2011 was the year I resumed
collecting records somewhat earnestly.
I’m not exactly sure why it happened.
Vinyl was on the way up from near
annihilation, or at least obscurity.
And then there was a move from
one neighborhood to another,
from a house my wife and I lived in
for 20 years to this new old house
in the neighborhood we both grew
up in–a kind of return home. My
father had just died and I was
coming home. In the old house,
I had recovered my turntable from
years of disuse and plugged it into
a stereo in the basement. In the
new old house I gave the stereo and my
old turntable a place of honor on
the main floor of our new place.
It became a kind of centerpiece of
attention and I started buying vinyl
on the regular. The band Fleet Foxes
was not in my wheelhouse, but
something gravitated me toward
them–maybe I had read about them,
noticed that they were on a lot of
lists of hot new bands of the year.
I took a chance. It was folk music,
essentially, primarily acoustic
instruments, percussion that seemed
to avoid conventional rock drum set
work altogether, and lots of voices,
like three or four male singers through
most of the songs–even though a
primary singer or voice could be picked
out of the layers–a kind of Neil Young
voice, but more pleasant. In fact,
hearing them for the first time and
hearing them again now 15 years later,
what I hear is a 21st century
Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young.
It’s not a terrible thing. The songs are
interesting, kind of retro-proggy, have sort
of a Renaissaince quality to them, and the
melodies are strong–so much so,
that as I listen, I remember these songs.
I can’t sing the words, but I can hum along.
It’s music to chill with or smoke pot to, or
in my case this evening, sip whiskey with.
I can see why this music
didn’t hold their drummer, Josh Tillman’s
interest for long. This music was too nice,
too sweet for him. I mean, this guy is singing
about snowflakes. Tillman, of course,
would, shortly after leaving this band,
become Father John Misty. It would take
me years to learn, after grabbing my
first Father John Misty album, that there
was any connection at all. This is my
only Fleet Foxes album and it will
probably be my last. It’s pleasant music
to listen to. It makes me feel good. It feels
like music Shakespeare might have listened to.
It’s transportive. But Helplessness Blues is
enough for me. I don’t need any more of it.
Notes on the vinyl edition: Helplessness Blues, Sub Pop, 2011, double heavyweight black vinyl.
In case you don’t already know: I’m listening to almost everything in my vinyl collection, A to Z, and writing at least one, sometimes two or three long skinny poem-like-things in response for each artist, and on a few occasions, writing a long skinny poem-like-thing in response to more than one artist. As a poet and a student of poetry, I understand that these things look like poems, but they don’t really sound much like poetry, hence, I call them “poem-like-things.” I’ll admit that they’re just long, skinny essays that veer every now and then into the poetic or lyric.
michael jarmer 