Chris Garneau is weird

Chris Garneau is bizarre. Quite bizarre indeed. But, coming from me, that's typically a compliment. In this case, it definitely is. In fact, I'm about to compare him to basically my two favorite artists of all time: it's like the orchestral and vocal whimsy of Matt Jones meets the dark, playful, genre-bending cabaret of Amanda Palmer. For example, in the third track from his sophomore LP, El Radio, which came out in July, entitled "Dirty Night Clown" (yes that is the real title of the song) despite its fanciful tone (it even has the word "cup-y-cakes" in it), it's also really dark and it continues to get darker and darker as the song goes on, with the lyrics like "let them be buried, buried alive... in their suits, in their ties." I would say that dark but whimsical - rascally maybe - is a good way to describe most of the album.

Granted, not all his songs are strange for you readers who don't have quite the "weird" taste in music that I've been told I have. Quite a few of Chris' songs are quite simple, elegant and pretty sounding, like "Hands on the Radio." Of course, these are the ones I typically like the least.

Here is a video for another of my favorites from the album, "Fireflies" (and the mp3 is below). I don't love the video all that much, but it certainly is weird and seems to fit the song well.

Fireflies [mp3] - (iTunes)

P.S. My apologies for having a YouSendIt download link instead of a streamable download link. Our usual uploading service seems to be on the fritz today.