Cat Power tried to quit music and instead found her confidence with the foreboding folk of this intimate and luminescent snapshot. After the tour for her third album 'What Would the Community Think', Chan Marshall was ready to retire: "Back then I had just—I didn’t go crazy, I just…I had just come from this really spiritual, life-or-death kind of situation in Africa. I was on a chessboard, and every day was like walking on a new step. I came back kind of spiritually penetrated. I couldn’t tell the difference between what I thought was a part of me and—it’s a long story, but I thought, I’m in Babylon, dude. I got to get out of New York. I got to get out of here. I had 3,000 bucks, I bought a truck for 1,500 bucks and drove up and down, from Virginia to Alabama and then back up. Around South Carolina, I got really fucking tired... I was like a bat out of hell. I saw a sign that said, “Prosperity,” I followed that sign 10 miles, kept going. I pulled in to the realtor, I saw the people putting boxes in the car, these two houses identical, side-by-side, on all this land. Cute little shitty houses, and one of them was for rent. I think it was $450 a month. I had to pay the deposit, which was $350, and that was that. I went back to the house and I pulled in and they had a potbellied pig inside the house as their pet. They were like straight-up CIA, all they had was computers and files and like, no furniture, just a bed and files and a potbellied pig. Anyway, so that’s where I lived with my boyfriend at the time... I thought I wanted to be a teacher. I wanted to get part-time work, after school things, just play basketball or make art or just something that’s easy enough and attentive. Because I can be super attentive, I can do lots of things at once. I mean, I used to be able to. My boyfriend was out of town for about three months and that’s when I spent three months where the only person I talked to was my neighbor. She’d had an accident, a brain injury, so she was psychologically and intellectually maybe 10 or 12. Maybe seven. She was the only person I talked to, and she was like a little kid. And I wrote all the time, I don’t even know where that shit is. And one night, I don’t even know what the fuck happened, but hell came to get me again. It was in a dream. I wrote these songs [that became 'Moon Pix'] that night, waiting for the sun to rise, because my house was surrounded by 150 trillion spirits pressing against my glass, trying to get in. It was fucked up and really horrifying. The songs were just like evidence...So the sun rose, I went back to New York and I kept looking for help. I went to priests. I didn’t get any help. It was a really difficult period. I had gotten a phone call from my friend Mike maybe two nights before that episode. He was like, Dude, what are you doing? You’re fucking up. You could be really doing something, and you’re just not putting anything in the universe, you’re just a loser. I was so pissed off. Then the afternoon after I came back from New York I got the phone call that he had died. Later that night I got a call about my friend Lenny. They died on the same day. So that’s when I woke up. I was like, you know what? What am I doing? And I had that cassette of songs and I thought, you know what? I’d played some shows with the [Australian group] Dirty Three, I thought, I’m gonna fax them. So I faxed Mick [Turner] and I asked him if he and Jim [White] would want to play on some songs. And I called Matador and said, I want to do another record and I need $3,500 or whatever I needed to cover my airfare [to Melbourne]. I was there for three months. After hanging out and having a great time, it was wonderful, and then Jim’s like, You know, Mick’s fuckin’ leaving in two days. So I got into the studio ... You know when you're packing for a trip and you don't know what the weather's gonna be like? That's what it was like for the two days we recorded ... With 'Moon Pix', I wanted to go to Australia, so I manipulated that I could go to Australia if I recorded an album; [Matador] would send me there, pay for the recordings. So, I came up with these song ideas while I was in the studio, like I was in a room by myself with a tape recorder...The thing with all the records is that it always felt like there was a pressure to put one out...with 'Moon Pix' there was no pressure. And the way my life was, then, it was sort of similar. I wasn’t touring all over the place; I was just parked in Melbourne for that summer, just chilling out ... I wanted to record. That's the first time I ever felt comfortable with what I was doing...I guess psychologically, emotionally, whatever, I'd gotten more mature and I trusted myself more, or something."
http://www.catpowermusic.com/
https://myspace.com/catpower
"American Flag"
features a slowed-down and reversed loop sample of the drum track from the Beastie Boys' 'Paul Revere'.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHcAGF-5lcY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uClfvjOqatk
"He Turns Down"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlaN1qAzhq8
"No Sense"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsGs2hCgGos
"Say"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfVdq7f6fFI
"Metal Heart"
"Back of Your Head"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xJ3vZq4Oh8
"Moonshiner"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lx120yg_JDk
"You May Know Him"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPiYRipLGV8
"Colors and the Kids"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2J9at0yxVpI
"Cross Bones Style"
"The real dance song is "Cross Bones Style." I'm thinking of making that the single and doing a full-on "Lucky Star" style video. Like Madonna, dancing in a white room. I'm sure I'll chicken out though. You know in your mind sometimes you listen to a good voice or a bad voice? I finally can hear the good voice. I'm shutting that bad voice out. My new record is more about that. It's weird, it's so different. I feel like I'm on Xanax, but I'm not. It's real."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRSUx5_MvJM
"Peking Saint"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHj5YriW59g
full album:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLniiH1IBXKfpRygLa0AiIDrKICDA3fIh
http://www.last.fm/music/Cat+Power/Moon+Pix
https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/moon-pix/id2959301
all songs written by Chan Marshall unless noted.
1. "American Flag" 3:30
2. "He Turns Down" 5:39
3. "No Sense" 4:50
4. "Say" 3:24
5. "Metal Heart" 4:02
6. "Back of Your Head" 3:43
7. "Moonshiner" (traditional) 4:50
8. "You May Know Him" 2:46
9. "Colors and the Kids" 6:35
10. "Cross Bones Style" 4:32
11. "Peking Saint" 2:28
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