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:

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