Everyone should check this out.

So jealous of you Adam.

I DID NOT WRITE THAT



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/02/2009 02:39AM by Sparrow.

haha, the dude was really harshing on bright eyes there.

"Mountain Goats fans tend to have an air of sadness about them"

Hmm. I'm not so sure about that. Some maybe, but it must have been a really downer show he went to.

eh, some people can see sadness everywhere.

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What I spend a lot of my free time doing.

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Caliclimber
"Mountain Goats fans tend to have an air of sadness about them"

Hmm. I'm not so sure about that. Some maybe, but it must have been a really downer show he went to.

this thread gives that impression.

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[anothergoldenage.blogspot.com]

awesome article!

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[anothergoldenage.blogspot.com]

this is really interesting. there are a lot of things in here that id wondered about...

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My Music
Last.fm

Great article. I saw Adam before the interview...he was chalk white.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/02/2009 07:33AM by teachcarlson.

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Caliclimber
"Mountain Goats fans tend to have an air of sadness about them"

Hmm. I'm not so sure about that. Some maybe, but it must have been a really downer show he went to.

The author makes the fans sound like sad people, anyway. Like we're a bunch of obsessed hipsters whose "hero" comes to the message board only to chastise us.

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New Yorker Magazine
As Darnielle’s songs became more personal, his relationship with fans became more complex. Darnielle already had a non-band blog called Last Plane To Jakarta, but after he signed with 4AD he created Mountain-Goats.com. Fans began posting feverishly, especially when they realized Darnielle was an active participant and often responded to their messages. People began writing to Darnielle directly, asking for everything from free tickets to the next show to how to handle personal problems. Darnielle’s followers didn’t seem to want to get high with him or have sex with him so much as just talk with him.

That sounds about right. I think the people around value his tastes and opinions enough to want to hear from the guy who writes some of our favorite songs.

You know also, not to speak too personally here, that Mountain Goats fans aren't particularly sadder than any other group of people who closely follow a musician/painter/author/ what have you.

Also Adam has the most awesome critique of Bright Eyes I think I've heard:

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Adam
Bright Eyes is not a man, he’s just a boy,” Wesley told me. “Bright Eyes is just this over the top ‘I am wussy man, here me roar.’ Did you know the word virtue comes from the Latin word for man? You get too sensitive, you lose your strength. And his stuff is so vague. John once wrote a song that has a line ‘I love you because you gave me sausage and cheese when I was hungry’—it’s earned because it’s a concrete thought: You fed me, that’s why I love you.”

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/02/2009 08:16AM by Neal.

Man you guys can't even imagine how nervous I've been to read this thing - when somebody writes a big article, you never know what they're going to say. I think for me to get super-involved in a discussion about it would be kinda crass...but I have to say a couple of things

1) Rodrick is an excellent writer & I'm honored to be profiled by him - he did a Riddick Bowe story that's just <3 <3 <3

2) that said, I wonder how many times I'm gonna have to tell people my stepfather wasn't an alcoholic before it sinks in - alcohol was a problem in my mom-and-dad house, not in my mom-and-stepdad house

3) I hope there's no confusion about this, but I worry: the article seems to imply that I'm especially crushed by Mountain Goats fans. This is a partial truth: I am crushed by human company in general & avoid it wherever possible. It takes an act of Congress to get me to visit friends. So, if I'm uncomfortable around you guys, that's not anything about you; it's that, over the years, I have rather become the neurotic hermit everybody used to think I was, and feel very nervous talking to people, and, after I talk to them, am consumed by self-contempt over how I must seem like the most awful person. This weekend, the only other human being I saw was my wife, which is kinda how I like it. So, anyway, that's how that is.

If anybody has any other q's about this article, happy to use this thread for 'em

wait my wife points out that I did go to a show with her so my bad on that one

Hmm, interesting article, but I disagree with a lot of the representation. I don't think that JD's posts have gotten "edgier", nor do I think he comes on here to scold us or correct us (I remember the post the "scolding" supposedly came from, and the original poster had asked JD what his policy on making one's own tour poster was)

It makes me really sad if jd really thinks that he can't take a year off, be it financially or because he doesn't want to lose fans. I don't know if it's true and hell, it might be, it just makes me sad.

I also think that this idea that there is a prototypical Mountain Goats fan is a little silly. Sure, there's a lot of hipsters in the crowd. But I've met so many diverse tMG fans (age-wise, label-wise, etc.) that to imply that we all gave up our old lives to become hipster tMG junkies is a bit much.

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omg. omg. omg!
not a dude.
hugs-n-cupcakes.

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scotlanded
Hmm, interesting article, but I disagree with a lot of the representation. I don't think that JD's posts have gotten "edgier", nor do I think he comes on here to scold us or correct us (I remember the post the "scolding" supposedly came from, and the original poster had asked JD what his policy on making one's own tour poster was)

ha, yeah, this is the sort of thing where I think it'd be bad manners for me to take issue with it but I'm pretty stoked if somebody else says it for me, sc. smiley-face icon

Very nice article! Congratulations to John, Adam/Stephen, and the other Stephen.

Not sure if I fully agree with this statement though: Darnielle sings about what his fans feel but can’t articulate. The songs are more like mini-narratives than emotional confessions to me, but sometimes you can, of course, relate to the narratives and some of the sentiments to be found within them.

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Fidelity Wars #78: Hästpojken – “Gitarrer & Bas, Trummor & Hat”

Why's everyone in this thread a f***ing Mountain Goats fan?!

I disagree with Miranda's thought that it's a dismissive description of the fan base, but it's not particularly flattering either. But that's on the basis that it's wholly unfair to describe any group of people so broadly. Right in the title it's described as a "complex" relationship, and then the whole piece was spent trying to (badly) simplify it. That bugged me.

Oddly, the one thing that bothered me most about this article was mention that the Webster Hall show was on a carpeted stage. Was it??? I mean, I was there and all, but I so don't remember that. Then again, my memory is not the one to be trusting. Is 27 too young to show signs of early Alzheimer's? :/

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So This is What the Volume Knob's For | last.fm | Twitter | Facebook

no the Brooklyn show, the night before, was the carpeted stage, where I'd felt off my game. Webster Hall is a tremendous stage.

Hey!

Thank you for the kind words, guys. I was nervous as anything before this came out, but I'm glad it did. I can answer questions to guys, to whatever extent that I know the answer.

I agree there definitely isn't a prototypical tMG fan, or if there is it certainly isn't me. To the four other people who were interviewed for this piece, let me just say that I was chosen (and this is how it was put to me) because I was a) young (because the meeting one's hero story is more endearing if it isn't a forty year old meeting another one) and b) because I had never seen the goats before but still qualified as a pretty into-it fan. But I am certainly not the end-all-be-all of tMG fans, and certainly not even the biggest. I just worked as a familiar story, as this was written to (as the reporter put it to me) the NY Mag reader base, anyone from a real tMG fan to "somebody's grandmother in Long Island."

I don't think all mountain goats fans are sad. I think the music is in itself so specific and such a vast catalogue that when one gets really into it it becomes a really intimate experience, and this creates a unique relationship that the fan feels towards John, which is what the story is really about from the fan's side.

Sorry about the Bright Eyes stuff. I don't hate the man, I just see it as two very distinct camps of lyrical ability.

Also, some clarifying notes on the story:

1) Reverse the order in the first sentence--I'm not that heretic or adulating.

2) I'm 6'5" not 6'3"--impossibly skinny is right since I'm 148 lbs.

3) I don't always look as super-creepy as in that second picture. Observe:


And, yeah, the hour or so I spent with John before the soundcheck was one of the most affirming and coolest things I've ever done. Hence, astounded creepy look on my face. But, really, I figure the story encompassed this but if it didn't, I hope you know that I love yr music, John, and it means a bunch.

Which I kind of avoided telling you in person because of how many times Rodrick hashed over how burdensome 4 or 5 people coming up to you per day saying the same thing can become. Which I--and anyone else--can entirely understand, and was sort of the second portion of the story.

anybody have any questions?

can you see that picture? I can't. go here: [www.flickr.com]

that's my girlfriend joy as mentioned in story.

No Adam don't apologize! I liked the Bright Eyes quote, I agree with you!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/02/2009 10:58AM by Neal.

I mean, I feel that way, it just sounds polemic so out of context. The wussy man part, so you know, was the title of the poem that won the 2006 National Slam Poetry contest, which I thought demarcated a certain trend in art away from the masculine (Hemingway as the epitome of this) towards the "precious" and "cutesy" which in a way I see Oberst spear-heading. That's all I mean. I mean, this was like a paragraph from a three-hour interview I had with the reporter, all of which was on tape. I don't hate the guy--it's just bad art. And I stand by that, I just don't want to sound more contentious than my complaint is, kinda thing.

"He’s a good guy, but he’s not Mother Teresa.”
Peter is hilarious. This left me laughing like a crazy in my school's computer lab. Public lunacy FTW.

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John
no the Brooklyn show, the night before, was the carpeted stage, where I'd felt off my game. Webster Hall is a tremendous stage.

Understandable in feeling off. Carpets don't even allow for powerslides.

I enjoyed the article, and think both John & Adam came off as good guys. It's easy for a reporter to turn profiles like these into extreme caricatures and I think he did a good job of making you both interesting & engaging, but not totally creepy and weird. I suppose you both deserve credit for not being too creepy and weird, as well. Nicely done!

A question, though, for anyone really - are Catholics not Christian?

without hemming and hawing about the finer points, I'd just like to say how great it is to see a full-length tMG article, especially one with such great fan involvement.

kudos to all involved!