Jimmy Montague
Album: Casual Use
Release Date: 2021
USA
New York-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Jimmy Montague has announced his debut album, Casual Use, out May 21st on Chillwave Records. After previously playing with Perspective, A Lovely Hand to Hold, Montague has taken to his solo work which, has more in common with Steely Dan or The Doobie Brothers than his previous project’s emo style. [Read more on Under the Radar]
Lyrics: 70th Avenue Hustle
Gloomy in the Union Square Station
Nerves are glowing like the national debt
Well I got bills I ain’t paid but it’s so safe to say
No intention of repaying them yet
One day there might be money coming in on the side
You know there may not be a need to fuss
I think I see a light on the horizon but it may just be the city bus
One day my jackets might not be lifted
One day my numbers might not be so red
One day I may lay beside somebody I love in something bigger than a twin sized bed
70th Avenue hustle
Trying to keep my hands out the cold
I know the rent where I stay is about eleven days late
Why can’t you just leave me alone?
Tracklist: Casual Use
01. Casual Use
02. 70th Avenue Hustle
03. Long Long Lonely
04. Always You
05. Maybe One More
06. An Unfamiliar Record (and The Smell Of Gin)
07. Early Service
08. A Few Less In Attendance
09. Stuck With You
10. From Time To Time
It’s the final countdown for your first solo album. How excited are you about it and how is all that going?
It’s actually *technically* the second! I had a collection of old songs that I had done, and then my first ~Real~ record “The Light Of The Afternoon” came out back in November of 2019. That was the first time I really dove in to make a cohesive record for myself alone, and it was nice to sort of build it from scratch, put it out there, get some sort of small response, make a sort of mental list of what worked and what didn’t, and then set up again. I’m excited! I feel like this new record accomplished a lot for me growing as a musician. There was a lot of attention to detail on this record which has always been a shortcoming of mine. It’s nice to put this one out with a few more people in more corners, rather than completely out on a limb like the last. I’m definitely curious as to how the release will pan out, but overall I am content with the work that went into it, and the lessons it gave me to work on for the next one. I’ve been sitting on it since last October, so being so close is exciting. Then I can get on with my life.
First, we got Always You and then recently 70th Avenue Hustle from your upcoming work, Casual Use. What are some subjects you talk about in your album?
Casual Use hits on a couple points for this particular period of my life. I had a couple of fallouts with old friends, a couple failed romances, a few too many nights out, and I was feeling very worn thin. I was tired of the corners I kept backing myself into. I withdrew, I cut everything out, I stopped drinking, smoking, partying, talking to people, stopped eating meat, and did the whole 9 yards. I tried to stay very still and very quiet and just see what I was really like on my own. I started doing yoga, started meditating, started cooking haha. Casual Use feels like a closed chapter on a part of my life. The songs deal with my reflection on all the things I had to stop doing. It hits the catholic guilt I had grown up with. It’s not a sad album by any means, I hope it’s one of growth and reflection.
We’ve chosen your most recent single, 70th Avenue Hustle, for our loop series. In the beautiful video you shot for the track, you take us for a walk in New York back to your apartment (I guess). What is the inspiration behind the song and how did it come together?
The song came together entirely on my walk home from work. It was soon to be the first of the month, rent was due, and a couple of roommates had come and gone and the price of our rooms was fluctuating. I was moving around finances in my head and stressing myself out. There used to be a huge running ticker in Union Square that showed the National Debt. I used to have to stare at it every single day leaving work. It was sort of a frustratingly grounding thing to look at. Like, I could be daydreaming about anything, look up and see that and think “Jesus Christ where am I? What am I doing? James, you’re 27, $30,000 dollars in debt to student loans, you sleep on the floor of a living room on a twin-sized bed, like come on man, what the fuck, get it together” haha. That song is sort of a walking panic attack from work back to my apartment. It fell out of me that way, and I wanted the music video to feel like that. I shot the whole thing from the lobby of my old job, which I lost during Covid haha, all the way back to Queens. Of course, when I finally shot the video, they had changed that National Debt ticker over to a Climate Doomsday ticker. Still alarming, but I missed out on the one shot I had wanted, unfortunately. You win some you lose some.
Coming from another megacity myself, I miss the harmony in chaos the most. We can see the reflections of the city itself to your music but what does New York personally mean to you?
I suppose technically, I was born in New York City, but I did spend most of my life growing up in Connecticut. A couple years back, some friends and I had decided to try and get jobs in the city, so we just hucked it over. We bounced around Jersey City and Queens and were just starting to feel a little comfortable when the pandemic hit. Pretty much all of us lost our jobs and apartments quickly. I had written the last two records while living in New York, and now I have imposter syndrome about the whole ordeal haha. It feels like I was barely even there. I miss it a lot, now that I’m up in New Hampshire with the rest of PALHTH. I’m enjoying this quiet, but I miss the feeling of total anonymity you get in New York. You feel entirely surrounded, and yet no one could even see you. I loved that feeling. You could disappear into yourself so easily, it becomes this sort of static white noise hum of existence. If I could, I would go back. But on the other side of all that anonymity, it is literally impossible to get a quiet moment to track a record haha.
If you had to pick one song to describe New York, what would it be?
One song that always comes to mind is New York Is Not My Home by Jim Croce, although I wish I could change the feel behind it. All those things he described were the reasons I loved living there. I loved how uncomfortable it made me for some reason. I wish he meant it in sort of a “This place is not mine, I’m getting my ass handed to me out here, but at least I’m on my own, no one knows me, no one bothers me” type way. I don’t know. If it wasn’t for this song, it would probably just be Paranoia Blues by Paul Simon haha.
