Has Kevin Morby’s music been deeply sexy all this time?

Thursday, 8 July, 2026. 35 degrees. London in the heat. 70 degrees, perhaps. I don’t know how they did it but all the air in the city had been pushed inside the Troxy, which is a ginormous art deco theatre in the east end with the uninterrupted sight lines of Radio City Music Hall. The worst idea was to go upstairs to the balcony, where the hottest air is stored and the heating felt like it was on, but we did that for a drink. Blistering. It wasn’t full but there were plenty of people up there. Sat down, enjoying the space, possibly dead. Life can’t survive the balcony of the Troxy in 35 degree heat. But it’ll give it a go for Kevin Morby.

Morby has the perfect music career, in my book. A journeyman’s career that’s been worked for. No shortcuts via one mega hit, falling in with a superstar or coming from a band bigger than him, although the groups he’s been involved with (New York vaguely psychedelic folk rock band Woods; the more garagey The Babies, who he formed with Cassie Ramone of Vivian Girls when they lived together in the late 2000s) are both excellent. He is a steady, stable rock and roll guy who has aimed for longevity and got it. In a recent podcast he said that his template has been The Mountain Goats and Phil Elverum – in other words, musicians who are always working but never stars. His primary credo is: “You can have everything, but not all in a day.”

We melted down the stairs and I said that it was hot again. The Troxy wasn’t nearly full but that’s no slight on Morby – there were still around 2,000 people there. It felt like a treat to be in a venue so grand with plenty of space around you, especially with it being… hot.

I’ve always had an impression of Morby as a great collaborator, even though it’s his name above the door; that on his quest to become The Mountain Goats he’s become a guy that everyone wants to play with; that the best American rock and rollers are in easy reach and he can assemble the perfect band at a moment’s notice, with so many weapons to hand that the lineup could change every tour and perhaps every night. If that’s as true as it seems, it’s because he’s been in the game so long despite being a relatively young 38 years old. It’s typical for an artist like him to put out a couple of lowkey albums on a small indie (his first 2 were released by his Woods bandmate Jeremy Earl on his Woodsist label) and then have a relative breakthrough when they sign to a larger indie: Singing Saw in 2016, in Morby’s case. We’re now at Little Wide Open, his 8th LP, which is why all those dead bodies are in the balcony.