Crib Notes

Simon Joyner has reached an apex with Out into the Snow. Or maybe he reached it in ‘06 with Skeleton Blues. Or perhaps it was with 2004’s Lost with the Lights On…. . The point is Out Into the Snow is another link in a chain of crystalline, post-Dylan perfection. Flawed characters wandering aimlessly throughout a bucolic Midwestern backdrop fill Joyner’s songs. “The Arsonist” and “Ambulances” are intimate looks into these lives that glow with memories. “Last Evening on Earth” is a dark and drunken dirge, and “Sunday Morning Song for Sara” is recorded with such stark clarity it captures every nuance of every quivering breath and every stroke of guitar. These details add rich depth to the album’s lush arrangements of horns, strings and Joyner’s imperfect wailing, creating one more chapter in a beautifully resigned body of song. (Team Love) 4 out of 5 stars

“Roll On” mp3

“Out into the Snow” mp3

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By Michael Gerber

Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band played a good but not amazing show at the Variety Playhouse Friday night. Good, because it convinced me to buy the new four-song tour LP they were selling in the lobby. Not amazing because out of the songs they played that I was familiar with, I preferred the recorded versions. Not because the live versions were so bad, but because the live setting didn’t add much to the Conor Oberst experience.

No longer billed as Bright Eyes, Oberst is enlisting the Mystic Valley Band to make music that’s a little less ambitious and not quite as unique. This made for a tight singalong album that played to their strengths as folk rockers with pop sensibilities. Oberst is still the quivering balladeer and the more traditional surroundings are a good match now that he’s maturing well into his 20s. He’s not the boy genius heir to Dylan (groan) that kind of looks like a girl anymore. Now he’s got three guitars in his band, maybe unnecessary for his style of music, but it adds muscle to the sound. That, along with his side burns, declare his status as a grown man playing grown man music, even when he’s at his most fragile.

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I have an idea, a hypothesis that needs to be tested if possible.

First, however, let me take you back to high school math class to explain my theory. I am proposing that music quality and sobriety are inversely related. Let’s make an equation (ripping off ideas much?), shall we?

If y = awesome quotient of music and x = level of sobriety, then y = -m(x) + c

It’s all coming back, isn’t it? All those painfully long math classes in rooms that were never quite the right temperature, and one of your classmates (never could be sure which one) smelled totally nasty. But there was nothing you could do because you were stuck in class until the bell (truly the saving grace of high school) released you from your too cold/too hot, smells-to-high-heaven torture room. Or maybe you liked math.

Anyway, the theory I’m throwing around essentially says that the more a musical artist abstains from drugs and alcohol, the worse the music is. Of course, there are exceptions, but on the whole, musicians are better when they are wasted and left for gone at rock bottom — tortured.

A lot of artists (the shitty ones) will claim that drugs and alcohol make them more creative by expanding their minds. Not true. To those of you that make such claims, get sober for a week, look at the giant turds you’re churning out and get back to me.

EDITOR’S NOTE: In light of this week’s CL cover story on Atlanta blues man Sean Costello, 1979-2008, we want to acknowledge the ill-timing and insensitivity of this post, which was written in a humorous light. The author, Cameron Hubbard, had no prior knowledge of the upcoming cover story. We apologize for offending anyone.

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