NPR: My Morning Car Ride

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My Morning Car Ride

by Bob Boilen

I spent much of the day before our live concert webcast talking with some of the bands we'll be featuring. As soon as I pull it all together you'll be able to hear from:

AA Bondy
Papercranes
Summerbirds in the Cellar
Johnathan Rice
Yo La Tengo

...then I was interviewed by the San Jose Mercury News about NPR's new music site.

Then it was on to the Omni Hotel for a talk with Jim James of My Morning Jacket. I wanted to hear their new CD Evil Urges before the interview. I felt it would be wrong not to hear what he was singing and writing about these days.

Over the past few weeks I was repeatedly told that getting a copy probably wasn't going to happen. They were being very protective. Then, two hours before the interview, our incredibly hard-working partner Chris Mooney got a call from MMJ management, saying we could hear the album... but we needed to find a stereo in a private location where there wouldn't be the risk of anyone else hearing it.

Hmmm, how about a car?

An hour later a borrowed Lincoln Continental pulls in front of the Omni Hotel in Austin. The band's manager Mike was behind the wheel. He gave me a giant smile and took me for a ride.

The album kicks! Houses of the Holy was my first thought, but then the album shifted to other sounds ... R&B, great country music, but mostly just fantastic playing, incredible drumming, well thought-out harmonies... all music with great intent and confidence. I was in love.

By nature, the idea of listening to a record with someone sitting next to me waiting for reaction is something I abhor and something I've never done. I mean how can you say you don't like it with someone totally involved in it sitting right next to you? But I did go for the ride, and my thoughts here are honest and heartfelt.

Evil Urges, the new CD that comes out in June from My Morning Jacket is going to be one of the best records of the year and the best music Jim James and friends has ever made.

After the drive I sat down and had a conversation with Jim. Give a listen and enjoy the concert.

Tags: sxsw

1:49 AM ET | 03-13-2008 | permalink

Comments (Send a comment)

Shurely shome mistshtake: My Morning Jarket

Sent by Julia | 8:43 AM ET | 03-14-2008

what a special experience!

Sent by Jehan | 9:57 AM ET | 03-17-2008

Ah boredom has a name and it is BANDS - the cutting edge of... 1964. Now the highest form of sameness and conservativeness. Nothing is more your father's oldsmobile than bands. Nothing is safer or more sanitized the world over than bands - it is the music of the bland. Want to play it safe? Be in a band with the same 40 year old format - the same instrumentation, the same bad songwriting, the same bad singing, the same indecipherable lyrics, the same lack of song structure, the same boredom in all backing instruments, the sameness in all background vocals. Take what the Beatles did in 1964 and water it down and water it down again, and then water it down again - keep doing it till it evaporates into nothingness - the key to the new bands - cotton candy music - one taste and its gone and completely forgettable.
C'mon boys bring on the bands - and make sure they never protest anything, or advocate change, or say something stimulating, or ever ever oppose what rock has become!

I'm getting bored by the giant brush you paint everything with. It may be convenient, it just doesn't hold up.

Sent by Tom Hendricks | 4:22 PM ET | 03-19-2008

Yes it does. Pick out a new band and I'll show you the same problems. It's been 44 years and no one can even come up with a NAME other than band - let alone anything new in music. If you want to defend boredome go for it. Not me. I think music should be fun, passionate, and take so many risks it upsets people like you. And it does this because it is doing something that you may not be familiar with. Bands not only don't do that they oppose musicians who do!
Hey bands, how about breaking the mold and calling the sameness an orchestra, combo, revue, ANYTHING else but band. Even using a different name is too radical for the rut! Musicians have become so regimented that they flock to sameness as if it was a badge of honor. "Must be just like every other Beatle clone for the last 45 years".
Find me one that doesn't have the same guitar keyboard drums, line up, doesn't have electric instruments, plays different venues, has outstanding musicians and a great singer, has solid background vocals, lets real songwriters write their music, says something well and clearly, and says it in a poetic way, and that dares say something that protests the sameness, is not overproduced, plays in a back-to-basics style, and you've found someone I'll listen to.
You've also found Post-Bands music. And that's my point. Time for a revolution in music - and all the other arts too.
Bands are for presidential candidates that want to fake hipness. They're for car and bank commercials They are for everyone who wants to fit in and play it safe. They have nothing to do with exciting music.
By saying your a band you are saying "Look I am another in the 44 year long line of doing music the same way over and over and over. See how I fit in.
You say YOU'RE getting bored. I was bored 30 years ago. I say you need to catch up.

Sent by Tom Hendricks | 9:35 PM ET | 03-20-2008

i bet you guy like dream theater and mars volta. get a life.

I have a life I quite like. so what does Mars Volta have to do with My Morning Jacket?
bb

Sent by bill brasky | 6:17 PM ET | 03-27-2008

Mr.Hendricks if you would like a cure for boredom log onto amazon.com purchase yourself a copy of Z, Okonokos, It Still Moves or anyone of the above. Place the CD into your CD player and just sit down. If you are feeling adventourous purchase Okonokos the DVD. It is bound to stimulate some sort of creativity. If you are feeling really adventourous stop complaining about the current lack there of quality and go see MMJ show.

I am sure Jim James will hold up.

Sent by Jon Sujecki | 3:24 PM ET | 03-28-2008

Won't do it if its a band. Cause if they are a band, they are just trying to fit in to the same thing as everyone else for the last 40+ years. Yawn.
IF Okonokos is not a band, IF they/he/? is not using electrical instruments. If they are playing back-to-basics music. If they don't write their own songs and leave it to professional songwriters, I'll listen gladly.
Otherwise I've heard 40 years of Okonokos and that is enough. I'm off the band-wagon cause it got stuck in a rut!

Sent by Tom Hendricks | 11:06 PM ET | 03-28-2008

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