Goat whoring

Another reason to love The Mountain Goats: John Darnielle is a big fan of death metal. Not that I’m a big death metal guy myself, but it’s terrific that such a folky kind of fellow like Darnielle is really into Cannibal Corpse.

Introducing a cover of Thin Lizzy’s The Boys are Back in Town (more brownie points for laying down a version of that track), there is a golden moment when Darnielle pauses the intro to pose a question to the audience: “What would you guys do if I suddenly busted out ‘Fucked with a Knife’ by Cannibal Corpse?”

My love is like a dark cloud full of rain, it’s always right there up above you

Bleeting brilliant

I saw The Mountain Goats play at the San Francisco Bathhouse last night, and it was one of the best concerts of my life, which was surprising…

Not because I don’t like the band – I like them very much. But I’ve only heard one album, The Sunset Tree (which is excellent).

So I expected to like the concert, just not to love it as much as I did.

I’d call their music sort of jangly nerd rock. And boy was this jangly nerd rocked. John Darnielle – who basically is The Mountain Goats – has a madman’s open-mouthed grin whenever he isn’t singing his heart out (while furiously strumming his acoustic or banging the hell out of a keyboard) or isn’t engaging in incredibly wry and witty audience banter. The guy is seriously engaging, and a wicked story-teller.

They played three four songs that I knew. But every song they played was absolute gold.

It made me realise I’ve been to too many stadium gigs. You really can’t beat the intimacy of a gig like this, where the audience, the music and the  personalities behind the music merge together to create a very singular night.