Father John Misty "Hollywood Forever Cemetary Sings"

There were lots of great sets and lots of great songs at Newport Folk 2013, but the most talked about performance was by Father John Misty.

"Why was he so angry?" I heard one woman say to another.  "It made me very, very uncomfortable."

"I loved it," said the woman next to her.  "I grew up with artists who weren't afraid to protest."

I'm not sure what FJM was protesting.  But I did enjoy how provocative he was, even when it was uncomfortable.

I spent a bunch of time on Youtube, looking to see if anyone had uploaded some of his stage banter, but I couldn't find any.  So I'm going to have to paraphrase.

First he came out by himself and dropped this hilarious line:

(Looking at his drink)  I guess this is strawberry moonshine.  It's what gay bootleggers drink.

But after a few songs, some of his commentary turned pointed.

The only reason I was invited to the Folk Festival is that I'm white.  And I have a beard.  And there's some acoustic guitar on my record.

And he had things to say about other, unnamed bands.

If you're going to put on your porkpie hat and your vintage clothes and pretend that you play Folk music, after you've made your millions of dollars I think you have a responsibility.  So say something for once in your fucking life.

(note:  these are all paraphrases, as best I can remember them)

I've already written about FJM's stage manner and moves.  He didn't disappoint.

I heard a lot of talk about these things at the show.  I even heard lots of folks say his set was amazing.

But oddly, I didn't hear people talk about the songs.  Which is too bad, because his voice, his songs and his band sounded really really good.

When when you get a performance like this, maybe that's what you have to talk about.


Hear the song on Youtube.


Hear the original version on Youtube.

Father John Misty "Only Son Of The Ladies Man"

Speaking of me inadvertently saying something unnecessarily stupid resulting in more work for me . . .

Somewhere along the line I thought it would be a great idea for mvy to have a "station blog."  Something that was less personally focused than this blog (or the ones Jess and Jer Bear write) and was instead dedicated to the things going on programming-wise.

Everyone thought it was a great idea.

So guess who's writing it most days . . .

But it suddenly became more than worth it, the moment I found video below.

See, I was putting together some posts to preview artists coming to Newport Folk Fest 2013, and when I got around to writing a post for Father John Misty I knew I wanted to find the video of him singing "Only Son Of The Ladies Man" when he appeared on David Letterman.

As I recalled, his performance was so sexy, if I were a woman I'd be afraid it would impregnate me.

As Youtube is wont to do, it put some interesting FJM-related links up next to the Letterman performance, and so I thought I'd check out one of the interviews.

Within the first few seconds, I nearly turned it off as you could see pretty early on that this interviewer was going to perform an ironic interview.  (Or is that an "ironic" interview?  Or should "ironic" be italicized?  I'm not detached enough to know.)  But I kept watching, because J Tillman (FJM's real name) was giving thoughtful, funny answers, while being sincere instead of ironic.

I won't say anymore, other than to implore you to watch this video, as I found myself crying laughing by the end.  All credit to the interviewer, who rolls with the interview as it spins from a contrived start to realness that's the exact opposite of ironic.

Enjoy!


(The interview is NSFW)


Hear "Only Son Of The Ladies Man" on Youtube.


Hear the hilarious interview on Youtube.

Father John Misty "I'm Writing A Novel"

I'd been hearing great things about this record from a few trusted sources (thanks Jen Daunt, and cousin John Pike), but finally got some time to sit with it in the mvy studio, open the CD and ingest a little more.

"Ingest" might actually be a great word here.

Father John Misty was a member of Fleet Foxes, who's now out on his own with the crazy, entertaining solo project.

In this digital age, where people barely bother with CD artwork or anything of the like, this is a double fold out case, that includes a poster-sized fold out.  One side had all the lyrics, and the other side had some crazy, entertaining "explanations" of the songs.

I like first single, because it's like a hallucinogenic, semi-sequitor-filled Dylan-type tune.

Plus, I learned the meaning of the word "Ayahuasca"! 


Hear the song on Youtube.