Since I am a member of the coveted 18-to-35 demographic, I usually start my Sundays by waking up and watching all the good bits from Saturday Night Live that I missed while I was busy doing other things (lately, that probably means watching kung fu movies on Netflix and reading). I usually skip the musical guests when I do this, but on a whim this week I decided to watch Father John Misty's performance of "Total Entertainment Forever," his new single from his upcoming LP Pure Comedy.Now, I'm by no means the world's biggest Father John Misty fan––I found the strain of dry, sleazy irony running through I Love You, Honeybear a bit too reminiscent of Andy Kaufman's Tony Clifton schtick for my tastes––but "Total Entertainment Forever" blew me away. "When the historians find us we'll be in our homes, plugged into our hubs, skin and bones," he sings, writhing with nervy intensity as the band behind him drops out to let his words sink in. "A frozen smile on every face, as the stories replay / This must have been a wonderful place." The song is much like what you'd get if Randy Newman were tasked with writing a Billy Joel song based on Infinite Jest.He returned, sans guitar but wearing a black duster jacket that was an instrument in its own right, to perform Pure Comedy's title track, vamping to the Nth degree, acting out his lyrics and during the instrumental breakdown doing a canonically weird dance that felt somehow both prurient and chimerical. He let the couplet, "But the only thing that they request / is something to numb the pain with until there's nothing human left," hang in the air just long enough for it to feel uncomfortable, burying his face in his hands before finishing the lyric: " Just some random matter suspended in the dark / I hate to say it, but each other's all we got." I can only imagine what mainstream America must have thought of this performance, but, for me, it was as if I were witnessing Mr. Misty hip-thrust his way into the next echelon of stardom.Continue reading on Noisey
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