Friday, February 20, 2009

Let me die, let me die, surrounded by machines

A little Nachtmusik for Friday.

Which comes from this pretty remarkable looking songwriter get-together that I linked to before.

John Darnielle does a track from what I hope to be a real side-project, and his introduction to the song helps to maybe partly explain why I feel drawn to his music, seeing that in his youth he 1) was a stoner 2) read a lot of science fiction and 3) listened to a lot of prog rock.

That sounds awfully familiar.

This wasn't a very rare set of characteristics for boys in the 1980s, I know, but it was not quite universal.

(In my case, though, it wasn't really so much about Genesis).

And this song seems to combine these elements pretty well.



The other song is from the Weakerthans songwriter, John K. Samson, and it's quite a lovely...um...tribute to his hometown.

'It's always February', he says, 'in the soul of Winnipeg.'

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hello dear german blogger,

This songwriter's panel happened on a cruise ship the first week of this month. I was lucky enough to be on this cruise ship where the Mountain Goats, the Weakerthans, Christine Fellows, etc played 3 shows over 5 days. It was amazing.

I was unable to attend this songwriter's panel because only people who had been on the cruise in past years could go, so I was thrilled to see someone had posted the entire thing on YouTube.

In fact, many of the shows from the cruise can be found on YouTube. Just search for "Ships and Dip V" (the name of the cruise).

Also, my friend spoke to John of the Mountain Goats on the ship and found out that John was heading to a studio in Chicago right after the cruise ended to record this new project with John Vanderslice. So it'll probably happen!

JCWood said...

Excellent, thanks for the info. I did notice that the songwriter session is available on YouTube, and the quality is quite good, considering it was just someone in the audience filming.

Sounds like a great time. Lucky you!

Terry Glavin said...

I Love I Hate Winnipeg.

Truly.

JCWood said...

Hi Terry, glad to hear from you.

It is a fantastic song. And the Weakerthans are a fantastic band.

I don't have an opinion about Winnipeg itself.

Anonymous said...

hmmm. winnipeg. the winter i was there was fairly mild. didn't snow til christmas. but in february, it did get very very cold.

as for the weakerthans' song: in late 2007, when they played in heidelberg, hundreds of germans sang along to 'i hate winnipeg'. very strange experience. the concert as such was great, though..

anyway, here is another winnipeg classic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7ewuZS49aE randy bachman's 'prairie town' (with neil young and margo timmins). portage & main is an important intersection in winnipeg, and, supposedly, the coldest intersection in canada.