Father John Misty is the nom de soft rock of one Joshua Tillman, a.k.a. J. Tillman, ex-drummer for Fleet Foxes and author of eight largely ignored and invariably joyless solo albums of pious folk rectitude. Those LPs remain a well-kept secret. And then one day in 2010, he blew up his life. Killed off J. Tillman, quit the Fleet Foxes, let his raging id off the short leash it had been kept on since his tormented childhood trapped in a fundamentalist Christian house of pain. Instead of muting his wicked sense of humor and bottomless appetite for the absurd, he turned it up to 11. He changed his stage name to Father John Misty. Threw his guitar and a family-size sack of magic mushrooms into the van, and set the controls for the heart of Babylon. Fear Fun (Sub Pop), Father John Misty’s debut, came out a year ago, and after 12 months of trippin’-balls touring, inclusion on innumerable year-end best-of lists and a lot of swooning word of mouth on social media, the album has become the sleeper hit of the year. Tillman will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our recent print cover story on him.
Tillman: A fascinating and in-depth look into how Seattle founding father Everett True confounded conventional medical wisdom and gave birth to three sons who, under his tutelage, would go on to become America’s beloved alternative-rock band Nirvana. Follow Everett as he teaches his offspring their respective instruments, and tries to encourage his eldest, Kurt, whose father’s brilliant and groundbreaking shadow looms largest. In one particularly mercurial passage, Everett details the oft-loved and legendary story wherein he upstages Nirvana at one of their earliest shows, bringing the house down with a solo cover of the Beatles’ “I’m Down.” Says True, “The crowed fucking loved it. I liked this city. That night, as far as I was concerned, Nirvana were trounced on every front.” A must read for anyone even vaguely interested in the life and times of a very important man who did a lot of important things.
Video after the jump.
