The World Shines...

If this feels rushed when you read, it is. I'm super busy today and nursing a bad mood hangover that started yesterday for some reason - probably just tired...

But, me and Biff went and saw John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats last night at Easy Street records. He was doing a record store appearance in celebration of the midnight release of his new album, which seemed odd. He was doing a signing afterwards, which seemed odd. This sort of record store marketing thing just doesn't seem like his whole deal.

But it was odd, seeing him in this sort of venue. It at first reminded me of those shows at the Bottom of the Hill where it was just him, an acoustic guitar and a large handful of rabid fans. The number of rabid fans seems to have increased over the years, which is fine as he deserves the attention, but standing amongst the Children’s/Vocalists rack in a CD store just didn't feel like the way you should be experiencing this man.

Not to say it wasn't good. The Mountain Goats live are still one of the few bands that can make the hairs stand up on my neck. He's the one that can gracefully grab my emotions and twirl them in deft fingers and leave me tossing them out in tears and blissful smiles. I couldn't really see him from where I was standing, which on one hand is fine since it's a guy with an acoustic guitar - there's no multimedia show with lasers going on up there. On the other hand though, it always makes me grin to see him go wild eyed and shake his head with abandon when he feels the need to push those words out in an explosive torrent.

Instead of staring at the back of heads in front of me, I kept finding myself staring at an Eartha Kitt CD just to my right:


This definitely added to the surreal feeling of the evening. Uberfans can seriously freak me out, I think often times they're a hair away from fucking crazy. There was one up front (where else would he be), who began some rant about how last time John Darnielle came to town he didn't play anything off of All Hail West Texas and he was still mad about it. Though he handled it with his usual quick and sharp wit, I felt bad that he had to deal with Senor Loco Cabeza.

Oh and check it out, I don't know if anyone else could get away with this. There were moments when he would play and sing so quietly that you could barely hear him. He was pressing the boundaries of shifts in dynamics, going the opposite of the typical bombast that others may play with. And not a whisper from the audience - it was odd to be able to hear a truck passing outside the store while he played and a roomful listened.

We left before the whole signing thing. We were tired, and I honestly didn't know what I would say to him that would not make me look like psycho uberfan in the front row anyway. But thanks for Going to Georgia, thanks for Jeff Davis County Blues, the new stuff sounds great.

I guess I could have said that.