My discovery of Paul Baribeau was, as all the best musical discoveries are, a complete accident. At Pre-Fest last year we had some time to kill between Lemuria and The Underground Railroad to Candyland so figured we'd head to one of the other venues and see what we could find. The guide made Paul sound like he might be interesting and we strolled over just in time for his set to start.
What we witnessed was excellent - a short set of heartfelt, somehow slightly naive, folky punk-rock songs. The highlight of the set was Never Get to Know which he introduced by saying it was his explanation of why he doesn't drink. As the song gradually unfolded I found myself more and more endeared to him and his music. It was sung with such simple sincerity that the whole audience must have felt the same way as me. If you drew a Venn diagram of the musical qualities of Chuck Ragan, Jeffrey Lewis and Daniel Johnston you'd have Paul Baribeau, which is a pretty cool place to be.
As we were leaving Gainesville on the Monday after Fest we swung by the No Idea record shop, Arrow's Aim. In there they had what was left of the various "Fest Press" records they'd printed for the weekend including, much to my pleasure, some of the Paul Baribeau records so I picked up this copy of his self-titled album. There's not much to the pressing - a maroon-ish vinyl hand-numbered on one side (47/100) and the No Idea stress-face stamped on the other, and a screen-printed cover. No tracklisting, no information. By complete luck, this LP features Never Get to Know and some other excellent songs like Strawberry and The Pier.
I'm certainly very pleased that we accidentally stumbled across Paul at Fest that day. I can't recommend checking him out enough.
Format: 12", screen-printed cover, hand-numbered
Tracks: 14
Cost: £8.40 new
Bought: Arrow's Aim Records, Gainesville
When: 04/11/13
Colour: Maroon
Etching: Side A: "Business! Love PB" Side B: "I could slap the No Idea guy in the bottom"
mp3s: no
