The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Wednesday, February 11, 2015 — 5A
‘Honeybear’ is
candid and lovely
Father John Misty
becomes a romantic
on latest album
By BRIAN BURLAGE
Daily Arts Writer
For most of the 18th century,
men like Father John Misty
were referred to as libertines.
Their aim was
pleasure,
their
creed was self-
satisfaction.
They
weren’t
immoral
so
much
as
they
were
amoral.
Society’s
rules
and
standards
weren’t flawed,
necessarily,
but they were just inadequate,
inaccurate and irrelevant. Much
of their daily routines consisted
of
elaborate
and
self-aware
schemes
for
attention,
and
anything done during the day
was done in the joy of leisure.
Men like Father John Misty
lived in whimsy. They lived
in the world they created for
themselves.
It’s important to consider I
Love You, Honeybear within this
context because until now, for
Father John Misty, the concept
of sex has been easy. The concept
of love, on the other hand, has
not. Love in this framework is
like that elusive but fearsome
luxury,
the
awe-inspiring
aura that lurks behind scented
candles, French bottles of wine
and Egyptian cotton bed sheets.
In Father John Misty’s eyes, the
mystery in any relationship isn’t
a question of sex or harbored
secrets, but of how two people –
any two people – can create this
thing called love between them.
Misty (a.k.a. Josh Tillman)
has called I Love You, Honeybear
a concept album, inspired by
the experience of his marriage
to
his
long-time
girlfriend,
Emma, who is a photographer.
The essential “concept” of the
album is that it tries to recreate
the confusions as he felt himself
becoming
more
and
more
exposed – a sort of gradual turn
of soul. He found his own world
invaded and usurped by the
world of a wonderful woman.
For the first time in his life, he
could feel his schemes, tricks
and self-defenses dissolve into
something like real affection.
The
true
shock
occurred
when he realized that he was
strangely comfortable with all
of this.
The
album’s
enormous
sound is, in part, a response
to the disorientation we feel
when we must surrender our
own defenses to someone we
care about but hardly know.
On I Love You, Honeybear,
Misty
constructs
cathedrals
to give his emotions enough
space to reverberate and then
conclusively
condense.
The
album’s landscape is vast and
expansive, but it’s also filled
with intricacies and subplots.
Take these 11 songs together
and there’s a collected sense
that Father John Misty reaches
and expands out into the open
plains of love – in the hope of
finding some small truth to take
back with him to share with
Emma.
And he does. He does this
a thousand times over. This
is Tillman the monogamous
lover, the loyal husband, the sex
symbol in hiding, baring his soul
to his new wife, listing all the
things he barely understands
about their union. His anxiety
is evident from the outset, as he
sings in the opener, “My love,
you’re the one I want to watch
the ship go down with / The
future can’t be real, I barely
know how long a moment is.”
And, for a moment, this sounds
like an earnest confession. Then,
Misty qualifies it with, “Unless
we’re naked, getting high on
the mattress.” In fact, many of
the album’s sincerest moments
are delivered within these little
quips and witticisms. They’re
fun and intelligent. He writes
them in so often and under
every
circumstance,
which
proves his great devotion to this
budding love. While the humor
might sound affronting at first,
we come to understand that it’s
just his way of being himself.
Aside from the soul-filled
philosophical aspects of the
album, it is, in its sound alone,
a folk-pop masterpiece. These
songs could exist as any one
of a dozen Elton John B-sides
or
Randy
Newman
bootleg
cuts. Misty pulls the melodies
straight from ’70s psychedelic
rock and adds to them the emo-
tional gusto of modern folk
and indie, making them sturdy,
replete with warmth. The rich-
est part, perhaps, of I Love You,
Honeybear is that it sounds like
a complete album. “Chateau
Lobby #4 (in C for Two Vir-
gins)” touches on the southern
influence, while “True Affec-
tion” graces electronic. “When
You’re Smiling and Astride Me”
bears soul, “Strange Encoun-
ter” addresses prog rock and
“The Ideal Husband” achieves
classic rock.
The
album’s
emotion
culminates with the last three
tracks,
each
reminiscent
of
a
distinct
Beatles-esque
temperament.
“Holy
Shit”
is teeming with historic and
cultural
allusion
as
Misty
wonders what it all has to do
with him. In his reasoning,
Misty stops and ponders when
he reaches the idea of love.
“Maybe love is just an economy
based on resource scarcity,” he
belts uncertainty along with
several other questions. Then,
however, he offers the song’s
first assured statement, the one
thing he knows for sure: “But
our fantasy is what that’s gotta
do with you and me.”
While “I Went to the Store
One Day” quietly capitalizes on
this sentiment, “Bored in the
USA” predicts it. Indeed, “Bored”
supersedes the whole album as
a reflection on what it means
to love in modern American
society. Set to a soft piano
melody and backed by a chorus
of strings, Misty reveals how
far he’s come in his time with
Emma. “Now, I’ve got a lifetime
to consider all the ways / I’ve
grown more disappointing to you
/ As my beauty warps and fades
/ I suspect you feel the same,”
he sings. Suddenly, the album
clicks. In light of his marriage,
his emotional confusion and
thoughts about love, a clear idea
takes shape. Father John Misty
has
become,
hopelessly
and
unwittingly, a romantic.
ALBUM REVIEW
SUB POP RECORDS
“We don’t want none unless you got man buns, hun(nybear)”
A
‘I Love You,
Honeybear’
Father John
Misty
Sub Pop Records
TV REVIEW
‘Saul’ needs to break
out of ‘Bad’ ’s shadow
By CHLOE GILKE
Managing Arts Editor
“Better Call Saul” is no “Break-
ing Bad.”
Ever since the acclaimed meth
tragedy
aired
its
brilliant
finale one year,
four
months
and 13 days ago
(not
that
I’m
counting),
a
Jesse Pinkman-
shaped hole has
remained
in
TV’s collective
heart. No other
series
could
ever thrill in quite the same way
as “Breaking Bad.” Nothing can
ever strike all the same nerves and
leave viewers breathless and curs-
ing Vince Gilligan’s name when
the end title card flashes across the
screen. But “Breaking Bad” is over,
and “Better Call Saul” has risen to
Heisenberg’s money throne. To be
successful, “Saul” needed to assert
its independence with a series pre-
miere that leaves all comparisons
in the Albuquerque dust.
“Better
Call
Saul”
follows
“Breaking
Bad”
fan-favorite
Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk,
“Nebraska”) back in 2002, when
his name was Jimmy McGill
and his characteristic bravura
and grandiose confidence didn’t
extend past the courtroom. Jimmy
is introduced as an unglamorous
public defender, the very antithesis
of Saul. His office is in a cramped
corner of a storefront nail salon,
he drives a vulgar yellow car
that’s a far cry from the smooth
Caddy that he drove in “Breaking
Bad” and he barely makes $700
defending a couple of little teenage
shits who jerked off into a severed
head. But even through these
pathetic endeavors, Odenkirk’s
performance
shines
with
a
familiar charisma. His name is
Jimmy and he’s got a sleeper sofa
in his office, but this dude is Saul
Goodman to the core.
But more than escaping his
dire financial situation and get-
ting cases that don’t involve mas-
turbating into severed heads,
what Jimmy really craves is some
adventure in his life. He recalls
the days he was known as “Slip-
pin’ Jimmy” of Cicero, the kid who
slid on every icy surface in Chicago
and collected every injury check
he could get his hands on. When
Jimmy literally runs into a couple
of skater punks and realizes that
their intentional dive in front of
his car was a Slippin’ Jimmy-level
scheme, he can’t help but want to
join up. The kids know the busi-
ness and Jimmy knows the chem-
istry, so they team up to rip off an
embezzling bureaucrat and reap-
propriate his stolen cash into their
empty pockets. Unlike Walter
White, Jimmy McGill already has
the slimy DNA, and all he needs is
one catalyst to help him break bad.
Where “Better Call Saul” fal-
ters, though, is in its shameless
homage to its parent series. The
show makes a fairly convincing
case for why it should be seen as
a separate entity from “Breaking
Bad,” but “Saul” still occasionally
slips back into “Breaking Bad”-
lite territory. The premiere’s
opening shows Saul working in a
Nebraska Cinnabon store, frown-
ing and making melancholy cin-
namon rolls to an incongruous
musical
soundtrack.
Stylisti-
cally, the black and white visu-
als and montage editing could
be straight out of an episode of
“Breaking Bad,” but the scene
also lacks a more metaphorical
color. In showing viewers what
happened to Saul after he left the
“Breaking Bad” universe, “Saul”
assumes that its viewers need
a cheap hook to engage with
Jimmy’s story. “Breaking Bad” is
dead and gone, and “Saul” would
be wiser not to dig up its bones.
“Better Call Saul” also spot-
lights a few “Breaking Bad”
alums in addition to Odenkirk,
Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan
Banks, “Community”) and Tuco
Salamanca
(Raymond
Cruz,
“Major Crimes”) in the first two
episodes alone. Their characters
are incorporated with varying
degrees of success. Mike runs the
booth at the parking lot where
Jimmy parks his car, and while
it’s great to see Banks again, the
fact that he’s manning a park-
ing lot booth makes little sense.
Wasn’t Mike supposed to be a for-
mer Philadelphia cop? Does this
parking lot nonsense take place
before or after he became a pro-
fessional “fixer” and henchman?
Why didn’t he continue to give
Saul shit about always forgetting
to pay for a fifth sticker when the
two were in “Breaking Bad?” So
far, Mike hasn’t been given suffi-
cient material to justify his being
on this show, but I trust that
Jonathan Banks wouldn’t agree
to appear on “Saul” unless he had
better prospects than this silly
cameo.
At the end of the first half of
the premiere, Jimmy finds a gun
pointed to his face and some
shadow in the doorway threat-
ening to shoot it. The camera
swivels to reveal Tuco, perpetu-
ally angry and protective of his
elderly relatives as we remember
him from “Breaking Bad.” It’s an
effective cliffhanger, but one that
assumes that everyone watching
has seen “Breaking Bad.” This
is a dangerous assumption for a
network to make when it needs
a show to gather its own unique
fanbase. Tuco is incorporated
into the plot more smoothly in
the next episode, but it still plays
like a re-hashing of the episode
“Grilled” in the second season
of “Breaking Bad.” Tuco holds
innocent people hostage while
his old family member is home,
shouts a lot and threatens them
until a dire injury puts an end to
the situation. Fans of the parent
show have seen this all before,
and it’s unfortunate that “Better
Call Saul” so actively refuses to
break new ground with its plot.
“Better Call Saul” doesn’t
deserve all these comparisons.
When you strip away its art-
less
rehashing
of
“Breaking
Bad” material, the dark humor
is sublimely biting, and Jimmy
is a compelling subject for char-
acter study. But “Saul” needs to
divorce itself from Saul Good-
man, Walter White and Jesse
Pinkman. Jimmy shouldn’t aim
to become some mythic, law-
yer version of Heisenberg. Cor-
ruption already pumps through
his veins, whether he’s Jimmy
from the block, Saul the king or
Gene in a sad mall Cinnabon –
we know exactly who this man
is at his core. “Better Call Saul”
already holds promise of being
great on its own, if only it would
stop leaning on “Breaking Bad”
and give this lawyer his justice.
AMC
“Where’s Huell when you need him?”
B
‘Better
Call Saul’
Series Premiere
Mondays at
10 p.m.
AMC