I once met Eels’ frontman Mark Oliver Everett, it was at Skylight books on Vermont Avenue, he was there for the signing of his autobiographical book ‘Things the grandchildren should know’ and he was walking with a cane. ‘Did you hurt yourself?’ I asked him while presenting the book, and Mark Oliver had this funny and sarcastic laugh while replying ‘Haha, no, I’m fine!’ I never knew why he had this cane and was faking it, but Everett is a joker. A joker and a sensible man who cultivates misery, who has written beauties like ‘It’s a motherfucker’ or ‘Grace Kelly Blues’ – I used to listen to ‘Daisies of the Galaxy’ for hours – but who also has had some let down. Who can remember the Eels’ last effort, ‘Wonderful, Glorious’? Not a very memorable one but it is possible that the prolific songwriter is back.
April 22nd will see the release of the Eels’ 11th studio album ‘The Cautionary Tales of Mark Oliver Everett’ (I already like the title) and you can already listen to the single, the very stripped down ‘Agatha Chang’. It’s a quiet and heartbreaking one, the kind of song that showcases Mark Oliver’s emotional baritone along acoustic plucked guitar and strings ruminating about a lost love,… yeah about what else could it be? The tune is quiet and very intimate, sincere and probably autobiographical, ‘I should have stayed with Agatha Chang’… ‘She didn’t cheat/She never lied’, he sings almost agonizing on that thought, so what went wrong Mark?
Everett can be very loud or very quiet, I guess this is the quiet one and a press release about the 13-track album describes it as an ‘extraordinarily vivid and intimate document of a personal struggle’. There is also a short and kind of spooky trailer for the album, and the music sounds a bit like ‘Blinking Lights and Other Revelations’ which is great news. Here is the tracklist of ‘The Cautionary Tales of Mark Oliver Everett’ and I am happy to see a song about parallels!
1. Where I’m At
2. Parallels
3. Lockdown Hurricane
4. Agatha Chang
5. A Swallow in the Sun
6. Where I’m From
7. Series of Misunderstandings
8. Kindred Spirit
9. Gentleman’s Choice
10. Dead Reckoning
11. Answers
12. Mistakes of My Youth
13. Where I’m Going
Deluxe Edition Bonus Disc:
01 To Dig It
02 Lonely Lockdown Hurricane
03 Bow Out
04 A Good Deal
05 Good Morning Bright Eyes
06 Millicent Don’t Blame Yourself
07 Thanks I Guess
08 On The Ropes (LIVE WNYC)
09 Accident Prone (LIVE WNYC)
10 I’m Your Brave Little Soldier (LIVE WNYC)
11 Fresh Feeling (LIVE KCRW)
12 Trouble WIth Dreams (LIVE KCRW)
13 Oh Well (LIVE KCRW)