| Mountain Goats |
Alternative Rock
The Mountain Goats are one of the more unusual bands to find shelter under the ever-expanding umbrella term indie-rock. Hyper prolific and militantly lo-fi, there are over a hundred Mountain Goats' songs scattered across compilations and label samplers, most of them recorded (by choice) on a department store boom box. Although many musicians have contributed to Mountain Goats releases, by far the person most identified with the outfit is singer/guitarist John Darnielle. In fact, many Mountain Goats' tracks feature only Darnielle's nasal bleat and his primitive, yet frenzied, acoustic guitar. Taking the name from the Screaming Jay Hawkins song "Big Yellow Coat," Darnielle donned the Mountain Goats moniker in 1991 while working as a nurse in a California State hospital, and began releasing cassette-only albums for the Shrimper label. Despite attracting a devoted underground following (or, possibly, because of it) the Mountain Goats continued to release songs in cassette form only for many years, using the tape hiss as a kind of additional instrument. Lyrics are essential with the Mountain Goats. Highly literate and full of metaphor, many of Darnielle's songs fit together to form a larger narrative than they would alone. The "Going to..." series, the "Songs for..." series and the "Alpha series" (which chronicles a dysfunctional couple) are some of the Mountain Goats' more notable song cycles. But many of the Mountain Goats' songs stand alone and present Darnielle's skewed take on the mundane. Besides the innumerable compilation tracks the Mountain Goats have also released many 7-inch singles for over a dozen labels. There full length albums include Nine Black Poppies and Zopilote Machine both released in 1995, Sweden released 1996, Full Force Galesburg released in 1997, and Nothing for Juice released in 1997. Protein Source of the Future...NOW! and Bitter Melon Farm (both 1999 releases) collect many early tape tracks and singles. Sweden and The Coroner's Gambit appeared a year later. Jason Nickey
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