Father John Misty (2018)

One Liner: Most interesting lyricist at the Fest

Wikipedia Genre: Indie rock, indie folk, folk rock
Home: Seattle

Poster Position: 4
Day: Friday at 6:45
Both Weekends.

Thoughts: Only now realizing that I never heard his new album.  I very much enjoyed 2015's I Love You, Honeybear and 2012's Fear Fun, but then 2017's Pure Comedy missed for me.  I'm going to regurgitate some of my posts from those old ones in a moment.  Before I get to any of this, note that his most streamed song is a 2016 single called "Real Love Baby," with 34.5 million streams.

Its a good tune, but super weird that this random one-off, which doesn't appear to be on a soundtrack or otherwise have any promotion other than being released on Soundcloud, would be his top track.  Who knows how the world works?  I dig it though.

First, who is this guy?  Not a Catholic priest, but instead this is Josh Tillman, the ex-Fleet Foxes drummer (from 2008 to 2012, for Fleet Foxes and Helplessness Blues).  I just read a short interview with him where he talked about not wanting to be a "hired gun" within the Fleet Foxes.  Which is a weird term and sheds a little of the misty-eyed mystique about being in a kick ass band.  I would think that drumming in a successful band is the end game for most players, but not ol' Father John. So he stepped out on his own back in about 2012.  

Wait, now that I look up his Wikipedia, it appears that he is MUCH more prolific than I thought.  Not to be pigeonholed as the Fleet Foxes guy, check this list: "Tillman had been a member or toured with Demon Hunter, Saxon Shore, Fleet Foxes, Jeffertitti's Nile, Pearly Gate Music, Siberian, Har Mar Superstar, Poor Moon, Low Hums, Jonathan Wilson, Bill Patton, The Lashes, and Stately English, and has toured extensively with Pacific Northwest artists Damien Jurado, Jesse Sykes, and David Bazan. He has also made contributions to albums by popular artists, including Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, and Kid Cudi."  Damn.  Even if half of those band names appear to be made up, that is a significant number of other bands (and I didn't make up those other bands).

Second, a quick reminiscence about how absolutely amazing his shows were in 2015.  I was blown away.  Here are some things I said at the time: "I bet he dropped to his knees in apparent overwhelming emotional pain 50 times during the show.  The knees of his pants were literally grey by the end of the show.  Even though that was a little distracting, he put on a hell of a show. Clearly sang his lyrics (which is the main reason to see the guy) while using the entire stage and making it an event.  He went down to the audience a few times, spun the mic on its cord, shuffled and swayed, it was fun to see him goofing while singing his somber lyrics.  As I figured, "Bored in the USA" was freaking brutal, just so powerful and convicting.  When the crowd joined in to the laugh track near the end of the song, I thought I was going to tear up.  But then I pounded some more Tito's brand Handmade Vodka with my Drake-approved Sprite and looked at my iPhone 6S brought to you by AT&T instead.  Great show."  

God's Favorite Customer 
Next, let's listen to the radio "hit" from the new album, 2018's God's Favorite Customer.  "Mr. Tillman," with 7.2 million streams.

A funny walk through the twisted mind of Mr. Tillman himself, as he appears to have trouble recalling what he needs to get from a very helpful hotel concierge.  I like several of the lines in there, and I especially like the way he wraps the lyrics around the ends of the music, so that he's in the middle of a sentence when a bar ends instead of the more traditional ending the sentence with the musical bar.  Adds to the craziness of the song.

As for the rest of that album, it follows in the footsteps of the 2017 album, where the lyrics are fantastic, but the music isn't interesting at all.  Why are we listening to piano-forward soft rock right now?  The drums seem like they are being played inside a very comfortable couch.  The piano appears to be set to stun and is used to bang the beat forward in the absence of strong drums.  I mean, we all very intentionally left behind this style of music a long time ago because it bores people to death.

Meanwhile, the lyrics are brutal and amazing.  I'll give you two pieces.  

First, "Please Don't Die."  A sad-sounding lope with a touch of country steel guitar.  This one seems like a very sad story of a guy hoping that his love doesn't die, talking about trying to take it easy about being morbid around her.  And then the chorus: "Oh, and honey, I'm worried 'bout you, You're too much to lose, You're all that I have, And honey, I'm worried 'bout you, Put yourself in my shoes, You're all that I have so please don't die..."  So, yeah, that sounds incredibly sad, right?  OK.  But then the last line of that chorus turns that feeling on its ear, with "Wherever you are tonight."  Oh.  Wait.  So then the final verse drives that home: "All these pointless benders, With reptilian strangers, Oh my god, you're so naive, You'll leave this world in a drunken heave, Who'll make the arrangements, baby, them or me?"  Shit, man.  This just took a hard right!  But a very well-written path to get to those confused emotions and realizations.  I like it.

Second, I'll give you a slice of "The Songwriter."  "What would it sound like if you were the songwriter, And you made your living off of me?  Would you detail your near-constant consternation?  Or the way my very presence makes your muses up and flee?"  Jeeeez.  If that is autobiographical and being sung to his wife, damn, man.

OK, one more chorus, from "Disappointing Diamonds Are the Rarest of Them All."  "Disappointing diamonds are the rarest of them all, And a love that lasts forever really can't be that special, Sure we know our roles, and how it's supposed to go, Does everybody have to be the greatest story ever told?"  Gonna just inscribe that on a plaque to give my wife the next time I make her mad about something.  Perfect.  Also, this song at least adds in a touch of electric guitar and sax (even if they still sound like a post-Beatles Lennon love song).

Like Pure Comedy, I think the lyrics are fabulous and interesting, but I wouldn't really seek out listening to this album again unless I needed a nap or something.

Pure Comedy.  
(I'm just going to regurgitate my prior review for this album)
I generally like this album, but it feels really long.  Each time I listen to it, I feel like I've been listening for 2 hours by the time the disc is over.  At 1:14, it is relatively long, but nothing ridiculous.  The best part of Misty are the lyrics - verbose take-downs and put-downs and funny observations about the garbage that we all live in every day.  The music stays pretty relaxed, piano balladry with a little bit of pep here and there, but very little excitement.  

"Total Entertainment Forever" kicks off with a great couplet and then ends perfectly as well:  "Bedding Taylor Swift, every night in the Oculus Rift, after mister and missus finish dinner and the dishes." as the opener, and then the closing bit about "when the historians find us we'll be in our homes, plugged into our hubs, skin and bones, a frozen smile on every face, as the story's replayed, this must have been a wonderful place."  [I love that final line, so perfect].  [currently 10.4 million streams]

Holy shit that video is weird.  I love the cynical view of our current media consumption.  The other classic line that I love every time I hear it is from "Ballad of the Dying Man," where Misty sings: "Eventually the dying man takes his final breath, but first checks his news feed to see what he's got to miss, it occurs to him a little late in the game, we leave as clueless as we came..."  I think that is my favorite song on the album.  Very good.

I generally like the album, but it is one of those where I honestly think reading the music, like poetry, would be more enjoyable to me than listening to the album.  I just get mired down in the slow, lovely, orchestral stuff like the 13 minute long "Leaving L.A.," which has great lyrics, but just takes forever and is like listening to 70's soft rock music.  I think Misty is at his best when the music is snappy but the lyrics subversive.  If the music is a bummer, then I'm just less likely to want to go back to the music frequently.  I literally think I'll print out the lyrics of this album and read them...
(end old review)

Before I get to the next album, I thought I'd pass along an interesting story from Wikipedia: "Tillman gained media attention on July 22, 2016, after walking off stage at XPoNential Music Festival in Camden, New Jersey, after twenty minutes into his planned fifty-minute performance. Instead of performing his setlist, Tillman walked out and asked, "What the fuck is going on?"  He then talked for six minutes about the "numbing" role entertainment plays in our lives and how "stupidity just fucking runs the world because entertainment is stupid." When the audience applauded him he asked them not to and responded by saying, "Maybe just take a moment to be really fucking profoundly sad."  He finally played a thirteen-minute piece from his upcoming album Pure Comedy called "Leaving LA" which references the frustrations he spoke of during his speech. Tillman then covered Leonard Cohen's "Bird on the Wire" before telling the crowd he loved them and walked off the stage, cutting his performance short. The following day, Tillman explained his performance in an Instagram post, in which he called Donald Trump's speech at the 2016 Republican National Convention a "demonic clown pageant coronation of our next potential Idiot King", which took place the night before Tillman's performance."

Wow.  The dude definitely wears his heart on his sleeve.

I Love You, Honeybear.  
(same with this one, this is my prior review)
A lovely album.  It is odd (the song "When You're Smiling and Astride Me"), brutally real ("Bored in the USA"), and generally really pretty sounding.  The title song is a beaut, and "Chateau Lobby #4" the hit.  The last three tracks stood out to me over repeated listens.  "I Went to the Store One Day" is a achingly poignant, and yet sarcastic, look at finding love(?) by chance, set over the most basic of strings and picked acoustic guitar.  "Holy Sh*t" reminds me of "It's the End of the World as We Know It" or "We Didn't Start the Fire," except those two are pretty frenetic, and this one is more of a sleepy recitation of current ideas and commentary. "Bohemia nightmare, dustbowl chic, This documentary's lost on me, satirical news, free energy, mobile lifestyle, loveless sex."  Weird, but kind of sticky in my head. 
Then, more than any other tune on here, "Bored in the U.S.A."  [currently with 8.5 million streams]

This rendition isn't terribly far off from the studio version.  Although his twitchy restlessness in that video is even more off-putting, especially when he climbs on the piano.  The thing that you might not get, which is highly, disturbingly effective, is that the canned laughter is actually in the track (not just the audience being jerks). Reminds me of a Pink Floyd bit, but it is just perfect in this song.  I bet that audience had no freaking clue what to do with that song during a Letterman joke-fest.


The lyrics sing about spending mindless days obsessively accruing junk so that we can live in debt, or sadly growing older and seeing ourselves deteriorate.  And when that laugh track kicks in, he is lamenting the fact that he got a useless education, a sub-prime loan on a Craftsman home, and prescriptions that help him deal but now he can't get off.  Brutal, haunting, and terribly sad indictment of the American Dream.  "Save me President Jesus!"  While a crowd laughs uproariously.  Wow.  I'm going to listen to this album more, I feel like there is even more to unpack here.
(end old review)

Fear Fun.
Looks like I never reviewed this one, back in the day, but the funny thing is that, mentally, I thought this one was much more rock and roll than it really is.  Honestly, it sounds like his new albums as well, all soft melodies and falsetto twinges and piano.  Which makes sense, now that I think of it, coming from the soft chill-ness of Fleet Foxes.  But I guess I think of "Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings" when I think of this album, and it has more of a rock and roll feel - laconic drums, electric guitar, constant handclaps, but a driving rock-ness to it - so that I've conflated that feel to the whole album.  Not true.  Great song though.  21.4 million streams.

Aubrey Plaza!  Was this before Parks & Rec?  Nope.  That show started in 2007 and this was in 2012.  But now, after re-listening to this album again, I'm all twisted up.  He's always been all about the piano-based soft rock and falsetto with great lyrics.  That has always been his shtick.  Like the awesomely cool sounding "Well, You Can Do It Without Me," which is yet another chilled out set of wry observations that sounds like a cool cat from the 70's bopping down the boulevard shooting finger guns at the ladies.  And "Everyman Needs a Companion" has a shambling vibe that is very cool.

One more video, just because its beautiful and adds to my love for Arcade Fire.

And so now I'm all sort of twisted up.  The last time I saw this guy, I saw an amazing show.  I should probably try to do that again, right?  But also, the last time I saw Hozier, he ruled.  AND, I should probably see something I've never seen before and go watch BROCKHAMPTON, right?  How am I supposed to choose?  What can I do?  EXISTENTIAL CRISIS!!!