I'm Just Gonna Keep Posting Vic Chesnutt Songs

I'm officially still mourning this man's passing, so I think the best thing I can do right now is keep posting his hauntingly* beautiful music and let it speak for itself.

This is "Supernatural" off his aforementioned Drunk album, which everyone should own.



* apologies for using the adjective/adverb "haunting(ly)" in consecutive posts

Drischord's Best of 2009

This was a wonderful year for "good" albums; I can't remember a year in which I genuinely liked so many new releases. In particular, it was way better than 2008. But it was also a year that would have been trumped by records that only made it to #2 or #3 on previous lists of mine. For me there was no Sky Blue Sky, In Rainbows or Modern Times to run away with 2009. Anyway, here's my list...

11. Mount Eerie Wind Poem- Back when Phil Elvrum was recording as The Microphones (and Pitchfork was letting him cum all over their collective tits), I found his music to be lacking in many ways. Mount Eerie is a different story. His sound collage experimentation is finally landing for me, and he's found new ways to sound exciting, challenging, and sometimes even scary.

10. Bonnie "Prince" Billy Beware- I liked this one just as much as Lie Down in the Light. A little less openly inviting, but the songs are great and his arrangements have never been better.

9. Polvo In Prism- This band's reunification was a gift from the indie rock gods. So happy they're back and making awesome music once again.

8. Slaid Cleaves Everything You Love Will Be Taken Away- My favorite country recording of the year. I first heard Slaid Cleaves when I got a free promo recording at the Daily Northwestern. He fell by the wayside for me a bit, but I rediscovered him this year and thought this record was excellent.

7. Built To Spill There Is No Enemy- Another return to form from a late '90s classic.

6. Dirty Projectors Bitte Orca- So glad Radiohead put out a new one this year.

5. Animal Collective Merriweather Post Pavillion- I want to react against Pitchfork and hate this album, but it's too good to deny. Still haven't uncovered everything it has to offer.

4. Sonic Youth The Eternal- If, on the heels of Experimental Jetset..., Washing Machine, and NYC Ghosts and Flowers, you had told me Sonic Youth would put out 4 of the best rock albums of the '00s, I would have laughed in your face. Good thing that conversation never happened. What a decade for this band.

3. Morrissey Years of Refusal- I'm repeating myself, but why did I have no idea that this guy's solo career was so good? This was the only album of this year that I played on constant repeat after buying it.

2. Phoenix Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix- I had no idea who these guys were a year ago and their (incorrect) categorization as French dance pop sounds miserable. But what can I say? This record is awesome.

1. Bill Callahan Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle- Moody, relaxing, scary, beautiful, sometimes all in the same song. I've really gotten into the whole span of his career, and this is my favorite record he's put out.


Other Categories:

Can't Offer Any Objective Opinion Because I Just Got It and He Just Tragically Died
Vic Chesnutt- At the Cut

Honorable Mention
Dinosaur Jr.- Farm
Neko Case- Middle Cyclone
Sunset Rubdown- Dragonslayer
Yo La Tengo- Popular Songs
Jeremy Enigk- OK Bear
Nels Cline- Coward

Good Enough, Yet Disappointing
Wilco- Wilco (the Album)
Bob Dylan- Together Through Life
Andrew Bird- Noble Beast
Antlers- Hospice

Resented Purchasing
Grizzly Bear- Veckatimest
Owen- New Leaves

Didn't Hear
Why?
Passion Pit
Modest Mouse
Flaming Lips
Wye Oak
Jim O'Rourke

Rest In Peace, Vic Chesnutt

I'm sorry to break up what should be a series of happy posts about all the great music that came out this year. But Vic Chesnutt, a great singer and songwriter and one of my very favorite musicians, tragically died on Christmas Day.

It's not entirely clear what happened, but it sounds like a suicide. The guy had made previous attempts in the past, but it appears there hadn't been any in over a decade. What makes the timing of this news particularly upsetting is that he'd just released an album, At the Cut, where he directly addresses these suicide attempts in a song called "Flirted With You All My Life." The song treats suicide like a would-be lover with whom Chesnutt has had a series of near-misses. In the lyrics, he comes to the conclusion that for all of suicide's appeals, it isn't right for him...

When you touched a friend of mine I thought I would lose my mind

But I found out with time that really, I was not ready, no no, cold death

Oh death, I’m really not ready

But Chesnutt's death is not as simple as a routine suicide (as if there was such a thing). The other issue at hand is-- get ready-- America's totally Fucked Up health care system. The quick back-story is that for the past several years, Vic Chesnutt couldn't pay his obscenely scary hospital bills, and that this may have driven him over the edge. He'd been paralyzed at age 18 after a drunk driving accident, suffering from medical complications ever since. It recently had reached a point beyond anything he could control. From his obit:

However, Chesnutt had recently struggled with a lawsuit filed by a Georgia hospital after he racked up surgery bills totaling some $70,000, the Athens newspaper reported. He said he couldn't afford more than hospitalization insurance and couldn't keep up with the payments.

The problems baffled his Canadian bandmates, Chesnutt said.

"There's nowhere else in the world that I'd be facing the situation I'm in right now. They cannot understand what kind of society would inflict that on their population," he said. "It's terrifying."

This entire ordeal was documented on an episode of "Fresh Air" with Terri Gross that aired at the beginning of this very month. Vic talked about his medical bills, overcoming his suicidal depression and the new record. It's crazy that this all came to a head so soon after that interview was taped. Listen to the full episode if you get the chance. It's long but it's great radio, and it's so revealing in the wake of all this. (It also features Chesnutt's collaborator, Guy Picciotto, who is best known as the lead guitarist of Fugazi. All the more reason for a certain Drischord to love the album.)

To be succinct, this is really sad news. A huge loss for American folk music. I'd like to write more at a later date, but for now I'm going to re-post a track that I included in a blog entry a few months back. It's called "Aunt Avis", and it shows Vic Chesnutt at his most penetrating and haunting. Listen to this in a dark room on a good stereo and you'll shudder.



This is an insufficient tribute to a great musician and a casualty of our awful, awful healthcare system. The world is better for the 15 albums Vic Chesnutt gave it but worse off for being a place where people like him die way before their time.

Vic Chesnutt Sends Chills Down My Spine

I've put Vic Chesnutt in a few Top 10 lists or praised him in passing or whatever, but have you guys ever really listened to him? Guy gives me chills. Honestly.

This is from the deluxe edition of Drunk, which everyone should own.