Echopraxia

A few months ago, being given a ride up I-5 by the artist formerly known as e-rocky-confidential, I was turned on to the Mountain Goats. I was, I have to confess, sceptical. I react very badly to other people trying to play me music that they like, despite the fact that I am a evangelical asshole about music that I have decided is the best thing ever this week.

Anyway, it turned out to be this fantastic minimalist thing of acoustic guitar and tape hiss, and what sounded like a concussed folk singer on top of it. Again, not a good omen: I have an incredibly low tolerance for people who sound like folk singers. I think the thing that won me over for good was the guy muttering offhandedly

But selling acid was a bad idea... and selling it to a cop was a worse one... and the new law said that seventeen year olds could do federal time...

in a song called "Fall of the Star High School Running Back". I can never relax while listening to this band; the songs have a way of going off in unusual directions, and average one distinctive and memorable lyric per verse. The divorce-themed album Tallahassee, in particular, is pretty devastating stuff. God forbid Chris Onstad's marriage ever goes off the rails, but this is the kind of thing I could see him coming up with if it ever did - and whenever it threatens to become too overwrought (which given the subject matter, well, you could see it coming) it's saved by the sheer matter-of-factness of the guy's delivery.

Anyway, the upshot is that now I am tremendously excited about this going on a short way up the road from my apartment. They even observe, in passing

Our love for you is an unquenchable fire! We cannot sleep!

See? That's just plain nice.