The Mountain Goats on 10/18

As previously mentioned, I am a slavish devotee of The Mountain Goats. To borrow from recent presidential debate speech, there's a fundamental difference between fans of TMG and non-fans (or even casual fans): the unaffected listeners hear a man with a funny voice, spazzy guitar and wordy, kind of pretentious lyrics, and the fans hear a quirky genius storyteller whose poetry and seeming simplicity present the trickiest parts of humanity laid bare. He is practically a messianic figure to those of us who get it, and we look pretty weird to the non-kooks on the sidelines.

I am, without a doubt, in the crazy-in-love camp, yet I still felt somewhat awkward when I arrived at the venue. In part this is because to be a Mountain Goats fan is to be awkward, and in part because I suspected that I was surrounded by people who out-obsessed me--I could tell they were better Darnielle fans than I was because of all the men had bushy beards, and skinny jeans and plaid button-down shirts were everywhere. Clearly there was a uniform and only the truest fans had received the memo. My suspicions were confirmed later, when I was seemingly the only one who couldn't sing along with every word of 'No Children,' the only one who failed to adequately prove their great love of The Mountain Goats! At least I could holler 'hail, Satan' along with the rest of the worshipping crowd.

After I attempted to drown my self-consciousness at the bar, Kaki King took the stage. I was unfamiliar with her before the show, but since Saturday I've been listening to her constantly. She played acoustic guitar more aggressively than anyone I've ever seen, slapping at the strings and giving the her spaced-out post-rock a sharper edge . Her acoustic-driven, often instrumental songs recalled wide-open Western landscapes, cowboys and bandits battling it out in the desert. I know I'll be listening to her the next time I drive through southern Utah and need a soundtrack for Highway 6.

I think John Darnielle might be the most charmingly awkward frontman I've ever seen. He's just a funny-looking-guy, for one thing, with a long bespectacled face that fits the odd stories he tells perfectly because it doesn't at all. He moves around the stage in a sort of disjointed way, kicking out his legs and stomping and generally moving like an excited Tin Man with not enough oil in his joints, but there's a tremendous joy in it. He was constantly grinning, even while singing some of the most tragic lines he's ever written.

The whole band had the same kind of unpolished, almost childish energy, and it gave each song the fuzzy fresh excited feeling that his early, low-fi recordings evoked, only with added intensity thanks to the extra instrumentation. Listening to Mountain Goats recordings a few days later, they all seem just slightly muted and held back. I guess this is always the consequence of seeing an artist who knows how to craft a live sound that's distinct from their studio one. If they really succeed, everything but their voice from the stage might seem like just an echo.

feeling the full brunt of the age

Tonight I will see The Mountain Goats perform at In The Venue. I bought my ticket in August and today's date, the concert, seems like sort of a mark of how unsettlingly fast the time between then and now has gone. Whenever time passes quickly before an event I've been looking forward to, I always feel slightly alarmed at the thought that the event itself will be gone just as fast. There's always the hope that I'll be able to press pause during a momentous occasion and savor it and truly enjoy it, and then I find that I've blinked and it's over.

TMG has released an EP for this tour, Satanic Messiah. You can buy it (and pay whatever you want for it) here. Mildly off-kilter piano is threaded throughout most of the EP, and the whole thing is well-suited to the beginning of autumn. When I close my eyes and listen, I can see leaves turning colors and falling.

but it's what we've earned

This is the fence outside my apartment complex, facing one of the busiest streets in the city. What's beyond the frame is more than twenty more Obama signs on this fence as 500 South curves into 400--I have no idea who put them up. In the past few months, Salt Lake has been smothered by Obama signs everywhere you look, and all I've seen of the other camp is one McCain-Palin bumper sticker.

And this is Utah. Granted, Salt Lake City is the most liberal part of the state, but it's still Utah.

The other day I heard someone around my age mention their past political apathy and excuse it because they came of age during the Bush Administration. I can see how the past eight years would make anyone apathetic, but overall I don't think my generation is the generation of apathy: rather, I think we are the generation of disillusionment. Our generation is going to get (and is already getting) saddled with the debt, the violence, the environmental damage and all of the bad decisions made by the generations that did such a great job fucking up the 20th century.

But I don't think that being disillusioned and angry is a bad thing. I think it makes us sharper, it gives us momentum, and it gives us the understanding of just how radical a change we need right now. If Obama wins big in three weeks, it will be in no small part because my generation stepped up and called bullshit on the way things have always been.

This song was released right before the 2004 election, but I found myself putting it on repeat in 2006 and again this year. The emotions and the statements continue to be relevant.

Eminem- Mosh

Of Montreal, 'Skeletal Lamping'

Of Montreal's last album, 'Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?' mastered one of my absolute favorite musical tricks: combining grim lyrics and sad sentiments with upbeat, cheerful melodies. They plumbed the depths of misanthropy and nihilism and set it to beats you couldn't help but dance to. Listening to it was like an excellently-written novel featuring a protagonist you were meant to hate.

Of Montreal keeps their sharp edge with 'Skeletal Lamping,' and whereas 'Hissing Fauna...' dealt with existential cynicism and depression, this album focuses more on themes of sexuality. There is romance here, but it's greasy and impure. "Gallery Piece" begins I wanna be your love/I want to make you cry/I want to sweep you off your feet and progresses to I wanna sell you out/want to expose your flaws/I wanna steal your things.

'Skeletal Lamping' is still dance-pop, but the band adds more elements this time. The instrumentation is all over the place, and many songs switch sounds completely halfway through. It has a certain calculated schizophrenia: the opening track, "Nonpareil of Favor," starts with quick hyper beats, then morphs into a country-esque bridge and then a psychedelic breakdown before reaching a three-minute-long shoegaze peak with what sounds like a choir in the background. This beginning is a good indicator for what you can expect--or rather, not expect--from the rest of the album. The influences are varied and the contrasts are ferocious, and I have another great album to listen to when I'm feeling so over humanity but still want to dance.