music
BY VANESSA SALVIA
actually play through their heart and soul,”
she says. American Dream, though a studio
album, didn’t use many “tricks”: ”It’s all
instruments that have been played by
humans who are attached to the story.”
It’s hard to pinpoint what’s most
enjoyable about American Dream. Part of
it is defi nitely the slide guitar that slithers
through everything, giving each song
an easy sort of groove. Flynn’s voice is
equally appealing whether she’s belting out
the rocking, untamed “Evangeline,” gentle
“Dressed and Ready” or melancholy title
track. And the instrumentation is simple
and unfussy; each song gets the attention
it needs and nothing more, yet a really full,
warm sound comes through on everything.
The key element uniting all of this is Flynn’s
poetic lyricism and her unvarnished voice.
Flynn’s CD release show features some
faces that Eugeneans will remember from
early Ashleigh Flynn days. She will be
joined on slide guitar by Chris Funk, who
plays in a little Portland band called The
Decemberists. Fellow Decemberist (and
former Calobo member) Jenny Conlee will
be playing Wurlitzer and accordion. Dandy
Warhols producer Greg Williams will
back Flynn up on drums, and Boxset’s Jim
Brunberg appears on bass.
ew
Not Your Average
Depressed Dude
Anthems for all our pain
Ashleigh Flynn,
Peter Wilde
9 pm Saturday, Feb. 23
Sam Bond’s Garage • $5
21+ show
I
Flynn’s
American
Dream
Ashleigh Flynn celebrates
her new release
W
hen I caught up with Ashleigh
Flynn recently, her normally
supple voice with the Kentucky
twang was gravelly from a lingering cold.
Despite being under the weather, Flynn
was excited to talk about her brand new
CD, American Dream. “It’s like a bunch
of chapters that tell stories about different
facets of America, I guess through my
eyes,” she says. Those stories reveal that
Flynn is an optimist at heart, and she’s
become troubled by what the “American
Dream” has come to symbolize, politically
and socially. “A lot of the stories on the
record are about people who have suffered
as a result of the American dream, yet they
are still able to see the good side,” she
says. “And then deeper within that there’s
a part of me that believes that the American
dream as I see it where peoples’ needs are
met … is still possible.”
In 2006 Flynn released a live album,
Live From Mississippi Studios, out of
dismay with how easy it is to create
inauthentic music in the digital form. “I
love having live musicians come in and
n our hyper-hypochondriac culture, I’m not sure what counts as “troubled” anymore, but I’m fairly certain that John Darnielle
could fi t the bill. I’m no psychiatrist, but the Mountain Goats’ main man has a musical résumé that would seem to satisfy any
crisis-counseling checklist. Has he composed a concept album about a dysfunctional couple who move to Tallahassee and
drink themselves to death? Check. Has he written a gut-wrenching, sonic memoir about his drunken abusive stepfather? Check.
Has he penned the bleak soundtrack to the brokenhearted days after his girlfriend left him? Check. Any one of these might get your
average mental case placed on suicide watch, but Darnielle is by no means your average mental case. As the sole songwriter for the
Mountain Goats, he has a knack for making the miserable endearing and the disturbing downright enjoyable. As far as I know, not
many musicians could inspire people to skip down the streets caroling at the top of their lungs, “And I hope you die ... I hope we
all die,” but that seems perfectly appropriate in the dark yet droll world of John Darnielle.
The majority of the Mountain Goats’ 12 or so albums (and that’s not counting seven inches, bootlegs and other ephemera) are less
conceptual and/or autobiographical than Darnielle’s last four records. Most consist of character sketches about anyone from Cassius
Clay to Leo Tolstoy to LeAnn Rimes and quirky vignettes about anything from cooking to gardening to death metal bands. On his new
album, Heretic Pride, Darnielle returns to the episodic skits-ophrenia that defi ned his earlier lo-fi , tape hiss days, but he hangs on to
the glossy production that’s graced his most recent records. Over cellos, pianos and punchy guitars, the songwriter sings in his high-
pitched, highly literate voice about pulp spy novelists, scandalous love affairs, slasher fi lms and breakup sex … and that’s just getting
started. On “San Bernardino,” the cinematic orchestration and plucked strings help unfold the story of a young unmarried couple
giving birth in a cheap motel off a California desert highway. “Lovecraft in Brooklyn” is Darnielle’s take on the horror writer’s move
to New York City, and the song’s careening tempo and dissonant, howling strings evoke the paranoia and xenophobia in Lovecraft’s
life and works at the time. The poppy, organ-accented “Autoclave” draws parallels between the sterilizing instrument and people who
smother their emotions. Darnielle sings in his distinct sardonic phrasing, “I am this great unstable mass of blood and foam / And no
emotion that’s worth having can call my heart its home / My heart’s an autoclave.” Like most Mountain Goats material, the song is
sad, happy and slightly unhinged. In other words, it’s just another anthem for our collective crises. – Jeremy Ohmes
The Mountain Goats,
Jeffrey Lewis &
The Jitters
9 pm Wednesday,
Feb. 27
WOW Hall
$12 adv.
$15 door
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32 FEBRUARY 21, 2008 EUGENE WEEKLY
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