Schnipper’s Slept On
- story THE FADER
Each Tuesday, FADER editor Matthew Schnipper highlights an underappreciated recent release he thinks we need to know about. This week it’s Smog’s A River Ain’t Too Much To Love. Buy the mp3s and read Schnipper’s thoughts on it after the jump.
On Saturday night I met Bill Callahan. It was just for a moment, I was introduced to him at Other Music as FADER filmed his performance there. I shook his hand and thanked him for letting us film. I think he said something like “No problem.” Then he walked into the backroom and disappeared. I wish none of that had happened.
On A River Ain’t Too Much To Love he uses the word “bramble” over and over. He uses the word “phoenix” as a verb, hollers the word “fuck” down a well. The first time I heard this album, or Smog or Bill Callahan at all, was in my friend Simon’s old apartment. He’d bought A River Ain’t Too Much To Love on eBay. I remember it had a sticker on it from the place that sold it. Pretty sure it said “cool guy.” He tried to rip it off but it didn’t totally work, just stuck half on with little finger peel marks. You know when you just assume things will be one way? I have never had egg salad. I cannot stand how it looks. It looks really gross and mushy and I really just don’t want to eat that. That is how I had always felt about Smog. But then he played it for me and, at that moment and a lot of others since, it was the best music I’d ever heard. I was disappointed I wasted so much time.
I don’t want to talk to Bill Callahan, I don’t want him to know who I am. I listened to this record over and over on a work road trip to speak about Putumayo CDs to a gathering of employees from the health and body section of various Whole Foods in the mid-atlantic region of the US. Laurel from the Vienna, Virginia store gave me a hard time. That was a long time ago.
After Bill Callahan played, a girl with long, possibly dyed, blonde hair stopped him just after he’d stepped down from the slight stage and asked if she could take his photo. I saw him look, wonder if he could say no. He said yes. While he was playing, you could hear this guy’s digital camera every time the shutter opened. It was distracting. I know he heard from the stage. I kept waiting for him to say something but he didn’t. I wasn’t going to. After, people from the crowd took their picture with him. That seems very logical. I saw photos of him on the tour of record stores. He was wearing the same shirt in all of them. When I got on the subway to go home the girl who was taking his picture was across from me on the train. I talked about her to my friends.
Related:
- Schnipper’s Slept On
- Bill Callahan, “Bowery (Live)” MP3
- FADER TV: Bill Callahan Live at Other Music
- March Is Schnipper Month: J
- Schnipper’s Slept On
- posted on Apr 21, 2009 in SLEPT ON
- tags Bill Callahan, psych/folk, Smog
