the egoaticon

Listen/purchase: Songs For Jon Wurster by ephemeral musings

Hi everyone. Jay here.

So, and this is really incredible to me, the incomparable Songs for Peter Hughes is TWENTY YEARS OLD this year.  Seven years before Peter joined the Mountain Goats, he got his own tribute album. Jon Wurster has been with the mountain goats for eight years and hasn’t been so lucky.  We decided to change that and make this little compilation.

Here’s the caveat: for those of you following, Ephemeral Musings is a group of friends who all do a bunch of different things. Some of us write songs, some just draw things and some write words that don’t have songs to go with them.  For each of us, this project is about stimulating productivity. To ensure we do some art all the time regardless of how tired, busy, uninspired we feel.  Every week I come up with a new challenge and we have a short turn around and usually a panicked Monday night of last minute work towards the submission deadline.  This week my hand cramped from purple colouring.  Betsy wrote her song in 20 minutes and slammed it in just under wire.  Stephen has kind of surreptitiously failed to associate his name with his song (no artist? who IS that?). Luke wants to let Jon sing and Dave wrote about the percussion of the universe.  My cover this week is the obvious rip off.  

My point is that this project is about making things, with minimal regard to quality and infinite regard for keeping up momentum. For that reason, I’d like to say, SO SO SORRY JON. We love you and you deserve a better tribute that what we’ve got but the whole point of this is that small silly creations are usually better than no creations. So enjoy this small silly creation.

Also I’m just throwing in a picture of the Thurster because I still like it.

Song for JW

Waiting for a train waiting to feel that hum

That rhythm of life that reminds me of a drum

It exists in everything, I feel it everywhere

The pulse of all life’s tempo charging thru the air

As disconnected as we are, in this modern age

We are all part of one long song, it’s very strange

We don’t know where the changes fall, or who keeps beat

the music plays through every root and wing and dances in our feet

This song is for the drummers, those who keep the beat alive

This song is for Jon Wurster, Scotty P and some other guys

Deep in the woods the silence just might overtake

But behind that peace and quiet is a rhythm you can’t fake

It blows through the branches, it rolls over the hills

Sometimes it is is a blast beat, sometimes just simple fills

The universal song plays and it probably never breaks

Because even after we are gone, there will still be lakes

and trees and rivers, oceans too and the beat plays on and on

Well, it depends on the song. You Were Cool, for example, doesn’t have an “official” recorded version, so you’re at the mercy of live recordings. Archive.org has got about 30 different live recordings of that one for download, but to save you some time: nyctaper’s recordings are usually the best quality.

Kyle Barbour’s Annotated Mountain Goats for all your literary and obscure referential needs

When Maximum Ames asked me to play their festival again, of course I said “Ames! That’s where I used to live!” and then basked in the glorious silence that follows a move-to-strike-as-nonresponsive response. When, after the silence had passed, they asked again, ignoring my non-sequitur as if I hadn’t said anything at all, which put me in the mind of the book I’ve been reading – very, very slowly reading, because 1) two kids and 2) summer cold. Really long-legged horrible summer cold. Head feels like a boulder. Conflicted about this because boulders are awesome in my opinion, what cold-hearted monster doesn’t love boulders, but when your head feels like one and you’re 100% sure that that’s the right simile, you get to wondering: maybe boulders feel terrible? Maybe they want to be birds, like everybody else? Or fish, or also bears.

At any rate, of course I said “yes” to Maximum Ames, it’s been a couple of years and did I mention that’s where I used to live? It totally is! And then I thought, out in that neighborhood there’s places I hardly ever get to play, why not make an expedition of it, those solo shows last year were really really fun, most especially the Chicago ones, you can really get something unique going at a solo set when all the variables line up. Hence that’s why I’m goin’ on THE MOUNTAIN GOATS ALL ROADS LEAD TO LINCOLN SOLO MINI-TOUR 2015. Did you know I lived three hours from Lincoln for a decade or so and never once played there? All that’s about to change! I really enjoy stretching my legs out on a few solo shows a year, there’s room for songs that just don’t fit into the burn-down-the-barn-and-feed-the-ashes-to-your-enemies-but-then-feel-guilty-about-it-because-your-enemies-have-feelings-too milieu of the full-band set. See you out there! 

Whoever wins between Cubs and You Were Cool will get the last spot in the final four for the Mountain Goats tournament (joining The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton, Cry for Judas, and Weekend in Western Illinois (!!))

So I was tagged by marysburgerbackpack to do the first song list shuffle thingy.  The funny thing is that my digital music collection is about 318g and over 55,000 songs…I have a rule that I rip any music that comes into my house.  That being said, the shuffle is going to be quite strange, so I think that with my media player I will first do a total top 10, then top 10 from my favorites playlist.

From Completed Collection:

1. Jimi Hendrix - Three Little Bears

2. Apocalyptica - Epilogue (Relief)

3. Metallica - Disposable Heroes

4. Aphex Twin - To Cure a Weakling Child (Contour Regard)

5. Paul and Storm - Randy Newman’s “Theme from Seabiscuit” (Commentary)

6. Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney - The Girl is Mine [Which by the way, I love MJ and PM, but this song is one of the weirdest and creepiest songs I have ever heard.]

7. meiko - Boys with Girlfriends

8. Devo - Fountain of Filth

9. Max Morgan - Wait for Me

10. The Eagles - Witchy Woman […and I hate the fucking Eagles man…]

Okay, from my favorites play list:

1. David Bowie - Day-In Day-Out

2. The Mountain Goats - Hotel Road

3. The Beatles - I’ve Got a Feeling

4. Jandek - John Plays Drums

5. Johnny Cash - Crazy Arms

6. The Beach Boys - Our Sweet Love

7. Cake - Opera Singer

8. The Mountain Goats - The Bad Doctor

9. Miles Davis - In Your Own Sweet Way

10. Richie Havens - Just Like a Woman

Okay, so it is my time to tag.  You don’t have to do it if you don’t want, but if you do want to, it will be fun I guess…honestly, I don’t have any real idea or incentive for you to do it…but whatever.  Haha.

Other things i’ve listened to on non-computer platforms in the last two days:

cibo matto’s hotel valentine, rae spoon’s superioryouareinferior,  novel’s discrete noise, stereolab’s dots and loops, huey lewis and the news, black sabbath’s volume 4, jason webley’s only just beginning, monomyth’s saturnalia regalia!, michael jackson’s dangerous and tanya tagaq’s animism.

but anyway, here’s the itunes shuffle:

neon orange glimmer song - the mountain goats

send me an angel - the mountain goats

downtown seoul - the mountain goats

red eyed and blue - wilco

he lays in the reins - iron and wine

ingrid bergman - billy bragg and wilco

the family gardener - the minus 5

photosynthesis - frank turner

i was born - natalie merchant

we were patriots - the mountain goats

Sept 19 triple x love love  - the mountain goats

recognition scene - the mountain goats

poor places - wilco

sunny - boney m

cold milk bottle - the mountain goats

prana ferox - the mountain goats

Alright. Round 5 is up.  Here are my petitions* for you all:

All Hail West Texas –Get Lonely: I am burning with excitement at the possibility that Best Ever Death Metal Band could take this bracket. From my perspective, that means voting for Dance Music and Denton in the hopes they will go up against each other. The fact that this could even happen makes my heart happy. GO JEFF AND CYRUS, YOU CAN HAVE YOUR DREAMS.

Here are some reasons that I think DMB is the best choice here:

It’s not the obvious win.  This Year is out, leaving No Children as the natural successor for MOST POPULAR SONG EVER.  Which to me, honestly, makes it lackluster as a winner here.  Who wants the obvious answer? Fans of this band love an underdog. 

Which brings me to my next dilemma: Up the Wolves. DMB is up against this one today. Yeah I totally just campaigned for this song yesterday. And I meant it.  I think it deserved to make it into the next round.  Forgive me, but I am not a hypocrite: I just think DMB is a better song.  Better than this utter gem.  Yes. Why?

This is my love letter to Jeff and Cyrus: It’s a lo-tech song about a low tech band who have limited prospects and unlimited imagination in a fairly hopeless situation.  I want it to succeed so badly because it’s so unlikely.  Up the Wolves has recently had a huge commercial boost for having been featured in a huge TV show.  DMB is just some small town kids doing small town things for which they are punished at every opportunity.  These guys (Jeff and Cyrus) are so frequently seeded within MG projects that they’ve become archetypes. Did you know John Steinbeck stamped all of his books using a Pigasus stamp? He included the latin phrase “ad astra per alia porci” which means “to the stars on the wings of a pig.” I would suggest that this is one of the most basic and human messages that John Darnielle has ever sent through his work it’s most masterfully done in this song. 

This song is about faith and how people try to kill whatever they see in others that brings them hope in the face of adversity, particularly because they do not understand it. In the end, though, DMB is a clear endorsement of hope in the face of despair and a condemnation of those who work to destroy it.  Jeff and Cyrus’ critics do not undermine their passion in the end.  HAIL SATAN!

Vote Denton.

And a brief mention of the Unreleased/B-sides bracket:

If you’ve not listened to Going to Alaska before you vote here, it’s not surprising. It’s a hard song to come by but it’s arguably one of the best songs in the entire MG catalog from a lyrical perspective.  Check out John’s recent post about the process of writing Going to Alaska.

Also, the NUMBER ONE most important reason to vote for Going to Alaska: upyes has made this whole thing happen for us and it is his favourite song.  He’s also cool and deserves this small joy.  Vote Alaska.

  GO VOTE!

and in those five minutes, my signal was jammed

the frequencies that i received were so pure

that i almost believed that the sight of the hole in your skull

You should.

Up with Up the Wolves!

Thanks again upyes for setting this up.

Round 2 of this madness is up here: 

http://www.reddit.com/r/themountaingoats/comments/3b3s84/mountain_goats_megabracket_song_tournament_round_2/

Round 2 of this madness is up here: 

http://www.reddit.com/r/themountaingoats/comments/3b3s84/mountain_goats_megabracket_song_tournament_round_2/