The Mountain Goats, Will Sheff

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Jade Wilson

The Mountain Goats

Whether as part of The Mountain Goats or as a novelist (most recently, January's Devil House), master storyteller John Darnielle is the e.e. cummings of rock. That is if e.e. cummings rode a motorcycle and loved pro wrestling. There’s no separating Darnielle’s devotion to pop culture and the mess that it creates for us all. What we have here is The Cat in the Hat meets the New York Dolls. When band member Matt Douglas breaks out his baritone sax on “Foreign Object,” and the wrestlers are flying off the turnbuckle, you’re gonna want your mommy. With an opening set by Will Sheff of Okkervil River.

$40.

media release: The Mountain Goats will be heading out on tour at the end of April, and performing at The Sylvee in Madison on May 21. The group is led by New York Times best selling author and singer-songwriter John Darnielle —“a master at building suspense” (Los Angeles Times)—comes an epic, gripping novel about murder, truth, artistic obsession, and the dangers of storytelling in Devil House.  

One of the words that Darnielle used when discussing the direction for the latest album Dark in Here was “wild.” As the quartet’s bassist Peter Hughes tells it: “Not wild in the sense of abandon—these aren’t those kind of songs. But wild in the sense of something undomesticated, untamable… You can fight the calamity all you want, but either way, it’s going to demand your surrender.”

Within the credits of Dark in Here, Darnielle notes, “If you’re looking for a governing theme here, it’s calamity, as all the songs are either anticipating one or reflecting one that’s already happened.”