A friend gave me Richard Buckner's latest and I brought it with me on a road trip to Baltimore and D.C. this past weekend. I had listened to it once at home and rejected it as plenty nice, but not terribly interesting. Grabbing it for road music was a whim - and cheers to whimsy because I love it. I listened to it a half-dozen times in the rental car and fell hard for it.
Every song on the album seems like an earlier or later version of another song on the album. A thread you can't quite see stitches each song together. Meadow is a worthy companion. It might be that voice - part Farrar and part Lanegan and somehow still a voice owned wholly by Buckner. It might be the band - with players plucked from Guided by Voices and the Mekons. WHatever it is, I didn't get the first time around. Spend some time with this one...
My Trusted MOGs
sounds interesting...
My Trusted MOGs
Sounds great...I haven't really kept up with Richard Buckner since Devotion & Doubt, which was so great that it's weird that I didn't follow up after. I love his voice, the way it sort of blooms and evaporates. It's like he's thinking out loud and has to take some time out to decide what to say next, except that, obviously, you couldn't think of lyrics like that off the cuff.
jk
My Trusted MOGs
You nailed it right on the head. I've always thought that the road trip is where R.B. really shines.
Something like six years ago or so I took a greyhound (bus) to San Francisco and then back to Minneapolis. I had a crappy cassette walkman, and a tape that had Bloomed on one side and Since on the other. It was on that trip that I really came to love the Buckner.
But did you also know that he and Jon Langford did an album together? It's called something like The Dark Something or Other Vs. The Fanglord. I haven't heard it yet, but plan to download it from the ol' emusic this weekend.