Oktober

The other day I was in my car driving around and I experienced a "song in your head" moment with Mein Vater war ein Wandersman (Der fröhliche Wanderer) from German class circa 1998. It was part of our compulsory repertoire, however hearing more of them piqued all of our desires (like Himmel und Erde) to sing them more. After getting that in my head I was craving going to a German beerhall and swinging steins.



In the same vein while drinking one of the best oktoberfest beers during September is:


Beirut - A Sunday Smile

This is a great waltz, and waltzes make for great tunes while holding a litre and rocking back and forth while staying on your feet because the entire bar is swaying like kelp in a constantly changing tide.

Do you have any pub songs? I'm looking forward to having a pile of mates pinting away.

Pitchfork Day 1

I think it's interesting that rather than going to both P4k and Lolla, I'm only choosing to go to Pitchfork this 2011. Primarily the reason is that I believe Lolla is too focused on the 18-25yo crowd, which I'm not a part of anymore. Am I a grown-up? Not by any means other than by age and responsibility, but I do see a shift in how P4k operates this year, especially with respect to their brand image of the festival.

For instance, looking at who is playing where and when, they don't show a timetable (I have one below) but rather merely organize it chronologically and visually, teetering on paragraph form. It's annoying if you're trying to set up the logistics of where to be and when, but if the setup were designed with a purpose (and why wouldn't it) then the focus is that they are trying to get you to see a show fully without breaking mid-way to head to the half-way finished show on the other side of Union Park. I think that's more sophisticated because you are there with intent, not to live the festival to excess.

Also, the new icon/logo for the festival is decidedly muted: not colored, not in your face, not even prominent. It's meant to be humble and that gives the fest greater credibility because it's not the advertising that's drawing you there (I'm not saying they didn't do that) but the quality of the curating. I like it. Speaking of, just look at the names of the stages.

Who are you anticipating?


Gatekeeper
They have figured out how to do the subdued banger but without actually being a banger or being over-the-top with typical distortion. The early 90's synth patch flavor reminds me of Alexander Robotnick's Shout borrowing the same. On the other hand of excellence, I get the same impression that I got from Daft Punk's Tron soundtrack in that every track stands up very well on it's own, but as an album I can't say that I would listen to Giza all the way through unless I'm on my way to some neon dungeon. Hey, what are you doing tonight?
Track to hear: 'Chains'
Verdict? 20ft back, all in black.

EMA
Judging by her glam photo with confident name on a chain, I wasn't expecting the somber, serene sounds she sirens, but I'm glad. Sometimes like a singer-songwriter, sometime like the XX, and sometimes like a passivated Go Team, it would be well-good to stop by and sit down. By the way, check this out.
Track to hear: 'Breakfast'
Verdict? Lying the the grass, problems take a pass.

Tune-Yards
Merrill Garbus has got lots of concepts. LOTS. Intermittent lounge singing, Wizard of Oz choruses, drum machine-drummer duet, distorted vocal sirens... all really cool, but in the end I feel like I'm eating food at someone's house that measures their culinary abilities by the number of ingredients they can add to a dish. If I listen to an album like WHOKILL over and over, I think the desire for instant gratification subsides and I may find and pick out the intricacies of the tunes. My girlfriend will have to press play though.
Track to hear: 'My Country'
Verdict? Passing through to get a brew.

Battles
These guys fit the exact archetype for a street music fest: bubbly, slightly weird for the olds, and like a parking meter, intended to make you leave. Sorry guys, not a fan. However, I would love to see if they do the live collab with Gary Numan on 'My Machines' so I can throw a rose at him.
Track to hear: ....
Verdict? Which end, is the opposite end.

Curren$y
Hearing hip-hop at Pitchfork is always a refresher for me as I hardly get enough of it. Curren$y takes care of my fix. You know what's perfect? The subtlety of the instrumentals, the lack of auto-tune, and basically the lack of gimmicks both in effects and lyrics. Like a primer-only coupe deville, this guy flows well without the flash and has it where it counts.
Track to hear: 'Breakfast'
Verdict? Listening within the masses, listen later after classes

Did I mention I like primer hoopties?

Thurston Moore
Almost immediately after pressing play, I got the desire to take a summer siesta after hearing him through mog. It's perfect. I woke up at 5am to take my pop to an epic bike trip today for the weekend and I'm beat. The delightfully plucked guitar paired with the swooning violas remind me of a high fidelity, sunday morning kurt vile without microphone pedals. I probably won't make it through his set standing up.
Track to hear: 'Benediction'
Verdict? Let the sun bake me, let the next band wake me.

James Blake
While glitch-minimalism may work for some, his CMYK EP doesn't really get it done, nor does Klavierwerke. Eh, I'm just not a fan of the style. If you love the odd / experimental / electronic sounds of samplers, this guy is for you.
Track to hear: ....
Verdict? Neko Case is the place.

Speaking of, what about the headliners? Guided by Voices, Neko Case, and certainly Animal Collective are all like gorgeous women: they are not in need of any more fanfare. So I'll be seeing them all.


Oh btw, some extra events are here.
And if you want to hear a medley of folk yourself: eMusic has a free sampler.

Saturday Night Live, ain't no jive

Cred

I've been on the prowl to collect a mess of WBMX tapes and let them ride in the Accord. Deephousepage is a great resource and I'm a total new noob when it comes to 80's house. (I'm totally mining that decade for all it's worth.) I try and get this guy from work to come out to Neo all the time, but he says he's past his prime and besides he was Mr. Industrial. As he explains it to me "it took me a while to figure out that no girls liked Nitzer Ebb."

Farley Jackmaster Funk & Julian Jumpin Perez - WBMX Mix 1987

Naturally, I can't find these jams anywhere, because it's either the live mix or it's some rare mix that I can't find. Partial tracklist nonetheless:
Double Exposure - My love is free
Carl Bean - I was born this way (Better Days Mix) (vid)
Luthor Vandross - The Glow of Love
Fatback - Backstroke (vid)
Take That - Relight My Fire (vid)

And I just got this one (skip to 2min at least)
Bad Boy Bill on BMX in 88

For grins,


Search for all the mixes from that era.
Ah merde! And tonight was the night to go to Neo! 1st Friday's of every month is house music house music.

Vexed Pulp

The primary motivation of me even listening to these guys is the return of Larry to Chicago for my bday:


I'm normally not a Britpop listener, but for a solid 2 weeks I've had these guys on repeat in my car and felt compelled to share. The tracks hark back to the days of Lipgloss in Denver for me, especially 'Disco 2000' where it begs to drink $2 gin/tonics while jumping up and down in everything Buffalo Exchange. Even further back, 'Underwear' was my exact feeling in high school at my crush sophomore year while she was dating this really cool fuck-up:

I couldn't stop it now. There's no way to get out.
He's standing far too near. How the hell did you get here.
Semi-naked in somebody else's room.
I'd give my whole life to see it.
Just you stood there only in your underwear.

Like my own from the same era:

Stop it Conrad
Stop looking at my legs
'Cause if I catch you
You'll be walking on pegs

Pulp - Common People
Pulp - Disco 2000
Pulp - Underwear

Different Class totally characterizes all the babe angst I've had throughout the years. Maybe I should have been writing music about all my failings so I could fall into the stereotype of musician-has-following. Every DJ gig I had included a fangirl or two with the same foolish output: "beat it, I'm working here." I now understand why parents give their kids advice... I just need to figure out a better marketing method than normally employed by the olds. You should have figured out by now that naturally I know nothing about Pulp... except for them handing me an old summer preview TV Guide with Season 2 of Voyager and the ghosts of girls past, my hands never held their ass.

The Yellow Happy Triangle

I've seen YACHT before. I've heard YACHT before. The more I read about and experience YACHT, the more I want to read about and experience YACHT.

I'm standing at the head of the crowd at the feet of the lead guitarist; he's well put-together with his slick grey shirt, plain grey pants, no belt and haircut that reminds me of a young David Byrne. Claire Evans peels off layers of a white suit jacket, to a white thigh-length skirt, to just a wifebeater and white spandex shorts. It perfectly compliments the angelic perception I have of her enlightened soul.



Most times I go to a show and perceive the band's stage visuals while sipping my greyhound and being crowded in with the occasional patchouli fellow or sweet-scented female. This time, my divine essence is tickled. Truly the experience of hearing Yacht both in melody and in conversation conveys an embodiment of balancing subdued, Gaian worship with exercising group party yoga to advance human consciousness. At the show, Claire told me where their spiritual center is and now Marfa is my Mecca.

Which brings me to YACHT as a brand: human love and the pure, positive human experience. I can't think another appropriate word for it as the concept of a brand is fabricated, but YACHT's entire artistic vision is more of a discovery that they want to share in a focused manner with their audience. You could liken it to a religion but there is nothing overt or pressing about their message. Excerpt from their pamphlet "The Secret Teachings of the Mystery Lights" that I picked up from Jona Bechtolt himself:

Thankfully, the Universe need not be worshipped. The Universe is not self-conscious, not self-organized. It is merely an awesome extension of the space which we inhabit. We are part of its makeup as stars and planets are part of its makeup; if the Universe is infinite, then size becomes subjective. We are as relevant a part of it as anything else.

It may be difficult for you to picture yourself as an actual part of the Universe, to see your physical body as a visible nature through which the structure of countless waves of evolving life are unfolding their latent potentialities. But it is the case. Just as every cell in your body is an infinitesimal part of the system that is you, so you are an infinitesimal part of the system that is the Universe. And as we are part of all things, so we are capable of knowing all things.

Off their 7"...
YACHT - Dystopia
YACHT - Utopia

Experience them, travel to Marfa, and perpetuate positivity.

Another 90's post

I'm not there yet. The 90's are not back yet... not for me. The closest I've seen grunge make a comeback are folks wearing plaid shirts, but the long hair isn't there yet, nor are the Vans, the JNCO jeans, or Daria. What are back are the early 90's, only insofar as an extension of the 80's. Case in point:


Lady Miss Kier

Deee-Lite - Groove Is In the Heart ... and video



Many moon ago at Coachella 2007, I was walking along and heard some real grooves coming out of one of the side dance tents. I'm always a fan of the fag jams, and with the boys' presence on stage, that solidified the atmosphere. It was a big girl, with big hair, and a hot dress pushing up her girls, going all out with her mix. "Damn she's the jam." Who was it? It seriously wasn't until a couple of days ago when I became reacquainted with Deee-lite when I heard that Lady Miss Kier was DJ'ing at Berlin this Sunday (seriously, a gay club on Easter Sunday and a school night?) and hence this post. Now I can't get enough of her.

Reading about her influence on the NYC dance scene in the early 90's and the fact that she was already heavily a club fashionista makes me even more drawn to her. Her relations with Grace Jones and Bootsy Collins make my social libido percolate and her rampant self-canvasing makes me want to be my future-daughter's tailor. Now that she's coming (back) to Chicago, I can only imagine what she's got in store for the current scene... and what she's wearing.


Oh by the way, I hope she wears her hair up.

WLUW Hints Part 1

Living under a rock does have it its advantages...

1) You get more time to yourself
2) Nobody will judge that 6" beard after you keep telling yourself you'll get around to it
3) You can appreciate Lady Gaga two years later after The Fame since you just got it

Trends have flown past tending not to knock on their way through town. Fortunately, your radio that interprets frequency modulated air waves have given you a cracked-open window view of the music world. Enter WLUW, Loyola University's radio station. It's rare to hear the same song twice during any given month of listenership, so the opportunities to write down picks is on par with a grizzly bear catching horny salmon.

Enter White Mystery.


This is the kind of band that I want to see in my brother's basement, the Ice Factory, or the Mopery. (Oops, those are all gone.) Gruff, sweaty, and on Whistler Records, this pair are like a garage band for your next beach party: gleefully serrated. Alex White's sweet voice balances out the over-the-top drums of her brother Francis and is a perfect complement to her bad axe (do people still call it that? and bad = good, duh). Try their single on for size:



White Mystery - Powerglove

See them at Pancho's on April 20th or at the Abbey on May 7th.

So Much

There is a small barrage of random events that are going on. For one, I just experienced Baconfest for the second time. From 12 vendors to 60 influential Chicago restaurants, this thing has grown like crazy. Bacon bloody mary's (bacon encrusted rim, bacon vodka, strip of bacon), chocolate bacon topped smoke-flavored ice cream with salted caramel at the bottom tip of the waffle cone, and souvee'd pork-belly over polenta with blue cheese sauce are some of the items that caused me to buckle over after about 30min (pace yourself!). Oh and this isn't just Chicago apparently, it's nationwide per google. I had a hummus/sprout sandwich for dinner.

Next a recent find via Lincoln Hall is their Chicago Rock Stars tour where they go visit various musically important sites with respect to Chicago between 1980 and ~2000. Wilco, the Smashing Pumpkins, Ministry, and Liz Phair. Amongst the Untouchables gangster tour, the haunted tour, and architecture tours this is a welcome addition.

Also at Lincoln Hall on 5May, they are going to have Del Rey (local, modern psych-rock) do the instrumentals to Fantastic Planet, a 1972 Cannes-winning animated film allegory of humanity. What I've seen so far of the original has been well done (think Monty Python for animation). You can watch it in all 8 parts starting with...


Finally, this guy popped in firefox via my friend Mike. Thanks.

When is this album going to leak already?

I went to Buenos Aires my buddy Larry to visit our buddy Timmy, and if we weren't in a parrilla, he was searching for the new Strokes album. The obsession became most evident when I went to check my mail on Tim's computer and all the tabs in firefox were:
"angles leak"
"strokes angles early release"
"strokes angles forum mp3"
"strokes angles advance copy"
He would shuffle around our rental apartment after eating breakfast, then finally leave, exiting with "I'm going to go upstairs and listen to the album"... which was the 30sec snippet version of each track on youtube.

I even played my hand at it and called a couple of people since, after all, I agreed with Tim: how can a major cd release be under wraps for so long? Have the record companies figured it out? Was no human used in the manufacture and storage of these pieces of plastic?

After all that, a couple of tracks did peek out and we would sit around staring at various objects while Maccu Picchu would blast around us. Why is this so important? Simple: We want it to be the new 'Is This It?'. We want to be a stallion in college jumping up and down at a sweaty show in our sunglasses around beautiful friends and future friends... again. For a group whose public image smiles less than Thom Yorke, the Strokes are the reincarnation of the leather jacket, copious hair, converse, and the singular pair of jeans that only get washed once a month. They do everything rock and roll except elect a cab rather than chopper.

As for the album, they've chosen against the muted/distorted vocals that was (thankfully) everywhere in 'Is This It?' and picked the polished sound of First Impressions. (In contrast to Angles, First Impressions sounds a little like a modern day Scorpions but without the ballads.) Angles wins on well-placed subtleties where necessary and muted vigor elsewhere: Macchu Picchu is golden. But right now, listening to "Two Kinds of Happiness", the verses belong in Bright Lights Big City (that's a compliment), but the chorus needs to be turned down a little in favor of the rest of the album.

So til Tuesday, before you go to Twist and Shout or Reckless, you can listen to Angles here on the Strokes site.


from NME

"The best artists are the ones that work the hardest, and if you work hard enough, you'll eventually experience the happy accidents that are art. I learned that from my stepfather." - Julian Casablancas