The 10 Best Things Right Now
by Mike ConklinPage 3 of 10
The Mountain Goats — “A Case of You”/“The Raid on Entebbe”
I’ve been yelling all year about the fact that no one seems to be acknowledging just how good the new Mountain Goats record, All Eternals Deck, really is, and you’ll you’ll be hearing more about that in a few weeks when our year-end issue comes out.But for now, let us focus on something a bit older: In 1997, John Darnielle performed at the Yo-Yo a Go-Go fest in Olympia, highlights of which were released on an excellent 2xLP called Yo-Yo a Go-Go ‘97: Another Live Compilation. The Mountain Goats track included is “Raid on Entebbe,” from an aborted 7” single that was supposed to come out in 1996. It’s a great song, as energetic and unhinged as most everything else Darnielle was churning out those days. But the most notable thing about this particular version (which, sorry, is not the one above) is that right before it, he does an a cappella run-through of the first verse from Joni Mitchell’s “A Case of You” and somehow winds up not sounding like an asshole, his bold, staccato vocals still managing to convey the melancholy of the original.
