Okkervil River

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otm and otm

niels, Thursday, 19 April 2018 16:16 (six years ago) link

can one of you journalists call Will and ask how he cleared the Kinks riff?

niels, Thursday, 19 April 2018 16:17 (six years ago) link

Sheff's "inspirations" playlist for this record features "Let's Go Out Tonight" which is not a huge surprise but unfortunately there's just a little too much going on for full-on Blue Nile worship

― Simon H., Tuesday, April 17, 2018 11:29 AM (two days ago

*clicks furiously*

k3vin k., Thursday, 19 April 2018 16:35 (six years ago) link

which Kinks riff?

k3vin the BN influence is only really felt on maybe 3-4 tracks, fair warning

Simon H., Thursday, 19 April 2018 16:55 (six years ago) link

haha I am an okkervil fan at baseline so it's not strictly necessary, was just making an in character post

k3vin k., Thursday, 19 April 2018 17:07 (six years ago) link

The 'Waterloo Sunset' riff is in the new song.

xp

the word dog doesn't bark (anagram), Thursday, 19 April 2018 17:26 (six years ago) link

"Famous Tracheotomies" is great, not least because while it references "Waterloo Sunset" structurally it most resembles "Celluloid Heroes."

Dangleballs and the Ballerina (cryptosicko), Saturday, 21 April 2018 15:23 (six years ago) link

two weeks pass...
three weeks pass...

I've been so out of the Okkervil loop for the last ten+ years that I didn't even know so many albums had come out, but I decided to give the latest one a spin and it's quite nice. Never thought I'd say that in 2018.

Johnny Fever, Saturday, 2 June 2018 20:06 (five years ago) link

The new one has its moments but, as discussed upthread, Away is a bit of a secret masterpiece.

Simon H., Saturday, 2 June 2018 20:24 (five years ago) link

I really like "love somebody"

k3vin k., Saturday, 2 June 2018 20:54 (five years ago) link

^ Yeah, that's the one that really stuck out for me.

Johnny Fever, Saturday, 2 June 2018 21:11 (five years ago) link

great song, he talks a bit about it here https://uproxx.com/music/okkervil-river-interview-in-the-rainbow-rain-love-somebody-video/

album's a grower too, Sheff's such a humanist (reminds me of DFW, less mathematically rational, more spiritual)

niels, Sunday, 3 June 2018 10:15 (five years ago) link

yeah he seems like a good dude for sure

k3vin k., Sunday, 3 June 2018 15:49 (five years ago) link

nine months pass...

New monthly live series and request tour this summer, one album per month. I actually really appreciate that it's a digital-only affair (there are too many boutique vinyl releases these days), even if the whole thing is a little steep for me.

First release has a gorgeous, glacial "For Real"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuI3rA0Odls

Simon H., Tuesday, 2 April 2019 17:20 (five years ago) link

apropos of nothing, "The President's Dead" plays *very* differently these days. Try it!

Simon H., Tuesday, 2 April 2019 17:39 (five years ago) link

one year passes...

Just saw that Travis Nelsen, Okkervil's drummer from Black Sheep Boy to The Stand Ins, has passed.

brechtian social distancing (Simon H.), Saturday, 11 April 2020 02:16 (four years ago) link

I wish I had more to contribute on the subject, but I'll just add that his drumming on Black Sheep Boy is a perfect complement to the high dramatics of the album, and he was very fun to watch live.

brechtian social distancing (Simon H.), Sunday, 12 April 2020 02:54 (four years ago) link

oh man that sucks. I've been playing "black sheep boy #4" a ton lately

k3vin k., Sunday, 12 April 2020 03:03 (four years ago) link

basically every song those sessions produced is incredible, Sheff and co. were on fire and Brian Beattie's production work was remarkable. I'm shocked he didn't become a go-to studio magician after that.

brechtian social distancing (Simon H.), Sunday, 12 April 2020 03:18 (four years ago) link

two years pass...

new Sheff solo on the way

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ph-zatqd8Go

single sounds like an album track, not bad

corrs unplugged, Monday, 15 August 2022 13:53 (one year ago) link

two months pass...

sounds like an Okkervil River record to me
https://willsheff.bandcamp.com/album/nothing-special

3 listens in, very good

corrs unplugged, Tuesday, 18 October 2022 08:48 (one year ago) link

two months pass...

When this snuck out I didn't read any press around it so I didn't think about it possibly presaging the end of Okkervil River and that he would be going out as a solo artist going forward. Of course he wrote a song called "RIP Okkervil River" but then went and released another album under that name. Well this interview certainly seems to suggest that Okkervil River is indeed no more:

https://www.stereogum.com/2201956/will-sheff-after-okkervil/interviews/qa/

lord of the rongs (anagram), Monday, 19 December 2022 13:38 (one year ago) link

that's a v good interview, thx!

Sheff is more invested in interrogating why Okkervil River was able to thrive, not in spite of its occasionally vengeful and violent music, but because of it. Specifically, whether they helped reinforce what Sheff describes as “the Harry Potter narrative,” in which we’re all misunderstood wizards stuffed in the Cupboard Under the Stairs, waiting for our magical capacities to be discovered. There certainly was a revenge-of-the-nerds element to mid-aughts indie culture, from TV to film to Black Sheep Boy itself, which generated comparisons to contemporaries like Bright Eyes, the Decemberists, the National and Arcade Fire — feverishly literary groups armed with seriously uncool instruments that cloaked their darker undertones with an invigorating, us-against-the-world mentality. Sheff worries about “the men out there who feel like the world stiffed them, that they’re owed something,” extrapolating this mindset to a kind of “fascism of superhero movies.” “I started to see my preoccupation with jealousy and what I felt my work deserved.”

"For Real" is def a song that grabbed my attention back then, but now my favorite record is Away, and that's more or less solo Sheff, so not too concerned with the band name

New album is v good, hightlights include title track and In The Thick of It

this is sad:

he estimates that he’ll end his East and West coast tours approximately $5-7,000 in the red. He expects to lose double that going to Europe

corrs unplugged, Monday, 19 December 2022 14:48 (one year ago) link


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