how this guy forms his syllables is fun too.
One youtuber commented: "i love this ugly man."
2+3 are from Ol' Billy Callahan, aka (smog) the "holy ghost" in my alt-folk/country/whatever, holy triumvirate; can you guess the other two? Apparently the girl dancing from the waist down is Chan Marshall, which is really hot to imagine - i don't know if that's true or not, since this songs off of Supper, and i think he might have been dating Joanna Newsom by this time, so i guess, then imagine it's Joanna... either way you win.
4. My buddy Jason, Molina. This guy doesn't seem to make videos, and this was the only one i could dig up. Good thing is one of his better songs, off of one of his darkest albums. I've really enjoyed this Youngian phase he's been going through lately with the Electric Co, but damn this guy could write a slow burner.
Choice lyric "I've be thrashed by the truth of your body" can feel that anguish?
4 comments:
I know we've already blogged the crap out of Ys, but now that I've had over a week to listen and digest, I'd like to throw it out there that "Sawdust and Diamonds" is as good a song as I've heard in years. Everything about it--from the shifting, melancholic melodies, to the incredibly affecting lyrics, to her nuanced phrasing--has me squeezin' out a single tear every time. As blasphemous as this probably sounds, when I first heard it, I was reminded of the reaction I had the first time I listened to "Desolation Row," just sitting there stunned and shaking my head with each passing line. You can spend years wading through a sea of like-minded albums and never replicate an experience like that. And it couldn't come at a better time--just when I had started to become dangerously jaded (thanks, Pure Pop job!), a song like this comes along and smacks me around, reminding me that this long-standing fixation with music is warranted, and I should continue to care. (I apologize for the embarrasingly sappy and sentimental post, but when you're up in Franklin County, the demograpic isn't exactly rife with those who can identify.)
Yeah Josh! way to feel it man, i know that feeling of jaded indifference, like nothing will ever be as good as that first time i heard Smells like teen spirit and i'd put the casstte single in my tape player and hit play and jump on my bed (5th grade.) till the first verse would come in, then i 'd just down and rewind it, and start again, remember when dave's drums come in, and the distorted guitar rips right through the song...
yeah, i felt similarly when i was listening to Joanna's new album, some of those lyrics and melodies just grabbed me and wouldn't let go.
Oddly enough it's been New Order that's been giving me that tingly feeling lately. weird i know.
Oh yes, "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is another perfect example. I definitely remember the first time I heard that one, too. A much more savvy upperclassman lent me his CD, and I went home and threw it in, completely unaware that the pathetic leetle existence I knew was about to be obliterated. (Interesting sidenote: That was the first CD I ever played. My parents had just bought me a player for my room, and I just asked my friend to lend me a good CD. My-T-Fine (you like that?) judgment on his part.)
I went through a pretty big New Order phase a few years back, and I know what you mean. It's weird how their music gives me nostalgic pangs, even though I never really listened to them when I was younger (other than "Blue Monday"). I'm guessing a lot of people from our generation experience that when they hear stuff from that era, though.
Well, I'm about to have a badass musical experience in a couple of minutes. I'm up at the parents' house, and my dad, being a pretty serious audiophile, has a home audio system worth about $25,000. (This is why I grew up in a tiny single-story ranch with NO pool.) Anyway, I've been raving about Ys, and he's going to play it now. He's quite possibly the biggest Dylan freak on the planet, and I just laid the "Desolation Row" analogy on him. This means one of two things will happen: he'll begrudgingly kinda agree, or he'll administer one mega ass-beating, which would be pretty interesting with Joanna soundtracking. (Maybe he can time the blows with the orchestral swells.)
I swear to God. I didn't know you had posted those two Smog videos before I posted the exact same two videos (in the same order nonetheless) tonight. That's just a freaky coincidence.
And a great album.
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