Another Saturn Return story
Again from reading Rolling Stone (though this article isn't online at all), I found an article on Conor Oberst and how he was making musical changes in his life.
Interesting stuff."Oberst clearly grappled with the transitional period referenced in that album's liner notes: when "mighty Saturn enters your eighth house"--the late-20's threshold between youth and adulthood, when friendships die and beliefs change. He stopped recording for the label he co-founded, Saddle Creek. He broke up with his longtime girlfriend, singer-songwriter Maria Taylor. (He remains single.) He even decided to retire the name Bright Eyes, his main musical identity since age 18. "It's such a big part of my life," he says. "But it does feel like it needs to stop at some point," which he plans to achieve with one final record. "I'd like to clean it up, lock the door, say goodbye."
After untethering himself from so many things at once, Oberst felt adrift. "I didn't want to go to Omaha, didn't want to go to New York, didn't want to be around anything that I'd known before," he says. "The idea of going to another universe sounded fantastic to me." So last year, Oberst traveled to the Mexican mountainside village of Tepoztlan, in the Valle Mistico, which he first heard about after a tour stop in Mexico City. Known for its UFO sightings and huge Aztec pyramid and as the birthplace of the feathered serpent god, Quetzalcoatl, the place seemed to offer solace and restoration. "It's a magical, magical place," Oberst says. "If you go down to the Pyramid of the Sun, climb that thing and stare out--it's hard not to feel something. To me, that Native American idea that you can see the reflection of everything in nature and in each other seems really true."
Oberst chose this valley to open a new musical chapter in his life. He found an adobe building and had instruments and a special 16-track recorder brought in. "I really wanted this particular machine that M. Ward records on," says Oberst. "It's like this magical, supermellow sound, like a warm old quilt." Then he called some friends: Bright Eyes keyboardist-arranger Nathaniel Walcott, Rilo Kiley drummer Jason Boesel, bassist Macey Taylor, Thrasher photographer-turned-singer-songwriter Nik Freitas and Taylor's friend from Birmingham, Alabama, guiltarist Taylor Hollingsworth. Together in the adobe cabin, this group--soon to be dubbed the Mystic Valley Band--cut the 2008 disc Conor Oberst, his first record since he was 16 not credited to Bright Eyes."
Comments
must say, i was unintentionally stalking you, looking at several sites (because your interests are interesting and interest me) and i found by pouring over your various post-after-posts in non-exhaustive detail that YOU are curiously absent from all of it. found this one by chance because i am also going through an epidemic saturnitis crisis of gilgamesh proportions. wanted to find out who was making me howl and thought i should message (not polite to oggle) but decided, no, that's crazy. then i remembered, ya, i am crazy. saturn has made this clear to me, pretending to be normal does not convince anyone.
anyway, this oberst thing convinced me, since i wondered what the hell was wrong with him and his giant pale irish black cowboy wearing head on letterman. then i remembered, he is going thru his hell too because he is about the same age as me. and since i've been a failing musician in omaha since the same time he started recording, i am reminded of this everytime i see his delightful success (no resentment here).
so we all go a little crazy. and since this is so long, i am not as tempted to delete it. i salute your superior ability to write and amass such an insane amount of material, here and sundry places. and it amuses me. the end.