john vanderslice

533. Nikki Oh Nikki

Alex Russell Unreleased , , , , , , ,

The ultimate memento mori, “Nikki Oh Nikki” helps you find perspective in a terrible way.

Track: “Nikki Oh Nikki”
Album: Unreleased (though recorded and released by John Vanderslice on Life and Death of an American Fourtracker)

Pitchfork called John Darnielle’s lyrics on “Nikki Oh Nikki” “surprisingly unremarkable” and slammed that song and “Amitriptyline” from John Vanderslice’s album Life and Death of an American Fourtracker as the low points of the album. They’re my two favorite songs on the record. Pitchfork also says that Vanderslice’s version of “Nikki Oh Nikki” is too reminiscent of a Pink Floyd song so your mileage, as ever with Pitchfork, may vary. That seems a simplistic comparison, to me.

Darnielle wrote the lyrics for “Nikki Oh Nikki” though the final Vanderslice version is undeniably his own. Percussive comparisons to “Money” aside, it sounds like a Vanderslice song. His vocals on “like a tumor” and similar wails are what you come to Vanderslice for, with the sole performance linked above by Darnielle as the only point of comparison we have. As near as I can tell, that’s the only recording you can find. The production is different, but the final version is also pared way down lyrically. Vanderslice’s version in 2002 is just the thrust of the message. Darnielle’s in 1997 includes an additional verse about a paranoia that everyone is sharing your secrets. The differences aren’t crucial because the result is the same: worry or not, it’s no big deal. That might be comforting, in a certain light, but it may be less so as you realize and insistently confront the fact that you are going to die.

326. Emerging

Alex Russell Moon Colony Bloodbath , , , , , , ,

Moon Colony Bloodbath ends with the haunting “Emerging,” which tells us directly what we’ve been half-told for the whole album.

Track: “Emerging”
Album: Moon Colony Bloodbath (2009)

All of Moon Colony Bloodbath is about building to the revelation in “Emerging.” The album is cryptic but suggests a dark turn and then pays it off shockingly with an extremely clear, extremely direct description of a person eating bodies. This person is in charge of harvesting bodies on the Moon. They harvest them as they’re supposed to, but then they eat some of them. They’ve lost their mind and their humanity and now it’s all about the “sweet things inside.”

John Darnielle has called it a “love song” from the narrator to the bodies and that comes through. This person knows this is “dreadful,” but they also know they’re going to do this thing. There are a few Mountain Goats songs that explore this space of compulsion and how even the worst actions can be done in a loving way. It’s an extreme degree of difficulty to apply this to cannibalism, but a story about bodies in a lunar colony gives you some space to explore.

What’s especially haunting is that the cannibalism reveal should be the end of it, but it isn’t. After we find out this person is eating people, we find out they’re going to get away with it. “I will sail home again // concealed among the upright walking men,” they tell us, which leaves us with the idea that in this world, everyone you see on the street might be a secret cannibal. There’s a clear metaphor there but there’s also the literal piece, which is the perfect final note for Moon Colony Bloodbath to end on.

325. Sudden Oak Death

Alex Russell Moon Colony Bloodbath , , , , , , ,

John Darnielle references a particularly grim disease found in trees to tell us how miserable the narrator is in “Sudden Oak Death.”

Track: “Sudden Oak Death”
Album: Moon Colony Bloodbath (2009)

John Darnielle sings “Sudden Oak Death,” and calls it “emo” when talking about it. Given the style of song John Darnielle usually writes, it’s telling when he’s even willing to call one of his compositions “emo.” It does fit here in this song about a man unravelling completely and likening the experience to a disease that kills oak trees.

John Darnielle also says it doesn’t fit on the album, which makes a certain sense but also isn’t a big problem. Most of Moon Colony Bloodbath is about someone losing touch with humanity and deciding if that’s something they care about fixing or not. At this point they still do, but they’re coming to terms with their trajectory. John Darnielle’s characters sometimes deal with this on the way down, but with rare exceptions we don’t usually find out if they hit the bottom or not. Most of them feel like they might, but the camera pans away.

Moon Colony Bloodbath is different. This is one cohesive story with one person descending into monstrosity. They don’t even fear what might happen at this point, they just want to explain the impact it has on them. “Lose a little feeling in my fingers // gain an edge of panic in my face,” they tell us, but they really drill it home with several more descriptors. Darnielle wants us to understand how distant this person feels from their fellow man because that sets us up for what they’ll do when they feel all the way gone.

324. Scorpio Rising

Alex Russell Moon Colony Bloodbath , , , , , , ,

With a reference to the Manson Family, John Vanderslice makes it clear where the character in “Scorpio Rising” is mentally.

Track: “Scorpio Rising”
Album: Moon Colony Bloodbath (2009)

Like “Lucifer Rising,” the song “Scorpio Rising” takes a title directly from a Kenneth Anger short film. This one is much more direct and follows a character looking for the footprints and buried footage of Bobby Beausoleil, famous murderer and Manson Family member, who supposedly stole some of Anger’s film. The references may be direct, but they don’t relate to the core story of Moon Colony Bloodbath. “Scorpio Rising” seems to be about the mental state of our main character as they wander around trying to hide something no one should find.

We know from the rest of the album that there are many things people shouldn’t know happening. The character has been on a lunar base and seen unspeakable things and they haven’t resettled well back on Earth. These references are all “out there” in a similar way, especially Bobby Beausoleil. The way I take it, our narrator is trying to relate their own experience to the similarly unrelatable Manson story. When you read about Manson and his crew, it seems unimaginable that someone could fall into that company or that anyone could go down that path. You feel that way because you haven’t had this person’s experience and because you aren’t a murderous cannibal. Well, I hope you aren’t, at least.

John Vanderslice, even more than John Darnielle, writes about outsiders and characters who don’t relate to the world around them. It makes sense that his contributions to Moon Colony Bloodbath explore this space, but these references drive this person all the way away from our understanding. There are few references in modern American crime that call to mind “madness” more directly than Manson, so the shorthand here gets you where Vanderslice wants you to be as quickly as possible.

323. Lucifer Rising

Alex Russell Moon Colony Bloodbath , , , , , , ,

The character in Moon Colony Bloodbath shows us we’re in for a dark journey in “Lucifer Rising.”

Track: “Lucifer Rising”
Album: Moon Colony Bloodbath (2009)

Calling John Vanderslice obtuse is a bit like saying water is wet, but it comes through in his approach to his songs on Moon Colony Bloodbath and is worth mentioning specifically. I love Vanderslice, both on this album and for his solo work, but it can be a struggle to crack through what he’s saying. In many cases I’m of the mind that it doesn’t matter and maybe can’t be solved. Kyle Barbour, my personal favorite Mountain Goats “researcher,” has a record number of annotations for this album that essentially say “this is what this says, but I have no idea why it says this.”

“Lucifer Rising” is Vanderslice’s first song on Moon Colony Bloodbath and it finds our main character wandering around Colorado alone, surrounded by bodies and filled with grim thoughts. They call themselves many dark names, including John the Ripper but inexplicably not Jack the Ripper. Is there significance here? Is this a self-reference from the two Johns that made this? If so, what would that mean? You could reach way out there and assume this is a John, not one of those Johns, and they’re being funny by slightly altering another butcher’s name to foreshadow their own actions, but there’s nothing else to support that theory.

This is the first sign we get that things are going to get really bad. “One day I’ll pay for this, but now, just let me in,” our main character pleads, but we don’t know to who. I don’t know what to make of the title’s reference to Kenneth Anger’s 1972 film, either, but Vanderslice would be pleased at how it all combines to form a story you can almost, but not quite, put your finger on.

312. Columns Pillars Steps

Alex Russell Moon Colony Bloodbath , , , , , , ,

John Vanderslice takes perspective in “Columns Pillars Steps” and shows us what happens right before an unthinkable choice.

Track: “Columns Pillars Steps”
Album: Moon Colony Bloodbath (2009)

“Columns Pillars Steps” has the difficult job of bridging two very different songs. Moon Colony Bloodbath is the story of people who have some sinister tasks to get done and how they live with themselves after the tasks are finished. “Sudden Oak Death” comes before it, which John Darnielle has said doesn’t really fit the album but sets up the mood of despair. “Emerging” follows it and speaks for itself as a conclusion to the story. How do you get from despair to acceptance and almost proud cannibalism?

John Vanderslice has the lead vocals on the album version, but most live versions switch between John Darnielle and Vanderslice. Both versions work, but Vanderslice’s trademark wavering pattern adds to the flowing sensation. This is someone at the end of their rope that says they are “inconsolable, still.” We don’t really get much more than that. The chorus finds them “cruising all night” in a light tone on the album and a more severe harmony on every live version, but where are they going?

I love Moon Colony Bloodbath because it tells you enough to follow the story but not enough to follow every scene. What is “DCU,” for example? Every place online that people try to figure out Mountain Goats songs seems to agree this is “Desert Camouflage Uniform,” but why would that be it? I love that you don’t know, and given that it’s Vanderslice, it’s possible you’re not supposed to know. One of my favorite Vanderslice songs is “D.I.A.L.O.,” which he’s said does not stand for anything. I say DCU isn’t anything, but it also doesn’t need to be anything.

285. Satori In Denver

Alex Russell Moon Colony Bloodbath , , , , , , ,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4beFLU7f1qc

Our main character wanders around Colorado, hopeful but not that hopeful, in “Satori In Denver.”

Track: “Satori In Denver”
Album: Moon Colony Bloodbath (2009)

I really love Moon Colony Bloodbath. The full album is less than twenty minutes long and it’s not really an essential piece of the catalog, but it really had a huge impact on me. John Vanderslice and John Darnielle are similar, but different enough that their collaboration here creates a complex album even though it’s so short. You have enough detail to get the story but not enough to not wonder about everything else.

The album is the story of people who are sent to the Moon for sinister, corporate purposes and how they come back. “Satori In Denver” sees our spaceman wandering around Colorado, not really following the rules. “Anklet buzzing on my leg,” tells a little bit about how the world tracks these employees and “thinking up lies to tell” tells us more about how the employees rebel in small ways. We’re let in, but not all the way in, and this is as close as Moon Colony Bloodbath gets to hope.

Satori is a Japanese term for understanding, in the sense of coming into an idea through contemplation. Our character is changing by contending with their world. They have performed dark tasks, possibly uninterrogated, but now they wonder what it all means. This isn’t a hero or a villain, necessarily, but it is someone who has done things we’ll learn about later in the album and they want to know how they should react. We get some of that through the delivery, as well. Darnielle hits high notes when it’s all about introspection, but by the end it’s about driving towards what happens next and it’s all low and grim, telling us what’s really in store.

189. Tape Travel is Lonely

Alex Russell All Hail West Texas , , , , , , ,

John Darnielle explores the dark side of ignoring your problems in “Tape Travel is Lonely.”

Track: “Tape Travel is Lonely”
Album: All Hail West Texas (2013 reissue)

There are a few things to unpack here before we even tackle the song itself. The title of “Tape Travel is Lonely” is a reference to the 2001 John Vanderslice album Time Travel is Lonely. That album is heartbreaking, especially during the title track as Vanderslice’s fictional brother tells the story of his descent into madness in Antarctica.

“Tape Travel is Lonely” is one of the previously unreleased tracks that made it onto the 2013 reissue of All Hail West Texas, and John Darnielle reveals in the liner notes that this one was cut because it ended abruptly while he was recording and he never went back to it. He doesn’t outright say it should have made the album, but he suggests it. It’s possible that the title stems from the process of digging back through old material and picturing who you were when you created the originals. Darnielle says this one didn’t have a title, so you can picture him listening to this song and appreciating the feeling his producer and collaborator Vanderslice imagined for his character in Antarctica.

The song itself is a lot of scene setting, even for the Mountain Goats. We see a “party” that’s all homegrown vegetables and sweet wine on the porch. In most songs, these would be idyllic images and we’d picture a nice night spent with friends in the country. Darnielle hammers the guitar and holds on the last word in lyrics like “the tensions build // air currents throb” to let us know this is not that kind of scene. It’s a fiercer version of “Fault Lines,” in a way, as the narrator’s building anxiety and growing drunkenness peak with a plea for the mosquitoes to suck the remaining blood from his body.

181. Surrounded

Alex Russell Moon Colony Bloodbath , , , , , , ,

“Surrounded” kicks off a story about people that hide among us and some questionable rewards for dark deeds.

Track: “Surrounded”
Album: Moon Colony Bloodbath (2009)

Moon Colony Bloodbath is difficult to explain, but “Surrounded” is as good a place as any to try. John Vanderslice (who produces for the Mountain Goats and is an amazing artist in his own right) and John Darnielle wanted to create a “rock opera” about the men and women who travel to a secluded moon base for six months of the year to harvest organs from bodies. In their time off they live among us, but secluded in Colorado so as to not reveal their secret. The resulting seven-song EP is outstanding and made more outstanding by John Darnielle’s mock insistence at live shows that this is not a story, but a true conspiracy that people seem to ignore.

“Surrounded” explains the upside for these workers. In their time back on the ground, they live in almost comic opulence. The narrator has their own power source to watch a 96-inch TV and six months of time to kill. The catches are numerous (they are alone, they will be alone, and they will have to go back to the moon to harvest the living again in two seasons) and thus the rewards aren’t worth it.

The mood on Moon Colony Bloodbath gets darker and darker as it proceeds towards the final, dark song, but “Surrounded” encapsulates everything. It’s the song that John Darnielle plays live and it’s really the standout. Filled with handclaps and jaunty harmonica, “Surrounded” faces the darkness with a lying smile. “Let me die, let me die // surrounded by machines” is haunting in context, but it works for so many other situations. You’ll identify with the narrator less and less as you listen to other tracks, but “Surrounded” might hit closer to home than a song that starts an album about a moon base normally should.