Guilt Ridden: Taking in AC Newman’s newest at Empty Bottle

“What cheap beer will you have?” asks the bartender at the Empty Bottle. The music venue hosts a listening party for New Pornographer AC Newman’s new solo record, “Get Guilty,” with two hours of free beer—PBR, Schlitz and an unknown beer called American Pale Ale. Curious, we do the Pale Ale.

It comes in a bottle and whenever the bartender opens one, foam oozes everywhere. The weather outside is frightful. Snow plummets, but at least it’s not seventeen below zero anymore. The weather must be staving-off people because the place isn’t crowded. As we imbibe, Bob Ross paints fluffy, white clouds on TV, Newman continuously sings upbeat pop songs and Radley, the in-resident cat, nonchalantly walks back and forth across the bar. The evening progresses and more people fill the bar. Thankfully, their chatter drowns out Newman’s third playing of “The Palace at 4am.”

At 8:30pm, the bar announces the free booze is over and picks the winners of the Newman concert raffle. We win nothing. The bartender asks us if we want to stay for the Franz Nicolay show. “Who?” we ask. “Yunno, the mustached guy from The Hold Steady.” “Oh, that guy.”

We decline and have to leave the bar. Not quite satiated, we stumble out into the dreary night and decide to go to another hole to and keep the buzz going. “Our submarine pulls into Stockholm….la, la, la” echoes long into the winter night. (Garin Pirnia)

AC Newman’s “Get Guilty” is out now.