#30 on the 2009 Musical Advent Calendar
Beware by Bonnie “Prince” Billy
I was way late to the Will Oldham train. And I’ve only begun to touch the surface with his latest album Beware. The man has a Wikipedia page devoted just to his discography, for chrissake. And check out this fan page: The Royal Stable. That is a labor of love only fans of They Might Be Giants (to be featured later in the countdown) or The Mountain Goats (who barely missed out on this year’s countdown) can outdo. He’s an actor. Everybody has played music with him at some point.
It’s truly overwhelming.
I picked up an old Palace Brothers CD in the used bin late last year, drawn to it as one is to those things that make you uncontrollably and inexplicably want to reach out and touch them. It was pretty good but failed to hook me. Then I caught the above video for “I Am Goodbye” off of Beware and heard a small bit of what people were carrying on about. I’m sure as time goes on I’ll slowly start to pick up his back catalog, as only a true collector obsessively does, and I’m sure I’ll enjoy every bit of it. But for now, I keep coming back to Beware, and dream about the possibilities.
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