Bonnie Prince Billy

Will Oldham
Bonnie Prince Billy
Palace
Palace Brothers
Palace Music


So...I spent a rainy Sunday at the end of July going through my iTunes library and finally rating all of my songs by Will Oldham. Oldham is an iconclastic, indie rocker, altcountry, country, atlernative singer songwriter who has various bands which all have had different names and are all him. His sound has been described as all of the above but eptiomizes low-fi post punk of the mid nineties.

Oldhams does what he wants to do and is not an attractive man. Both of these facts can be seen in Kanye West video in which he appears. He is the “star” of the video. IF YOU DO NOTHING ELSE CLICK ON THIS LINK!

http://www.kanyewest.com/?content=video_cant_tell_alt

He has also appeared in about 10 films including Sundance Nominee “Old Joy” which had music by Yo La Tengo.
Over the last 12 years or so his music has befuddled me, entertained me and moved me as much as anyone I can think of. His albums are all of uneven kind and quality. Under the Palace moniker he tended to pick his musicians and singers and then go in and record by the seat of his pants. This results in music that is always “interesting” but often seems self involved and...mopey...and kind of all over the place. But I noticed that his songs were popping up more and more on composites and that there were a lot of different ones. I also noticed I had downloaded a lot of his live music and had over the years caught some pretty brilliant unreleased stuff. He recently has settled on the Bonnie Prince Billy name but is still doing the same thing. He said with the different Palace names he wanted people to understand that there were different musicians and a different thing going on each album. He does not seem to worry about that anymore.

He first grabbed me with the 1995 “Viva Last Blues” which fulfilled my definition of a great CD at the time because it had three songs that knocked me out. he has an...interesting voice. He is atonal but sings with passion and in tune, like a deranged Neil Young. The songs “New Partner”, “Work Hard Play Hard” and “Cats Blues” all are just great indie rock songs. This album is at best...under rated.

There are a lot of artists now who I view as deriving a lot from Oldhams work and they are Sufjan Stevens and Sam Beam who does business as “Iron and Wine.” I don’t like these guys at much but they put out some good music. His songs have been covered by a lot of people but the most seminal cover of one of his songs was Johnny Cash’s version of his song, “I See A Darkness”. A lot of his songs, like SufJan Stevens have religious and spiritual themes although I would argue that Oldham is much more comfortable with the well enunciated word “fuck.” His spirituality also seems somewhat ambilalent. Sometimes he sings song which seem so unbelievably Christian and Jesus like...and then he sings songs like “Pushkin”
“God is the answer...
God is the answer...
God is the answer...
God lies within.”
I don’t know Pushkin. I assume he wrote about God and religion at some point but Wikipedia says he lived between 1799 and 1833 and was one of the great Russian poets and social reformers...sent into exile by the Czar. I like songwriters who introduce to the character of Pushkin and get my curiousity going and then sing about God and religion in a way that make me examine my own spirituality....such as it is. Then there is “Jolly Song” which sounds like a white boy in slow time singing a negro spiritual....
“When thy song, flows through me.
When thy song flows through me, my Lord...
Then life is sweet....
Oh life is sweet....
Sorrow a dream....”

His most recent collaberation was with the alt rock, super mopey, instumental and some times synth heavy (almost all the time) Tortoise. They plan and he sings and although I really cannot stand their music his reading of Springsteens “Thunder Road” last year was...moving.
If you love great singer songwriter who play whatever they want and figure if they do it with passion that people will find it, he is your guy.

it is a pain putting together a nice sampler of his music from iTunes due to him operating under so many names but....here goes.
Bonnie Prince Billy
1. Thunder Road
2. Be Still and Know God
3. Senor
4. Cursed Sleep
Will Oldham
5. A Suckers Evening
6. Arise Therefore
Palace Brothers
7. You Will Miss Me When I Burn
8. Pushkin
Johnny Cash
9. I See A Darkness
Unfortunately that is all you can do on iTunes. I could do you better. Just ask.