Elvis Perkins in Dearland

Who could have thought that the son of Psycho would turn out to be the epic voice of my respective yet beautiful generational ideal? This young man makes Bob Dylan look like Bob Saget! He makes Beck sound bleak! He makes Ryan Adams sound even more like Ryan Adams! And ultimately, and in time…he’ll make Donovan sound like, well…Donovan! Now just how fucked is that, my sweet little toasty bun? This chap has got some stories to tell. The songs are long diary entries from Hell. Sure, he’s an ultra creepy Hippie who’s probably cried his way through one too many Cat Stevens albums, but most importantly he is not Freak Folk or Anti-Folk. No erratic Joanna Newsom nonsense coming from this chap, no fraudulent jerk-qualities, such as is the case with a nightmare known as Devendra Barnhart. No super wimpy overproduced rubbish, such as is the case with our good friend Sufjan Stevens. And finally, no tasteless humor or laughable pretty-boy qualities like one would bump into with the likes of Adam Green or Ben Kweller.

Dig, Thurston Moore was a hero to most but he never meant shit to me! That sucker was flat out racist, fuck him and Kurt Cobain! Elvis Perkins and his mates in Dearland are doing something super special, and that is putting genuine thought and heart back into Pop, albeit Folk-Pop in this instance. The production is minimal on the "Ash Wednesday" album, which is the debut released earlier this year. The cut “While You Were Sleeping” is both earnest and interesting, which is no easy task. Perkins, having grown up on the mean streets of Hollywood, much like fellow Hollywood brat Beck Hansen, is a chap that has breathed the same air as phonies since his birth, so it is interesting that his musical outings are not layered with irony or any blatant hipster chic. Elvis knows the score and he really seems to be in it for the music, since he personally does not exactly need the money. This can be a good place to work from, and it is nice to observe contemporary Folk stylings that are both related and unrelated to a genre that holds such diverse ancestry. Although, I would not call it music of the moment…but rather, something that is slightly out of time or sort of in limbo.

Dig the following Elvis Perkins propaganda films and read Kerouac’s “On the Road” yet again you ugly little failures…





Peace, mates! (And enjoy this new Nirvana).