New My Morning Jacket Album!!!

[rareair]

Will anyone else be doing the Nashville/Louisville weekend?

 

will be going to nashville.

 

my wife would make me take our 9 day old child if i tried to pull louisville as well.

[UrbanAchiever]

Will anyone else be doing the Nashville/Louisville weekend?

Myself and 2 friends will be flying out from Philadelphia for the Louisville show. From talking on the MMJ board we've found out that 9 of the 25 passengers on our plane are going to the show. Cant freakin' wait!

[ms. yvon]

OUTSTANDING!

[mfwahl]

I'm doing Orlando at the end of the month! Yippee!!

[PearlJamNoCode]

4 days!

[LouisvilleGreg]

WFPK, the local Louisville station that is sponsering the show here this weekend is in MMJ overload. At varios times throughout the day today I heard:

1 - Off The Record

2 - Two Halves

3 - The way that he Sings

4 - Wordless Chorus

5 - Touch Me Part 1

 

In addition to that there's a local tv commercial for the show that sounds just like one of those cheesy old heavy metal show commercials. It says something about America's greatest rock n' roll band and has footage from Okonokos.

 

I'm anticipating a massive crowd. Can't wait.

[UrbanAchiever]

WFPK, the local Louisville station that is sponsering the show here this weekend is in MMJ overload. At varios times throughout the day today I heard:

1 - Off The Record

2 - Two Halves

3 - The way that he Sings

4 - Wordless Chorus

5 - Touch Me Part 1

 

In addition to that there's a local tv commercial for the show that sounds just like one of those cheesy old heavy metal show commercials. It says something about America's greatest rock n' roll band and has footage from Okonokos.

 

I'm anticipating a massive crowd. Can't wait.

Thats awesome, I love how they do stuff like that, like giving Pooch a poncho and a mic stand on Conan back in July. I wouldny expect a massive crowd though, they only sold 8,000 tickets. Thats a lot of people, but Im not really sure what you consider

"massive". I know that it'll only be filled to 40% of the capacity (I was told max capacity is 20,000). In any case, it should be amazing.

[LouisvilleGreg]

Even 8,000 people is a hell of a lot for a band that started out playing in tiny bars and coffee shops. I've never seen a Wilco show that wasn't at a festival with that kind of crowd.

[UrbanAchiever]

Even 8,000 people is a hell of a lot for a band that started out playing in tiny bars and coffee shops. I've never seen a Wilco show that wasn't at a festival with that kind of crowd.

Dont get me wrong, that wasnt meant as a slight. I love MMJ...trust me...lol. I was at the Radio City show back in June, am flying out to Louisville from Philly this weekend, will be seeing them in DC and Philly in September, and again on New Years at the Garden. It definitely wasnt a knock on them. And not to split hairs, but I think most bands start out in tiny bars and coffee shops lol. I agree though, its great to see them starting to reap the rewards of how much hard work they've put in throughout their career.

[LouisvilleGreg]

Dont get me wrong, that wasnt meant as a slight. I love MMJ...trust me...lol. I was at the Radio City show back in June, am flying out to Louisville from Philly this weekend, will be seeing them in DC and Philly in September, and again on New Years at the Garden. It definitely wasnt a knock on them. And not to split hairs, but I think most bands start out in tiny bars and coffee shops lol. I agree though, its great to see them starting to reap the rewards of how much hard work they've put in throughout their career.

 

No worriesmy friend it's all good. Come and say hi to me in line if you get the chance. Ask around the front for Greg. Take care and have a safe flight.

[bold992003]

I would do just about anything to be at that show. Seeing them in Boston in Sept and I can't wait.

[tangara]

Does anyone know how big the Nashville venue is? I heard 10,000.

[LouisvilleGreg]

Here's a nice and lengthy interview with Patrick in a local Louisville free weekly in prep for the show this Saturday. Enjoy, Greg

 

 

 

 

[LouisvilleGreg]

Here's an even longer look at the foramtive years of the band and pre-MMJ days as told by their peers and friends in another Louisville weekly, Velocity. This article is loaded with information. The hypemeter here is very, very high. Enjoy again, Greg

 

 

Early Morning

This weekend, My Morning Jacket will make a triumphant homecoming, playing for thousands in their native city. It didn't start out that way, of course. We talked to the people who were there at the beginning.

Peter Berkowitz and Joseph Lord

Velocity

August 13, 2008

 

Email Print View Share Digg Del.icio.us Facebook Furl Google Reddit Mixx Mister Wong Yahoo Buzz Yahoo Add To Favorites Add to playlist (Credit: Frankie Steele) My Morning Jacket leader Jim James wasn't always Jim James. To those who grew up with him, he was and will always be Jim Olliges of Hikes Point, Louisville, Ky. With MMJ poised to play its biggest Louisville show ever on Saturday at Waterfront Park, we take you back to the beginning, when a big gig meant playing for 20 friends at a local pizza parlor.

 

Ben Blandford played bass in Month of Sundays, a band he formed with Jim Olliges, Dave Givan and Aaron Todovich. Olliges and Todovich were the principal songwriters.

 

We all grew up together in Hikes Point. We went to school together. Around age 13 or 14, we just started talking about making music together, making a band. We didn't know what we were doing. We just started getting together at Dave Givan's house, in his garage, and found our instruments one way or another. Every week, whether it was 90 degrees or 10 degrees, we'd be in there.

 

Danny Cash was a friend of Olliges and Todovich, and later played keyboards in My Morning Jacket.

 

We went up to Highland Grounds on Baxter and saw his band play. It was Aaron and Jim and Aaron's older brother, Mike, singing. Their friends Ben and Dave were playing bass and drums. Any coffee shop back in the '90s was open to kids who would come in and buy an espresso. That was sophomore, junior year, maybe. 1992, '93, something like that. They were called Chains of My Own at that point -- it was a lot of spoken word from Aaron's brother, a real high school kind of thing. But then Aaron's brother said, "Um, I don't want to do this anymore." Aaron was, like, "I don't wanna do it," so Jim was the next in line to do vocals because he was already playing guitar. So he (Olliges) just kind of took over and they became Month of Sundays.

 

Ben Blandford

 

I think Jim was always interested in vocals. When we were kids, different people sang. I guess at some point, Jim was ready to be the vocalist. When you're 15 and you're on stage, 100 people looking at you, you'll be uncomfortable. The older Jim got, the more comfortable he got, and the more he was able to command that role as the front person for a band.

 

Drew Osborne played drums in Todovich's next band, the Helgeson Story

 

Jim has such a strange, wonderful sense of humor. It's just bizarre. It's completely, unpretentiously strange. No one remembers this but me, but they used to do this song called "Mr. George" where they had these boards with the lyrics written on them. Lance Spaulding (a friend of the band) would drop them, like that INXS video. No one remembers that but me.

 

Dennis Sheridan went to St. Xavier High School with Olliges

 

The first time I ever hung out with Jim, we were with a group of people and we were trying to figure out what to do. We were about 16 or 17 or 18. You know, when you're in high school the world is not set up in a way where there's much for you to do. Jim asks us if we've ever gone "buckling." We were, like, "What does 'buckling' mean?" Apparently, it's a game he invented where you run really fast and you dive in the bushes. He was really into the bushes at Joe Creason Park. He's a goofy guy.

 

Drew Osborne

 

I know that he and Aaron had always talked about, "We are going to be musicians." I remember him saying that "I am going to be a musician." We were all in high school. "Well, what are you going to do?" Aaron was like, "I'm gonna be a rock star." People would be, like, "Well, what about a back-up plan?" And he's like, "No, I'm going to be a rock star." So, I think he was always inclined to make music. What kid doesn't want to be a rock star, y'know? But of course the Louisville style -- that Month of Sundays stuff is totally different than MMJ stuff, but for f---ing 16- and 17-year-old kids, it's amazingly complex. It's just good stuff.

 

Jeremy Johnson played guitar in the Helgeson Story

 

I think Month of Sundays were respected, but they weren't big. They were an indie rock band, but only when Aaron was involved. Not as much later. The impression I got from Jim was that was always turned off by the concept of indie rock. I think the perception of Month of Sundays as an indie rock band was why he broke that band up.

 

Ben Blandford

 

Hardcore was big in the scene at the time; we went to those shows and we liked a lot of that music, and we'd play with a lot of those bands. That's just what the scene was -- we knew we didn't quite fit in, but it's not like we were outcasts or anything like that. We were just kids; we were just playing what we liked. I think a lot of the hardcore fans grew up in the scene. I guess we grew up out of the scene and we found it through playing music, so we didn't have a lot of the same local influences as a lot of the other bands.

 

Carrie Neumayer is the guitarist for the band Second Story Man

 

Month of Sundays did seem a little bit more out there, but that's because they chose to separate themselves. Maybe they felt like they were too different.

 

Danny Cash

 

We had this little collective of bands who didn't belong, 'cause, you know, any time Endpoint played in town -- massive people. Kinghorse -- massive people. Scott Ritcher had his private school friends who would all come see him but, man, we had nothing to do with any of this (laughs). If we played some place, most of the crowd was just the guys in the bands.

 

Brandon Skipworth co-owned Shakin' Sheila Recordings, which released two Month of Sundays recordings on vinyl

 

They were definitely different than what was going on around at that time. Louisville was in the throes of emo and hardcore, and they were definitely a different breed than that. They had two sides to them. They definitely had a pop sensibility to them, in terms of melodies and songwriting. You can still see some of My Morning Jacket in those early songs. They also had a harder edge to them, too. Noisy, freakout stuff. It was definitely different, set apart from a lot of the bands at that time.

 

Meanwhile, Olliges experimented with styles and sounds. He briefly fronted a heavier side project called Hotel Roy.

 

 

Sean Bailey played drums in the band Plunge, which was also on the scene at that time

 

I remember one Sunday being handed a copy of the Hotel Roy "Helicopters" album by my friend Brian Brooks; his label, Omnicron, had just released it. Initially, I couldn't quite get into it -- not because I didn't like it -- but because it was different than most everything I had laid my ears on up to that point. There was an unrelenting chaos that somehow managed to seamlessly blend itself into catchy pop-inspired tunes.

 

The relationship in Month of Sundays became strained. Todovich eventually left to form the Helgeson Story, which broke up in 2001 on the eve of a U.S. tour. In 2003, Todovich committed suicide. He was 25. Jim James would later dedicate the song "Dondante" (on "Z") to his friend.

 

Ben Blandford

 

Aaron was a guy we knew since we were little kids. We all hung out together, and we played in this band together. Jim and Aaron would come in with the ideas. The older we got, the more we started thinking broader. We did a few out-of-town shows, weekend trips to Atlanta and Charleston, S.C. That's when we were getting older, and things started coming apart, I guess. We were together for eight years, and we ended up living in a house together in Lexington -- me and Jim and Dave. You can't pin the breakup on one thing. Being in a band is like being in a relationship. We were in that relationship for eight years, and, as you could imagine, there were a lot of good times and a lot of bad times.

 

Jeremy Johnson

 

Jim and Aaron were like best friends growing up. You know, Aaron was a very dramatic person. He definitely had a way of attracting it. And he would make situations maybe seem a little more dramatic than they really were. When he first joined our band, we were like, "Why would you leave Month of Sundays? That's crazy." And he was very diplomatic. He would say, "It just wasn't working and I don't want to talk about it." The impression I got over the years was that they both had really strong ideas of where they wanted to go, but neither of them were willing to let go. The impression I got was that they were probably going to kick Aaron out. I think it was a "you-can't-fire-me-because-I-quit" kind of situation. That's the read I got. But Jim and Aaron stayed friends. I think it was weird for a while.

 

Drew Osborne

 

Jim and Aaron had been friends for so long; they had a very complicated relationship. It seemed to me like it was very brotherly (but) they didn't want to be linked forever.

 

Jeremy Irvin plays guitar for Second Story Man

 

I think it's really cool that Jim re-released that Month of Sundays stuff. That was crazy, about Aaron and all that.

[ms. yvon]

greg, i loved reading the Leo article!

 

right now:

 

PACKING!

[Tweedling]

Gawd I love Matt Ward but I can't stand Jim James horseshit voice......is it just me?.......(don't answer that!)

I figured out what I don't like.....Jim James sounds just like Chris Martin!

[solace]

I figured out what I don't like.....Jim James sounds just like Chris Martin!

 

hahaha... what?

[Tweedling]

I'm sorry but if you listen to that song Viva la Vida it sounds just like 'em. Sorry.........

[you ever seen a ghost?]

hold on a second. why would you be listening to Coldplay anyway?

 

-justin

[stooka]

I'm sorry but if you listen to that song Viva la Vida it sounds just like 'em. Sorry.........

 

 

So your news flash is that Coldplay has a song where they are trying to sound like someone else?

[Orkie]

This is a terrible album, and the reviews back it up:

[TheMaker]

The generally favourable reviews back up your personal opinion that the album is weak? Yeah, you need to work on that a bit, champ!

 

(Hint: now you link me to the Pitchfork review, because they are the be-all, end-all of critical opinion in the '00s, I'm told, in spite of the fact that the site is inconsistent at best and ignores vast swaths of the musical landscape. Then I ignore you for being so narrow! Don't mind me, I'm just trying to move this along a little faster for the both of us.)

 

I still agree with Rolling Stone: it's their very best record.

[Beltmann]

This is a terrible album, and the reviews back it up:

I'm afraid TheMaker is correct. A few cherry-picked reviews from places like Pitchfork do not change the fact that, overall, the general critical response to Evil Urges has been quite positive, not negative.

[solace]

good album, just not a great album, nor one of the years best for me... and i'm as big of MMJ fanboys as they come

 

solid 7/10 for me

[tangara]

Nashville show: very, very good

Louisville show: religious experience