DAMIEN JURADO
Harmonic presents
DAMIEN JURADO
plus special guest
COURTNEY MARIE ANDREWSMaster songwriter Damien Jurado is back in business and coming back to Ireland with a truly brilliant new album Brothers and Sisters of the Eternal Sun.
Check out this bio of Damien by Josh Tillman:
Damien is out of his goddamn mind.
Out there is nowhere, but inside is endless
Damien Jurado is every character in every Damien Jurado song. He is the gun, the purple anteater, the paper wings, the avalanche, the air show disaster, Ohio, the ghost of his best friend’s wife. It is a universe unto its own, with its own symbolism, creation myth, and liturgy. You might go as far as to call it a religion, and your religion is a character in his religion. Level with me. You are the recipient of an advance copy of Damien Jurado’s new album, Brothers and Sisters of the Eternal Sun (produced by Richard Swift). You are a progressive minded, left-leaning person who in parlor-style conversation regarding the globo-political ramifications of Sky Person relationships laughs knowingly so as not to be judgemental and very reasonably concedes “Well, I don’t believe He’s some old man with a beard sitting up in the clouds” at which point everyone agrees on [insert benign middle-ground] and moves on. Consider this: What if the only way to understand a religion is to create your own? Who is this Silver community? Where the hell are they in the Bible? Is this heresy? A gnostic reference? Isn’t this sun business a little, I don’t know, animistic? Pagan? Go ahead and answer that question for yourself. I’ll give you a second.
Do you understand the music any better? Faith is like theater: it isn’t meant to be read, or analysed it is meant to be performed and inhabited. Upon being asked if he believed in Gawd or not, Norman Mailer replied, “Sure, why don’t you and make him better?” You know that adage we all use so we have something to say while we shrug our shoulders? “People change”? That one. Is that applicable to Jesus Christ? Maybe he’s been on a personal journey of discovery since he ascended. He went through the 60’s, 70’s, he turned on, tuned out, got disillusioned. Why can’t we talk about that Jesus? Does it have to be the old-timey one all the time? American folk Jesus, ugh. The one who’s always winning Best Soundtrack Oscars for people. Rarely do stories of faith make us identify with Jesus. It’s Abraham, Satan, Silver Timothy, Salame, Dr. J, Saul of Tarsus; divinely imperfect brothers and sisters who give Gawd something to do. Damien Jurado made up his own Jesus because a Damien Jurado album needs a beautiful Jesus. Some freaky space Jesus that I don’t recognize. The name is the same, a lot of the imagery is the same, but he’s reborn. Born again, I mean. Yeah, as if Jesus got born again. That’s what this album sounds like. Jesus is out of his goddamn mind and I want to live in Damien’s America.