Daughn Gibson - All Hell
“I saw him, underneath the neon lights of a corner bar, crying like a child. So I asked him, ‘What’s the matter?’ and he said, ‘I’m just an old man in a young girl’s world…’”
Daughn Gibson delivers that little bit of theatrical scene-setting in his commanding baritone half way through All Hell, drawling the words in imitation of the old country musicians whose songs he samples to build his own. It’s a helpful encapsulation of what’s happening on this record, especially since without a hint of two we might be tempted to see Gibson’s music as homage or graverobbery. At his darkest—and this is a deceptively dark album—he sounds a lot like late-70s/early-80s Scott Walker, crossing from MOR and pop into the shadowy world of art rock. “The Day You Were Born” sounds like Leonard Cohen teaming up with Bill Callahan to cover Nick Drake, while “Rain on a Highway” finds Gibson incorporating a touch of Roy Orbison warble. When he flexes the hard edges of his voice, as he does in that above narration, it booms like Johnny Cash. All of this to say: Daughn Gibson bears a clear resemblance to several other traditionally deep, manful singers.
What Gibson doesn’t do, though, is linger behind his influences as some set of playlistable Spotify recommendations. Or, rather, he simply treats them as means instead of ends. Construction matters a lot on All Hell, since the perceived chasm between the dusty, raggedy country songs Gibson samples and the modern way he puts them together—slicing, looping, pitching up and down—is so wide. His methods allow him to investigate some established storytelling tropes about down-and-out anti-heroes littering the rank corners of a thousand stale dives (“Ray,” “Bad Guys”) while pitting them against the unstoppably sleek, plastic futures we all seem destined for. Notice how “Lookin’ Back on ‘99” nudges bits of gritty noir rock toward something resembling European techno, or how “Tiffany Lou”s lament pivots on a warped, glitchy chorus and sputtering drums.
The way I hear it, what’s at stake on All Hell is a handful of notions about traditional masculinity. Gibson puts it bluntly on “A Young Girl’s World,” but it’s all over every sound on this album. It’s not as simple as undercutting patriarchy or sympathizing with the truck-driving types who have less and less to offer the world, either. He’s looking for emotional intersections, commonalities that might let the symbolically old and new coexist without demolishing or corrupting each other. The cover image shows Gibson—his facial stubble somewhere between runway and highway—buttoning up a frayed plaid shirt in a multi-angled mirror as if he were expecting a fashion choice (or anti-fashion, if you wish) to transform him into the kind of man neither he nor the characters in his songs can really afford to be anymore. Remember, he’s not the old man in the young girl’s world, he’s the young man trying to make sense of both, and in the process he’s made one of the year’s most engaging, dramatic, and replayable albums.
Fevers and Mirrors isn’t degraded from being removed from the bullshit of your youth, and in any context it’s a tremendous record that is “critic-proof” in the same way Violent Femmes, Pinkerton, and, yes, the Smiths are. Scoff if you must, but let me ask you this: How many people do you know got into Morrissey as teens? Okay, now how many got started in their 30s?
Bright Eyes: Fevers and Mirrors / There is No Beginning to the Story EP | Album Reviews | Pitchfork
This sorta skirts an idea I’ve had for a while that I’ll occasionally bust out for an ill-timed dinner party rant, which is that certain musics are (unintentionally?) designed to have a limited-but-intense shelf life that only really exists in your teenage years. It’s not quite an across-the-board genre thing, but being who I am and coming from where I do, I tend to see ‘emo’ as the big signpost for it. Do you ever find yourself talking about the music you loved in high school with some strange mix of humor—the kind of humor that covers up shame because those things are passé or seem utterly ridiculous in hindsight—and/or balance-correcting pride that tries to reclaim and destigmatize those sounds? It’s different than just saying ‘oh, I liked this stuff when I was younger but now I like other stuff, lol’ or even conjuring a spot of nostalgia for when things that don’t matter as much now mattered a lot more. It’s not about what’s culturally relevant so much as what emotional states you’ve grown into and out of. Music with this extra teenage ingredient, whatever you want to call it, takes different forms over the years but appeals perennially to young people who need their small, awkward problems to feel huge. Ian Cohen mentions Violent Femmes, Weezer, and The Smiths next to Bright Eyes, but I personally only had any kind of teenage-ish connection with Bright Eyes (and even then I was late to the party). The others were slightly before my time, so I listen to them as hip older bands with a certain teenage petulance. The music changes with each new generation of teens—that’s maybe something Cohen’s missing here—but every hormonal high schooler gets the Conor Oberst or Morrissey they want/need/deserve. It’s as if there’s a mode of listening, a way of relating to music, that’s only possible in that short span of years. Some people laugh at it, some cover it up, and some refuse to move past it, replaying their 10th grade faves in hopes (I think?) of getting back to that state. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, but it’s also not the end-all of listenership. I tend to think people are better off when they can relate to songs without wrapping their identities up in them, when they can enjoy them as just songs and nothing more. For a time, though, many kids do seem to need them to be more, and that’s what ‘emo’ is for.
B Michael Tumblr: Four Pictures Of Instagram
Last night and this morning I saw three music writers write on Instagram. I was going to reblog Perpetua, but I couldn’t upload photographs to the reblog, so this new post should suffice.
These days, instead of eschewing technology, we’re using it to deny itself — it’s…
Go read this whole thing. It’s great. Two cents of mine: Instagram is gradually becoming the social network that I check / update most often (Tumblr aside, natch’), partly because it resides exclusively on my phone and my phone is always with me, and partly because all my closest friends (especially the ones who don’t live in the same city as me) use it and we exchange likes and comments and it becomes a nice way to see what everyone’s up to. It would be inane for anyone else who wasn’t us because they wouldn’t care about us and our inane lives, but since we do care about us it’s meaningful. As with many other Internet Things, real-world sociability precedes and gives (any possible) value to these flimsy digital exchanges.
I don’t really care or think too much about the filters. Sometimes I use them, but often I do not. The ability to #nofilter, in my mind, keeps a lid on the volatile discussion of What This Thing Is Doing To Photography And Our Brains. I use the filters, as B Michael says, to cover up and / or correct the crappiness of my own picture-taking—lighting, framing, etc.—but I have no illusions about my Instagram photos resembling a) ‘authentic’ analog photos or b) anything nostalgically warped and decayed. Any photo I put on there that I actually like as a photo doesn’t get a filter. If you use Instagram enough, you can start to pick out which filters people are using on sight, which means you sorta end up looking through them and hey presto! they disappear. If you want to get the most out of it and cut down on cognitive dissonance, I suggest only following people you actually care about in real life (not every damn Facebook friend who pops up on your feed) and keeping the faux-artiness of your pics to a minimum. Stop trying to look cool, in other words.
Source: bmichael
Q:I can't find love. Like, anywhere. Now what?
Anonymous
Ah, yes, something I’m totally not qualified to talk about at all. What a refreshing change of pace! I can see it now: this blog slowly morphs into a weird duo-tone stew of musical musings and less-than-helpful relationship advice, a two-pronged attack of uselessness for the ages!
…So I guess it depends on what you mean by “love.” Your use of the word “anywhere” and the fact that my Gmail inbox says I received this question at 1:35 in the morning (assuming you’re on US East Coast time, which, okay, you very well might not be), suggests to me that you’re feeling especially lonely and maybe even a little worthless. This I actually do know something about, so let me assure you that no one—not even you, Anonymous!—is as unloved as they think they are at 1:35 in the morning on a Wednesday. Go to bed, for pete’s sake, and if you still feel this bad in the morning, make yourself some eggs, put those eggs on an English muffin with some cheese and maybe a little ham or bacon, and then call either your best friend or your mom. They will tell you that they love you and you should believe them when they say it.
As for romantical love, well, there just aren’t many non-cliché answers. Let’s consult the great American songbook, shall we? The Supremes: “You can’t hurry love / you just have to wait.” Whitney Houston: “You said be patient, just wait a little longer / but that’s just an old fantasy.” Rihanna: “We found love in a hopeless place.” See? You’ve got to toughen up. Have thick skin and just keep putting yourself out there. And if you can’t handle that then you’re treating love like a watched pot, Anonymous, so quit waiting for it to boil and go do something else for a while. It’ll happen when it happens and there’s no reason for you to sit around being unhappy in the meantime.
Q:Coachella?
Anonymous
What about it, exactly?
Y’know, given the aloofness of your question, I can only assume this is a covert offer from a wealthy fan to finance a trip for me to the festival next year, which I wholeheartedly accept! Included in this will be round-trip air fare between New York City and southern California, lodgings, entry fees, primo camping equipment (we may be acting like wild animals in the desert, but let us at least sleep like human beings!), food and beverage costs, and access to VIP/press areas so I can “cover” (read: “drink free beer”) the event properly.
I will say, though, that in a conversation last night, agreeing with one friend that the infamous “hologram” of Tupac during Dr. Dre’s set this year was cheesy, gross, and dumb (“tech hubris” is my new favorite phrase when it comes to this stuff) got me into a discussion with another friend which ended with me arguing that video chatting is pointless and unnecessary, so clearly Coachella is a gleaming goldmine for stubborn cultural thought.
Q:If you could make a living doing whatever you want, what would it be? What is your passion?
Anonymous
Nomadic Mongolian herdsman.
Artisanal bakery janitor.
Retired Brewmaster.
Importer/Exporter.
Semi-professional music writer.
Q:Why don't you share your DJ set playlists?
Because I’m DJ Oscar The Grouch, dang it, and I was voted Least Likely to Succeed in kindergarten because I am horrible at sharing!
Does KFC share their blend of eleven herbs and spices? Does Coca-Cola share their secret formula? Some things are better left a mystery.
Besides, if this is about what I played at your birthday party, I can’t even remember anymore, so it’s a lost cause either way.
