gods, i love this man + his band
no. 1 music-maker i wanna see live. if ive scooped him and Neko in my lifetime im set.
i listened to the WTF w/ Maron he was on in 2012 and dude is as erudite and chill as i’d hope, and also apparently like 50 despite perpetually looking mid-30s. John Darnielle is an ageless song-pixie you heard it here first
I’ve heard his fantasy novel about dnd nerds is pretty good
omg i had no idea he wrote a novel
I think all the Mountain Goats songs I’ve heard came via the IC Gmail List (RIP) like, ten, twelve years ago. Anyway, they were pretty cool.
i got introduced to TMG when i was a shitty punkass 15-year-old reg on the VGcats forums in goddamn high school
A dude who was infinitely cooler than anyone else there (and way more patient w/ his way younger fellow forumites than they deserved) was always pushing them and convinced me to pickup Talahassee and The Sunset Tree. straight up ordered the CDs online lol
i had pretty limited taste in music until around then, it was basically a combo of Mountain Goats and Talking Heads that got me to branch out and start pirating stuff off of German blogspots & whatnot.
oh and Neutral Milk Hotel 'cuz that same forum dude was a big ItAOtS booster
I saw him do a live solo show last year. It was pretty cool and his stage persona was as charming as you’d expect. You should definitely see him if you can.
My favorite song by the band is “Cold Milk Bottle” and The Sunset Tree is a wonderful album.
I think he wrote a 33 1/3 book about a Metallica album that was a piece of fiction and also wrote a novel called Wolf In White Van (great title) that might’ve even been longlisted for the National Book Award. I haven’t read either, but he seems like someone who brings passion and craftsmanship to everything he releases, even if it doesn’t end up being your thing, so I’d bet they’re worth reading. Plus, I think both are quite short.
IIRC, he’s worth following on Twitter, too.
i forgot to mention he made the best videogame song ever what the fuck
the book is quite good!
I last saw him (third time?) during the tour of the album that had damn these vampires on it. Really good! More sunset tree than I expected.
the only mountain goats songs ive ever heard are from chavo gurrero album and I don’t want anything else to ruin my opinion of that being the most perfect wrestling thing
that album rules and John Darnielle is a huge wrestling nerd. checkout this adorable video where he gets to chill w/ his childhood hero
JD has probably my favourite social media presence as far as musicians go. haven’t actually listened to many songs but I love all I’ve heard
He’s such a brilliant salt of the earth American boy that he almost makes you forget that person is an exception rather than someone you’ll meet anywhere
Always a solid guess for summary judgment on Judge John Hodgman.
It’s nice to have a sincere sense of lyrical geography in music in a day where there’s a radio edit for every DMA to replace local call outs.
this is ridiculously my shit rn
c’mon y’all nerds, enjoy this with me.
put a cover of a rare mountain goats tune up on my tumblr a few months ago if you care to hear my voice
This cover makes a lot of sense to me. I’ve been putting in some time with Zopilote Machine lately. (It’s great - I love the “Into the fire you go!” chants at the end of “Quetzalcoatl Is Born.”) Though I’ve listened to many other Mountain Goats albums, for some reason while listening to this one it clicked with me that Darnielle has that same furious acoustic strumming style as Mangum. And they both convey empathy in their music in a way I haven’t heard from any other musicians. It seems unlikely, but it’d be interesting to know if Mangum heard any of Darnielle’s early stuff before starting Neutral Milk Hotel.
For example:
“Alpha Incipiens” by The Mountain Goats
vs.
“Oh Sister” by Neutral Milk Hotel
(Side note: “Oh Sister” is probably the best NMH song. It’s a damn shame it wasn’t included on Aeroplane. Part of its lyrics are included in the album’s insert, not sure why it got cut - apparently at the last minute.)
What’s a good place to get started with for listening to TMG? He has so many albums that I have no idea where to start beyond listening to the odd song here and there.