January

OK, so I've been doing this for a month. or rather I haven't.

I didn't start this until about 3 weeks ago when someone else mentioned the "book club" on youtube pages. And I posted on a few. But this seemed more my speed and more like something I would stick to.

So with that in mind, here are some questions for myself from myself after listening to a month of early Mountain Goats in the order dictated by a Christmas present.

What did you expect from this?

Early, unfinished, rough songs. I have listened to a lot of Mountain Goats, but I have gravitated to studio stuff. I admit to liking a bit of production on my audio and not really being a lo fi kid. My closest exposure to the stripped down version of the Mountain Goats before this was All hail West Texas, an album that I overall like due to having a couple of points that I love and others that are also there (my lack of commitment, not its lack of quality). So I was expecting to have to survive the early stuff to get to the later.

What did you get from this?

A lot more experimentation than I was expecting. A lot of themes that would be developed later. A learning process where, without sounding dismissive, John was learning what a song was, or at least what a Mountain Goats song was. I got a lot of sketches that lived through their gaps, some of which lived better than they would have as full and detailed portraits. I got a lot of faltering starts, some of which stayed faltering, and some of which have walked into the present day.

There's a long way to go. The lyrical ease that John reaches by, say, Tallahassee and The Sunset Tree isn't here yet. But it will be.

What was the best thing?

I'm going to name two, because the reason you set rules is to break them. Song For Tura Satana is an odd delight and manages to be the best kind of trashy which is also the best kind of thoughtful. Billy The Kid's Dream of the Magic Shoes is silly with sadness in it, which is the best kind of silly.

As to the others, there are ones I'll come back to, and ones I'm glad I met before we parted ways.

What do you know now that you didn't know when you started?

I think the main thing I know is that John is happier now. Or at least the version of John that makes it into the songs is happier. As a collection, these feel like sings from dark nights in empty spaces with huge black skies overhead. Not alone but lonely. Songs that are loud because the alternative is silence. And some time after this we discover not silence but quiet.

All right, what have you got for me, February?