My Favourite Songs of 2008: Ohmpark Mixtape #6

So here is a playlist comprised of many of my favourite songs from the year. Not all of my favs are here, but I think all of the essentials are in it. I tried my best to build this as a flowing playlist more than just a collection of songs, so the order and even some of the selections reflect that. I really need to do more mixtapes. Based on Hypemachine/elbow popularity, I know everyone loves that Fleet Foxes song, but I decided instead to treat you to a better song from one of the bands that FF is ripping off. Anyways, here is an hour and half of the best songs of 2008. Jam them hard while you can, because in about 3 days they aren’t hip anymore:

Islands : The Arm
Sigur Ros : Gobbledigook
Atlas Sound : Recent Bedroom
Kaki King : Life Being What it Is
MGMT : Weekend Wars
Department of Eagles : No One Does It Like You
Animal Collective : Water Curses
Antony And The Johnsons : Another World
Mount Eerie w/ Julie Doiron & Fred Squire : Voice In Headphones
My Morning Jacket : Touch Me I’m Going To Scream pt. 1
Beach House : Used To Be
Portishead : The Rip
Summerbirds In The Cellar : Now We Are Ugly Inside
Hot Chip : One Pure Thought
M83 : Kim & Jesse
Bon Iver : For Emma
Plants And Animals : Guru
Destroyer : Shooting Rockets (From The Desk Of Night’s Ape)
Deerhunter : Nothing Ever Happened
…And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead : The Betrayal Of Roger Casement And The Irish Brigade

Videos of The Day: Coachella 2008

Here’s some vids from Coachella over the weekend:

Prince covering Radiohead:

Animal Collective “Comfy In Nautica”:

Click here to read the entire post…

Post-Friday Free-Style

If you noticed the site down last night, we were moving to different servers to handle the ever increasing love we receive from you. Thanks.

HEALTH are doing a remix album of their debut album due out in May.

The newly reunited Stone Temple Pilots will be at the new Verizon Wireless Amphitheater at Encore Park on August 23rd.

Prince has been added to the Coachella line-up.

Thurston Moore is narrating a documentary on the “Straight Edge” phenomenon.

RZA is releasing another Bobby Digital album this year.

It seems Natalie Portman and Devendra Banhart might be dating or something.

The Roots‘ new album comes out at the end of this month and they will be at The Fox Theater on May 23rd.

Kanye West is now a travel agent.

The Echo Lounge is about to reopen as the East Atlanta Icehouse.

Click here to read the entire post…

What The Hell Am I Listening to?!?

Ok, this episode of “What The Hell” is gonna be large on tunes. There seems to be so many worthwhile albums dropping right now, it is hard to keep up. A great problem to have. Here are the many bands I’m crushing on right now like a little music slut:

Russian Spy Camera (Athens, Ga)

I know Ichuda already did a review of this album, but I’ve really gotten into this one hard, so I’m going to continue to hype it. Let me stress that you can download their entire album for free from their website. If you like good music, you will be wronging yourself if you do not go pick that up.

Cryptology

Cults

Download Mutiny In The Kitchen With Knives here!!!

Russian Spy Camera Myspace

The Raveonettes (Copenhagen, Denmark)

One major trend from bands this year is albums produced with heavy distortion a la The Jesus And Mary Chain. Bands like The Magnetic Fields and Times New Viking are great examples. So far, though, I think The Raveonettes‘ new album Lust Lust Lust is my favourite to employ those sorts of techniques.

Dead Sound

Blush

Buy Lust Lust Lust here

Raveonettes Myspace

The Ruby Suns (Auckland, New Zealand)

The other popular trend in music this year is the Animal Collective influence. I’m surprised it took this long for AC to become so influential to new artists, but it was certainly inevitable. While The Dodos and El Guincho are fine acts, something about them feels like they are stealing the Collective‘s sound a little too much. Sort of like when I listen to Black Mountain or The Sword and their absorption of the ’70s sounds. Sure they are fun and enjoyable to listen to, but I could never get totally obsessed with someone who is bascially copy-catting someone else. But, The Ruby Suns‘ new album, Sea Lion, seems to me to be the perfect blend of AC love and originality. They will be at The Drunken Unicorn Monday night.

There Are Birds

Kenya Dig It?

Buy Sea Lion here

The Ruby Suns Myspace

Hot Chip (London, UK)

The new Hot Chip joint didn’t seem to get its fair fill of the Internet hype, but I’ve really been enjoying it. There are certainly some songs that are better than others, but the many great ones are really incredible. If you like dance music with a soul like I do, check this one:

Ready For The Floor

One Pure Thought

Buy Made In The Dark here

Hot Chip Myspace

Destroyer (Vancouver, BC, Canada)

Mostly because of Daniel Bejar’s vocal style, Destroyer seems to be an act that you either love or can’t really get into. Being on the love side of it myself, I’ll make my plea to those who listened to it and thought “This sounds just like the last album”. On the surface, sure, but if you dig into it, you’ll find a much more epic experience and I think this may be his best yet. Destroyer will be in Atlanta later this month.

My Favourite Year

Shooting Rockets (From The Deck Of Night’s Ape)

Buy Trouble In Dreams here

Destroyer Myspace

Monday Mash-Up

I want to thank everyone who came out for our show Friday night, and thanks to Parade, Brass Bed, and Delta Co for playing some great sets.

The Mars Volta show that we reported would be at The Tabernacle on Saturday, April 5th and then disappeared has reappeared again. Tickets go on sale this Saturday at 10am.

Also remember that Bonnaroo tickets go on sale this Saturday at noon.

The Grammy Awards happened last night, but I don’t care, so if you do, every other blog is talking about it.

UNKLE are calling it quits.

Dream Theater, Opeth, Between The Buried And Me, and 3 will be at The Tabernacle on May 28th.

Mastodon is about to go back to the studio and work on a new album due out by the end of the year.

Deerhoof have added a guitarist and are now a 4-piece again.

Click here to read the entire post…

Torrents Of The Day: Bonnaroo 2007

Just a little more Bonnaroo obsession before I move on:

Tool 2007-06-15 – Bonnaroo Music Festival – What Stage (16-bit) (FLAC)

Tool
What Stage – Bonnaroo Music Festival
Manchester, TN
06/15/2007

Source: Schoeps mk4 (ortf)> kc5> cmc6xt> Edirol R4 (24/96)
Location: FOB, LoC ~15′, 5′ high, 60′ from stage
Transfer: r4> usb> Peak 4.13> xACT (fixed SBE’s and converted to flac)
Taped and Transferred Patrick Moore (pat@taperssection.com)

One Set/Disc One
01 Jambi
02 Stinkfist
03 The Pot
04 46&2
05 Schism
06 Rosetta Stoned
07 Flood
08 Wings For Marie
09 10,000 Days

Disc Two
01 Lateralus*
02 Vicarious
03 Aenema

* w/ Tom Morello

Hot Chip 2007-06-15 Bonnaroo This Tent

Hot Chip
June 15, 2007
Bonnaroo – This Tent
Manchester, TN

Source: Core Sound Binaurals > Battery Box > Nomad Jukebox 3
Transfer: NJB3 > USB > PC > Sony Soundforge 7.0a
Edit: Sony Soundforge 7.0a (Splitting) > FLAC Frontend 1.7.1 etree edition > Tag & Rename

01) First New Song (Title Unknown)
02) Shake A Fist (New Song)
03) And I Was A Boy From School
04) Hold On (New Song)
05) (Just Like We) Breakdown
06) Fourth New Song (Title Unknown)
07) No Fit State
08) The Warning
09) Over And Over
10) Ready For a Fall (New Song)
11) The Beach Party

wilco 2007-06-17 Bonnaroo

Wilco
Bonnaroo
Manchester, TN
June 17, 2007

Source: Beyerdynamic mc930>mini me>mt
Mic config./location: ortf, 7′, fob, dfc
Transfer: mt>wavelab>cdwave>flac
Editing: fades added beginning/end
Recorded and Transferred by Jon Buffington (stirinthesauce@hotmail.com)

2 discs

disc 1

01: You are my face
02: side with the seeds
03: shot in the arm
04: sb sky
05: walken
06: shake it off
07: hummingbird
08: via chicago
09: handshake drugs

disc 2

01: impossible germany
02: war on war
03: IATTBYH
04: ITMWLY
05: jesus, etc
06: spiders
e)
07: late greats
08: HM Drummer

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.

Humpday Random Bonnaroo Tracks

Bonnaroo is getting so close and i’m getting pumped up. Check these great tracks and click the picture for more info:

Wilco (Chicago, IL)

Wilco : Impossible Germany

Spoon (Austin, TX)



Spoon : The Ghost Of You Lingers

Aesop Rock (New York, NY)

Aesop Rock : None Shall Pass

Hot Chip (London, UK)

Hot Chip : And I Was A Boy From School