The Mountain Goats
Backwards names and forward tunes
So picture me at the checkout counter of my neighborhood convenience store. The late-teen clerk who is at the counter, punching in the sale of the pack of gum I just picked up, is wearing a T-shirt which reads “Rellik” across it in large, uppercase, red, serif letters. The “k” at the end is inverted. When he asks me for my money, I decide to chit chat.
“Interesting T-shirt,” I begin.
“Made it myself,” he answers, as he gathers my change.
“Really,” I state, half-impressed, wondering what he’s sloganeering. “Is that your band?”
“Nah, it’s the name of a pro wrestler.”
A quick second’s pondering on my behalf preceded this very sincere remark: “That’s a stupid name for a wrestler.”
The clerk answered without any forethought, handing me my due: “It’s ‘killer’ backwards.”
But as far as The Mountain Goats are concerned, they aren’t really the purveyor of bad ideas. In fact, John Darnielle is coming back with a brand new album filled with the kinds of ideas which made us love the Goats: low-fi, rough, unrefined moments of musical mischief highlighted by exceptional third-person writing. Ah, the writing: another eclectic cast of characters involved in impossible narratives which sway from the humane to the delusional. Really, no loss for ideas here.
As a side note, “Mountain Goats” backwards is meaningless. But it is an anagram of “Taiga Moon Nuts.”
MP3: The Mountain Goats - Sax Rohmer #1
www.mountain-goats.com
myspace.com/themountaingoats
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