[Part I], [Part II], & [Part III]

It's Blur.

Brogues01 writes: "I think alot of people have forgotten how good Blur are. Can anyone name a band from the last 10 years with a similar variety of songs?"

Calvin Harris writes: "Somebody has to play at the same time as Blur and the Prodigy...and that somebody is — sadly — me."

Erol Alkan writes: "Jesus Christ. 'For Tomorrow' still sends a chill down my spine."

IleneJenette writes: "How fast are they playin'!?"

Emily Eavis writes: "Blur are blowing people's minds."

Bryony Taylor writes: "Graham's wearing the same t-shirt he wore at Alexandra Palace in '94!"

Kit S. writes: "'This Is A Low' is sending a huge swell of emotion through the crowd."

The Guardian's Laura Barton writes: "When Albarn's voice gives way a little in 'Beetlebum', the crowd rushes to catch it. The band looks genuinely delighted as they look out over the flags, over the crowd with its sunburned noses and glitter-smeared faces, and peacock feathers in its hair, and far off to the countryside of Somerset and the floating candles flaring up into the sky. There is a pause as they seem to take in the magnificence of what they have done."

Listen while you can.

Watch while you can.

Jon A. writes: "This is both vintage Blur and somehow new having been missed for so long. Generations singing along together."

Kit S. writes: "It ends with 'The Universal' and tens of thousands of arms held aloft."

Jon A. writes: "A friend of mine said, 'I was so happy all the way.'"

The Guardian's Tim Jonze writes: "Who gave these guys permission to have the time of their lives?"

"Blur are sticking their fingers up to dad-rock by falling in love all over again with the dumb art of playing pop music — and playing it loudly. 'Girls & Boys' literally throbs with sordid energy, 'Song 2' sees the crowd threatening to pogo themselves off the earth's axis, and 'Parklife' turns every man, woman, and anarcho-crustie into a cockney geeza."

"But for all their energy, it's the sad songs that work best: 'To The End', 'The Universal', 'This Is A Low'. Weirder still is the reaction to 'Tender', a song never really rated (at least by me) as a classic, transformed into a joyous hug-a-long that reverberates around the crowd after the first encore and the second encore."

"Blur made sure that the real winner at this year's Glastonbury was pop music."

"And we're all hugging each other."

Full, official live videos from new & unsigned acts, including a new song by Dimbleby & Capper, are up here. Assorted clips will also, bootleg-permitting, continue to stack up in the coming weeks.

But really, everyone's saying the same thing.

Hyde Park? How can it top this?

It really, really, really did happen.

Photos by the BBC.

[Part I] & [Part II]

After a bit of wet start, the sun's come out for Glastonbury.

And you know what that means.

It means Jarvis Cocker was everywhere today, surprise-guesting on multiple stages and showing up to play bass for Spinal Tap during the more-appropriate-than-ever "Big Bottoms".

It means a gang of fans dressed as trolls wandered the grounds and guerilla-hugged the crowds.

And it means people like Dizzee Rascal and Bruce Springsteen were so far the biggest draws of the weekend. In front of a rammed crowd at the Pyramid Stage, Dizzee, in particular, played the massive "Dance Wiv Me" and "Bonkers," but also his best like "Stand Up Tall," "Sirens," and "Pussyole (Old Skool)," all on top of covering M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes," The Ting Tings' "That's Not My Name" — "They call me Wiley!" — and leading the festival to a Michael Jackson medley. BBC writes: "'We lost a legend this week,' he said. 'So I think we should do a little something to remember all the great music he brought us.' Tens of thousands of fans joined in with a chorus of 'Thriller,' and Rascal played snippets of other hits including 'Billie Jean' and 'Another Part Of Me'. Pharrell Williams, The Streets, Lily Allen, and Gabriella Cilmi are among the other artists who have paid tribute."

Donna On The Beach writes: "Just saw on Glastonbury coverage a sign, 'Pretending 2b an aeroplane allowed in this area.'"

Maximo Park writes: "Skream's La Roux remix sent everyone off their trollies! Let's get ravey!!!"

The Guardian writes: "Most overheard conversation at Glastonbury: 'Why would you bring children here? It's tantamount to child abuse.'"

Video clips of loads of acts, including Skream, Benga, Kasabian, Neil Young, Pendulum, Lady GaGa, The Specials, The Wonder Stuff, Bruce Springsteen, N.E.R.D., Sparrow & The Workshop, and Jamie T, are finally trickling out here.

Photos by the BBC & Glastonbury staff.

[Part I]

Michael Jackson has put a dark cloud over the Glastonbury Festival, but everything buzzes on.

Today, The Guardian writes: "There are alot of drag queens at The Guardian lounge. They're making wellies work for them."

And: "[Lady GaGa] has just donned a contraption that shoots sparks from her breasts. You don't get that at Fleet Foxes."

Meanwhile, BBC 6 Music writes: "Glad to see Terry Hall hasn't given in to the smilers of the world."

The Rakes, "Have you heard the good news about Jacko?"

Elsewhere, impossibly, The Streets crop-circles his face in the fields.

Photos by Mike Skinner, Tony Kinlan, Glastonbury staff, & Anthony Devlin.

This year's Glastonbury Festival just started and we're forced to once again wish we were globe-trotting super-spy playboy pop billionaires to be able to join everyone.

The largest music festival in the world, going on for nearly forty years, Glastonbury is both family-run and traditionally non-corporate — charities are the usual sole sponsors — but preposterously eclectic as well, with 200,000 people, dozens of distinct areas, more stages than you can list, and an every-genre line-up as long as the equator. All of it runs 24 hours a day for four days.

This year's bands are more interesting than usual. Romanticizing aside.

Hook our veins up to at least (yes!) Lilly Allen, Skream, Madness, Altern-8, Erol Alkan, The Japanese Popstars, Caspa, MPHO, The Streets, Ray Davies, East 17, Tinchy Stryder, Chase & Status, Josh Wink, Dimbleby & Capper, Ladyhawke, Prodigy, Jarvis Cocker, Roots Manuva, Tindersticks, Timo Maas, Benga, Q-Tip, The Wonder Stuff, Robyn Hitchcock, Jamie T, Stanton Warriors, Wonky Pop, Dizzee Rascal, The Specials, Kasabian, Little Boots, and, of course, Blur.

Look at the many hundreds of names.

Bad news?

Unlike other years, the round-the-clock, commercial-free coverage snubs anyone from outside the U.K. Clever and questionably legal proxies can sort you out. But you'll likely have easier luck listening to the live radio-stream and stirring up the patience to poke around for video clips.

Damn.

We wish were there.

Let's pretend.

A party on a Russian ship in the middle of the ocean, a solar eclipse, and Boredoms: Sounds like a blast, just take it easy on the hallucinogens, lest you never come back from this one.

Organizers of Tokara The Sun & Moon Festival have booked a Russian ferry and hired the Boredoms, along with New York’s Gang Gang Dance and Japan’s Goma, to play a show during the next Saros 136 eclipse, which will take place July 22. The spectacle is subtitled, “The Lucy in the Sky With Diamond Ring Tour.”

July’s eclipse will be extraordinarily long — the totality of the eclipse, the point at which the moon is fully obscuring the sun, will reach 6 minutes, 39 seconds. According to NASA, the umbra of the eclipse will cut a path straight across China and the South Pacific, with the best viewpoint off the southern coast of Japan, at 24.2 degrees N, 144.1 degrees E, when the sun is 86 degrees overhead.

Instead of cohorting with the rest of the Stranger's drug-addled music staff at Sasquatch!, I decided on a long overdue trip south to our lovely (and way more fun) neighbor city Portland. And there I stumbled upon my new favorite Portland band—that is as long as the Hunches are no longer with us.

Anyway, dig Breakfast Mountain, who played second, just before Double Plus Good at Rontoms, which by the way is also great—expansive, with a giant back patio, spacious, retro-ish interior, and cheap drinks. (On a side note, why does Portland have so many more good bars than Seattle? They're fucking everywhere.)

Breakfast Mountain was comprised of two wildly energetic emcees, a squad of preprogrammed samples and effects, keyboard, what I assume was an MPC and a bunch of other shit, all manned by another dude, and finally, at least on this night, a hired gun on live drums.
Live, I felt like Breakfast Mountain are something like Portland's version of Champagne Champagne, but that's not quite telling the whole story. The tracks on Breakfast Mountain's demo, which you can download for free from their aforelinked site, feature all manner of swirling samples, big, meaty synthesizer chords, party-rap beats, and almost no vocals (See "Log Jamm" among others). It's happy stuff, and I can't wait to hear the album, but it's quite different than I remember seeing them Sunday night. This probably owes to the live drummer and the seriously amped-up crowd. (Dear party-rock outfits: stick with the live drummers.) Either way, my advice to you the reader is to see Breakfast Mountain, because they bring it live. Sometimes I feel like Portland, too, just brings it better live.

Here's really the most representative video I could find of Breakfast Mountain, and it's short, but hints at what I saw Sunday night.

Also, confidential to Breakfast Mountain: Please come play Seattle.

Pictures by me and/or Amy Dials.

Our little sister blog to the south, the Portland Mercury's End Hits found out what erstwhile Shins drummer Jesse Sandoval has been up to since disappearing from the band's live line-up—he's opening a taco cart:

After being unfairly kicked to the curb by frontman James Mercer—an "aesthetic decision," whatever that means—former Shins drummer Jesse Sandoval has started a new venture: taco cart!

The only thing more Portland-centric than indie rock is a food cart, and Sandoval's will be located at 3rd and SW Stark under the name Nuevo Mexico. (I assume that is named in honor of his home state, New Mexico.) The End Hits' Burrito Review Team will be out in full force for next week's opening with all the gooey, melty details.

Visit the End Hits post to see their illustration of Sandoval "poorly photoshopped in front of taco truck that is not his."

Seattle minimal-techno producer the Sight Below is slated to perform at Movement [aka DEMF], MUTEK, and Sónar Festival—which is sort of like the Triple Crown of electronic-music events (add Decibel, which he played last year, for the Quadruple Crown). Fellow Seattle-based Ghostly International artist Lusine will join the Sight Below at Movement and Sónar.

Press release and further tour details after the cut.

Scottie Yoder of Seattle ex-pats The Pharmacy sends an update from the band's new home of New Orleans:

So we're all settled in at our new home in New Orleans and things have been going really well. Ridiculously well. In the past week and a half we've written and recorded about 13 new demos. Eight of them are online. You can check them out here. Also: we'll be updating our myspace blog every tuesday with two new demos that anyone can download.

Enjoy!
-Scottie

ps. - We miss Than Bros!

Is this P. Diddy? (I identified this guy as P. Diddy in something I wrote on Slog the other day. He was definitely getting celebrity attention. This photo isn't great, he's making a weird face, and I don't really know my rappers, so I need a Diddy expert.)

Which is pretty embarrassing.