Friday, September 26, 2008

Mount Eerie/The Microphones

I just saw a show last night... and guess who it was? PHIL ELVERUM. Awesome. My friend Justin over at the Copperworks apparently knows Phil fairly well, which is awesome cause his venue is pretty small and relatively unknown (I actually think they aren't really legit yet, so don't tell the po-po). There were maybe 30 people there total. He chilled and talked... it was very very awesome. I still don't know how it happened, but I'm glad it did. I even got to request the last song he played. Talked to him afterwards and the people he was playing with, Julie Doiron from the band "Eric's Trip" (named after a sonic youth song). She is apparently Phil's favorite singer, so they did an album together and are now touring it in between his tour dates with the band WHY? (look down two posts for their stuff). In celebration of this awesome show, and the fact that the download numbers for the Glow part 2 were the highest I've had, I feel like posting a few more Microphones albums. I was gonna do EVERYTHING he's done but doing that makes things get lost in the clutter, plus i feel like I have to write a book describing each thing. This is especially true because he has about 50 freakin albums. So here are the ones i think are the best (besides the Glow pt 2 which i already posted). It Was Hot, We Stayed in the Water is his second best and basically turned me onto the Microphones in the first place. It has the amazing song "Sand" (which is ironically a cover of a song by Julie's band) which was the first thing i heard from Phil. The next best is probably Mount Eerie, the album when he decided to change his name. It's trippy as fuck and has about 8 awesome musicians helping him, which kinda worked against the flow of the album, but it's still a classic in my book. Then finally Song Islands, which really isn't an album so much as it is a collection of singles and rarities. There is a lot of clutter, but if you skip around the huge CD you'll find some amazing songs. Then finally the newest thing from Phil that i could get my hands on is Lost Wisdom, which Julie Doiron sings on. It hasn't been release officially yet, but i got it at his show, which if you go to his shows, you can do quite often. I could've picked up a few newer things not yet released but they were only on vinyl and sadly i don't own a record player. But this one was recorded quickly and really really sounds exactly like they did live... which you can pretty much never say about Phil's albums. Enjoy. Hopefully if numbers go well, or if I get requests, I have a bunch more of his stuff I can post.