The Mountain Goats
Here are some great videos of John Darnielle, who records under the name the Mountain Goats, playing an intimate gig at Amoeba Records. Most of the songs are off of the album “Get Lonely,” but I’m happy he snuck in “Baboon” from “The Coroner’s Gambit” album. These videos nicely capture the intensity of his music as he’s fully absorbed in these devastating songs.
Also, Darnielle’s facial expressions as he’s playing are pretty classic.
The Mountain Goats - “Moon Over Goldsboro” (Live At Amoeba Records)
The Mountain Goats - “New Monster Avenue” and “Baboon” (Live At Amoeba Records)
The Mountain Goats - “Get Lonely” (Live At Amoeba Records)
Sasha Frere-Jones wrote a great article in the New Yorker in 2005 about the Mountain Goats and Craig Finn of the Hold Steady, focusing on the prominent role their lyrics play in their music.
“Both are rock musicians who behave like hip-hop m.c.s, writing lyrics in complete sentences and delivering their songs emphatically, as though the point of making music is to communicate,” Frere-Jones writes.
Read the article: “The Declaimers — Two rock bands that want to be heard” by Sasha Frere-Jones.
