My Morning Jacket: I Think I'm Going to Hell
[purchase]
I've got My Morning Jacket on the brain today, so it seems apt that I should throw this one up now—the dramatic closer to Jim James & Co.'s excellent debut album from nine years back. This album blew my mind when it came out way back when. I was working in a record store and was bored to no end of all the new stuff surrounding me. I threw this album on with no expectations—actually, since it was on Darla Records, I expected it to be really twee—and subsequently listened to it two or three times daily for about three months. I lived and breathed this album when it came out.
It's strange to listen to The Tennessee Fire now, five albums into MMJ's career. The debut sounds so like yet unlike the rest of the band's output. I remember back in 1999 or 2000, they were on tour and they played the tiny little club I ran in downtown Phoenix; it served no alcohol, held 150 people packed, and doubled as an art gallery. Expecting a folky performance, I added a bunch of mellow bands to the bill—including me! pays to know the promoter, kids. Before they went on, Jim James handed me a copy of Black Sabbath's We Sold Our Souls for Rock and Roll to play over the soundsystem before they went on. Then I saw him pull out the flying V guitar. I knew I and the forty other people there were in for something we weren't expecting. It's so funny think that there might have been a time when you didn't expect My Morning Jacket to rock.
I'm getting off on a tangent as far as "I Think I'm Going to Hell" goes, but since I'm talking about that show: the best part, despite all the rocking, was when James walked off the stage and into the middle of the room—the show was the epitome of intimate, in a small room less than half full—and sang "I Will Be There When You Die" sans band, microphone, or amplification. One of the best concert moments of my life.
Final indulgent tangent: that night the band came to stay with my wife and I in our tiny little house. Our house was so small that one guy slept in their van, as there was literally no room on the living room floor. In the morning, the band was gone and two things were left behind: a tiny little thank-you note stuck to our refrigerator from "My Morning Crack Hit", and a pair of dirty—purple!—underwear on our bathroom floor. If only I had held onto that underwear... coulda made a mint on eBay.