Father John Misty – Pure Comedy pop-up

I think of Father John Misty as the Frank Sinatra of indie music. Rebellious, outspoken, terribly charming and quite a crooner.

The man behind the Misty, Josh Tillman, rarely breaks character and his cultural commentary manages to be searingly funny and terrifyingly accurate at times.

Last night, he hosted a group of friends (including Florence Welch (of Florence and the Machine), Jenny Lewis, and Moses Sumney, among others) and music industry folks at the Silent Movie Theater for a preview of his forthcoming album “Pure Comedy” (April 7/ Sub Pop), which was just announced this week (along with the release of the title track).

Being FJM, none of us had any idea what to expect and there’s something beautiful about unpredictability in an era when you know everything (thanks internet).

He screened a 25-minute documentary about the making of the album (which is 75 minutes long itself). Watch below and know that the best scene is the very last one, where he sings a loving tribute to his sound engineer Trevor Spencer.

Then, he invited Thomas Bartlett to the stage to play keys with his longtime producer Jonathan Wilson sitting in on drums for what he described as an unrehearsed cocktail hour performance.

He played a handful of songs, interrupting ever so often to crack a joke. My favorite was when he talked to the audience about the difficulty of singing the word “texts” — but noting, with a wink, that that’s why he gets paid so much, since it’s such hard work.

Needless to say, we have a lot to look forward to, including his appearance of Coachella.

RR

Pure Comedy tracklisting:

01 Pure Comedy

02 Total Entertainment Forever

03 Things It Would Have Been Helpful to Know Before the Revolution

04 Ballad of the Dying Man

05 Birdie

06 Leaving LA

07 A Bigger Paper Bag

08 When the God of Love Returns There’ll Be Hell to Pay

09 Smoochie

10 Two Wildly Different Perspectives

11 The Memo

12 So I’m Growing Old on Magic Mountain

13 In Twenty Years or So