Can you, though? Write this down on your list of things to read here at some point in the very near future: nearly ten years after I stumbled across the Oh Holy Fools split and then teared up and then subsequently crashed into the rest of Conor Oberst’s early discography, I’m going to go back and listen again and document most of what I feel. Record by record. A former intern by for a visit just blushed when I asked her if she liked Bright Eyes. Chili red, she smiled and said she loved that music…. back when she was 14. She said it almost regretfully. But does that music really sound that young? When did he become corny? If you heard it today as an adult, would you cringe at the fact that you may or may not have beat your chest and crowed some ill-advised rant about Oberst being totally capable of outdoing Bob Dylan by the time he grows old and crusty. Maybe the latter’s worth feeling sheepish about but I have a feeling Fever and Mirrors and Lifted still hit as hard as Ray Lewis.

Saddle Creek announced fairly recently that they’re going to be re-issuing Bright Eyes’ 2004 split with Neva Dinova’s Jake Bellows, One Jug of Wine, Two Vessels, a package that’ll include unreleased tracks you can hear snippets of in the above video teaser. Their names: “Rollerskating,” “Happy Accident,” “Someone’s Love,” and “I Know You.”

As if the emo world needed something else to cry about: Bright Eyes, the emotive, long-standing project of Conor Oberst, is set to release its final album under that particular moniker in the fall of 2010, after recording tracks this coming fall and winter. Interviewed by the Omaha World Herald, Saddle Creek president Robb Nansel claims that Oberst “is closing the chapter on that moniker. I think he feels like Bright Eyes has a certain association, for better or worse. I think he’s trying to distance himself a little bit from what that means to people.” Whether or not this final Bright Eyes LP signals Oberst’s departure from Saddle Creek is unclear.

Monsters of Folk, bka Conor Oberst, Jim James, M. Ward and Mike Mogis have just made available the first track off their forthcoming self-titled album. It is called “Say Please” and you can get it by submitting, and we do mean submitting, your email address to their web overlords. The B-side to “Say Please,” entitled “Small Fork on the Outside” can be had by anyone willing to cry like a baby as Conor Oberst gives them a purple nurple. Welcome to the Record Industry 3.0.

Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes, Jim James of My Morning Jacket, and singer/songwriter M. Ward have teamed up again under the pseudonym Monsters of Folk, and this time to record a self-titled studio album set to hit shelves September 22nd, Relix reports. The trio have toured together off and on since 2004, usually with three individual sets followed by a collaborative finale. Mike Mogis, Bright Eyes member and Saddle Creek studio svengali, is also producing the supergroup’s debut album and is listed among the three songwriters on their cryptic website. Though nothing is official, a Fall tour following the album’s release is probable. We’re not sure where the monster part comes in, but we think it might have something to do with Jim James’ beard.

—Nikki Turner

[Photos by Autumn De Wilde]

She’s currently taking on Europe — for the second time in as many months — she’s been all over the U.S. and her third solo LP has barely even started to collect dust. Maria Taylor, who you might remember from her work with Orenda Fink in Azure Ray, calls her album LadyLuck, which in and of itself has proved to be pretty charming thus far — it’s been seen on the Heatseekers Chart, and her video for the single “Cartoons and Forever Plans” has broken 100,000 views. We caught up with her in between legs of her tour, on the day the album hit stores to chat about her crazy schedule, the making of her new album, where she’s been and where she’s going.
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