There are people who make records, and then there are people who seem to be making one giant, strange, beautiful record out of their entire life.
J Kirk Pleasant of Calvin, Don’t Jump is one of those people.
J Kirk is a musician, teacher, former firefighter, world traveler, student, outdoorsman, marching band member, bird migration enthusiast, a dad, former touring member of The Olivia Tremor Control and probably 17 other things we didn't even get around to discussing.
He's a true Renaissance man. But more than anything, he's just a fantastic soul.
On the brand new episode of Don't Bother Wearing Seatbelts, Rudy Fischmann, Mathew Bell and I talk with J Kirk about the wonderful and criminally unheard Calvin, Don’t Jump album Crystal Clear Mississippi, and the conversation goes just about everywhere.
He tells stories about his friendship with Jeff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel. He takes us behind the scenes with The Gerbils. He talks about touring with The Olivia Tremor Control and being part of the famous Rolling Stone Elephant 6 Recording Co. article and photo shoot. We somehow get into bird migration, firefighting, college marching bands, living in Japan, traveling the world and everything in between.
But one thing J Kirk said that has stuck with me since the conversation...
He talked about wanting to go through life collecting as many memories as possible. I love that.. What a way to live.
In the early 2000s, J Kirk was moving across the country from Georgia to Washington with his then-wife and young child. Instead of simply driving across America, he was playing shows along the way to help pay for the trip, Ames, Iowa being just about as in the middle as you can get and knowing us it became a logical stop along the way.. I jumped at the opportunity to host a Calvin, Don't Jump show.
Then, in one of those bizarre cosmic coincidences that seemed to happen constantly in Ames back then, I heard from of Montreal's booking agent. Kevin Barnes' side project, Apollinaire Rave, also needed a show.
So suddenly we had Calvin, Don't Jump and Kevin Barnes playing the same night in Ames, Iowa.
Naturally, I booked the show so of course my band... The Poison Control Center opened.
And naturally, there was a huge February blizzard.
But the show must go on and it was fantastic. J Kirk was magical. Kevin's set with his Wife Nina and brother David was incredible too. And The Poison Control Center contributed to music history when our bass player Joe Terry decided to conduct an experiment:
Could he play an entire set without touching the neck of his bass and only play open strings?
The answer was yes. The more important question was whether he should.
The experiment was never repeated for good reason.
And just to further demonstrate that Ames, Iowa was briefly the epicenter of the indie-rock universe, John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats was at the show, too.
He did not play but, but.. His car got towed.
Afterward, Kevin Barnes, his wife and brother, along with Kirk, his wife and child, all stayed at my house.
And sometime late that snowy night, J Kirk and Kevin both sat on my couch and played songs.
I filmed it. And somewhere, somehow, that footage still exists. But I've never been able to find it.
But I vividly remember it. SEE COLLECTING MEMORIES
Twenty-some years later, I got to sit down with J Kirk again and hear him talk about deliberately moving through the world trying to collect memories. And I realized that all those years ago, watching him travel across the country with his family, stopping in little towns to play his songs for whoever happened to show up, he was already doing exactly that. Collecting Memories. It was so inspiring at the time.. Still is.
Our new episode with J. Kirk Pleasant of Calvin, Don't Jump is out now wherever you listen to Don’t Bother Wearing Seatbelts .
Don't miss this one.
