The Mountain Goats
The Mountain Goats story is one longer and more eventful than you may expect from a band often so delicate and melodious. Born in Indiana during a locust infestation, Chief ‘Goat John Darnielle started using the name in 1991 after finding it in a Screamin’ Jay Hawkins song, and released his first album under the title – Taboo VI: The Homecoming that year on Shrimper Records. It was the first of a slew of releases across all kinds of formats on disparate labels in countries far and wide – a method of releasing records that meant for a good five years or so, until a process of repackaging and reissuing began, many songs simply weren’t available to fans.
Until around 2002, Darnielle and his then rotating line up of co-musicians were very much a lo fi band, mixing boom box recording with Latin quotes and mythological themes, with an emphasis on urgency – if a song wasn’t recorded within days of being written, legend has it said song would just disappear. But after graduating from Pitzer College in 1995, John Darnielle put ever more focus on the Mountain Goats project. The culmination of the lo-fi style of recording, according to Darnielle, is All Hail West Texas, released in the same year – 2002 – as its far more conceptual, full band cousin Tallahassee. The songs on the latter, the first Mountain Goats record for current label 4AD, formed part of a song cycle known as the Alpha Series, a selection of tunes detailing a specific couple’s relationship which The Mountain Goats would revisit sporadically throughout their career.
2002 proved to be quite a big year – also in it, under the name The Extra Glenns, John Darnielle collaborated with a fellow named Franklin Bruno (that’s nearly very funny) on a record called Martial Arts Weekend, which was essentially a lot of previously unreleased Mountain Goats material. So successful was the project that Bruno, along with a bassist called Peter Hughes, became an official member of The Mountain Goats – and that trio have recorded under the name ever since (though the live line up, apart from Darnielle, often varies).
2004’s We Shall All Be Healed saw the first instance of Darnielle turning to autobiographical songwriting as opposed to deft storytelling, something which was continued with The Sunset Tree a year later. Both were produced by John Vanderslice, the first chap other than Darnielle to ever get his hands on raw Mountain Goats recordings until Scott Solter had a go on 2006’s marvellous Get Lonely, before the two of them (Solter and Vanderslice) formed something of a dream team to produce their latest, Heretic Pride, out this week. It’s shaping up to be their best…
MOUNTAIN-GOATS.COM: Your best, perhaps ONLY, hope of keeping up with all the records The Mountain Goats have released comes with this official site.
THEMOUNTAINGOATS.NET: This fansite, 13 years old, has a fantastic amount of MP3 material, from hard to get hold of seven inches to entire live shows from throughout the band’s career.
MYSPACE.COM/THEMOUNTAINGOATS: A blog you can only read if you’re John Darnielle’s friend, which seems weird. Listen to these four tracks to your heart’s content, though.
4AD.COM/THEMOUNTAINGOATS: Shows, news, images, mp3s and something called ‘ephemera’ all courtesy of the band’s label. Look it up, it’s not rude.
SEE AMERICAN RIGHT: “It picks up on a successful formula, tweaks it to the modern-age and allows the produce to wreak havoc with your stereo… Awesome.”; thought Toby L.
PALMCORDER YAJNA: “Subversively written folk-pop, The MG’s maintain a refined, lo-fi spontaneity despite such tight perfection. Fantastic stuff.”; continued Kevin Molloy.
PALMCORDER YAJNA: “Subversively written folk-pop, The MG’s maintain a refined, lo-fi spontaneity despite such tight perfection. Fantastic stuff.”; continued Kevin Molloy.
TALLAHASSEE: Toby again waxes lyrical about the band’s 4AD debut.
SAX ROHMER #1 – MP3: A free download from the new LP – charming!
SAX ROHMER #1 - VIDEO: And its video, should you fancy, too.