A music-obsessed, retired San Francisco lawyer, and author of the rock & roll memoir Jittery White Guy Music (available on Amazon)... picking a random album or song in his collection every day or so and sharing a few thoughts.
Mark Oliver Everett--centerpiece of the evolving Eels--can write the most emotionally devastating, pathos-rich songs this side of Mountain Goats' John Darnielle or Neutral Milk Hotel's Jeff Mangum, often unadorned and raw, but occasionally gussied up in surprisingly punch alt.rock tunes. "Last Stop: This Town," off 1998's Electro-Shock Blues, is another stand-out in the latter category. On the surface it's a fun little ditty that sounds oh-so-90s, with its bursts of distortion and turntable scratches, yet the skewed pop belies the sadness underneath, vague ruminations on the passing of a loved one. It works perfectly well in the abstract; but, recorded in the wake of Everett's sister's death by suicide, lines like "You're dead but the world keeps spinning, take a spin through the world you left" take on agonizing heft.
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