Not sure if anyone else has have made this connection or if it's been confirmed, but I've always felt like "Virginia" (from Strange Negotiations) and "My Little Brother" (from Walsh's Songs of Pain and Leisure) were about the same person.

I believe they were released around the same time and they both describe a brother or a friend that's like a brother. The person is wise but also troubled or flawed in some way and both songs seem to be tributes to them after they have passed away.

For reference: Virginia: https://youtu.be/0R64pMF8ey8?si=1DJpObrDHPCYgAef

My Little Brother: https://youtu.be/gCy_H_jXXBI?si=OkWh6AzoqmxeanUV

Anyone's Smartpunk green variant of Santa Cruz shipped yet? Description said it would ship 6/6 but it hasn't and I haven't gotten any updates on it. It hasn't appeared on Discogs yet so I'm assuming it hasn't shipped for anyone else either? Bit annoyed because my $12 Amazon Santa Cruz vinyl (unknown variant) that I bought a day or two before the album released is getting here tomorrow, but the variant I preordered months ago still isn't here.

Anyone attending today at 3pm E ?

https://pedrothelion.bandcamp.com/merch/santa-cruz-listening-party

https://youtu.be/aBXtkiLy1B8?si=tLxgCMi6bqe2DqCr
https://youtu.be/9Z-k7QO-x0U?si=eOdYS8RboUlXtKCr

David Bazan has a pretty extensive discography. Which album do you think deserves more praise?

edit: including music under other bazan bands

hey fellow white ghosts! i’m looking for Live at Grey Eagle and Live at Electrical Audio if anyone can hook it up i’d be super grateful

TW Walsh, David Bazan, & Casey Foubert released a song in 2013 called “Real Bad Dreams” and it fucking ruled, so good. It has been wiped from existence—I cannot find it anywhere. Does anyone have this jam?

I used to have a soundboard recording I found online of Bazan solo at the Gray Eagle and I cannot seem to find it anywhere. It was before Curse Your Branches came out.. I need it. Please help!

I’ve got 3 tickets to the Philly show tomorrow night and sadly none of us are going to able to make it. I’d rather someone gets a chance to see the show if we can’t go, open to offers since it’s so last minute! PM if interested

A few days ago I got to see David Bazan play the "It’s Hard to Find a Friend" / "Control" tour, with Erik Walters on guitar and Terence Ankeny on drums. I went to the show for the Control nostalgia. They did in fact play every track on IHTFAF and Control, just as promised. I listened to IHTFAF in the early 2000's, but not much after that, so won't have much to say about that album. (I know pretty much all of Control by heart, and none of IHTFAF).

Erik Walters opened with ~ half an hour of his music, with Bazan on drums and Ankeny on bass. It felt like a fitting opener, stylistically and lyrically.

I first listened to Control in 2003 or 2004 as a teenager. I was immediately drawn in by Options, and the variety of "indie" rock through the rest of the album. Each track its own vignette, but contributing to a cohesive story throughout the album. A cynical, melancholy album; a tragedy in two parts. Maybe I found the album at just the right period in my life (I'm not sure if "angsty" is quite the right word), but the emotional evocation formed a deep connection with me. This has always been a little perplexing as I've never been in an abusive relationship, or ever remotely involved with infidelity (giving or receiving). But over the past twenty years, I've continued to listen to and enjoy Control. I like to think its because the album is a work of fine art: able to elicit an emotional response through the art of good story telling and good music.

I don't think David Bazan feels the same way.

Soon after discovering Control, I had the opportunity to see Pedro the Lion play with T. W. Walsh. I think this was right before Achilles Heel, but the exact date is a bit fuzzy. I went with a group of highschool friends, most of whom were in their own rock band. The band had a cover of a single Pedro the Lion song, Second Best. I distinctly remember the show starting more than an hour late (and we had a four hour drive home that night), and we were outside waiting. And lo and behold, we spotted Bazan and Walsh eating at a table at some food place next to the venue. We opted not to swarm him, so only sent one delegate to talk to them, so this conversation is secondhand (and twenty years old) but they were close enough we could sort of see the exchange.

delegate: (general comments about nice to meet you, and we have a band that plays one of your songs)
Bazan: (says something polite)
delegate: (asks if they will be playing Second Best, the song they cover)
Bazan: (responds in the negative)
delegate: (nice to meet you, thanks etc)
Bazan: (says something polite)

Our delegate came back and we asked what happened, and the word I clearly remember to this day was that Bazan said he wasn't going to play a "cartoon-y" (or "cartoonish"?) song. We were disappointed, but it was a pretty good show.

Fast forward to the show a few days ago.

The show opened with the "happy" songs from IHTFAF, then the band paused for Bazan to share a few thoughts. He pointed out, he wrote IHTFAF when he was 22, and Control when he was 26 (Bazan is now 47). And that putting himself now, back in his twenty-two (or six) year-old self is very artistically challenging. Well who can blame him, I'd like to think everyone has things they've done twenty or more years ago they would do differently now. He went on to say the rest of the show gets much darker, and anyone should feel comfortable about leaving for any reason. "Listen to your body," he said (my partner later remarked, "a man who's been to therapy, I can get behind this"). He went on to say he's been in "an abusive relationship -- with god -- and some humans." But clarified that though the music is perhaps autobiographical, "it's 93% fiction."

I think one of the keystones of good story telling -- what makes a story "good" -- is having a cohesive narrative conveyed to the audience. This can be presented many different ways, some more directly than others. And Control is a very direct album. There is very little room for allegory or ambiguous interpretation. If I had to guess, this is what bothers Bazan. The story in Control is told in a very narrow manner, and can only be interpreted in a similar narrow way, and it just happens to be a very cynical interpretation from someone without much worldly experience. And looking back some years later, it is easy to find subtle nuance in the world that is missing from Control. And so even just a couple of years after Control came out, Bazan's view of the world was changing (re: my story above). And now after many years of avoiding the subject, he is revisiting his past to reshape it as best he can.

The tour had songs from the albums played out of order. It was songs from IHTFAF, then Progress, then a couple more IHTFAF songs, then all the rest of Control (mostly in order).

The first difference I noticed was the cadence. A lot of songs moved from sing-ing-on-the-beat (i.e. the original studio cut) to having some lines closer to spoken poetry. It came across as more thoughtful and self-reflective; the omniscient story telling narrator is perhaps not so distant now. It's definitely more "immediate" -- instead of being lost in the rhythm of the music, you are forced to pay attention to his words. Bazan is drawing you in to his self reflection. I would say it's a negative for nostalgia.

The second big difference was how Bazan changed a few important words. (Note: Like many smallish concerts I've been to, this show suffered from poor vocal distinction. The quieter parts were generally clear, but louder sections were somewhat unclear. I've listened to the album enough to know the words by heart, so I think the following observations are accurate, but I could have made mistakes in what I heard so take the following with a grain of salt.)

The first big change was in Options:

original:
and I mostly believed her, and she mostly believed me
now:
and I mostly believed her, and I mostly believed me

Whew lad. It's a one word difference, but it sets the tone for everything that Bazan was trying to convey about his relationship with Control. Previously the song was a selfish retrospective. Thoughts of American Psycho come to mind. Someone coldly calculating and lacking in empathy; someone self-important enough to believe they can know another person's inner thoughts. Someone that knows what they want without hesitation. Someone that believes human interaction is transactional, that you get something you want by giving something they want. But with more of a human element, almost smugly humble, recognizing his own limitations ("but no one ever says what they really mean to say..."). I can believe the original lyrics were written by a twenty-six year old.

And now the song is completely transformed. It's a different kind of retrospective, looking back at oneself. This one word change introduces nuance to the narrator's view of the world. Now, "her" views are unquestioned, or at least secondary. This is the beginning of the story of Control, and now there's a question, "What should I do? Where should I go in this relationship?" And looking back, the narrator opens the story at this point of self doubt. Does he even love her any more? He's not sure. But being unsure, being undecided, opens the door for reflection, and change, of making a decision. Perhaps now Control is a caution about making the right decision; perhaps some wisdom from someone with experience, trying to pass knowledge to the wary.

Another big change was in Magazine:

original:
On the one side, the bad half live in wickedness. And on the other side, the good half live in arrogance
new:
On the one side, the bad half live in wickedness. And on the other side, the good half live in wickedness

Another big change in meaning with only one word, and this one is deep. There's a bunch of different ways to interpret this now, and if there's one things critics love it's ambiguity.

Magazine has a lot of themes about duality. "The bad" on one side, "the good" on the other. "Are you an angel now, or a vulture?" . Outside appearance / inside appearance. So I think the original version had a sort of naive "both sides" world view (two halves, "a steady flow, moving to and fro"). The original version correctly pointed out, though bad people might do bad things, all these "good people" have their own flaws and might be insufferable in other ways. I use the word "naive", but I think "inexperienced" might work as well. When you are young, you have an understanding there are "good people" and "bad people", and after you get a bit older you realized life is more complicated and everyone has their flaws, and then you pat yourself on the back for understanding the world now. I can believe the original lyrics were written by a twenty-six year old.

And now, the bad have lived in wickedness, and the good have lived in wickedness. I think perhaps there is still a Christian interpretation: we are all damned. This is not an unappealing interpretation, but from various comments from Bazan, I don't think he means for this to be religious. Even without religion though -- or perhaps because there is no religion -- I think this is a valid argument; maybe we are all damned because there is no salvation.

Another interpretation is a more cynical view, perhaps in line with the rest of the (original) album: there are no good people. I'm skeptical of this interpretation. While the album is not exactly cheerful optimism, it's not quite this nihilistic.

Another interpretation is a selection of "the good", only a few people from a pool of "good" people. Is he talking about public religious figures? Or maybe similar, other trusted authority figures? If so, what exactly does "wickedness" mean?

Another interpretation is that "wickedness" is arbitrary -- there are different kinds of bad things, and some acts are worse than others. Are there necessary evils in the world? Who should be held accountable?

I think this one word change introduces a more mature interpretation of the original "naive" duality that was expressed before. The naive view was that people can be cleanly separated into "the good" and "the bad," and both sides are flawed in different ways. But now there is an understanding that the distinction is arbitrary (ahhhh -- insert long philosophical tangent on ethics here). Who gets to decide who is good or not? How do you even answer that question? The song still commits to a moral framework with "good" and "bad", but the philosophical foundation is more advanced.

Another lyric change -- Does David Bazan hate cum?

original (Indian Summer):
All the experts say you ought to start them young
That way they'll naturally love the taste of corporate cum
new: All the experts say you ought to start them young
That way they'll naturally love ... [trailed off]

and

original (Second Best):
The symphony of misery and cum
new:
The symphony and symphony

I talked to my partner about this, and I can only think this is a "toning down" of a story telling aspect. The original had kind of an explicit "shock factor" (not that it was that shocking), but really, does it convey anything essential? It's probably akin to swear words used as adjectives. Removing such words makes your work slightly more sophisticated. The word choice in Second Best was just odd though.

(there was at least one other lyric change that I couldn't make out, and don't remember now)

Rejoice

It's probably worth mentioning the end and "feeling" change of Rejoice. Let me quote the entire lyrics for context.

Wouldn't it be so wonderful if everything were meaningless
But everything is so meaningful
And most everything turns to shit
Rejoice

As noted before, they did change the order of songs somewhat. They ended Control by playing Rejoice, then Priests and Paramedics. I think that is probably the best way to end the album at a show. As mentioned earlier, Rejoice was extremely drum heavy. On the studio album the drums are very muted, but at the show they were incredibly prominent and rather loud. But that kind of tied into the feel of the song now. Bazan was very emotive, active. Contrast that with the studio version, very passive and soulful. I mean, I don't think the tempo changed, it's still really slow, but it was much more emphatic. I feel like the original version was a sad retrospective, of the narrator (as a ghost of sorts) rambling to himself. (paraphrasing) "Wouldn't it be great if nothing mattered? But it did, and now it's gone." The last line is bitter sarcasm.

Seeing this live, I can't help but think of the "Rime of the Ancient Mariner."

And thus spake on that ancient man,
The bright-eyed Mariner.

Bazan tells the story in Control. It's up to you to listen, choose how you will "rise the morrow morn." But he is bound by some act to tell this story, even if against his wishes, and so he will leave you with this commandment in Rejoice. Now, he says, things matter. Enjoy them while you can. This life is fleeting. "Wouldn't it be so wonderful if everything were meaningless?" There's an implicit "no" after this. Bazan is singing at a regular voice, not murmuring like on the album: "But everything is so meaningful / And most everything turns to shit". And then he takes a half step back from the microphone and shouts at us, "Rejoice!". It's no longer wistful reflection, it's a command. Perhaps a warning. Live an authentic life.

I enjoyed the show, I'm glad I finally got to seem him play Second Best. Not quite the same as the studio albums, but still mostly nostalgic.

If you get to see a show from the tour, let me know what your thoughts are, and please add any lyric changes I missed. (There's another post mentioning changes in IHTFAF, but I can't speak to that)

Can’t attend anymore, will sell for face value please hit me up

As posted here I have 2 balcony tickets but am unable to go. Since there are no takers, I'd hate for these tickets to go to waste. Come on people, it's Pedro the Lion playing Control and IHTFAF back to back! :)

So if you want to go see Pedro for free, PM me your name and email address so I can transfer the tickets to you. First person to shoot me a pm gets them.

Doors open at 8pm at the Mars Music Hall.

Note: this is xposted to r/pedrothelion: https://old.reddit.com/r/pedrothelion/comments/12sdy18/anyone_here_want_to_see_pedro_the_lion_for_free/

Edit: grammar

Edit 2: Looks like fortune favored u/FlukeCoins :) Tickets are taken!

Hey all, hope this is allowed. I have two balcony tickets for the Pedro the Lion show at Mars Music Hall in Huntsville tonight, but something came up and we sadly can't go. This is the tour where they play both Control and It's Hard to Find a Friend back to back, which I've been looking forward to for months. So yep, I'll be missing out on that one. :(

Hoping to just get my money back, but open to offers. Please shoot me a PM if you're interested. Thanks all!

Here's a link to the venue and a screenshot of my receipt.

ETA: words and a screenshot of my receipt.

I need someone to take my Bazan/Pedro records off my hands for me. I’ve been selling off my massive record/music collection. Here’s what’s left for Bazan/Pedro stuff:

Casey Founert/Beside Recordings Vol 1 7” $25

American Flags 7” $15

The Man In Me 7” $10

Bazan Monthly Vol. 1 5x7” $100

Taster/Read My Mind 7” $20

Living Room EP cd $50

Away In A Manger blue 7” $15

Jingle Bells green 7” $8

Happy Xmas clear 7” $5

Wish My Kids Were Here (all variants) $7

Live At Electrical Audio (sealed) $50

Rare Coins $12

Headphones $40

Overseas $20

Pedro The Lion - Big Trucks 7” $25

Pedro The Lion - Progress 7” $8

Pedro The Lion - The First Noel $5

Pedro The Lion - God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen lavender 7” $5

Pedro The Lion - Phoenix (clear) $30

My full list for sale is here (don't worry if something is labeled not for sale, just ask!): https://www.recordnerd.com/lists/BryanHauver