Swedish pop darling Robyn, profiled here in this weeks' Stranger has postponed her scheduled Seattle show in favor of playing the View. Pitchfork reports:

Alas, Robyn's time with "The View" has forced her to push planned dates in Portland on May 13 at Berbati's Pan and Seattle May 14 at Neumos back to August to accommodate the taping. That's a bummer, Pac NW, but think about it this way: there's another North American Robyn tour in the works, and it is definitely coming your way.

Maybe we'll just publish a link to our archives for that one.

That's right: Ten years after Seattle's legendarily horrible Hunchback tried to cast Victor Hugo's classic as a rock n' roll musical, Styx frontman Dennis DeYoung is set to open his own "exciting musical version" of The Hunchback of Notre Dame at Chicago's Bailiwick Repertory Theatre.

Of course this isn't DeYoung's first theatrical experiment—he was the driving force behind Styx's high-tech, exposition-heavy Kilroy Was Here live show, each of which began with this amazing 9-minute intro film:

"You can't stop the music, you bastards!"
"I'm Jonathan Chance!"
"Oh, my balls!"

Good luck to everyone everywhere.

My Blood Valentine announced some North American tour dates today. Closest they come to Seattle is San Francisco:

09-19-21 Monticello, NY - Kutshers Country Club (ATP New York)

09-22 New York, NY - Roseland
09-23 New York, NY - Roseland
09-25 Toronto, Ontario - Ricoh
09-27 Chicago, IL - Aragon Ballroom
09-30 San Francisco, CA - The Concourse
10-01 Los Angeles, CA - Santa Monica Civic
10-02 Los Angeles, CA - Santa Monica Civic

Damn. But, hey, instead we get Velvet Revolver side-project Stone Temple Pilots! Sigh.

Los Angeles: Flava Flav was sitting in a Mercedes with the top down on a Santa Monica street. I was there to meet him for an interview and get him to tell me a dream. (I’m into dreams.) You could smell Flav’s splif a block and half away. A log sized, log flume of a joint. Flav is filming in Canada and was home for a couple days. From his car, he was staring at a giant mural on the side of a building. He never took his eyes from it:

Mr. Flavor, do you remember your dreams?
Flav: I like this wall, yo. I come here when I can. I like to construct it in my head. You gotta augment shit, you know?

Can you tell me the real reason you wear clocks?
Damn G, hit me with that. The real reason ain’t real haha. The real reason is stupid. But it stuck. (Lifts up his sleeve and flashes a diamond wristwatch.) Can you say sponsors?

He laughed a spitting laugh from deep in his throat, then he told me his dream.

When he finished, I got out the car, and shut the door gingerly. The engine had been running the whole time. I thanked him and he was away. He took a right onto Santa Monica Blvd, looked back, and yelled, “Augment, yo! Flava-FLAAAV!!”

It's going to be +100 degrees all weekend. In years past I've felt that they've had the dominant summer festival lineup. This year... not so much. Anyone actually wish they were down there getting sunstroke? I would have liked to have seen Aphex Twin and Portishead, but I'm not sure there's anything in that desert that's significantly more compelling than what's happening in four festivals within a day's drive of Seattle (that's Sasquatch!, Block Party, SP20, and Pemberton, if you weren't keeping track).

Star Chef News: Madonna’s cook in LA couldn’t take it. He quit. She’s manipulative and issue filled. He was going to go on the upcoming tour, but no. She over-worked him for twenty-eight straight days and that was the last straw. Now he’s working for a grand a day cooking for another rich elderly woman.

Other than that, LA is nice. It’s Spring down here. You can smell the night blooming jasmine. All these stars and their chef problems. My chef is fine. Le Taco Belle. Drive through-riche. Rice and beans won’t ever quit.

A kind little genius bird fed me Zeppelin 3 by Philadelphia's Pink Skull before I left Seattle. I listened to it for the last five hours of the drive. It now owns me and my ear-brain. I, state your name, do hereby take this Pink Skull to be my lawful wedded psychedelaptop analog-Aztec space-wife. Zeppelin 3 is a masterpiece. Mouse on Mars-ish? Futuristic Aztecs don’t fuck around when they party. (Eric's review - here.) Heavy waylaying dance beats are wound around 130 bpm’s then go schizoid to quietly abstract Gregorian refrains. There’s a back and forth. Beats evolve, samples rip in, delays feed back. 808 pads stutter under a deranged Caribbean riff. Rusting mongoloid creatures dance around a tiki torch soldering their skin to processors. Platelets drip plasma and scar. Mitochondria in eardrum cells become supra and ears are able hear outside our round planet. They hear tectonics beneath the craters in the moon shift. It sounds like an old man murmuring. It’s not a basic noise, but it is. Your vehicle moves through dunes and the desert orbit presses play again. A hundred miles left to go.

Movement: Detroit's Electronic Music Festival (DEMF) announced more lineup additions today, adding a bunch of solid acts to the Memorial Day shindig (including Seattle's Jerry Abstract). Here's the latest (emphasis my own, all caps courtesy of the festival):

ALEX SMOKE -live ALEX UNDER -live ALLAND BYALLO BENNY BENASSI CARL CRAIG COBBLESTONE JAZZ -live DAVIDE SQUILLACE DBX -live DEADMAU5 -live DEEPCHORD PRESENTS ECHOSPACE -live DEREK PLASLAIKO DERRICK THOMPSON DIESELBOY & MC MESSINIAN DUBFIRE EGYPTIAN LOVER -live ELECTROBOUNCE.COM PRESENTS DATABASS GHETTO TECH ERIC JOHNSTON -live GIRL TALK –live GUILLAUME & THE COUTU DUMONTS -live HEARTTHROB -live JAMES ZABIELA JERRY ABSTRACT JORIS VOORN -live JOSH WINK JUSTIN KRUSE AKA KRUSE KONTROL JUSTIN LONG KONRAD BLACK LEE BURRIDGE MAGDA MARCO CAROLA MATHIAS KADEN -live MATTHEW HAWTIN MIKE GRANT MIKE HUCKABY MINX MOBY NEWCLEUS –live PAR GRINDVIK -live PAUL RITCH -live PEANUT BUTTER WOLF PETE ROCK REGGIE "HOTMIX" HARRELL RICHIE HAWTIN SHAWN MICHAELS SOUNDMURDERER SPEEDY J -live TECH ITCH TERRENCE PARKER THE COOL KIDS -live TYCHO -live ZIP

Brent Amaker and the Rodeo played inside the maximum security Hoogstraten Prison in Antwerp. Near riot. I asked them about it:

How did you all get booked at a prison in Antwerp?
Rodeo: Not exactly sure. Prisons are terrible places. The walls of this place were covered with framed posters of American prison films. They were EVERYWHERE. I asked our host Herwig about the posters. He said, “They are from the warden’s collection. He brings them in and puts them up. The prisoners don’t like, but…”

Where in the prison did you play?
The room where we set up looked like a high school auditorium. It was a packed house with inmates from the men’s and women’s wings, all seated in plastic chairs. Men up front, ladies in the back row. Serious looking dudes right up front. Sour faces.

How’d it go?
It was a mixed reaction. Some were smiling and trying to have a good time (Herwig says it’s tough to transfer so quickly from dealing with prison life to trying to enjoy a show), some were quiet, some were rowdy and shouting. Prisoners were exchanging things and trying to hide it from the guards. One guy kept standing up and yelling “Fuck you, America!”

We played, went to a backstage area, and then there was a problem returning the prisoners to their cells. Everyone was up and yelling. The men made moves toward the women and the guards started to look overwhelmed. Herwig came backstage, totally bug-eyed, and asked us to get back on stage to draw everyone’s attention. We bust ass, throwing on our guitars, get on stage and play “Howdy Do!” from the new album. The “Fuck America” guy is out of his seat and screaming.

Note to all European prison wardens: “Howdy Do” will stop a riot before it starts. Not joking! By the second chorus, they were all clapping along and singing “HOWDY DO” back at us.

So none of the inmates escaped?
Actually, the day after our show, two inmates broke out and have not been caught. Seriously. We're keeping an eye out for them.

Damn, be careful. Hide your hats. Anything else happen?
Well, at our hotel in Brussels our bass player Sugar found a purple dildo underneath his pillow. It’s with us now and it’s not going to be leaving us anytime soon.

(Pictures by: Johnny Podhradsky)

Missoula based record label Wantage USA is calling for submissions for its annual "Total Fest." (Previous Nat Damm poster above.)

Deadline to submit is April 4.

What is Total Fest? Total Fest is a 3-day DIY festival of rock, pop, metal, etc. set in the welcoming confines of Missoula, Montana that takes place August 14th, 15th, and 16th. Total Fest is also just a cool word. Say it, TOTAL FEST. Not to be confused with Testy Fest.

Many Seattle bands have played it in the past: Big Business, the Lights, Lozen, the Narrows, the Trucks, and Akimbo.

From their website:

Total Fest 2008: That time of year is rapidly approaching again. Total Fest will return to the amazing Badlander in downtown Missoula, Montana again this year on August 14, 15 and 16th. For all bands, all ages interested in playing, the deadline for submissions is April 4th. So get those demo's ready and send them along to: Wantage USA P.O. Box 8681 Missoula, MT 59807.

I spoke with the Lights:

Tell me, what is Total Fest? What’s it like?
The Lights: It’s a fucking blast. Josh from Wantage is the man. He brews his own "Total Fest Beer", hosts a BBQ in his back yard, all the bands hang out during the day, many of which camp out in people's back yards. There's usually a trip up the river for a swim and it's just a weekend of no nonsense bullshit. It's like one giant rock festival, camping trip, party.

There are day time all ages shows, a record swap, and usually some rousing games of "horseballs" (it's like horseshoes ...) and definetly some frisbee golf action.

Pitchfork reports today: Aphex Twin and Goldfrapp have been added to the already announced 2008 Coachella Line Up.

Aphex Twin - "Window Licker":

Goldfrapp - "A&E":

Goldfrapp - "Happiness (Rejceted Rex the Dog Remix)":

As part of their "Moms Weekend" Washington State University has enlisted Elton John to perform two shows at their campus next month. I have a couple friends who went to WSU. One time my friend Kellen went to visit them for the weekend. He told me about walking to the bars on Saturday night, and how frat guys were hanging out their windows screaming "faggot" at every guy that walked by. Apparently in Pullman, anyone who is not in a fraternity is automatically a "faggot" and will be told thusly, over and over again, by strangers, all weekend. The trip was so stressful and grating on Kellen (who's not gay) that he couldn't take a dump for three days (possibly in fear that the toilet also would call him a faggot as soon as he dropped his pants).

The fact that gay icon Elton John is coming to Pullman is not particularly hilarious. What is hilarious is the fact that since he's playing both April 12th and 13th, Elton John is going to have to spend the night in Pullman. He'll probably stay in his comfy tour bus, but can you imagine what would happen if he walked around on a Saturday night? That's a recipe for international disaster.

A list of artists has just been released for the first ever Pemberton Festival, British Columbia's three day concert response to Samsquamch. Pemberton is a two hour drive from Vancouver, north of Whistler. Only three day tickets can be purchased (lame), going for $239.50 Canadian. Promoters expect a crowd of about 40,000 for the festival, taking place July 25-27. Coldplay, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Jay-Z and Nine Inch Nails will be headlining. The other confirmed bands:

Flaming Lips / Interpol / Death Cab For Cutie / The Tragically Hip / Serj Tankian / My Morning Jacket / Metric / Sam Roberts Band / Vampire Weekend / Black Mountain / Minus The Bear / Wintersleep / Buck 65 / Secret Machines / MGMT / Brazillian Girls / SIA / Fiery Furnaces / Mates of State / The Airborne Toxic Event / Carolina Liar / Grand Ole Party / Monte Negro / Low Vs Diamond / Annie Stela / The Crystal Method / DJ Shadow & Cut Chemist / Junkie XL / David Seaman / Booka Shade / MSTRKRFT / M.A.N.D.Y. / Tommie Sunshine / Chromeo / Deadmau5 / 3 OH! 3 / Kevin Shiu / Timeline / Tony Pantages

The big one on Haight St. I put a GWAR CD in the Belle and Sebastian section. I did it. And I’m sorry for it. One of the people working there was so beyond a dickhead to me. It was my feeble attempt at retaliation.

I asked a clerk a question about Ray Manzarek from the Doors. I thought I saw a poster that said he was doing an in-store. The record store guy did the eye roll, and grunted, and painstakingly answered me, “You mean the keyboard player from the Doors?”

Once I heard the intensity of his dickheaded-ness, I answered, “No, Ray Manzarek from GWAR.” Then the clerk just walked off. I was so pissed. I couldn’t help it.

I am now asking for forgiveness, great God of Record Stores. I know that guy was probably having a bad day. Maybe I was the ninth person to ask him about Manzarek. Maybe Manzarek had done something terrible to him, such as crap on his forehead, I don’t know. I should have let him be.

I don’t know how long the GWAR stayed there in the Belle and Sebastian. But someone found it and had to deal with it, and for that, I am sorry. Perhaps it’s still there.

I can't be there for this, so instead I'm already getting excited about this. Only 112 days to go!

In honor of that, here's Claude VonStroke's "Who's Afraid of Detroit?," with great footage from the D (the city, not me).

Video hat-tip to Ario.

You’ve probably seen this guy before.

If you haven’t, allow me to introduce – Super Greg.

If you go – here, the screen below will appear before you. There are three buttons: ‘Super Greg’, ‘Number One’, and ‘Scratching.’ Click them and Super Greg says, “Supa Greg!” Or, “Numba One!” Or you can make Greg scratch. The controls for these actions are at your finger tips:

Super Greg says:

Sometimes as a DJ U have these 'golden moments' when everything seems to flow. You never know when they are going to happen. It's funny, on this particular occasion I wasn't thinking about DJing at all, but about a sweet girl I once met at a bus station.

Shit. FUCKING SHIT!

Rob Bailey and the New Untouchables (I got my eye on you Mr. Ringgold!) gets ALL the groovy, every time, don't they! The Sonics are playing this years Le Beat Bespoke weekender!

Le Beat Bespoke 4- Easter Bank Holiday, March 21- 23 2008

Dammit, will Seattle EVER get the SONICS?

I 'm off to Spokane today to check out Eastern Washington's thriving post-ICP Horror Rap scene. Gonna be kicking it with my boys Knothead and Livid Undead. Should be a trip.

My mother once told me a story about when she was a little girl with a bowl of pet fish. When the fish died she put the bowl in her closet without cleaning it, and forgot about it for several months. When she finally took the bowl out of the closet to get rid of it she found that even though she had believed all the fish were dead, one of them had lived, and was still alive in the shallow, slimy green pool in the bottom of the bowl. In the dark, one fish had lived on sucking the algae from the sides of the bowl. She couldn't believe it had survived.

Last night the Mighty Mighty Bosstones played their fifth straight sold out show at the Middle East in Boston. Their myspace is all aflutter with beaming fans from around the county hoping the Bosstones will come to their town in support of their recently released album Medium Rare. Kids are stoked. They are getting tattoos. I looked inside the bowl. I couldn't believe anything was still alive.

People who love to bitch about KEXP should spend a week in Southern California, stuck in traffic. Jesus Christ, the radio stations in Los Angeles are dismal. You can hit the SEEK button on your rental car's radio until your fingers fall off and you will not encounter anything that comes remotely close to an independent radio station like KEXP. Does KEXP play Blues Traveler? Or Barenaked Ladies? Or Smashmouth? Or Green Day's Dookie? Or Red Hot Chili Peppers? I kid you not, these are the things they're listening to in Southern California these days, across the channels. The same shit they were listening to in 1998, the year I left.

I started laughing when, for the third time in two days, "Under the Bridge" by Red Hot Chili Peppers came on. Three times! In two days! It came on when I was listening to 106.7 (KROQ), it came on when I was listening to the "alternative" 98.7 (STAR), it came on on another station I forget. At one point traffic was bumper-to-bumper, and there was no way to plug in my iPod, and I called a friend in Seattle and she said, "Oh, LA has a good radio station, here I'll find it on the internet." And she found one, but when I dialed to it, it was all fuzz. And I was in downtown LA.

The next day I was in Irvine or somewhere, facing a sea of brake lights and, to my left, a sherbet sunset. Truly gorgeous. It was so orangey and LA-y and happy-making, I tried to take a picture of it with my cell phone as I drove (above), but just then traffic sped up and in the blur all the bright colors in the middle just went yellow-white. It was really impressive in person. Then I clicked on the radio and guess what was playing? For the FOURTH time in three days? On a separate radio station from the others? UNDER THE MOTHERFUCKING BRIDGE BY THE RED HOT MOTHERFUCKING CHILI PEPPERS! Did I give in? Did I turn it up and sing along? Did I find myself knowing every word, every "no, no, no" and "yeah-ee-yeah"? Yes, yes, yes I did! I sang it so good. I sang it better than the radio. You shoulda been there, Megan.

It's nice to be home.

Babyshambles’ Olympic champion lead man, Pete Doherty, didn't show up for a secret Babyshambles set at London's IndigO2 club. The bass player and drummer played a couple songs by themselves, then pulled a fan out of the crowd to take his place. They asked the people there if any of them knew how to play guitar. 18-year old Jamie Bell answered the call. He played and sang on a version of "Carry On Up the Morning".

(Story from 411mania.com.)

This isn’t the first time a band has pulled an audience member onstage to fill in.

On the 1973 Quadrophenia tour, drummer Keith Moon decided to take fifteen horse tranquilizers before a show at the Cow Palace in Daly City, CA. This is almost four times the amount for a horse.

When informed of his overdosage, Moon said, "I'm fucking Keith Moon."

He passed out in "Won't Get Fooled Again" and again in "Magic Bus". When Moon became completely incapacitated, Pete Townshend asked the crowd, "Does anybody know how to play the drums?" Audience member, Scott Halpin, said yes, and filled in for Moon for the rest of the show.

Have you heard about this shit? Artist and illustrator David Shrigley made a record, sort of. He made up a bunch of lyrics and made them into drawings, and then all of a sudden all these crazy good bands (Islands, Liars, Scout Niblett, Final Fantasy) and music legends (David Byrne!) were fighting each other to record them (srsly! arguments occurred!).

You can only see the show in Berlin, NYC, or London. Laaaaame. I wish I had a sugar daddy to fly me out there (but then I couldn't date Nick Diamonds).

I left New York this morning, as did (I'm sure) many a CMJ visitor, totally exhausted with my head a jumble of band names, member's faces, and lamanated badges on bright red lanyards. The weekend was good to me. I feel like while I missed an embarassingly large number of really fucking awesome shows, I did get to see a few that were well worth the trip.

I've definitely come to the conclusion that badges are in no way a critical element of the CMJ experience, and that the hierarchy of "levels" is really just a superfluous way of allowing industry people to feel better than the college kids for whom the festival is designed. Plus a lot of the shows are 21+ anyway, rendering an underager (read: me), inadmissable, even if they have a badge. The fact of the matter is, if a show isn't letting in any more badges, it isn't letting in any more badges, regardless of whatever "level" you paid however much money for. In fact, a lot of the time the only way to get in is to just pay for the ticket outright, and most shows are open to the public anyway. I am, however, going to try my hardest to get my college to buy me a badge next year (if other schools do it, why can't mine?), because having that safety net of "at least I can get into something" might by nice. And I hear that the actual point of CMJ is a conference or something?

After asking around to see if the panels were even worth going to, most of the students that I talked to who attended are music directors of their campus radio stations or enrolled in semi-bullshit "music business" programs at their primarily east-coast colleges. I say "semi-bullshit" because the vision some of these kids have of the industry (as a result of going to college for "music business") is that managing labels and booking bands are a perfectable, static science that they are bent on mastering, and many are intensly ambitious ankle-biters who all just want to be head-honcho at a major label by the time they are twenty-five. I sound bitter, but I was more shocked at how cold and unphased they appeared in discussing music, something that's generally talked about with slightly more reverence. I didn't actually get the impression that some of the people I talked to even liked music at all, as much as liked the hype and saw it as a possible career direction, slightly better than banking. But my personal aversions to some of the crowd aside, the actual content of the conference portion of CMJ remains a mystery to me.

On Friday I didn't end up staying where I was to see Deerhunter; The Bowery Presents was having an office party, which at first sounded infinitely less exciting than Bradford Cox wailing in the Christmas-light encircled, egg-crate-ceiling-ed basement of Cake Shop, but turned out to be a blast. Considering Bowery is the hand that fed me guest lists, and I genuinely like my old co-workers, I felt compelled to stay put. That might still be the one regret I have about the weekend (I also missed Essie Jain, this stunning English songwriter on BaDaBing), but missing things is really just the theme of CMJ, and the Bowery party actually had some bands of its own playing in the back of the office: some from the line-up of the venues' showcases that night. A garbage can was overturned, a waterjug was held underarm, and a whole conference room of industry-types was trying their best to clap in rhythm while grasping various sponsored beverages. Completely bizarre ambience, but all good vibes, and remarkable acoustics considering it was... a conference room.

Again, only at CMJ.

Continue reading "Badgeless at CMJ, Part Two" »

CMJ--It's kind of a big deal. You might have heard of some of the bands. I mean, there are over a thousand or whatever.

I'm in New York right now, only loosely because of the Music Marathon, and unfortunately, somewhat unprepared. Yeah, I do college radio and should have pressed the student body to give me a badge and a plane ticket free of charge. Some of the panels do sound interesting, and the networking that happens at CMJ is phenomenal. But my school didn't want to pay for it, and I don't have $500 sitting around, so I am badgeless.

I bought a plane ticket anyway, because I used to intern for The Bowery Presents, (a venue group that includes the Bowery Ballroom, Mercury Lounge, Webster Hall, Terminal 5, and Music Hall of Williamsburg) and figured my get-into-any-show-free card might still be valid. My school's "fall break" also conveniently fell during the same week, so if nothing else I could visit the old stomping grounds, eat some bagels and challah french toast, and hopefully see some good shows.

I am still forming my opinion about CMJ as a festival; it's totally crazy and goes all day and all night, and as I type this I'm probably missing 20 super-hyped "next big things," or secret appearances by secret side projects that were never announced, or announced secret guests that don't actually show up. For example, as of an hour ago Deerhunter is apparently playing Cake Shop, where I am writing this, at 6pm. Later, MSTRKRFT is playing a set starting at 2am.

Only at CMJ. More (and pictures) as the weekend progresses and I find a cheaper place than Duane Reade to develop film.

Continue reading "Badgeless at CMJ, Part One" »

I hold dear a memory from my childhood of early fall and apples.

My extended family on my fathers side lived and worked the orchards of central Washington back in the '70's and '80's. Twice each year my small family would drive down to Yakima, stay with our family in houses in the center of vast orchards around Naches, and work for a week picking cherries in the summer and apples in the fall. We felt so grown up; stepping up tippy ladders with buckets attached to our chest or canvas bags with wood bottoms at our sides reaching out slightly further than was safe to pick bushels of apples and pails of cherries for the family farm. We could eat whatever we could pick, and at the end of the week, my parents recieved 4 or five giant boxes of red delicious and golden delicious apples or bags and bags of fresh bings and rainier cherries as payment for the week of help. We'd hug our relatives and drive home thinking about all the cherry and apple pie my father was bound to make and put in the freezer for the cold winter months to come.

I woke my son up early Saturday morning so we could get on the road and arrive at Yakima for the Central Washington State Fair early enough to spend the day on the midway, riding all the freakishly nausea-inducing rides to his hearts content before the main event: "Weird Al" Yankovic - Live In Concert.

If you don't have a 9 year old you might not have heard, so I'll be the first to tell you that "Weird Al" is having a renaissance in his career. 25 years ago "Weird Al" broke on the scene with his parodies that every pop music listening child loved, and, I'm sure, every parent detested. They were fairly obvious, Michael Jackson's "Bad" turned into "Weird Al"'s Fat, Madonna's "Like A Virgin" metamorphosed into Like A Surgeon under "Weird Al"'s watch. Never one to understate the obvious "Weird Al" beat his humor home with a sledge-hammer by creating videos for each parody that made perfect sense. There was nothing there an adult could remotely like. They were dumb.

And I loved every one of them.

Continue reading ""Weird Al" Yankovic @ The Central Washington State Fair, Yakima, Saturday Oct. 6" »

...sold out in 38 seconds.

Should I really write a post about a show I saw over three weeks ago in a different state? Yeah, why not.

I was in San Francisco last month, and one of my favorites, Look Back and Laugh, were playing at Gilman on Sunday, August 26, so I hopped BART and headed to Berkeley. One of the openers was Government Warning, from Richmond, Virginia. I hadn’t heard of them, so before the show, I listened to a few MP3s on their MySpace page, and at first I thought it was a joke: Instead of putting up some of their own songs, did they post MP3s from the Circle Jerks or Adolescents or Reagan Youth or some other ’80s hardcore band? Or are they an actual ’80s band going back on the road? It turns out those are their songs and they’re young guys—younger-looking than me—who just happen to have that 20-year-old sound down pat.

My fella and I got to the show just after Government Warning took the stage. They played great—tight, straight-ahead, perfect ’80s hardcore—and were unstoppably energetic. They’re not like a reimagining of the sound; they simply are the sound. The kids went crazy for them, creating the biggest circle pit I’ve ever seen (which we later determined was because there wasn’t enough people in the crowd to keep it reined in). They played a short, sweet set. Then, out of nowhere, a young skinhead got knocked the fuck out with one punch to the face and bled all over the floor.

Aside from Government Warning's set, the show on a whole wasn’t great; it was pretty tame (um, aside from that skinhead bleeding all over the place) and there weren’t a lot of people there. It was a Sunday night, after all, and I overheard some teenagers talking about having to go to school the next morning. Look Back and Laugh played after Government Warning, but their set suffered because of the small crowd and the resulting lack of energy. Which is too bad, because they’re great (and so is two of their member's grind side project, California Love).

Government Warning have an uninformative MySpace page and that’s about it. I can’t really find out much else about this band, but they do have several records out, one of which, No Moderation, I have just ordered. And sorry, but they played Seattle on August 17 (and Portland with Tragedy on August 18), but I wasn’t paying attention at the time. Go listen to some of their MP3s. Now.

A report, from Austin Texas, by photographer Victoria Renard...

The best thing about almost any music festival in Austin TX is there's always a shit ton of offshoot events and parties. Some of the best music at this year's Austin City Limits was actually at the after-parties. Common's DJ Dummy and Chamillionaire's DJ Rapid Ric spun a free show at the Firehouse Lounge; LCD Soundsystem hosted their own DJ dance party at Red 7; and The Beauty Bar packed in four solid nights of live music on their outside patio, bands like local favorites Faceless Werewolves, Young Heart Attack, and Those Peabodys. They also hosted indoor DJ sets by M.I.A., Flosstradamus, and Bloc Party. And one merely needed to walk by an open side door at the downtown outdoor venue, Stubb's, to hear or see strains of Bob Dylan's after show.

Thursday night kicked off with a free show by The Black Angels sponsored by Filter Magazine at Club de Ville. The almost pitch black scene was eerily lit by three 16mm film projectors flickering layers of subtly morbid imagery onto a fifty foot tall limestone wall overhung with a jungle of twisted trees and ferns which threatened to fall over the top of the precipice onto the mesmerized audience. With an apocalyptic thud of a kettle drum and the distinct reverberating twang of an electric sitar, Austin's gurus of neo-psychedelia proved their diverse abilities by trading off instruments and with Alex Maas stepping down a couple of times from his role as lead vocalist with some new songs by lead guitarist Christian Bland who has recently started a self-titled solo acoustic project.

Though not on the bill for the Austin City Limits Fest, Art Brut showed their limey best at a strangely under-attended show at the Dell Lounge Hot Freaks! party at The Mohawk. Every generalization I've come to love and hate about the English from the smug cockiness, the polite self-loathing, the psychosexual neurosis was all embodied in one charming package with Art Brut's live performance. What The Smiths once delivered in morose profound introspection Art Brut expands into a tongue-in-cheekiness, a knowing wink and a nod, and a rollicking good time. Other headlining acts at the neighboring venues of Club de Ville and The Mohawk both Friday and Saturday included Grizzly Bear, The Rosebuds and St. Vincent.

What's not to love about a gang of gorgeous glamazons with big hair dressed in PVC mini dresses and go go boots who can really play their instruments? Straight out of a Russ Meyer film onto the sparkly pseudo style parlor at The Beauty Bar, Detroit's Gore Gore Girls finished off the ACL after party weekend with a Bif! Bang! Pow! full of bluesy-garage swagger and Shangri La's style girl group vocals, followed by a soul dance party featuring the Tighten Up DJs.

Bif! Bang! Pow! Indeed.

All photos by Victoria Renard.

I'd luckily bought a ticket to the show a week before, because gaggles of wristband-weilding festival-goers were stuck outside of the packed venue, waiting to be frisked. And oh my, what a frisking! The security guard had me walk through a metal detector before going through my bag, which involved opening every single crevice and compartment she could find (including but not limited to film canisters, a pack of gum, the pocket in the back of my moleskine?) and giving me an extremely scrutinizing twice-over, (she probably wasn't allowed to frisk me too).

I missed Cool Kids and Lifesavas as I was trying to get into other shows, (ie YACHT @ Satyricon, the Brunettes @ Crystal Ballroom, both to no avail) but got there just in time, with pre-dance-frenzy tension hanging in the air . When Gillis finally ascended his pride rock, so did two venue security guards, and it became apparent to the crowd that no stage-rushing would be taking place. Things were looking grim, but alas! Gillis in his signature sweatsuit jumped down in front of the stage, the kids launched themselves over the barrier, the beats started, and the place exploded. Girl Talk does not disappoint. It was a limb-flailing, head-bobbing, fist-pumping mess and totally awesome. Probably even worth the twenty dollars (and countless other mysterious items I haven't noticed missing) I lost when my bag was split open in the madness.

Half the crowd disappeared when the set was over, a shame considering Clipse was headlining; while the duo was charismatic and their performance totally on, the crowd was tuckered out from the Girl Talk insanity. Kids were dancing, maybe even awkwardly waving their hands around to the beat, but the only real enthusiasm exhibited (read: not primarily a hip-hop crowd) was for "Wamp Wamp (What It Do)", a track Girl Talk samples in a mash-up of Grizzly Bear's song "Knife".

I confess I wasn't really paying attention to Clipse, I was busy crawling around people's feet collecting my scattered belongings.

Pampelmoose has some video footage of the show. Needless to say, unless you are totally square and hate dancing, Girl Talk shows are a blast.

I'm currently on vacation in New York City. It's the first time I've been here, and it's completely amazing.

Because a friend of mine is here on business, I'm able to stay in a fancypants hotel room on her company dime--the Hudson Hotel. It's near Central Park and Times Square and it's gorgeous.

I've never ever stayed in a hotel like this, it's painfully trendy. There's no sign on the front. The escalators to the lobby are lit with pea yellow neon, the lobby is covered with ivy on the inside and everything's dimly lit and "cool." The hotel even has it's own soundtrack, and for $23 you can take the two-disc Hudson CD home.

The tracklisting is as follows:

Disc One
1. The Kooks "Seaside"
2. El Perro Del Mar "God Knows (You've Got to Give to Get)"
3. Lay Low "Mojo Love"
4. Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly. "Oce More With Feeling"
5. The Shivers "New Direction"
6. Innaway "Tiny Brains"
7. Domino "Tropical Moonlight"
8. Andrew Bird "Imitosis"
9. Cocorosie "Rainbowwarriors"
10. The Veils "Advice for Young Mothers to Be"
11. Albert Hammond, Jr. "Hard to Live in the City"
12. Charlotte Gainsbourg "The Operation"

Disc Two
1. Scanners "Bombs" (Goulet's Dollar-Slot Jackpot Mix)
2. Walter Meego "Hollywood"
3. Jamie T "Salvador"
4. The Rapture "Gon Don Do It"
5. New Young Pony Club "Descend"
6. Bugz in the Attic "Move Aside"
7. The Black Ghosts "Anyway You Choose to Give It" (Playgroup Remix)
8. The Loose Cannons "Girls in Hats" (Kissy Sell Out Mix)
9. The Lotterboys "Heroine"
10. Sons & Daughters "Dance Me In" (Optimo Remix)
11. The Futureheads "Let's Dance"
12. The Sounds "Song With a Mission"

There's also a bar with a DJ. I haven't really checked it out, but when we got back after visiting Times Square and stalking Willie Nelson last night, they were blasting Phil Collins' "In the Air Tonight." "Odd choice when trying to whip up a Monday night dance party," I thought. "Odd choice on the eve of 9/11."

I already had enough problems with the Austin City Limits Music Festival schedule this year to forgo attending it this coming weekend--seriously, Wilco and My Morning Jacket are playing at the same time? What kind of neo-country riot are you trying to spark?

Anyway, today's news only affirms my previous apprehension. The Austin American-Statesman has confirmed that The White Stripes are skipping the fest altogether, bailing on their second concert appearance at nearby mega-venue Stubb's as well. Not sure how that will affect the band's two-night stand at Seattle's Paramount later in September (or my second cousin's Bat Mitzvah), but let's hope the trouble isn't particularly acute.

I spent the weekend in Eugene, Oregon visiting family. I grew up there until age eight or nine, then my family moved to the Seattle suburbs. Years ago, they moved back, and I stuck around, went to school in Olympia, and moved back to Seattle proper. What this means is that when I visit Eugene, the only people I usually know are my family. The last time I had friends my own age there was in 3rd grade (Spring Creek Elementary gifted program, holler at me), so I normally don't really have anyone my own age to take me out. Luckily, this time around, my buddy and all-around good-time guy, Jason, was in town visiting some friends of his, so I was able to tag along with them on a bar-crawling Saturday night survey of Eugene nightlife. My findings:

The Whittaker neighborhood block party looked pretty fun, but I didn't get there until nearly 10pm, and they weren't letting any more revelers in to dance to the '80s-inflected house or mill around the Armadillo-shaped, art-car RV and drink the local IPA. Down the street at the homey Sam Bond's Garage, a band was playing (I never caught their name, but they were opening for someone called Dan Jones & the Squids). Their singer/guitarist has kind of a fluffy-haired, Party of Five thing going on, and he plays melodic pop rock to match. The rhythm section, on the other hand look like they should be a grindcore band—the bassist had the lanky, sunken-eyed look of a independent video store clerk, and their drummer sported a sleeveless Wolf Eyes t-shirt and a Cthulu-esque cephalopod tattoo. That drummer pounded the shit out his kit on mellow love songs that totally didn't demand it at all, and he was grinning and grimacing the whole time. He's awesome, and when he starts that grindcore (or thrash or noise) band, they may be worth watching.

Across the street, the Tiny Tavern boasted the night's best mix of toothless regulars and punky young people (and Eugene has kind of a lock on that mix). An acoustic punk (or "indie roots" or "alt americana," I don't know) duo was doing covers and originals. They played "Heart of Glass." They played harmonica. A cool old woman with an oversized t-shirt of the evil queen from Snow White (very M.I.A.) grabbed my buddies' butts and told us, "I used to be bitching, too." She is, in fact, still totally bitching.

Walking to downtown, we passed the W.O.W. hall, Eugene's former-communist union hall turned all-ages venue, where a local show/benefit for a local Alzheimers association was taking place. Headliner Unkle Nancy hits an intersection of folk and hip hop a little like Why?, only a little less Berkeley intellectual and more rural Oregon. We skipped the show, though, to hit more bars.

We'd gotten a flyer for an "electro dance party" at a club called Snafu (free with costume!), but when we got there, we could see that the place was empty from outside. In fact, we could see the whole place from the outside—Snafu might be the world's smallest gay bar (the door person estimated it was 700 square feet, including kitchen and bathrooms). They were playing euro-disco. We took off, with the intent to come back later and see if it picked up (but we got drunk and never made it back).

We went to some non-descript bar downtown where the DJ was dropping late '80s/early '90s hip hop to a somewhat full bar with a totally empty dance floor. The doorman had full facial tattoos and a Famous Stars & Stripes t-shirt.

Across the street from this bar was a place called Jameson's, which one of my companions described as "Eugene's hipster bar." Okay. I heard some Chromeo on the sound system. Some girls in roller skates rolled through the bar. Seattle bass & drums thrashers the Last Slice of Butter have a friend at Jameson's, and his name is Chad. Chad and I peed together (it was one of those bathrooms with both a urinal and a toilet but meant for one), and, upon learning I was from Seattle, he demanded check them out. They play the OFH Teen Center this Friday with Talbot Tagora and Little Party & the Bad Business. Chad's own band, Blast Majesty, will open for the Last Slice of Butter when they play Eugene on their upcoming "Gnarlytimes West Coast Tour."

It is Season of the Summer Fest.

The 2007 Summer Meltdown is happening now and tomorrow.

Whitehorse Mtn. Amphitheater - An hour and a half northeast of Seattle in Darrington.

Saturday Aug. 11th:

AriSawkaDoria 2am until...

Flowmotion 11:15-2am

That 1 Guy 10:20-11pm

Yard Dog Road Show 9-10:15pm

McTuff 7:30- 8:50pm

Vicci Martinez 6-7:15pm

Kids Parade 5:45-6pm

TheMasses 4:30-5:45pm

Acorn Project 3-4pm

Intervision 1:30-2:30pm

Symphony De La Steel 12-1:15pm

Sunday Aug. 12th:

Special Guests 11:15pm - ???

Sky Cries Mary 9:30-11pm

Bad Dreams Good Breakfast 8:05 - 9:15pm

Clinton Fearon 6:30 - 8pm

Baby Gramps 5:25-6:25pm

Panda Conspiracy 4-5:20pm

Spoonshine 2:30-3:30pm

Jam On White Bread 1-2pm

Katie Gray 12-12:45pm

So yesterday Jonathan posted about his take on the differences between the amorphous terms alt-country, indie Americana, and indie roots. The discussion could go on forever (and should, fortified by cheap bourbon and Moon Pies), but if you want to experience indie roots for yourself, your best bet is to get down to Portland this weekend.

The 9th annual Pickathon starts today. The Avett Brothers are playing, as are Langhorne Slim, Dale Watson, the Gourds, the Hacienda Brothers, and other bearers of the indie roots standard. The lineup runs from the straight-up banjo-pickin’ country of Chatham County Line to the spare, hushed acoustic drama of Horse Feathers.

There’s a bit of everything, and it’s on a farm, which has hiking trails and lots of trees. There’s camping, food, drink, and, in all likelihood, not a small number of impromptu fiddle circles. Pickathon ends Sunday night with a hoedown in the barn, which seems appropriate.

So get out of town for Chrissakes. See the world. Tap some toes. Reclaim your Appalachian heritage. And hear what country/bluegrass/folk/Americana sounds like today.

The Stranger's official line on shows for tonight: "Umm, well, I guess... It's hard to explain."

Jumpin' Jehoshaphat...Y'all ever consider asking the Texan for some Monday picks? In fact, I've got two dandies from my former Red River stomping grounds.

Eisley doesn't sound much like their small hometown of Tyler, Texas, just east of Dallas. This quintet of four siblings and a cousin, currently sitting on a mean age of 20.8 years, has been winning over Radiohead-alytes since 2003 with surging piano-pop. Lest you already be bored by that description, rest assured that their starry-eyed rock is better than the usual suspects thanks to their unworldly three-sister vocal harmonies. Though the band has stunned crowds at the Austin City Limits Music Festival and on tours with Coldplay and Snow Patrol, their expected stardom still hasn't kicked off. Perhaps Combinations, their new record from Reprise due out August 14, will do the trick; get a sneak peek at the Crocodile Cafe tonight.

Watermelon Slim, on the other hand, sounds exactly like his Norman, Oklahoma digs. Take the rapid fire pedal steel play of Junior Brown, then infuse him with a white guy whose blues ability has nothing to do with Stevie Ray Vaughan, and you've got perhaps the best modern bluesman currently kicking around the South. Expect his opening set at the Triple Door to ruin the crowd for big band blues headliner John Lee Hooker, Jr.

Now, if'n y'all need me, I'll be in the corner with some sweet tea and an umbrella. Damned Seattle weather.

Reporting by Mairead Case. Photo of Jamie Lidell by gbtransmission.

There are lots of places to read about, or hear, Sunday’s brightest bands. For example: the New Pornographers, whose show was just as well-mapped and balanced as any of their three studio albums. Craig Taborn played junk magic and futuristic keyboard, Brightblack Morning Light sang to the sky, and Stephen Malkmus had a guitar but no Jicks. (He did do some Pavement songs, suggesting a reunion is not totally impossible.) To recreate these experiences for yourself, find some classy headphones and a mild sunburn, crack a beer and listen away. It’s not exactly the same (and obviously it’s hard to be whiz-bang original for a bazillion hipsters and two large windscreens)--but you get the idea.

What you can’t MySpace are Jamie Lidell’s betinseled hair and golden robe, the way his songs run six minutes long and two too many, but nobody seems to care. You gotta directly experience the sheer class that is De La Soul, how they made the crowd putty, got them dancing not two minutes in. And you really can’t download the glory-glory hallelujah that is Of Montreal, whose stage outfits included pinkly feathered angel wings, leather hotpants, teacup-bright football helmets, mesh visors, catsuits/batsuits, alien oyster puppets with eight heads, and something part nose, part dick, and clawed, sprayed McDonald’s colours and stuck with tiny mirrors: a spacy geoduck, maybe. When the crowd clamoured encore, Kevin Barnes rushed back out in a thong, fishnets, and a red neckerchief, then banged through “Girl You Really Got Me.” I could’ove kissed ‘em all.

Other moments unFacebookable include the one kid with “No Fear” fabric painted on his back, and the other wearing a blackmarketed Dave Matthews shirt, with “Before These Crowded Streets” scribbled in Hebrew. The giant dodgeball game. The giant foursquare game. The public pool across the street, its water blue enough for headache, and jammed with kids treading water to the Sea and Cake’s dreamy roll.

Now, hey, I’m the very first to wax sarcastic at blogs and dateless, bandless, soulless rock critics, but thankfully (and as Buckley once said), a lot of Pitchfork was still “so real.” There weren’t any “Jesus snakes!” fracas-moments, like last year when Ted Leo wore white and smashed his face into a microphone, streamed blood down the nose, but I guess that happens when festivals get super-big. Plus the Ice Cream Man (aka Matt Allen, who treks crosscountry in 1969 Chevy, dishing out free treats at shows) ran out after 3,087 sugar-sticks. Nobody cared, not even Of Montreal’s toddler, so maybe love really is better than ice cream.

Reported by Mairead Case. Photo of Clipse courtesy of Chicagoist.

For the first hour or so at Pitchfork Music Festival, day two, I saw at least four kids carrying large bunches of schoolbus-yellow bananas. I thought it was a kink thing, like handkerchiefs in the back pocket or flower leis at Trader Joe’s, but then I realized the Whole Foods booth was selling them (along with tofu bowls). My bad. Other than bananas, then, the kids are wearing big glasses with small ponytails, expensive-looking tattoos, handkerchiefs and cowboy boots, plus at least one stuffed-lion backpack (his name was Frank).

Pitchfork’s three stages are named Connector, Aluminum, and Balance; they’re separated by booths selling show posters, skeleton-shaped belt buckles, health care, stuffed parasites, plus a sweet basketball court and more Fuze juice stands than pox on a chicken. Spirit fingers to the WBEZ DJs, who staffed the record fair despite being told their station was folding just three days prior.

Saturday’s sparklehorse favorite was Battles, a virtually unclassifiable quartet mixed from former members of Helmet, Lynx, and Don Caballero. Their sound has more layers than baklava (to name a few: Afro-Cuban world music, a ten-foot high crash, chipmunk valentine vox, and many coloured wires), and it’s funny because rock criticals keep wanting to label it, but all Tyondai Braxton will say is “it’s modern.” which I guess it is. “Come to Fraaa-aaance,” yelled the guy next to me, who wore heart-shaped glasses and was eating peanut-butter granola.

Other afternoon highlights included Iron and Wine, and Sam Beam’s beard is still large enough to nest birds; Clipse’s druggy rhyme (“Egg shell on the scale for me snow coppers / Don’t ask what I sell, shit--I’m Betty Crocker”); and Mastodon, with forearms tattooed a mossy green and sound that hits like a heavy heatwave. Dan Deacon played to an ass-to-crotch crowd, and Cat Power’s mercury was high. She blazed “Satisfaction” and sang the rest on a Marlo Thomas slow burn.

Last came Yoko Ono, in dapper hat and sunglasses, and backed by a band of 20-something guys (plus Hedwig’s Stephen Trask, who juggled instruments and acted as her third and fourth arm). “I wrote this on the way here,” Ono said, “so now I’m going to play it. People used to do that, you know.” She gave the crowd penlights, and told them to flash ‘em in a six-beat pattern that translated to “I love you. I love you”--a bit cute, perhaps, but also a genius way to reverse the cameras’ invasive flash.

Reported by Mairead Case. Photo of GZA by soundfromwayout.

The Pitchfork Music Festival happens in Union Park, which is donut-shaped, the hole being a lake, with ducks. Day One (of three) started at 5 pm, and three bands played three albums in full: Slint did Spiderland; GZA Liquid Swords; and Sonic Youth, Daydream Nation. Union Park sort of fingers off downtown’s fist, so the El there was half Young Urban Professional, half sad-eyed showgoers with curly hair and post-ironic owl sweaters. “I am so, so excited for the Sonic Youth reunion,” said the boy behind me. “But dude, they never broke up,” said the girl he was with, and this was so happiness-making that they kissed.

“Our hope is to distinguish the event as more than just music,” reads the Pitchfork brochure. It uses words like “comfortable,” “friendly,” “cultural institutions” and “not-for-profit organizations.” This is an important hope, stemming from Pitchfork’s snarky reputation and Chicago’s block party culture, but I’m still waiting to see if the word’ll become flesh. That says nothing about Pitchfork, everything about how the summer festival de rigeur is now beer without the pong, consumer activism, and girls wearing eighty-dollar “recycled D.I.Y.” pillowcase dresses. That’s cool--I like beer--but still the guys at the Obama ’08 table, and the Campaign for Better Health Care one, and even the two NPO tents: They all looked lonely. Maybe that’ll change on Saturday.

Completely appalled by my crabby parental mindset, I grabbed a Goose Island (beer’s cheap at Chicago festivals, and water, too) and moved up front. Slint Spiderlanded like putting a needle to the record, which I suppose is important when you’re still geling with a new bandmember (as they are), but it did take some fire out of the show. Liquid Swords fireworked and got the crowd neck-snapping, but when Sonic Youth came out it was like the park turned gold, and green. The quartet climbed into the album and busted it a new skylight, Kim dancing like a windmill dervish and skinny white Thurston not caring about the hair in his eyes. They are so cool you want them to be your best friends, so you use first names and it feels like they might be.

Afterwards, the fans biked off but the bands stood on the sidewalk, waiting for cabs to the afterparty. “If we were in Brooklyn,” said one guy, “we’d've found one already.” “And if we were in Austin,” said his buddy, “we’d just walk.” By now it was midnight. Sorry, guys.

Not much to add to the Pitchfork post about the Boredoms' apocalyptic drum circle spiral, 77BOADRUM, happening in NYC on 07/07/07 except, WHY AM I NOT GOING!!?! Damn! Here's a list of their 74 guest drummers involved (spots one through 4 on the above chart will of course be filled by EYE and the rest of the Boredoms):

Drum leaders:

01 Hisham Bharoocha (Soft Circle / Pixeltan)
02 Tim Dewit (Gang Gang Dance)
03 Brian Chippendale (Lightning Bolt)
04 Dave Nuss (No Neck Blues Band / Under Satans Sun)
05 Jaiko Suzuki (Electro Putas)
06 Jesse Lee (White Magic)
07 Ryan Sawyer (Tall Firs / Stars Like Fleas)
08 Kid Millions (Oneida)
09 Andy McLeod (Howling Hex / Modest Mouse)
10 Aaron Moore
11 Robin Easton

Other drummers:

12 Sara Lund (Unwound)
13 Jim Black
14 Andrew W.K.
15 Butchy Fuego (Pit Er Pat)
16 Miggie (Blood on the Wall)
17 Brian Tamborello (Psychic Ills)
18 Andee Connors (A Minor Forest / Lumen)
19 John Moloney (Sunburned Hand of the Man)
20 Taylor Richardson (Sunburned Hand of the Man)
21 Chris Millstein
22 Abby Portner (First Nation)
23 Aviram Cohen (Soiled Mattress and the Springs)
24 Allison Busch (Awesome Color)
25 Warren Huegel (Tussle)
26 Nathan Corbin (Excepter)
27 Clare Amory
28 Jonathan Lockie (Sightings)
29 Josh Bonati (Aa)
30 Nadav Havusha (Aa)
31 Aron Wahl (Aa)
32 Jeffrey Salane (Panthers)
33 Jim Sykes
34 David Aron (Koi Pond)
35 Michael Catano
36 Spencer Herbst (Matta Lama)
37 Jim Siegel (Cul De Sac and Damo Suzuki)
38 Mike Pride (MDC, FUSHITSUSHA, John Zorn, Otomo Yoshihide)
39 Nick DeCarmine
40 Marianne Kozlowski (The Punks)
41 Than Luu (M. Ward)
42 Dave Bergander (Celebration)
43 Michael Evans (God Is My Co-Pilot)
44 Andrya Ambro
45 Justin DeRosa
46 Hart Mingus (Negative Approach)
47 Matthias Schulz (Enon / Holy Fuck)
48 Josh Madell (Antietam, Other Music)
49 Matt (No Neck Blues Band)
50 Jim Abramson (Dymaxion)
51 Oran Canfield (Child Abuse)
52 Adriana Magaña (Crash Worship)
53 Keith Connolly (No Neck Blues Band)
54 Travis Harrison
55 Jared Barron
56 Jason Kourkounis (Delta 72 / Hot Snakes)
57 Eric Cohen (Caroliner)
58 Daniel Franz (Arbouretum)
59 Christopher Brokaw (Codeine)
60 Jared Burak (Wet Cement)
61 Christopher Powell (Icy Demons / Man Man)
62 Sadie Laska (I.U.D.)
63 Pete Vogl (Koi Pond)
64 Barbara Schauwecker
65 AJ Edminson (Favourite Sons)
66 David Grubbs
67 John McSwain (VICE)
68 Dave Abramson (Climax Golden Twins)
69 Alan Licht
70 Rick Prior
71 Kayrock
72 Dave LeBleu (Prefuse 73 / Mercury Program)
73 Lizzy Bougatsos (Gang Gang Dance)
74 Alianna Kalaba (We Ragazzi)

Why do Seattle parks still--still! after all this time!--not have free wifi? I'm sitting in Washington Square Park, in New York City, under huge, beautiful trees, listening to a street band channeling the 1920s over by the fountain. Actually, I don't know what they're channeling, but I like it. They have a banjo, a clarinet, a percussion thing, two horns, a girl with a painted face who sings, and a guy with a cane and top hat who dances. Evidence:

A guy riding a bike with a music system attached to it--and attached to that, lots of stickers of French movie stars--just rode by blasting "I Will Survive." Some old guys are playing chess. A woman is lifting her baby above her head. Plus, the conversations you overhear--so New York:

GUY ONE: "I get my best ideas when I'm walking, and I'm very in the moment."
GUY TWO: "Yes. Yes."
GUY ONE: "Do you ever do improv?"

Meanwhile some guy is sitting here writing about it on Line Out. As a squirrel approaches. And the trumpets go crazy. The wind picks up and the trees rustle, which is sorta like music.