Oh Christ, it's those awful Alpha people again. The final instalment in this season is a double episode on 'No Children,' taking in the Offspring, the difference between a divorce and burning a house down, and the things we can't let go of until they let go of us.


Show notes

06/22/13 Live show at Bottletree in Birmingham, AL, with banter leading up to ‘Alpha Chum Gatherer’: https://archive.org/details/mountaingoats2013-06-22.flac16/mountaingoats2013-06-22t11.flac

BBC News article on grammar schools and social mobility: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44081733

Wikipedia entry forWill It Blend?: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_It_Blend%3F

Interview with Daoud Tyler-Ameen for NPR on ‘No Children’: https://www.npr.org/2018/10/10/653349496/the-mountain-goats-american-anthem-no-children-dysfunction

Tumblr post on the Alpha couple as ‘one flesh’: https://johndarnielle.tumblr.com/post/119711150476/hi-tallahassee-has-been-one-of-my-favorite-albums

Fandom page on ‘No Children,’ referencing live banter which is quoted throughout: https://themountaingoats.fandom.com/wiki/No_Children

Fandom page on the Tallahassee album, containing liner notes. Quotes from live introductions to individual songs can be found on their respective pages here: https://themountaingoats.fandom.com/wiki/Tallahassee

‘John Darnielle explains his cultural influences,’ including The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Vulture, 2014: https://www.vulture.com/2014/09/john-darnielle-explains-his-cultural-influences.html

The Annotated Mountain Goats site for Tallahassee (archived), with quotes from a 2005 interview with Transition Video Magazine: https://web.archive.org/web/20201112032352/https://kylebarbour.org/tmg/tallahassee.html#fn:southwoodjohn
-And for the whole Alpha series: https://web.archive.org/web/20201111235658/https://kylebarbour.org/tmg/series.html#alpha

Tumblr post on narrowing the focus of the album: https://johndarnielle.tumblr.com/post/46335170309/the-sleeve-that-held-the-boarding-pass-from-my

Article on Tallahassee by Jim Fisher for Salon.com, archived here https://www.scribd.com/document/52894439/tMG-Interviews

Interview with Chris Willman for Variety, 2021: https://variety.com/2021/music/news/no-children-mountain-goats-tiktok-john-darnelle-video-1235100275/

Kickstarter page for ‘It’s Complicated: A Feminist Zine on Loving Misogynist Art’: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/niina/its-complicated-a-feminist-zine-on-loving-misogyni

Lalitree Darnielle’s response to ‘It’s Complicated’: https://blog.lalitree.com/post/24473496489/its-complicated-project-welcome-to-the-its

Tumblr post on ‘Going to Georgia’: https://johndarnielle.tumblr.com/post/54507637224/hi-so-i-totally-get-that-you-dont-play-going-to

Tumblr post on the genesis of the Alpha series: https://johndarnielle.tumblr.com/post/53493520474/why-did-you-write-so-many-alpha-songs-did-you

Fandom page for ‘One Winter at Point Alpha Privative,’ discussing the problem with poems: https://themountaingoats.fandom.com/wiki/One_Winter_at_Point_Alpha_Privative

I Only Listen to the Mountain Goats episode 109, on ‘Younger’: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0DNMpmyrpy0NzJI4zLuwlv?si=f7e06a015b5143d3

Zine interview with Cory Brown, c.1999 about the fan appetite for divorce content: https://www.flickr.com/photos/caliclimber/9136546010/in/album-72157604938464838/

Geoff Sanborn’s newsletter on Zopilote Machine, which quotes a radio interview where Darnielle explains the alpha privative: https://open.spotify.com/track/3i5OukPST8wDQXwqH2fbhm?si=2322aad2592245ec

the cool beans! #4 interview with Matt Kelly, 1994, archived here: https://www.scribd.com/document/52894439/tMG-Interviews

Alex Russell’s post on ‘One Winter at Point Alpha Privative’: https://afewthingsmaybeseveralthings.com/2020/04/19/231-one-winter-at-point-alpha-privative/
-And on ‘Design Your Own Container Garden’: https://afewthingsmaybeseveralthings.com/2018/07/22/201-design-your-own-container-garden/

Interview with Carsten Wohlfeld for Luna Kafe, 2003: http://www.lunakafe.com/moon78/usca78.php

Daytrotter radio session, 2007, featuring ‘Ethiopians’: https://archive.org/details/daytrotter1.mp3/03+Ethiopians.mp3

Interview with Alexander Sammon for Mother Jones, 2017: https://www.motherjones.com/media/2017/02/john-darnielle-mountain-goats-novel-universal-harvester/

Document collating otherwise unavailable interviews: https://www.scribd.com/document/52894439/tMG-Interviews

Interview about horror with Sam Costello for Dark, but Shining, 2007: https://web.archive.org/web/20070208201251/http://www.darkbutshining.com:80/?p=863

Leslie Jamison, ‘The Empathy Exams.’ The Believer, 2014: https://believermag.com/the-empathy-exams/

‘Alpha Negative’ banter in 04-20-2014 Chicago live show at Old Town School of Folk Music, https://archive.org/details/tmg2014-04-20/09-WokeUpNew.mp3

Julian Barnes, ‘A candid view of Candide.’ The Guardian, 2011: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/jul/01/candide-voltaire-rereading-julian-barnes

Jon Blistein, ‘Offspring’s Dexter Holland Finishes Ph.D, Thesis on HIV Research.’ Rolling Stone, 2017: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/offsprings-dexter-holland-finishes-ph-d-thesis-on-hiv-research-193282/amp/

Matthew Singer, ‘In The City: The story of Portland’s original all-ages gay nightclub.’ Willamette Week, 2014: https://www.wweek.com/portland/article-22975-in-the-city.html

JD tweets about the City and the friends he made there: https://twitter.com/mountain_goats/status/1303463222851362821 and https://twitter.com/mountain_goats/status/1303463222851362821

Books

Peter Coviello, Long Players: A Love Story in 18 Songs. Penguin, 2018.