Last April, between Okkervil River album releases, front man Will Sheff debuted Lovestreams, a sort of bedroom side project of the literate songwriter that allowed him to dabble with less organic instrumentation. The project allowed Sheff to take those wonderful synths that were sprinkled over the nostalgia heavy The Silver Gymnasium (an ode to Sheff's New Hampshire hometown), and go in a very different direction than what fans of the band have come to expect over 7 studio albums. 

Given the Lovestreams remix treatment, "Stay Young," the latest single from the new album, is now a shimmering, arena ready pop song, sounding like something that could easily fit in a Phil Collins set list. Distant and echoing vocals, drum machines, and saxophones, which may or may not have been stolen from "Pseudio," result in something that is heavy in its cheese factor, but so was most of the 80s. Enjoy.

With this being a relatively slow music weekend here in Buffalo, a couple of us are hitting the road for some out of town shows. This evening, Scott and I will be making the trip to Ithaca, NY to catch Okkervil River at The Haunt. The literate, Austin-based indie rockers are fresh off the release of the nostalgic and horn-heavy The Silver Gymnasium, the band's 7th studio release and, frankly, one of their very best. 

Those who have seen the band over the years will recognize yet another new cast of supporting characters, something that would put early 2000s Wilco to shame, with frontman/songwriter Will Sheff being the lone constant. The show is presented by Dan Smalls Presents, an Ithaca talent buyer who has been booking some of the best acts in Central to Western NY, including some recent Babeville events, over the past couple of years. 

Tonight's show at the Haunt in Ithaca, NY begins at 8:45pm (doors at 8pm) with opening support from Torres. Tickets can be purchased for $20 here.

Upon first hearing that Okkervil River’s new album, The Silver Gymnasium, would “take place” in 1986 in Will Sheff’s hometown of Meriden, New Hampshire, one could imagine that, given Sheff’s proclivity for conceptual narrative, the album would probably tell an auto-biographical story about Sheff’s childhood and be thematically dominated by nostalgia. The first few singles released from the album, along with promotional video footage from Sheff’s hometown and a companion 8-bit video game (also taking place in New Hampshire – 1986), seemed to make clear that the conceptual aspect of this album was no idle threat. It seemed possible that once we finally heard the entire album, we’d be treated to a sprawling epic of events and characters and climaxes and denouements, all giving us a glimpse into the world of Sheff’s Reagan-Era Meriden.

Okkervil River are releasing their latest studio album, The Silver Gymnasium, on September 3. If you read this blog often, you’ve probably seen Mac make several references to my geekery over this band and that is because they are one of my favorites and they are very worth listening to and you should all be making their music go into your ear holes.

We already knew that The Silver Gymnasium would be something of a concept album about lead singer/songwriter Will Sheff’s childhood in Meriden, New Hampshire and that it would take place in 1986. The few cuts from the record that have been released thus far have certainly all supported that premise.

We did not know, however, until a few days ago, that Okkervil River would be releasing a video game companion to the album, also called The Silver Gymnasium. And you can play that game HERE.

Unsurprisingly, the game takes place in “New Hampshire – 1986” and, fittingly, it has been designed as an homage to the style of games that would have been popular at that time. The Nintendo had only been released in North America for around a year by the summer of 1986, and not many console games would have quite resembled what’s seen in The Silver Gymnasium. (Ghosts n’ Goblins, released in November of ’86 might be the closest, graphically.) Given the fact that the main character starts the game on a computer, it’s more likely that the reference points here are the early Sierra adventure games made for Apple and PC, such as King’s Quest, Space Quest, etc.

The game, which Sheff co-created with Benjamin Miles of Eyes and Ears, is fairly straightforward and fairly short. It’s a promotional piece as much as anything else, but it also does a great job of evoking the feeling of the era while firmly reminding you that it is a retrospective. The graphics are meant to look like an 8-bit game but they’re clearly modern. The soundtrack is nostalgia-laden chip music but the songs are all from the upcoming Okkervil album, which hasn’t even been released yet in 2013. There are numerous references to 80’s culture but with understanding winks to the fact that you’re seeing them in the future.


It’s a combination of elements that plays with the cross-section between your memory and your present perception which, if I had to guess, will be a dominant theme on The Silver Gymnasium album as well.

The meta aspects of the game aside, there’s also something to be said for the emotional impact that a video game can have on the human mind and Sheff is attempting to channel that here. Similar to music (itself, a large element of most video games), a well-crafted game environment can have a profound effect on the imagination. Anyone who experienced 80’s and early 90’s gaming culture knows that even the most basic constructions had the ability to create worlds in one’s mind where only the simplest presentations of light and sound existed in actuality. The dissonance between reality and a virtual world is a special phenomenon, which, if harnessed properly, can produce an incredibly affecting experience.

The portion of The Silver Gymnasium that is available to play now is only the first of three segments, and Sheff has indicated that the sequel chapters will be released in the next several weeks. The first chapter is called “Chapter One - All the Days of Your Life in a Line” (a line from "Down Down the Deep River" and also a bit reminiscent of an early Okkervil lyric: “my bad days all got together and they stood in a row for me.”)

The game starts with a nameless protagonist in New Hampshire - 1986. Though it would be natural to presume that the bespectacled main character is patterned after Sheff, he has stated that: “the story is fiction, which is why the kid has black hair. He’s sort of his own character. It’s a tie-in! Like a Dr. Who novelization with a side-plot not affecting the main arc. You’ll see…”


The game moves quickly and easily enough from this point that there’s no real sense in giving away the story when you can experience it yourself. It also might be easier to analyze what exactly this journey and The Silver Gymnasium may represent after we’ve experienced all three chapters.

In the mean time, there are plenty of interesting Easter Eggs in the game to take a look at.

Soundtrack

The main draw here might be the aforementioned chip music versions of three songs that have been released so far from The Silver Gymnasium. Sheff and Miles have done an excellent job on these, getting the notes to hit all the right spots to make you feel like you’re actually listening to a period piece Nintendo soundtrack.

“It Was Our Season” – This is the song that plays during the title sequence and credits. You can listen to the studio version of this song HERE.

“Down Down the Deep River” – This is the song that plays once the protagonist picks up his Walkman. It plays everywhere in town (except the library!) Listen to various open mic night versions of this song HERE.

“Lido Pier Suicide Car” – This is the song that plays once you enter the crypt. Listen to an acoustic version of this song HERE.

Movies in the Video Store

If you go into the video rental store (slash “Deli-Mart”?), the clerk will warn against renting any “Rated-R” movies. You can look at the following movies on the case on the back wall.

Scott Coffey’s Space Camp, starring Scott Coffey
Jean-Claude Van-Damme in: No Retreat, No Surrender
Cannibal Ferox
Creepers, starring Jennifer Connelly
Hardbodies II

The Space Camp entry is a bit of a joke as Scott Coffey actually plays a rather minor role in the film. Both that movie and No Retreat, No Surrender were released in 1986. Cannibal Ferox was a 1981 film by Umberto Lenzi, renowned for being one of the most violent movies ever made. Creepers is a 1985 Italian, horror film that does star a young Jennifer Connelly. Hardbodies II is the 1986 sequel to… Hardbodies.

Books in the Library

When you go into the library you can look at the following books on the shelves. The books appear to be organized by topic on each shelf. They also appear to be organized such that they become darker and more mature once you enter the basement. Most of the books have an emphasis on the mysterious or the fantastical.

Upstairs shelves: The first two shelves seem to contain young-adult/fantasy novels. The third shelf contains young-adult/science-fiction stories. The fourth shelf contains young-adult/mystery novels.

(Left to right)

Shelf 1

De Uendliche Geschichte by Michael Ende (the German version of The Neverending Story)
Ozma of Oz by L. Frank Baum
The Dragon and the George by George R. Dickinson
My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George

Shelf 2

Danny, Champion of the World by Roald Dahl
Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherin Paterson
Lizard Music by D. Manus Pinkwater (The librarian recommends this book as you leave)

Shelf 3

Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
Mt. Analogue by Rene Daumal
Terran Trade Authority: Spacecraft 2000-2100 AD by Stewart Cowley

Shelf 4

The Hardy Boys: The Secret of the Caves
The Hardy Boys: A Figure in Hiding
Nancy Drew: The Strange Mystery in the Parchment
Nancy Drew: The Secret of the Forgotten City

Basement shelves: the first shelf contains highly controversial “adult” novels. The second shelf contains what would generally be considered “young-adult novels” but that contain elements of horror or controversy. The last two shelves all contain books or grimoires dealing with magic, the occult, and the supernatural.

(Right to left)

Shelf 1

Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence
The Last Temptation of Christ by Nikos Kazantzakis
Slaughter-House Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller

Shelf 2

The Wish Giver: Three Tales of the Coven Tree by Bill Brittain
Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews
The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
A Watcher in the Woods by Florence Engle Randall

Shelf 3

Liber Razielis Archangeli
Little Key of the Whole Art by Hygromancy
The Orgone Energy Accumulator, Its Scientific and Medical Use by Wilhelm Reich
Curses, Hexes and Spells by Daniel Cohen

Shelf 4

The Sworn Book of Honorious
The Confession of the Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross

Grave Stones

When you enter the graveyard there are four graves that are a lighter shade of gray, which you can inspect more closely. Each grave belongs to a man that died in 1986.

Richard Manuel, Died: March 4, 1986
Harold Arlen, Died: April 23, 1986
Phil Lynott, Died: January 4, 1986
Jorge Luis Borges, Died: June 14, 1986

Richard Manuel, one of the lead singers of The Band, hung himself in a motel room after a long struggle with alcoholism and drug abuse. Phil Lynott was the lead singer of Thin Lizzy and also died after a history of a substance abuse. Harold Arlen (from… Buffalo, New York) was a composer of several classic songs, including “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” He died of cancer. Jorge Luis Borges was a famous Argentinean writer of fantastical short stories. He also died of cancer.

Scott Mancuso (fellow buffaBLOG writer and Okkervil River fanatic) and I were recently discussing the lack of good, new music during this suddenly sweltering summer. We have our eyes on September as both of us have been eagerly awaiting the release of Okkervil's latest LP, The Silver Gymnasium, and today, the band may have just released something, in turn possibly causing Scott and I to temporarily lose our minds. A collaborative map of the New Hampshire town of Meridian in which album is based by Okkervil frontman Will Sheff and frequent album artwork designer, Will Schaff was released via NPR.

The last couple of weeks, Mac has posted about the new singles from Neko Case and Okkervil River, wherein he joked that I might have fainted upon hearing that both acts were releasing new albums on September 3. He was actually, probably, understating my reaction. Neko Case and Will Sheff are two of the most talented, and completely underrated, songwriters working in music today and finding out that we’d be getting an album’s worth of new material from both of them, on the precipice of "my favorite season," is some of the best news I’ve received in a year already fraught with good news re: music.

Okkervil River is, without a doubt, my “favorite” band. I could write for days about Sheff’s poetic lyricism, the over-arching thematic concepts of their albums, their classic folk-rock melodicism, and a band, that despite featuring a rotating cast of Austin-based musicians, is consistently flawless. Case (who some might know as a perennial contributor to the New Pornographers, but who you all should also know as a brilliant solo artist in her own right, as well as a highly enjoyable Twitter-follow) is gifted not only with a heart-stopping voice but an incredible talent for telling dark, country-noir stories from a variety of perspectives.

These new songs from Case and Sheff exhibit what they do so well in their capacity as songwriters. Both songs happen to rip gender stereotypes up by the roots and place their narrators in positions that are refreshing and unexpected.


On “Man,” Case, who is, assuredly, a beautiful 42-year-old woman, sings of being a “man” in no uncertain terms. She immediately lets the listener know what type of “man” she’s referring to here. This isn’t an “identify crisis.” She’s talking about all of the stereotypes and trappings that go along with being “the man” in any particular situation, where “man” refers not just to actual, sexual “gender,” but a status. A position of power and confidence that could potentially be adopted by a human born with female parts just as easily as the more traditional masculine figure.

On her last album, Case did a terrific job of telling stories from a number of points of view, between an “animal,” a “tornado” and a “man eater,” proving that existing in a particular condition shouldn’t necessarily limit a songwriter to writing from a particular perspective. The cross-dressing photo that accompanies the song on the official video feed sets the mood for the point of view here. We’re talking about the “man’s man,” fit with cowboy hat, mustache and lighter. This isn’t the “runt of the litter.”  There’s no “proxy” here. You’ll deal with her (or “him”) directly.

In a world where English pronouns like “him” and “her” are (slowly) becoming increasingly interchangeable and meaningless, it’s a smart and straight-forward piece of assertiveness where you can almost see the “men” in the room struggling to argue: “but you’re not… but… you… but…” Case’s assumption of the persona seems to be equal parts mocking  (“a woman’s heart, is the watermark, by which I measure everything”) and empowering (“you didn’t know what a man was, until I showed you.”)

This boldly adopted point-of-view does an affecting job of describing the conflicts that arise when a “woman” attempts to assert herself in the realm of “men” (and, like writing, and comedy, and other forms of entertainment, the music industry is still generally a predominantly male-centric world where women are marginalized as being “cute” or as novelty acts.)

You'll be able to find this song on Case's new album, which is brilliantly titled "The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You."

On Okkervil River’s newest song, “It Was My Season,” Will Sheff takes a much more subtle approach to exploring an atypical songwriting perspective.


Of note is the fact that Sheff has revealed that Okkervil’s new album, The Silver Gymnasium, will “take place in 1986 in a small town in New Hampshire.” (If you’re a geek for conceptual, literary folk-rock, that alone should be enough to make your day.)

The song tells a fairly straightforward story about a couple struggling through a not-entirely-identifiable adversity. A few things are clear though: we’re definitely in the 80’s (see: “can you hear his VCR weeping?” and “below the Atari, well I could feel your heart was just going.”) and some sort of clandestine, amorous situation is afoot (see: “our parents were freaking” and “what was I thinking?” and “we’ll meet on the weekend, your dad won’t be home.”)

The first person in the song seems to be romantically involved with someone of potentially lesser social stature (“come out of your trailer, and into the dark!”) who has a stern father with a military background (“they crossed his wires completely, when they made him fire that gun.”) There also seem to be some “stakes” here if the couple is eventually found out; possibly that they’ll be separated from each other if they’re not careful (“if they take me out of school, you out of town.”) It’s in the last lines of the song though where the narrative is suddenly flipped on its head and the listener is forced to re-visit everything they've just heard.

“They say that I’ll go to college, and you will stay home, and watch while I’m leaving, and the cold will just creep in… oh, Jason, I know.”

The final line of the song isn't placed in quotes (as Sheff is known to do when switching perspectives mid-song), which would lead one to believe that it’s the narrator who is lamentably singing to “Jason” before the song abruptly ends. This likely leads us to one of two conclusions: that the narrator is female, or the narrator is a gay male. Either way, it’s an incredibly fun twist on which to end the song, which would have been perfectly enjoyable even without a last-second revelation about the identity of the narrator.

Sheff has certainly sung from the perspective of females in the past, in part, on “Hanging From a Hit,” and in full, on “(Shannon Wilsey on the) Starry Stairs” and “On Tour With Zykos.” If this is the case for “It Was Our Season,” then Sheff continues to be one of the few songwriters that seem secure, or simply imaginative, enough to write songs as a male from a female perspective. It’s possible that hearing the song in the context of the full album may reveal the complete story. However, at this point, I’m actually leaning toward the second theory of a gay male narrator, which makes things even more interesting.

There certainly seems to be a sense of urgency between the narrator and “Jason.” It could just be because they’re young and naïve but it seems to be something even more than that: the secretive nature of the relationship, the high stakes, the vague sense of regret upon the couple going their separate ways toward the end of the story. It’s the second-to-last section of the song that really supports this interpretation for me though. While the band harmonizes a repeated set of lines, Sheff, as the narrator, begins singing of “looking back on it now” and remembering “how mixed up he got,” before they “got him sorted out.” He then states that “it’s fading out” and he “hardly thinks about it now” before landing on the final piano-driven set of lyrics in which he tells Jason that he “knows.”

We know that this is the lead-off track on The Silver Gymnasium, and without more, it’s pretty difficult to guess where this is all going. At the moment, however, it certainly seems like it might be going in the direction of a man (or woman) who was once in love with a man, and has seemingly moved on from that part of their life for reasons unknown.

I know that it's the first day of summer, and I'm all for enjoying it. But I also kind of can't wait for September to get here.

As mentioned last week, alt-country fans will have some new music to look forward to later this summer. In addition to the latest from Neko Case, the Austin bred Okkervil River will drop their new album, The Silver Gymnasium, in early September. The album's first single, the jaunty and building "It Was My Season," at first glance appears to be a sunny, piano led number, but anyone who knows Okkervil and the lyrics of frontman Will Sheff knows its never that easy. Just follow along with the lyrics in the video below and you'll see how tough he is on himself.

Regardless, "It Was My Season" is the band's most musically uplifting single, and best harmonies, since "Lost Coastlines", not to mention the whole sea-shanty feel. The single is a perfect primer for what is sure to be another great addition to the rich Okkervil River catalog. The Silver Gymnasium will be released on September 3rd.