The Weakerthans were my gateway drug that led me out of my punk rock exclusivity into indie rock’s warm embrace, and as such, John K. Samson is one of my guys. If not THE guy. He’s easily my favorite songwriter and this point in my life I have been a Weakerthans fan longer than I haven’t. His first solo album isn’t the most cohesive effort--it’s comprised of songs from two 7”s released in 2009 and 2010 with 6 brand new songs--but it’s an album I listened to obsessively. It’s also the album I put on at 4 in the morning when we drove to the hospital so that Jenny could give birth to Rosie. I knew it was an important moment, and the DJ in me had to find the right vibe, and I instinctively put on Provincial and didn’t give it a second thought. I knew it was right. Provincial is as good as everything else he has written (which is pretty much all on the same level which is “beyond extraordinary”) but there is a pair of connected songs in the middle of the album–”When I Write My Master’s Thesis” and “Letter in Icelandic From the Ninette San”--that always stop me in my tracks. Set a hundred years apart, “When I Write My Master’s Thesis” is a punchy pop tune about a grad student struggling to finish his Master’s thesis on the Ninette Sanatorium, and “Letter in the Icelandic from the Ninette San” is a melancholy tale told by a man dying of Tuberculosis in the sanatorium. Finding the little ways these songs connect is great, and it ties to the greater themes of connectedness to people, places, and cats named Virtute that dominate Samson’s songwriting.
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