Bonnaroo 2008 Saturday (Day 3): Thirty Epic Hours

Bonnaroo always has a momentum all its own and no matter how you imagine your weekend to go, it ends up being a completely different experience. Saturday morning I woke up around 4am in the morning after sleeping through crazy thunderstorms that wrecked our camp. Most of the people in my crew were coming back from seeing late night shows and we hung out and talked about our Friday experiences. The rain continued on and off for the rest of the morning, so I had some beers for breakfast and chilled out under our shelters that hadn’t been destroyed. I caught an hour power nap around 9am, and then headed out for the day. I walked around the campgrounds for a while taking in the atmosphere. The rain had died out mostly by then, and people were out and about in the muddy conditions.


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Humpday Randomnimity

Tonight is for this:

Radiohead is coming to Atlanta! Also, In Rainbows debuts those chart things at number one.

The Mars Volta have made an adventure game called Goliath The Soothsayer to promote the new album out in a few weeks (I can’t wait!). Check it out.

Black Lips are doing a free show:

Black Lips ” Veni Vidi Vici”:


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Ohmpark’s Top 50 Best Albums Of 2007

2007 was an incredible year of music and there were so many albums I really liked that didn’t make this list. I noticed that most of the lists I pay attention to were very similar to one another this year as opposed to last year. Also, I’ve found myself in more of a disagreeance with those lists than last year. If there is any theme to be taken out of this list, I think it’s that I feel like too many great albums were underrated by the blogosphere elites, and that they were way in love with some albums I think are overrated. This list represents my personal assertions more so than the rest of the Ohmpark crew, but I worked hard to get every one’s opinions and influences in this thing. Feel free to comment on how much you hate or love it. I feel like every album on this is an essential one from last year, so go listen to some new music:

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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?!?

Today’s theme: From Old-school folk to Nu-school dope

Iron And Wine

Iron And Wine‘s 2005 EP Woman King was one of those rare EPs that are so good you forget it is not a full-length album. He hit a stride in his songwriting that produced purely beautiful, perfect songs and the question was whether this was a peak moment or whether Sam Beam could continue on in this fuller, more engaging type of stuff as opposed to his earlier, quieter folk songs. With his third LP, The Shepherd’s Dog, he has proved that Woman King was no fluke and that he is wholly capable of producing top-notch tunes in bulk. Check it out yourself:

Carousel

Lovesong Of The Buzzard

Iron And Wine‘s Myspace

Buy The Shepherd’s Dog Here

Soulsavers

The British production and remixing team of Rich Machin and Ian Glover’s second album, It’s Not How Far You Fall, It’s The Way You Land, has been in my heavy rotation lately and it should be in yours as well. Featuring Screaming Trees‘ Mark Lanegan on vocals all over it, it’s a great album that sort of feels like a more folksy and bluesy version of The Cinematic Orchestra. The opening track “Revival” is such an epic and gorgeous song:

Revival

Paper Money

Soulsavers’ Myspace

Buy It’s Not How Far You Fall, It’s The Way You Land Here

Phosphorescent

I just listened to Pride last night for the first time and was blown away by how awesome this album is. Typically I let a new album marinate in my brain for a little while before I talk about it here, but I felt the short release sort of reminded me a lot of Iron And Wine in a more indie-rock way and when I experience a rare amazing first listen I have to pass it on. Phosphorescent is Athens, Ga native Matthew Houck and is someone that I did not know about until now but will be looking into deeply. Check it:

Wolves

A Picture Of Our Torn up Praise


Phosphorescent Myspace

Buy Pride Here

Castanets

Another great band i’ve just recently got turned on to is Castanets, aka Raymond Raposa plus revolving cast. The psychedelic folk action on their latest release, In The Vines, is a challenging but vastly rewarding listen that I like more and more every time I jam it. There’s something so cool about taking such a conservative sound such as folk and pushing the limits of experimental with it.

Rain Will Come

Three Months Paid

Castanets Myspace

Buy In The Vines Here

Friday Free-Style

Listen up, I got a bunch of time sensitive info for you. If it currently before 10am as you read this, it is your last chance to buy Bjork tickets. The Klaxons are even opening.

Queens Of The Stone Age are going to be at The Tabernacle September 22nd. Tickets go presale today at 10am and officially go on sale tommorrow at 10am.

More tickets that go on sale today at 10am:

  • The New Pornographers at the Variety Playhouse October 30th
  • Rilo Kiley at the Variety Playhouse September 29th
  • Stars at the Variety Playhouse October 27th

If you got tickets to the Smashing Pumpkins shows at the Fox, You are twice as lucky because Explosions In The Sky are opening.

If you didn’t get tickets for that, there’s Of Montreal doing a halloween show in their hometown of Athens, Ga at the 40 Watt. I can’t find tickets online yet, but you’ll want to jump on them quick because this will definetly sellout.

The Coathangers are releasing their debut album September 4th.

Behold, the album cover to the new The Mars Volta record due out this year!

The Mars Volta - The Bedlam in Goliath

Les Savy Fav have an new album hitting stores September 18th.

Aesop Rock will be at the Masquerade on November 20th.

Deerhoof will be opening for Bloc Party in Nasheville, TN September 25th. Aw yeah, a Deerhoof video:

Weird new Blonde Redhead video:

Spoon on the Late Show:

Rilo Kiley video:

Iron And Wine covers Radiohead at Pitchfork Fest:

The White Stripes played a “one-note gig” in Canada. Yeah, check it out.

Interviews:

I leave you today with a The Besnard Lakes video:

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:

Friday Free-Style

We start today with a video of The Smashing Pumpkins comeback show:

I never covered the Pitchfork Fest additions of Mastodon, Junior Boys, Voxtrot, Cadence Weapon, Brightblack Morning Light, The Field, Cool Kids, and William Parker Quartet. Now with the combination of a night with legendary artists performing some of the best albums ever written and two days of the people making the very best albums of the last 2 years, I think musically this is by far the best festival of the year. On top of that, it is only 50 bucks for three days so it is also the greatest bargain of the year. I often have my quips with Pitchfork’s opinions but they sure nailed this line-up. Here it is in case you forgot:

Friday, July 13:

Sonic Youth perform Daydream Nation
GZA/Genius performs Liquid Swords
Slint perform Spiderland

Saturday, July 14:

Yoko Ono
Cat Power and Dirty Delta Blues (w/ members of Dirty Three, the Delta 72, and Blues Explosion)
Clipse
Mastodon
Iron and Wine
Battles
Grizzly Bear
Voxtrot
Califone
The Twilight Sad
Girl Talk
Dan Deacon
Oxford Collapse
Professor Murder
Fujiya & Miyagi
Beach House
William Parker Quartet
Ken Vandermark’s Powerhouse Sound

Sunday, July 15:

De La Soul
The New Pornographers
Of Montreal
Stephen Malkmus
Jamie Lidell
The Sea and Cake
Junior Boys
Menomena
The Ponys
Deerhunter
Klaxons
The Field
Cadence Weapon
The Cool Kids
Craig Taborn’s Junk Magic
Nomo
Brightblack Morning Light
Fred Lonberg-Holm’s Lightbox Orchestra

Anybody you don’t recognize on that list, you should look into immediately. More info on Pitchfork Fest here. We will be there and you should too.

The hometown fest that is still the most fun of the decade, Bonnaroo, has announced its cinema tent schedule.

The New Pornographers have a new track floating around the internets: My Rights Versus Yours

Ween releases a new EP, The Friends EP, on June 8th.

…And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead are looking for a drummer to sub-in for their European tour.

Creative Loafing did a cover story on Atlanta blogs this week and profiled our friends over at Cable And Tweed. Props for repping the B’s in da A.

It’s been a busy week for me and I don’t have that much news for you, so I’ll hit you with a bunch of vids:

Here’s a Cat Power on Jolls Holland:

Here’s a Califone video:

Here’s an Iron And Wine video:

Ween live:

Here’s the new Voxtrot video:

Here’s Arcade Fire covering a Clinic song:

And I leave you with a De La Soul video that will get you through your day:

Live Show: Iron & Wine (2-8-2007)


He does some new songs:

Iron & Wine
2007-02-08
The Pabst Theater; Milwaukee, WI, US

Taped By: Matt Krueger and Kevin Kohl

Tracked and Edited By: Matt Krueger

Source: Soundboard > FM > Sony CFS-200 > 1/8th inch stereo analog cable > M-Audio Revolution Soundcard > Cool Edit Pro 2.0 > CD Wave 1.94.5 > FLAC Level 8 (Trader’s Little Helper 1.1.1)

Tracklist:
01 – (DJ Intro)
02 – Die
03 – He Lays In The Reins
04 – Sodom, South Georgia
05 – (Talking)
06 – Pagan Angel And A Borrowed Car
07 – Lovesong Of The Buzzard
08 – Free Until They Cut Me Down
09 – (DJ Break/Talking)
10 – House By The Sea
11 – Naked As We Came
12 – Peace Beneath The City
13 – Muddy Hymnal
14 – Boy With A Coin
15 – Jezebel
16 – Carousel
17 – (DJ Break/Talking)
18 – Resurrection Fern
19 – The Trapeze Swinger
20 – (Crowd Noise/Talking)
21 – Upward Over The Moutain
22 – Flightless Bird, American Mouth
23 – (DJ Outro)

Download Lossless Torrent Here