Pitchfork

Before Sufjan Stevens was an acclaimed sell-out-venues-in-mere-hours musician, he was a writer. But you knew that already. Who else but an introspective, Flannery O'Connor-loving fellow with a creative writing MFA would pen song titles like "A Conjunction of Drones Simulating the Way in Which Sufjan Stevens Has an Existential Crisis in the Great Godfrey Maze"? Or "Come to Me Only With Playthings Now"? Carl Sandburg visits him in dreams, people!

For the current issue of Topic magazine (a quarterly journal of creative non-fiction), Stevens traded his banjo for a pen, writing ebulliently on this month's topic: music! The 1,500-word personal narrative opens with a description of one of his first musical gigs-- an instrumental moment with pots, pans, and spaghetti:

"In the obscure backrooms of my memory, there is a gauzy portrait of me drumming pots and pans on the kitchen floor. I am a bumbling infant, top-heavy, lower-lipped, thumb-suckling, encountering gravity for the first time, buffered by an afghan laid out on the linoleum, banging the consequential music of kitchen utensils: a chopstick on a glass lid, a plastic spoon on a rice steamer, the tap dancing of a whisk on a box of spaghetti. This is my first performance. I am eleven months old. I am a drum major. I am a ragtime rhythm section. I am a wild animal knocking rocks on the hard shell of mother earth, the prehistoric paradiddle. I am nerves and muscle gaining strength."

The issue also features a photo of dapper Stevens on the cover-- and the real news here is that tricked-out 'stache! Dude! What the shit!? To read the full story, pick up issue #9 of Topic.

From these humble percussive beginnings to a massive, ocean-spanning tour-- catch Sufjan live this autumn. Dates after the jump.

09-11 Nashville, TN - Ryman Auditorium *
09-13 Dallas, TX - Lakewood Theater *
09-15 Austin, TX - Paramount Theater *
09-16 Austin, TX - Paramount Theater *
09-19 New Orleans, LA - House of Blues *
09-20 Atlanta, GA - Fox Theater (PASTE Fest) *
09-21 Chapel Hill, NC - Memorial Hall *
09-23 Indianapolis, IN - Egyptian Theater *
09-24 St. Louis, MO - Pageant *
09-25 Milwaukee, WI - Pabst Theater *
09-26 Chicago, IL - Riviera *
09-28 Philadelphia, PA - Tower Theatre *
09-29 New York, NY - Town Hall *
09-30 New York, NY - Town Hall *
10-01 New York, NY - Town Hall *
10-09 Los Angeles, CA - The Wiltern *
10-10 Berkeley, CA - Zellerbach Hall *
10-11 Berkeley, CA - Zellerbach Hall *
10-13 Portland, OR - Crystal Ballroom *
10-14 Vancouver, British Columbia - St. Andrew's Cathedral *
10-15 Seattle, WA - Paramount *
11-01 Dublin, Ireland - Olympia
11-02 Manchester, England - Academy 2
11-03 London, England - Barbican
11-05 Ghent, Belgium - Voorhuit
11-07 Barcelona, Spain - Casino L'Allanca
11-09 Paris, France - Le Bataclan
11-10 Cologne, Germany - Gloria
11-11 Amsterdam, Holland - Paradiso
11-12 Copenhagen, Denmark - Vega
11-14 Oslo, Norway - Sentrum Scene
11-15 Stockholm, Sweden - Berns
11-16 Reykjavik, Iceland - Frikirkjan Church
11-17 Reykjavik, Iceland - Frikirkjan Church

* with My Brightest Diamond