An Okkervil River Thursday

I don't own the "Stage Names" and "The Stand Ins" and "I Am Very Far" but I'm truly enjoying listening to the rest of the Okkervil River song book. Good music for a not very productive Thursday afternoon.

Songs that Remind Me of Twenty Years Ago

All my friends are running to their own corners
the hurters and the haters and the faders and the mourners.
The world goes to its work and it is not gentle, in what it breaks you down into.
All my friends are looking in life, and it’s a long, long, long, long, lonely time.
I said that when you met me I was just dying. I said it to no one. I said it in silence.
(Okkervil River, "Stay Young")

These are days, you'll remember
When May is rushing over you with desire
To be part of the miracles you see in every hour

You'll know it's true that you are blessed and lucky
It's true that you are touched by something
That will grow and bloom in you

(10,000 Maniacs, "These Are Days")

I miss the tears, I miss the laughter
I miss the day we met and all that followed after
Sometimes I wish I could always be with you
The way we used to do
Now and forever, I will always think of you

(Carole King, "Now and Forever")

How to Listen to Music

Will Sheff writes:

In my late 20s, I started noticing that I didn’t listen to music in the way I used to. Specifically, nothing about music felt satisfying to me anymore. Like all my friends, I’d gotten an iPod and ripped most of my CDs into it, so now every album I’d ever owned was suddenly sitting in my pocket, ready to be called up at any time, but I didn’t feel like listening to any of it. I could shuffle my way through every song that had ever moved me, but somehow once it came on all I wanted to do was skip to the next random song in the order. That song wouldn’t satisfy me either, so my finger would hit that “skip” button again, almost as an impulse....

So that’s where I started, with my memories of putting on a record (or, later, a cassette) as a kid and then sitting back on my bed and listening to the whole thing — and then playing it again, and again, until I had integrated it into who I was. I decided the first step in creating a system that replicated this effect on an iPod (because I didn’t have a place to live at the time, my iPod was my only way of listening to music) would be to listen to whole albums, in order to immerse myself in a musical world and not lose concentration. Secondly, I noticed that my relationship to an album changed with repeated listens; sometimes an album I thought I hated on listen one became a new musical obsession by listen three, while at other times an album that impressed the hell out of me on listen one gradually revealed itself, after repetition, to be trite or cloying, dazzling me with easy tricks but lacking in actual substance. I started creating playlists — each containing three albums plus miscellaneous songs I’d picked up here and there — and listening to them three times in a row. These playlists were all I’d allow myself to listen to unless I was with other people, and I treated them like homework; usually the albums would be related to music I was working on at the time. I would take care always to work in a mixture of music by new bands and older music that was new to me, and I would actively seek out genres of music with which I previously hadn’t been familiar.

Okkervil River Covers

Check out a fun download of Okkervil River covers with Dance Hall Days and Money Changes Everything. And The End of Innocence. Great and free!

Okkervil River Interview

Okkervil River plays tribute to Lou Reed here, along with a few other of their songs. The album is one of my favorites from this year, and Will Sheff is one of the more thoughtful, insightful songwriters out there. Very good interview.

RIP Lou Reed

From Will Sheff of Okkervil River:

When my turn came to talk with Lou, he gave me a soft handshake that he held for an uncomfortably long time. Eventually I had to extricate my hand from his. He told me, “You are a great rock singer. You’ve got a great rock voice. You can sing anything.”

Everything in my life changed when Lou Reed, my musical hero, said that to me. Everything I’ve had the guts to do as an artist since 2007 came out of that moment. I am a different artist now. It was one of the kindest and most perfect three sentences anyone could have uttered, and coming from Lou Reed its effect was profound. I transformed into something else once he spoke those words to me.

Three Release Tuesday

At least three great releases are out today. Love Okkervil River's The Silver Gymnasium. Says Consequence of Sound:

The Silver Gymnasium is about his hometown of Meriden, New Hampshire, circa 1986, a tiny village where the songwriter admits he was bullied throughout his childhood. It’s a community he’d have every right to despise, but doesn’t. Despite any residual pain, Sheff recognizes the inherent magic of the place where you grew up, especially when viewed through your childhood memories, which, as he pointed out in our recent interview, often become indistinguishable from dreams and fantasies. Although the album is peppered with small-town tragedy, or at least regret, as well as a sense that the then ten-year-old Sheff will eventually get out, it also brims with imagination and the natural majesty found in The Granite State.

Also out today: Volcano Choir and Neko Case. 

New Okkervil River

After a couple of tracks were previewed, NPR Music streams the full album from Okkervil River.  Lead singer Will Sheff is just my age, and the album harkens back to the small town he grew up in.

As such, the record captures not only his own autobiographical details, but also musical cues from the era. Like all Okkervil River records, The Silver Gymnasium showcases Sheff's uneasy warble, but this time it's set amid subtle synthesizers and the hallmarks of Springsteen's mid-'80s material. "Down Down the Deep River," for example, has an ambitious story to tell, but it's also wittily arranged, complete with an opening synth line that could just as well have been lifted from, say, ABC's. 'Be Near Me...'

The Silver Gymnasium sounds personal and specific, as it floats warmly in the soft spots that separate childhood from adolescence. Naturally, given the themes, the group tucks in plenty of era-specific cultural references (Atari cartridges, cassette tapes, et al), but Sheff and his collaborators aren't just waxing nostalgic; they also take care to surround the iconography with what function as free-standing Okkervil River songs.

After nearly three listens, I think some of this could be their strongest album yet. No track like Rider stands out for me yet, but the full album is far more complete than previous ones.  I am looking forward to the official release and the download.

New Okkervil River Track

Another track from the new Okkervil River album debuted. It's called "Stay Young." Full album is out in less than one month, on September 3.

New Okkervil River

Okkervil River has a new album coming out in September. I'm already a fan of the single "Down Down the Deep River," which is the first track off "The Silver Gymnasium." Listen to it on NPR Music. Album is out September 3.

Shearwater Interview

DCIst interviews Shearwater today. I swear I didn't even realize the Okkervil River connection. Or the Wye Oak one.

Here is how Jonathan Meiburg describes the contrast between the Austin and the DC music scenes:

How do you perceive the mid-Atlantic music scene of DC and Baltimore in contrast with Austin’s?

My sense is that Austin is such an easy place to be a musician in a lot of ways. It’s very relaxed and informal. It’s easy to find a place to rehearse, or play. I feel like the bands I know from DC and Baltimore really have to suffer. They have to work a lot harder to find a place to practice, cheap rent. You have to work a lot harder than you do here.

On the other hand, it’s hard to achieve escape velocity from Austin. A lot of bands here rarely leave town, but a lot of bands where you are manage to slingshot themselves up the East Coast. And Texas is just so far from everywhere else. It’s easier to get to where the people are from where you are, which I think can make you feel more connected, if not the entire United States.

Back to Work Monday

And I need some old favorites, like the New Pornographers.  I really enjoyed their album from last year, with Crash Years on it, though I never purchased it.  And the old 2011 favorite, Okkervil River. "I Am Very Far" is another favorite I haven't gotten around to purchasing.  I love the track "Your Past Life as a Blast" and "Rider" is a definite 2011 favorite.  Only six weeks to go this year, and some more 2012 tunes will surely be released soon.