It’s difficult to imagine anyone left on the face of the planet (already familiar with the man’s work, that is) who isn’t aware that singer/songwriter John Wesley Harding and critically acclaimed novelist Wesley Stace are one and the same. Henceforth, he has announced that he will record under the name Wesley Stace, and hopefully never again be asked why he assumed the name of a 1967 Bob Dylan album, misspelling and all. “It’s like what happens at the end of a Spider-Man or a Batman movie,” says Stace. “When the superhero reveals his true identity to his girlfriend.” “Girlfriend” may be the operative word on Stace’s new album, Self-Titled (Yep Roc), in which a 47-year-old man, now comfortably married and living in Philadelphia, reflects back over the loves of his younger life. Stace will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our new feature on him.
Stace: Light Up Gold is a great album, one of my top three of the last year, with an excellent cover. It’s been a banner year for fans of the self-defaced album cover: this, Bowie’s Next Day and The Wondrous World Of Damon And Naomi (re-released on Record Store Day.) Also, while we’re there, I don’t know much about the Strokes, but that’s a great album cover too, with the name of the label bigger than the band. At least, I think that’s what’s happening.
I liked Parquet Courts the moment I heard them, though I was surprised to find that this tuneful, witty, angular pop music was actually punk: Perhaps I missed a few years in punk’s development. Another favourite recent record is that extremely good Daft Punk album, and I can confirm that isn’t punk at all (and includes my favourite pop single in ages, and that insanely great Giorgio Moroder track).
Parquet Courts’ singer sounds almost precisely like a young Jonathan Richman, and the band play fake-sloppy really well. The lyrics are very funny, very cynical— I happen to know because the album has an excellent bonus feature on my iPhone that means the lyrics pop up over the album cover when the song plays.
But you don’t need a digital lyric sheet to hear the words of “Master Of My Craft” (and in fact most of the words are well spat out): “Thread count—high/Commissions—high/Hourly rates—high/A minute of your time? Forget about it.” This cynical, little masterpiece ends with the epic pronouncement: “Ya know Socrates died in the fuckin’ gutter!”
He didn’t, but it doesn’t matter. It’s just really funny. The whole record’s wonderful.
Video after the jump.
