Bill Callahan - Dream River

:-o

so i listened to this record again this morning and it really hit me this time. it's really wonderful. the heaviness of the record started to set in and the songs' individual characters revealed themselves to me a little bit more. i started noticing more of the great lyrics and singing on here rather than the flutes and congas and grooves that were more immediately apparent at first listen.

the tune that really hit me this morning was "summer painter" -- it reminded me so much of "drover," like this exploration of this vocation and the narrator's confrontation with nature, overwhelming the narrator and acting as a turning point in the song. that point in drover when bill sings quietly, "and my cattle turns on me / i was knocked back flat" and all the instrumentation calls up the sound of cattle storming. and here in "summer painter" all this swirling guitar evoking the hurricane.

only had a few listens, waiting for the album to register beyond the pleasant production... the percussion is interesting and there is some nice electric guitar parts. still, this sounds well-smoothed out, refined BC. vocal melody on "small plane" faintly recalls the same one used on "our anniversary." i would choose rain on lens over this, easily. funny he's receiving near-unanimous praise and exposure for river dream, with all of the (superior) material that has come before it. hope it's a grower

agree with that completely, braunld, i think it *sounds* good but doesn't really interest me. there are some really good lines (The only words i've said today/ are "beer" and "thank you") and some other lines where my reaction was like - eh, did you really do that? - like he's teasing you by making you think he's going to make the most obvious/cheesy rhyme ever... and he does make that rhyme you dreaded. he pauses a bit before the awful rhyme... and does it anyway. i'm 100% sure it's intentional but i don't like it.

schlump, i don't like the flutes. i think they kill "javelin unlanding". i had such high hopes for this track from the title but it's weird goodness is killed by flutes imo.

the opening track is the only one i really like - the "we're all looking for a body/ or a means to make one sing" closer on that track is great but it still doesn't come anywhere close to the highs on apocalypse!

huh. that's really interesting to hear, jed; i'm kinda bummed!, cause your enthusiasm for apocalypse - front to back - satisfies me, i guess knowing there's an appetite for its more drawn-out moments whether or not they're the things that ring out to me. i really like this record more & more, anyhow. it's funny that you & goon-tie are so against the flutes; i listen & don't even hear a flute, distinctly, i'm just playing eyebrow-jazz-flute at whoever i am passing, hearing it on headphones, the flute the punctuation of his verses, not dissimilar to those kinda depth-charge guitar swells he detonates periodically. i think the flutes, too, have this kind of purer feel than some of the other sounds, than the americana-n fiddle, anyway, they're part of the energy & movement, like the shakers are, rather than part of the cinematic dressing. the arrangements on this are really interesting to me, & pleasuably kinda piecemeal upon familiarity; i can't hear javelin or the sing without waiting for their short chapters to end & for the part with the strummed fiddle to start, or for the flutes to climb onto their perch, for the guitar to screech into some fugue. they're very rollercoaster. & lyrically it's very rich, i think - though for sure looser than what he was doing on like jim cain or baby's breath - & here only in a way that is incrementally revealed to me. the only parts that adhere to the kinda dumb-rhymes criticism i can think of are the impossibly grand line, & perhaps the boat-painting jam, but those like ... they aren't distracting me. there's so much just littered that resonates; outside a train sings its whale song / to a long long train, long long gone / then silence comes back alone. & those lines about the war, handled with kinda house-style exquisite grace, i think. for real his kinda jokes here - pilgrim guts, jokes/thank you - are far less interesting to me than just the space in his i guess "less poetic", more straightforward moments. one of my #favouritesmogmoments is him singing TO FAMILY IS ALL YOU CAN DO, in day, & he's on a similar wavelength, here. they make me feel some closeness. i don't know. i like having a new smog record a lot. they are such a nice part of my life.

B: I had been inching my way through The Tibetan Book of the Dead. I worked out a system where I estimated how long I expect myself to live and divided the number of words in The Tibetan Book of the Dead by how many days I expected to live. So that I could read only the amount of words per day that would have me finishing the book near my expected expiration date. Turns out I can read three words per day. That was a big inspiration for Dream River, because it would just stimulate my brain enough to work. Still working on it, obviously! Some people live by, “One day at at time,” I live by “Three words in a day.”

bill callahan: trolling interviewers since 1991

I'm ok with this not being a masterpiece; A River Ain't Too Much To Love was that. After many listens, I like this one as much as Apocalypse, which is to say a great deal, but not more than my favorite Smog albums (The Doctor Came At Dawn, Julius Ceasar, Red Apple falls, etc). But, like Destroyer and a precious handful of others, Callahan coasting beats 90% of so-called 'singer songwriters' at their very best.

went to go see him in cambridge, MA on saturday, it was outstanding

felt really grateful to be there. i have a one-year old so i pretty much never go to shows, even before being a parent, too. so i felt like a lucky man.

his band is incredible, matt kinsey especially, he just filled the room up with these beautiful swirling washes, he contributes SO much to this band. drummer is a really young-looking guy who handled the congas really well.

they played almost all of the new album, maybe half of apocalypse, and a couple songs off "a river ain't too much to love." nothing earlier than that. "sycamore" was a highlight, totally slowed down and blissful. psyched he played "universal applicant," not that it's a favorite song of mine, it just seems like a weird and unobvious tune to play live and for that reason i appreciated it. and that part at the end where bill's singing "and the drunk / and the punk" etc. was just spectacularly gorgoes, kinsey's guitar just washing over everthing.

also was it ilxor NA who said that "america" is really one of the highlights of "apocalypse" and not the goofy outlier? cuz right on, that song got everyone in room moving more than any other tune, it totally killed.

also, seeing him and his band play the "dream river" songs live really made me appreciate the album a lot more. i already thought it's great album, but played live these songs just seemed so full. and the grooves in certain tunes, especially "ride my arrow" had this almost menacing feel that doesn't come off at first listen to the record.

*gorgeous not "gorgoes" obviously, lol

totally urge everyone who posts in this thread to check him out on this tour

lol also bill was a wearing a t-shirt with this huge graffiti-style cartoon hawk on it

found it!
http://allstonpudding.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/billcallahan-15.jpg

i saw him a while ago & have ~thoughts~ about it which i will inflict here sometime but one thing is that i was surprised by how fine spring was, sung, & this is nice & demonstrative of that,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPlkr2ILuqM

there are smog "proper" threads elsewhere but i may as well ask it here since the album doesn't have it's own thread -- what's the consensus on rain on lens? feel like it doesn't get mentioned much but this album is killer, right? i'm really digging it. really edgy and tense, it doesn't have the warmth of supper but the quality is really high.

it just has a really great sense of movement, too

also, on a different note, i feel like a lot of the reviews/articles about "dream river" are locating bill's current streak as starting with "a river ain't too much to love" -- is this kind of sudden or has that been the thinking for a while?

i certainly feel like that one has more in common with his bill callahan albums than his smog albums. not sure when i started thinking that though

sonically it's a world apart

For what it's worth, based on seeing Callahan last week and on reading the available setlists, during the current tour the only Smog songs he's been playing are from "A River Ain't Too Much to Love": "Say Valley Maker" and "Rock Bottom Riser." That may simply be a matter of the older songs feeling over-familiar, rather than "A River" marking the beginning of Callahan's latest creative phase, though.

he played a couple of things from supper as well as bathysphere when i saw him after apocalypse!

xp - what'd you think of the show?

There wasn't as much sense of discovery for me as there could have been -- the setlist was mostly drawn from "Dream River" and "Apocalypse," and the arrangements were very close to the recorded versions -- but it was a strong performance. I was slightly disappointed that the setlist didn't reach back farther (the last time I saw Callahan, in 2006 or so, his set was more chronologically diverse), but I was impressed at Callahan's ability to get his vocal subtleties across in a crowded room. (The clave parts on the recent songs also carried over surprisingly well.) The highlight for me might have been "Sycamore" (which for the first few instrumental bars I mistook for a very drawn-out cover of "You and Your Sister"), which benefits from a sparer arrangement than the "Whaleheart" version, along with an ominous version of "Summer Painter."

No flute in the touring band, but I can't say it was missed; Matt Kinsey's guitar carried most of the countermelodies.

yea i felt the same way re: lack of flute

they played a similar version of sycamore at the cambridge, MA show, sparer and slower. i like Whaleheart but i'd enjoy hearing an alternate take on the entire album, something a little more sparse and minimal and not quite as jaunty

Agreed -- Hagerty's production is interesting in its own right, but I feel like there are already enough distancing/ironizing effects at work in Callahan's lyrics and vocal delivery that a drier sound better suits his songs.

this album is grrrrreat. i love the flute.
whaleheart is kind of where i got on board with callahan, i think it's very good.

i've been listening to this album pretty much daily and it is terrific. only bummer is Winter Road, which i don't find interesting lyrically or melodically. still hoping it will click for me. also i wish javelin were longer.

a donald sutherland interview comes on
the truck radio
he apologizes to all he's loved and sired

long shot of my face

otm

Show at Mojos last night was good. He didn't turn the phaser off until the second to last song.
Matt Kinsey is definitely earning it, he was great.
Met a Z S doppleganger.

Damn, he played at mojos last night?

By chance, I am rolling into Columbia TONIGHT (gonna be at the new tongues show - haven't heard them before but friends are attending) so lemme know if you're there tripmaker!

Afraid to meet the doppelgänger though. Every time I do I end up with lower self-esteem afterward

i'm gonna be at New Brookland Tavern on 10/30 -- anyone in Columbia should come say hi! I don't know anyone there! we can talk about how good this record is.

Dammit, I'm gonna be back in DC by then!

It's all dopplegangers in Como. But I wouldn't be worried if I were you.
I may drop in to Cafe Berlin.

Wrong Columbia, Tyler, but the thought is appealing.

haha, damnit!

we are playing st louis on the nov 5, but that's a ways away from columbia, right?

had a go at reviewing it: http://crackmagazine.net/music/bill-callahan/
criticisms fully welecomed bte.

*btw

listen to Robert Forster talk about Dream River.

nice!

damn this album is so good.

^^

it really is, so damn good.

damn this album is so good.

― tylerw, Wednesday, November 13, 2013 11:54 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^

it really is, so damn good.

― JACK SQUAT about these Charlie Nobodies (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Wednesday, November 13, 2013 11:58 AM (3 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes

everything about it has grown on me. parts of it seemed light and inconsequential at first but i really love it from start to finish