Bill Callahan

TheOwlMag on Bill Callahan

Bill Callahan Apocalypse [Drag City 2011]

Apocalypse features the expected imagery and feelings of a Bill Callahan album: slower songs that send the listener reflecting in the quiet of fields, and more upbeat ones that feel fun and rugged. With the slow sweetness of the cherished “Let Me See The Colts” from the Smog days, “Riding for the Feeling” feels romantic and is a song filled with poignant lines of living in the moment. “America” has a cool blues, open mic feel to it while Callahan sings descriptions to and about America. The opening track, “Drover,” is the old soul’s anthem (and that’s what we Callahan fans mostly are). Over a South Western desert guitar setting, Callahan sings of hardships and admits, “Anything less would make me feel like I’m wasting my time.” Facing the troubling elements of this world and our lives is a reoccurring theme with our good man Bill, that they’re not just negatives or single incident items. That said, an apocalypse can be an ongoing event, good and bad.

If Callahan’s low, strong voice and the stoic folk sound of his songs don’t keep you, the direct lyrics that setup controlled, yet expressive revelations and emotions can strike something in anyone.

Pitchfork Best New Tracks on Bill Callahan

Bill Callahan: "Riding For The Feeling"

Bill Callahan tends to give listeners a lot to chew on. This was the case when he began writing and recording under his Smog pseudonym, and even more so now that he seems to have become more reflective with age. When he sings, you feel compelled to stop, breathe, and consider, all at his coded suggestion. "Riding for the Feeling" is a standout on Apocalypse , his latest. Its also the kind of song whose wisdom you could spend a lot of time unpacking and figuring out how to apply. Musically, it's simple: a winsome acoustic strum haloed by a few ripples of electric guitar and keys. Lyrically, it feels like the record's existential centerpiece. "With intensity, the drop evaporates by law," he says. "In conclusion, leavin' is easy when you've got someplace you need to be." Callahan paints a still-life of himself on a hotel bed with the TV on mute, alone with his voice as it streams from the demo tapes he's revisiting. And then he murmurs twice, "My, my, my apocalypse." But he flips his narrative by abandoning the depths of that mantra for another, a meditation rife with possibility. "I realized I had said very little about ways or wheels or riding for the feeling," he says as the chord becomes major again, and soon after that, he's gone. [from Apocalypse ; out now on Drag City ]

Pitchfork Best New Tracks on Bill Callahan

Bill Callahan: "The Breeze/My Baby Cries" (Kath Bloom cover)

Few took notice when Kath Bloom retreated from the New York folk scene in the 1980s. Her disappearance is neither as romantic as Vashti Bunyan's bucolic sojourn nor as storied as Cat Stevens' conversion: After falling upon hard times, Bloom moved to rural New England to raise her sons. Two decades later, Australian label Chapter Music has reissued the bulk of her catalogue, including two albums with Loren Connors, Finally in 2005, and the gorgeous Terror in 2008. A tribute album seems like an obvious epilogue to that back-in-print campaign: Loving Takes This Course features testimonial covers by Devendra Banhart, the Concretes, Mark Kozelek, Marianne Dissard, and the Dodos. The standout track may be Bill Callahan 's cover of "The Breeze/My Baby Cries", a devastating medley from her 1982 album with Connors, Sing the Children Over . Bloom sounds so weary on the original-- exhausted by the simple act of living-- and Callahan knows he can't re-create that fragility. Instead, over a simple guitar theme, barely-there percussion, and mood-setting keyboard accompaniment, his self-reflection is more stoic, yet just as emotionally precarious, and his line readings make Bloom's lyrics starkly ominous. There's an entire break-up (mental or romantic, you choose) in the opening lines "I'd like to touch you, but I don't know how," and his insistence that "the breeze will kill me" sounds genuinely haunted and resigned. "The Breeze/My Baby Cries" is that rare find: a cover that adds depth to the original and a tribute album track that sounds absolutely essential.

Quit Mumbling on Bill Callahan

The most beautiful part of Bill Callahan’s track “Riding For The Feeling” is the songs ability to engulf you into a world so bleak, that it forces some sort of self analysis. The track builds an environment with raw instrumentation cut only by sparse echoing guitars, allowing Callahan’s wrinkled and calloused voice to sit at the fore-front. Lay in your bed and listen as cheap hotel walls and the static from a broken TV take over your room. Whether or not you’ve left someone recently or it’s been some time, you can’t help but think of them. You more here

Quit Mumbling on Bill Callahan

Happy Fourth everyone, enjoy the weekend! Bill Callahan - "America!" more here

Quit Mumbling on Bill Callahan

When Bill Callahan was asked to describe "One Fine Morning" he said he wanted to create the soundtrack to the final moments of a western film. The song is that of peace after gun-fire, of the sun rise on a silent desert as wildlife scurry across the warming sand. At its core the song is about death, but is an absolute beautiful portrayal of life's darkest moment. It is riding off into sun with "the skeleton crew" proud and at peace. The video below is Callahan standing as a wise oak facing the New York crowd protected only by his more here

Quit Mumbling on Bill Callahan

Leonard Cohen will be one of the most celebrated acts of the year. With a new album at the age of 77 , the timeless songwriter has given us some of the most moving music ever made. Thus, Mojo Magazine found it appropriate to pay tribute to his masterpiece The Songs of Leonard Cohen with a tribute album featuring covers from the likes of QM favorites Cass McCombs, Father John Misty, Michael Kiwanuka, Field Music, and more. The ultimate country crooner, Bill Callahan , who gave us our #1 song of more here

Quit Mumbling on Bill Callahan

The most beautiful part of Bill Callahan’s track “Riding For The Feeling” is the songs ability to engulf you into a world so bleak, that it forces some sort of self analysis. The track builds an environment with raw instrumentation cut only by sparse echoing guitars, allowing Callahan’s wrinkled and calloused voice to sit at the fore-front. Lay in your bed and listen as cheap hotel walls and the static from a broken TV take over your room. Whether or not you’ve left someone recently or it’s been some time, you can’t help but think of them. You more at elbo.ws

Quit Mumbling on Bill Callahan

Happy Fourth everyone, enjoy the weekend! Bill Callahan - "America!" more at elbo.ws

Quit Mumbling on Bill Callahan

When Bill Callahan was asked to describe "One Fine Morning" he said he wanted to create the soundtrack to the final moments of a western film. The song is that of peace after gun-fire, of the sun rise on a silent desert as wildlife scurry across the warming sand. At its core the song is about death, but is an absolute beautiful portrayal of life's darkest moment. It is riding off into sun with "the skeleton crew" proud and at peace. The video below is Callahan standing as a wise oak facing the New York crowd protected only by his more at elbo.ws

Pitchfork Best Albums on Bill Callahan

Album "Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle" scored 8.1

After working for fifteen years as Smog, Bill Callahan releases his second album under his own name. In a sense, Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle feels like a return to the sense of weariness and dre...

Quit Mumbling on Bill Callahan

Leonard Cohen will be one of the most celebrated acts of the year. With a new album at the age of 77 , the timeless songwriter has given us some of the most moving music ever made. Thus, Mojo Magazine found it appropriate to pay tribute to his masterpiece The Songs of Leonard Cohen with a tribute album featuring covers from the likes of QM favorites Cass McCombs, Father John Misty, Michael Kiwanuka, Field Music, and more. The ultimate country crooner, Bill Callahan , who gave us our #1 song of more at elbo.ws

covertcuriosity on Bill Callahan

Here's our recommendations for fun in Austin this week: Tonight there's a town hall meeting at Emo's with Brewster McCracken and local entertainment folk where they will discuss some of the current issues surrounding the Austin music scene. more at blogspot.com