Gordon and I went and done it, thanks to a little help from Gerdon..

That's right fuckers, Gordon and I went and done it. I almost hate to give Gerdon credit but I have to. See, Gerdon got 'hold of me the other day to tell me that Mark Kozelek of Sun Kil Moon and Red House Painters fame is playing in Louisville. On a Saturday night. For $15 bucks.

Damn, pure robbery.

We got our tickets and are making the short drive down I-71 to Louisville. I can't remember being so excited for a show. Kozelek is an enigma wrapped in an enigma...a cat I was sure I would never see live.

But here he is...close to home and on the heels of his new album April. A fantastic album from one of the most underrated artists going today. Don't be a chump...if you think it's too mellow or depressing or too long the first time around...listen a few more times. You'll come around.

Check this stuff out...first from April then a "new" version from SKM's classic, Ghosts of the Great Highway.

SKM Tonight in Bilbao
SKM Carry Me Ohio (jam version)!

BK

Woohoo 2008

We're only 10 days into January, but I am already looking forward to April because of two great releases due out. The first is the newest from Mark Kozelek and Sun Kil Moon entitled, appropriately enough, April. This will be his first release of original material since the magnificent Ghosts of the Great Highway. A week later Centro-matic and Will Johnson side project, South San Gabriel, will be releasing a double disc of 30 songs. Great stuff - the only problem is we have to wait until April to hear this great stuff. Until then, the Drive-By Truckers new disc is almost here! Below you'll find a live cut of Moorestown, which will be featured on April and I Feel Too Young To Die from South San Gabriel's The Charlton Chronicles.

Mark Kozelek -- Moorestown from Little Drummer Boy Live
[buy here]

South San Gabriel -- I Feel Too Young To Die from The Charlton Chronicles
[buy here]

BK

Instrumental Interlude

One of the many reasons you should be watching Friday Night Lights.

In between the year end posts and mixes, I wanted to present some instrumental illness. One of my favorite shows is Friday Night Lights and at the end of last week's episode, there was a sweet little instrumental that was perfect for the scenes that were playing out. I spent hours on Saturday looking for that instrumental and finally, on Sunday morning, I found it. The instrumental is Camera Obscura's Arrangements of Shapes and Space [buy here]. It is just one of many examples of how FNL uses music to accentuate the actions and emotions of a scene. Below are a couple of other instrumentals that I like.

Uncle Tupelo -- Sandusky
[Buy UT here]

Sun Kil Moon -- Si Paloma
[Buy SKM here]

BK

Duk Koo Kim

As you can see from the plethora of posts today, we are doing our best Ryan Adams' impersonation in terms of prolificness.

Tuesday, November 13th marked the 25th anniversary of one of the most controversial boxing matches in the history of the sport when Ray Mancini and Korean Duk Koo Kim battled in a 15 round match for the Lightweight championship of the world. In what was considered a slugfest, Mancini knocked out the Korean champion in the 14th round. The most memorable and unfortunate part of this fight occurred in the following days when Kim fell into a coma and died 5 days later from injuries sustained in the match. After the fight, boxing eliminated the 15 round fight.


What does this have to do with music? Well, it so happens that one of my more favored bands, Sun Kil Moon, led by enigmatic singer-songwriter Mark Kozelek, has a song entitled Duk Koo Kim. Although I did not know the back story of Duk Koo Kim until this week, it only added to the masterpiece that is Duk Koo Kim. Not for the faint of heart, the song meanders for 14 minutes (not coincidentally the amount of rounds Kim sustained punishment) through a range of emotions and scenes. At times desperate, at times hopeful, at times dreamy and ethereal, Kozelek masterfully takes the listener down this winding path while relating our own mortality to the sad and tragic death of the young champion. The music is virtually 3 songs in one. The first 5 minutes contain the lyrics of a desperate, hurting narrator that is facing impending death. As the songs continues, the next three minutes consist of a repeating chorus, a yearning for his one love to return just one more time. Around the 8 minute mark, the audible lyrics slip away and at around the 9th minute, the song changes again. This time it slows with the picking of acoustic guitars entering the forefront. A stark contrast to the first 8 minutes of crunchy and electric guitars, these acoustic guitars transition the listener into the calmness and tranquility of approaching death, similar to the experience of the coma that struck Kim. The remainder of the song moves from the acoustic guitars, slowly creating another jumble of sounds but this time with a more ethereal feel than the first 8 minutes. Finally, in the last 1:30 of the song, the music is deconstructed again, slowly trickling to bells at the 10 second mark with abrupt silence hitting at 5 seconds. At this point it seems that the narrator has left the dreamworld between life and death and finally entered death.

So yeah, it's safe to say I like this song alot. I'm not sure I know of any other song that consists of a more meaningful 15 minutes of music in terms of every lyric, arrangement, note seeming to have a purpose for being there.

Enough of my rambling. Here's the song for you to check out for yourself.

Sun Kil Moon -- Duk Koo Kim from Ghosts of the Great Highway [buy here]

For good measure, here's another great song off of Ghosts of the Great Highway. Believe me, you'll like it.

Sun Kil Moon -- Carry Me Ohio

In other SKM news, the band's website announced that their new album, April, will be released in, believe it or not, April. Woohoo!

BK