Reflecting with Guest Garrett Camps

So it's Friday night. And we're all hanging out at Smiley's Saloon. A bar and restaurant and tiny seven room hotel in Belenus, a gorgeous, cozy Northern California beachfront town of maybe 1,300 people, some of whom are openly displeased that we've found this town at all. On the ninety minute drive north from Oakland, we see very few road signs for Bellinis, because Bellinis uh shuns the spotlight. There's a twenty fourteen New York Times article with the headline Bolinas, California. The town that didn't want company. In the article somebody says quote They are pretty hostile to outsiders. I've heard of people's tires getting slashed. End quote. That article appears in the travel section. Nobody slashes our tires, thankfully. We just get super lost. We keep missing the turns because, yeah, the turns are suspiciously unmarked. And we finally stop at a gas station twenty minutes in the wrong direction, and the gas station attendant just laughs. And tells us that Bolinas residents probably stole all the road signs themselves, and then he grudgingly points us in the right direction. And then we roll triumphantly into town. We are indeed outsiders. We are interlopers. We are, and this is a nasty, ugly, almost pornographically insulting word, and I don't like using it, but I gotta do it. So, Mom, if you're listening, please cover your ears. We are hipsters. It is january two thousand five. It's an extra chilly Friday night. We have arrived in Belenus for a folk music festival, and some of our fellow patrons at Smiley Saloon are not psyched about it. Pope love me so happy to see me every Should have wanted so easy See, Smiley Saloon is also a cozy little concert venue. In the dorky little alt weekly music column I write later about this show, I describe smiley's as quote No larger than your average Taco Bell. End quote. I don't know why I put it like that. I am not in the habit of using Taco Bell. as a standard of measurement. For venue size. I must have been hungry when I wrote that. Anyway, here on stage at Smiley's, we've got a folk singer named Peggy Honeywell. That songs call Papi Love. Off her two thousand two album Honey for Dinner. In my opinion, Puppies Love Me is a great idea. For his song. I dig Peggy's vibe tremendously. I dig her soft and plaintive voice. I dig her sweet and exceedingly chill vibe. I dig her hat. I don't know if it's a bonnet or what. I'm out of my element here, but it's a cool hat. Peggy's playing a banjo this evening and genially doing her thing. Peggy's not the problem here. The problem here is us. The out of towners. This bar is overcrowded. This bar has been functionally invaded by us. This dude walks up to me, he's an incredulous local, and he just goes Where are you from? And I say Oakland. And he says you drove from Oakland? Two here. And I say, Yeah, I guess. And he goes, Why? Well, sir, the thing is And I apologize for this, and I will leave town immediately afterward. Please don't slash my tires. But we all drove here for a two day music festival. Quiet, quiet window lights. Curated by the psychedelic rock band Bright Black Morning Light. Who don't sound at all hostile to outsiders or hostile to anyone else, for that matter. From their self-titled 2006 debut album, that's Bright Black Morning Light, with a song called Everybody Daylight. And by design, that's just about as raucous as these folks generally get. What with the hand claps? The extra Jaunty Rhodes piano riff and the audible drums. Usually when I'm at a bright black show, I forget they even have a drummer. For long. mesmerizing periods of time. The two lovely slurring, breathy, entrancing voices here belong to guitarist Nathan Shinewater, aka Nabob. Pianist Rachel Hughes, aka Ray Ba. Who are semi-famous among Bay Area rocker types because apparently they used to live in a converted chicken coop. Point Rays, a slightly more tourist friendly, gorgeous, cozy California coastal area. I guess the chicken coop was more of a cabin. It had bunk beds. Anyway, I read that somewhere. Bright black morning light are from Northern California by way of Alabama. And so they often sound like a southern soul band slowly emerging from a coma. Or at least an especially heavy afternoon nap. A two thousand six Los Angeles Times concert review will quite rudely suggest that Rayob and Nabob quote looked like the hippies in a pot themed episode of Dragnet. End quote. That's an old sixties cop TV show. And again, wow, that's pretty rude. Though yeah, okay, bright black kinda sound like that, also. Mm-hmm. And I dig this vibe tremendously as well. So yeah, it's more of a trance. Than a vibe. It can induce outright hypnosis. We're dealing with absolute masters at creating and sustaining a move. Here. And Bright Black ain't playing their own festival until tomorrow, until Saturday night. But for now Nabobs just chilling out near the Smiley Saloon Sound Man. We got Peggy Honeywell playing banjo and singing her endearing lilting songs about birds and whatnot. But we got a problem because nobody can hear. Peggy singing because all the Bellenus locals Clustered near the bar. Are talking way too loud. And finally, Nabob stops the show. And he grabs a microphone and Nabob tells us two things. Number one, Peggy Honeywell, who we can't hear singing because we're too busy talking. Peggy is a medicine woman. And she deserves our undivided attention. That's the first thing he says. I'm paraphrasing. And number two. The second thing Nabob says is, shut the fuck up. I'm not paraphrasing. That's a direct quote. Peggy's a medicine woman, ergo. Shut the fuck up. Got it. And one of the locals yells back, No, you shut the fuck up. And another local guy yells, It's not your town. And Nabob says Quotes. It's not your town either. Your people raped the red man, you Anglo Saxon son of a bitch. End quote. He also says he's got a knife. Boy. That escalated quickly. Now we got two angry dudes yelling at each other from opposite ends of a folk music concert. And I'm pretty sure the local heckler guy has also announced That he's got a knife. And I'm paraphrasing, but pretty much now they're saying, I'll stab you. No, I'll stab you. Blah blah blah blah and I'm standing there thinking Well This is unpleasant. Uh I would prefer Not to die. Stabbed to death? In a bar wide knife fight? That personifies the cultural tension between the music I like and the people actually living the small town life depicted in the music I like, you know? That tension. Though it would be so me to die in this manner. Yeah, as I lie there bleeding out on the floor of a smiley saloon, I'll think, yeah, this makes sense. Based on decisions that I've made and the consequences of those decisions. And meanwhile, as I take my final gasping breaths, maybe Peggy Honeywell singing a lovely, forlorn song about how she doesn't want to live on the moon. Shoe that I can go with Yeah, me neither. Peggy, everyone in this bar is now scared shitless. I'm projecting fine. I'm scared shitless. And because I'm too scared to look at either of the yelling knife guys, I'm looking at Peggy Honeywell. on stage, silent and motionless and clutching her banjo. This woman looks unhappy. I don't recall ever feeling worse for a performer on stage than I do for her. At this moment, and as these two dudes are yapping at each other, Peggy says, quote I'm just trying to play my songs as fast as I can. End quote. And that's maybe the funniest thing I've ever heard. Somebody say on stage. And somewhere in the midst of all this, this escalating imminent bar brawl, my buddy Nate. Who's standing behind me, Nate leans in. Right next to my ear. And he nods at Peggy Honeywell on stage and he says Her hat. Looks Like a delicious Biscuit. Okay, time out. Everybody cool it, but no, Nabob and the Heckler guy physically confront each other back at the bar and ah shit, here we go, and then nothing happens. The two angry, allegedly knife wielding men are separated. by a couple good Samaritans, and everyone talks it out. I have no idea how they talk it out. At this point in my dorky little altweekly column about this, I mentioned that there's an NBA game on a TV over the bar. The Lakers beat the Warriors that night, 105 to 101. And I imply in my column that Nabob and Heckler guy. Bond over the basketball game. There's no way. Dude, nobody gave a shit about the Golden State Warriors until they drafted Steph Curry in 2009. I must have made that part up. Bottom line, no knife fight. Sorry. Peggy Honeywell plays the rest of her songs as fast as she can, and then she gets the hell out of there. But she ain't gotta worry because we're all bros now. The salty Balenus locals and the sweaty Bay Area outsiders have found common ground. via our next performer this evening. Devendra Banhart. We suddenly are nice people! Um Nasky Bone Sunny on a skeepom Ah yes, Deventra Banhart. Beguiling, eccentric, worldly, Houston born, Bay Area affiliated singer-songwriter. Regaling us here with a tune called Nice People. From his second album released in 2002 and titled Brace Yourself, Oh Me Oh My Dot Dot Dot. The way the day goes by, the sun is setting, dogs are dreaming, love songs of the Christmas spirit. I told you to brace yourself. I don't remember if he played that song. In Bellinus, but I just wanted to say that whole album title out loud. Okay. Uh Deventra. This guy's a whole lot to deal with by design. Uh he sings with a lovely disconcerting falsetto trill. That's so infectious that some of the baliness locals at the bar they start imitating it, and I think they're doing it like affectionately. Deventra sings in both English and Spanish. He covers the LA sixties blues rock band Canned Heat. He covers Charles Manson. And he regales us with extra disconcerting stage banter, like when he tells us all to go have sex. Kill our lover immediately before climaxing and drink their blood. I'm paraphrasing. Everybody's really into all of this. Obviously. Here's a song in Spanish. Dig the way he rolls the bejesus out of the R when he sings Peter Pan. No se va Y el grafite de SPTERP. El zoológico es arco y.. That song's called Todos Los Dolores. That's my favorite song from Deventra Banhart's 2004 breakout album, Rejoicing in the Hands. My best shot at a translation there is All the Pains Are Fading Away. And the graffiti reads Peter Pan and the Rainbow Zoo. It will rainbow. It will rainbow. Whatever he's saying there, it sounds cooler when he says it. Two fun facts about Devendra Banhart. Number one, also in two thousand four, he curates the influential compilation The Golden Apples of the Sun. Featuring cool, weird, low key jams from folk artists like six organs of admittance. Spurs, Iron and Wine, and Coco Rosie. Uh fun fact number two, Deventre dated Natalie Portman for a while. Uh that golden apples of the sun record was so influential, in fact. So cool, so warm, so eerie. So simultaneously ancient and startlingly modern, that it helped create a mid-2000s indie rock sub genre. And this is a nasty, ugly, almost psychedelically insulting name, so mom, please cover your ears again. Uh yeah, this record helped launch a mid-2000s indie rock subgenre called Freak Folk. Please don't make me say that name again. That first night in Balenus. At Smiley Saloon. We also listen to Michael Hurley. The ultra rad 60s songwriter. And for those of us in the crowd who've got pitchfork bookmarked and have never carried a knife in public. Michael was actually living this weird folk singer life decades before any of us even started reading about people. Who actually lived this weird folk singer life. You feel me? Halfway through Michael's set, my buddy Nate, who's standing behind me. Nate leans in. Right next to my ear and he nods at Michael Hurley on stage and Nate says He seems to have writ a song Ever he has ever owned. I got a night. Yeah. Cheveling That's a Michael Hurley song from 1984 called 54 Chevy. Uh back in the day, sometimes they called Michael Hurley outsider folk. Which was medium insulting at worst. That guy seems pretty content. with his place in the cosmos. But yeah, man, uh last time, freak folk is maximum insulting. Yo, nobody likes being called that. So knock it off on the second night of the quiet, quiet window lights folk festival. After a day spent roaming the beach and hiking mere woods, and further annoying the locals, we all gather at the Balenus Community Center, and we sit cross legged on the hardwood floor And we enjoy the San Francisco band Vetiver. One of those bands whose name I'd read in print like ten thousand times, but I hadn't listened to them yet. Well, I shoulda. Name was the way started I'd like to go To time before That's a disarmingly lovely Vediver song from two thousand four called On a Nerve. And the lyrical impulse there. Nameless as the way we started, I'd like to go back to time before name. Name for all we know. That is a quite elegant and totally understandable lyrical sentiment. Given the dumb genre name this band is often filed under. Maybe just forget all the names for everything. Then bright black morning light plays, and I feel so much more psychically attuned. After that whole almost knife fight. business. Now we've truly shared a transcendent experience. F That's another two thousand six bright black song called Star Blanket River Child. And I'd have to say they named that song accurately. A lot of rainbow imagery happening in this universe. And look, I'm being glib and I don't mean to be. But sitting there on the Bolinas community center floor. Uh yeah, I dig all this music very much. All these baffling, endearing, folk adjacent oddballs of various ages and temperaments, but there's an ever so slight layer of amused, ironic remove to the way I'm digging it. I have never lived. In a converted chicken coop. I have never written a song about any of the cars I've ever owned. I can't roll my R's. Puppies love me, but just like the normal average amount. I really enormously like all these people, but I also understand, I respect. That I am not very much light. These people. I am nowhere near as keenly attuned to the delightful, awe inspiring idiosyncrasies of the universe. And thus, out of respect There is a hard limit on how intensely I can vibe with any of these splendid musicians like. Emotionally. And then she shows up. That the media right! Is the source of the light and My name is Rob Harvilla. This is the forty-third episode of Sixty Songs That Explain the Nineties, Cole in the Two Thousands, and this week we are discussing the song Emily. by Joanna Newsom from her two thousand six album called East. East is just spelled capital Y lowercase S. Joanna Newsome sings and plays the harp. Mostly, as it says in the Bible, if you know, you know. Uh, if you don't know, this song Emily is a 12 minute ode to Joanna's younger sister, Emily, who is an astrophysicist, which helps explain why in the chorus, Joanna super helpfully explains the difference. Between a meteorite, a meteor, and a meteoroid. And the meteorite just what causes the light and the meteor's how it's Per se And the meteorite's a bone thrown from the boy that lies quiet and offering to thee. And if you wanted to devote your entire life parsing Joanna Newsome songs lyrically and musicologically, uh, we could talk about the phrase a bone thrown from the void, as a possible reference to the notable nineteen sixty eight Stanley Kubrick film 2001 A Space Odyssey. When the ape tosses the bone into the sky, and there's that super famous match cut to the floating satellite. Earth versus deep space. The distant past versus the distant future. Uh man versus machine, science versus magic, etc. Rabbit holes don't get much deeper and darker and more alluring than this one. Let's give this a shot. Excuse me a second. Okay, we're back. Joanna Newsome is born in nineteen eighty two in Grass Valley, California, and raised in Nevada City, California. She's five years old when she first tells her parents she wants to learn to play the harp. And by the time she's 10, her parents finally believe she's serious, and she starts practicing on a smaller and more kid-friendly Celtic harp. before moving to the much larger and traditional and intimidating pedal harp. Which will not fit in your car, and very possibly costs way more than your car. Uh she studies composition and then creative writing at Mills College in Oakland. But what she's interested in writing is far too fantastical and musical to be confined to the page. And musically it's way too melodic and harmonious. to be confined to avant garde classical composition. Starting in 2002, Joanna's playing shows mostly around the Bay Area. She drives her harp around in a truck, a Chevy 10 with a camper shell, and she self-releases a couple EPs. She's not writing pop songs, per se, but it's totally cool if at first you attempt to hear them. Way. Quick. Now, Caramel did give it up to the runneration Hail now Hail to the bitch The hurry little ran with the nervous nervous twitch This song is called Erin, E-R-I-N. It is track one on the first Joanna Newsome EP, self-released in 2002 and called Walnut Wales. Okay, uh her singing voice strikes you first, I think. Then the harp. Then the fact that she just sang the line Heil now, Heil to the Bitch. Uh, then the internal rhyme of hairy literary, then back to the voice. I am profoundly dissatisfied with any of the words I've come up with to describe this person's voice. So I'm gonna do both of us a favor and not use any. Why did Petsy's birthday? No That song is called What We Have Known, off her second E P, self released in two thousand three, and called Yarn and Glue. That line is quite striking. in its casual implication. We know not now what we have known. It feels like a trick of some kind, but she's not trying to trick you. Uh her singing voice is also striking. I am far more interested in hearing Joanna Newsome Describe her own voice and her reactions. Positive and negative to the way various critics, positive and negative, have described her voice. She is not psyched, for example, about people who describe her voice as an affectation. Her voice is not trying to trick you. Either. In two thousand six, in a cover story for the rad art and underground music magazine Arthur. which put out Deventra Banhart's Golden Apples of the Sun album. In a two thousand six Arthur cover story, Joanna Newsome says that her first two EPs are quote. Officially blacklisted. End quote. So you can buy 'em. Maybe, but she won't sell 'em to you. And then she says, quote When I listen back to those first EPs, I'm like, well, that voice does sound fucking crazy. There is no way around it, but I know exactly what space I was in. I was so sure that I didn't know how to sing and That I was just going balls out. I was like, I'm going to sing my heart out, as crazy as it sounds, and I'm not going to care because there's no hope of sounding anything like what people consider beautiful. I sure as hell wasn't affecting anything. I mean the institution of singing is inherently an affectation. End quote. Moving on then to Joanna's earliest work that is not officially blacklisted. The sign of bridges and balloons makes car canary irritable. And my claw afternoon. Cabinet! E de boa! This song is called Bridges and Balloons, as it appears on her two thousand four full length debut. Released on the prestigious Drag City Records and called The Milk Eyed Mender. Okay, her singing voice strikes you first, I think. Then the harp. Then maybe the alliteration. Calm canaries, caw and claw, then the words themselves. Catenaries and dirigibles. A catenary is the wire or rope or whatever between two poles, like say on a bridge. A dirigible is a giant balloon. I think. And then you go back to her voice. Oh It's a funny little thing. Bing! You are That's the chorus to bridges and balloons, and Joanna will not exactly be relying on simple verse, chorus, verse song structure for terribly long. So enjoy this one while it lasts. Touv is the key word in that chorus, I think. To be The ones To have seen. What I dig immediately about Joanna Newsome is the radical deconstruction of, but also radical expansion of. The English language. The $50 vocabulary words, but also the new life she can casually breathe into these simple contraction. to of not to have seen To have seen. It's not that she sounds like she's saying a word for the first time. It's that you feel like you're hearing that word. for the first time. Like this word. Should we go? Time! Should we go outside? Should we play shy? Like the word interested there. That song's called Sprout and the Bean. That's the chorus. Starting in two thousand three, I'd see Joanna Newsome playing at small folk clubs in Berkeley or San Francisco, and it's an unavoidably striking monumental visual. Right, this woman alone on stage singing while playing a giant towering harp. And then people in the crowd would laugh out loud and enteristic. Laugh with her, not at her. They'd laugh with surprise. Maybe even with delight. Same deal with the line, I killed my dinner with karate. I killed my dinner. Karate, kick em in the face. Ate the body shallow. The work that I do. This song is called The Book of Right On. Right hyphen on. I can vividly remember people laughing out loud with surprise and delight at I killed my dinner with karate. Uh, talking to the San Francisco culture magazine The Believer in 2004, Joanna talks about a bunch of her influences. The American 1960s folk sing Dalton, the English 1960s folk singer Vashti Bunyan. Plus, you know, Dylan, Donovan, Kate Bush, et cetera. She also mentions an Appalachian folk singer named Texas Gladden. whom Joanna digs because, quote, her voice is so powerful and so affecting and so devastating and so untrained. And so different from the conventional idea. Of a pretty voice. Mm They are here around me. Cal water's gliding down the street. That's Texas Gladden singing a song called Cold Mountains, recorded by folk archivists Alan Lomax and Shirley Collins in 1959. And beyond the power and devastation in this voice. There is a wisdom and authority. Joanna says, quote, she was a grandmother. When she got recorded. She was in her seventies, and I've had some people say they couldn't tell if I was seventy or thirteen. Which I prefer. I like hearing that because it's closer to how I feel. When I sing. End quote. Specifically, Joanna prefers that she might be seventy or thirteen line. Two critics, positive and negative, who describe her voice as innocent. Or childlike. This is a no Song And this is not my tom. But it's mine to use. That's one of the more beloved lines on the milk eyed Mender album from a song called Sadie. Which is a song in part about Joanna's childhood dog. But looking through the eyes of a child does not make you a child. In that believer interview, Joanna says, quote, I'm certainly not interested in innocence at all. I get very upset when people tell me that my record's all about innocence. If I'm interested in childhood, it's not the innocence. It's the part of childhood where you have this huge capacity to be sad. You understand an innate sadness in a lot of things, and you also understand an innate beauty. in a lot of things. You pick apart something dead that you find on the side of the road, or you ask really embarrassing questions at the dinner table. There's this curiosity and this lack of embarrassment and lack of self censorship. That's interesting to me, but not innocence, because I think innocence in music is something that exists in a vacuum. Like it hasn't been exposed to any ideas, and it would be a huge affectation, too. Because I'm twenty two. I live in San Francisco. I watch television. I drive a truck. End quote. She likes her truck. The best song. On the first Joanna Newsome record is the last song. It is called clam crab cockle cowrie. I dig the way she sings the words slightly bored. And I cannot let go So I think the L Thank you so Do it be mincing up the morning sal This is one of the simplest, slowest, and least flashy harp songs. On the Milk Guide Mender. And one of the coolest things about this record is that by the last song, you're fully convinced of the harp's singular power. As a solo instrument as a pop song adjacent. instrument, the fleet fingered barrages, but also the crystal clear melodies, the delicacy of it, but also potentially the thunderousness of it. There is an utter pristine simplicity to this song, especially and to this whole album generally, that you should not expect. from Joanna Newsom. forward. She is about to get genuinely wild as hell. conceptually and otherwise. So enjoy the relative serenity while it lasts. The serene way she sings the adverbs hourly, sourly, and dowerly. For example. Why love this town Or just look around. To see me sanited early and celebrate it say and dedicated I don't quite know what this song is about, precisely, and I have always resisted. Finding out. Sometimes I prefer less explanation. Sometimes I want uncertainty and plausible deniability. I just dig the way she blends fantastical imagery. Uh the Lord and his sword mincing up the morning, slightly bored. With lines that are painfully direct and might have come from a seventy year old or a thirteen year old. A line like Or will you just look at me? Walt's in with the open sea. Lamb crab cockle curry Oh you just look at me I really dig that line. You could write a college thesis. about oh will you just look at me Or maybe it's that you don't need to write a college thesis about, oh, will you just look at me. You know exactly what she means, even if you've no idea what she's talking about. I suppose it goes without saying that the milk eyed vendor is not a chart topping blockbuster proposition. This record shows up on a lot of year end critics polls. It starts a lot of message board arguments you ain't want nothing to do with. Trust me, don't get involved. But if you think Joanna Newsome's generating a lot of baffled conversation now. Just wait until she starts her next album with a twelve minute song that includes the phrase. Hydrocyphilitic listlessness. How it. I do symbol Lady mop up there. My spell check is not at all psyched about the word hydrocephalitic, but that's just too bad. Do you want to even sit here and try to parse the phrase? hydrocephalitic listlessness, or should we just enjoy it? The ants are wet. The ants are soggy. Perhaps it has been raining. Embrace the Mystery. The second Joanna Newsome record is released in 2006 and is called East. It is 56 minutes long and contains five songs. The longest song called Only Skin runs almost seventeen minutes. And I'm still absorbing that one. If you want the truth. I'll get back to you. on only skin. Matter of fact, I'm gonna do both of us another favor and stick with track one. Every time I put this record on. I am so thoroughly emotionally wrung out by this song, Emily, that I cannot really process The next four songs at all. That is a compliment. I describe albums and songs and people as a lot, a lot, but this record and this song in particular, this is the most a lot I have yet encountered. Also a compliment. Médoul ! Chim tree in the space. Sit to the sky in a fly for the sport of the fair. So Emily starts like this. Joanna lists three birds, the second of which, the Chimjury. That's more of a child's name for a bird, or a child's name for a bird that does not yet exist. The casual internal rhyme of Set to the Sky in a Flying Spree. Uh a pharaoh shows up and you don't even blink. Of course there's a pharaoh. And what immediately strikes me is the startling new depth. and richness and darkness in Joanna's singing voice. She sounds way closer to seventy than thirteen now. Even the saddest songs on the milk eyed mender, the one about her childhood dog, for example, they've got a bracing brightness. to them. And that fit the mood perfectly for that record. But the mood on East is drastically different. And even the warmest and loveliest images in this song, Emily, have a palpable heaviness. Even the image of Joanna's kid sister. skipping stones. Even the very first word right here, the word and cracks dramatically like an egg. S By the river I dream you're skipping little stones across the surface of the water. And meanwhile, dig the full swooping orchestra we've got, backing Joanna up. Now. We got Van Dyke Parks, the famous Avant Pop composer, known for his very cool and weird and expensive and influential 1967 album Song Cycle. And he's worked with everyone from the Beach Boys to Randy Newman to Harry Nilsen to Rufus Wainwright to Skrillex. Skrillax is later. We got Van Dyke Parks handling all the orchestral arrangements here and also playing accordion. This record arrives with a fancy pedigree, with an absolute seriousness, with unabashedly ambitious masterpiece energy. The East album cover is an oil painting of Joanna by the California artist Benjamin Verling. A Drag City Records press release, later quoted by the New Yorker, announced that Benjamin Did the cover painting old master style? With layers of egg tempera and glazes. Strictly 16th century processes, just like the recording of the album. End quote. That's a joke. But is it though? Wow. Yeah. And slip that nerve forever Micah spangled like the sky being Nana Mir But part of the magic trick here is that in one album, We've gone from mostly a lady and her harp and her truck to a lady and her harp and a thirty two piece orchestra, plus guitar, electric bass, banjo, mandolin, various percussion instruments, and accordion. Plus Emily Newsome herself. on backing vocals. But then Joanna describes a river. As a mud cloud, mica spangled, like the sky'd been breathing on a mirror. And once again her voice is all you hear. And all you need. Just the word sky there, the contraction. She doesn't sing sky had been breathing. She sings sky'd been breathing. I am jumping around. I suspect that each and every line in Emily is somebody's favorite, and I'm sorry if I don't play your favorite. Emily works whether you treat it as a 12 minute linear narrative or an infinite jumble of rad, startling, confounding images and micro moments. I'm always floored by the painfully vulnerable and not quite stumbling, but almost stumbling way Joanna navigates the phrase. Gone healthy all of a sudden. Um To the night time. The all of a sudden and so jovem midwives. Who can help me? Who can help me? In that interview with Arthur magazine, talking about both Emily the song and Emily the person. Joanna says quote In some ways, this song is a tribute to her. And in other ways it was like a plea. A letter to her about some stuff that's happening close to home. And a reference to the fact That a lot of the little structures and kingdoms and plans we built when we were younger are just falling to fucking pieces. End quote. So Emily, the song is a kingdom unto itself, and To more carefully document all the childhood kingdoms. Falling to pieces. The song ends with Joanna remembering what Emily taught her about meteorites, meteors, and meteoroids. She's singing a little faster and more frantically now. The knowledge is weighing heavier on her all the time. Most knowledge does. And the media rise just what causes the light And the media's how it's pussy And the media rise up the void that light Quiet and all I don't remember. If Joanna Newsome played this song. As I sat cross legged on the floor of the Bellinas Community Center. The night after the almost knife fight. Uh in early two thousand five, East won't be out for a year and a half, but she probably played new stuff. in Balenus. I don't remember a goddamn thing. Honestly, and it's one of my most cherished concert memories. Honestly, because all I've got is a vague memory. Of my genuine astonishment. We know not now what we have known. I'd say I had an out-of-body experience, but that's exactly wrong. I had a frighteningly intense and direct emotional experience. And I am forever grateful for that. And when it was over I got back in my car. and drove away from the place where I didn't belong. We're so thrilled to be joined today by Garrett Camps, semi-lapse veteran music journalist, former music editor for the SF Weekly back in the 2000s. He's written for The Village Voice, Deadspin, Billboard, and many other fine places. He's currently the co founder of Third Bridge Creative and the CEO of the Smallbow Media Network. Also, I sang a Billy Joel song at his wedding. Garrett. Thank you so much for being here. It is uh great and surreal to be here, Rob. Extraordinarily surreal, but I'm grateful to you for giving this. It's possible the last time we were I'm sorry to interrupt you, I know this is your show, but it's it's fine. It's possible the last time we both were in front of a mic was that Billy Joel uh song that you sang at my wedding and I appreciate that. I did pretty well. It was the tempo was slower when I sang it than when I had practiced it. And so I had some breath control issues. It was just the way you are and I just I struggled with the ends of lines just because I didn't have the proper breath control, but I don't think anybody noticed. People were really drunk at that point in the wedding if I recall. Correct. There was a lot of making do in that in that moment. That's right. That's right. Uh, okay, Garrett, I met you in two thousand three. Uh, you were writing then for the East Bay Express, another Bay Area alt weekly, and you wrote one of the first articles about Joanna Newsome. You were one of the first people to interview her. Way back in two thousand three. Like how did you first find her? And what was it like to encounter this person, you know, with no warning, no context, and like no body of work already written about her? Yes. Um I first discovered Joanna, uh, because I was writing about Devendra Banhart. Um person in that scene who was kind of the The forerunner the the first kind of freak folk person who started getting some attention. And so I had written an article about him for SF Weekly and was just sort of following him around. And I very distinctly remember he was headlining a show. Cafe Denord, uh, which I'm sure we'll talk about. various things happened in that place. Um and Joanna was the opener, like the third or she was like the opener's opener, opener. Um the kind of person that's not. nobody ever shows up for. Um But you know, the the group of us who had shown up for Deventor, we were all very earnest and swarthy and whatnot, and showed up on time and ready to see everybody who was playing and and hear this woman came out with a harp. None of which, you know, none of any of us had seen that before. This uh and uh and we were very befuddled. And I think the first couple minutes was just People looking at one another wondering what the heck this was gonna be. I would later learn, I think this was like her second or third show. Um So Not only had I not seen her, but really nobody had. Um But within extremely magical, rare moments that I can count on one hand in my twenty five years of going to shows where The entire room went from jittery and buzzy and not and half paying attention to completely locked in. And dead silent. for the next thirty five minutes. And it was and I left that show. And I think I I I wrote to my editor the next day, I'm like, We have to write about this person. It was just one of those moments uh that I've had very, very few of in my career. Uh but I recognize it instantly. Yeah. What do you think it was primarily? Like, as you say, like the harp element is not familiar to most people in like a pop context at all. But there's also her voice, there's also just her lyricism already. Like, was it just the total package that can make an entire room of jittery people shut up? That's what I kept encountering over and over with her. in the early years. Like you don't know what's happening, and within ninety seconds, like everyone is transfixed. Like what was it about her that caused that? Yeah. Um In those early days, I don't know when she stopped doing this, but in those early shows Um She would start by singing a cappella, which is a pretty wild thing to do. as a musician, let alone an opener, you know, she would came up and just You know. started singing this this a cappella song before he even sat down at the at the harp and I think She just completely I don't even want to say commits to it because that would imply it's like a bit or something. It's it's The the level of presence that she brings to her performance. Um It's transfixing. Uh the the The lyrics were not like anything I had heard before. Um And it was Listening to this record on the her first record on the way over here and just all of these phrases that are just embedded in my brain, like to this day, twenty five years later. Um I think even hearing those for the first time. Just they just stuck right in there. And It was just the whole package. It was this and then of course her playing I I remember. Uh, I don't think I talked about this in my article, but she was uh she played harp at weddings. Like she was like, you know, Joe Satriani of the harp. You know it wasn't like she was learning the instrument in front of all of us, you know? Like she showed up and she was fully uh you know, an a Complete genius when it came just to playing the instrument. And so you combine that with the lyrics, and then yes, the voice, which I had forgotten. You know. How How strange her her voice sounded at that time. It doesn't sound strange to me now, but I think Uh in those early years when people were discovering her. There were just very few people to compare it to. Right, because when you're writing for an all weekly, you know, y this is the job is to like find the next big thing, right? And then you you know, the hot new bands, like you either read about them elsewhere and you go see them, or ideally you write about them yourself. Like I i You were discovering, you know, writing about people in their very early phases all through your time, you know, writing for the Bay Area music. There was so much happen at that time. Like was there anything to compare this to? Like how much different was this than just seeing like whatever the hot new indie rock band of the moment was? Well was it was a very special time. Uh for me at least. I mean you and you as well, which we have to talk about. Um but we'll get to. Um You know, they like I mentioned, Devendra came up right around this time. Uh, Joanna came right on on his heels. Um There was a lot of exciting things happening in the Bay Area at that time. Weird electronic music, weird noise rock. Um I'm just I'm blanking on all the bands, but you could, you know. Uh you could rattle them off. Um And it was an exciting time and then You know. I think that that little initial movement, that kind of freak folk movement as it started to become known, um, broke out. And then sort of merged into this larger thing that was happening around that time in the middle two thousands when all of a sudden indie rock bands had accordions and you know banjos and zithers and dressed like they were delivering, you know, milk. Uh And so it all kind of, you know, merged together at that point. Um But but yeah, so it you you did feel that. I mean those Those Joanna Newsome shows very quickly on this surreal type of you know, we were all witnessing history m kind of Feel to them. Um, and there were several bands around that time that had that feel to them. So you mentioned like the idea of a scene. Like I was curious since you talked to both Joanna and Devendra so early, as they're starting to get national attention, as they're starting to be associated with a scene, and as like it's I think it's two thousand I forget when, but the New York Times calls Deventra Banhart the Pied Piper. of freak folk. And so now it's like a movement with a name. Like when you first encountered these people, you know, I guess they're playing together and that counts for a lot, but did you see it as like a distinct movement? Like did you did the freak folk framing make any sense to you at all when it became a national thing? I think it was Just the latest thing that people were grouping together, you know, like it wasn't long before that that There was the New York rock thing and you know Yeah, like I c I I can't like thinking of it kind of coalescing Um I think I just saw it as okay, well that's that's this thing for you know, until the next thing. Um Um You know, but it's Which is not The way that you know anybody who's experienced this when a scene becomes sort of a media darling and kind of breaks out, right? It's it's the initial qualities that made the scene so special start to get diluted and they start to get, you know. interpreted by various people like it it it belongs to the larger world now. And and that's a good thing, especially for the musicians who are trying to, you know, make a living and uh, you know, but Part of the scene goes away. when that happens. Uh when you, you know, when when Deventra starts playing, when Joanna starts playing, you know. large auditoriums as opposed to hundred and fifty person venues. It's it's fantastic. Um and it's what you you hope for. Um But you can't help but be a little bit nostalgic for the special scene that was that that birthed those things. Cause I remember very distinctly, like standing with you at like these small clubs, like the Freight and Salvage, you know, in Berkeley or whatever, and we're like really tense and annoyed by people who are talking while she's playing. Like I remember like ha having to like shush people Like this is a show, Joanna, is a show that more or less requires like total crow silence. Did you get the sense that even from the earliest days, her her earliest fans, like you, were sort of like weirdly protective of her, like both during her shows and also as more people started writing about and open? Pining about her. Yeah, there's something there's something to that. I think that Freight and Salvage show, I think she opened for smog. Do you remember that? I thought there wasn't that would make sense. Which which meaning like, you know, there were who, you know, as an artist who is also very hushed and and kind of but like yes, I think I think that Uh There was a certain I mean we'll we'll probably get to this, but I think as Joanna's Um There was a sense of like, okay, may maybe we were mistaken to try to put her in this box. of of being this childlike person or sensibility that, you know, infers that oh, you know, as I remember, there they were like crow police type people who would, if somebody was talking, would be like, you need to shut up. Um I think You know, and I was certainly guilty of that as as a as a fan of hers, uh you know, feeling needlessly protective um You know, and and we can talk about why that might be, but I I I don't think I was alone in that. Most people first heard her through the first record, through the milk eyed mender, but as somebody who had been at like maybe her second or third show, you know, this all happened pretty quickly, but there's still a big difference between like her voice, her sound on those first E Ps. And this first Drag City album. Like what did you make of her early development? Did that record sound the way you had always heard her, like at shows and in your head? Well it's it's so funny. 'Cause I remember her first Uh recorded music that I heard of hers were these self-recorded CDRs. I'm sure I know you'll have to explain what those were. No, I'm not explaining that to anybody. That is I just if you don't know what that is, it's too late. And if you don't know what that is, you sh you certainly won't appreciate that at one point you could go to Amoeba Records. uh in San Francisco and and There were maybe a couple hundred of these CDRs floating around and they were on sale for seventy five or a hundred and fifty dollars, which is crazy to think at this time. But anyway. Um But yeah, so they were very lo fi, they were very stripped down. And I remember hearing the milk eyed member uh uh milk eyed mender and um And there's a track, I'm I'm terrible with track names, but where where double tracks the vocals. It's like almost entirely plum pair. Thank you. That's what it is. And it so it's almost entirely stripped down, but I heard those double tracked vocals and I was like Oh, she's she's so polished now. Yes. Yes. She's she's sold out. Yeah, yeah. Big studio. thirty seconds to a minute of additional instrumentation on that music beside on that album besides her voice and heart. But I was like, ah it's too much, you know? Uh, which which is crazy considering what her next album sounded like. Well that was what I was gonna ask you. Like the E's record, it's hard to think of an example, like a starker difference between someone's first and second record. Like just in terms of ambition, you know, the you got the Van Dyke parks of it all, all this orchestration, you know, these songs are like up to seventeen minutes long. Like, did you see this second record coming at all based on what you've known of her, even up through the milk eyed mender? No, and And yes though, because It It wasn't like The the the idea of going and working with Van Dyke Parks makes so much sense, right? And again, I think that's even something where she was ahead of the curve. I I I could be wrong, but I don't remember like Van Dyke Park's had a moment. Yeah, and I think And I think I think she was ahead of that curve. But when you You know, when you think of the collaborations on that record, I believe like I Steve Albini, I think, recorded it. Uh engineered it. I could be wrong. Yeah, I think we'll engineer and then he'll he'll he'll produce her records later. But yeah. He's involved, I think, just as the engineer of ease. Yeah. Yeah. So it's like It makes sense the people she's picking to collaborate with. You know, Did I see, you know, nine minute songs coming, like what is it, five five songs, nine minutes apiece thereabouts. Um something about, yeah. Yeah, like longer. But it's So, so satisfying the progression from the first record to that record. I mean, I said when I wrote this piece for you in the voice, and I'm I was thinking about this, I believe the last line of that piece about Ease is best album since pet sound slash appetite for distraction. Which I stand by. I think those three albums somehow make total sense together. Okay. Uh go ahead and explain The pet sounds is a little easier to grasp than appetite for destruction. How is this record specifically Joanna Newsome's appetite for destruction? I think partly it's the the brazenness, the brashness of it all. I mean it's not a record that you would typically associate with volume in the sense of it being loud, but it is in the sense of it being this Insanely loud. Statement, right? I mean it's There is Something that is just that feels almost like a a like a primal type of roar about the way that ease comes across. And it's and it couldn't be different more different, you know, sonically and and in all other ways. Um But it just it feels momentous, uh. the way that appetite for destruction does. I sort of batted around what the song would be for this episode. Like there is not I d I do you feel that there is a definitive Joanna Newsome's song, her best song or her biggest song? Like if you know one thing, yeah, is is that the right frame for this at all? Or maybe it isn't. I just picked Emily because it's my favorite, but is there like any kind of consensus? That's a great question. And I do not have an answer. Um, you know, for me it's Emily's a great pick. Thank you. That means a lot. Th those first that first record to me it's almost It and this is because it's just hardwired into my brain. Um those lines from clam crab cockle cowry and Cassiopeia and Sadie and You know, there are just Lines in there that tattooed on my heart type lines. Um, so for me Uh but but at the same time, you know Again, just a completely different experience of ease. Uh, you know, it's You almost can't even compare them. Mike. Like I'm in awe of her as a songwriter and an artist on both records for like completely different reasons in a way. Like Right. Yeah. I agree. I agree. What about her writing, like when you think whether or not you remember the lines verbatim, like what is it about her songwriting, her lyric writing, just the phrases that jumped out to you immediately and have stuck with you, you know, for twenty plus years. What is it about her songwriting and her lyric writing in particular? This is an old song, these are old blues. And this is not my tune, but it's mine to use. Mine to use. Like I just get I get chills. I get chills thinking about it. Like Totally, totally. Like There's something and I We talked about this a little bit like That first article that I wrote about her. I was It was I was probably a year or and change into my career as a music journalist. I was a fumbling idiot, right? And and I and we all. Yeah. But You know, and and I and I regret a coup a lot of the lines in there, but the thing that I was trying to get at that that Is she taps into this universality, this thing that really great art and poetry and music do. where where you hear a line like that and you just it feels like it's been written forever. You know, and it just person like transcribed it or something. Um And and the best art has that feeling, and it's simple. And And yet it's It just hits you so hard. You're like it's you have that moment of like well why didn't I think of that? But of course you didn't, like only this person in this moment with even though the you know, this is my it's not my tune, but it's mine to use. Like it sounds simple saying it, but when you hear her Sing it. And her voice kind of on the album when she sings it a little bit. Like as if it's like a confession. Like And I was trying to, you know. get at that and and fumbling and I think the fumbling was worth the effort. But yeah, that's that's uh That's what makes her a very special artist. Well, as you said, you wrote about her for The Village Voice for the East record, you know, and so now you've interviewed her before almost anybody else's interviewer, and now you've interviewed her when she's had this whole hype cycle. She's on her second album. You know, there's been a lot of discourse, and she's not crazy about a lot of it. She's understandably not psyched at all about even people who love her music describing her as innocent or childlike. Did she seem Like, frustrated with the way people talked about her, even people trying to fra to to praise her, right? Like, did she seem a lot more guarded now necessarily, given that she's now like a much bigger star on this second record? Not to me, um, when I talk to her. I mean I remember that Interview. Um, I drove from San Francisco to Nevada City, um where she's from. and I think was living at the time. And And uh and she was just wonderful and pleasant. And um what what was the line, the hill and dill and the parapet and Hey Hill, Hey Dill yeah, they had some sort of secret code that they were using in front of you, yes. Yeah, I think Yeah, I know around that time, um I was reading things and I I would be surprised. maybe if if they were coming from her and not sort of this more ambient Sense of But I think Gosh. It seems very common. Yeah. that artists go through this, you know, where it's just certain phases and then they get put in a certain box. And then the next phase is sort of getting out of that box. And we see that. you know, even in plenty of artists today. And um I think I experienced this at the time. I I know I wrote about it in the Village voice piece. It was like, you know clash if you want to call it that. But um I experienced it as a big deal and now I see it as actually quite a common thing. Right. Do you think it's interesting though, so like the Milk Eye Mender comes out and everybody writes about it. Do you think that the East album in any way is a reaction to the way people wrote about the first album? The fact that it's so dense And so orchestral and so ambitious. Like is any of that in reaction to people just thinking that she was singing these simple little songs? Or does this seem to me it seems like somebody who was so focused. Who knew exactly what she wanted to do, that she can be annoyed by the discourse, but not affected by it. Do you know what I mean? Like, do you think that it mattered at all to her? Did it affect the way the music? progressed the way people wrote about her initially. I I don't think so. I think you're right. I think um I I I I think to whatever extent I know, Joanna, I think, you know, yeah, like the moment of Going like the the idea was, okay, my my first record did well. Now I can go work with Van Dyke Parks. Hell yeah. Right. You know, let's let's make something huge. And You know, and it wasn't a reaction to anything, it was just like Yeah, let's go like coolest toys that I've always wanted and and do something with that. U just to wrap up, I came up I came across this picture of her at a hockey game with Andy Sandberg, like when they were first dating, and I remember this weird sort of dissonance in my brain, like trying to reconcile You know, this woman who I'd seen play the harp, you know, for fifty people or whatever. Like now she's in Paul Thomas Anderson movies. You know, now she she's a celebrity to an extent, and he's being interviewed by Larry King. Like how surreal is it? And how difficult is it for you to reconcile like the singer from those super early shows with this person who is now like a public figure? Yeah. So fun fact, I think I've told you this, but but I was in the same I went to col same college as Andy Sandberg and that's he did. Uh, it was NYU film school. And so he was the guy that, you know rented you the camera that you went out and shot with. So so I get that on both sides. I get you know, the guy that used to rent me the cameras uh and you know, this person that I saw playing for fifty people. Um Yeah, but So yeah, it's It's surreal. Um I think That Uh You know, this this experience for me was was unique in in my career of of getting a chance to I that was like my kind of almost famous moment where it's like, you know, we were going to those shows in Ballinas and there would be the There'd be the show and then there would be the jam session after the show and we'd all sit around up at the second floor of the, you know, crusty pants hotel and someone would play piano and, you know, and it was just like, Oh, we're You know, we're we're in this thing, we're in the middle of the scene or whatever, and then Yeah, like You know, it's it's celebrity gossip. You know? Um there's a surreal aspect to it. Um But I don't know. That's that's life I guess. People grow up It's been wonderful talking to you, Garrett. I think we did a great job. We we did nail it. I think uh it it felt a little too professional to me. Yeah, I know. I know, I know. I've sold out in my way. push us in these weird directions. I I really I promised that and I didn't deliver. It's okay. You we we'll have you back. We'll talk about the bravery. We'll do something with a little less emotional freight to it and we'll we'll we'll we'll get messy later. But Garrett, this has been wonderful. Thank you. Than much to our guests this week, Garrett Camps. Thanks to our producers, Juliana Ress, Olivia Creary, Chris Sutton, and Justin Sayles. Additional production by Kevin Pooler. Animations and graphics by Chris Kallaton, additional art by Matt James, and special thanks to Cole Kushner, and thanks to you for listening. And now let's all go listen to Emily. by Joanna Newsome. We'll see you next week.