Bonnaroo 2009: Wrap-Up And Final Thoughts

Now that I’ve finally gotten over my Bonna-flu, here’s one last post to talk about what I took from this year’s shenanigans. The Bonnaroo guide book talked about the weird familiarity that Bonnaroo becomes after several years of attending, and that definitely struck me this year. The place now certainly feels “like going back to the neighborhood where you grew up as a kid”. But this installment still managed to be a unique experience from every other. Outside of the hurricanes Thursday night, I think this was the best weather this festival has ever seen, and I feel the constant cloud cover really helped the energy overall stay strong through the last night. The vibe is always fun at the ‘roo, but I felt like this year there was a little extra electricity in the air with the crowd. Having Radiohead on a lineup is pretty awesome, but I think in the end this year’s event will be most remembered for having the strongest top to bottom lineup.

I think you could find a rather large collection of music journalist/blogger types that would agree that Animal Collective’s Merriweather Post Pavilion, Grizzly Bear’s Veckatimest, Dirty Projectors‘ Bitte Orca, and St. Vincent’s Actor are all legitimate contenders for album of the year and Bonnaroo showcased all four artists within a matter of hours. This lead me to ponder some things and I came up with a few observations. First, Brooklyn, New York is the undisputed new music mecca right now. Atlanta has some cool stuff going on, but Brooklyn is the center of the universe. Also, I think harmony, particularly vocal harmonies, is a musical concept that is going to be on a hott trend for the years to come. Complexity, nuance and classical notions of musicianship are also concepts that I believe to be on the upward swing right now in the direction indie pop music is taking. There are plenty of exceptions and even healthy pushback against these trends in this “any flavour you like” internet world, but there is a renaissance going on and Bonnaroo is one of the best places to get a real glimpse at it.

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Harvest Of Hope Festival Day 1

I got a late start because i stayed at the Star Bar too late the night before i left. After a long, boring drive down, I arrived and only had to wait in traffic for about 10 minutes. That was nice, but then i had to lug all of my camping stuff from the parking lot area to the campsite area, and that wasn’t very fun. I did score a really sweet spot about a one minute walk to the front gate of the festival area. This fest is very small in scale, similar to Atlanta’s Echo Project in size.

I was unable to get my press credentials due to arriving too late, so I got to experience things as a mere mortal for the first night. I was pushing hard all day to try and make it in time for Tokyo Police Club, but they had some medical emergency and their set has been moved to the already ridiculously stacked Sunday lineup. Instead, i caught Grand Buffet, who were hip-hop that seemed to be aimed at a high school/not-great-taste-in-music crowd. It’s weird to hear rappers getting all political and dissing Republicans now that they are out of office. It doesn’t seem quite as pertinent.

After that I caught Girl Talk, which was the last act of the night. The set was chalked full of typical Girl Talk mashups, and I’ve realized that over time they are not as enjoyable to me as they once were. Even with 50 people on stage dancing around, it didn’t really hold my attention for the entire hour plus set. Here is a video of the beginning of his set:

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What The Hell Am I Listening to?!?

While I have been gallivanting around for the last month, hott new albums just keep on dropping. I’m abridging an already succinct segment to keep up. Here’s three episodes of What The Hell shrink wrapped together. Since I am a big fan of the run-on sentence, I give you micro-reviews of my summer soundtrack so far:

First up, some artists whose sounds characterize the best and brightest of this decade:

Animal Collective (Baltimore, MD)

One of the greatest bands of this generation offer up 25 more minutes of bliss.

(BUY Water Curses)(Myspace) Animal Collective : Water Curses

No Age (Los Angeles, CA)

2008 hypelicious duo that lives up to its praises, so don’t miss out on one of the best albums of the year so far.

(BUY Nouns)(Myspace) No Age : Teen Creeps

Excepter (Brooklyn, NY)

Electronic noise stuff that is as fun as it is creative and weird.

(BUY Debt Dept.)(Myspace) Excepter : Kill People

Pyramids (Denton, TX)

Post-rock that actually lives up to that genre’s ethic of breaking down conventional song structures rather than sounding like everything else, so pick up a favourite album of mine so far this year and blast it.

(BUY Pyraminds)(Myspace) Pyramids : This House Is Like Any Other World

Russian Circles (Chicago, IL)

Think Pelican except tighter, more epic, and in power-trio form.

(BUY Station)(Myspace) Russian Circles : Campaign

Ok, now here’s some dance music for those long summer nights:

Health (Los Angeles, CA)

Health’s debut full-length from last year gets remixed into a perfect dance-noise album.

(BUY Disco)(Myspace) Health : Triceratops (Acid Girls Remix A)

Crystal Castles (Toronto, ON)

These controversial Canadians are making dance songs that sound fresh and interesting.

(BUY Crystal Castles)(Myspace) Crystal Castles : Crime Wave (Crystal Castles v. Health)

Femme Fatality (St. Louis, MO)

These guys are like the Eminem of the dance-rock world, and while not all of this album is top-notch, when they hit it right it’s really fun.

(BUY One’s Not Enough)(Myspace) Femme Fatality : Still Alive

Girl Talk (Pittsburgh, PA)

The king of the ridiculous ADD party-mash-up album ups the ante again.

(BUY Feed The Animals)(Myspace) Girl Talk : In Step

And then some indie-rock with an alt-country twang:

Silver Jews (Nasheville, TN)

Brilliant songwriting that makes an ancient pop genre sound new and intriguing.

(BUY Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea)(Myspace) Silver Jews : Suffering Jukebox

Bowerbirds (Raleigh, NC)

I missed this 2007 gem, but it got a recent re-release with bonus tracks, so make sure you catch it too.

(BUY Hymns For A Dark Horse)(Myspace) Bowerbirds : Hooves

Rotary Downs (New Orleans, LA)

This album is like Mellow Gold era Beck meets Kerosene Hat era Cracker meets Pavement.

(BUY Long After The Thrill)(Myspace) Rotary Downs : C’mon, Take A Hit

Ok, all new heavy rotation list coming.

I Heart The A

Not much blogging over the long weekend while I was out enjoying the beautiful weather and sweet events. I spent alot of time in East Atlanta including the East Atlanta Strut and the Go Funk Yourself uber-house party. The really fun weekend is mostly a blur to me and I don’t have much objective journalism for you, so here’s some tunes from some of the artists I might have seen:

Parade : Answer Me : Lunch Lady

Anna Kramer : Anna Kramer : I Can’t Take It

Elevado : This World Is On Fire : Postcard From Four Walls Down

Howlies : Howlies : Angeline

This week is fairly enormous for great shows. Tonight I’m going to see Bjork and Klaxons at the Fox. Diplo is going to be at MJQ tonight too. Wednesday night at Lenny’s is Zoroaster’s CD release party featuring Daath. Wednesday night is also the beginning of Atlantis Music Conference, Atlanta’s answer to South By Southwest. Thursday night John Vanderslice and Bishop Allen will be at The Earl. Pretty much every venue in town has an interesting show Friday night but i like the Eyedrum show with Vietnam, Random Violets, Subliminator, and Tree Creature. Saturday night is just ridiculous. Do Make Say Think and Atlanta’s Moorish Idols are going to be at The Earl. Queens Of The Stone Age are at The Tabernacle. Girl Talk and Dan Deacon are at MJQ. Then Sunday night The Apples In Stereo will be playing for free at Piedmont Park(Park Tavern).

Bjork : Volta : Wanderlust

Queens Of The Stone Age : Era Vulgaris : I’m Designer

Zoroaster : Dog Magic : Brazen Bull

Do Make Say Think : You, You’re A History In Rust : In Mind

Girl Talk : Night Ripper : Give And Go

Moorish Idols : Moorish Idols : Fer-De-Lance

Friday Free-Style

In case you haven’t noticed, our blogging has been a little brisk lately as we are enjoying the summer. But don’t dismay as we have a bunch of cool stuff cooking in the lab for you.

We’ll start today off by getting krunk with Kanye West:

Pitchfork Fest has sold out and released set times. While you are enjoying Corndogarama, we will be covering this in Chicago.

John Vanderslice will be at The Earl on September 20th.

Weezer is about to record another album.

In case you don’t, Beach House are awesome, and they be talking.

The Cure are working on the new album still and will be at The Gwinnett Center September 15th.

Band Of Horses are just finishing up their new album.

The Led Zeppelin reunion rumour mill is on again.

Rage Against The Machine will be headlining this year’s Vegoose Festival in Las Vegas. The full line-up will be announced in mid-July.

Here’s Ryan Adams on Letterman:

Here’s an old The Rapture video:

Here’s a Battles video:

Some Cat Power for you:

A Califone video:

Some Girl Talk:

Some The Ponys:

And finally, some Of Montreal:

Live Review: Bonnaroo 2007

We took a 16 car envoy from Atlanta to the event. We had some issues keeping everyone together, but at the end of about a 4 hour wait to get in early Thursday afternoon, we somehow managed to get everyone at the same camp. After setting up in Camp Han Solo, we got to drinking pretty hard and exploring the campgrounds before heading to see the music of the night. Upon entering Centeroo, we were held up in an extremely slow moving line to get in through security. The security didn’t really seem to be checking people particularly hard, but they were very slow. Complaints about security would be a theme shared by many people over the weekend, but everyone in our entourage would only be minorly inconvenienced by it. I started out the night checking out the NBA Finals in the Cinema Tent, and then going to see The National. I have to say I thought they were downright awful. We stuck around for about half of it, and it got a big thumbs down from me. Next we watched Dubconscious in the Troo Music Lounge, which was pretty good but not really my bag. The best show of the night we caught would be Rodrigo y Gabriela. Really cool acoustic guitar stuff. On my way back to my camp to do more drinking, I checked out the Yard Dogs Road Show at the Bonna Rouge tent and I thought that was really interesting.

Friday started off with me checking out Tortoise. I thought this was a really solid set from them and enjoyed it a lot, especially them doing Seneca, my favourite tune of theirs, for the encore. This is one of the few sets that have already emerged on the torrents and you can download it here:

Tortoise 2007-06-15 Bonnaroo Music Festival. This Tent. (FLAC)

I stayed at the stage and managed to get front row for Hot Chip. This was one of my favourite shows of the weekend. They did really different renditions of stuff off of The Warning. I’m a big fan of organic dance music, and these guys are on top of that game. Some phlogs:

I briefly checked out the beginning of The Roots and then went to pregame for what would be the best show of the weekend, Tool. Unfortunately for me, I ended up getting too blotto and I blacked out halfway through the already legendary set complete with crazy visuals and a guest appearance jamout with Tom Morello. Hopefully one of the other Ohmpark folks who actually saw the entire thing will do a review for it later this week as I don’t really have much to offer except it blew my mind. After regaining consciousness later on in the night, I went to see DJ Shadow. He was good but was the same exact thing I had seen recently in Atlanta and it seemed to pale in comparison to the Tool show. Plus Lateef The Truthspeaker is horrible and I had to leave when he came on. I caught the STS9 encore before heading back to the campgrounds and staying up until sunrise.

Saturday day seemed to be a ton of mediocre shows for me. I bounced around from Dr. Dog, to The Slip, to Regina Spektor, to Gogol Bordello, to Damien Rice, to Fountains Of Wayne. None of them were bad, but none of them really drew me in. The Warren Haynes interview at the Sonic Stage was pretty cool as you got to listen to him talk about the history of him and the Allman Brothers Band and Gov’t Mule. After all of that though, it was time for Ween. I’ve seen these guys many times and have never really loved them hardcore, but for this show they just brought it, and the crowd for the show was going insane. I would have never expected it at the beginning of the weekend, but I think this ended up being my favourite show of the ‘roo. Saturday night we went to see The Police, like just about every single person at the festival, and it was a bit of a let down for me. I don’t know if maybe my expectations were too high or what, but it just seemed really underwhelming. I’m glad i got to see them, but I definitely wouldn’t go see them again. Late night, I opted to check out Girl Talk over the Flaming Lips extravaganza that most everyone else caught. The Girl Talk show was a great dance party with a stage full of random folks getting down. After that I saw some of the Gov’t Mule set, but my memory is pretty hazy at this point so I don’t have a lot to say about it. Although I did not go see them, the Sasha and Digweed set would be the only late night set of the weekend that would creep into dawn.

On Sunday, we went extremely early to catch the Flight Of The Conchords. The 2 hours sitting in the hot sun were a high price to pay, but I’m glad to have seen these guys. Demetri Martin opened for them in the Comedy Tent. He was ok, but he seemed to be trying out a lot of new stuff, and not all of it was that great. The FOTC took the stage, they did a set consisting of older tunes, a couple off of the first HBO episode, and a few I didn’t recognize. They were good, but it was hard to hear what they were saying at times, and the songs i didn’t already know didn’t seem as good to me as the others. They ended with a version of Albi the Racist Dragon featuring Demetri Martin on harmonica that was pretty cool.

After that i was off to catch the extremely jazzy Ratdog set. Always good stuff. Next up was The Decemberists show. I had been wanting to catch these guys forever and they were impressive. A heavy dose of The Crane Wife plus some other great gems. After that I went to see Wilco, and they did one of the best sets I’ve ever see them do. You can tell now that the nu-Wilco line-up has finally come into their own and they were on fire. If you get a chance to check them out tonight in the ATL, I highly recommend you do so. My final show of the weekend would be the White Stripes, who were good but seemed a little stale to me. They just seem to lacking something and i’m not sure what. Maybe it had to do with the extremely packed crowd and me being so far away, but it didn’t impress me. Check it out for yourself:

The White Stripes 2007-06-17 Bonnaroo Which Stage

Overall, 2007 ranked fairly low among the other years for me personally, but that’s not to say it wasn’t unbelievably awesome, because it always is. I think I’m still coughing up dust. I feel like despite the move away from the Jamband heavy line-ups of the early days, they still don’t have the quantity of this decades best artists that Coachella, Lollapalooza, and Pitchforkfest boast. The biggest change this year would be the absolute clamp down on non-official vendors and the banning of sales of glass pieces. i have to say I do not like this development and I believe it was the final nail in the coffin of this festival being significantly married to the Jamband community. I knew from the first year on that eventually Bonnaroo would either get shut down or get more controlled, and so I do not dismay as much as the Bonnaroo haters out there on the mainstreaming of the fest, but the old days are officially gone. On the bright side, I would not expect Bonnaroo to get much worse in this way and so if this is what Bonnaroo now is, then I have no problem with it and will continue to attend as long as they keep putting together great line-ups, but I’m gonna have to go check out another hippie fest once in a while to get that part of the experience that is almost completely gone at the ‘roo. Here’s some facts and figures from the weekend:

Ornette Coleman suffered a heat stroke while on stage.

One man died this year bringing the alltime Bonnaroo death count to 6.

The Coffee County Sheriffs reported 47 arrests over the weekend.

Bonnaroo grossed an estimated $17 million, breaking it’s own record from last year as the highest grossing festival in the world.

Setlists of the weekend are being compiled here.

2006 Album Previews

I’m going to sprinkle in a few songs from some of the albums off of my list:

Ratatat : Wildcat

Buy Classics Here

Liars : Let’s Not Wrestle Mt. Heart Attack

Buy Drum’s Not Dead Here

Girl Talk : Bounce That

Buy Night Ripper Here

Sugarkane’s Top 50 Albums of 2006

2006 was a great year for me, and the main reasons are mostly related to music. I decided to do this list in December because i wanted to learn about as much music as possible, and what I thought would take a few days ended up taking almost 2 months, but it was extremely educational for me and i feel very good about this list. There were so many albums that I would like to give props to and cutting it down to 50 was hard. On a technical note, I went by U.S. release date with the exception of Laura’s Radio Swan Is Down (It was released in Australia over a year ago and has no U.S. release date). Feel free to blast it:

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