minor chords and towering fifths
August 5, 2010 7:47 AM   Subscribe

 
The fact that I'd buy a book full of Ikea furniture assemblage instructions if John Darnielle wrote it nothwithstanding, these have been pretty consistently great. And they sound like old-school Mountain Goats lyrics, as opposed to current Mountain goats lyrics, which... is a good thing.

and the point resembles a stone
with rippling or mottled colors
running from surface to core

do you want to know something
I think Destroyer's Trouble in Dreams
was an underrated record
posted by Dormant Gorilla at 7:58 AM on August 5, 2010


these are hardly
'poems' in the traditional sense
and for that i say
thank god! Destroyer
is an indie band but
they are usually
in my estimation adequately
rated.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:58 AM on August 5, 2010


This is an awesome find. Thanks!

The fact that John Darnielle listens to Blind Guardian is simultaneously hilarious and awesome, and might help to explain my wildly divergent musical tastes.
posted by schmod at 7:59 AM on August 5, 2010


Awesome, I learned that the new Blind Guardian's out.
posted by Wolfdog at 8:06 AM on August 5, 2010


Yep, that is a dragon coming out of a pyramid flanked by guys with axes.
posted by Wolfdog at 8:08 AM on August 5, 2010


but the prairie if asked:
"where was your origin?"
wouldn't answer, not because it has no mouth to speak of or with

but because neither it nor any of us on it
have any idea
the question resembles "what is zero minus zero"


I love Mountain Goats to death but I think he means "zero divided by zero."
posted by escabeche at 8:11 AM on August 5, 2010


but I think he means "zero divided by zero."

Could be, but "nothing" is a perfectly good answer which works in context.
posted by valkyryn at 8:15 AM on August 5, 2010


I take the sense to be that there's some difficulty in answering the question.
posted by escabeche at 8:40 AM on August 5, 2010


I bet you've graded enough papers to know that there all too often is some difficulty in answering the question "what is zero minus zero".
posted by Wolfdog at 8:47 AM on August 5, 2010 [1 favorite]


This time
I finally decided maybe
this songwriter whose work I love so much might be
right on, as far as
tastes can be instructive and prescriptive.

But I'm listening to
the 30 second samples of every
track on At The Edge of Time, and while
it's thankfully inoffensive (certainly
my fear of Metal comes from protestant
good child
upbringing, anxious, fey and bookish
avoidance of cacophany
and chaos)

And it's genre pap, right?
I'm hearing
It's derivative iterative
timewasting (for a cultural literacy whore)
heat without light

Ah
but everyone has a favorite comforter.
Cool how that works
genre fandom.

I like SF movies all the time, too.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 9:43 AM on August 5, 2010 [1 favorite]


The fact that John Darnielle listens to Blind Guardian is simultaneously hilarious and awesome, and might help to explain my wildly divergent musical tastes.

Really? He's always been an out-spoken metal fan.

Mountain Goats frontman John Darnielle has been writing free-verse poetry on metal albums and other phenomena on his blog for a few months years now.

Thirty Short Poems About My Favorite Black Metal Band

I'm mrgrimm on the forums there too. I haven't been there much since 2005. He used to write longer pieces, which I prefer to the poetry, but I guess he doesn't have the time anymore.

This early rant about Pig Destroyer's Terrifyer is quintessential metal nerdism to me:

"One hopes that the people who love Leviathan and Panopticon will start looking at bands like Radiation 4, or maybe God Forbid, who made my favorite metal album of 2004. But holding out hope against all the evidence of history is perhaps its own kind of cynicism. Who knows? Time, I suppose and somewhat fear, will tell."
posted by mrgrimm at 9:51 AM on August 5, 2010 [1 favorite]


I bet you've graded enough papers to know that there all too often is some difficulty in answering the question "what is zero minus zero".

Hell, I would have a hard time fully answering the question "what is zero?" It sure ain't nothing.
posted by mrgrimm at 9:53 AM on August 5, 2010


saw new pornographers
for the first time
last month
after being a fan
of the neko and newman songs
for years
dan bejar bugs
you couldn't rate destroyer low
enough
for my tastes
posted by eyeballkid at 10:45 AM on August 5, 2010


Obligatory: The Best Ever Death Metal Band Out of Denton.
posted by carsonb at 10:49 AM on August 5, 2010


if, eyeballkid, you saw them close the set
with "testament to youth in verse"
and still don't care
for bejar
it's hard to believe you have ears
which i guess is why they don't call you
eardrumkid
posted by escabeche at 10:59 AM on August 5, 2010 [3 favorites]


if, eyeballkid, you saw them close the set
with "testament to youth in verse"


no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no
posted by eyeballkid at 11:00 AM on August 5, 2010


hipsters
and Christians
and especially Christian hipsters
always have incredibly shitty taste in metal

He does like the Father Befouled/Helcaraxe split, though, which brings to mind a certain expression about stopped clocks...
posted by vorfeed at 12:46 PM on August 5, 2010


Thanks to Darnielle
I am enjoying a full afternoon
Destroyer retrospective
While tending my clones
posted by MrVisible at 1:18 PM on August 5, 2010 [1 favorite]


vorfeed, if you
are referring to MY John Darnielle
as a Christian
fie
fie unto thee
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 2:05 PM on August 5, 2010 [3 favorites]


Ambrosia Voyeur, if you
are telling me that being "engaged with Christianity"
and "loving the Bible"
aren't "Christian" in the context of metal
then fie unto thee
posted by vorfeed at 2:32 PM on August 5, 2010


Poetry
can do many things
can break teacups
ornament with memories
and buntings spun from music
the archways of thought
justify
dismissal wholly
of logic
of sense
It came with cummings in foolish spring
We are free
to name
what isn't who aren't
because context
cannot be contextualized
It don't pay though,
or hold up in court.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 4:30 PM on August 5, 2010


Last plane to Jakarta has been circulating as a print zine for a lotta years; and he's always with the metal. Destroyer, for me, is like a personality test. If I already like you and you don't like it. we can still hang. Otherwise, recognition of the Beej determines whetehr you have any clue ot not. Really, to prefer Carl over Dan is like...I used to operate a similar test based on whether people liked Chris Elliot's 'Get a Life' or not
posted by Roachbeard at 2:24 AM on August 6, 2010


Sorry, I'm super drunk, this is my first post, and I'm sort of a dumb fuck with computers. Love the Metafilter though!
posted by Roachbeard at 2:26 AM on August 6, 2010 [3 favorites]


MetaFilter: I'm super drunk, this is my first post, and I'm sort of a dumb fuck with computers
posted by mrgrimm at 8:19 AM on August 6, 2010 [1 favorite]


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