My understanding is that Ekberg sincerely regrets his past and wants to distance himself from it: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ace-of-base-nazi-past-lyrics_n_3148797
If there's any reason to believe members of Ace of Base in any way secretly maintain and foster these ideas, of course, I'm all for saying "fuck them."
This recording of Southwestern Territory from the Live at the Bottom of the Hill on archive. Just beautiful.
The Mt. Pleasant link is actually from the Village Tavern show here: https://archive.org/details/tmg2004-10-19.flac
I was at that Pittsburgh show, it was unreal and I totally flipped out when he played this. I wish there was better audio.
Just want to point out, in case any Goats fans happen to drive through the middle of Georgia and want to snap a pic of the Macon County line: you won't find it by going to Macon! That's right, Macon County does not contain Macon. It's about an hour away. Learned that the hard way.
This! The full band+electric guitar versions of Tetrapod and Quito are mind blowingly good. Plus Owen Pallett of Final Fantasy plays Going to Bristol on the violin. Doesn't get much better than that.
NYCTaper is a great resource for this. Check this out, fourth track listed in the right sidebar. Also the fourth track here. There's a screw up and some banter in the second link, worth a listen for sure.
This chapter is very much in that vein.
If my calculations are correct, he has released an album approximately every 18 months since before Tallahassee (BtC fell into that pattern but was delayed for the book.) Therefore I wouldn't be surprised if we saw one this time next year.
There's a copy on discogs for $28.98 here, which will probably be your best bet beyond eBay or getting lucky at a local record store.
Personally I think a live show should be in the top 3 somewhere. My two favorites:
Swedish American Hall, 2/25/2009
the best take of SBLS #1 I've ever heard, Golden Boy, From TG&Y, Cobscook Bay, Store, Sign of the Crow 2, Prana Ferox... the list continues
Zoop 2007 is wonderful. The Saturday night set is focused on his mid-2000's stuff, but Sunday is an all-request set including Cobscock Bay, Store, The Monkey Song, The Sign (complete with a story).
Oh man, I love that one too! I am completely in love with his banter in this show. I can never get over his musings on returning to his old college and his enthusiastic shouting of "I will come to Pitzer!"
My favorite show has probably got to be his set at Plan it X Fest in 2011. Not only because that was my first time seeing him, but also because he ended up borrowing Chris Clavin's guitar for most of the set. And because for "No Children", the crowd sang the song has John dove off the stage and we just surfed him around the venue.
It was amazing.
I started with a single song, Heretic Pride. Got the album and got attached to Autoclave. Then heard No Children and picked up Tallahassee. Ventured into the older stuff and got hooked on We Shall All Be Healed and Get Lonely. Then further back to the lofi.
At which point I was ready for a show. Caught this one https://archive.org/details/mountaingoats2009-04-09 which was actually in John's hometown. He does about a minute intro on each song and I loved every single damn one. Songs I had previously skipped on the albums were transformed. It was an amazing experience. The recording is good, but its probably one of those "had to be there" things. Anyway that's my story. Best of luck.
I found it recently on Barnes&noble shipping to the UK is actually quite cheap, I got it for around £20. Here you go http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-sunset-tree-the-mountain-goats/9459001?ean=652637250817&isbn=652637250817
Okay, yeah. Regrettably, I don't have enough time tonight to listen to the whole 94 minutes, but a glance at the track list confirms (with reasonable confidence) my recollection that this show fucking rocked.
Oh man that "Tollund Man" is so great. I think I the version from the Village Tavern show is my favorite "Terror Song" performance.
Also yeah I was at that HoB show in Boston too, awesome show, I wish I had a recording of his intro to "Up The Wolves" from that night.
EDIT: Village Tavern show in case you haven't heard it: https://archive.org/details/tmg2004-10-19.flac
I'm guessing you already found it through Kyle Barbour's page, but for the rest of you, the butter collection (originally from the TMG forums) is my source for a lot of great older live shows.
Show & Listen Album Cover Display Frame, Flip Frame Displays Vinyl Records, 12.5x12.5, Black https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ISPR0IY/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_i_YG2JJC7Q87Q06JMT67KV?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
I honestly think listening to live shows is a good way to do it, but that depends on your tastes. As studio albums go, AHWT and Sweden for acoustic stuff, Sunset Tree for produced stuff and then maybe Transcendental Youth especially if you're interested in more mental illness/survival-themed stuff.
Also, I think this show makes a good intro to the older material.
For the Em7-Cadd9 bit, it sounds better to me to play them as 020000 and 030010, mostly just playing the A and D strings--or at least that sounds closer to me to the recording I was working with when I learned it.
Tulsa Imperative immediately came to mind, which I haven't seen mentioned yet and you can find here: https://archive.org/details/mountaingoats1998-02-06.flac16
Also, I think that's the best Mountain Goats live bootleg ever so check out the whole concert if you haven't.
EDIT: Youtube link of the same performance from that concert
It didn't really take any more work than using Content-Aware fill and the eraser over and over until I'd gotten it to stop spreading the text all over the place, but I like it enough.
For those unable to view the link, it's Jeff and Cyrus' top three contenders.
EDIT: I can never remember whether imgur compresses images. Yes, it does. Here's a PNG upload: https://www.mediafire.com/?a9ewqwlhwr952o5
I think I got this frame on amazon last year and it fits. The frame is nothing special, but I didn't have the money for a quality frame job at the time.
She got them on Amazon, surprisingly enough, but they were the only ones they had in stock.
There are a bunch (including both of those) on eBay right now though.
edit: Amazon still has this poster which is pretty damn awesome too!