King Sparrow, Live at the Empty Bottle

Whoa, somebody let the big dogs out of the gate. Wow. I hadn't seen King Sparrow live for longer than I'd realized, and watching them grow as a band in real time has been thrilling. Where, as a young band, their show started out tight and precise then relaxed into a sense of casual mastery, now they've turned yet another corner into an explosive, physical ferocity. I don't know if it's just that they've been cooped up in the studio for the past little while and were ready to reconnect with the energy of a club crowd again or what, but last night at the Empty Bottle they seemed hungrier, and thus more energetic, than I've maybe ever seen them. Old faves from the Derailer EP were present and accounted for ("Forest" just keeps opening up with secret byways and melodic turns every time I hear it), but goosed by the addition of the new tunes they've been working up for their debut long-player, even these familiar songs seemed to vibrate with new intensity.

Eric is steadily pushing his own boundaries as a vocalist, much to the songs' benefit. A few perfectly calibrated, well-placed howls here and there provided a nice little pinch of danger to offset their immaculate chops as musicians. He and Sean (the band's secret weapon) also seemed to be interacting more on stage than I've ever seen them. Watching the way musicians watch each other while they're playing is always one of my favorite things about seeing a band in concert. Then, of course, John's drumming always seems somewhere on the verge of full-scale detonation, in the best way possible. Even though he's one of my favorite local drummers, I always forget how ferocious he can be, the way I forget what the exciting warm springtime feels like after a winter full of ice and snow.

I know I'm not going to convince anyone that already hasn't been convinced at this point that they need to pay attention to these guys. It just makes me stupidly happy to live in a city where I can take the bus a few miles south on a random Thursday night and hear some soul-explodingly good music for less than I would pay for a sushi dinner. Go find 'em on MySpace or Twitter or Facebook (or in my frustratingly blurry pics), and revel in the joy of good, local, live music.

W. E. Street Team Update

Kittens! Spring is springing here in Chicago and there's so much fun to be had in the next few weeks. Get out yr calendars:

King Sparrow will be playing this Thursday, April 1, at the Empty Bottle. Eric tells me there will be new songs + old faves, so basically, what more could you ask for? I'm forgoing the Spoon show at the Aragon that night to support my hometown boys, so you know that means it's gonna be epic. (No pressure, guys.) Also, if you haven't watched the video tour of the studio where they've been recording their new album yet, check it out here and get ready for LOLs.

JT and the Clouds will be celebrating the release of their new album Caledonia on Friday, April 16, also at the Bottle. I'm so excited for this I could just burst. I've basically been looking forward to this show since early December. They've been touring the East Coast and Canada the past few weeks and will soon be heading out for a lengthy jaunt through Europe, so it'll be nice to remind them how much they're loved here at home while we have the chance.

Tiny Magnets will be back at Lizard's Liquid Lounge later this month, on Thursday, April 22. Seriously, if you haven't been out to the bar yet, you must. It's the perfect combination of cozy and cool. In other Tiny Magnets news, we've been busily recording and have some nicer sounding tracks up on our MySpace page. We also have a new presence on Facebook; we'd invite you to become a fan of ours there if you're so inclined!

Spring Awakening

OK, despite the fact that, intellectually, I know that no good can come of being ashamed of one's musical tastes and that the notion of "guilty pleasures" in music is terribly fraught, I still often have a hard time publicly copping to some of the shit that I love. A perfect example is Duncan Sheik. I can't think of anyone more hideously uncool, but, guys, I secretly looooooove Duncan Sheik! I'm not even kidding. It's been really hard for me to get up the nerve to admit it in this forum, but I have to: I own all his albums (except for the one that came out early this year; just haven't gotten around to it yet), and, what's more, I still actively listen to them. It's not like they're moldering in the back of my closet--I tend to take Phantom Moon with me when I travel on airplanes (makes a nice pairing with Elliott Smith's Either/Or--somehow all the acoustic guitar soothes me when I'm in midair) and his self-titled debut remains one of my favorite things to listen to in the dead heat of summer. I downloaded the soundtrack to Spring Awakening when it came out, and, even though I didn't listen to it all that much, I was still pleased as punch that he gained so much recognition for it. So, you best believe that I was super-psyched to have a chance to actually see the show now that the touring production is playing here in Chicago for a few weeks. Coming of age stories? Florid Broadway storytelling and emotions? Duncan Sheik's delicate Nick Drake-esque melodies and arrangements? Sign. Me. Up.

Benji and I went on Wednesday night, and I really enjoyed it. I didn't go apeshit-level bonkers or anything, but I really enjoyed it. Mostly, though, I was delighted by the fact that it, with all its relative perversity intact, has achieved such great success in the current Broadway landscape that seems to be otherwise dominated by jukebox musicals and retreads of marginally successful Hollywood movies. The second act is a bit weak--it gets kinda punitive toward the characters and then tries to make up for it by becoming more stereotypically "Broadway" with bites from Les Miserables (ghosts singing inspiration from beyond the grave!) and Into the Woods (children will liiiiiiiiiisten!). But the first act is amazing. The lights came up for intermission and the first thing I said was, "I can't believe all that just happened in the first act. There's a lot going on there."

The one major drawback to this performance was seeing it at the Oriental Theater, rather than in a more intimate black box. The actors all have youth and beauty on their sides, but they don't quite yet have the chops to fill a room that big with their voices or their presence. Nor should they necessarily need to. Though the emotions and topics in this play are huge, to retain their power, they should still end up feeling like whispered secrets, and there's nothing whispered or secretive about a venue that big. Wouldn't it have been awesome if they could have figured out a way to book a stint for the show at, like, the Empty Bottle or the Vic? But, as Benji pointed out, if you can sell out the Oriental Theater, why wouldn't you sell out the Oriental Theater?

Despite all that, once I figured out how the songs were functioning, rhetorically, in the context of the plot, I fell totally in love with the piece. When I first listened to the soundtrack in isolation, I felt frustrated that I couldn't quite follow the storyline. But seeing it on stage, it all becomes clear: they're updating the notion of a rock musical by using the songs as external expressions of internal teenage sexual frustration, confusion, torment, and longing rather than as ways to advance the plot or for characters to relate to each other. It's so simple and so smart; I don't know why no one's ever really done it before (at least on such a large scale). I mean, much of my own internal monologue really still is flashing lights and dance sequences and bits of songs, so it felt easy and natural to slide into this world where that level of drama needs musical accompaniment to fully embody all that emotion. What was even nicer for me, though, is, since I'm so secretive about my Duncan Sheik fandom anyway, hearing those familiar chord voicings and melodic intervals in the context of a narrative all about unspoken pleasures gave the experience of the play a nice little meta-twist. Like I wrote in my post about false musical memories, there's a sweet warmth in being waved to by your past in this unexpected way.

Don't forget, kittens: King Sparrow (who've been getting all kinds of big love from big places this week) plays TONIGHT at the Subterranean. Come rock out and take refuge from the rain and all the collateral Lolla madness.

500 Days of Summer and Humpday

Well, 500 Days of Summer was pretty much a piece of crap. I am EXACTLY the target audience for this movie, and yet somehow it made me want to punch puppies the entire time I was sitting in the theater. It's clear that the writer and director have much the same taste in "anti-" romantic comedy romantic comedies that I do, but they didn't do enough to spackle over the seams where they'd stitched together the bits they'd stolen from these other (better) films. The most obvious touchstone is Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind--tonally, organizationally, and character-wise (diehard-romantic leading man with "issues" vs. a headstrong, ultimately unknowable female love interest with a bulldozer's worth of charm), but there were also huge lifts from High Fidelity (the notion that pop songs will corrupt your ideas about love) and even Bottle Rocket (wise-beyond-her-years sage advice from a little sister). Zooey Deschanel's shtick is starting to get grating (um, ha), and for as wonderful as he is, and for as excited as I was about the idea of Joseph Gordon-Levitt making somewhat of a rom-com debut, he was sorely miscast. The role needed much more of a sadsack, and he's just too smart and strong an actor to believably play such a lovelorn wuss. Lloyd Dobler he is not. The best moment in the whole thing comes near the beginning when Zooey's character flat-out asks him if he likes her; he pauses a beat before saying "yeah" with as many shades of meaning as that word could possibly convey--longing and anticipation and doubt and shyness and truth and bet-hedging and coolness and dorkiness and desire and relief all at once. Aside from that, though, if you value your time, your money, and YOUR SOUL, skip eet.

Humpday, on quite the other hand, is graaaaaaand. I loved it! So, so much! It is ridiculously laugh-out-loud funny but also filled with so much beautiful truth that my cheeks hurt from grinning by the end of it. And not just truth about sexuality--though it has that to the degree that one would hope/expect--but truth about relationships and aging and the ultimate tenuousness of the ways we attempt to define ourselves and our loved ones. It's also totally refreshing to watch a movie with utterly normal-looking people in it--that is, utterly normal-looking people who, much like the people you know in your own life, become more and more beautiful as you get to know them. I can't say too much more about it without starting to give stuff away--and this is a movie that deserves not to be spoiled before one sees it. If it makes its way to your city, please do consider checking it out if you have the chance.

Also, how is this movie not going to be exactly the same as As Good as It Gets (which I detest)? Oh, Lauren Graham, you deserve so much better!

Also, also, also: Chicagoans, it's never too early to start planning for the weekend. Catch King Sparrow for free (free! zero bones! just because they love you!) on Friday night at the Empty Bottle, and then be sure to rest up for the Baby Teeth album release spectacular at Schubas on Saturday. If you've not had a chance to check out Hustle Beach yet, let me assure you that it's 42 minutes of pure happiness, one of those albums that goes down so smooth, you don't even realize how quickly it's whizzing by. "Big Schools" is so smart and so sly on so many levels; "I Hope She Won't Let Me" still absolutely kills me; and "Hard to Find a Friend" is the kind of stellar Billy Joel piano ballad that Billy Joel forgot how to write about 25 years ago. See you out on the town, kittens.

[Ed. note: Ha, so I posted this on Tuesday night, then Wednesday morning there was a huge spread in Chicago's Red Eye all about Baby Teeth, and in the interview, Abraham Levitan totally calls Billy Joel a hack. "He's just a poor man's Paul McCartney. Elton John, I would say, had a distinctive artistic personality, and I don't think Billy Joel has ever been more than a tribute band." Glad to know I totally got my '70s piano men references backward!]

[UPDATE: OK, this is officially the most appended entry in the history of this blog. The 7/31 King Sparrow show at the Empty Bottle was canceled. Come see them at the Subterranean on August 7, though! I know none of you are shelling out the clams to go to Lolla or to see Arctic Monkeys at the Metro, so you officially have no excuse to miss it.]

Pitchfork Music Festival 2009

Haters Gotta Hate Edition

It's not like I didn't have a good time last weekend. Any excuse to spend two and a half days bopping from performance to performance to performance in the company of (mostly) like-minded strangers is generally OK by me. But this was the first year that the festival struck me as straining against itself. At first, it was the little, mostly organizational things: the long line to gain entry to the park on Friday night. The fact that the porta-potties were tucked into weird locations that weren't well laid out for folks to form lines that went much deeper than about four people. The fact that the stages weren't adorned with the Jay Ryan-designed banners like in previous years. Maybe this stuff just slipped through the cracks for one reason or another? But then as the weekend hurtled headlong toward its big Flaming Lipsian climax, I realized that this is no longer the little indie festival that could. (I know, I know: I'm just realizing this now? But hear me out.) There was so much less room allowed for the pleasure of surprise this year, as they've started to recycle bands from previous years' rosters (Yo La Tengo, the National, Grizzly Bear, the Walkmen) and as they're hewing with Mafia-like protectiveness to acts they've saddled with the dubious honor of being best new music despite well-documented evidence that maybe they're not quite ready for that level of exposure yet (Wavves, Vivian Girls, etc.). There seemed to be a certain kind of vague cynicism permeating everything--a weird combination of "we're just giving the people what they want"/"we're just doing what's expected of us"--that fell way short of the former "holy crap, guys, let's organize a big old show with all our favorite musicians!" vibe that was evident in spades in previous years. Let's hope this was an anomalous year and that 2010 will find the fest back in joyous, celebratory form. But for now, a quick rundown of 2009:

It's not entirely clear to me why they chose to schedule four bands on Friday night, instead of three as in previous years, and to start at 5 pm. I'm sure there were folks who traveled in from out of town and could arrive at the festival grounds early in the afternoon if they wanted to, but the rest of us schlubs worked a full day then had to contend with public transportation and the aforementioned lines at the gate before we could commence with the rocking. Which means I totally missed Tortoise's set. It's not the end of the world, I know, since they're from here and all, but I've still never seen them live and probably wouldn't be inclined to buy a ticket for one of their regular gigs since I don't know their stuff that well to begin with. I thought this would be a good, low-pressure way to check them out. No dice.

Even though this is technically the third time I've seen Yo La Tengo live, I still wouldn't call myself much of a fan (not because I dislike them; only because I still haven't devoted the time to exploring their catalog), so I guess I wasn't too broken up about the fact that they were basically just providing the soundtrack to the beer line. They sounded pretty good, from what I could tell.

I was all kinds of meh about Jesus Lizard. With my documented lack of '90s reference points, this reunion show didn't mean anything to me, and their songs all sounded pretty samey after a while. But, I always gotta give props to old dudes who can still rock out with total fuck-you attitude.



Built to Spill, though, I was legitimately excited to see. Even though I don't have any sort of comprehensive knowledge of their stuff, there's something in me at what feels like a subatomic level that really responds to Doug Martsch's guitar playing. Their set was the first moment of the fest when everything seemed to really click for me; it became more than just standing in an open field listening to some music with hundreds of other people. It became a rock show, with its own unique language and landscape, an energetic exchange both joyously bigger than any of its disparate elements and sublimely simpler than any of its attendant hassles or limitations. They closed out with a triumphant, cascading take on "Carry the Zero," their one song that I was really, really, really hoping to hear. I left the park on a high.

I rolled in kinda late on Saturday, just as Fucked Up was finishing their much talked-about set. I kind of wish I'd caught more of it, for spectacle's sake if nothing else, but...obviously not so much that I, y'know, made the effort to arrive on time for it or anything.



The first set I caught was the Pains of Being Pure at Heart. They sounded exactly like their album--which is to say, cute but not particularly deep or memorable. It seemed like they played a few of their songs more than once, but that's just because they all sound the same. They seemed to be genuinely gracious about playing to such a large crowd, which is always nice to see, but I had my fill after about half the set.

Bowerbirds back on the smaller B stage were nearly drowned out by Pains' bass until you were pretty much right on top of them. They're still doing their smart, gentle folk, and they sound as lovely as ever. They played "In Our Talons," of course, which is, I guess, their version of a big fat crowd-pleasing jam.



Final Fantasy = the cutest. I haven't listened to He Poos Clouds in ages, and don't necessarily even have a craving to do so now (I find it's not an easy album to listen to as I'm just running errands around town), but I feel a real affinity for Pallett and his intelligent, artsy, melodramatic, super-queer sensibility. A girl in front of me gushed to her friend "this is the most impressive show I've seen so far at Pitchfork." Granted, it was still early in the weekend, but I couldn't resist somewhat snarkily scribbling in my notes that's because he's a real musician. I don't at all believe that the simple fact of being classically trained automatically makes you a superior musician--there's lots of wankery that can happen if you're too technically proficient and don't have genuinely creative instincts to supplement the skills that can more or less be beaten into your muscle memory--but in the case of someone like Pallett, the training has obviously significantly expanded the, ahem, palette he's able to put in service of his creative vision. The crowd was cheering for every flourish and epic melodic run. It was all really refreshing.



As we were all gathering across the field before Yeasayer, two dudes near me who were trying to decide how far to push toward the stage had the following conversation:

#1: Just wait til everybody mellows out.
#2: Is this going to be mellow music?
#1: It's like...intense mellow.

Awesome.

It had been threatening to rain all morning and finally started sprinkling in the middle of their set. It actually made everyone get really happy and surrender to the experience, and Yeasayer was kind of the perfect band to soundtrack the moment. That being said, they were the first of a handful of bands on the roster (more on which soon) that still kind of make me wonder, incredulously, "so...people actually like this?" Their world musicy dream-catcher aesthetic seems so deeply uncool that, were it not for Pitchfork's imprimatur, I gotta believe most folks would derisively mock it if they were given an unlabeled MP3 or CD of the stuff. Despite my incredulity, I stuck around for their whole set, and enjoyed it. Sinkane is touring with them on percussion now apparently (dude is everywhere!), so their rhythm section was especially impressive. Of course, the crowd went bonkers when they played "2080."



I have to say, the more I think about them, the more I find I can pretty confidently say that I actively dislike Beirut. I'm still not entirely sure why, but, similar to my wonder about why people like Yeasayer's brand of fusiony world beat, I'm always mildly offended by the way Beirut makes people believe they like Eastern European-style brass band music. You probably couldn't get 80% of that audience out to a neighborhood music festival to see a bunch of actual Balkan dudes play their horns and sing, and yet when Zach Condon's on stage, everybody's cheering for trumpet solos and all but throwing their arms around strangers' shoulders with this kind of false nostalgia for some vague notion of a motherland. I know that criticizing Condon for cultural appropriation is kind of a fool's errand at this point, and I know there can be a legitimate kind of beauty that can transcend notions of authenticity when it comes to these kinds of really well done, fictionalized, dream-state interpretations of a genre (sort of a la Kubrick's impulse to re-create New York on a sound stage rather than filming on location for Eyes Wide Shut), and it's not like I have any kind of chanson or Fado bonafides to defend against interlopers, and, believe it or not, I really can hear the sweetness in his melodies. But, I still found myself frowning more and more deeply as the set progressed. Part of this is probably because I get the sense that Condon is inordinately pleased with himself, yet masking it with a kind of false humility. I mean, he kept whispering "merci," all cute and knowingly, between songs, so much so that a couple girls behind me were actually discussing his "accent." Sigh. Even the horn tattoo on his wrist was bugging me. I'm surprised not to find more criticism of this nature anywhere at all online. Save for a delightfully harsh review of March of the Zapotec in Toronto's NOW magazine, everything else I was able to Google up in an admittedly quick search was mostly fawning praise. I wish I were willing to believe that this is just my issue, but somehow I think the definitive Beirut takedown has yet to be written. It's OK to come out of the closet, fellow Beirut apostates, wherever you may be!



At some point early the week before the fest, I was listening to Boxer on my iPod and then realized "holy shit, I get to see the National play live in a few days!" And then I got way excited. As with Animal Collective last year, there's really nowhere else the National would ever be considered a headlining act, which just made me so damn proud of 'em. I don't necessarily think their set would have made new fans out of anybody who didn't already dig what they're doing--I heard plenty of kvetching from various sources about how slow and dour their songs are; as if even their rabid fans would argue that fact!--but as far as I was concerned, they put on a rock solid, if not transcendent, show. Matt looked great and was flat-out funnier than I've ever seen him. He crawled off the stage and into the photo pit during the big climax of "Mr. November"--a gesture that song always calls for--but then immediately proceeded to make fun of himself as soon as the song ended: "I was gonna do something cool, but then when I got to the garbage can, I thought, 'this isn't as cool as I thought it would be.' But then I got over there and thought, 'no, this is pretty cool.'" They played a few new songs that sounded great, if predictably Nationalistic (this isn't a criticism). Looking forward to whatever their next album yields.



Rolled in on Sunday in time to catch Frightened Rabbit. It seems like every new year yields at least one token Scottish rock band that everybody's gotta lose their shit over, and as soon as they started playing, I snarked, "how are these guys not the Twilight Sad?" But then they won me over in spite of myself with their infectious energy and clear affection for the Chicago crowd: "I think we've played here more in the past 12 months than we've played in Glasgow!" Plus the lead singer has one of those great, wild, keening voices that you can really only get from Irish or Scottish rock frontmen--a little unhinged, a lot passionate, implicitly acknowledging that it's "just" rock 'n' roll while reminding us that that doesn't mean it's not the most important thing in the world at that particular moment. I'm curious to check their stuff out now.



I had sooo much fun seeing Blitzen Trapper in Austin last Thanksgiving that I couldn't wait to catch them live again, especially considering that I've been living with, and loving, Furr since then. Luckily, they were every bit as delightful as I remember them being. No lie: the title track from that album's as good a song as has been written this decade. Eric Earley was touched by something holy when he pulled that shit out of his guitar. Portland boyfriends!



After a bit of wandering, I caught a good chunk of the Thermals' set. People! I thought we had an understanding here! I thought that when it turns out I've been an ignorant moron who's slept on a band this awesome for far too long you'd have the friendly decency to publicly scold me about it or something. But noooo, I've just been going along with my daily life like it's no big deal that I've never listened to these guys. Clearly, this is a major oversight on my part. They tore the place up with a combination of ferocious punk rock energy and an extremely smart sense of fun. They covered a whole mess of classic '90s "alternative rock" bangers, which somehow, through the sheer force of their chops and goodwill, came off as a successful way to play to the crowd in this specific setting rather than cynically pandering to it. Smiles all around. I've clearly got some musical homework to do now.



Every time I get excited about seeing the Walkmen, I always kinda figure it's a nostalgia thing for me, since I so associate their music with my early days in the city: living in the apartment at 1945 W. Chicago Ave., stealing all Giddy's CDs, drinking too much, making friends with the Grinnellians. But then when I actually see them, I'm always bowled over anew with how fucking solid they are. As my life has progressed over the intervening years, theirs as a band has too--they've grown warmer and richer and deeper (pick the fine wine/Scotch whiskey metaphor of your choice). And, not to make an unfortunate pun on their most well-known song (which they did play, right near the top of the set--to get it over with, I presume), there's something almost Rat Packish about their self-presentation these days. And I mean this in a good way! The jazz inflections in the material from You & Me especially seem to come out a little more emphatically when you see them all casually dressed in nice button-down shirts and when Ham does a little chat to the audience over a song's instrumental introduction. It suits them well. Rather than becoming stale or a parody of themselves, they've truly found a way to continue growing as musicians and performers while still being instantly recognizable as the Walkmen. No small feat, that. Don't write these guys off, y'all, just because you feel like you got the hang of them in 2003. I would strongly encourage you to catch them live the next time they roll through your town.

I like dancey, rhythmic music a lot more than I typically let on, but, holy shit, was I ever unimpressed with M83. I actually laid down in the grass along the periphery of the park, staring up at the sky, too bored to even move. If you can let me know what the big deal about this group is, please do. But as far as I could tell, it wasn't much more than an endlessly recombinant collection of tacky and uninspired tropes--breathy female vocals over gated drum sounds, etc., etc.--somehow apparently legitimized/elevated in the minds of the crowd due to their French pedigree.

I started getting really squirrely at this point, out of relative boredom with the bigger acts that had been scheduled on Sunday evening to feel like some sort of culmination of awesomeness, out of physical fatigue from having been on my feet, drinking booze, and eating crap for two days, and out of emotional fatigue from navigating the sheer quantity of douchebaggery when you get that many people gathered in the same space at the same time. After a quick jaunt to get some soy ice cream (see above re: eating crap), I tried to make my way back over to see part of Grizzly Bear's set and ended up unintentionally wedging my way in front of two meatheads who were actually--I couldn't believe my ears--spitting all kinds of vitriol about the "faggots" and their autoharps on stage. Really, guys? Really? I quickly darted away into another spot but was so keyed up I couldn't soak in the band's sound at all. I suppose it didn't help my ability to pay attention that they were kind of indulging their own worst sonic tics at that moment, too, doing those trademark pummeling explorations of sustained crescendos that I find the least interesting thing about them, even when I'm feeling generous. They did segue into "While You Wait for the Others" soon thereafter, which helped redeem their excesses a bit for me, but I fear the damage had already been done.

I caught maybe two of Mew's songs back on the B stage and quipped that there was probably a high likelihood that a portion of the stoners in the crowd thought they were actually watching Passion Pit, what with the stratospheric tenor vocals and hella bass. Speaking of bass, that stage always seems to struggle with a too-muddy mix; it was actually so intense that I could only handle a few minutes before I had to wander elsewhere.



And thus began the wait for the Flaming Lips. The park was packed by that point, and I had absolutely no desire to fight forward closer to the stage. But, since so much of the effectiveness of their show relies on making the audience feel surrounded and overwhelmed--by love and joy and beauty, ostensibly; with stuff and noise and spectacle, if you're cynical about it--it ended up feeling like I was sitting on a beach, watching a storm far out at sea. It was epic and magnificent, but untouchable and unknowable, a lovely, distant curiosity. And then at a certain point after they all took to the stage, I kind of chuckled to myself as I realized, "oh wait--when you go to a Flaming Lips show to witness the circus, that means you have to listen to their music, too." Ouch. Look, I respect the hell out of Wayne Coyne, but, much like I feel about Will Sheff and Okkervil River, I'd vastly prefer to read his interviews and his wise, warm, witty quotable quotes than listen to virtually any of the songs he's ever written. The tunes simply don't do that much for me.

After standing on tippy-toes, trying to see as much as I could of what was happening on stage, I bailed out, to check in on The Very Best over at the B stage. Best decision of the weekend, by far. There wasn't much of a crowd back there, but the folks who were there were totally feeling the groove and having a balls-out fun time. My mood shifted for the better immediately and I couldn't help but start dancing. The vast difference that I felt between the two stages seemed like the most glaring example of the way that the Pitchfork fest seems to be buckling under its own weight at this point. Every inch of the Flaming Lips show felt rote and coldly calculated, despite its patina of "OMG, we're just a bunch of crazy guys who dig bright colors and wacky shit!" while everything about The Very Best felt organic and vividly human. That latter feeling is why I make the effort not just to attend the Pitchfork festival year after year, but why I go out to shows at all when I can usually think of a million other reasons--too tired, too broke, too far to travel, too late on a school night, etc.--why I should skip 'em. And, as I said above, that feeling was somewhat in limited supply this year, which made it feel all the more precious at the moment. The group left the stage, and we all cheered wildly for an encore. They came back and said, "you want one more song? Well, we're gonna play two!" the second of which was some kind of remix of Michael Jackson's "Will You Be There." Everybody took their lighters out and generally lost their shit. Since I don't really watch much TV or listen to the radio anymore, I totally missed the onslaught of MJ jams that everyone was revisiting after his death, so this was actually the first time this month that I'd even heard his voice. I got instantly choked up. The whole surprising combination of events was the festival highlight for me, for sure.

Which made going back over to the Flaming Lips for their big finish feel even more lame. After the truly moving musical embrace of that moment, hearing Wayne warbling through "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots" felt really shallow...and that's one of their few songs that I actually like! I sort of tolerated the subsequent self-satisfied performances of "She Don't Use Jelly" and "Do You Realize??" and then made my escape from the park in what felt like a really anticlimactic way. In fact, Wayne was still demanding "do you realize??" as I made my way out of the gates and over to the Green Line. I do realize, Wayne, really, I do.

Big thanks to Parowpyro for being a game-for-anything festivalgoing companion for the weekend; you should check out his own entertaining take on the weekend's activities here. The rest of my pictures are posted on Flickr, but for some more professional shots, I would recommend looking through Robert Loerzel's (start here) and, as always, Kirstiecat's, which should continue rolling out over the next few days, weeks, and even months as she perfects them.

Dirty Projectors/Sea & Cake and King Sparrow--Live in Chicago

So, if you've been following my Twitter updates since the beginning of the month, you know that I've really fallen in love with the new Dirty Projectors album. Aside from the fact that it's just, y'know, good, I think part of the reason why it's hit me so hard is that it's poised right in the center of the Venn diagram where my garden-variety indie rock tastes meet my recent penchant for annoyingly spazzypants stuff meets my ever-present regard for highly trained/highly skilled musicianship. I find myself listening to it through to the end of "Fluorescent Half Dome," then immediately scrolling back up to "Cannibal Resource" to start the journey again. It's astonishingly good.

And yet, as the calendar was inching closer to their free show at the Pritzker Pavilion, I found my enthusiasm and anticipation constantly tempered by the memory of how lackluster I'd found their set at the Pitchfork Music Festival last year. Gorgeous to behold and impressive to contemplate, but nothing that moved me viscerally. Well, I don't know if it's a function of my liking Bitte Orca more than Rise Above or if another year of touring and a brand new set of songs has kicked their stage show to a new level or what, but, as I hash-tagged from my after-set Tweet: #mind=blown.

It goes without saying that these guys are brilliant musicians, but what I saw Monday night was, perhaps more importantly, a brilliant band. I had an unexpectedly good seat way down in front, rather than out on the lawn, so I was able to soak everything up with a minimum of distraction (which probably helped my feelings of goodwill). Their trademark technical virtuosity was definitely on full display, but they were also overflowing with all the expansiveness and vitality that I'd missed in them last year. Of course, the increased prominence of Angel Deradoorian and Amber Coffman helps this enormously, but Longstreth himself seems to be coming into his own in much the same way that Kevin Barnes was on those first tours behind Hissing Fauna; it's clear that he's finally, truly comfortable with his idiosyncrasies as a musician and performer, which has allowed him to relax into his talent much more fully, trusting that it's going to do the work for him rather than him having to do the work on behalf of his talent. There's just this abundance of warmth emanating from him now. It's beautiful.

They played through all the highest highs of Bitte Orca ("Useful Chamber," of course, along with my current personal fave "Temecula Sunrise," as well as "Remade Horizon" with its insanely intricate harmonies that got the place going bonkers early on in the set and "Stillness Is the Move," aka this summer's unbeatable jam) and a short suite from Rise Above. I think the song they closed out with may have been a cover, but I couldn't tell you of what.

[Apparently the band was in a nasty car accident on their way from Detroit to Toronto in the subsequent days, but Pitchfork reports that everybody's doing OK.]

Theirs was a ridiculously tough act to follow, and true to form, the Sea and Cake didn't really try. Which isn't to say S&C put on a bad show; not at all. It's just that they're such consummate professionals that it really doesn't seem like anything would phase them. The scenester audience started its mass exodus as soon as the DPs were off stage, which I found tacky but not unexpected, but, personally, I felt like it was such a treat to just get to kick back and let their sound wash over me on such a perfect summer night. (Also, J. Hop's term "buttery sambas" has been making me giggle nonstop for the past two days. It's the kind of rock crit description that CTLA and I probably would have made fun of a few years ago, but now I just kind of am delighted by how right on but simultaneously affectionate and silly it is.)

I'm currently having computer troubles, so I can't get my few photos off my camera and onto my at-home laptop for uploading to Flickr, so I'm going to post a link to awesome local photographer Robert Loerzel's photoset from the show instead. They're much better than my shots anyway.

Afterward, I hightailed it up to Schubas for a King Sparrow show that had some awesome hype machine muscle behind it: a write-up from Chicago's own DeRo a few days prior and some prime-time love from Metromix in that morning's Red Eye. There was an impressively sizable crowd in attendance (esp. for a 10 pm show on a Monday night), and the guys definitely delivered. Though "Sightseers" will probably never not be my favorite song, I kept hearing other little things that I'd forgotten how much I loved: that cascading instrumental bridge in "Forest," the bouncy little pre-verse turnarounds in "Bones and Skin," and of course the overall sexy ferocity of "All's Cinnamon." I also love how their general collaborative kickassery prevents me from isolating any one element of their sound to the exclusion of the others; they work as such a seamless unit that a gush that starts out about John's drumming inevitably starts to transform in my brain into a gush about Sean's bass lines, which always leads back around to Eric's guitar and vocals. In short, these guys are the real deal. The Monday night rock show, triumphant once again.

Cold Hands, Warm Heart

My darlings! What's been keeping you warm this cold, snowy winter? (That is, other than living in AZ/LA/Austin, you motherfuckers.) As for me:

~Patton Oswalt's Werewolves and Lollipops. Bushman evangelized it to me over Thanksgiving, but it wasn't until I listened to it a few times while I was sick in bed earlier in January that the old familiar Felusian obsession started to kick in. There's so much melody in the way this guy uses language. Just listen to the pacing and cadence in his words and delivery. It's really no coincidence that he's on Sub Pop, right? With that pitch-perfect, instantly ingratiating combination of sweetness and bite that the best bands on their roster are known for? It actually doesn't phase me in the slightest if one of his bits pops up when I'm listening to my iPod on shuffle--which is really saying something coming from me, since I'm usually weirdly sensitive about listening to speech through headphones (as a rule, I can't handle podcasts for this very reason). It's just absurdly elegant stuff. Highly recommended.

~Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavilion. I AM NOT MADE OF STONE, PEOPLE! RTW and I were discussing the album a few days after it (officially!) came out, and he said that the album didn't "surprise" him the way Strawberry Jam did. I think that's well said, and squares with my own experience of them both. But, once MPP finally clicked for me, it clicked hard. I also quite enjoyed Nick Sylvester's post (via) on all the Hipster Runoff-inspired backlash.

~Jessica Hopper, Jessica Hopper, Jessica Hopper, Jessica Hopper, Jessica Hopper.

~Baby Teeth live at the Empty Bottle, celebrating the release of their "Hustle Beach" single. They were unfortunately beset by some technical difficulties and other mishaps (Jim's amp blew up about a quarter of the way into the set, something got bobbled after the long, dramatic intro to "The Birds Are Crying" and they had to start the song over again, they began "Looking for a Road" in the wrong key and had to start that one over again too), but it's still always a treat to see them, no matter the circumstances. Plus, Abraham played guitar on the final song of the set, which had to rival Rufus Wainwright's guitar playing for sheer awkward wonderfulness. I nearly died laughing when he started tuning up and proclaimed, "we're going to play the Satriani song that Coldplay ripped off."

~JT & the Clouds. Before Baby Teeth went on, the crowd was treated to a bloody fantastic set by Chicago-based band JT & the Clouds. These guys have apparently been around for a few years, and I want to punch myself back in time for only discovering them now. Imagine Lyle Lovett fronting an Americana-inflected soul band, and you're maybe 40 percent of the way to conceptualizing their appeal. Lead singer Jeremy Lindsay makes beautiful art out of his young-David-Byrne-esque awkwardness (as far as being an "uptight white guy trying to stumble into grace," as Jim White once described Byrne in The Believer), riding a line similar to the one Dan Bejar has mastered where there are quotation marks around quotation marks (around quotation marks?) around his whole performance. There's an underlying sense of humor to the proceedings that's so bizarre and so winning and so integral to the success of what's happening on stage. It's like someone put all these guys' brains in backward. The other part of their success can be chalked up to the fact that the guys in the band are flat-out incredible musicians. They're casually tossing off four-part harmonies over strutting soul grooves like they came up in an era when those virtues were expected of gigging musicians and not exceptional. I just stood there with a huge, stupid grin plastered to my face the entire time. I don't think I've been this surprised and excited by a previously unknown-to-me opening act since we were first introduced to Polly Paulusma before the Divine Comedy's show at Schubas in '04. (I mean, at least I'd heard of the Cold War Kids before they first grabbed my attention in '06.) Chicagoans, please be sure to check these guys out the next time they're playing around town. You won't be disappointed, I promise. The rest of you should check out their most recent album The City's Hot Yeah the City's Hot and enjoy all the semi-obscure Chicago geographical references.

~More local music! What Wrestling Entropy post would be complete these days without a pimp for King Sparrow? Catch 'em tomorrow night at the Subterranean.

New Divine Comedy in '09

So many of my fave bands are releasing new music this year: Andrew Bird, Animal Collective, the Decemberists, the Long Winters (if J-Rod can ever get around to finishing the lyrics). And now we have word that Neil Hannon is going into the studio to give us a new Divine Comedy album in the latter half of the year. Squee! What an embarrassment of riches. Any word on what Spoon's working on these days...?

Nope. Didn't watch the Golden Globes.

Go listen to the Del Shannon song posted here. Thank me later.

This has been making the rounds at the office recently. I love it.

The return of The Dollar Store on Friday night was amazing. Next month's installment will be on February 13 at the Beat Kitchen instead of the Hideout. Even if they hold it at the dentist's office, though, you should still go.

King Sparrow, Tonight at Bottom Lounge

This just in: my boys King Sparrow will be playing the Q101 Twisted Christmas/Eagles of Death Metal afterparty at the Bottom Lounge tonight. Details here. I'm actually, hilariously, going to the Q101 Twisted Christmas show at the House of Blues (Cold War Kids, Eagles of Death Metal, and Scott Weiland headlining--yup, I'm 17), so this is just extra geekily exciting icing on the cake. Chicagoans, this should be a good way to warm your hearts and loins on this cold, cold December night. Check it out!

(Also, confidential to Jakob: happy birthday! I wanted to e-mail or send a text, but couldn't find any of your info. Hugs!!)

Confession

I confess to feeling less than inspired about the current round of year-end pontification over 2008's music (not to mention books, film, and what have you). Scott at Pretty Goes with Pretty posted insightfully about the lack of trust surrounding this year's best-of lists, and I'm so wishy-washy I can't even trust my lack of trust. Feh. Oh sure, I'm still making my annual mix CD (e-mail now to reserve yours! esp. if'n you think I might not have you on the list or if your mailing address has changed in the past year), and I'll post some thoughts about it here soon enough. But mostly I'm feeling quiet and not particularly eloquent or reflective about, well, anything right now. As such, take everything that follows with the proverbial grain of salt.

I visited Austin for the first time over Thanksgiving, and, while I was there, Bren and I caught Blitzen Trapper at the Mohawk (pics from the show, if you're interested, are here). Despite all the blowed-up hype surrounding them, mostly thanks to P-fork's raves, last year, I'd managed stay ignorant of them and their music until that day, so was pleasantly surprised by their performance. Their sound, approach, and aesthetic are throwbacky, sure, but they commit to it fully and do it well and make it work. Furr has been on nearly continual repeat since then. The title track contains several of the most satisfying melodic/lyrical turns of phrase I've heard this year.

While in town, Brendon and Catharine also made sure to take me to the famed Alamo Drafthouse for some food, booze, and film, where we saw Australia. I'll go to the mat for Moulin Rouge! any day of the week and think that Luhrmann is way smarter and more in control of what he's doing than most people give him credit for, but Australia left me a bit cold. It has its moments, I guess--most of which involve the camera's male-gaze fetishizing of Hugh Jackman's body instead of Nicole Kidman's--but trying to shoehorn his signature sentimentality about love and destiny, etc., etc., into a story involving national identity and the Stolen Generations (not to mention World War II) felt a bit overly naive (plus also maybe a bit unintentionally racist?). It's epic, sweeping, romantic, and paced exactly like a Luhrmann movie (goofy comedy that segues into flushed-cheek love story that segues into searing tragedy), but still, for all that, and its inflated running time, it seemed to be lacking that special something.

Slumdog Millionaire on the other hand is 100% delightful, so much so that I'm willing to forgive Boyle his missteps with Sunshine, if that's what he needed to do to get to the point where he could make this film. Aside from the fact that the movie itself is sweet and touching and scary and melodramtic in all the right ways, I cannot overstate how lucky I felt to have just finished reading Maximum City before I saw it. The context that it gave me about the slums, religious tension, gangs, police interrogation techniques, and dreams of the people (both singularly and, as various groups, collectively) in Mumbai enriched my enjoyment of the film immeasurably. It feels like a Danny Boyle film in all the best ways, with the happy addition that, as he did in Millions, he demonstrated again that he can be a gifted director of children. Plus the Bollywood dance sequence at the end is fucking golden; it was so perfect yet so unexpected that it probably made me cry more than anything else in the rest of the movie. Highly recommended, kittens.

I caught the Bound Stems at a late-night show at the Empty Bottle last weekend. I'm happy to say that The Family Afloat has grown on me tremendously, as I suspected it would, since October--so much so that I had trouble, in my sleepy and slightly tipsy state, distinguishing which songs appear on that album from which appear on Appreciation Night. Given how much I adore Appreciation Night, that's high praise indeed coming from me. Pics from the show posted here.

And speaking of fave-rave Chicago bands, I hope you've had a chance to check out Baby Teeth's second Daytrotter session. I've been listening to "I Hope She Won't Let Me" obsessively since downloading the tracks. I heard them play it when they opened for Jamie Lidell in early October and it absolutely knocked me out. I can't wait to have an official studio version in my grubby little paws. From what I understand, it should be on the forthcoming-in-'09 release Hustle Beach. Get excited.

Also! Chicagoans, you should get excited about THE RETURN OF THE DOLLAR STORE! Maestro Jonathan Messinger announced it on his blog the other day, and I've been convulsing with glee ever since. You can bet your ass I'll be at the Hideout on January 9, nerding out in style.

A New Beginning

In stark contrast to the morning after last time, the sun is out today, the sky is bright blue, the air is unseasonably warm, the trees are still full of glowing, fiery foliage, and, as I wrote here, TV on the Radio's "Golden Age" was the first thing that popped into my head when I woke up and opened my eyes. Let's not get ahead of ourselves or anything, but damn. This feels good. Proud of Chicago, proud of us all.

Radiohead, Live at Lollapalooza

No less than the best concert I've ever been to.

I know I tend to be the little boy who cried wolf of hyperbole, but you guys gotta take my word on this one. It was incredible. Magical. Transcendent. I almost can't talk about how good it was.

I was certainly digging it for the first four or five songs (S'gum's got the setlist) but wasn't feeling terribly transported and thought, since this was my first time ever seeing them in concert, maybe reports of their live chops were vastly overrated or that maybe I was simply expecting too much. But then they played "Weird Fishes/Arpeggi," which started me on an emotional roller coaster similar to the one I experienced two weeks ago during Bon Iver's set at Pitchfork, where my personal emotional associations with the song melded with whatever groove the band was finally settling into, and then I just bubbled over into full-on fangirl freakout mode for the remaining hour and a half. The band achieved liftoff at that point as far as I'm concerned, kittens. How does one band manage to be so perfect? They're not doing anything, really, but, in that, they're doing everything. It's spectacle without hokum, virtuosity without undue pretension.

Of all the songs to bring me to tears, I started crying during "No Surprises." Not quite sure why, other than that it's so damn pretty, and, circumstantially, that I found it incredibly sweet that a bunch of people in the crowd were evidently also moved enough to start pulling out their lighters. Not really being a sports fan, and not being so politically active that I go to too many protests or rallies, it's easy for me to forget the power there is in being part of such an enormous group of people focusing all their attention and positive energy on one thing, at the same moment in time. The crowd was totally squirrelly before and after the set, but I gotta give credit, at least in my small little patch of the field, to everyone for honestly, enthusiastically, and basically politely engaging with the music and the performance while it was happening. And as that song was ending and I was wiping my eyes, I heard some dude near me exhale kind of dreamily, "the city looks really great tonight," which totally choked me up all over again.

I haven't even mentioned yet the most remarkable part of the night: the fireworks display that started up at the beginning of "Everything in Its Right Place" and then peaked during the big swell in the middle of "Fake Plastic Trees." Apparently the fireworks were connected to some other event going on over at Soldier Field, but the effect couldn't have been more magical if it had been intentional. The crowd flipped out. I started laughing, and then crying a little again, and then laughing some more, and just couldn't stop. Pure, pure joy and wonderment. I absolutely couldn't, and kind of still can't, believe that I was lucky enough to be there, to be a part of such an amazing moment.

And lucky is indeed the word for it--I didn't pay a cent for the pleasure of any of this. I hadn't bought tickets in advance, preferring instead to take my chances on the street and see what I could get from a scalper beforehand. As I was scoping out the territory, though, I totally coincidentally ran into my boy Tito and his brother as they were getting ready to enter the park with their wristbands. Once inside, Tito slipped his off and sent his brother back out to give it to me. We made it inside with no trouble at all. Those of you who know him (and to know him is to love him, as they say) will of course not be surprised that Tito insisted the only thing I owed him for it was a hug.

Before Radiohead went on, we caught Bloc Party's set. Which, yes, hilariously, makes this the third time I've, basically accidentally, seen them live. Other bands I've seen live three times? The Long Winters, the Divine Comedy, the Decemberists, the National, Andrew Bird, Laura Veirs...in other words, my favorite artists. Apparently Bloc Party is my indie rock equivalent of 10 Things I Hate About You, ie, something I now have a reluctant and slightly guilty fondness for because I get sucked into it anytime it's on/around. I mean, I'm not sure when "This Modern Love" became my jam, but fuck if my heart didn't start racing a bit when they kicked into that little rocking horse intro. What a gorgeous and affecting song. They were playing with a replacement bassist, which was slightly unfortunate since their rhythm section is so unbelievably tight, but I guess I can allow it since Gordon Moakes was back home in England with his parter, who was having a baby.

I wished I could have heard more of Grizzly Bear when we arrived at the park, esp. given that they debuted a bunch of new material, but what I could hear as we were headed across the grounds sounded fabulous. Likewise Malkmus/Jicks, who played between Bloc Party and Radiohead, on the most immediately adjacent stage, just barely within earshot. At least I got to hear a couple snippets of "Gardenia" on the wind.

Pitchfork Music Festival 2008

Is it fair to say that this was the most enjoyable Pitchfork Music Festival for me yet? Well, whether it's fair to say, or even true, I'm gonna say it. This was the most enjoyable Pitchfork for me yet. I gotta believe that not having super-high expectations for any acts that I was dying to see probably helped, as it allowed me to just kind of peacefully float through the park and catch what I fancied catching at any given moment over the course of the three days. Being in the moment tends to yield pretty high returns, y'know?

That being said, I feel like this was also the first year that there was too much good stuff going on--enough so that I had to make some hard choices about what to miss. And it's not like I wasn't pretty diligently on my feet for most of the weekend. Yet I didn't see any of Les Savy Fav, Spiritualized, Atlas Sound, or Chicago faves the Occidental Brothers Dance Band International, I only caught the last few minutes of Dizzee Rascal's set (but managed to take some of my favorite photos of the fest while I was there), I was entirely too tired to fight my way into any position to catch Dinosaur Jr. on Sunday night, and I didn't really make any OMG new discoveries like I did last year with Jamie Lidell. Not to mention that I completely missed a bunch of impromptu shit like King Khan giving away ice cream and Tim Harrington giving $2 haircuts. But, I did Just Say No to the mud. (Well, as best I could.)

On to the music!



For the second year in a row, the Friday night ATP/Don't Look Back thing was the least essential portion of the festival for me, mainly because I didn't grow up listening to any of the three featured albums and hence have no real emotional attachment to them. Which is actually a pretty good test, I think, for how well they, or the groups in question, hold up. Does the music translate to someone not listening to it through a haze of nostalgia (or a haze of expectations, depending)? For the most part, yes. Mission of Burma killed it, just motherfucking nailed that shit to the wall, setting a weekend-long precedent for me of preferring the older, more established bands on the roster to the sexy young guns. Sebadoh utterly bored me to tears; it seems even they realized there was no reason for them to have been playing the gig. They just kind of shuffled and stammered through the tracklist, basically apologizing for taking up so much time. Public Enemy made me wanna fight the power, though, man. Plus, I always love watching dudes in the crowd flip out during hip-hop shows. There was a gaggle of guys of all different races around me shouting along to every lyric and affirming back everything Chuck D said. Flavor Flav was totally insane, but it's hard not to appreciate his sincerity when he cops to the fact that, even though he's all embroiled in the reality TV thing right now, Public Enemy will always be his first and only love.



One of the very few moments of legitimate panic I had all weekend was worrying if public transportation would get me to Union Park on Saturday afternoon in time for any part of Caribou's set. I know I'd just seen them a few months ago, but, based on how much I loved that show, and how much I've been obsessing over The Milk of Human Kindness since then, I needed to see them again. Fortunately, I got there for about half the set (after the rain ended), and boy was it worth it. I don't know what it is about this band, but they have something special going on. The melodies, the rhythms, the song structures, the trippy but also krautrocky vibe--they're just doing everything right, and right on the money, with humility, but workmanlike pride in a job well done, too. Dan Snaith is totes my new indie rock boyfriend.



It was something of a decisive moment for me after Caribou's set when I decided, fuck the Fleet Foxes. I think I'm a bit more susceptible to hype, in general, than I'd like to be, but I just decided I couldn't be arsed. Um, instead, I decided to succumb to hype on the other end of the spectrum and headed to the third stage for Fuck Buttons. Maybe I was just hoping to recapture the feeling of seeing them open for Caribou in April, or pay homage to how important that night was for me or whatever, but even if I was, they utterly surpassed my memory of that springtime show. How did they manage to do that in the middle of the day, in an open field, while I was totally sober? I don't know, but it was transcendent. The clouds even broke for a while in the middle of the set. The band is 100 percent cool, but somehow the experience of their music leaves no room for cool on the receiving end. You're either into that shit or you're not. It was delicious just to give in to it. That gauzy electronic thrum will totally envelop you if you let it, will dissolve you in the moment. It also helped that the audience was great--they cheered for every mood change, tempo shift, and distorto bass assault. It was totally inspiring.



Vampire Weekend was fine and all; it would be backlashy of me to kvetch too much about them. Esp. considering that, whether the humor is intentional or not, I don't think most people give them credit for being as funny as they are. There's a part of me that reads their whole snot-nosed, uber-privileged east coast shtick as total performance art. This Marathonpacks post on the band from last fall is about a million percent smarter and more on-point than anything I have to say here, but Eric's description in the first paragraph of how "Ezra Koenig fondly remembered the last time the band came to our fair college town" makes me giggle with glee when I think about the sniffly disdain (if not outright rage) that the band has inspired in various and sundry internet folks. Anyone who's going to get their classist panties in a twist about this freakin' band of all things probably deserves the high blood pressure. We're all indie as fuck now, and the decision to dress their career up in polos and wry collegiate charm is, depending on how you look at it, maybe one of the most punk rock moves they could have made. Which, even if most of the crowd wasn't as tickled by it as I am, is at least is registering at some level. Ezra was going into some spiel before playing "M79," inviting us to shout along with that "whoooah!" bit, and some kid standing near me kind of jokingly mused, "there's a lotta rules with these guys" and some other guy shot back, "that's because they went to school." That killed me. At any rate, they took the tempo on "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" down a few clicks, which served its lecherous preppy beach house vibe well, and I was entertained by how physically their bassist plays.



I thought maybe I was kind of over the Hold Steady, but...nope. Still fun to the max. I love that Craig Finn and Franz Nicolay seem to be actively competing for the honor of being the biggest fan of their own band, and I forgot how much the "how'm I s'posed to know that you're high if you won't let me touch you?" line in "Chips Ahoy!" always sucker punches me in the throat. In a weird way, their performance reminded me a lot of what I love most about seeing hip-hop sets at big festival shows like this--there's a million different, equally entertaining people running around on stage, they have the chops to fill the space to its utmost with physical grandstanding and noise, and there's a generous sense of inclusiveness looping like a Mobius strip between the band and the fans. I like this group an awful lot, but wouldn't call myself a superfan to any extent, yet when Finn ends the show by singing, "we're all the Hold Steady," I kinda feel like, "yeah! I am part of the life of this band and this experience right now; thanks for noticing and acknowledging it." It's such an easy trick, but it's a good one. And it works.



Ah, Jarvis. I don't know his--how you say--oeuvre well at all, but I was transfixed the entire time he was on stage. I had a really great sight line, thanks to a tallish Bettie Page look-alike photographer who insisted I stand in front of her (thanks, Bettie!), and used it to my advantage to take a slew of pictures. It's so nice to feel, as an audience member, that you're in the hands of a truly capable performer. Every move he made all night was fascinating, whether it was a knowingly lascivious hip swirl or simply telling a story about pre-concert anxiety dreams. There's a warmth and a professionalism in what he does that seems to stem from the perfect combination of experience and the fact that he's just a born performer. A rare treat indeed in the realm of (loosely defined) indie rock.

And then there was the sheer audacity of an Animal Collective headlining set. People, Animal Collective are not a headlining band. But...the fact that they were billed as such anyway completely delighted me with its perversity. The audience may have been actively digging it closer to the front, but back where I was standing, there was a palpable air of "huh?" in the crowd. "Do we dance to this? What's going on? How am I supposed to interact with this?" No matter--it was the perfect music at the perfect time as far I was concerned. Their songs felt like the night air, kind of drowsy and thick with a beguiling combination of leftover warmth and breezy, clammy cool. I involuntarily shouted "holy shit!" when that huge, massed chorus effect announced the beginnings of "Comfy in Nautica"; any other band, I probably would have been disappointed and merciless about the fact that Panda's vocals were more than a bit flat on the upper end, but I could not have given less of a fuck in that moment. Not to mention that I went utterly apeshit-level bonkers when they played "Peacebone." That song has got to rival "Hey Ya!" for being way less easy to dance to than you think it is, but I gave it my all anyway. (Um, there was much bouncing involved? I believe I waggled my arms above my head a few times?) Some angel somewhere near the park actually shot off a little spray of fireworks during "Fireworks," and I was deeply touched by the fact that Avey ended the song with two repetitions of the "you're only what I see sometimes" line instead of going back to "I'm only all I see sometimes" like he does in the album version of the track. Even if it was just a simple lyric bobble, I don't care. That's one of the key lyrical transformations in one of my favorite songs of the past five years (it's one of only 27 MP3s in my entire iTunes library currently designated with a five-star "perfect song" rating) and hearing it that way warmed me all over like a good shot of whiskey. To make the set even more special, who, of the hundreds of people crammed into the park at that point, should walk directly past me during one of the low-key droney moments but Dan Snaith. I kind of grabbed him by the shoulder and shouted that I really enjoyed his set from earlier in the day, and he thanked me and gave the most comically broad and good-naturedly dorked-out Canadian grin he could muster. A personal festival highlight, for sure.



"How was church? How many people here went to church this morning?" Times New Viking's drummer Adam Elliott asked us first thing Sunday afternoon. The fact that he plays sitting on a brown wooden folding chair, like the kind you might find in a church rec room somewhere, instead of on a regular old drum throne, gave the question a weird sincerity, in a way, before he careened into another Mark E. Smith-esque introduction to "pop song-ah numbah two!" Out from underneath the blanket of aggressively, intentionally disgusting sound quality that I've learned to love on their album, it was easier than ever to hear why they might very deliberately term their music "pop songs." And if my ears hadn't noticed it, I'd hope that the little bunch of daffodils sitting on the beat-up kick drum would have clued me into it eventually. What a perfect visual complement to the essence of this band's charm.



Dirty Projectors were all kinds of great, with a downright scary level of musical talent on stage. But, between the complexity of all the crazy-ass polyrhythms and finger-picking and hairsbreadth-tight harmonies, um, it's kind of no wonder that they're ever so slightly lacking in charisma. Maybe the indie rock master class vibe comes across better indoors, during a longer set? Regardless, Longstreth is like this beautiful Afrobeat-influenced ostrich and his bassist and other guitar player are totally foxy, so...there's that.



There's been a lot of hype surrounding King Khan online in the days since the fest, and he deserves every bit of it. All I can say is buh-nanas. He absolutely gave the performance that Jamie Lidell wanted to give at the Abbey Pub earlier this year. Khan isn't as gifted vocally (or perhaps even as musically) as Lidell, but the barn-burning stage show he cobbled together here was the spirit and genius of pure rock and roll stupidity. And, not to take away anything from his skill as a band leader and performer, but why aren't more people doing this? Even though it requires a largish band (horns + rhythm section + backup dancer and whatnot), the I-IV-V chord progressions are the kind of shit that these guys have been playing their entire lives, so the changes would be easy to pick up and easy to put 100% passion into at more or less a moment's notice. Like I said, Khan's great and all, but this kind of throwbacky, 1950s comic book version of rock and roll seems ripe for reviving on a larger scale. I mean, by the second song, he already had us picking trash up off the ground and flinging it all over the place. There's just nobody out there right now capitalizing on the essentially dirty, juvenile underpinnings of rock music like that. What's more, the audience totally knew how to handle it and took it in the spirit of joy and celebration, like throwing confetti. I was laughing so hard and loving it so much. And when he ended the show with a gospel-style rant, seemingly largely improvised, about crawling up inside of his woman while they were making love--"I pulled my leg in! And I pulled my other leg in! But I took mah shoes off because Indian people alllllways take their shoes off before they do somethin' holy!"--I was fairly convinced that I'd just seen something very, very special.



The Dodos were the weekend's big exception to my 'older is better' rule. Which I'm pretty sure is because they played with a mature kind of confidence and self-awareness (in the best possible sense of the word) that I just wasn't seeing in any of the other younger bands. Obviously, because they're a two-piece (with a Bob Mapplethorpe look-alike occasionally popping up as a third member to bang on a trash can), it's probably easier for them to adapt their set-up to different stage sizes and shapes, but they were really smart to push their gear all the way down front to minimize the dead air space as much as possible between them and the crowd. They also totally availed themselves of the volume levels at their disposal in a festival-grade sound system, which, again, is an important thing for a two-piece that's basically just guitar and drums to be aware of, but there was a vitality and urgency to it that seemed somehow really fresh and surprising. Being pummeled by the sound in that way got me moving and dancing way more than I thought I would during their set--after all, this is music that I've been emotionally associating with taking quiet, melancholy walks by myself around the neighborhood--which, y'know, is never exactly the worst way to heighten feelings of goodwill toward a band. Mostly I was just proud of them for bringing it. They got promoted to one of the main stages, and they definitely made sure they earned it with plenty of mojo to spare. Plus, they make ridiculous faces while they play, which makes them super-fun to photograph.



M. Ward. Le sigh. I love this man. What more can I say? He looked truly pleased to be playing throughout his entire, pitch-perfect set, his band was ace (was that the estimable Rachel Blumberg on drums? does anybody know?), and if the beefier, more rocked-up sound of all those wonderful songs from Post-War are any indication of what he's going to be doing with his next solo album, I'll be one very happy kitten indeed.



The side stage area was packed for Bon Iver, and I felt super-conflicted about actually remaining there in the throng. Honestly, I didn't really want to. When I managed to weasel my way down near the front but then got crammed in at a bad angle behind a bunch of tall people, that was pretty much the only other moment of panic I experienced after nearly missing Caribou. It was a delightful little stew of panic, too: of panic for my basic personal safety (I was feeling quite claustrophobic) and panic that I was going to miss 'seeing' the show that I was suffering for. Pretty much the only thing that kept me there was a sense of duty toward the album that's shaping up to be my favorite of '08. And it's not that I begrudge him his popularity at all; the album's a true stunner and worthy of the insane flights of adulation it inspires. It's just that weird, uncomfortable conflict of holding this bedroom-intimate music so close to your heart and then being forced to acknowledge in the harsh light of day, "oh wait, all these annoying people like this music too." My relative discontent with the experience wasn't helped by an overly muddy and bass-heavy sound mix that just didn't serve the spindly grace of these songs at all. And yet--I still wept during the sing-along part of "The Wolves (Act I and II)." Going into his customary request that we chime in for the "what might have been lost" swell, he said, "the song doesn't just feature you, it needs you. We need you" which pushed all my sensitive, communal inclusiveness buttons right off that bat, and then, once we all started to sing together, I took out my earplugs for the first time all weekend. I wanted my ears to be just totally blown out by the moment, I wanted to feel consumed and obliterated, shattered into little molecules by the song, by the voices around me, by the sound of my own voice lost in the middle of it all. I also felt it was a fitting offering to make in exchange for all the comfort this music has brought me this year. I'm not going to say that catharsis was worth the hassle of fighting the crowd, but it sure felt good and it sure proved Bon Iver's resilience and strength for the way they can reach up through such a quantity of bullshit to still genuinely touch people after many months of nearly continuous repetition of the same material.



The Spoonsters sounded great and gave a much more muscular and robust show than the one I saw, for all its setlist-associated merits, last year at the Riv. Even as a pretty huge fan, though, I have to admit that a Spoon show is probably never going to change anybody's life. Professionalism has its place, of course, it's wonderful to hear their songs played live, they've had beautiful lights the past couple times I've seen them, they know just when and how to pull out a crack horn section...I just wish that everything about them excited me as much as those albums do. Those albums make me want to run around flapping my arms like a chicken and depants perfect strangers on the street and stub my toe as hard as possible on a fire hydrant. Their shows make me want to shake somebody's hand and comment obsequiously about some random local microbrew and tie a double-knot in my tennis shoes. Ah well. That being said, though, if you're one of those fans of Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga that still doesn't get what "The Ghost of You Lingers" is doing on there, I would strongly urge you to find a way to hear them play it live. (To tide you over for the time being, you can check out the track on their Daytrotter session.) That song absolutely soars in live performance, which, given everything I've just said, is pretty funny and ironic considering how relatively (stereotypically) un-Spoonlike it is. No wonder it's turning out to be one of my favorite new songs. Maybe they'll get my arms flapping like a chicken yet.

So there you have it, kittens! The rest of my photos are here (and, I have to say, my new camera was definitely MVP this weekend; I think that thing would make me toast in the morning if I asked it to). I hope you've been tending to your sunburns and rinsing all the mud out of your socks and getting yourself geared up for next year. It always comes around sooner than you think. Which, when it comes right down to it, is kind of never soon enough.

Jamie Lidell, Live at the Abbey Pub

It was a good show. Not a great show--but a good show that I'm happy I attended. Lidell and his band have only been on the road touring behind Jim for just over a week now, so I think there's hope that by the time they swing back around ("when I! come back around!") for Lollapalooza in August their set will have some more cohesion. But last night felt a little all over the place. I think part of the problem is that his band is...well, not much of a band yet. You could tell that Jamie wanted to blast out on stage and light the place on fire like old school James Brown, but the four guys behind him were nowhere near musically robust enough to support that attempt. They were clearly having fun, and their oddball stage antics and costumes were certainly of a piece with Lidell's sensibility, but until these guys can actually match his chops as well as his silliness--or, y'know, until he can afford to bring the Dap-Kings out on the road--I'd much rather see him just do the solo knob-twiddling freak-out thing. Which he did for a nice extended segment in the middle of the set. (A girl in my peripheral vision kept turning her back to the stage so she could flirt possessively with the guy she'd come to the show with, and I just wanted to shake her by the shoulders and say, "do you realize what you're missing every time you do that?!") He was also, thankfully, in fine vocal form throughout the night; his croon on the first verse of "Green Light"--easily one of my favorite songs on the new album--was just ridiculously pristine. I also have to give credit to the extremely amped audience. Even if the show wasn't quite as mind-bendingly in-the-pocket as I would have liked, the crowd was having a blast. Lots of dancing, clapping, and call and response--in fact, during the obligatory break between the fake end of the show and the encore, we all politely clapped and hollered for a few seconds until some brilliant person got the entire crowd singing the "I been waitin' / I been waitin' / I been waitin' / yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah" bit from Jim's "Wait for Me" until the band started trickling back out on stage. It was an incredibly sweet and heartfelt gesture.

Right, so...Sex and the City. I don't even know what I can say about the movie, much less the entire juggernaut, at this point. I've been tying myself in knots all week trying to come up with something interesting to say about it here, but I don't know if any attempt to untangle would do much of a service to my thoughts or to the film. Was I offended by the prerelease backlash? Yeah. My standard line has been, "it's The Baby-Sitters Club for sexually active adult women. No more, no less. Get over it." But do I understand the fatigue and annoyance that comes of all that hysterical media saturation, especially if you're not a fan? Of course. Harry Potter's similar omnipresence last summer drove me batty. Did the backlash start to get to me a little bit, in spite of myself? It did, during the few days when I was meekly referring to my plans to see "that movie with the ladies." I pretty quickly realized, though, that that shit ain't right and just started outright discussing the fact that I was going to see it during opening weekend with, yes, three of my good city girlfriends. Was there a certain thrill in being in a theater full of women who were reminding the muckety mucks in Hollywood WITH THE VERY LOUD NOISE OF OUR DOLLARS that we're still a demographic to be reckoned with? Sure, while at the same time wanting to scold everyone for gasping with delight at that hideous walk-in closet reveal and for laughing at all the lamest jokes.

I think the only aspect of the movie I haven't seen widely addressed yet is Samantha's incredibly offensive food-instead-of-sex subplot. Far from being a genuinely affecting corollary to Carrie and Miranda's story lines wherein they're also separated from the things that matter most to them, hers is played slapstick. I guess Samantha's inherent wink-wink, nudge-nudginess kind of resists overwrought emotional histrionics in general, but her loss was really not treated with much respect at all. I think it's sort of barely coincidental that she's the oldest actress of the bunch, and thus beginning to slip into the realm of "it's so funny when grandma says 'penis'!" I mean, for a character who's known for her notoriously prurient appetites, her "sex scenes" actually become scenes of creepy-old-lady voyeurism as a bunch of plastic-looking porno people bounce and gyrate in front of the open windows next door to her. Oh, and of course she also buys a dog (retail therapy + being associated with the animalistic impulses of fucking and feeding--ugh), which then allows for the convenient "pooch" pun when she arrives back in New York and everyone's horrified by how much weight she's gained. About halfway through the scene, Carrie tosses off some line like "it's not about the pounds, you'd look beautiful at any weight"--and you can practically smell the graphite, the line feels so penciled in during eleventh hour script revisions. Obviously, I'm pretty angry about all that. But, I liked the rest of it enough on the whole, I guess. Best line? When they first get to the hotel in Mexico and Miranda barks, "you got wireless here? Thanks."

I also saw a bit of French piffle, Roman de gare, last weekend. It kind of pointlessly folds back on itself in that "you've just been watching the story that the character is writing!" way, but the performances are very warm and the preposterousness of many of the plot twists yields its own pleasure. Longtime Wrestling Entropy readers know of my love for Dominique Pinon, so it was definitely a treat for me to get to see him carry a film like this. Extra bonus points for all the wonderful French crooner stuff on the soundtrack.

Hey, how much fun is that Spoon Don't You Evah EP? I finally got around to putting it on my iPod and couldn't believe how easy it was to listen, not counting the one from Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, to six different versions of the song in a row. A lot of it is certainly just the endless amount of richness in Britt's voice, but if the tracks had just been standard issue variations on the boring thumpa-thumpa remixes I always find myself regretting having downloaded, even the samples of him wouldn't have floated the middle five all on their own. I'm glad, though, that Spoon's tastefulness extends even to DJs and other remix artists on their interstitial releases.

Local friends, if you find yourself venturing out for the Printers Row Book Fair this weekend, be sure to stop by booths 331 and 333 to say hi to the CRP worker bees. A few local authors will be signing their recently released books and we'll be featuring plenty of other local interest titles. Should be fun!