Saturday, April 27, 2024

Song(s) of the Day # 3,720 The Goalie's Anxiety At The Penalty Kick

The Goalie's Anxiety At The Penalty Kick. A stone cold Existentialist classic novel from 1970 by Austrian writer Peter Handke.  About an unhappy disolute man who commits murder and then spends the rest of the book seeking to escape from himself and his lack of remorse. Without success. I told you it was Existentialist .. The kind of thing I tracked down and latched onto hungrily as a teenager undergoing the process of construction of who and what I was.

An equally fine early Will Wenders arthouse movie. And now fifty years an more on an excellent Philidelphia band of Indie misfits and today's Song(s) of the Day. The kind of proud statement of individuality and desire that always jumps out at aging would be bohemian oddballs like me.

Six fellow travellers from the city of brotherly love setting out on their journey. Their second album The Illiad & The Odyssey  & The Goalie's Anxiety of the Penalty Kick shines forth with the hungry vision of youth. The moment when you're devouring these classics for the first time. Discovering love. Making those friendships and alliances that will keep you secure and safe for the rest of your journey. Shaping your soul.

Listening to this first thing on a bright April morning with the sun streamung through my windows makes me glad to be alive and pleased I made my way on the road I chose when I was 16. That I.found my way to The Go Betweens and Television. Carson McCullers and Graham Greene. Camus and Sartre. Satie and Debussy. Oliver Postgate and Roald Dahl. Hal Ashby and Gustav Klimt. The girls I fell for and the friendships I forged.

The Illiad & The Odyssey  & The Goalie's Anxiety of the Penalty Kick is a record from a band htat instinctively understands the small joys of these choices and this act of formation.These people are born bohemians. This is a fantastic record and a fresh love 


2 comments:

  1. This is great, isn't it? Really liked the first album, too. I was convinced their name was based on a Camus book, but have a feeling now that he was actually a goalkeeper at one point!

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  2. I suspecte it would be good, just given the name. It exceeded all expectactions. Camus was a goalkeeper. Nabokov too. The film of this name is good but rather mean.

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