After finally completing the discography. How *is* this guy so relatively unknown?


Damn.


And there's a drinking game, too!


Ha. Funny so far, my two favorites albums of the year thus far come from the two New Pornographers who AREN'T TOURING WITH THEM.

And, fuck, I'm going to be in Seattle when Destroyer comes to Chicago. How *are* they live, anyway?

i've only seen Destroyer live once, in '03 or so w/ Frog Eyes backing him, and i just wasn't very impressed.

hoping for better things this time around opening for Magnolia Electric Co. in a week or two. William Elliott Whitmore is opening the show as well!

as for why he's relatively unknown, i guess while i like him, i can def see why, it's not very easily digestable for someone who has never heard his stuff imo. took me a long time to get into Streethawk a number of years ago.

yeah but what the heck is he doing touring with Mates of State?

Can't wait to see him anyway, Rubies is still amazing (though it's been kicked out of mt top spot for 2006 recently for the new YYYs album), and Magnolia Electric Company should be pretty good too, as long as he doesn't skimp us on the songs: Ohia songs.

I love Dan Bejar's work with the New Pornographers, but I just don't get Destroyer.

Last time I saw him, he played a few songs from Rubies (A Dangerous Woman Up to a Point, Looter's Follies), and some stuff from City of Daughters and Streethawk. I enjoyed it, even though he didn't put much effort into the set. He really seemed to be on the skids for that leg of the tour. Beginning the set with Destroyer's the Temple was probably not the best move, though, especially when opening for TNP.

Yeah, but the same thing could be said of Dylan. Or could *have been.* Of course, Bejar's never wrote his "Blowing in the Wind."

I dunno. I think I see his stuff very culturally appropriate to the times.

Oh. And the yyy's. I'm no longer a single digit member! Can anyone re-up that?

Nah, the Variety Playhouse show in Atlanta. He was drunk before he even went onstage, and kept drinking between every song and just acted like the audience wasn't there and slurred through his lyrics...it was kind of pathetic.

AND SOMEONE'S GOT TO FALL BEFORE SOMEONE GOES FREE!

Yeah, Destroyer's been my favorite shit for a while, now.

Check out this page. Dude on here has all the tapes/7"s/etc. up for sharing.

Nice.

http://community.livejournal.com/streethawk/33730.html

Who exactly do you think you're accessing
When you're being
So community-minded?
Look, they took us from behind and said - "Hey, that's shit for sharing!"
And "I love what you're wearing.
Where did you get it anyway? And what d'you pay?"

Welcome to the board Kennan. You have fine taste.

Thanks, Nick. Much appreciated.

On a tangent, Bejar has done to me something I've never done: write a Amazon review blurb.


Fuck. I need to get to the roots of why this man's shit has obsessed me to no end.

yeah, i'll put Bejar in top 5 songwriters of the decade.

Yeah, this guy is amazing, I can't believe it's taken me this long to get into them, even though I knew fully well about Destroyer and that Dan was in the New Pornographers for a few years now. I hate myself for being late to the party, but I'm glad I finally arrived. This guy has an edge on 99% of the songwriters out there.

his melodies are mediocre.

Lyrically, he cannot be touched.

exactly

i tried listning to that new album twice and got bored half way through and had to turn it off


does this take several listens?

depends...

if you like lyrics that are abstract and don't really have a ton of meaning behind them, but are still cool lyrics all the same, sure. but i know a lot of people who prefer lyrics w/ meaning is all.



while i think those are pretty cool lyrics, they don't really say shit to me (and i'm speaking as someone who LIKES Destroyer).

I don't hear enough lyricists like him, so I guess I like the change of pace from people who try to fit rhyme schemes and use tired rhymes like glad/sad/mad. I don't know half of what he's saying, but I love the way he says it. A few weeks ago my friend and I were at a bar with an internet jukebox, and we found that we could download The Sublimation Hour for 2 credits! I jumped at the chance, and after waiting forever listening to country and pop shit that was queued before us, finally it started. The bartender wanted to close at that point, I had told him how many songs we had left, and about 30 seconds into it he's playing with the remote for the volume, which turned it all the way up, and for some reason he couldn't turn it down, and he just ends up shutting the whole thing off. FUCKER! One less bar I get to frequent now.

I just downloaded the album last night and all I can say is, Holy Damnit, it's stunning. Reminds me tons of Built To Spill in spots, especially during the first song.

Really impressive, did it come out in 2005 or 2006?
If 2006 it's already a top 5 by end of year for me.

06. It's a mortal lock for the top 10 round here.

I can pretty much guarantee that Destroyer's Rubies will be in my Top 05 for best albums of '06, which is quite telling considering it is still so early in the year. However, I havent decided if i like it more that Your Blues. While many dismissed it for its reliance on MIDI instrumentation, i found it nothing short of stunning. My two fav Destroyer tracks are from that album (Its Gonna Take an Airplane, Actor's Revenge).

I just want to point out that the song Rubies is one of the most amazing songs I've ever heard. It goes in so many different directions, emotions, sounds, etc.

It's very Perfect From Now On esque, and reminds me that I need to put that album back on my ipod.

If someone has that song to YSI for anyone who has not heard it, please do. What a song. Stunning.

Bumping this thread because I didn't think Rubies could be better now than it was in March. After listening to City of Daughters/Thief/This Night/Streethawk/Your Blues/Notorious Works/Swan Lake over the months, I think I'm in serious crush mode on this fellow.



*Swoon*

I'm surprised so many people like him. It seems like everywhere else I go, people talk shit about him. I only knew him from Pornographers at first, and I thought they sucked, cuz most of the songs were too over-the-top poppy. Oddly enough though, the few songs I did like were originally written by him, and so when I found Destroyer, I pretty much ate all that shit up. Can't say what my favorite album is, but it shifts between This Night and Destroyer's Rubies mostly.

The best band.

Ever.

Awful, except for City of Daughters, which is excellent.

Twilight Singers > Destroyer No?

destroyer is great. This Night and Rubies are better than Streethawk. I need the frog eyes one and the other one. yeah, that one. Your blues. there you go. he's a fucking bad ass that dan bear.

Probably cuz it's the most accessible. It's more like a regular rock album.

The other stuff is too weird for most. I kinda like it.

I wouldn't say weird, I'd say annoying, but to each his own.

Top 3 - definately

Two and a half years later, and Your Blues remains one of my favorite albums.

someone should upload that for me. pretty please? I try not to do that much cause it's annoying but I'm kinda broke right now.

I second the "annoying"

The lyrics are great but I didnt show up for poetry over poor music delivered with a nasal cadence reminiscent of Doug Henning trying to inject a "sense of wonder" into the end of each line.

Edit: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND

You're too good to them. I was considering uploading Notorious Lightening for that one guy, but I'm kinda lazy.

hugz.

I would say that even two and a half years later Your Blues gets better every time I spin it. his best album by far.

Chrono is a good boarder.

I get annoyed by Your Blues. There's a lot of songs on there that are good during the Frog Eyes rendition, but are ruined by the cheesey synths on the actual album. It's the only one I can't listen to too much.

Board hard or go home is my motto

Nearly a year later, I still stand by this statement.

Best songwriter around right now, for sure. 2006 was the year I first heard him (thank you, SOMB...shit, it probably started with this very thread) and pretty much spent 6 months straight listening to nothing but Destroyer. Rubies was my starting point and still my favorite, but it's all good

Oh, shit, yes. Hugz, definitely.

dude, the cheesy synth lines make the songs what they are. there is a ton of jangly indie rock nowadays, but damn there is very little that sounds like Your Blues.

Yeah, that's the main reason why I love the album. There were actually several albums that I was listening to a ton during that year that have a lot of that ultra-lush synth sound going for them. I discovered Your Blues at the perfect time, really. Besides, I just love the songs. "New Ways of Living"? "An Actor's Revenge"? "From Oakland To Warsaw"? You're right, it really doesn't sound like anything else; certainly not "jangly indie rock." Perhaps that's why Rubies ended up being surprisingly huge (well, not actually "huge," but you know) while Your Blues was sort of left in the shadows, destined to one day be an "underrated classic" or something. "Dan Bejar's lost 2004 synth laden sophisti-glam-pop classic is actually really good! Also in this month's issue of Mojo, a seven page color photo spread on classic rock legends BAND OF HORSES." I don't know.

chrono, you are a true man in most ways that can be interpereted. paves, I'm really only listening to this cause you said it was good and disco inferno is good...watch your back.

and Maxpowersuprime...I will come into your house and shit on your bed when you are away for your comments. but thanks anyway.



Edit: leave it to montana to wander into a thread about an artist he hates and post stupid pictures. go ride a horse or something mountian/cowboy-ish.

Yeah, I imagined it was an insult, but I don't know who that guy is, so it didn't really bother me.

lol

Your Blues really sucks though, just saying.