Yes, it's terribly simple. The good guys are always stalwart and true, the bad guys are easily distinguished by their pointy horns or black hats, and, uh, we always defeat them and save the day. No one ever dies, and everybody lives happily ever after.

Giles ,'Conversations with Dead People'


Buffista Music III: The Search for Bach  

There's a lady plays her fav'rite records/On the jukebox ev'ry day/All day long she plays the same old songs/And she believes the things that they say/She sings along with all the saddest songs/And she believes the stories are real/She lets the music dictate the way that she feels.


Michele T. - Nov 07, 2005 7:21:40 am PST #1060 of 10003
with a gleam in my eye, and an almost airtight alibi

( continues...) respectively.

17. Up The Wolves -- There are a lot of classically inspired songs in the TMG canon, including at least two directly based on Greek and Latin sources. This one is more allusive, but did inspire the T-shirt for the Sunset Tree tour that in turn inspired the title for this mix.

18. Letter From Belgium -- I had to spend a night in an emergency room for something that turned out not to be an emergency - this song was the perfect soundtrack for that night. (WSABH)

19. Peter's R. Kelly ringtone -- More stage business, and another cover of sorts.

20. See America Right - On Halloween, I was close enough to the stage that Darnielle pointed right at me when he started in on "I was driving down from Tampa..." It's an intense enough moment that I was freaked. ( Tallahassee )

21. The Best Ever Death Metal Band In Denton - From All Hail West Texas. One of the best of the 400+ they've recorded, and in this live version it has a majesty that turns out to suit it perfectly. If you know it, he needs you to sing, and when you figure out the end of it, he needs you to holler.

The mix was made to fit on a CD, and so comes with a CD case cover with track listing. The cover illo makes more sense after you've listened to it once through.

And as a PS, there's the live version of "No Children" I mentioned for Tina. There are some great, rocked-up versions of old songs in a few shows from the end of the last tour, presaging the fuller rocking-out they did on this last swing through, but Gmail is just being a pain in my ass, so I didn't post them. Look for recordings of the last tour to get posted to the Live Music Archive starting around Xmas, though, I'm told.


Michele T. - Nov 07, 2005 7:34:26 am PST #1061 of 10003
with a gleam in my eye, and an almost airtight alibi

Kate, I hope so!


tina f. - Nov 07, 2005 7:55:56 am PST #1062 of 10003

Yeehaw! Great mix. There were about six tracks I have not heard (oh, and muchas gracias for the "No Children" live track - Singing that song outloud is soo cathartic - I've thought the same thing many times). My next-door co-worker is a big MG fan as well and we are both geeking over your liner notes.

OK. I am listening to that No Children track for the second time. It just makes me smile to hear the crowd singing along. I'm a dork.


IAmNotReallyASpring - Nov 07, 2005 7:59:21 am PST #1063 of 10003
I think Freddy Quimby should walk out of here a free hotel

goldheart mountaintop queen directory - guided by voices

That's my favourite GbV song. The quiet melancholy giving way to desperate melancholy, the whoot noises at the end that sound like a train whistle, the faded quality that makes it sound like it's being played on a gramophone: it evokes in me the same feeling as the one I get when I read Carson McCullers. Sunbaked loneliness or something.

I haven't listened to Bee Thousand in a while. Might do something about that.


dw - Nov 07, 2005 8:03:39 am PST #1064 of 10003
Silence means security silence means approval

Will do.

Muchas gracias senora!

Yep, but that 's not how I know it. They played it live the first time I ever saw them and I got a bootleg of that show and for many years after it was "my favorite R.E.M. song" (I didn't know it was a cover).

I knew of it from my days on the Murmur mailing list -- they covered it a lot during the Green/Out Of Time period. Unfortunately, I never did join the fanclub, so I never got any of the Christmas singles. Last year I had a lot of trouble scrounging for any MP3s of the REM Christmas songs for my Chrismakwazakah CD.

And sadly, I never saw REM until Bumbershoot in 2003. I had a chance to see them in OKC in 1989, but the parents forbade me from driving down there because I would be "alone." Me? Still bitter?

In order to put that song up on buffistarawk, I have to plug lePod into my computer which will mean I will lose my spot in my mega-playlist.

Now I feel really bad.

the legionnaire's lament - decemberists

I really like the opening to this one.

I'm a legionnaire
Camel in disrepair
Hoping for a Frigidaire to come passing by
I am on reprieve
Lacking my joie de vivre
Missing my gay Par-ee
In this desert dry


dw - Nov 07, 2005 8:05:29 am PST #1065 of 10003
Silence means security silence means approval

The Best Ever Death Metal Band In Denton

The first time I saw the title I thought, "Old 97s? Chomsky? Death Metal????"


tina f. - Nov 07, 2005 8:10:01 am PST #1066 of 10003

Now I feel really bad.

No - not at all. I was going to do it anyway - I was only saying that as an excuse (like I need one) to post my last dozen Pod-Plays.

ION, I have a feeling I am going to be listening to Mountain Goats bootlegs all afternoon.


Michele T. - Nov 07, 2005 8:25:48 am PST #1067 of 10003
with a gleam in my eye, and an almost airtight alibi

OK. I am listening to that No Children track for the second time. It just makes me smile to hear the crowd singing along. I'm a dork.

If you're a dork, I'm a dork, too -- I find it incredibly cheering.

The first time I saw the title I thought, "Old 97s? Chomsky? Death Metal????"

Darnielle is a huge metal fan, and it's charmingly bizarre to read his thoughtful, well-informed writing about it when I don't, myself, hear its influence in the Goats's stuff. But my knowledge of the genre is, uh, limited to some adolescent exposure.

(I did get to sing along to the song at Halloween, which was a blast and a half. Horns were up!)


Hayden - Nov 07, 2005 8:55:28 am PST #1068 of 10003
aka "The artist formerly known as Corwood Industries."

That's my favourite GbV song.

Mine, too, although I spell "favorite" differently. I think "Smothered in Hugs," "A Salty Salute," and "A Good Flying Bird" may be tied for this position, too.

On the recent Jandek tribute, Darnielle's contribution was pretty much the best, combining a love of the original material with a brave attempt to make it more accessible. I'd be happy to post that to buffistarawk for the interested.


Jon B. - Nov 07, 2005 8:58:25 am PST #1069 of 10003
A turkey in every toilet -- only in America!

I did get to sing along to the song at Halloween

Hail Satan!

I had the "studio" version of that one on my Best of 2002(?) CD. Ima definitely have to check out this live version.

Can someone email me the Rawk password? I misremembered it.