Tim Kasher - Adult Film

Consumed with mortality, infidelity, and coming to terms with expectations and their unparalleled realities, you may expect Tim Kasher’s latest solo album to be full of morose, droning songs. The subject matter may be dark and thoughtful, but this is no Cass McCombs. Tim Kasher, who also fronts both Cursive and The Good Life, has a knack here for turning murky subjects into full-on bombastic rockers.

Kasher’s talent lies in how he uses everyday concerns to tell unbelievably detailed stories, turning two- or three-line phrases into revelatory slices of insight. “Truly Freaking Out” regards the transience of life succinctly with lines like, “I was six years old, learning how to swim/Then I was 36, wondering how I sunk/Oh, it’s as if the record jumped.”

He tells a story of mistrust and relationship anxiety in “The Willing Cuckold” that’s so relatable and real that it makes the heart jump. With percussion that skips like the hooves of a racing horse, Kasher admits to feigning ignorance when his woman cheats. He cries out with such pain in the bridge that it’s as if you’re sitting in his shoes, wondering how the relationship lost its luster. There’s also pure fun in “Life in Limbo,” a song about all life’s possibilities wrapped in a circus-like organ.

But unlike Kasher’s first solo album, The Game of Monogamy, Adult Film is full of songs that stand alone. They are immediately accessible, and while the album flows from one song to another, each tale paints a clear, separate picture. He keeps it cohesive by incorporating similar musical elements; the opening and closing songs begin and end with a sort of backwards sigh, just tempting you to make it to the end of the album only to start it over again. “The future is a fiction we never wrote,” sings Kasher. After hearing Adult Film, you’ll be waiting for the next chapter.

The Good Life - Album of the Year

These are truly some of my favorite lyrics of all time. Seriously, this song makes me die a little inside every time I hear it. I mean "die" in the most positive way, really. It is the kind of song that crushes your heart and makes you so happy that geniuses like Tim Kasher (lyricist/songwriter/singer/guitarist behind The Good Life) exist and are sharing their art. Oh, this song could play on repeat for months, and I would still find it hopelessly romantic and simultaneously tragic.

The first time that I met her
I was throwing up in the ladies room stall
She asked me if I needed anything
I said, "I think I spilled my drink"
And that's how it started
(Or so I'd like to believe)

She took me to her mother's house
Outside of town where the stars hang down
She said she'd never seen someone so lost
I said I'd never felt so found
And then I kissed her on the cheek
And so she kissed me on the mouth

The spring was popping daises up
Around rusted trucks and busted lawn chairs
We moved into a studio in Council Bluffs
To save a couple bucks
Where the mice came out at night
Neighbors were screaming all the time

We'd make love in the afternoons
To Chelsea Girls and Bachelor #2
I'd play for her some songs I wrote
She'd joke and say I'm shooting through the roof
I'd say, "They're all for you, dear
I'll write the album of the year"

And I know she loved me then
I swear to God she did
It was the way she'd bite my lower lip
And push her hips against my hips
And dig her nails so deep into my skin

The first time that I met her
I was convinced I had finally found the one
She was convinced I was under the influence
Of all those drunken romantics
I was reading Fante at the the time
I had Bukowski on my mind

She got a job at Jacob's
Serving cocktails to the local drunks
Against her will, I fit the the bill
I perched down at the end of the bar
She said, "Space is not just a place for stars
I gave you an inch, you want a house with a yard"

And I know she loved me once
But those days are done
She used to call me every day
From a pay phone on her break for lunch
Just to say she can't wait to come home

The last time that I saw her
She was picking through which records were hers
Her clothes were packed in boxes
With some pots and pans and books and a toaster
Just then a mouse scurried across the floor

We started laughing until it didn't hurt