There, I said it.

I know there's a couple fans out there from outside of Georgia (spoon?).

Dunno, dude hits me right sometimes. Kind of a nasty character in real life which is why I didnt really much dig on him until I left Athens but he is mos def* the real deal.

*for illiterate dipshits like Dusty: "mos def" means most definitely. I'm here for you brother.

Drunk.

no shit. i've seen dude basically falling out of his wheelchair, just surly as all hell.

His voice is pretty wavery, but he's a hell of an ornery cuss. And there's no faking in his songs.

Saw him once at the forty watt...


Aaaaaaaangry. D-runk and angry. It was entertaining, if a little depressing.

Spoon, you (being a Lambchop fan and all) have The Salesman and Bernadette, right?

I think its probably his best album though I really like some of the songs on one of the Brute albums (basically a collaboration between Vic and Widespread Panic)

That's the Vic Chesnutt album I've got. I committed a major sin on my most recent slowcore mix by using the Dog's Eye View version of "Dodge" instead of the VC original.

Yail, if you like Vic, I definitely would recommend Danny Cohen's We're All Gunna Die

Yeah, check out this pompous Salon review. I disagree with all of it. If Blanchfield can't hear the grit and truth in songs like "Parade" and "Prick," he can parade his prick to some other dude than me:



Vic Chesnutt
THE SALESMAN AND BERNADETTE | CAPRICORN RECORDS


BY BRIAN BLANCHFIELD | It's what felled Lou Barlow and Sebadoh, it strikes painfully at Will Oldham and Palace, but it happens most consistently to Vic Chesnutt. It's self-indulgence, and when it comes to love-loss, it means the saps tend to privilege the hit-or-miss surrealism of their private lyrics over the art of the song.

On his new album, "The Salesman and Bernadette," Chesnutt sacrifices the old locked-in-his-mother's-cupboard tortured freakishness to sing about a specific and adult loss of love. The result is 14 tracks of piddling about the house and hotel room, where he's too beset with loneliness to be nihilistic (or fun) anymore.

Punk-inspired, self-deprecatory, difficult folk music can be endearing when all of its elements -- the principled emasculation, the (nonetheless memorable) uncatchiness, the likewise bald literary allusions -- conspire. And "The Salesman and Bernadette" does retain some of the qualities that were so rightly in place on Chesnutt's icy, enchanting 1988 album "Little" -- hit-or-miss surrealism does, after all, get its hits in: "Last night I nearly killed myself chasing rum with rum. There were crows flying all around my head and I sure caught and ate me some" Chesnutt sings on "Square Room."

Chesnutt's compositions are more challenging here than on his last album, "About to Choke" (Capitol). There are 15 musicians, including Kurt Wagner and the brassy experimental Nashville outfit Lambchop. Lyrical flashes on songs like "Maiden" and "Scratch, Scratch, Scratch" work because they fit the accompanying instrumentation. Other tracks make one embarrassed that he implicated so many other talented musicians in his solipsistic exercise. Chesnutt plays piano while everyone else sings the lyrics of "Blanket Over the Head," here in its entirety: "We will remain ignorant, incapable of knowing. Insoluble is the problem. Curiosity, sleeping, killed the caterpillar. Curiosity, empty, is a blanket over the head."

Chesnutt has a niche closer to country than rock, and he's often compared to absurdist balladeers Joe Henry and Leonard Cohen. Cohen's famous blue raincoat may someday fit, but Chesnutt must first figure out what material is material to art.

When he's on, his lyrical imagery is about as good as it gets- usually creepy as hell, but good. I like creepy.

And, most of the pointing to one thing he's done is at The Salesman & Bernadette, but I always seem to get back to About To Choke to get my Chesnutt fix.

Never heard Vic's music, what's the best one to start with?

Here's three tracks from that second Brute album. Rads, "Cutty Sark" could be a future slowcore monger mix classic for sure.

Expiration Day

Adirondacks

Cutty Sark

*chokes on drink* dog's eye view put out more than one song?

I like Vic, but I've never gone so far as buying an album.

Shame on you.

dad

Is The Actor Happy? has been on my shopping list for a long time. I never see it around, though.

I already knew that one, but thanks.