speed of dark

Here's another episode from Uncle T's Day 1 at Austin City Limits 2008. I have two older albums by M. Ward, The Transfiguration of Vincent (2003) and End of Amnesia (2001), but I have not been very impressed with Ward's recent partnership with Zooey Deschanel in She and Him (which is not even grammatically correct). On the endorsement of the fan in this account, I will have to give more ear-time to his latest full-length, Post-War (2006).

~alt-gramma~

M. Ward

I have to admit I was never a big M. Ward fan prior to this concert, and the only reason I was there for his set was to get a good seat to see Jenny Lewis’ set immediately following his. I sat beside a young couple, who happened to be from my home state of Mississippi. They live in Cleveland, MS and were very nice. The guy was a big M. Ward fan, and considered seeing his set the significant single moment of this entire festival (what an endorsement).

Afterwards he said M. Ward played songs mainly from his latest Post-War CD, both solo and with a backing band. When I got back from Austin I purchased some songs from Post-War, and they’re very good. So I’m beginning to get into him (better late than never).

Despite a pretty good set from him and his band, there were sound problems (bass and electric guitar feedback) that were never resolved. Before the set started the sound guys worked quite awhile, not getting it right, and delayed the set’s start by 15 minutes, which in turn delayed the start of Jenny Lewis’ set.



The Set list included:
• Roller Coaster (the only Post-War song I recognized simply by the title)
and other songs ("Poison Cup," Chinese Translation," "Requiem," and "Right In the Head") from Post-War
and
• Story of an Artist (Daniel Johnston cover) (from KEXP): Cool cover song.
FYI: I once saw Daniel Johnston in concert in the early 90’s at an independent music festival in Dallas (but that’s another story).

MySpace | Website | Label: Merge Records
Buy at M. Ward Store, Amazon.com, and eMusic