Mount Eerie - Live in Copenhagen

Mount Eerie – Live in Copenhagen
Burnt Toast Vinyl, 2004
Acquired: Love Garden, Used, 2008
Price: $25

I'm pretty sure this came before No Flashlight, but I'm getting conflicting information on the internet. I do know that it is kind of rare and out of print and I bought it after three sessions at Love Garden where I held it in my hands and thought “damnit, I really should buy this.” I'm glad I did. Unlike a lot of live albums, which are typically recorded in big cities with big audiences, this sounds like it was recorded in a small club with a small, intimate number of people (like Jeff Mangum's Live at Jittery Joes). This is the kind of music that lends itself to a small audience. The set is a mix of Microphones songs, Mount Eerie songs, and songs I've never heard before. This is something Kasey Klimes would like, and it is something I'd probably dangle in front of his face and say “ha ha.” Oh shit! Something I just noticed! There's a massive lyrics book inside and it has the lyrics in English and Danish and that is cool. This set features the live version of “I Felt Your Shape” that I mentioned in the Microphones post. There's an added verse which I think makes the song even better. The original version has a bit of ambiguity to it, and this one kind of paints it loud and clear that the only way to read this is as a really, really sad song. “No more rosy gardens or craving curving hips on my belly,” he sings. That line kills me. He also sings a song in Japanese, which is totally awesome because I've never heard an English speaking artist cover a Japanese song in Japanese. But only because the Japanese tend to sing in English at an alarming rate. And this song is REALLY GOOD, it's beautiful, and for some reason some girl keeps laughing in the background. Basically, this record is really, really interesting and worth discovering. “Great Ghosts,” which was only released on this year's Dawn, is jawdropping here. A lot of the songs here are on Dawn, which is really interesting. The gestation period. I want to listen to that record now, compare versions, because this one is gorgeous. Man, this is just great. Before ending the first set he says “You guys ready for some smoking?” Implying that they can use the between set time for a smoke break and then says “Well I guess you can smoke in here. Are you guys ready for some talking and some smoking?” He seems really sweet, without pretension, just like a really nice dude who has some really amazing songs. I don't understand Phil Elverum, or how he can exist. Funny story, I ended up talking to Kasey about this for some reason at LPT. I went down there shortly after writing this entry and somehow we started talking about Mount Eerie (I think he saw one of the pages I had open for research). He pointed out that "Great Ghosts" from this album was amazing and I was like "Oh man! I wrote a thing about that! I also wrote how you'd be jealous that I had this." He was jealous.