MP3: Bill Callahan - "Eid Ma Clack Shaw"

Some of the best albums/songs were conceived by breakups: Beck - Sea Change (2002), Fiona Apple - Extraordinary Things (2005), The Good Life - Album of the Year (2004),  and Damien Rice - O (2003).  Comparatively to Bill Callahan's somewhat adulate snoozer first album release as Bill Callahan instead of his previous band name, Smog, this one is a sorrowful masterpiece.  The despair of loneliness is much more appealing than a happy-go-lucky relationship.  When writing a song about love, it can easily sound cliché or unoriginal.   It is the separation of love that expands creativity in every art form including music, painting, or poetry.  

He created an audio photo album to be heard by the masses.  An album that will be just as painful for Callahan to hear 10 years from now as it was for him to write.  I doubt Callahan's ex, Joanna Newsom, loves this album.  Maybe a one time dabble then probably cackled at by her and her new beau Andy Samberg (SNL actor, yea the "Dick in a Box" guy) and then propelled out the window of his Ferrari.  The plot thickens; this gray haired Calla-pimp also previously dated Chan Marshal aka Cat Power.  Oh the indie web we weave.  

When I saw him live at the handmade Orange Show (my favorite Houston venue) for the second time, he performed Bathysphere, which was covered by Cat Power on What Would the Community Think (1996).  The first time I saw him live he had recently retired the name Smog.  He had opened for Joanna Newsom on tour for her beautiful album, Ys (2006).  You could watch her captivated eyes admiring him on the side of the circular "stage." 

Callahan's (residing in Austin) sound has evolved over the last two decades from lo-fi recordings, similar to his admiration Jandek (from Houston), to his now deep sinister voice singing melodic parables.  In the song "Eid Ma Clack Shaw" ,from his album Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle (April 14, 2009), the lyrics go from a hopeful revelation to humor.  "I dreamed the perfect song, it held all the answers like hands laid on.  I woke halfway and scribbled it down, and in the morning what I wrote I read.  It was hard to read at first but here's what it said, Eid Ma Clack Shaw, Zupoven del ba, Mertepy ven seinur, Cofally ragdah."  He intrigues you with a tease.  Maybe he had an epiphany; a secret to life that he was going to share.  Something so confusing and misunderstood, that the secret would be revealed the moment you heard this exact song.  Then he utters the magical lyrics....."Eid Ma Clack Shaw?"  Well whatever that sleep walking gibberish is, Willy Callahan, you fooled me.

TOUR DATES:

06-09 Mercy Lounge - Nashville, TN

06-13 Le Poisson Rouge (w/ Lights) - New York, NY

06-15 Music Hall of Williamsburg - Brooklyn, NY

06-27 Triple Door (w/ Bachelorette) - Seattle, WA

06-30 Bimbo's 365 Club (w/ Bachelorette) - San Francisco, CA

07-01 Troubadour (w/ Bachelorette) - Los Angeles, CA

07-05 The Parish - Austin, TX