Video Of The Day: Grizzly Bear

Grizzly Bear was on Conan last night jamming a new song. Check it:

Grizzly Bear : While You Wait For The Others (On Conan 4/21/2008)

The Humpday Catch-Up

Ok, time for the best of about 3 weeks of music news I have been slacking on. Let’s begin with festivals, since that’s all we’ve covered lately.

Lollapalooza has yet to release the official line-up, but the rumours have it looking like potentially the best fest of the summer. Here is what the good folks at the Lolla message board have complete with a source for each rumour:

MAJOR MEDIA AND BAND CONFIRMATIONS
Dierks Bentley (http://www.gainesville.com/article/20080214/NEWS/802130312/1006/NEWS)
Bloc Party (http://www.pollstar.com/tour/searchall.pl?Content=V-BILCHGP&By=Venue&PSKey=Y&StartSearch.x=10&StartSearch.y=10)
Does it Offend You, Yeah? (http://www.virtualfestivals.com/latest/interviews/4408)
John Butler Trio (http://www.smh.com.au/news/stay-in-touch/unlikely-recruit-for-delta-force/2008/03/06/1204779965382.html)
Radioheadhttp://leisureblogs.chicagotribune.com/turn_it_up/2008/03/radiohead-nine.html)
Nine Inch Nailshttp://leisureblogs.chicagotribune.com/turn_it_up/2008/03/radiohead-nine.html)
Yeasayer (http://blogs.suntimes.com/derogatis/2008/03/sxsw_dispatch_2_on_parties_pan.html)
Rage Against the Machine (http://blogs.suntimes.com/derogatis/2008/03/rage_and_wilco_to_play_at_loll.html)
Wilco ( ( (http://blogs.suntimes.com/derogatis/2008/03/rage_and_wilco_to_play_at_loll.html)

THE REST
Flogging Molly (http://www.lollapalooza.com/forum/tm.aspx?m=199838)
Black Lips (http://www.lollapalooza.com/forum/tm.aspx?m=206530)
Nicole Atkins & the Sea (http://www.lollapalooza.com/forum/tm.aspx?m=205239)
Gogol Bordello (http://www.lollapalooza.com/forum/tm.aspx?m=207845)
Bang Camaro (http://www.lollapalooza.com/forum/tm.aspx?m=210111)
Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings (http://www.lollapalooza.com/forum/fb.aspx?m=220797)
Miley Cyrus (http://www.lollapalooza.com/forum/tm.aspx?m=230481)
CSS (http://www.lollapalooza.com/forum/tm.aspx?m=230377)
Gnarls Barkley (http://www.lollapalooza.com/forum/tm.aspx?m=230256)
Rhymefest f/ Mucca Pazza (http://lollapalooza.com/forum/tm.aspx?m=179933)
MGMT (http://lollapalooza.com/forum/tm.aspx?m=194476)
Jimmy Eat World (http://www.lollapalooza.com/forum/tm.aspx?m=230158)
CRS (http://www.lollapalooza.com/forum/tm.aspx?m=229774)

Pitchfork Fest released their initial line-up:

Friday, July 18:

Pitchfork Music Festival and All Tomorrow’s Parties present “Don’t Look Back” Public Enemy performing It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back
+ more, to be announced

Saturday, July 19:

Animal Collective
!!!
Vampire Weekend
Dizzee Rascal
No Age
Atlas Sound
Fleet Foxes
+ many more!

Sunday, July 20:

Spiritualized
M. Ward
Boris
Extra Golden
El Guincho
+ many more!

Not a bad start, but I don’t think it comes close to how great their line-up was last year yet, so hopefully they will have some hot additions soon.

Atlanta’s Luigi is going into some sort of long hiatus/maybe break-up after their March 28th show at The Earl.

The Tabernacle got thrashed by the tornadoes, but they won’t have a full damage assessment until Friday.

Click here to read the entire post…

Monday Mash-Up

March is going to be a crazy month here at Ohmpark. This week, I’m heading down to South Florida to catch Langerado. As soon as i get back from that next week, I’m flying to Austin to catch SXSW. Before coming back from that, I’m heading out to Savannah for some post-St.Patrick’s Day partying. Between all of that, postings here may get a bit erratic, but barring uncooperative Internet or getting arrested for public intoxication, I should have some hardcore coverage of the events as they happen. As soon as all of that is over, we are going to begin working on an entirely new and different layout for the site that is going to be really cool. Thanks for reading Ohmpark, and spread the word!

The Morning State album, You Know People I Know People, that they had to re-record after issues with their former label is finally seeing a release date on May 3rd. Here’s the new single:

Morning State : You Know People I Know People : Oh Yeah

Outkast‘s Andre 3000 is planning on putting out a solo album this year.

Click here to read the entire post…

Ohmpark’s Top 10 Best EPs Of 2007

An EP, or Extended Play, is the sweet spot between a full album and a single. Typically between 10 and 25 minutes, although what has come to define the difference between EPs and LPs can sometimes be blurred. Usually EPs get a bad rap, as it carries with it connotations of being “less-than” and not good enough to be a proper album, but I like seeing variations in the art medium. There are EPs like Alice In Chains’ Jar Of Flies and Radiohead‘s Airbag/How Am I Driving? that beat most full lengths. Also, EPs afford an artist the chance to showcase things that don’t fit in the context of a larger piece of work, or explore a different sound without moving fully in that direction. Anyways, I’d take an EP of nothing but the goodness over a full-length comprised mostly of filler surrounding a few good songs any day.

In 2007 I actually heard many great EPs. A few of which I’ll give honorable mentions that just missed this list that are worth-while include Joanna Newsom And The Ys Street Band, Vampire Weekend, and Black Kids‘ Wizard Of Ahhhs, of which I’ve come around a little bit on now that I’ve listened to it more. Here are the 10 most essential short-length albums of 2007:

Click here to read the entire post…

Monday Mash-Up

Here’s a snippet of that new, new Outkast:

Da Art of Storytellin’ Part 4
Cool shows I recommend checking out this week:

Tuesday:

MJQ CONCOURSE: aesop rock, black moth super rainbow, dj signify 21+ (http://www.tightbros.net – get tickets at http://www.ticketalternative.com or at Criminal Records)

Variety Playhouse: of montreal, grand buffet

Wednesday:

DRUNKEN UNICORN: prefuse 73, voice of the seven woods, blank blue 18+ 9:00PM (http://www.thedrunkenunicorn.net – get tickets at http://www.ticketalternative.com or at Criminal Records)

The Fiery Furnaces are awesome and here’s a new vid:

It looks like My Bloody Valentine is really going to do this reunion thing.

Acid Mother Temple will be at the Earl on March 20th.

New Orleans’ Jazz Fest has announced a few headliners (The Neville Brothers, Tim McGraw, and Maze featuring Frankie Beverly) and some dates(April 25th-June 4th). Full line-up announcement will come next year.

The White Stripes and Beck are working together on some stuff.

I just got hipped to Next To Last Festival in Athens, Ga in a few weeks and it looks interesting.

Sigur Ros are working on another album.

See what Animal Collective are cooking up for 2008.

Some more vids:

Grizzly Bear:

Division Day:

Phosphorescent (Live at The Earl):

Castanets:

Iron And Wine covering Radiohead at Pitchfork Fest:

Soulsavers:

Akron Family:


What The Hell Am I Listening To?!?

Grizzly Bear

It’s rare that one album turns me into a die-hard fan of a band, but Grizzly Bear‘s Yellow House from last year is one of those albums. The easiest tell-tale sign of how good music is to me is how many times I can listen to something without it getting stale, and when it is really great, it gets better with more listens. I’m still not sick of Yellow House, but now with their newest release, the Friend EP, i have even more to obsess about. As much as i love this new release, it would be hard for me to suggest it to someone who hasn’t listened to Yellow House or seen them live, because Friend is all about re-interpreting themselves, both by Grizzly Bear and a cast of other great young musicians, and so the coolest things on here are best in the context of knowing them well. My advice to you is go listen to Yellow House about ten times if you haven’t, and if you can stop listening to it, then go get Friend.

Little Brother (Electric)

Knife (covered by Atlas Sound)

Buy Yellow House here

Buy Friend here

Grizzly Bear Myspace

Division Day

A great album I just discovered recently is Beartrap Island. This first full-length release from California’s Division Day, who have been a band since 2001, is one of those albums that are wholly accessible (I wouldn’t be surprised if 99X was playing it in their rotation right now) but also contains a vast amount of lyrical and musical depth. The sound kind of reminds me of The Stills‘ Logic Will Break Your Heart but with much more sonic diversity. Taking pessimistic and dark ideas and applying those to upbeat and pretty music is a flavor i’m very fond of and Division Day do it well.

Hurricane

Lights Out

Buy Beartrap Island Here

Division Day Myspace

Humpday Randomnimity

Tonight:

This new Radiohead album is awesome. Go get that right now if you don’t have it. Here’s a fun little track of Radiohead and Sparklehorse covering Pink Floyd:

Wish You Were Here
If you’re smart you’ll pre-order the new Grizzly Bear EP Friend and get a free lithograph:

A track from Friend:

Alligator (Choir Version) [Featuring Beirut and Dirty Projectors]
The new Beach House album, Devotion, comes out in February.

Listen to the new Bloc Party single:

Watch Joanna Newsom perform a new, untitled song from last weekend:

Animal Collective on Conan:

RZA talking about The Beatles:

Friday Free-Style

Grizzly Bear, one of my favourite bands these days, is releasing an EP called Friend on November 6th. The ten track EP features a collaboration with Beirut‘s Zach Condon and Grizzly Bear covers by Band Of Horses, CSS, and Atlanta’s own Atlas Sound (Bradford Cox of Deerhunter). Here’s a The Crystals cover on the EP:

Grizzly Bear : Friends : He Hit Me (And It Felt Like A Kiss)
Menomena have a new video out:

Led Zeppelin reunion rumours are growing traction.

Creative Loafing reviews the new Black Lips album out on Tuesday. Remember you can still preorder it from Criminal Records and go to the release show that night at MJQ.

A couple of Home Park bands, From Exile and The Lasch, are playing the Faster Moustache‘s 24 hour urban bicycle race this weekend. Some live FE:

The Pipettes will be at Vinyl on October 16th.

So i just finished the first season of Showtime’s Weeds and I like it alot. Here is The Shins‘ James Mercer covering the Weeds theme song.

Wanna know where hip-hop is these days? 50 cent and Kanye West are going to have a debate on BET about who has a better album with play-by-play from ESPN’s Stuart Scott next Tuesday when their albums come out. I’m not making this up.

The Klaxons, after winning some prize that I don’t really care about but everyone on the internet seems to, are working on a new album.

Here’s Amy Winehouse performing at the Mercury Awards (that prize that the Klaxons won):

Built To Spill are awesome and here’s an interview.

More interviews:

Here’s some Queens Of The Stone Age vids to get your weekend rocking:

In the News


Hilly Kristal died yesterday from lung cancer complications. He was the founder of the CBGB in Manhattan, New York, which housed many acts from amazing artists since 1973. Interestingly, according to vh1.com his daughter plans to open up more CBGB clubs in the near future.


Also, last night:
Feist played on Letterman with a choir of members from Grizzly Bear, Broken Social Scene, New Pornographers, The National, Mates of State, and Nicole Atkins and the Sea. That’s the whole crew pictured above.
Check out the video:

Pitchfork Music Festival: Day 3/Wrap-Up

The final day started with Deerhunter and I was interested to see what they would do on what was probably one of the biggest crowds they’ve played to. They brought their A game and Bradford Cox shined on stage. They even got some of Grizzly Bear to jam with them at the end. There’s something special about seeing two of the best young bands today teaming up like this and gives me even more optimism about the state of music today. We watched The Ponys from far away and they sounded good with the exception of the entire PA system going down for half of it. Seriously, Pitchfork Fest’s sound system seemed to get even worse as the days went on and I’ve never seen anything like that at a music festival. Next up we watched Menomena put on a really good show. They seemed especially loose and maybe over excited or something but that seemed to work favourably for their sound. This is another band that if you haven’t got into yet, i strongly urge you to check them out. The next band I went to see was The Sea And Cake. It was hard for me to believe how bad it was considering how much I like this band. In their defense, the sound system did seem to be especially terrible for their set, but I do not like the direction this band has gone in. The show and the new album both seem like their missing the magic this band used to conjure up. I caught a little bit of Stephen Malkmus playing a solo set. It was good but it’s just not exactly my thing. The best show of the day for me was Of Montreal. This band combines art with fun like no other. They did a few new songs, Kevin Barnes wore a few outfits, they even played a little football on stage. I waited a really long time to see Klaxons next. They were good but the weak sound system on the third stage made it seem more underwhelming than it should have. We ended the night watching De La Soul do a solid performance.

Overall, the fest was fairly interesting and a good experience. They must do something about the sound system because it was way too amateur for a festival of this size. I know the ticket prices were low, but if I have to pay another ten or twenty bucks to get to listen to more than the band’s monitors for half the shows, it might be a good idea. The actual line-up mostly delivered on the hype, but I think Pitchfork could do a little better job scheduling. The venue was nice but if they want this event to get any bigger they’re going to need to relocate. I will say that the security was extremely light and well behaved, and I am always a big fan of that. Overall, Pitchfork Fest gets a thumbs up from me but need to improve some things for next year.

Pitchfork Music Festival: Day 2

We arrived just in time for Califone, who was running a little late. They played 4 or 5 songs and they were pretty good. They had a horn section with them which was cool, but it seemed a little underwhelming. We went in close for Grizzly Bear and listened to Voxtrot from afar. I have to say that I don’t really like Voxtrot that much, I think they are over-hyped by the internets. Grizzly Bear, on the other hand, lives up to all the hype. Despite Chris Taylor having some issues with his ridiculously complex equipment setup, they put on the day’s best show. If you have not listened to Yellow House yet, do it now fool! I tried to catch the end of Beach House but only caught the last 30 seconds of “Master Of None”. By far this was the worst schedule conflict of the fest, especially for the bands themselves as Grizzly Bear and Beach House are both fans of each other. Next up we went to see Battles. They were very impressive. The former Helmet drummer John Stanier was rock solid and had a cymbal up really high so he had to reach up to hit it. It was gimmicky but really cool. The rest of the band used lots of looping computer programs to put together their songs piece by piece.

We skipped Iron And Wine to check out the festival grounds, which were expanded from Friday’s setup. They had a huge poster shopping area with almost 50 tents each selling handbills. After that we checked out Atlanta’s Mastodon. Their typical badass performance had a mixed reception from the pitchfork kids. Most of the people farther away were complaining and those that stayed up close were rocking out. There was even a mosh pit. Because it was so crazy up front for Mastodon, I was able to get front row and center for Cat Power afterwards on the stage as most of the other Chan Marshall fans weren’t so much into the Mastodon scene. It pays to like all kinds of music. I listened to Clipse from the front of the other stage and they were what I expected, decent for a live hip-hop show but nothing to get excited about. Cat Power came on with the Dirty Delta Blues Band. In this performance, Cat Power would not touch a guitar or piano. Instead, she would be leaning over the crowd singing songs from The Greatest, covers, and songs I didn’t recognize. I am not a big fan of the nu-Cat Power that is sober, doesn’t freakout, and does country/blues music and this was farther in that direction than the three times I saw her last year. It was still great to see her, especially as close as we were, but i don’t think I’m going to see her again live until she either starts playing old stuff again or does some new stuff that is not so conservative and, well, ordinary. We wanted to check out Girl Talk but the tiny staging area was packed out beyond belief and the sound system over there was not powerful enough to hear farther back. If I had one complaint about Pitchfork Fest so far it was the sound system problems, of which there were many, and the sound checks drowning out quiet parts of bands performing on the adjacent stages. We skipped Yoko Ono and went into the city to drink into oblivion. Here’s some pics from the day:

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