― J. Grizzle (trainsmoke), Wednesday, 9 August 2006 15:43 (seventeen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 9 August 2006 15:50 (seventeen years ago) link
― Doctor Casino (Doctor Casino), Wednesday, 9 August 2006 16:02 (seventeen years ago) link
― sean gramophone (Sean M), Wednesday, 9 August 2006 16:08 (seventeen years ago) link
― Tiki Theater Xymposium (Bent Over at the Arclight), Wednesday, 9 August 2006 16:15 (seventeen years ago) link
Last I heard of "Only Skin," it was about 14+ minutes long, a high-wire feat of derring-do filled w/ striking imagery and memorable melodies, stretching her style to see how much it can take. If you don't dig the literary aspects of what she's doing, you might snap off the stereo in disgust, but unless the production fucks this thing up I'd say she's challenged herself and was not found wanting. Possesses the same sense of ineffable longing that got "Sprout and the Bean" stuck in my craw. If you've listened to enough of her stuff you can sense her rhythms burbling through the lyrics, even if the song's unheard:
rowing along among the reeds, among the rushes i heard your song before my heart had time to hush it smell of a stonefruit being cut and being open smell of a low and of a lazy cinder smoking
and when the fire moves away, fire moves away, sonwhy would you say i was the last one?
...
and the cities we passed were a flickering wasteland but his hand in my hand made them pale and harmless and down in the lowlands the crops are all coming; we have everything life is thundering blissful t'wards death and the stampede of his fumbling green gentleness
Not sure how fitting an introduction this album will make for newbies, however. Like, where's the single, man?
― Edward III (edward iii), Wednesday, 9 August 2006 16:21 (seventeen years ago) link
― bb (bbrz), Wednesday, 9 August 2006 16:26 (seventeen years ago) link
I mean... she's twee enough already so I really hope this doesn't emphasise the fairies & unicorns side *even more* because what's convinced friends of mine of her greatness is the live shows being (allegedly!) really raw and unpolished and more compelling by far than her studio arrangements.
I will definitely make an effort to hear this though.
― fandango (fandango), Wednesday, 9 August 2006 16:26 (seventeen years ago) link
― sean gramophone (Sean M), Wednesday, 9 August 2006 16:27 (seventeen years ago) link
― Edward III (edward iii), Wednesday, 9 August 2006 16:35 (seventeen years ago) link
― Edward III (edward iii), Wednesday, 9 August 2006 17:12 (seventeen years ago) link
― rizzx (Rizz), Wednesday, 9 August 2006 17:28 (seventeen years ago) link
― Edward III (edward iii), Wednesday, 9 August 2006 18:08 (seventeen years ago) link
― rizzx (Rizz), Wednesday, 9 August 2006 18:45 (seventeen years ago) link
― JayBabcock (jabbercocky), Wednesday, 9 August 2006 18:52 (seventeen years ago) link
― Marmot (marmotwolof), Wednesday, 9 August 2006 18:54 (seventeen years ago) link
his fumbling green gentleness
― cws (cws), Wednesday, 9 August 2006 18:59 (seventeen years ago) link
― james brooks (j_brooks), Wednesday, 9 August 2006 19:07 (seventeen years ago) link
― fandango (fandango), Wednesday, 9 August 2006 19:08 (seventeen years ago) link
yeah I didn't come close to digesting the songs; I was struck so dumb at the sheer endurance involved in that performance it was impossible to follow the plots music-wise or lyric-wise(between the stretches of anxious boredom lets be honest). Jim O'Rourke yay though.
― tremendoid (tremendoid), Wednesday, 9 August 2006 19:14 (seventeen years ago) link
― JayBabcock (jabbercocky), Wednesday, 9 August 2006 19:22 (seventeen years ago) link
― Edward III (edward iii), Wednesday, 9 August 2006 19:29 (seventeen years ago) link
― Edward III (edward iii), Wednesday, 9 August 2006 19:32 (seventeen years ago) link
makes me think of the 20+ minute Cerberus Shoal songs from a few years ago, where a female voice goes on and on and never ends. oddly moving and trance-inducing.
― jergins (jergins), Wednesday, 9 August 2006 22:29 (seventeen years ago) link
Seriously though, it sounds like this might be the one I finally like. I've tried unsuccessfully with the others.
― sleeve (sleeve), Thursday, 10 August 2006 01:54 (seventeen years ago) link
― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Thursday, 10 August 2006 02:34 (seventeen years ago) link
― Officer Pupp (Officer Pupp), Thursday, 10 August 2006 12:50 (seventeen years ago) link
― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy (Kerr), Thursday, 10 August 2006 12:51 (seventeen years ago) link
― wogan lenin (dog latin), Thursday, 10 August 2006 13:07 (seventeen years ago) link
What's next?Producer: Brian EnoTape Op: John GoodmansonGofer: Thurston MooreFootrubs: Flood
― Edward III (edward iii), Thursday, 10 August 2006 13:34 (seventeen years ago) link
― Officer Pupp (Officer Pupp), Thursday, 10 August 2006 14:09 (seventeen years ago) link
I think if we all grab one of these we can have her body strung up by dawn tomorrow.
― Jimmy Mod: THE HANDLESS ORGANIST (The Famous Jimmy Mod), Thursday, 10 August 2006 14:12 (seventeen years ago) link
― dmr (Renard), Thursday, 10 August 2006 16:03 (seventeen years ago) link
But then you'd have to deal with Smog going all Charles Bronson on your ass...
― Edward III (edward iii), Thursday, 10 August 2006 16:07 (seventeen years ago) link
Does Callahan basically nail every female artist loosely related to the new folk movement?
I don't think I want to know about Bill screwing, I have an established image that I don't want ruined (teeth gnashing through flesh, girls held down on hardwood floors, etc.)
― paid in cigarettes (paid in cigarettes), Thursday, 10 August 2006 17:03 (seventeen years ago) link
― Jimmy Mod: THE HANDLESS ORGANIST (The Famous Jimmy Mod), Thursday, 10 August 2006 23:54 (seventeen years ago) link
add HEAT and BREATH emanating from a sea of sweaty motherfuckers equals ANXIETY. That I enjoyed it as much as I did is a testament to her (enjoyable, on the whole)performance - seriously - but I was just fried at that point. When's the next Arthurthingy anyway Jay?
― tremendoid (tremendoid), Friday, 11 August 2006 05:23 (seventeen years ago) link
http://www.ticketweb.com/user/?region=xxx&query=search&interface=ticketweb&newhps=1&search=arthurnights&x=13&y=13
― JayBabcock (jabbercocky), Wednesday, 16 August 2006 20:42 (seventeen years ago) link
WTF?
― like murderinging (modestmickey), Wednesday, 16 August 2006 20:47 (seventeen years ago) link
or a big pile of over-indulgent bolls. we'll see. i'm hoping for the former, natch.
― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Wednesday, 16 August 2006 22:20 (seventeen years ago) link
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/ys.jpg
― Edward III (edward iii), Monday, 21 August 2006 16:42 (seventeen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 21 August 2006 16:46 (seventeen years ago) link
― Edward III (edward iii), Monday, 21 August 2006 16:52 (seventeen years ago) link
― like murderinging (modestmickey), Monday, 21 August 2006 16:58 (seventeen years ago) link
http://www.company-q.com/images/ren%20fest.jpg
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 21 August 2006 17:03 (seventeen years ago) link
http://www.ren-fest.com/pic25.jpg
http://biology.creighton.edu/faculty/nolan/Black%20RenFest-CUweb%20.jpg
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 21 August 2006 17:05 (seventeen years ago) link
― gabbneb (gabbneb), Monday, 21 August 2006 17:06 (seventeen years ago) link
http://i.b5z.net/i/u/555708/i/alexxushostcontest_ezr.jpg
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 21 August 2006 17:08 (seventeen years ago) link
If you crack the code Kit Williams comes to your house and gives you a solid gold CDR of the album that was buried in soft peat on Bodmin Moor.
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 21 August 2006 17:09 (seventeen years ago) link
Yeah, looks like she just had voice lessons.
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 18 September 2019 01:30 (four years ago) link
A good friend of mine played in the Ys Street Band. I asked him, given all the skill on stage, if there was ever much room for improvisation within or around all these winding, intricate songs, and he said (not surprisingly) not really, but that there was often room for interludes and long intros that worked out OK. One time I saw her (with a different band) and while she was ... tuning the harp? Or something else time consuming? Anyway, her guitarist at the time basically took requests for metal songs he then performed in a classical style. Just a bit of fun.
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 18 September 2019 01:34 (four years ago) link
the version of "cosmia" on ys street band is a prime example of extending things out a bit like that.
― ufo, Wednesday, 18 September 2019 01:42 (four years ago) link
And with Divers, Newsom achieved it and surpassed it, with exquisitely wrought arrangements from Muhly and Longstreth, her fantastic list of collaborators, I think it is a stunning achievement and I frankly cower before it.
- fgti
i echo this completely; divers is intellectually and emotionally head and shoulders above any music i've heard in the past 20 years. the fact that she can write and perform at that level while also seeming funny, self-aware, and even remotely approachable is almost crazier.
― call all destroyer, Wednesday, 18 September 2019 01:53 (four years ago) link
ugh I can't believe "ozymandian" kept me from erm diving in for so long, it just seemed so brutally thesaurist right off the bat even though it is exactly the right word and well-deployed upon subsequent examination
― flamboyant goon tie included, Wednesday, 18 September 2019 02:05 (four years ago) link
hah, tbh having that song drop first didn't move any needles for me. i think it works best as sequenced in the album.
― call all destroyer, Wednesday, 18 September 2019 02:09 (four years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxwWVdcRNpY
here's "time as a symptom" into "anecdotes". really wonderful
― ufo, Wednesday, 18 September 2019 02:11 (four years ago) link
ugh, I want to see one of these shows
― jmm, Wednesday, 18 September 2019 02:37 (four years ago) link
She seems looser than normal in these new clips, like she's treating it as rehearsal.
― jmm, Wednesday, 18 September 2019 02:42 (four years ago) link
'Clam, Crab, Cockle, Cowrie' is what split it apart for me - my way in. I agree that it's perfect. The lyric that gets me most (because it makes me think of my sister for obscure reasons) is:
And some great bellies ache with many bumblebeesAnd they sting so terribly.
And there are some mornings when the sky looks like a road which is pure Joni.
Christ, I filled up just typing those out.
I've seen her twice live, both in 2007 - at the Albert Hall, which (I guess unsurprisingly) was a bit mannered but still extraordinary, and at the Green Man festival as the sun set over the mountains.
― Life is a meaningless nightmare of suffering...save string (Chinaski), Wednesday, 18 September 2019 13:03 (four years ago) link
For some reason when she does this stuff I don't mind it, but with the Decemberists I find it insufferable.
I suspect it is! I know she took a break from touring/playing live, but I also think she took a break from playing, period, focusing on being a parent. It's been a while since she toured solo, hasn't it? So I suspect she's getting her chops back in order before she finishes work on a new album. Have the setlists of these multi-night engagements featured much in the way of new material?
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 18 September 2019 13:13 (four years ago) link
xp Oh yes, also "it feels so good to be a rose" is a lyric where you see the end of it coming before she arrives (what else is going to rhyme with "nose"?) but the image is so specific that you can't actually think she's gonna go there but she does
Something very nice about the usage of rather banal-sounding words like "rose" and "road" for intricate purposes.
― fgti (flamboyant goon tie included), Wednesday, 18 September 2019 13:14 (four years ago) link
I thought for a while that "Ozymandian" might be her own coinage. It helps to know that it's a real word.
― jmm, Wednesday, 18 September 2019 13:23 (four years ago) link
for an embarrassingly long time i thought she was saying "you're patty hearst" instead of "you're badly hurt" in 'go long'
― dynamicinterface, Wednesday, 18 September 2019 23:45 (four years ago) link
there hasn't been any new material played i think but hopefully there'll still be an album next year
― ufo, Thursday, 19 September 2019 00:45 (four years ago) link
robin pecknold was posting some photos of jn (and her harp!) on his instagram some days ago and now he's been posting a lot of studio photos. i am hopeful that either she will be on the next fleet foxes thing or he will be on her next thing. seems probable as they have toured together a few times.
― Totally different head. Totally. (Austin), Thursday, 19 September 2019 04:12 (four years ago) link
XP totally totally forgot I went to see her in the Royal Albert Hall in 2007.
― in twelve parts (lamonti), Thursday, 19 September 2019 05:12 (four years ago) link
FYI this concert from the Divers tour is really spectacular and a great recording:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHVHEQRbFC8
― in twelve parts (lamonti), Thursday, 19 September 2019 07:02 (four years ago) link
Thanks, this is gorgeous. It's amazing how many great songs she has at this point (and I would claim, not a single dud.)
― jmm, Thursday, 19 September 2019 13:58 (four years ago) link
thanks for the link
i'd love to read a JN poll.
― piscesx, Thursday, 19 September 2019 15:36 (four years ago) link
lamonti, thank you so much for the link! The uploader also posted high-quality recordings of four other shows (Munich 2005, Alabama 2006, Washington 2010, Paris 2011), it seems it's his pet project:
I wanted to make available a collection that was entirely high quality audio, that spanned all of Joanna’s career so far, and was easy to find and enjoy via stream and/or download. It was a project that was surprisingly challenging, but very rewarding. Particularly when it comes to “Live at Bottletree Cafe”, as I was eventually able to clean up the digital clicks and pops in ‘Emily’, and patch over the audio glitch in ‘Monkey & Bear’, making this fantastic bootleg even better for the next generation of Joanna fans.
They all seem to sound pretty fantastic.
YouTube playlist with all 5:http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMhu9WD0R5W2UtpGX_GaLML8HyWwgg0_f
MP3 download:https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1QqTI0GZx8BcnPQM4MZAg1nafZtYm2fb3
I remember listening to the Alabama 2006 bootleg shortly after Ys was released. What a trip down the memory lane!
― ˈʌglɪɪst preɪ, Thursday, 19 September 2019 19:02 (four years ago) link
I too would love a JN poll! I have no idea what track would win... prob “Emily” or “California”? No idea
― fgti (flamboyant goon tie included), Thursday, 19 September 2019 19:03 (four years ago) link
"Peach, Plum, Pear" maybe? Even fans whose fave album isn't tMEM would place that one, surely.
― Le Bateau Ivre, Thursday, 19 September 2019 19:17 (four years ago) link
Sawdust & Diamonds
― Mario Meatwagon (Moodles), Thursday, 19 September 2019 20:01 (four years ago) link
Yeah it's a tough pick between her epics ("Only Skin"), her bagatelles ("On A Good Day"), her ballads ("Crab, Clam...") and her pop tunes ("The Book Of Right-On"). I feel like my vote would favour her long pieces, even if I care for them less, but because I respect her ambition, and they seem to be, really, the most important aspect of her overall vision.
― fgti (flamboyant goon tie included), Thursday, 19 September 2019 22:50 (four years ago) link
I wouldn't mind a POLLANNA NEWSOM, my top 5 would be all the tracks from Ys, which has not one wasted second on it, and is an exhilarating ride from start to finish.
(A poll would also force me to reckon with the rest of her discog, which I've felt less compelled to explore because Ys is already so expansive.)
― Doctor Hu (Leee), Thursday, 19 September 2019 22:57 (four years ago) link
i would kinda want to wait for her next record but otherwise yes i'm in
― american bradass (BradNelson), Thursday, 19 September 2019 23:02 (four years ago) link
yup same
― call all destroyer, Thursday, 19 September 2019 23:06 (four years ago) link
Would love and actively participate in that poll!
― Lavator Shemmelpennick, Thursday, 19 September 2019 23:40 (four years ago) link
Does she have a new record on the horizon?
― Doctor Hu (Leee), Thursday, 19 September 2019 23:42 (four years ago) link
idk i'm just hoping
― american bradass (BradNelson), Friday, 20 September 2019 00:01 (four years ago) link
putting my wish out into the universe here
God, I love that version of "Bridges and Balloons" from the Boise concert.
― jmm, Friday, 20 September 2019 02:45 (four years ago) link
i'd hope and sort of expect a new album is due next year, and a bit after that a poll would be lovely. "sawdust & diamonds" would be my #1 probably but after that i've got no clue, she has too many masterpieces
― ufo, Friday, 20 September 2019 07:43 (four years ago) link
I think Monkey and Bear, while still a masterpiece, would place a little lower. But the other 4 Ys tracks could easily go Top 4 in some order, akin to Remain in Light's side 1 on the Talking Heads poll.
Milk Eyed Mender tracks are hampered by her voice on the actual album, which is part of why these live shows are such a treasure. If folks haven't heard the Ys Street Band EP, it's got a gorgeous Clam Crab. Does anyone know if she was/is playing Colleen on this recent tour? That's a great one that can be overlooked.
― Lavator Shemmelpennick, Friday, 20 September 2019 10:50 (four years ago) link
"monkey and bear" is one of my favourite lyrics of hers but is certainly the weakest musically on Ys. not bad by any means just not quite on the same level as the rest of it
― ufo, Friday, 20 September 2019 10:56 (four years ago) link
I think "Monkey And Bear" is marvellously arranged and recorded, but it's the most RennFaire of all her songs; the medievalist melody is rather trite-- and weirdly familiar, now that I think of it? I wouldn't be surprised if it was actually borrowed from Tallis or something. It's an amazing creation, really, definitely the most daringly un-hip thing she's ever done.
― fgti (flamboyant goon tie included), Friday, 20 September 2019 12:02 (four years ago) link
"goose eggs" goes further in that medieval-ish direction and that's why it particularly grates on me, "monkey & bear" at least has its wonderful climax
― ufo, Friday, 20 September 2019 12:05 (four years ago) link
The instrumental parts of "Kingfisher" have always given me this renfaire vibe as well, tbh.
― ˈʌglɪɪst preɪ, Friday, 20 September 2019 12:50 (four years ago) link
I'm glad she embraces it instead of shies away. I mean, the first song I ever heard by her references "Cair Paravel" in the first verse, so,
― fgti (flamboyant goon tie included), Friday, 20 September 2019 13:42 (four years ago) link
I can bear a lot but not that POLL
― jmm, Friday, 20 September 2019 13:44 (four years ago) link
I'd be up for a poll. Confession: I've only listened to Divers twice. If nothing else, this would give me the kick up the arse I need with that.
― Life is a meaningless nightmare of suffering...save string (Chinaski), Friday, 20 September 2019 14:09 (four years ago) link
I missed this Larry King interview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvRs2g81muQ
― ... (Eazy), Wednesday, 9 October 2019 03:16 (four years ago) link