Descending the Circles of Bright Eyes Hell: The Early Albums

Published on thebomberjacket.com

"Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”
—Carl Jung

There are videos on youtube of Conor Oberst, frontman of Bright Eyes and various other projects, from when he was in his tween years. One in particular comes to mind of a scrawny boy with a high crackling voice and round John Lennon glasses in a record store in Omaha, Nebraska, over-excitedly ranting about a record store he loved. There was this image of Conor Oberst with that trademark messy done-at-home haircut, moping in the basement of his parent’s house, surrounded by books and records, writing music and wailing through tear-stained and clenched eyelids. It’s a scene like a the lyric from Letting Off the Happiness’ “The City Has Sex,” which goes, “There’s a kid in the basement with a four track machine / and he’s been strumming and screaming all night down there / The tape hiss will cover the words that he sings / They say it’s better to bury your sadness.” It’s a charming image, but it’s one that Oberst has never really been able to shake, despite all his new sounds, solo or side projects and haircuts.

Even to this day, it seems like Bright Eyes is quickly disregarded by many as being sad emo music made by a little boy, when there’s really much more to it than that. Now, looking back at those early albums twelve and then some years later, hopefully a more accurate perspective on Bright Eyes can emerge. The real relevance of the band is much more than just well penned sorrow. The lyrics are loaded with poetry that is severely self-conscious, self-deprecating, self-absorbed and just about any other hyphenated "self" term one could imagine. Every album is an introspective adventure, an psychological journey into deeply understanding oneself and one’s emotions. It's something like Carl Jung's methods or Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis or Joseph Campbell’s “The Hero With A Thousand Faces,“ which relates mythological odysseys to psychology and is the basis for the Hollywood movie formula. Or it could even be like Dante’s excursion into hell in “The Inferno.” The adventure is most evident on Fevers & Mirrors, as the album's main focus is self-examination, but it’s also present on each record. The lyrics may be seem solipsistic, but that’s what makes it universal, as everyone has to face the reality of themselves in the mirror at one time or another. It makes the music into something helpful to listen to for anyone going through an emotional, existential or identity crisis…or maybe enabling those emotions is the worst possible choice. It’s always hard to decide. Yet, that’s another constant theme to Bright Eyes songs, the flexibility and confusion of truth.

May 1, 2012 saw the last round of reissues of Bright Eyes’ early releases; albums and EPs that were only previously available on vinyl compiled into a boxed set. The records represent some of Bright Eyes’ most inaccessible material and as such, this group of reissues is probably a bad starting point to dive into as a first exposure to the band. As the records get progressively easier to listen to, even going backwards through a discography mimics that inward adventure, with each one becoming another descent into a deeper circle of self-inflicted hell. So, it’s probably better to start with a more recent release and work backward. The easiest way for the likes of casual listeners to get sucked in might be from the upright pop and conscious attempt at positivity of the most recent The People’s Key or the messy full member collaboration of Conor Oberst and The Mystic Valley Band’s Outer South or maybe when his warbling voice is blended with Jim James and M. Ward on Monsters of Folk. Whatever the starting point, it’s better to let curiosity slowly tug you backwards, and downward, after that.

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Sharing a Beer Bong with The Men

wearethemen.blogspot.com 

published on theBomberJacket.com

Music could be heard as we walked from our car that we parked on the side of the road. A ton of people were already at the party, so the driveway was full of cars and we had to make the hike from down the street. They had given the house a name as people like to do, and it was called Open Your Heart. It always seemed like a weird name to me. Then again, the people that lived there were called “The Men.” Even the girls that lived there were still referred to as “The Men.” I had heard about the party from a friend and realized that I had been to another thing The Men had thrown a year earlier in a different place. That one used to be called The Leave Home House. Those parties were a bit stranger and darker and from what I had heard, this new place seemed a bit more lively and fun.

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An Evening with Mr. M and The Great Lambchopsby

www.lambchop.net

published on thebomberjacket.com

The strings swelled as he sat at the piano with his back to an audience that was chatting quietly around candle lit tables. He readjusted his top hat, stroked his moustache, and then rested his fingers on the keys. I was expecting Sinatra when he started playing, but he lazily exuded, “Don’t know what the fuck they talk about…” It seemed as if his voice were foamier that the overly frothy beer that was leaving circles on the top of the old wooden piano. Still, there was something sweet about the gentle vulgarity. His soothing nonsensical words spoke about his coughing grandfather and coffee makers and whether or not he should talk about seagulls. Then he then cued an imaginary flute section that only he grooved along to, because only he could hear it.

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Bright Eyes :: The People's Key

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Bright Eyes :: "A Machine Spiritual (In The People's Key)"

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Bright Eyes :: The People's Key ~ Saddle-Creek ~ Omaha, NE ~ February 15th 2011

Click here to hold this.

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one inbred, transdimensional, reptilian alien baby; one lion of Judah with a Bright Eyes hair cut; one Hitler mustache with dread locks; one ladder to somewhere; and one for Conor Oberst.

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The rumors about The People’s Key being Bright Eyes’ last album came from a certain magazine’s interview that has since disappeared from the web. Songwriter Conor Oberst said, “It does feel like it needs to stop at some point. I'd like to clean it up, lock the door, say goodbye.” By no means did he mean that he was going to hang up his guitar for good. When talking about Oberst, the president of Saddle Creek Records, Robb Nasel, told a local Omaha paper, “I think he feels like Bright Eyes has a certain association, for better or worse. I think he's trying to distance himself a little bit from what that means to people.” What that meaning is could be anything. It could mean being a sad singer or being branded with the blasphemous, close-minded “e” word or the obligation of opening every single record with a sound collage. 

On “A Machine Spiritual (In the People’s Key)” the chorus rings, “‘Please let me go,’ the prisoner moans, ‘No one has to know.’” It recalls the prisoner in Lifted’s “From a Balance Beam,” which says, “in all of my salvation I still felt imprisonment inside that cell…that is myself.” This "title track" is very much about being trapped in one's ways. The spiritual machine is a theory by the inventor of the synthesizer, a man named Ray Kurzweil, which becomes a clever reference to the prevalent use of synth on the album. It's an idea that eventually human consciousness will fuse with the internet and will no longer have to eat, sleep, or even die. In an interview with Spinner.com, Oberst said, "I think it's 100% achievable, especially when you think about how fast new machines invent newer machines, which invent the newer machines." So the idea becomes a reference to a self-perpetuating existence, trapped in some kind of code. The title is even more potent with its word ordering, making it seems as if the machine manufactures a person's spirit, pumping one out after the other. In an interview with NPR, Oberst said that "the people's key" was the key of "C," because "because you can hit all the white keys and you won't be playing out of key. It's the easiest key to play in for amateurs." The idea that the album is called this is in itself a bit of subtle self-deprecation as the "backwards black faced minstrel show" in the lyrics that "played it all from memory."

Distancing himself from some of the musical associations was a serious focus on every project beginning with the last Bright Eyes album, the rootsy and impressively orchestrated Cassadaga and through his fixed jam band “solo career.” Then Jason Boesel, drummer for Bright Eyes and The Mystic Valley band, said back in September of last year that the new record was “the best sci-fi emo album of the last twenty years.” It’s a stylistic direction that comes as kind of a shock at first, but when heard, it bears a strong resemblance to the psychic mysticism from Cassadaga. The People’s Key falls somewhere in the spectrum between 2005’s Digital Ash in a Digital Urn and the punk rock side project Desaparecidos. There are parts that twinkle electronic and others that blaze quickly with distortion, making for the most accessible Bright Eyes album to date. It’s all accompanied by Rastafarian ideology and alien campfire stories. Oberst explained to NME magazine that the sound was, “for lack of a better term, contemporary, or modern,” or maybe even futuristic.

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+++2011 :: Feliz Año Nuevo+++

The Points North :: "Auld Lang Syne"

The Woodrow Wilsons :: "New Year"

Here's a couple of other things to listen to, if you're tired of the obligatory Death Cab for Cutie tune

Happy New Year.

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Greg Mullen :: The Hungry Ocean

"Like Dante climbing out of hell, if his guides were Bob Dylan and Bukowski"

MP3: "Greg Mullen - Ten Thousand Years"

The Hungry Ocean has all the charm of a folk singer, kicking stones down a dusty road with a harmonica ‘round his neck and guitar strapped to his back, traveling to play his soulful tunes about everyday things. Yet at times, Greg Mullen’s voice quivers strangely supernatural and the words he sings veil some otherworldly pseudo-apocalyptic occurrence. It’s something like Dante climbing the wrong way out of hell if his guides were Bob Dylan and Bukowski, instead of Virgil. All of it is decorated with a whirlpool of beauteous piano, horns and lovely female harmonies.

The theme of wishing to be a ship and failing to float in a vast, all-consuming ocean is strongly present on the album. There's two bummed out Narwhals on the cover and even the 12" vinyl is cleverly pressed a transparent green. In ‘Ten Thousand Years,’ Mullen sings, “We both had a hard time trying to decide what to be for Halloween. Said, ‘I'll be a ship, you be a flying machine.’” In the same song he also mentions that he’s been dead for ten thousand years.

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PREVIEW: Elliott Smith :: Roman Candle vinyl reissues

Kill Rock Stars is reissuing Elliott Smith's first and last albums on vinyl on April 6th. A remastered version of Roman Candle comes to vinyl for the first time in the U.S. in addition to a reissue of From a Basement on the Hill.

Elliott Smith borrowed a guitar and a four track from a friend and recorded the eight most recent songs that he had written. Most of the recordings are just Elliott and a guitar, sketches at his most primal without revision, before he had a major label to think about writing songs for. Most of the songs didn't even have names. His girlfriend convinced him to send a copy to "Cavity Search Records" and the owner released the recordings just as they were and called it Roman Candle. It had quite a profound effect on Kill Rock Stars founder Slim Moon, who said that he has "never heard music as heartwrenchingly, gut-checkingly honest, intimate and wise - before or since."

The remastering was done by Larry Crane, owner of Jackpot! Studios and an Elliott Smith archivist. He of course received message board heat from crazed fans. Larry explains that the remastering process was minimal, "I felt that a lot of the guitar “squeaks” were jarring and very loud, and that many of the hard consonants and “S” sounds were jarring and scratchy sounding. I felt by reducing these noises that the music would become more inviting and the sound would serve the songs better. When I went to Roger Seibel's SAE Mastering, he proceeded to equalize the tracks a small amount and to make the volume slightly louder. We never tried to make this CD as loud as current, over-limited trends, but just to match the volume of the rest of Elliott’s KRS catalog in a graceful way. Please note that none of this album is “remixed” from the master tapes - it is still composed of the mixes Elliott created himself.” The smoothness of the new tracks is immediately audible, as even the white noise on the tracks is more crisp and clear.

I always liked the album, because it's more eerie than depressing. Elliott's voice is unlike any of his other recordings. And it seems to tell a coherent story throughout of what I can only assume is about Elliott's family, which never really appears in his other songs. For some reason, 'Last Call' has become a fan favorite, so they're offering it as a free download. It actually happens to be my least favorite on the album, compared with startling bio-songs like 'Drive All Over Town' and 'No Name #4.' Kill Rock Stars is also offering an unreleased track 'Cecelia/Amanda' for download and I've included both above, in addition to 'Twilight' from From a Basement on the Hill.

Unfortunately, the 180 gram LP version of Roman Candle is out of stock from Kill Rock Stars, but you can find it on here at insound.com for a few bucks more.

sweetadeline.net

killrockstars.com

insound.com

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Christians & Lions :: More Songs for the Dreamsleepers & the Very Awake

It was in the basement of a building on Boylston Street in the mid aughties. Some students from Emerson College set up a show of absurdly different bands. A thrash-core scream-fest metal monstrosity, whose name has been lost to time, finish pillaging the stage and pack up their gear. Fans who were a moment ago throwing themselves into one another and 'slam dancing,' now wait, panting. A group of guys walk in front of the stage. One of them has black wavy hair and Truman Capote glasses and says, "we do things a little differently." He asks everyone to take a seat in a circle around them. The other guys pick up their instruments as he pulls over an upturned trash can with a torn bit of cardboard on it and sets up a tambourine on top of a hat on the floor, testing its sound with his foot. Some confused and sweaty skacore kids stumble out of the back door, but the rest of the crowd sits.

The group plays. Steel brushes chatter against cardboard and tin, the acoustic guitar chasing the rhythm. An upright bass bumbles along, a singing saw is squeezed between knees, and mandolin trickles throughout. Harmonic croonings emerge from the boys that, back then, were calling themselves 'Sharp Teeth.'

It could've been just the fact that those two acts were such a stark juxtaposition, but the audience was entranced, faces awash with surprise. Simple, hollow instruments with thick earthly resonance matched well with prophetic words that were humble, but had an insistence and urgency pervasive throughout. This was nothing wildly inventive; the old world folk attitude came just as people were starting to call that particular sound a 'revival' around 2005. It was just pregnant with poignancy. Amidst the well worn patterns of noise, things could be a little different.

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Bright Eyes :: I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning

As 2005 was just waking up, the Omaha based Bright Eyes simultaneously released two albums: I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning and Digital Ash in a Digital Urn. This isn’t a double album with a collection of twenty or so songs, but two unique pieces that are inextricable from one another. Awake is a tight, well focused analog folk record and Ash is a more experimental digital and electric album. The connections between the albums go much deeper than the realization that the same beach blanket lyric is in ‘First Day of My Life’ and ‘Take it Easy (Love Nothing).’ The records are compliments and foils, one not complete without its opposite.

The most intriguing thing about Bright Eyes has always been the lyrical mastery of self-reference, supernatural self-awareness, self-deprecation and even self-obsession. Through the prism that is Conor Oberst, a listener who pays close attention to the words will better understand the full spectrum of his human experience. This ranges from small feelings of emotional disparity in relationships to the overwhelming distress about the purpose of existence.

One of the most fascinating things about Bright Eyes is the progression throughout the albums of the “narrator’s” character and his interactions with fictitious loves, including the all too real Laura. It seems as if, since Conor began writing, he began telling a story and each album is another chapter. There is one theme that is a constant undercurrent behind Conor’s pen. In the song ‘Milk Thistle’ from his first solo record, Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band, Mr. Oberst wrote the line, “I keep death on my mind like a heavy crown.”

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The Music Tapes :: For Clouds and Tornadoes

Julian Koster has explained his main project The Music Tapes as ‘post cards from his imaginary world.’ If this is true then their latest album For Clouds and Tornadoes was post marked nine years ago. That’s how long it’s been since the band released 1st Imaginary Symphony for Nomad.

The new album is a lo-fi journey into the wintery shallows of Koster’s mind. It is much more accessible than 1st Imaginary, which was characterized by experiments in sound and noise, audio clips cut together and storytelling, all blended in song. For Clouds and Tornadoes is reminiscent of Koster’s work with Neutral Milk Hotel, however the band is in no way trapped in the shadow of Jeff Mangum and stands by itself amazingly well. The only darkness looming over The Music Tapes is that of the sonic tornado Koster has created.

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Conor Oberst and The Mystic Valley Band

The folk swagger and lyrical imagery of Conor Oberst and The Mystic Valley Band may cause ancient magic, UFOs, and Quetzalcoatl, the feathered Aztec serpent-sky-and-almighty-creator God, to emerge from your speakers. That's probably because the record was recorded in Tepoztlan, Mexico, a place famous for those three things and the locus of Oberst’s most recent vision quest. He and his bandmates lived and built a studio there in four adobe-like houses complete with ceramic tile floors.

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