These moments of literal bohemian rhapsody dot the first half of Leech’s account of a “genre” that up until recently, was amply peopled with artists who lived in ways that reflected their music, and vice versa. Leech, a British music historian and DJ, has synthesized them all, from the days when Fairport Convention and the Incredible String Band followed their Childe Ballads with five-minute electric jam sessions, to Joanna Newsom’s harp-in-the-clouds. Even mid-‘90s freak folk ringmaster Devendra Banhart might be stunned to find that despite all of his pretensions of pioneerdom (or denials thereof), he and his surrounders — the insular group of artists arising in the early 2000s that included Joanna Newsom, Andy Cabic’s Vetiver, and for a brief period (so Leech asserts) Animal Collective — were more than just, as he put it, a “Family.”  Leech doesn’t depend on the often unhelpful labeling of the music media, pointing out that, soon after Banhart’s revival, “The idea of being a ‘freak’ had a sneering, patronising undertone, and quickly became shorthand for haircuts and kookiness rather than anything musical.” In this, one can see how Banhart’s flippant dismissals quickly doubled back to wound him.

Seasons They Change: The Story of Acid and Psychedelic Folk

The book’s unwieldy subtitle is necessarily imprecise. Besides, it’s probably impossible to fully capture the nexus of artists who fall outside of the freaky-60s definition of “acid” anything, such as Newsom and Espers (whose Greg Weeks wrote the book’s foreword). In fact, a constant thread of Leech’s is the continued disavowal of labels, which, from some artists feels authentic. From others, such as Banhart, it feels cynical. It would be surprising if Leech didn’t feel frustrated at least once or twice, as all music journalists do, about her subjects’ disinclination to identify with  any movement. It’s especially problematic here, when the notion of “community” is inherent to the genre, whether in Bunyan’s storybook commune or the looser, modern collectives of artists. Vashti Bunyan eventually triumphed with her 1970 debut album “Just Another Diamond Day,” because she was legitimately a gypsy — a distinction not even Banhart can claim.

But gnomes and unicorns aside, Leech doesn’t hesitate to point out that folk music can be dark, even horrifying. Look at the work composer Paul Giovanni did for the soundtrack to British director Anthony Shaffer’s 1973 horror film “The Wicker Man.” Leech writes, “The deeply uncomfortable Wicker Man soundtrack is a striking example of how folk music had in it the capacity to explore experiences that were sinister, desolate and sometimes even sadistic and murderous. Here ‘acid’ refers to…music that brings a searing, burning shock to the ear,” writes Leech. Shedoes a convincing but imperfect job explaining why Giovanni has anything in common with say, Newsome, aside from arbitrary critic-derived lumping. One left with the impression of a chasm between the book’s two halves. Sure, artists like Sharron Kraus and Six Organs of Admittance have shown a capability of being uncomfortable, even eerie at times, but they’re a long way from the anarchic blood-letting of Paul Giovanni’s score, and even ‘60s British weirdoes like the Incredible String Band, and the conglomerate that included Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span, Fotheringay and Trees. Fairport, besides being the most commercially successful purveyors of acid folk, their devotion to traditional material can be seen echoed in hyper-current artists such as Alasdair Roberts and Espers. It’s not surprising that the term “folk rock,” even today, calls to mind Sandy Denny’s earthy, determined vocals.

Leech hunts for unseen, unheard connections between the modern day and eras past, and under mossy rocks and in streambeds, she hints at and hides it. It’s there in the gypsying of Bunyan, in the playboy swing of Banhart. You’re compelled to look for this trend in other eras, and other places, even in the relative folk desert of the 1980s, a decade that seems anathema to folk music even at its most basic. Leech rightly adjusts her focus to the cyclical career of Bunyan, who disappeared for decades before brought back to the forefront by the hip-makers of our own era, who in 2011, already seem bygone. If nothing else, Leech proves that folk is, while not immune from faddishness, resistant to it, like a sweater of Shetland wool, in which lies, in the ancient ways and gypsy routes, survival.

Photo Courtesy of Jawbone Press

Listen to Jeanette Leech’s custom playlist for “Seasons They Change” via Spotify.

The post Long live the storytellers: a review of “Seasons They Change: The Story of Acid and Psychedelic Folk” by Jeanette Leech appeared first on The Faster Times.

Al James of Dolorean.

There’s a consensus that if bands wait too long between album releases, they run the risk of being forgotten. But if the album is great, it doesn’t matter whether you waited ten months or ten years. Portland, Ore.-based Dolorean’s 2003 debut “Not Exotic” got an enviable level of press attention from, among others, The Sunday New York Times, which nestled Dolorean’s singer-songwriter Al James snugly into the rural, indie-folk jigsaw puzzle, next to Sam Beam and Will Oldham. I need hardly remind you that things have changed since then — that era’s  signature melange of bucolic hipness seems a bit precious now, in light of the subsequent recession and incessant declarations that the music industry was dead. It’s no surprise that after the markedly dark outlook of 2007′s “You Can’t Win,” burnout and business compelled James to rest. One scrapped record and a new label, Partisan, later, the result is “Unfazed,” on which James’s  ’70s-style country rock hooks are hearty but languid, murmuring of weary lovers, small-town juke joints and lake resorts in November. Talking to the thoughtful James,  an aspiring fiction writer who praises the loyalty of his band’s consistent lineup, it seems clear that this is a fundamentally grown-up album. However, James’s breed of grownup is the confused, recession-scattered grownup of his own generation, no longer flush with college delusions that whatever had meaning could be profitable. “Unfazed” is for those of us who have been forced to embrace poverty, cling to our friends, and somehow retain hope for love. Define “folk” in ten words or less. Great stories communicated through music.

Where did you grow up? Did you play music when you were young? I grew up in Oregon, a little southeast from Portland, but in the vicinity, in Silverton, a small rural town. I didn’t really pick up music until a little bit the last year of high school. In college I put a lot of time into it. I went to Lambert University, a little liberal arts school in Salem, Oregon.

Tell me about how Dolorean has progressed through the years. We’ve been together about a decade. It’s been more or less the same group of musicians the whole time; it’ll change up a little for tours. It’s just me and the same bunch of musicians in the studio, recording and playing together as much as we can. We’ve kind of been on a break between the last record (“You Can’t Win”) and this one, and starting off with the new label and a fresh start.

Four years is quite a bit of time between albums. What was that interim period like for you? We released records at a pretty good pace for two albums. From 2003 to 2007 we had three records and tours for each. We were at the end of our record contract and wanted to catch our breath. I just needed a little bit of a break and a recalibration. We started and finished half of a record and weren’t happy with the way it turned out, so we scrapped it. We weren’t feeling any sort of timeframe, [it was] up to us. We weren’t feeling rushed. There didn’t seem to be a reason to rush. We’re not part of the maniacal chaotic sort of release of music, or trying to one-up people.

Any particular reason why you scrapped the first album? At the core the performances [on "Unfazed"] were a lot better. There’s more life in the performances. We knew it would help in the end when we had it mixed. Everyone was playing the right stuff, and we knew we could get it better.

It’s been a long time since I’ve heard an album with such a consistent, pervasive mood. Where were you, mentally and emotionally, when writing the songs on this album? Compared to our other records, “You Can’t Win” has even more of a mood. It’s pretty foggy and dark. This one is a little more upbeat, and getting closer to seeing the good in things. [There's] a little bit of a tinge of melancholy. The performances are upbeat; the dynamics are good. The mood is definitely different from the other three albums.  I was just starting over with a new business plan, a new team of labels, a new team of people helping me out. i kind of needed to clear the books and start over, hook up with new people who appreciated the music for the right reasons. That sort of optimism is present. I can work with people that I think value the right things about what I’m trying.

There’s a line in  “How Is It” from “Unfazed” that goes “the richest kids without a dime/our bank accounts are filled with time” that seems particularly appropriate to the current economic situation. To me, it sounded like a “we may be poor but we’re still in rich in spirit” kind of thing. Did that have influence on this album or your life in general? Being a musician that never has any money, that’s sort of been a constant. Whether people talk about it very much, there’s a lot of risk in trying to make something creative and sharing it with people on tour, and racking up a huge number with lots of zeros as far as the thing that you’ve made with your record label. [You have to] prioritize the right things, I guess. There’s a lot of people in a similar spot as me, scraping up enough to do things.

Do you think there’s any truth to the idea that hard economic times make people more creative? Is it true for you? Not having money is sort of paralyzing. If you want to make something and make a good record, the case is rare when you can just sort of will it to happen. A lot of people try to cut corners, and the energy and the passion is there but in the end it’s hard to say what’s going to last. [When you're broke], it’s hard to be creative, and be a good friend to people. Luckily, I don’t feel like I’m in that position anymore.

Do you have any tour details worked out for this album? Three to four weeks in Europe in January and February, and SXSW in March.

What’s your most bizarre tour moment? One time, we played in Lubbock and it was in between shows in Austin and Albuquerque. A local booker set it up. It was off the route and we had an extra day. We went in and played to make some gas money. It was a huge crowd for us. People knew the words to the songs; it was really, really weird. It turns out there was this deejay at Texas Tech, and he’d been playing all three records over the years. A fan base [we] never knew existed.

If you could play with or collaborate with anyone, living or dead, who would it be? [I'd love to have] Levon Helm play drums on some songs, or play backup. The drummer that we have is soulful and always behind the beat. Playing with Ben [Benny Nugent], I’ve been really spoiled.

Where do you want to be ten years from now? Where do you not want to be? I’d like to keep making music, have another four or five records under my belt, and some sort of written thing done. A book of short stories. [I've been writing] on and off, for maybe ten years now. I wouldn’t want to still be in Portland, but we’ll see.

Really? Everything I’ve read says Portland is the world’s greatest place to live. No, that’s The New York Times PR machine. [I want to live] anywhere with sunshine; somewhere where there’s some actual heat. There were only six weeks of sunshine in Portland last year.

Photo courtesy Press Here Publicity.

The post Folklife Q&A: Al James of Dolorean on recalibration, recession and the Portland PR machine appeared first on The Faster Times.

Tall Tall Trees plays Tuesday at Alphabet Lounge.

The Living Room, 7 pm

She’s fresh off having two of her songs features on the “Grey’s Anatomy” soundtrack (it’s true, Shonda Rhimes is the new Izzy Young), and her hypnotic style is like being in a coma you don’t particularly want to wake up from, even if your doctor is McDreamy.

Union Hall, 7 pm

I first encountered Jonathan Byerley’s bewitching bass voice in a Bushwick basement almost two years ago, and have been waiting for him to break out ever since. The first album comes out this month, and expectations are high.

The Living Room, 7:45 pm

I once got reamed by this Brooklyn duo of elementary school teachers for what they considered a bad review of their album “March Forth,” although all I really said is that they sound like elementary school teachers. Is that necessarily a bad thing? You decide.

The Living Room, 8:30 pm

Yes, this former threesome (now a twosome) are the nieces of Harry Chapin, but their striking, traditional close harmonies go far beyond the limits of 1970s yacht-rock.

Alphabet Lounge, 9 pm

Two words: Ford Edge. You may not know her name, but that’s her breathy voice cooing over a chorus of peppy handclaps in a car commercial you most likely saw yesterday. You forgot it, but you remember the song. It’s called “Morning Sun,” and her others are just as good.

Alphabet Lounge, 10 pm

Bluegrass, exuberant or haunting, however you like it. Mike Savino’s banjo-heavy songwriting is a wonder to hear.

The Living Room, 10:45 pm

These guys are actual mountain men from Goshen, Vermont: in other words, everything you want a folk band to be these days. They record in a cabin in the middle of nowhere. It’s impossible to make bad music doing that, I’ve decided. They also play Friday the 22nd at 5 pm at Rockwood Music Hall Stage 2.

Googie’s Lounge, 11:30 pm

A lot of folksingers claim to have their own distinct guitar technique, but very actually do. This quiet young songwriter does. You have to hear it yourself, but good luck putting it into words.

Cake Shop, 11:50 pm

Part of the early-200s trend in dirty, rootsy folk rock, these guys have been laying low for the past few years due to health issues. Frontman Greg Jamie has gone solo, and is also playing Friday the 22nd at 7pm at Bruar Falls.

Highline Ballroom, 8 pm

It seems like a long time ago (college) when I was first blown away by “Restless.” Sean Scolnick’s 2009 album “Be Set Free,” sounds more produced and less wistful, but it’s still totally worth it.

Bruar Falls, 9:10 pm

Your chance to flail around like an idiot to anthemic bluegrass.

Googie’s Lounge, 10:30 pm

The very eccentric James Richard Nee from Virginia Beach plays cloudy, atmospheric folk reminiscent of Beach House. Also plays Friday the 22nd at 10 pm at Bowery Electric.

Ólöf Arnalds plays Thursday at Googie's.

Bar Matchless, 7 pm

The Tori Amos comparisons must get old, but… Also Friday the 22nd at 7 pm at Spike Hill.

Coco66, 8 pm

There’s actually quite a few Minnesota-based bands playing CMJ this year, but these folks are my favorite.

Bowery Electric, 9 pm

Like Jewel, this Milwaukee songstress writes lyrics about sleeping in her car, but in her case, you actually believe it, because they’re so vivid you’re right there beside her.

The Delancey, 9:30 pm

The hype surrounding this guy last year wasn’t altogether necessary, but the twelve-string guitar on “Summer of Fear” probably makes him the closest you’ll come at CMJ to hearing a Byrds disciple.

Googie’s Lounge, 10:30 pm

If you see one folk act at CMJ, make it this weathered Icelandic lady, whose crystalline voice and melodies will stir you, like the Icelanders, into taking the existence of fairies for granted. Thankfully you’ll have two chances; she also plays on Friday the 22nd at 7 pm at Pianos.

Giant Cloud plays Friday at Littlefield.

Vaudeville Park, 7 pm

New York needs more banjo virtuosos like Benjamin Lee, who takes the instrument beyond the front porch and into a new and beautiful universe.

Littlefield, 8:30 pm

From New Orleans, for those who like their folk doused in a little LSD. These days, that seems to be pretty much everybody.

Best Buy Theatre, 9 pm

Melora Creager invented that brand of gothic chamber-folk in which every song is a novel. This year’s “Sister Kinderhook” improves upon the tradition.

The post Yes, it is possible to hear folk music at CMJ appeared first on The Faster Times.

Trampled by Turtles

When I have too much time on my hands, I start thinking about my favorite bands. When I have too much time on my hands and I’m in Minnesota (as I am now), I start thinking about my favorite bands from Minnesota. And sometimes, if I get lucky, I interview some of them. This was the case for Trampled by Turtles. Frontman Dave Simonett took some time out between gigs at the Minnesota State Fair and Seattle’s Bumbershoot festival earlier this month to answer Folklife’s “10 Questions.”

The bluegrass dervishes’ new album “Palomino” (Banjodad) is their first album since 2008′s “Duluth.” “Palomino” offers a solid gold platter of songwriting, owing as much to John Prine as to Ralph Stanley. Until now, live shows have been the band’s bread and butter. But “Palomino” makes a bold case for their studio work. Lead single “Wait So Long” is a frenzied hyperspeed hoedown, and “Victory” its teary-eyed twin. In fact, the whole album has a haunted quality, ghosted by minor keys and regret-not a bad soundtrack for a sojourn in Minnesota, particularly one involving the state fair, where everyone goes to hear free music and eat cheese curds and deep-fried chocolate to ease their pain over summer’s ending.

Trampled by Turtles and tour mates The Infamous Stringdusters will be in New York to play the Bowery Ballroom on Nov. 11. Be sure to catch them if you’re in town-I certainly wish I was.

Define “folk” in 10 words or less.

Music of the people; rugged and homemade.

What’s your most bizarre tour moment?

We were playing a festival and the sound guys were having so many problems that at one point the front of house tech just threw up his hands and left. This is right in the middle of our sound being totally screwed up. Thankfully, some guys from another Minnesota band (The Boys ‘n’ the Barrels) happened to be in the crowd and stepped up for us. They just went into the sound booth and took control of the board, fixed the sound and allowed the show to go on.

What’s your favorite way to unwind after a live show?

Usually a cocktail and some headphones.

Which album are you embarrassed you have in your collection?

None. I’m proud of all my guilty pleasures.

You just played the Minnesota State Fair. What’s your favorite food on a stick?

Chocolate covered bacon.

Best Bob Dylan encounter?

The closest we’ve ever got is a bill from his publishing company for putting “Outlaw Blues” on a live EP.

If you could live in any time period in history what would it be?

I’m pretty happy right here in the present, but if I had to pick I think I’d go with the early 70′s so I could catch Townes Van Zandt live at the Old Quarter in person.

Minnesotans have a complicated relationship with winter. What’s yours?

Love/hate.

I just moved from New York back to Minnesota. Any adjustment tips?

Remember it’s socially acceptable here to be passive-aggressive.

Where do you want to be in 10 years? Where do you not want to be?

I’d like to be close to where I am now-playing music for a living, happy home life, supportive family and friends. Not want to be? Too far away from that.

Image courtesy Angie Carlson of PressHere

The post Official Folklife Q&A is Trampled by Turtles appeared first on The Faster Times.

2. I spend the night with a professional drummer I met after he sat in with Peter Bjorn and John during a private NYC show. We go back to his apartment on Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg—a street on which I wasn’t aware anyone actually lived voluntarily. The next morning, he caresses my leg while we eat breakfast at Bagel World. He suggests getting together tomorrow to go to the Bronx Zoological Gardens. “It’s all happening at the zoo,” I say, unable to muster much enthusiasm. He never calls again.

3. On the way up to Connecticut with some family friends, I become horribly carsick while crossing the 59th Street Bridge. Not feeling particularly groovy.

4. While waiting for the train, I check the subway walls for the words of the prophets and instead only find banner ads for “Dance Your Ass Off,” and further down, a notice from the MTA that the train I’d been waiting the last 45 minutes for won’t be coming. Ever.

5. While it’s true I never held up and robbed a liquor store, I did become overly confident in my turnstile-jumping abilities at the unmanned-because-of-budget-cuts 28th St. 1 station. I made the mistake of trying to transfer my luck to Union Square, only to get caught in a sting by two undercover cops who slapped me with two $50 citations. I still have no intention of paying them.

6. I dodge a bullet when I find out the headliners for a sold-out show I wanted to attend at Central Park is actually Vampire Weekend.

7. Seeking out the poorer quarters where the ragged people go, looking for the places only they would know. I’ve actually been doing this for several months now without even realizing it. It’s pathetic, really—I’ve considered applying for food stamps and subsidized housing, all in the hopes of financing the tragic adventure of remaining in this brutal city.

8. Working three jobs while still being broke, trying to complete a book manuscript, mingle in influential circles and meet eligible men, and deciding a couple weeks ago to, at last, pack it in. I don’t hate New York—I just hate what my life here has become. I have to leave in order that I may begin again. I am leaving, but the fighter still remains. Also that MTA fine.

The post My Top 8 New York Moments, Courtesy of Simon & Garfunkel appeared first on The Faster Times.

Bob Porco felt the same way. Though, unlike me, he was actually in a position to do something about it, being the son of Mike Porco, the founder of what was probably the greatest folk music club of all time, Gerde’s Folk City-the place where Bob Dylan, Peter, Paul & Mary and Simon & Garfunkel all got their start. The original Gerde’s at 11 W. 4th St. burned down in 1970, but the venue was moved to a different location before closing for good in 1987. It’s arguable, but probably true, that there hasn’t been anything like it since. Bob spent years tracking down the old guard for a 50th reunion show, and the fruits of his labors could be seen earlier last month at the Village Underground, a basement venue right around the corner from Gerde’s original Greenwich Village locale.

“[It was] the first honest-to-god folk club in the Village,” wrote legendary local folkie Dave Van Ronk of Gerde’s in his memoir “The Mayor of MacDougal St.”  Van Ronk himself was resentful that Mike Porco had taken over the business from Izzy Young, the proprietor of the legendary Folklife Center. I wondered if Van Ronk, who died in 2002, might have let bygones be bygones if he’d been able to see the community reunite to celebrate both the venue and the artists who played there.

The performance clipped steadily along with only one song allowed per artist, a format I wish was more common. Happy Traub of the New World Singers played “Buckets of Rain,” a sensitive tribute to Dylan, whose spiritual presence in the room lent a kind of ghostly energy to the night.

Why does it seem like every folk band in the early ’60s had to have some whimsical name with the word “singers” tacked onto the end of it? Besides the New World Singers, there was the Almanac Singers, the Rooftop Singers, the Serendipity Singers-at least Van Ronk and Peter Stampfel broke the mold with their Jug Band Stompers and Holy Modal Rounders.

Then there were Terre and Suzzy Roche with their ethereal close harmonies. The sisters’ Christmas album held an honored place in the collection of my holiday-music-obsessed father. The Roches also got their start at Folk City a little later, in the ’70s and ’80s. For their performance at the Village Underground, they went meta, playing “Face Down at Folk City” (“When you came in here / you were looking so pretty / with your Dracula cape and your bat / What a pity”). This spoke to an era of Folk City that I wasn’t particularly sorry to have missed.

At one point, probably sometime around ancient comedian Steve Ben Israel’s set, someone tapped me on the shoulder. The guy standing near me was close to my age, so I suspected this was going to be some lame attempt at a pickup, the premise being that we were the only young people in the room and thus destined to be together. I tried to think of a strategy to politely blow him off.

“What brings you here?” asked the young man, whose name turned out to be Jason Keis. I told him I write a folk column for The Faster Times. He proceeded to tell me, after apologizing for being more or less wasted, not that my clothes would look great on his bedroom floor, but that he needed my support in helping establish an area in Washington Square Park to be known as the Eternal Circle in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the arrival of (who else?) Bob Dylan. Of course, I gave him my card and told him to e-mail me, telling him we’d discuss it when he was sober.

Vince Martin then sang a tune a cappella. Martin, who sang and wrote with Fred Neil (“Everybody’s Talking,” “Another Side of this Life,”) for a brief period in the late ’50s, is best known for his hit with the Tarriers (“Cindy Oh Cindy”). I don’t remember what he sang, but the mere fact that he was up there was impressive. In fact, I had tried to contact Martin for an interview last year when I was working on an article about the city’s folk scene for a grad school class. I needed an elder statesman. I supposed I never had a chance-being me, the only ways I know to get in touch with artists are through MySpace or their publicists. But Martin doesn’t need any PR, and why the hell would he bother with MySpace?  I’m an amateur. On the other hand, Bob Porco’s phone tree is probably an unbroken line reaching all the way back to Fred Neil. There are lines and channels in this city unknown to us youngsters, and they might very well remain that way until the last connections are uprooted. Martin, for his part, was born Vincent Martinello in Brooklyn in 1938, and has never left, except for a brief sojourn down South to Coconut Grove, Fla. I’m fairly sure that at this point anybody with a legitimate need to know him already does.

The following afternoon, after recovering from his hangover, Keis sent me an e-mail detailing his project, which had begun to run into some difficulty. It seems the Parks Department was reluctant to allow Keis to raise the million of dollars that would be needed to designate the Eternal Circle, especially for an artist who’s still alive, though more or less unreachable. Meanwhile, back at the Village Underground, there was probably a hootenanny still going on-or so I have to assume. After all, there was one going on when I came in the day before, and it was still going on when I left.

The post Folk City at 50: The advantages and disadvantages of being the youngest person at a show appeared first on The Faster Times.

Lest readers dismiss this column as some kind of drive-by smear campaign, let me state right off that Phosphorescent’s 2008 album “Pride” falls squarely in my Top 10 – its songs, “Wolves” and “My Dove, My Lamb” display a level of poetic artistry that comes from another plane. I’d put it in the same category as “Blonde on Blonde”-era Bob Dylan, a period where he claimed to have been “channeling” his songs rather than merely writing them. Matthew Houck takes his place among the artists I have pored over enough that their music has taken on personal meaning for me. His new album, “Here’s to Taking it Easy” (Dead Oceans), while not on the level of “Pride,” richly deserves any exposure it gets.

And yet every time I’ve encountered the Phosphorescent frontman in the flesh (and note that this isn’t that many times) either he or his entourage has managed to irritate me on an equally personal level. I first heard of the Athens, Ga. native around two years ago, when “Pride” came out and Houck moved to Brooklyn, where he became a fixture on the music scene that I myself was then just being introduced to, as well. This was the heyday of the rural-indie-folk freak-music movement epitomized by bands like Iron and Wine, and I quickly decided Houck was its new heir. Unfortunately, when I got the chance to see him live (opening for Vetiver at the Music Hall of Williamsburg) my vantage point happened to be adjacent to what had apparently been designated (to borrow some World Cup terminology) his band’s WAGS (Wives and Girlfriends) table. The level of drunken obnoxiousness on display by these girls was mind-blowing, and as the leader of his band, I have to hold Houck personally responsible for condoning it. (Although I’m pretty sure most of the catcalls were directed at the drummer, not Houck —sorry). This was also the night when I first heard “The Mermaid Parade,” a brand-new song that would later appear on his just-released album, “Here’s to Taking it Easy.” Needless to say, that moment, lovely as it was, was not what lingered in my mind.

At a certain recent literary/music event, where I was one of the designated merch girls for the night, Houck seemed capable of little but gushing about Willie Nelson to the other girl selling merch, who had never heard his music before (Houck’s, not Nelson’s). Afterward, when I attempted to engage him in conversation about the event, he hung back catering to a clingy blonde. Make no mistake, I’m a journalist (sort of) so I encounter behavior like this all the time, from everyone, and usually it doesn’t bother me. Maybe I just hold Houck to a higher standard, in which case—my mistake.

I have never interviewed Houck, but fortunately for me he hasn’t been shy about talking to various media. I don’t know if he’s gone back and read any of these interviews, because I wonder if he’s satisfied with the way he comes off in them. When “Pride” came out, Jen Carlson at Gothamist asked him his opinion about the Pitchfork review, in which they gave the album an 8.0. Houck had this to say: “The review won’t affect me personally or artistically but I am glad of anything that brings more attention to the new album, ‘Pride.’ It’s a great record. It’s easily the best record released this year and probably of the last ten years. I haven’t heard anything that comes close.” He then went on to state that his band is “the best band in America.”

You have to wonder if Houck even listens to himself when he talks to interviewers, or if it’s just never occurred to him that coming off badly in interviews might come off, well, badly. Reviews and interviews matter, and how you come off in them matters (just ask M.I.A.) They especially matter for an underappreciated artist like Houck, who deserves all the positive exposure he can get, if only because it helps his music find an audience. Trashing the writers of those reviews (even if they are from Pitchfork) does not.

In the first line of Houck’s cover of Nelson’s “Reasons to Quit” on the record “To Willie” (“Reasons to quit the smoke and beer don’t do me like before”), Houck changed the word “smoke” to “coke,” then spent an hour or so talking to BOMB magazine about how “that addiction” has been mitigated “to some extent.” Happy to hear it, Matthew, just as I congratulate you on your other accomplishments, including being thrown out of bars you’ve played and being so excellent that you’ve evolved beyond the need to rehearse. Then there’s the ridiculously bizarre beefcake publicity shots (see above), which made sense for the cover of “Pride,” but not much sense anywhere else. (Not that he doesn’t have a good body, to be sure, but there are plenty of just-as-well-built indie rockers who don’t resort to such behavior).

If this all sounds trifling, it is. Essentially, I suppose this all comes down to the kind of entitlement syndrome I’ve found to be epidemic with some artists of a certain generation (mine), which makes them think they deserve to behave like rock stars the minute they pick up an instrument. Look, you don’t have to be a saint. You don’t have to volunteer at cat shelters and travel to Africa to play benefit shows for AIDS orphans. (Houck may do this, for all I know). But what you do have to do is court and cultivate your audience in a way that will last. (Which, by the way, can still be done while being true to your artistic vision.) The irony is that in another time, his talent might have even given him license to behave this way—just not here, not now.

Matthew, if you read this, that you can forgive me for being a spiteful, petulant, easily-offended attention whore who still loves your music anyway. You don’t really have much of a choice, do you?

Photo courtesy Dead Oceans Records

The post Why I’m Starting to Dislike Matthew Houck of Phosphorescent (Personally, Not Artistically) appeared first on The Faster Times.

Her voice has a distant, removed quality, as if it were radiating out of some ridiculously old antique speakers, which of course only served to reinforce the measured antique quality of her records. Best of all, it was completely organic – she didn’t need to use any aggressively obsolete recording equipment to get that sound. In a way, her popularity actually foreshadowed the retro-hip pseudo-jazz chanteuses of the late 2000s — the Norah Joneses, the Amy Winehouses, the Duffys — all of whom have a slightly ironic ring to them. Merchant, even at her most self-indulgent, managed to be utterly devoid of irony, a fact that, today, is even more astonishing to think about. Even in her hippy-dippy 10,000 Maniacs days, she had an earnestness about her, one that necessitated her appeal to her equally earnest prepubescent fanbase — the desperately alternative, thirteen year old tree-hugger set who didn’t know that caring had stopped being cool sometime in the ’70s. She was optimistically vegetarian, and wore long loose skirts over her festively curvy body because she liked the way they looked. She was so much more accessible than the untouchable pop stars with whom she shared the mid-90s stage — the Mariahs, the Celines. A 1995 New York Times article presented her as an alternative to the “angry woman” archetype that had popped up: Courtney Love, P.J. Harvey. But at the time, I didn’t know about either of them — they were inaccessible and vaguely dangerous, and their rebellion was too much for me to handle. They also didn’t get much radio play. I was only a year or so removed from playing for hours on my bedroom floor in an imaginary realm that I had created, populated by purple plastic ponies, and Merchant, for better or worse, was my built-in soundtrack. Hers was the kind of quite folk rebellion that wasn’t about being badass – it was about being somehow better, holier. In “Wonder,” she sings “I’m a challenge to your balance/I’m over your heads/How I confound you and astound you.” Listening to her, I reasoned, if I’m ever misunderstood, it’s only because I’m superior.

I was never a Merchant superfan. In fact, I was barely a fan at all. I was aware of Tigerlily like I was aware of everything else on Top 40 radio I was just beginning to discover, before I had ever even owned a CD of my own. All I knew is that whenever “Wonder” came on the radio, it made my day a little better, because it reassured me that there were artists out there who understood the world the way I wanted to see it, and wanted to know it.

Rolling Stone panned Tigerlily at the time of its release for its “blindly self-obsessed lyrics and lulling lite-rock arrangements,” which, naturally, is why I loved it. Merchant’s 1998 sophomore release Ophelia was essentially a concept album; though its one hit single, “Kind and Generous,” was just…well, kind and generous. The album notes featured Merchant dressed in elaborate costumes suggestive of each of the heroines portrayed within the songs — the kind of drama borrowed from Cher and Madonna and echoed over a decade later, tongues planted firmly in cheeks, by the likes of Lady GaGa and Ke$ha. Merchant, however, believed, body and soul, in the characters she was portraying, and so did I.

In the years after Ophelia, Merchant moved more and more into the traditional folk realm, which is where we all sort of knew her heart lay. The House Carpenter’s Daughter (2003) consisted entirely of traditional songs, and of course vanished without a trace. On a mainstream album these days, you’re allowed one traditional song – one. That’s it. And, preferably, you render it more or less unrecognizable by laying down some electronic beats.

Merchant appeared at the PEN cabaret, at which obscure writers from Lebanon and Portugal are trotted out to American audiences in hopes of broadening our horizons. It indicates that Leave Your Sleep will make an artistic impact, though it probably won’t sell. But it makes sense that Merchant is astounding us once again by putting music to the words of poets whose words have, in some sense, already achieved the level of folk art. Merchant is back where she belongs, composing for those – poets, idealists and ten-year-old girls – who know they’re inherently superior. I find it reassuring.

The post Why I Care About Natalie Merchant’s New Poetry Album, and Why You Should Too appeared first on The Faster Times.