6/6/2023 0 Comments Screenit the blackoutNow I live in a city where more of my friends live, and I am not so lonely. So I was writing my blog, and writing stories to swap with friends. I was writing more in Victoria, because many of my friends had moved away, and I think I was actually quite lonely. I only write stories if I am asked–it’s almost a social act. When an idea comes to you, whether for a song or a story, do you generally know from the outset where it’ll end up, or have certain concepts, themes, or images wound up recurring across multiple works? Sometimes when I am playing something new I can close my eyes and feel/hear the song being played out in real time, in front of an actual audience. Then I sing.įrog Eyes: sitting down, playing a guitar, the chords or the riff making me feel like I want to get up. How does the process of writing a song for Blackout Beach differ from writing on for Frog Eyes (or, for that matter, Swan Lake)?īlackout Beach: staring at a screen and thinking, “Why isn’t this working”? Hours, months later, feeling like things are working. But will either of them be written? Will the writing of one embolden me to write the other? Can the writing of both create a hybrid between deep solemnity and inane foolishness within that constructed life that is my biography? In fact, can my whole body of work be characterized as some bridge between deep solemnity and inane foolishness? The other is too personal to speak about until I actually begin to write it. One is about a philanthropist who tries to make an arts camp for homeless people (moonlight sonata, Hegelian lectures, beef wellington), and fails at this task magnificently. One is inane, and one is deeply emotional and true, if such a description can be squeezed through a bullshit screen (it surely must not). (Mercer’s penchant for vivid song titles remains very much present, however, as “Hornet’s Fury into the Bandit’s Mouth” and “Broken Braying Sound of the Donkey’s Cry” might suggest.) Given that his work encompasses multiple bands as well as prose, he seemed a logical choice to reach out to with some questions about books and music.Ī few years ago, you had a short story appear in McSweeney’s are you working on anything else, either short- or longform? It takes his own deeply focused style of songwriting and expands it somewhat, veering into interesting spatial territory and expanding much of what one might expect. Mercer’s latest work is Fuck Death, the newest album from Blackout Beach. If your tastes in music run towards the eccentric, the literate, the highly compelling, and the surreally energetic, odds are good that you’ve encountered the work of Carey Mercer.
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