Staff pick First Play: Tobias Jesso Jr., Goon

This week's staff pick: Goon by Tobias Jesso Jr. Stream it in advance below until March 17.

A piano, a determined mind and some heartbreak. Sometimes that's all you need to make it. 

Sometimes your road has been plotted, and you don't know it, but you just follow. You pack up your belongings and your guitar and leave your comfortable life in North Vancouver. You say so long to home and family, and you go to California.

Hollywood. All those bright lights, they have to shine on someone. 

Any path worth walking will have loose ground, tricks of the turn. Hollywood can eat you up. But you try, you and your music. You play bass for a pop star. You play in bands and sessions. You play until you can't.

And even when you need to put Los Angeles behind, as you watch it fade in the rear view, you can still see the sign.

(Design by Heather Collett/CBC Music)

You couldn't know this path would bring you back home. To family, to the mountainside. But that same big ocean, you can see it. You're back in Vancouver, and you have a determined mind, and your heartache. 

So you write some songs on your sister's piano. You upload them to YouTube, send files around. Burn them on CD-Rs and hand them out.

It's not long until you're back in L.A., recording these songs. You're also in Nashville, and San Francisco. Your friends are there, and one of them is in the Black Keys and he is producing your songs. You make new friends, too. One is named Adele, and she loves your song. These songs are simple and direct and raw; they don't turn away from cliché or earnestness and they display their influence. And people are sharing them. 

All the right blogs are writing about you. You hear the word "hype" in front of your name so often you start to think it's an honorific. And now Jimmy Fallon is introducing you. You've hardly even played these songs live, but here you are on The Tonight Show in front of millions, and you are 29 years old. This is your path.

Tracklist

1. "Can't Stop Thinking About You"
2. "How Could You Babe"
3. "Without You"
4. "Can We Still Be Friends"
5. "The Wait"
6. "Hollywood"
7. "For You"
8. "Crocodile Tears"
9. "Bad Words"
10. "Just a Dream"
11. "Leaving LA"
12. "Tell the Truth"

Tobias Jesso Jr.'s Goon will be released on March 17 through Arts & Crafts. You can pre-order it on iTunes.

Find me on Twitter: @BradFrenette