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Adrian Orange :: THANKSGIVING We will call this the introduction. Thanksgiving needs no introduction. Thanksgiving needs listening, enjoyment and admiration everlasting. Thanksgiving is Adrian Orange. Thanks given.
{ sctas } + How are you? { Adrian } Very well. Drinking coffee. It's hot. Trying to go swimming a lot. I see there is an art & music festival you're a part of coming up in the next week or so (that was late May, 2005), in Eugene, OR. Where are you currently living? I live in Portland, OR. I grew up here too. We are going to that festival today. There is a new place called "DIVA", where that festival is happening in eugene, which stands for "Downtown Initiative for the Visual Arts" and it is a very cool place to have an event. The festival lists Thanksgiving and Watery Graves - the latter of which you are a member of as well, can you give us a slight summary of the 2 bands? Yes, well, um, the Watery Graves of Portland is an instrumental band, meaning there is no singing. It is mostly tied together by Curtis Knapp's piano playing and pretty piano song writing, accompanied by drums usually and bass and sometimes other things. I usually play the drums, but I have been playing guitar a little lately. We have that tape EP called The Sea & Skies Above and a new "full length" record getting finished this month. Thanksgiving is where I play my songs with words and singing. And it has different sounds and arrangements all the time on recordings. At a show though, it is usually just me singing with a guitar or a drum or something. Marriage release No. 001 is your album Nothing - is this the earliest of the Thanksgiving releases? As well, would Now It's All Over Like The Birds be the second? No, before nothing there was We Could Be Each Other's Evidence which came out on Vit Vit Records - a very small label from Canada. It has a band where Curtis from the Watery Graves plays bass and some other friends play drums and guitars and it is real rocking and sloppy. So nothing is the second and Now it is all Over like the Birds is the third. I now sit corrected.
The organic artwork (sometimes hand-painted ["Now It's All Over.. "], sometimes screened [vinyl]) that accompanies the records - are these all Adrian Orange originals? Yeah, except Welcome Nowhere - the drawings on the cover of that were made by Phil Elverum, who put it out. My proper introduction to your music was that amazing Welcome / Nowhere 12", your "collaboration" with Phil - you stated that this wasn't the first time you recorded together, correct? Yeah, we recorded The Ghost & The Eyes w/ Trees in the Ground, Outside the Window ((which was released as #2 of the Pregnancy Series (slender means society/states rights records) first.)) The liner notes that accompany The Ghost and the Eyes.. states the recording is "...Thanksgiving wandering deeper into the forest (literally).. " - which leads me to ask was (any) of this album recorded in, well, the woods? That record and Welcome Nowhere were both recorded in a little hut above a lake in Anacortes, Washington where Phil was living for a while. It was a very utopian, oasis like place that we liked to call "Nowhere".
How long have you been playing music, and how has your recording / style changed over time? Since I was 9. It's changed a lot, it's always changing I think, I hope it never stops. It would take a long time to describe specifically how it's changed, and I think it would be kind of boring. It's been so much a part of my life that I would have to tell the whole story of my life to really cover all the changes, which I guess I would like to do someday when I am old, if it seems like it would be useful to the world in some way. What's next for Thanksgiving (or any other projects).. . Yes. There is a triple vinyl self-titled record coming out this fall. And it looks like there will also be a CD called Cave Days coming out around then. And I am going on some "tours". Do you have a favorite holiday? What makes Adrian Orange happy? Days
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Thanksgiving
Welcome / Nowhere ( Marriage Records | PWE & Sun) 2004 "I want to be welcome so I accept that I live in the world that I'm living in" Settle 'round my small s'more flame there sportsman, as I prepare to tell of the kindest, warmest & damn-near most spectacular album I heard all of the year that was two-thousand and four. The band is Thanksgiving, and the album of spoken praise is Welcome / Nowhere - a blinding delight of one Adrian Orange joined by an eerie cast of faithful fellows (Phil Elverum, Alex Church.. .) and young beauties (Geneviéve Elverum, Meghan Crotty.. .). Welcome / Nowhere begins just as it will swell and subside (for the most part), with the monotone somberness of Sir A. Orange and his trustworthy acoustic, as this team simmers like morning embers on the last eve's woodfire. "Welcome", "Just Ice" and "Money" - the first three compositions on the album (which, now may be a good time to tell, is on 12" white vinyl - more later*) blend like one glorious track. If you are not keeping watch of the needle, you will likely take these 3 for one lone, desperate stream of amazement.. . you will likely show this emotion no matter what side of the vinyl you are on. "Just Ice", more so than the surrounding tracks, plays like there may have been some double-tracking at certain points - yet still just Adrian and his acoustic. "Money" is where the album begins it's travel down the path that will have you in total awe - lights out, sitting in your rocker at hours past midnight humming along with the Microphones-like chorus of angels. This track is also the first chance you may have to absorb the true authenticity of Thanksgiving's lyrical content: "And I will spend my life this way until it's gone / on the coldest, vastest night / with a waterfall in my spine / and watch the water roll off me". Follower "Don't be afraid" travels back to the signpost that points to only Adrian and his guitar, for now you are certainly perked for all that he will give for the remainder of Welcome / Nowhere. I fear I am rambling, and I know that my words cannot even begin to transfer the beauty this near 40-minute album contains and reveals - listen after listen after listen.. . "Get Married", final track for the A-side (and a true chunk of brilliance), comes as close as Thanksgiving does to the land worshiped by Will Oldham and his many "noms de Tren" - a comparison that will likely be made, however it's Adrian's ability to cast lyrics worth reading alone as poetry that surpasses Oldham. "Get Married" also features that Microphones-esque chorus ( I did tell you the Elverum's are credited, right? Phil produced this kitten), slightly reminiscent of the quieter moments on "the Glow" (from 'It Was Hot We Stayed In the Water'). Positively one of the better sides of an album since the Beatles packed all that genius into side 1 of the White Album - I'm not joking, so please remove the puzzled smile from your face. The B-side is where the logic furthers itself from anything you have heard of recent, past or likely ever again. Tracks six through ten are a touch more distinguished - in that they add other instrumentation not on side A like a simple set of drums ("Nowhere"), random beats / electronics and a steel drum ("Hoo Hoo I Am, Wildly") . Flipside opener "Nowhere" continues to awe with the albums undeniable theme that 'cold & stark is the emotion we bring forth'. "Seasons, Years" is where we are introduced to a small background of ambiance while Mr. Orange takes over unaccompanied by any other instruments - even his faithful acoustic has been cast aside and we can (again) truly admire the wealth his lyrics contain. Things come to a close with the combined eight minute "Home Alone" and "Home Alone 2", where each instrument (steel drum, percussion and all) and companion in song seems to somehow make their way in somewhere.. . somehow. There is even a deep-voiced under-vocal on choice lyrical content such as: "All things will be a mystery to you, man / You'll never have a fucking clue". What better to save and complete an album as stark and equally mesmerizing as Welcome / Nowhere. Being clueless never felt so rewarding. Vitals*: The album is packaged with a handwritten / drawn lyric booklet that also has pages that, as instructed by A. Orange, are to be watercolored "paint by numbers style". The 2-color cover is screened on the inside of 'recycled' thrift-store album covers, such as Tennessee Ernie Ford's All-Time Favorite Hymns.. at least that's who I got. This is also credited as the first release on P.W. Elverum & Sun ltd. Records [ELV 000], better known as Phil of The (previously stated) Microphones. There is nothing about this record that you should be the least bit unsatisfied with - I've even transferred mine to cd-r so I can take it everywhere. A-fucking plus! Portland-via-Anacortes for life.
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