Classic or Dud: Smog

And i just found out it's about James M. Cain!

all thoughts are prey to some beast is terrific. i think the record's pretty great; there's a little of him being too authorial (twitching withers and all) but it's really kinda comforting.

Anyone seeing him on his record store tour? I saw him at Sound Garden in Baltimore tonight and it was fantastic. His new songs (and I like the new record a lot) sound even better with just him and a guitar. Fucking potent stuff. And that voice!

shitty cell phone pic, but yeah, dude's got long hair now:

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c102/OfMarrow/GetAttachmentaspx.jpg

am gonna be at the other instore after some amount of queueing etc. have never seen him solo so am pumped; there are real nice bootlegs of like conway hall and stuff where he plays a river ain't too much to love stuff solo, sweetly.

there weren't many people at all at the show i went to, i was kinda surprised. i was looking at some criterion dvd's (not a bad selection Sound Garden!) and Bill walked up onto the stage kinda right down the aisle from me and started setting stuff up. i took a decent standing spot along with like a dozen other people. folks began filing in as he got started and during the set but by the end i'd say there were probably less than 30 people there watching. i was expecting a packed house, the place isn't that big. boo baltimore.

ok, sorry to keep reviving this thing here, kinda drunk outta my head. listening to the album now again. jesus, these songs sounded so much fucking better and severe and HEAVY with just Bill + Guitar. I kinda wish there were two versions of the album. always bootlegs i guess.

there are badass bootlegs of the instore tour he did around supper, electric guitar and a tambourine under his foot - playing strayed, blood red bird, etc too. can not wait.

this album is okay. i'm only really feeling Eid Maw Clack Shaw so far but overall it's certainly an improvement on Woke on A Whaleheart.

i dreamed, it was a dream that you were gone.
i woke up feeling so ripped by reality
yeah, love is the king of the beasts
and when it gets hungry it must kill to eat.
yeah, love is the king of the beasts
a lion walking down city streets.

i fell back asleep some time later on...
and i dreamed the perfect song!
it held all the answers, like hands laid on.

i woke half way and scribbled it down,
and in the morning what i'd wrote i read.
it was hard to read at first but here's what it said:

"EID MA CLACK SHAW
ZUPOVEN DEL BAWM
VERTIPPY VIN SEENER
GO FALLY RAG DOLL."

I love the song after that^ one. The chorus is so warm-sounding.

Also the drums are v much at the front of this album i found.

I'm kind of in love with the fact that he's got a song called Faith/Void on his new album. A DCHC split I've always loved (well, the one side everyone loves anyway) that I've just now realized is a goddamn perfect pairing of bands/band names and a great goddamn song name.

Also loving this album more and more as time goes on.

Will stan.

just heard it for the first time a couple days back. sounded really, really good.
faith/vod ref is crazy bonus points too.

Who's it referencing? His new album is awesome, but, ironically, I think Faith/Void is the least impressive song on it. My Friend and Eid Ma Clack Shaw are my favourites.

The Faith/Void split on Dischord Records... maybe? Insanely classic DC hardcore

Ah.

Ow, was pretty drunk there but yeah the classic The Faith and Void split on Dischord Records was what I was referring to.

"It's time to put God away." It's gotta be one of my favorites from this new one. I can understand folks not digging on it too much, sucker's almost 10 minutes long and not exactly dynamic, but that resigned mantra is fucking chilling. "This is the end of faith, no more must I strive/To find my peace, to find my peace in the light". The song's kind of rooted itself in my brain and it's a little scary.

getting slowly obsessed w/ callahan. 'eid ma clack shaw' worked its way into my itunes most played list pretty quickly.

is it only me who feels as if callahan's music always sound a bit like a parody on the subject,than the real thing?
(same goes with Oldham as a matter of fact)
i'm not saying this as a negative thing btw.i like his music.

Not sure I'm following you. Parody of what exactly? And how? I've heard Oldham criticized as being "ironic", but I don't really think that's totally fair. I guess a bearded Kentuckian covering Mariah Carey is "ironic", but he never does that sort of stuff in a condescending, winking sort of way. Weird idiosyncratic things like recording the old ragged Palace standards with slick Nashville session musicians seem to stem less from "lol" and more "hey, i like this kind of music too, it would be cool to reinterpret my old songs this way."

I'm rambling about the wrong dude, what's this about Callahan making parodies?

maybe irony is a better word to describe it,yes.
what i mean is,that he is obv. influenced by the classic singer/songwriters
but i feel he never sound as serious, or emotionally involved on the music as they were, more like a little wink,a precise and serious gesture to their music,but a gesture still.

I think callahan just approaches songwriting from a very sober, removed sort of place. It's self-aware, yes, and often ironic in that sense ("I am singing a song") but it's in no way unserious.

What was the odd spiky guitar he used up until Dongs (he's playing it on the cover)?

I Feel like the Mother of the World

^^^^^^^^^best song ever, right?

past week or so i've gone from feeling like this body of work is 'okayish songwriter dude' to feeling like it is 'essential American genius'

like it's only just now that i've paid attention enough to notice that he, like, never uses three chords where two will do - i'm not sure if it's real amateurism or entirely a decision - and i was wondering if that changed, when he went from being 'smog' to being 'bill'

past week or so i've gone from feeling like this body of work is 'okayish songwriter dude' to feeling like it is 'essential American genius'

Past two years or so I've gone from feeling like Bill's body of work is "essential American genius" to "okayish songwriter dude" -- exactly the opposite progression.

thotmp

"somewhere in the night" will always be a jam

"I Feel like the Mother of the World" is easily my least favourite song on that album.

Past two years or so I've gone from feeling like Bill's body of work is "essential American genius" to "okayish songwriter dude" -- exactly the opposite progression.

― I just wish he hadn't adopted the "ilxor" moniker (ilxor), Tuesday, 20 April 2010 23:08 (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this seems so weird to me. like, the more i get into this dude, the more i love his stuff. in other words, thomp otm

yeah - my estimation of how good he is rises each year. there are few artists whose work every time I revisit it seems better than it did before, but he's one of them for sure. there isn't one release of his, save maybe "whaleheart," that doesn't always yield new treasures when I come back to it.

as long as you've previously discovered the hagerty-fried treasure of honeymoon child & day then that's an okay statement

and also yes. his oeuvre is more satisfying than most i think; there are these seemingly arbitrary aesthetic choices he makes for each record which leave listeners with lps neatly suited to different smog moods.

always always always classic. listening to him is like being hugged.

O_o

Like being hugged by a really big mouth.

that's ok with me.

like being hugged, awkwardly, by an autistic stockbroker.

I don't think I would mind that too much either. give me more.

this version of ex-con is stunning. its all velvet undergroundy and great. makes me want to hear him do his back catalog in this style.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrYwWNuR5nw

A+

really great

I remember playing the album version of "Ex-Con" for someone at some point and being asked if it was a Lou Reed song they'd never heard. Now it kind of makes sense.

when is this from?

sorry, got it. 2001.

That is great, and I'd forgotten the lyrics immediately before VU fuzzy meltdown section, so that little 1-2 is killing me right now

this was a b-side of a single iirc.

Shasta, Jean jacket and tie - such a lie or good look?