On The Road: Chicago

The midwest has been very kind to us so far. In St. Louis, TPPI played with a band called Target Market, who not only turned out to be the best band they’ve played with so far, but they were really cool, hospitable dudes that even coincidentally happened to be friends with So Many Dynamos (who I blogged about last time). We had a mini-rager at their house in southern Illinois.

Target Market : Highways
Target Market myspace

Chicago was also a very fun time. Birthday celebrations, family of the band coming out, and some old friends from the ATL made the night a serious party. We ended up camping on a rooftop overlooking the city and then having our tent destroyed at five in the morning by a hurricane strength thunderstorm. So far, I’m barely getting five hours of sleep a night and fatigue is starting to set in a little bit, but we’re all pushing hard and everyone is in great spirits still. We are about to take it to Michigan shortly, but for now, here is a mini-mix of Chicago artists:

Anathallo : Noni’s Field
Tortoise : Gigantes
Wilco : I’ll Fight
The Fiery Furnaces : The End Is Near
Andrew Bird : Anonanimal

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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Bonnaroo 2009: Saturday & Sunday (Days 3 & 4): So Much To Roo, So Little Time

Saturday began with hot and sunny conditions, and after hanging at camp and doing some blogging, I went to go see Bon Iver. I arrived late so I couldn’t get inside the packed out This Tent, but listening to them from far away didn’t work out so well for me. The distance from a stage has a large affect on how one experiences a show, especially at a festival. Bon Iver has too many quiet parts for a huge, boisterous crowd and competing stages blasting bass, but the band did do a good set from what I could hear. He even did a Yo La Tengo cover, which was my favourite part of the show.


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Live Show: Jeff Tweedy w/ Jay Bennett (11/20/1996)

To honour the now departed Jay Bennett (Wilco), here is a legendary bootleg of Jeff Tweedy backed up by Bennett from 1996:

Jeff Tweedy with Jay Bennett
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
C’Est What
11/20/96

1. Red Eyed & Blue
2. I Got You
3. Why Would You Wanna Live
4. Outtasite (Outtamind)
5. Box Full Of Letters
6. Forget The Flowers
7. What’s The World Got In Store
8. We’ve Been Had
9. Sunken Treasure
10. Dreamer In My Dreams
11. Pick Up The Change
12. Passenger Side
13. Misunderstood
14. Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow

Download Lossless Torrent Here

You can find other Jay Bennett gems here and here.

Photos: Wilco, A Hawk And A Hacksaw at The Classic Center in Athens, GA (4/20/09)

A Hawk And A Hacksaw

Wilco


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Live Show: Jeff Tweedy (1/30/09)


Wilco @ Voodoo Fest 2007

Jeff Tweedy
2009-01-30
Ann Arbor Folk Festival
Hill Auditorium
Ann Arbor, MI

01. Intro by Jim Lauderdale
02. Someone Else’s Song * (played at edge of stage w/o PA)
03. One By One
04. Spiders (Kidsmoke)

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Friday Free-Style

M83 will be at The Earl November 11th.

Evangelicals will be at The Drunken Unicorn October 9th (Don’t miss this one!)

The Jeffrey Lewis Band will be at The Drunken Unicorn November 4th (Another can’t miss!)

Plants And Animals will be at The Earl October 22nd.

No Age will be playing Athens, Ga at The 40 Watt November 14th.

Indian Jewelry returns to Eyedrum September 24th with Tenth To The Moon.

Dragonforce will be at The Tabernacle November 21st.

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Our Coverage Of Lollapalooza 2008 Coverage


Photo by Cambria Harkey

This year there are a ton of music fests across the US, and unfortunately I can’t get to them all. But, there are still more music bloggers than festivals, so I can at least give you the scoop on the scoop. Lollapalooza is the fest I-most-wanted-to-go-to-but-couldn’t-make-it-to of the year. I think they had the best line-up of the major fests and on top of that, it is probably the only yearly festival on this continent to remain relevant for such a long span of time. The essentials from the weekend:

The biggest story seems to be the riotous crowd at Saturday night’s Rage Against The Machine show getting so crazy that RATM had to cut their set short. You can read a very long, but excellent and detailed account of the entire ordeal here from Chicago Sun-Times reporter Jim DeRogatis.

Grizzly Bear performed 4 new songs, two of which were debuted there. Stereogum had audio they recorded up of the new songs, but were asked to take it down. They still got good Griz coverage.

The biggest band at Lollapalooza, and in the world pretty much right now, was Radiohead and you can see the setlist and photos here. Friday marked the first time the festival has ever sold out a day (75,000) since adopting the Bonnaroo/Coachella model and basing the fest in Chicago in 2005. In fact the festival went on to sellout every day. With new national fests popping up weekly now, it seems music festival over-saturation hasn’t been a factor for Lolla. Of course having Radiohead on the bill doesn’t hurt, but I’m guessing the secret to their success was being the only fest in this country that didn’t have Jack Johnson come stink things up.

Atlanta’s Black Lips were there. They have tour dates. They were named by NME as one of the “Top 25 bands making America cool again”.

Former Uncle Tupelo member Bill Belzer played with Jeff Tweedy. Wilco played a new song that you should go listen to here. See Bloc Party vids and pics here. Kanye West‘s set went over better than his at Bonnaroo but he still said some douchey stuff. Yeasayer got interviewed. The widely circulated rumours of Barack Obama being there turned out to be false.

Largehearted Boy is keeping up with all of the live Lollapalooza downloadables here.

Next year hopefully I’ll bring you my own coverage. Below are some vids from Earfarm’s best of Lollapalooza video collection:
Radiohead:

Wilco:

Chromeo:

Right Place, Wrong Night: Live Review, Wilco 3/5/08 Tipitina’s Uptown, New Orleans, LA

On Wednesday, Wilco took the Tipitna’s stage for the 2nd night in a row. Sadly I wasn’t able to catch the first night. I arrived in time to catch about 25 minutes of the opening act John Doe. It was long enough to realize they were bad. The set did have a redeeming quality. Nels Cline came out and played with them on “Gimme Shelter” and showed everyone who has ever played rock band how to get a 100% on the solo. So I found a decent spot in the middle and near the bar for Wilco and I was ready for them after the solo Nels had just played.

Then they came out and 2 of the first 5 songs they played were off their newest album Sky Blue Sky. I’m not a fan of this album and feel that Wilco might be a victim of the rehab curse(Bands make better music on drugs, Play better live off drugs), this and the number of 30 year old frat boys trying to hit on girls around me made it hard to get into the show at first. Then they played “Handshake Drugs” followed by “A Shot In the Arm” and “Pot Kettle Black” and they got me feeling good finally. Nels Cline and the rest of the band were tight all night and sounded great. Jeff Tweedy mentioned that he had his throat checked out earlier that day and you could tell. It wasn’t really a bad thing because I think his voice sounded good raspy.

The only thing I had a real problem with was the set-list and the bar crowd. Tipitina’s usually has a good crowd and I’ve been to sold-out shows before there, but this one was just full as it could be and filled with people that looked like they hadn’t been to a show in years, and didn’t know how to act at a show. The 2nd night set-list is longer but I prefer the 1st nights more. If you like the new album a lot I would recommend catching a show on this tour. If you don’t like it then wait for next albums tour, who knows maybe he’ll relapse…

Setlists:
3/4/08(1st night)
1. (Was I) In Your Dreams 2. The Late Greats 3. I’m Always In Love 4. A Shot In The Arm 5. At Least That’s What You Said 6. You Are My Face 7. Side With The Seeds 8. Box Full Of Letters 9. Airline To Heaven 10. California Stars 11. Impossible Germany 12. Via Chicago 13. Blood Of The Lamb 14. Forget The Flowers 15. Someday Soon 16. Summer Teeth 17. Jesus, Etc. 18. Walken 19. I’m The Man Who Loves You /Encore/ 20. It’s Just That Simple 21. Hate It Here 22. Can’t Stand It 23. Kingpin 24. Red-Eyed And Blue 25. I Got You (At The End Of The Century) 26. Monday

3/5/08(2nd night)
1. (Was I) In Your Dreams 2. Pieholden Suite (Nels on banjo and tambourine) 3. You Are My Face 4. Company In My Back 5. Impossible Germany 6. Handshake Drugs 7. A Shot In The Arm 8. Pot Kettle Black 9. Side With The Seeds 10. Pick Up The Change 11. Hesitating Beauty 12. Jesus, Etc. 13. Heavy Metal Drummer 14. Nothing’severgonnastandinmyway(again) 15. A Magazine Called Sunset 16. Too Far Apart 17. Theologians 18. Walken 19. I’m The Man Who Loves You / Encore/ 20. What Light 21. Hate It Here 22. The Thanks I Get 23. Just A Kid 24. Monday 25. Outtasite (Outta Mind) 26. Casino Queen 27. I’m A Wheel 28. The Late Greats

Stream A Wilco Concert Tonight


photo by Biggie C

Thanks to Tiny Mix Tapes for the heads up. Wilco has been doing a residency in their home town of Chicago, and tonight 93XRT will be broadcasting the performance. It starts at 7:30pm central time (8:30pm for us East Coasters).

Go here to stream it

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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