Jose Bold’s Employee of the Universe is an album that came out just last week (available on BandCamp). I bet you didn’t even know about it. I know about it because I am on Jose Bold’s email list. I encourage you to sign up yourself so you won’t continue to miss out.
Jose Bold, regular name John Osebold, lives in Seattle and does all kinds of fun stuff like music, writing, jokes, animations, etc.. etc.. The first time I saw him was at the Emmett Montgomery’s Weird and Awesome show. He did an entire 10 minute set with a juice harp. I was impressed by that, and also impressed with his amount of hair.
I’ve been listening to Employee of the Universe all week. It’s got that nice combination of sweetness intertwined with sadness and wrapped in a tortilla shell of outer space magic.
Here is the cover art. I love it when the album cover art actually looks like what the album sounds like. That’s not easy to do.
My favorite track on the album is “Star”. The song has Ween vibe to it. It’s not as outer spacey as some of the other songs. These are the words:
You are a star
A bright shining star in a universe of stars
You are a supernova
Put us all together and watch the fireworks
You are your own center
Every swirling center has gravity
It’s hard to see the whole sky
Until we return to stardust
I can’t tell if they are being sung ironically or not. Am I actually a star or are you just telling me that? I kind of feel like the dude is just telling me that. And once the dude is done talking to me and I leave, the dude turns to his friends as says “That guy is definitely no star.” And then they go eat hot dogs
There’s another song on the album called “Roof Song”. Coincidentally, earlier this week I learned that roofers have one of the most unsatisfying jobs in the United States. I don’t think “Roof Song” is actually about roofers. Though I do hope that one day Jose Bold writes a song called “Roofers Song”.
