Here’s the video for Noah and the Whale’s “Five Years Long:”

Pitchfork gave their latest record 2.6, which for me is a ringing endorsement. If Pitchfork hates it, it must be good. Of course, they think pretty highly of a record I put out ten years ago.

And here they are at Ft. Reno Park in 1997. Tina and I were actually at this show (trivia alert: we’d been married at a courthouse in Upper Marlboro, MD just a few hours before), and we both remember Ian’s speech about D.C.:

I remember walking around the University of Maryland campus, listening to Velocity Girl’s “Copacetic” LP on my brick-heavy “portable” CD player. They weren’t my favorite band by any stretch of the imagination, but I liked them. Their music holds up surprisingly well, too. One of the few bands I liked back then that I’ve never seen live.

Can you believe this video sold me on them enough for me to go out and buy their CD for $18 in 1991 money? What’s that, like $35 today? Actually, the Judybat’s Native Son was the first CD I ever bought. All my previous records were enjoyed on analog audio tape.

I’m trying to figure out the horse in the video. It’s some kind of metaphor for sexuality or drugs or something. Huhm.

I have been a fan of the Mountain Goats and John Darnielle since about 1996 or so.  There’s not a lot of bands or artists I listened to back then that I still listen to now.  In recent years, he’s worked on a trilogy of “memoirs” — albums that deal directly with his past.  I love two of the three records — The Sunset Tree, which chronicles his childhood with an absuive stepfather and We Shall All Be Healed, about his time with a group of friends in Portland addicted to crystal meth (or so I’ve read — I’m sorry if this is an inaccurate description).  Both records are beautiful and honest and contain many of his best songs.  Get Lonely, the third in the triology, was a great accomplishment, but wasn’t a very pleasant record to listen to — the loss and sadness of that record made it somewhat inaccessible to me.

It’s hard to remember now back when his records were like collections of short stories — glimpes of characters in the throes of life.  But that approach returns on Heretic Pride, and it is a welcome return.  Although the Mountain Goats continue on a a trajectory away from John’s lo-fi roots, the themes of the record and the stories here are familiar to anyone who has stuck with him over the years.  There’s even appearances from old friends who contributed to the Mountain Goats in the early days, most notably 1990′s lo-fi king Franklin Bruno and The Bright Mountain Choir, whose back up vocals have been sorely missed from many years of Mountain Goats records.

It’s hard to describe the rush of emotion I get when I listen to this record, particularly to “San Bernardino,” a song that tells the tale of a young couple who take to the highway and ultimately give birth to their son in a motel bathtub.  Despite what one might expect from the subject matter, it is infused with a tremendous sense of love and hope — it’s as beautiful and moving as anything he’s ever written.  Perhaps it’s the greatest example of John as an artist, it may very well be my favorite Mountain Goats song.  When he sings “It was hard/but you were brave/you are splendid/ And we will never be alone in this world/whatever they say/we will be okay,” any parent knows exactly what he means.  If anything, the song documents the transformation of two individuals into a family, and it does so with such empathy and love that it’s hard to believe that John hasn’t been there himself.

Other standouts to me include “Sax Rohmer, Pt. 1,” the eponymous “Heretic Pride,” “Autoclave,” and especially “Lovecraft in Brooklyn,” which finds the Mountain Goats venturing into true rock music for the first time.

Here’s the new video for “Sax Rohmer, Pt. 1:”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUbFljMLIY8

1) The Clash, “London Calling”
2) The National, “Boxer”
3) Of Montreal, “Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?”
4) Bauhaus, “Mask”
5) The Thermals, “The Body, The Blood, The Machine”

The following podcasts are high priority listens:

1) Gamespot: On the Hotspot
2) This American Life
3) 1up Yours

Now, if only I could get up the courage to remove all those songs I don’t actually listen to. Alas, I may not be strong enough to do that. I’m a packrat, even when it comes to digital music. Do I really think I’ll want to listen to all those bad electro records and hip hop hits again? I know I won’t. But there’s that fear that some day I will.

Ah, if only things were as simple as they were back in the days of albums and CD’s. We never had the clutter problem that iPod’s bring. I have perhaps thrice-exponentially more storage capacity on my iPod than on my first Macintosh, yet so much of it is wasted on bad music and alternate recordings of Johnny Cash songs.