Woke Up New
by John Walker on Aug.31, 2006, under The Rest
Having something so infantile as a favourite band rather surprises me. But I’m aware there’s no hesitation in my mind when faced with the challenge of only being able to pick one artist to listen to. It’s The Mountain Goats. It helps that Darnielle’s written over 45 billion albums, each very wonderful.
The new one, Get Lonely, which I can’t possibly have heard, is the gentle tone distilled to purity. I should imagine.
There’s a single, Woke Up New, which is as painful and honest as any post-break-up song could be, while exquisitely beautiful. And there’s a video, directed by ‘Brick’ director, Rian Johnson. All involved have requested that the high-res video be redistributed at will, by whatever means. (“Made available by the director. Please feel free to re-post, distribute, torrent, etc.”) My choice was to upload it to Google video, which has of course reduced it down to the same poor quality as the low res version already on YouTube, but nevermind, I post it here anyway.
August 31st, 2006 on 03:42
When Humanities Teachers make music.
August 31st, 2006 on 11:19
The Aliens are better.
August 31st, 2006 on 12:05
Does it sound better in hi-res?
August 31st, 2006 on 13:48
the the aliens aliens are are much much better better
August 31st, 2006 on 13:59
but this is still ok, you can like both
August 31st, 2006 on 15:49
The mountain shits more like.
KG
August 31st, 2006 on 15:55
The Mountain Goats are awesome, haters. also this is a cool video except JD does not look anything like I expected. No, I don’t know what I expected.
August 31st, 2006 on 17:42
He looks troublingly like Bruce from Kids In The Hall when sat at the table.
August 31st, 2006 on 19:09
He looks like a very strict lady.
August 31st, 2006 on 22:14
You made me sit through the show. I’m not sitting through a video. I’m sorry if that means we will never speak again.
August 31st, 2006 on 22:27
Well, I didn’t MAKE you do anything, AND you were standing up, not sat, and it was a wonderful show. It’s not my fault you’re so dumb and wrong. And you got to see the Prayers & Tears.
So in summary: shush, you big wrongface.
September 1st, 2006 on 02:52
I liked them first, so nyeh!
September 1st, 2006 on 10:29
Mathew, you’re not old enough to have liked them first!
September 1st, 2006 on 17:31
I’m sorry, but I feel like I was the only person in Britain who bought “Nothing For Juice” when it came out (I don’t think it actually came out in the UK, actually).
Perhaps I am wrong, which should make me happy.
September 1st, 2006 on 18:32
John, can I email you about something? Seriously. It makes use of your expertise.
September 2nd, 2006 on 22:24
It’s kind of quite good, I suppose?
September 3rd, 2006 on 17:53
Lovely, I thought. And downloadable from eMusic. Ta very much.
September 12th, 2006 on 19:22
Brick was unassailably suprawesome. That video was pretty nice. In summary, then: could do better.
Still, not a bad little vid. Though the pulling-in-and-out-of-screens thing has been done before a few times. But maybe I’m just thinking of Brass Eye.