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

xpost: don't think that's a cover, I think Oldham wrote it specifically for Staton's album. The version on Little Lost Blues is a demo.

Ah I didn't know that, what a stunning track at any rate.

I was at this show, good one from the archives ("Ohio Riverboat Song"/"I Am A Cinematographer"), age 24:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NYI8q2NZRM

damn "west palm beach" / "gulf shores" duo is killing it for me recently. just love those two songs so much. i am in SC right now and it has been warm and beautiful and the air smells like the ocean and there are palm trees everywhere and i have been rocking these two songs like crazy

SC btw is south carolina not southern california

Easily his greatest 7". Nothing else in his discography sounds quite like it.

yea! i'm just astonished too at how good all the palace stuff is. took a while for me to finally pick up the first two and "lost blues" and the quality is all very high amidst such a diversity in styles and approaches from the first palace record up through i see a darkness imo

Yeah, Days in the Wake, Lost Blues, Viva Last Blues, I See a Darkness, and Lie Down in the Light are the highlights for me. I like a good deal of his BPB work, but once he finds a more comfortable mode of singing and writing (pretty much following I See a Darkness) his work seems less often to have a certain exploratory quality.

Although Get on Jolly and The Wonder Show of the World have plenty of loose threads, to be sure....

haven't heard either of those! man this guy has so many albums. the post-ISAD BPB records i have are master & everyone, lie down in the light (which yea is very very good), beware (which i didn't like at first but is growing on me, esp. the second half). oh i think i have superwolf but i need to dig out from somewhere, haven't listened to it in a long while.

Get on Jolly (basically droney guitar noodling, but really gorgeous Dirty Three-ish noodling by Mick Turner, over verse adapted from Tagore's Gitanjali) is notable for having some of Oldham's most open song structures, I think; it's much looser than Moon Pix (on which Turner also played), but it's interesting to listen to those albums together.

oh rad, yea i have moon pix, need to get some more dirty three albums too, i love those guys.

Yeah, Dirty Three are great, although I came to like them more when I accepted that their albums basically worked minor variations on their established (but compelling) sound. But that's the case with so many bands....

this helped me get in to get on jolly

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

really adore get the fuck on jolly live too

In that Licht book he talks about West Palm Beach/Gulf Shores being his Jimmy Buffett single. Ever since I read The Long Secret I associate it with WPB.

Easily his greatest 7". Nothing else in his discography sounds quite like it.

― one way street, Thursday, November 6, 2014 5:34 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah don't think he'll ever top that 7". some days i think that's all he really needed to release, ever.

I've had a hard time getting really into anything he's done since Master and Everyone. Most of the output up to that point I like.

Master and Everyone itself I like, although at times it feels almost uncomfortably intimate and tender, in a similar (but very Oldhamian) way to Blue.

I'M LONG SINCE DEAD AND I LIVE IN HELL
SHE'S THE ONLY ONE THAT I LOVE WELL
WE WERE RAISED TOGETHER AND TOGETHER WE FELL
GOD IS WHAT I MAKE OF HIM

I do not believe he has written anything that troubling and compelling in the last 10 years, but would be happy to be corrected

^^^ especially when you imagine it being sung from the perspective of Bart Simpson

If you like the "open/exploratory" Palace stuff and you haven't heard Superwolf that's the best place to start getting into the BPB stuff. It has that same startling vibe where songs unfurl in unexpected ways. After that, I suggest exploring the trilogy of live albums - Summer in the Southeast, Is It The Sea? and Wilding in the West. That cracked, fragile swell of his early material still remains in his live stuff.

superwolf is great, kinda zeppelin
i really like lie down in the light and the letting go

goat and ram is such a great song!!!

Goat and Ram is so awesome that the next few songs seem underwhelming in comparison, but they're actually really good.

i don't even remember what they are
all is goat and ram

i really have a soft spot for summer in the southeast

Yeah actually I like Superwolf. On the whole I just feel like he's gone down this Dylan-esque "I am a confounding artist who will keep doing unpredictable things" path. But I should probably give the more recent stuff more of a chance - I heard a song off Lie Down In The Light recently that I liked a lot.

Oldham is one of those artists I always like when I hear, but rarely enjoy for long when I put it on myself. At this point the catalog is so windy and unwieldy there's really no easy point of entry, save "I See a Darkness," which I still think is all anyone really needs, even if you like the rest of the catalog. Though I guess I am aware that some folks find the guy unbearably moving and deep, which means they get more from him than I do. Obviously it's not fair to compare the guy - or anyone - to Dylan, but Oldham's balance of emotional honesty and humor has always struck me as much more confusing/confounding. I could equally imagine him penning a beautiful song about taking a dump and a stupid song about his mother dying.

i think there are a few records of his that work more or less equally well as a starting point: i see a darkness, sure, but also the letting go, and the lost blues comp.

Lost Blues > I See A Darkness

Lie Down in the Light is a really approachable, more comforting record, it's like his American Beauty

Similarly found it difficult to go beyond Ease Down the Road - like marcos I've come to the conclusion it's the singing as much as anything else, something platitudinous about it, though I think there's been a lyrical drop-off as well. NV's stanning for I Don't Belong to Anyone off Beware did something to win me over to that record and the Black Cab session version of Black Captain is wonderful. Would also second ows's praise of Get on Jolly - 25 off that is probably top 15 Oldham material for me.

The recent album seems terrifically boring - I haven't managed to make it all the way through.

I remember really liking the Trembling Bells collab record but have not listened in a while

Lie Down in the Light is a really approachable, more comforting record, it's like his American Beauty

ha yea it does have a very dead vibe to it, esp that first track which is probably the best on the album imo

the oral sex song starts off very strong but the climax of it is very bad imo

jeez, how many songs about oral sex does this guy have?

I love this song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IgTBFlUSeg

glad to see folks referencing the licht book. it is very good, not a while lot of musician "biographies" like it. made total sense to have a friend do the book, i always think of oldham as surrounded by friends and collaborators throughout his whole career who he really values and draws from. i could never see him agreeing to such a book with an unrelated journalist or something, and the fact that licht is a friend allows oldham to get much deeper into the questions than i've ever seen in any published interview.

not a while lot of musician "biographies" like it.

not sure where the "while" came from. anyways

This is my kids favorite dessert in the world: http://arthurmag.com/2009/04/02/will-oldham-on-his-double-chocolate-chess-pie-as-told-to-gabe-soria/

haha

When you take a bite of it, it’s like… how you know… it helps you recognize how omnipotent and indescribable God is. Because this food, you know, goes beyond, and obviously God, you know, God would go beyond anything a Pope could tell you, or an imam could say about, or rabbis, you know? They can pretend that they can tell you about God, but it’s way fucking beyond their comprehension, no matter how many books they read or how much they whip their back or do whatever they do. It’s the same thing with the pies when you realize that the way things work is way beyond anything you could comprehend. We can put [the ingredients] together, but we can’t explain why, when you put them together, why they do what they do.

did you like the cake?
ah some of it was nice
I have made a cake like that
in my own home once or twice
it was just as fine as that one
which we had some of today
none of it was wonderful
much more of it okay

A+++

btw i found this very wonderful picture on the internet

http://www.rockdelux.com/files/article/82/smog_1.jpg

is that bill callahan?

yes!

woah!

"What a bummer that my hair is thinning. Maybe I should grow a beard? Hmmm ... "

Shhh, It's Actually About Oral Sex

the new record from Bonnie Prince Billy

tbrr i cherish the memory of the time i sneezed at a show (bert jansch!) and someone behind me put a hand on my shoulder and said "bless you" i turned around to say thanks and it was will oldham

Surpised he didn't say https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Efk9p00mEJA

which borrows heavily from Billy Bragg's "I dreamed I Saw Phil Ochs Last Night" and samples Julee Cruise's "Falling" in reverse.