Okkervil River:

I Am Very Far:(2011)

The Silver Gymnasium:(2013)

The first time I recall hearing Okkervil River a friend of a friend said, I think you'll really like this band, and played me something off of The Stage Names, I think. Now, I've mentioned before in this blog, that the absolute worst way to introduce any music to me is by saying something to that effect. My brain, for whatever reason, just starts sticking its fingers in its ears and humming really loudly like, heck no. I'm just weird that way. Needless to say, I didn't care for this band upon that listen. Flash forward a few years, and I'm helping my wife research a project for a dialect class. We were finding songs with city names, and trying to analyze how people from different parts of the country sang those cities as a means for mapping dialect, or something like that. Anyway, the song Kansas City from the Okkervil River album, Don't Fall In Love With Everyone You See was one we ended up using, and I dug that song. Shortly there after, Silver Gymnasium came out, and I fell in love with that album. Which then led me back to I Am Very Far. There's my story of how I came to dig some Okkervil River stuff.