October 2009
24 posts
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-10-25) →
The Mountain Goats (92)
Bright Eyes (32)
Shearwater (32)
The National (24)
Wilco (22)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
“I keep wondering how responsible I need to be. I drive carefully and that feels...”
– Jamie Stewart
2 tags
“Old Testament fervor transposed to contemporary settings can do some damage.”
– Jim Kiest
All too true, and sadly applicable in a far broader context than talking about the new Mountain Goats album.
5 tags
“Darnielle: For years, I’ve written narrators who aren’t gender-identified. When...”
– John Darnielle interview, Paste Magazine (via annierachel) (via fuckyeahthemountaingoats)
That’s what I’m talking about. Especially the “Oh no, he’s a psycho” part.
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-10-18) →
The Mountain Goats (72)
The Hold Steady (68)
Arcade Fire (50)
Guided by Voices (32)
The National (25)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
2 tags
Catching Up With... The Mountain Goats →
I like my writing best when I’m not quite sure what I’m saying or whether I agree with it. That’s the point at which your writing gets better, when you go out on that edge.
3 tags
Stereo Sanctity →
Darnielle’s success here comes in the way he approaches his subject matter not as a dogmatic Xtian, but as the kind of flawed, spiritually bereft post-industrial human that modernist novels always used to warn us about, picking up the lessons of the scriptures for the first time and finding them more relevant to his own being than he ever suspected.
2 tags
“Radical masculinity does not hurt. Radical masculinity is strong enough to be...”
– Sinclair Sexsmith
“You are why people make bad things. When you look around you and wonder why...”
– Marinich, Talentless
Petulance and the Prize →
[…] resentment of an American president being honored by the Norwegians is not a good point from which to build a Republican revival. Petulant fury isn’t a winning hand in politics. Get over it.
The Food Issue - Why Jonathan Safran Foer Chose to... →
This isn’t animal experimentation, where you can imagine some proportionate good at the other end of the suffering. This is what we feel like eating. Yet taste, the crudest of our senses, has been…
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-10-11) →
The Mountain Goats (172)
The Hold Steady (44)
Ani DiFranco (44)
The National (37)
dredg (32)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
“Tallahassee is a vivid, fully realized night-sweat of a song cycle[.]”
– Amy Granzin
The Quietus | Reviews | The Mountain Goats →
Heavy. Thoroughly, relentlessly heavy. Praise be once more, then, that most mp3 players weigh little more than a pebble. This is something you will want to carry with you.
Bookslut | Overqualified by Joey Comeau →
Work isn’t a right; it’s a privilege for those who want to humble themselves, and sacrifice every single bit of dignity that they have, to apathetic business owners and managers. That is why God…
The Mountain Goats - "The ’49 Packard will slay... →
To tell you the truth, I’m kind of surprised, in 2009, that “the internet” is still something we talk about; to me it feels like being asked, circa 1948, whether I think the automobile is here to…
Review / The Mountain Goats - The Life of the... →
Darnielle’s lyrics are as true as ever to his incisive yet confused style; ‘confused’ because, as his myopic cleverness makes for phrases as bracing and direct as can be, his words always –…
Punknews.org | The Mountain Goats - The Life of... →
You know how your favorite albums are attached to certain moments? Your first kiss and your worst fight and just that one night when you and your friends drove around listening to music and it didn’t…
This Is My Blog: The Gorilla In Your House →
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-10-4) →
The Mountain Goats (345)
The National (17)
Mission of Burma (14)
José González (12)
Stars of the Lid (12)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
The Mountain Goats: The Life of the World to Come... →
He uncovers the same desperation, doubt, and grace in Biblical narratives that he did in a squalid, shut-in house of meth addicts, because people in Darnielle’s songs, whether loving or hateful or…
The Life Of The World To Come – The Mountain Goats... →
Here we have an album in which an atheist dives into The Bible and stays down there
Razing the Bar: The Mountain Goats -- The Life of... →
Darnielle’s story is our story, too, but it’s magnificent and worthwhile because the life he celebrates was a presence and a light in a specific time, in a specific place, known and communicated by a…
Pitchfork: John Darnielle Tells the Story Behind... →
One way you can get really close to God is to sin as hard as you can.