So Justin Vernon was on national television last night. Again.
as unnamed presenters look on. Photo: AP
Since it’s basically a new Eau Claire city ordinance, you must surely be aware that Bon Iver took home two Grammy awards at last night’s mega awards show – one for Best Alternative Album (beating the likes of Radiohead and Death Cab for Cutie), and another for Best New Artist (besting other “new” artists like Nicki Minaj and Skrillex).
Bon Iver was also nominated for Record of the Year and Song of the Year, but Adele pretty much won every other award last night, including a door prize of Pampered Chef spatulas. That woman was on fire.
Anyway, what is there left to say about all this? Volume One has been covering Justin Vernon since well before DeYarmond Edison’s fabled move to North Carolina (our first article on Vernon ran shortly after our launch in the spring of 2002). The first article we ran on a weird new project called “Bon Iver” (back in 2008) featured a picture of Vernon holding a basketball and peeling a gross nasal strip off his nose. The levels to which Bon Iver has risen have been well within in the Surreal Zone for quite some time, and I think we got a little numb to it even before he flew out to Hawaii to record at Kanye West’s house (and play basketball with Rick Ross). And now he’s on Saturday Night Live and has two Grammy’s for which to find shelf space. He could transform into a robot unicorn, and it’d just be one more thing for Pitchfork to spend 200 words on.
After last night’s win for Best New Artist, the big thing many international media outlets are focusing on is Vernon’s acceptance speech. Vernon had previously called the Grammy’s unimportant and the band declined to play at the awards ceremony. Check out the speech:
The Washington Post is calling it “humble,” while Gawker said it “dipped with ironic detachment.” Still others saw it as “awkwardly eating crow.” Earlier in the show, Jack Black even made a joke about the Grammy’s “selling indie cred back to Bon Iver” as Black introduced the Foo Fighters. Most of the people on Volume One’s Facebook page thought is was a great speech, and the hometown crowd we hosted at The Fire House loved it.
But really, who cares? Justin Vernon was on the Grammys accepting an award. Let's not get nitpicky. You can read into what he said any number of ways, but for us, the interesting thing is that he just looked like some dude – the way he was dressed, the way he spoke, he just seemed like a regular guy ... up on a stage in front of millions of people. The shout outs to “the city of Eau Claire, Wisconsin” and his parents were especially nice. But in the end, Justin Vernon seemed like Justin Vernon. And last night was just one more crazy thing that’s going on with his band.
So congratulations to Vernon, the rest of Bon Iver, and the many, many Chippewa Valley community members who have supported all of this all along.
Post Grammy Q&A ...
Best Alternative Album acceptance speech:
Some photos ...
