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.

Girl Talk's set at the Roseland Theater in Portland on Saturday (part of Musicfest Northwest) was like that first scene in The Lion King when Rafiki lifts the baby lion cub for the kingdom to see, and the animals all freak the fuck out. I don't know if that analogy really works (I guess the music is Simba, but is Gregg Gillis Mufasa or the baboon?), but I think it's safe to say that whatever the case, Girl Talk live is always insane.

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.

My friend Dave Vann is the ultimate rock 'n' rolling rock 'n' roll photographer. Here's a shot he took on-stage with the White Stripes at Bonnaroo two weeks ago. Good stuff.

(Day 1 recap here. Day 2 here.)

İyi akşamlar from Istanbul. I've finally rested and recovered from Sónar and reluctantly fled Barcelona, and here are some final thoughts.

Every year, Sónar co-founder Sergio Caballero puts together a bespoke visual theme which sets the tone for the event just perfectly. My favorite so far is his work for 2001, a subtle jab at the pathetically optimistic political slogan "España va bien!" Look closely:

More after the jump.

Continue reading "Sónar 1987 2007: I Believe in the Rave" »

Buenos nachos from Barcelona. This is getting exhausting. Too much music. Some further reflections from Sónar after the jump. Day 1 recap here.

Continue reading "Sónar Dia/Noche 2: Nothing Goes Undocumented" »

Hola from Sónar, the insanely cool advanced music and multimedia art festival held every June for 14 years here in Barcelona.

Some pictures, video and reflections from day 1 after the jump.

Continue reading "Sónar 2007: Day 1" »

I've never been to Montreal's Mutek. It comes too close to the Detroit Electronic Music Festival, and that always gets my attention despite thinking that someday I'm going to go. Well, according to the blog basic_sounds, this year was not the year to attend:

The deal breaker of the night was Candie Hank, who bombed. Break-core crap mixed with allot of talking. Some spectators said it was a joke, but I wasn’t laughing. His music cleared out the venue, and I left as well, having endured too much pain to stay for the last act.

The whole post is filled with critiques. I still want to hear more on Matthew Dear's live performance, so please comment if you see a post or saw it yourself.

Also, I never posted about the last day of DEMF. You can just read the recap for those details, but let's just say Booka Shade stole the show. They're great live, and I really hope someone in Seattle books them.
Here's a short vid:

The rest of my DEMF videos can been seen here, and my pics from the event are here.

Matt Sharp's post-Weezer synth-pop supergroup, the Rentals, have announced a monthlong Saturday-night residency at L.A.'s Spaceland. The dates are July 7, 14, 21, and 28. The band are currently at work on their long-awaited follow-up to 1999's criminally underrated Seven More Minutes.

And it's totally worth bugging your friend to let you borrow their car. Anarcortes' premier music festival always brings the weird, and this year is no exception. Also, I don't get out in the woods enough and neither do you.

Here's the lineup, in alphabetical order:

Adrian Orange, Al Larsen, Alyse Emdur, Be Gulls, Bryan Elliott Band, Calvin Johnson, D+, Dupond Et Dupont, Fanny Alger, Geneviève Castrée, Graves, Guy Blackman, Jason Anderson, Juice Team DJs, Karl Blau, Kickball, LAKE, Laura Veirs, Little Wings, Lloyd & Michael, Lucky Dragons, Marston, Mecca Normal, Mount Eerie, Mouseheart Factor, Nate Ashley, Old Time Relijun, PEACE, Privacy, Rich Jensen, Robert Arellano, Spoonshine, Tender Forever, The Blow, The Gift Machine, The Lonely Forest, The Oregon Donor, The Poison Dart, To Bad Catholics, To Spite Mike, Tom Blood, Valet, Vanessa Renwick, Watery Graves, Well Done Dragon, White Rainbow, YACHT, Your Heart Breaks

Hark, thee Water Runneth thicke by Singer/Songwriters! Fans of the Blow should definitely pay attention as the scheduling of YACHT guarantees Jona Bechtolt's presence at the festival. Jona was absent at the Blow's Showbox appearance and at Sasquatch last weekend, so maybe this time we can see them actually play together!
Anyhow, the festival takes place in Anacortes, WA, on July 19-22. Full weekend passes are available for $50 at whattheheckfest.com.

The above picture is of Different World, the Tokyo-based duo featuring Detroit's Claude Young and Takasi Nakajima. This year was Claude Young's first official stop at the DEMF, and so far this act has made the entire trip worth it. Their festival appearance was good, but the afterparty they played is some of the best music I've heard all weekend. Things were opened up by FBK from Columbus, a laptopper who plays with all the enthusiasm you see from jocks like Donald Glaude. His tracks were both harder and faster than the overall feel of Archetype vs. XTrak, two producers from NYC who created a moving, constantly shifting set, danceable as all hell, detailed yet avoiding the micro-sound trap. Closing it out was Different World, who killed harder than they did at the festival. It's a hard set to describe, but it reminded me of mashup in some ways, but with all the hipster irony replaced by stellar track selection. It was a trip through Detroit techno, with some non-techno tossed in there as well (Nitzer Ebb, N.E.R.D.). I long for a recording, but alas I don't think one exists.

More on Day Two after the jump.

Continue reading "Oh My God, It's Techno Music: DEMF Day 2" »

It's only been one day and the techno-fatigue is starting to set in here at the DEMF. Saturday was a day of heroes, both old and new, with Pier Bucci, Guido Schneider, and Claude vonStroke absolutely killing it on the Beatport stage. King Britt owned the main stage, working his way through acid, jackin' house, disco, and closing it all out with the Best Song Ever (ever!), "I Love Music." Seeing the ravers get down to that song is something special.

More on the night's headliner Moodymann after the jump.

Continue reading "Disappointment & Redemption: DEMF Day 1" »

I got into Detroit yesterday for my annual pilgrimage to the Detroit Electronic Music Festival. For those of you that question the relevance of a Detroit-centric event to a Seattle audience, know that the DEMF is one of the largest electronic music festivals in all of North America, akin to a beat-centric South by SouthWest. Europe is a whole other beast with its festivals, but even compared to events like Sonar, DEMF holds its own, as a great opportunity to see legends (Jeff Mills, Moodymann) and rising talent (Booka Shade, Gui Boratto).

The official festivities start today, but as is always the case, it's incredibly easy (and almost imperative) to hit the ground running. After a quick nap and food after landing, I hit up one of the festival pre-parties last night. Kooky Scientist was willing it in front of a Neumos-sized crowd, far more impressive than his last Seattle stop (although to be fair, that was as Fred Gianelli, not the Kooky Scientist). Tim Xavier did the same, proving that boom-click minimal techno can drive people wild if that's what they're up for. Imagine a club audience like Trinity's getting down to the geekiest of beats and you'll come close to last night's reality. The music closed out with NYC's Derek Plaslaiko moving things into faster, harder territory. A friend questioned whether it was going to be like this all weekend. Yes, it is. That's why I come back every year.

More as the weekend progresses. For now, here's a video for my theme song for the last few months as the DEMF has approached (doesn't look like any Detroit I've managed to see).

I spend all year not-so-silently obsessed with the Detroit Electronic Music Festival, and it's finally only two weeks away (it's the #1 festival in May according to Resident Advisor). There's a sizable Seattle contingent going, so for both them and other people interested, take notice that the daily schedule is up. Jeff Mills gets the festival pretty much to himself to close it all out Monday, while there are otherwise some pretty hard choices to make (Booka Shade vs. Kevin Saunderson vs. Richie Hawtin, or Kerri Chandler vs. Octave One, vs. Claude VonStroke).

Hotel rooms are getting a bit scarce, so if you're on the fence about going, now's the time to figure that out.

I spent Friday night and most of Saturday visiting our smug neighbor to the south, Portland. I was a guest at Juicy, a nominally gay dance night that is definitely worth checking out if you're ever down there. But the highlight of my visit came courtesy of a large junk/antique store on Hawthorne (I think it was called "Home" or "House"—there was a veggie dog stand outside), where I found these cassettes tapes (priced at $0.50 each):

The place had dozens and dozens of these things, all with pastel inserts, many recorded at the same "summit" at Stanford (?!) in 1991, a veritable cornucopia of psychedelia-themed audio cassettes (and some vhs too). I haven't listened to them yet, but if there's anything particularly funny, I'll post the audio.

Last week’s Coachella Valley Music Festival is a distant, confused memory, but there are some pretty cool souvenirs that music fans, even those who that didn’t make it to the festival, might like. There are these photos from this festival of musicians and famous people with a weird ceramic doll. They were taken by a manic but kindly photographer on a bike named Biff, who, I guess, wandered up to musicians and porn stars…and asked them to pose. And almost universally, they were happy to do so. Here are two great photos, there are more at the official site: in the category of horror, there is Ron Jeremy holding a tiny doll while waiting backstage at a Peaches show, and in the category of rock documentary, there is Arcade Fire singer Win Butler, exhausted, in his van, posing for a man who has asked him to pose repeatedly over the course of a long weekend.

Feedback for our trumpets of triumph story keeps rolling in.

John McGrew of the New Technology department of Sony BMG in New York emailed a link to his band John McGrew and the Sit Backs. The website sports a homey, stick-figure design and McGrew's music is terrific, cabaret chamber folk with soul. Not surprisingly, there's a strong trumpet presence, floating warm and bright above firmly-strummed acoustic guitar and bowed upright bass. I'm guessing that's McGrew's voice in there, strong but quivering and tender. There's a definite throwback quality to the music, a sort of Prohibition-era ease and low-tech minimalism.

It's quite a find. Go ahead and check out the MP3s on the site. You'll dig.

And thanks for the link, John.

Don't worry, Gerard vs. Bear has the recap:

It’s the last day of the 2007 Coachella Valley Music Festival, and it’s still a few hours until the show’s grandest of finales, a reunion of Rage Against the Machine, but even before Rage and Manu Chao and Willie Nelson and Damien Rice make their contributions, it’s time to give credit for the best festival in the world.

I’ve just left a mind-blowing hour and half performance by Rodrigo and Gabriela. If you don’t know them, they’re a phenomenal two-piece acoustic act from Mexico. That sells them short, but… well, you have to see them. Today, they explained that they’re products of the Mexico City thrash metal scene. Combine thrash metal with jazz and blues and a complete reinvention of how to play the guitar so that you get a percussion set that blows Lars out of the water, and an understanding of melody crossing Jimmie Page with Carlos Santana, and you’re on the way to understanding the appeal.

Today I also witnessed, on a small stage, a band I’d never heard of before, the Avett Brothers, who have taken up the mantel from Neutral Milk Hotel and Bright Eyes, added still more intelligence, and put together a three-piece wonder outfit.

I will ease up on the narrative of today. The other blog entries were excerpts of notes I’m taking for an article in The Reykjavik Grapevine, the world’s best tiny newspaper. I will say that now is a good time to stop taking notes. The crowd so far has been polite and fanatic and just the right times, but as the Rage show approaches, and I see kids with shirts that say Rage on the front, THE BATTLE OF COACHELLA on the back, I get an icky sensation. Best to stop now, with Rodrigo and Gabriela doing to rock what Guillermo del Toro did to film, with an unknown band, with the Roots putting on a decent show, and with the sun about to set.

At 5 pm, Hot Chip was blaring through an outstanding set in a tent called Mojave, packed with thousands of shirtless 20-somethings, absolutely every one of them dancing, and not in the reserved head bob concert manner, but full goofy splendor, and at about that time, I fell down. Okay, I kind of slumped in a corner. I never lost consciousness, but I got to the point where I had to leave one of the better concerts of the year.

I called a friend to acknowledge my shame, and was told that it was 103 degrees, my sickness was understandable. 103 degrees at 5 pm.

Given that astoundingly difficult fact, something Regina Spektor took pains to apologize for as she began her set on the unshielded main stage, it is a testament to the crowd and organizers that nothing went horribly wrong. These have been the safest concerts I have ever attended, not because the music put people to sleep, but mostly due to one virtue I didn’t know was so prominent: outrageously good manners. As Win Butler, the singer of Arcade Fire, said in his parting compliment to the festival, the crowd had been very polite, a good Canadian virtue, and followed it with this axiom: “Manners are the cornerstone of a strong, prosperous society.” Good manners allowed thousands to dance together and take in the best performances of the festival without incident.

Manners are a complicated thing though. I thought, for example, that Jason Lee, Earl of My Name is Earl, and all the other celebrity fans of the Black Keys demonstrated outstanding manners by fleeing their backstage seats and taking over, however briefly, the photographer’s pit to enjoy the pride of Akron, Ohio. They were universally asked to leave the pit by a security staff that seemed non-plussed by their celebrity status, but for there was something remarkable in seeing famous type people show unbridled enthusiasm, to say nothing of the respect I felt for the posse after one of them sported this reporter a couple cold beers.

Okay, I mentioned the famous people, kind of. (If you want photos, log on to www.coacheelovesyou.com to see stunning photos by Biff, this ridiculously hard working artist and photographer with method to his madness.) This is a blog, so I should talk famous people. I should also say that Ghostface Killah swore that Cameron Diaz was in the crowd. He shouted this to the audience as he was requesting that some women get on stage and dance, explaining that “usually get girls up here and get them to show their titties, but we’re not going to do that here, unless you want us to.”

Anyway, that’s the gossip crap, now about the music, the concerts that make this festival so outstanding. Regina Spektor, from her opening pitch perfect a cappela number through a charming performance which demonstrated, even when her sometimes slightly overly precious and cute lyrics grated, that as a performer, as a singer, musician and personality, she belongs on the biggest stage. I saw her show after an easy-going if unoriginal opening set from Icelandic and English band Fields, an enthusiastic but not particularly memorable set from The Cribs, and a disastrous set from Fountains of Wayne, who can write a tight song and rhyme in any genre, but who probably should sell said songs to other bands for performances. Regina Spektor, then, saved the afternoon and suggested how good the evening would get.

More in extended entry...

Continue reading "In 103 Degrees, Less Jibba Jabba, More Rock: Coachella Saturday Report" »