Father John Misty came to Arizona this past weekend, playing the Rialto Theater in Tucson on Friday, May 3rd, and the Crescent Ballroom in Phoenix the following evening, May 4th. These dates mattered more than most, at least to the audience at the Rialto: May 3rd happened to be Father John’s (née Josh Tillman) birthday. Though it was his birthday, Father John seemed in no mood to celebrate. “Shut up” he sneered upon taking the stage, his first words in response to the audience’s shouts. When some began to serenade him with Happy Birthday during his monologue, he rerouted whatever analogy he was making to state that this was “almost as lame as singing happy birthday to the lead singer.” The room fell quiet. It’s moments such as these that make Father John Misty such a compelling musician, especially one to see live. The adversarial relationship he plays up with his audience results from a perhaps irresolvable tension: the artist’s natural desire to act upon his own terms rubbing up against the audience’s expectations, their demands something along the lines of pleasure and transcendence. When Happy Birthday was finally sung, it came sanctioned by Father John and his band. Benji Lysaght on lead guitar spelled out the tune and Emma Garr, Josh Tillman’s photographer girlfriend, brought out a cake. Father John took a bite, received a birthday kiss and, just for a moment, looked sheepish. But then the band started in on the next song, one of a litany from Fear Fun, the group’s debut album, Father John took the microphone and, for the first time in my memory, the lead singer began to sing with a piece of frosting caught unknowingly in his beard. Besides the frosting, this was, of course, all part of the performance. Tillman is aware that live and performance are often oxymoronic terms. Moreover, he is aware that others are aware of this, in on it, that both performers and audience members are well versed with the notion of the singer and his alter-ego, not to mention the ego itself, the sense of self-importance crafted from a contrarian stance. Because he is cognizant of this, Father John can at once embrace and undermine it: his shows and music are full of what he calls “an observational cantankerousness”, a wry and deprecatory self-awareness that extends to both his lyrics and his stripper/shaman dance act. An act, it very much is. Father John played the same set (almost the entirety of Fear Fun and, for the encore, the Beatles’ Happiness is a Warm Gun and a new song, titled possibly, improbably Honey Bear) and made the same jokes both nights: he also told the crowd at Phoenix’s Crescent to shut up when he took the stage, kissed the hand of a fan during the first song, “Funtimes in Babylon”, and tore off his over-21 wrist band after its conclusion, introduced the song “I’m Writing a Novel” by mentioning it was an MP3 he once wrote, noted that he was singing with a white microphone stand, etc.. Tillman and his bandmates are hyper conscious of the product they are creating, that they have manifested something for us to consume but not necessarily understand, that they are one more diversion, “a pleasant evening of folk rock” to experience after another meaningless day of “increasing office productivity” (Father John’s words, more or less, spoken to the crowd at the Crescent, ironically, on a Saturday). But within that creation of self and product, of self as product, Father John delves into the contradictions that make him and his band truly fascinating and interesting musicians. A girl in the front row of the Crescent clutched a Fear Fun LP in her hand, lovingly tracing her fingers over the Yellow Submarinesque characters on its cover. It’s the age-old adoration of the artifact, the fast disappearing artifact, that sends us towards nostalgia and wistfulness, memories of trips to the record store. But Tillman is an intelligent enough performer that he can prevent us from skirting towards cliché, that he indicts us over the very artifact we expect him to cherish. The girl, after all, was holding an album that contains the song “Now I’m Learning to Love the War” and these opening lyrics: “Try not to think so much about/ The truly staggering amount of oil that it takes to make a record/ All the shipping, the vinyl, the cellophane lining/ The high gloss/ The tape and the gear/ Try not to become too consumed/ With what’s a criminal volume of oil that it takes to paint a portrait.” It is not how one would expect to celebrate a debut album on SubPop. And those contradictions come to a head in the actual music. Father John’s self-label of folk rock is a bit sarcastic, not so much his assessment as what reviewers and fans and the music industry have deemed palatable. Indeed, when Father John starts talking about folk rock at the Crescent, he rips it, or at least he rips apart James Taylor’s “Fire and Rain”, calling it, in one of his finest and most accurate and perhaps unscripted moments, “cheese-dick coffeehouse music.” Fear Fun the album is anything but this: it opens up into lust, vash, sonic space, its sound well-walled and clean, not what we have come to expect from lo-fi folk rock. When played live, the band transforms the album’s songs into a good bit of country music, up-tempo 2/4 rollicks. Part of that is due to Benji Lysaght, an impeccable guitarist and the most prominent tonal variation when heard live. But contradictions and paradoxes abound even here: Lysaght might be the most prominent musician, but he stands apart, his back half-turned from his bandmates, and the actual ringleader and marshal of the band is Jeff “Jeffertitti” Ramuno, a so-called psychedelic Italian mystic and Tillman’s dearest friend. It’s about as distinct and different style and presence from Lysaght as possible, but it works. In both Tucson and Phoenix, Father John seemed tired. It had been a long tour; he had just turned 32. He had last performed in Arizona back in October of 2012 at Phoenix’s Rhythm Room. It is easy to forget, when someone returns after a long absence, that they too have changed, that they have new stories and songs to sing even though we have gathered to hear them rehash and re-revel the old. Father John was perhaps skeptical of those present, the audience ready to consume his music for just one night before increasing more office productivity. “I keep thanking you,” he said in Phoenix, “as if you’ve done me some great favor.” He refrained from saying whether any of this was true and the audience, likewise, refrained from telling him that he had done them a great favor, that they missed him, that he was more than a one night fling, that they had stuck around for him and would keep sticking around, that he was eminently worth the drive from Tucson to Phoenix and back, that they would keep consuming and following him in all the joy and peril that such consumption offered.

Watch our Sonora Review Essay Contest Commercial HERE.

Today at the Sonora Review, we bring you an interview: an interview of Youth Lagoon’s Trevor Powers, conducted by our friend, Allan Vorda. A shorter version of this interview previously appeared in the Houston Chronicle.

Youth Lagoon

By Allan Vorda

What’s really cool about music is when someone turns you onto an album.  This happened recently when my son, Shawn, told me about The Year of Hibernation by Youth Lagoon—essentially a project of Trevor Powers.  Hibernation was so strange upon the first few listens I didn’t know what to think.  Gradually, the melodies and Powers’ eerie, child-like, pre-pubescent voice totally overwhelmed me.  It was akin to first hearing Love’s Forever Changes, the Pretty Things’ S. F. Sorrow, the 13^th Floor Elevators, or Pink Floyd.  Upon hearing YL’s just released second album, Wondrous Bughouse, I was prepared for the eventual letdown, especially when Bughouse didn’t sound anything like Hibernation.  It took a while to digest it, but before long I was in a state of shock: Bughouse was wondrous!  This is what musical aficionados expect from musical artists: to open our cataleptic ears to something new and creative; and, if we’re lucky, not to repeat what they have already done.  Youth Lagoon now belongs on my abbreviated list of having made a distinctive album; and, Powers, dare I say, is a wizard, a true star.

The following interview with Trevor Powers was conducted by Allan Vorda on 4/18/2013.

Allan Vorda: The first song on Hibernation is the incredible “Posters” which begins: “I was only nine years old/I had a poster/and with that alone I had the education, the motivation/I knew what I wanted to be.”  Please explain the epiphany in your life to play music and who was on the poster.

Trevor Powers: I first started getting into music when I was young.  All my recording consisted of was making my own cassettes. Just hitting record and playing guitar. That’s still often how I make rough demos, because it has a sort of freedom to it to get ideas out. I start with the base, and from there just tear things apart and experiment.  “Posters” actually begins with the line, “When I was only nine years old, I had a lawyers mouth. But without the law, and without the education or motivation. I knew what I wanted to be, even though each year it never was the same vocation.”  The posters in that song are a representation for those type of things that stay in your life or inside you for long periods of time. What we always look at, and get so used to looking at, we don’t always even see them.

AV: “July” has the perfect blend of your imperfectly pitched vocals (like a distant cousin of Neil Young) mixed with your keyboards and exquisite lyrics of a former love: “Five years ago in my backyard/I sang love away/Little did I know that/real love had not quite yet found me.”  What are your thoughts on love and how relationships inspire you to write a song like “July”?

TP: Even when I mention things like love, it can’t be taken literally. For me there are certain words that carry so much weight, especially when it comes to devastation. That’s something everyone understands. I’m fascinated by that power of emotion because it’s a part of us. Love is a part of us, and we carry this heavy weight when we go through a drought of not experiencing it.

AV:  Your music cannot easily be classified although it is often referred to as indie or even psychedelic.  Early Pink Floyd and the Flaming Lips are listed as two bands that have influenced you.  Please elucidate what you like about them and are there any other bands from the Great Northwest, since you are from Boise, that you like?

TP: It’s really funny when journalists list your influences for you. I’ve never even listened much to Pink Floyd or Flaming Lips, so that’s what really makes me fascinated about the world of comparisons. What I’ve heard I really enjoy though. I think people try to connect pieces that wouldn’t normally be connected because there’s this sort of comfort when music can be classified.  I do have a lot of influences, musically and socially. This Heat is a band I adore because of their mentality and take on music, really mind-expanding. Art Bears, too. Lyrically, some of my favorites are Townes Van Zandt and Blaze Foley. Storytelling that feels like songs are talking directly to you.

AV: Wondrous Bughouse is an old term for an insane asylum and the LP is filled with existential and internalized questions.  The first lyrics are from “Mute”: “Living in a 3D world/where the clock is in control.”  What was the genesis for writing this album and do consider this a concept LP?

TP: It’s definitely not a concept record, because every piece of it was written to exist on its own. When I was writing this record, I tried to not even think of it as an album. Just focus on one song at a time until each one was finished. It made it so peculiar then going back and examining each one more and tearing them apart and finding all these consistencies. It shows how much your subconscious clings to certain ideas.

AV: You worked with Ben H. Allen on Bughouse, who has worked with such groups as Animal Collective and Washed Out.  The music often sounds like some surreal world between The Wizard of Oz and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.  The sounds are frequently distorted as if the music was filtered backwards through an amplifier and then played on a gramophone.  How did you and Allen come up with these strange sounds?

TP: This entire record was approached from the mentality of letting the songs carry themselves in a way. I’ve found when I get too stuck or obsessive over how I want a song to be, it doesn’t come out right. So Ben and I approached everything from an experimental sort of direction of really doing whatever we felt like. We would have the same end goal for songs, and then we would both sometimes go about achieving that goal in different directions. So it made it this really healthy process. A lot of the sonics behind it was effecting instruments in a way that you could barely tell what instrument it is.

AV:  There are references to God and well as existential thoughts about death and mortality.  “Dropla” is perhaps the best song on Bughouse which is haunted by the repetitive lyric of “You’ll never die” and ends with: “While my physical body’s turning in my grave/my spirits working on building a new brain, but it doesn’t know how.”  What are your thoughts about death and do you believe in an afterlife?

TP: I think death is devastating. But it’s what makes life on earth beautiful. Without mortality, nothing would mean anything. I definitely believe in the afterlife. I have a close relationship with God and communicate with Him everyday. He has saved my life.

AV:  The music in “Sleep Paralysis” is flat-out weird, but I like it.  No question can be generated at this time unless you want to comment about this song.

TP: I read about this woman who would suffer from sleep paralysis nearly every night, and she would see her murdered boyfriend in her room. She said that he was trying to communicate with her. She would also see demons in her room and feel their presence. There are countless accounts about this sort of idea. Some claim that the brain is just triggering in a way similar to a dream, but others say sleep paralysis is a portal into the spiritual realm.

AV: You have stated you are writing songs virtually every day.  Do you write the lyrics first and then create the music? You played most of the instruments on Bughouse, but do any of your band mates contribute or do they just jam these songs out with you when you think your song is ready?

TP: The writing process for me is always a personal thing, because I get really particular with how I want ideas expressed. I do go through long periods of time though without writing. It gets too mentally draining to do it all the time.

AV: Do you plan to return to Boise to work on your third LP and do you have any idea what direction it will take you?

TP: I’m not planning on recording it in Boise. I do have a direction for it that I have already been toying with, but it will be a long time before that’s ready.

Channel your inner Super Saiyan y’all! THE ESSAY CONTEST DEADLINE HAS BEEN EXTENDED TO JUNE 1ST. If you’ve already been sitting at your desk, arms extended to your sides, screaming at your essay to achieve a higher power level, then good! You’ve already probably entered the contest and you have nothing to worry about. But if you were with the Supreme Kai on a far away planet, meditating and training for your battle with the Majin 2013 Sonora Review Essay Contest, and if that caused you to accidentally miss the deadline all together, then now it’s time to Kamehameha your way to victory by entering now–you have one month to scream at your essay to achieve a transcended essayist level. Dinty W. Moore will judge.

If you’re a normal person with no Dragon Ball Z knowledge, and all the references in last paragraph just annoy you, that’s OK too! This is what you need to know:

1. The Sonora Review 2013 Essay Contest deadline has been extended to June 1.

2. For more info about the contest and submission details visit this page: http://sonorareview.com/contest/

And now, to continue the DBZ references, a scene to leave you with:

[The essayist stands before his own essay in a power stance, hair yellow from achieving a transcended essayist state--a super essayist state. The essay speaks]

Essay: Uh, Oh…..my God! His power is unreal!

The Essayist: [Smirking] Heh–and this is just my super saiyan essayist form. THIS IS MY SUPER SAIYAN ESSAYIST 2 FORM! [Essayist screams as if about to explode and his muscles bulge. Energy and yellow light radiates from him. The world shakes from his power--crumbles of earth float up from the surface and levitate. The world does not hold him. The Essay is horrified as his hair grows 3 more inches before his eyes and his facial features become slightly more hardcore and masculine. Cue pulsating rock music].

Essay: [Stammering at Essayist's power in a hoarse voice of astonishment--speaking to himself] His power level is unbelievable!

The Essayist: Enough of this warm-up. It’s time I taught you a lesson!

[Essayist shifts position slightly, then dissapears and reapears directly behind the essay, unseen. He kamehamehas the essay, and the essay explodes into the air and into orbit around the earth]

SUBMIT! SUBMIT! SUBMIT! SUBMIT!

The May 1st contest deadlines are quickly approaching! Ben Marcus and Dinty W. Moore are looking forward to reading your thoughtful works of flash fiction and creative nonfiction—sate them with your triumphal words; mesmerize with your  elaborate codices; program them with your binary strings.

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Six prizes at stake!

Six pubs on the line!

Here are the deets:

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Sonora Review invites your short fiction submissions for its annual contest. First-prize receives $500, runner-up receives $250, and second runner-up receives $75. All three will be published in Sonora Review 64. The contest will be judged by Ben Marcus. All entries are considered for publication, except those from recent students (within the last five years) of the judge. Submit up to 1,000 words with a $15 entry fee by May 1st. See http://www.sonorareview.com/contest for more.

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Sonora Review invites your nonfiction submissions for its annual contest. First-prize receives $500, runner-up receives $250, and second runner-up receives $75. First prize will be published in Sonora Review 64. Second and third-prize will be considered for publication. The contest will be judged by Dinty W. Moore. All entries are considered for publication, except those from recent students (within the last five years) of the judge. Submit up to 20 pages with a $15 entry fee by May 1st. See http://www.sonorareview.com/contest for more.

PSSSSST.

Password?

WIP IS THE BOMB AND IS HAPPENING ON SATURDAY! 7PM WIP PROM! WIP SPEAKEASY! WHAT WILL HAPPEN? WE DON’T KNOW! We actually do know–four great readers will read (see below), we’ll drink our spirits with wild abandon and we’ll celebrate the near close of another great year at the University of Arizona’s MFA program. So dress in your speakeasiest clothing possible (what does this mean exactly? I think for dudes it just means wear a suit, except if you’re really feeling ambitious you’ll get a fedora and your suit will be slightly looser around your body and maybe you’ll have a pocket watch to spin or something like that. For women it means a dress or maybe a trenchcoat, and maybe thick lipstick. But we’ve never been a program that strictly adheres to stereotype so if you come in an elephant costume no one will shame you–in fact, we’ll [I'll] celebrate you) bring a couple bucks for spirits and bring your listening ears. Get ready to get your story, your essay, and your poem on!

Tommy Mira y Lopez (nonfiction) was born in 1910, in Paris. His father was a gentle, easy-going person, a salad of racial genes. His very photogenic mother died in a freak accident (picnic, lightning) when he was three.

Jeevan Narney (poetry) lives among hippies and hummingbirds. While he writes, fairies often comb out the knots in his brain waves. He makes a wild cup of Indian tea.

Jessica Langan-Peck (fiction)  is an MFA candidate at the University of Arizona, where she also teaches writing and works on the Sonora Review. After graduation, she hopes to plant some sort of garden.

Kendra Mullison (nonfiction) ate a spider, back in the day. Now she eats asphalt, good home cookin’, and a handful of words.  She writes nonfiction when the world goes her way and throws darts when it doesn’t.

WIP Prom is this Saturday! The theme this year? WIP Speakeasy! There will be a password to get in, there will be classy writers everywhere, and everyone will be drinking imaginary illegal booze! Oh yeah: and we have four great readers to hear from: Jessica Langan-Peck, Jeevan Narney, Tommy Mira y Lopez, and Kendra Mullinson! Look out for their posted bios and pics later this week.

AND GET YOURSELF A PROM DATE AND A FLASK!

The whole world will be in black and white!

This is going to rule.

New art reacts to a past aesthetic.

Fashion is just like this: except current reaction in fashion also has a degree of control over past fashion. In other words: Prada creates itself anew by rejecting and reacting to its past self. High end designers are both avant-garde and traditional–they continue to steadfastly exist because they are their own avant-garde.

You see that baby writing that avant-garde essay? Are you going to let that baby win the 2013 Sonora Review essay contest? Are you going to allow that baby to win $500? You shouldn’t allow that to happen. SHOW THAT BABY HOW TO WRITE A REAL ESSAY and remember that the deadline for the essay contest is approaching quickly: MAY 1ST! Send your best essays! Lyric! Narrative! Descriptive! Humorous! Analytical! Anything that will excite us–our interests vary widely. See the flyer for the essay contest here.

You see that chihuahua writing the next big American short story, defying the form by writing it on scantron paper? Are you going to allow that chihuahua to win the 2013 Sonora Review Short Fiction Contest? To win $500? STOP THAT DOG and submit your best piece of short fiction by May 1st. See the flyer for the fiction contest here.

SUBMIT!
SUBMIT!
SUBMIT!