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- News Roundup: 6/22/10
Solo artist and Rilo Kiley frontperson Jenny Lewis has started a new band, Jenny and Johnny, with longtime boyfriend Johnathan Rice. The two are hitting the road this September, but Arizona fans will have to lobby their local lawmakers if they hope to catch a show. “So many of our friends and fans are of Latino/Chicano/Hispanic origin, and we wanna show our love and respect for them by boycotting the state of Arizona until they come to their senses,” the musicians wrote on their website, which also includes a free download of the song “Scissor Runner.” [Spinner.com]Songwriter Larry Jon Wilson, a key member of the ’70s outlaw country movement, died Monday afternoon after suffering a stroke. Wilson had recently come out of semi-retirement to issue the self-titled Larry Jon Wilson, whose acoustic sound earned comparisons to Johnny Cash’s American Recordings and Neil Diamond’s 12 Songs. [Tennessean.com]
The Beach Boys’ 50th anniversary is less than one year away, fueling speculation about a possible reunion between Mike Love, Brian Wilson, and Al Jardine. Love, the only original member to still tour under the Beach Boys name, says that Wilson will definitely rejoin the group in 2011. Wilson, who’s currently wrapping up an album of Gershwin covers, has yet to comment. [Guardian.co.uk]
American Idol hasn’t announced a replacement for Simon Cowell, who left the show after its lackluster ninth season. The show did announce its decision to lower the minimum contestant age to 15 years old, though, with executive producer Cecile Frot-Coutaz explaining that “a lot of young, talented people are now seeking careers and representation before they turn 16. Lowering the age limit allows us to tap into this talent pool.” [Billboard.com]
Lady Gaga has finished her new album, with a release date tentatively scheduled for early 2011. In a recent cover story for Rolling Stone, Gaga likened the songwriting process to baking. “I have been for three years baking cakes,” she explained, “and now I’m going to bake a cake that has a bitter jelly. The message of the new music is now more bitter than it was before. Because the sweeter the cake, the more bitter the jelly can be.” [Reuters.com]
Good news for Glastonbury attendees: the weather forecast for the upcoming festival calls for relatively dry weather, with only one “isolated heavy shower” predicted for Sunday afternoon. Infamous for its spotty weather and inevitable mud slicks, Glastonbury suffered its worst weather in 2005, when the equivalent of two months of rain fell in several hours, flooding parts of the campsite. Rain has fallen during every Glastonbury since. [NME.com]
Medical examiners have concluded that Slipknot’s Paul Gray, whose body was found on May 24th in Urbandale, Iowa, died of accidental overdose of morphine and fentanyl. Gray had a history of substance abuse, including a heroin habit that nearly killed him several years prior. [DesMoinesRegister.com]
Переслать - Tuesday Morning Video Dance Party
Feeling sleepy? Tired? No pep in your step, no soul in your roll? There’s something you can do right now. No, not watch France zzzzzzz their way through today’s match!! Watch some videos ripped straight from the robo-funk heart of You Tube. Each of these songs is a classic in its own way, each of the videos is guaranteed to bring a smile. Happy Tuesday, dreamers….
The System – “You Are in My System”
Click here to view the embedded video.
The Jets – “Private Number”
Click here to view the embedded video.
The Force M.D.s – “Forgive Me Girl”
Junior – “Mama Used to Say”
Click here to view the embedded video.
Jody Watley – “Friends”
Click here to view the embedded video.
Переслать - Live Feed: Bonnaroo 2010
To put it lightly, Bonnaroo can be difficult. I’ve had my car break down at the festival. I’ve had my tent flood several years in a row. During my first trip in 2005, I wore a V-neck shirt to a few afternoon shows and ended up with a triangular second degree burn across my collarbone. (The skin remained bright red until September, prompting one of my bosses to ask if I’d tattooed an ascot onto my chest.)
Still, there’s something about the collective experience of 80,000 people sleeping outside, braving the elements, and sweating their faces off — all for the love of live music — that really appeals to me. Album sales have been down for a decade and LiveNation is having one of the worst concert seasons in history, but Bonnaroo was packed this year, filled to the brim with fans who weren’t afraid to forego air conditioning or flushable toilets for the sake of a good concert experience.
Yes, Bonnaroo is difficult. But Bonnaroo is also great, and 2010 was no exception.
Wednesday
Making the trip down to Tennessee takes awhile. It’s about a 9 hour drive from AMG headquarters, which doesn’t include the time it takes to fill up on gas or cruise around the interstate exits of rural Kentucky in search of something good to eat. Bonnaroo doesn’t start until Thursday morning, so we drove all day before renting a hotel room in Murfreesboro — just 30 miles from the festival gates — and enjoying one final night of good sleep.
Thursday
The college kids in the room beside us were having a pre-Bonnaroo party when I went to bed, but the hotel was deserted by 9 a.m., when my friends and I threw our bags back into my Ford Taurus and continued south. Getting into Bonnaroo is often the worst part of the festival; the lines are long and the drivers are all tired, especially if they’ve arrived early to queue up. Three of the four people in my car were press members, though, and the payoff for our long, long drive arrived in the form of our campsite. After spending four years in the regular camping area, we’d managed to score some coveted “guest passes,” which allowed us to set up camp right outside of the festival’s second-biggest stage. Score.
Our little neighborhood turned out to be populated by vendors, bands, and other writers. A few rows ahead of us, Starr Hill Brewery had set up a makeshift cantina where people could sample free beer. Behind us, Spin Magazine had parked its giant RV and hung up a flag. To our right, the Postelles were busy setting up their own campground. It was 11:00 a.m. and the temperatures had already climbed into the 90s, but the guys were wearing their finest indie rock threads, including tight black jeans and button-up shirts. (Bassist John Speyer would keep that same outfit on for most of the weekend, sacrificing comfort for the benefit of always looking like a rockstar. Can’t be caught out of character, right?)
The Postelles were actually one of the first bands to play that afternoon, so we headed into Centeroo to catch a few minutes of their set — which included a loose but well-intentioned cover of “Beat on the Brat” — before songwriter Diane Birch took over. Pretty and pigtailed, she stood behind the keyboard and plunked her way through 45 minutes of peppy soul-pop, modeling most of the setlist after her Bible Belt debut. The one song that wasn’t her own? Hall & Oates’ “Rich Girl,” performed in honor of Bonnaroo’s most bizarre pairing: Daryl Hall and Chromeo.
After watching Local Natives perform some buzz-worthy harmonies in front the afternoon’s largest crowd, I shelled out $10 for a weak wood-fired pizza and began wandering from show to show, pausing at the ones that seemed promising and walking past the trainwrecks. Highlights: Temper Trap, whose performance mixed choir boy vocals with trippy, Muse-like melodrama; and NEEDTOBREATHE, a rootsy rock band (apparently a Christian group, too, albeit one that rocks like a band of heathens) fronted by a man who sings like Joe Cocker, looks like He Man, and is appropriately named “Bear.”
Thursdays at Bonnaroo are always filled with good intentions, and we decided to call it an early night, hoping to pace ourselves over the course of a long weekend. Little did we know that our campsite, with its speedy three-minute walk to the stage area, was almost as loud as Centeroo itself. I managed to fall asleep anyway, the sound of some late-night DJ remixing Tears for Fears echoing around the tent walls.
Friday
Did I say that driving into the campground is the worst thing about Bonnaroo? I lied. The worst thing about Bonnaroo is the way I always wake up at 7:30 a.m., roused from my slumber by the unbelievable heat that can accumulate inside a tent during a Tennessee morning. It was in the upper 80s when I crawled out of my little nylon furnace; it must have been at least 100 degrees inside the thing. I took a seat on our beer cooler, rubbed my eyes for a second, and began slapping on some SPF 30. Time for another day.
The weather forecast called for thunderstorms, but a drop fell from the sky on Friday. Instead, temperatures climbed into the lower 90s and humidity levels hovered around 75%, forcing many festivalgoers to seek out some shade beneath Bonnaroo’s three music tents. Others braved the sun and lined up outside the Comedy Tent for hours, hoping to make it inside for one of Conan O’Brien’s stand-up routines.
I squeezed my way into the photo pit minutes before She & Him took the stage, hoping to shoot some pictures of Zooey Deschanel before watching the rest of the set from the back. While pushed against the stage, I accidentally blocked another photographer’s shot and was flicked in the back of the skull as a result — the sort of hard, meaningful flick that helps middle-school students become champions of tabletop football. Chill out, dude in the Cannon t-shirt. It was an accident. Beside, the lens you had on that camera could’ve gotten you a picture of M. Ward’s pores from the back of the sound booth.
Other groups I managed to catch during Friday afternoon: the Gossip (great show, but man, that girl was buzzed out of her mind), the Gaslight Anthem (Bruce Springsteen-inspired rock for the Warped Tour crowd), Tokyo Police Club (hip, tuneful, Canadian), and OK Go (whose members all played handbells during “What to Do,” a gamble that went over surprisingly well). Meanwhile, Conan O’Brien took the liberty of introducing Damian Marley and Nas’ collaborative set, quipping, “I’m here because when you think of reggae and hip-hop, you think of Conan O’Brien!”
As the afternoon turned into evening, the National walked onto one of the festival’s bigger stages and delivered a 90 minute set that found Matt Beringer sweating through his formalwear and diving into the crowd. On the opposite end of the festival grounds, Steve Martin led his band through several variations of Americana music, from old-timey country to traditional bluegrass. The emphasis was on Martin’s playing, not his jokes, and the guy can clawhammer a banjo like a champ.Later that night, Kings of Leon played the festival’s first headlining slot on the immense What Stage. It’s difficult to describe the size of the What Stage; if anything, it looks like an airplane hangar with jumbotrons and better lightning. The band’s music was appropriately huge, too, with the Followhill boys emphasizing the grit that exists beneath even their most streamlined material. Before leading the guys through a reverent cover of the Pixies’ “Where Is My Mind,” frontman Caleb Followhill explained that KOL would be tossing some new tunes into the setlist, too, just “because we’re bored and we wanna do ‘em.” The new songs — “Radioactive,” “Mary,” and “Southbound” — all bode well for the band’s fifth album, tentatively scheduled for release later this year.
I shuffled over to the Which Stage after the show and grabbed a seat on the bleachers, where I nursed my tired feet and waited for the Flaming Lips to start. The band took the stage around midnight, making their way through a set of original material before switching over to Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, which they covered in its entirety. The band sounded great, but Wayne Coyne couldn’t seem to get a rise out of the audience members, most of whom had spent all day baking in the sun. The show wrapped up at 2:00, and a slew of dance-oriented acts — LCD Soundsystem, Kid Cudi, B.o.B., and Galactic — kept things thumping until 4. That’s one of the advantages of staging a massive festival in the middle of nowhere: there aren’t any neighbors around to file noise complaints.
Saturday
I’d be an ungrateful man if I didn’t take a second to thank the folks at Big Hassle, a New York-based management/PR company that handles all of Bonnaroo’s press. Every year, those guys construct a magical world behind the Which Stage, a world in which the water is free, the tents are air-conditioned, and people like Wayne Coyne give impromptu interviews in front of the Porta Potties. We made the so-called “media area” our second home, using it as a stopover point between shows. Ken Weinstein, you are truly the man.
Saturday afternoon basically unfolded the same way Friday did: with me scuttling from show to show, catching bits and pieces of as many performances as possible. The first artist to make me slow down and watch the entire set was Brandi Carlile, an alt.country siren who capped her performance with a stirring piano-and-cello version of Tears for Fears’ “Mad World.” Other highlights included Mumford & Sons, who’re sort of the West London equivalent of Fleet Foxes, and Jimmy Cliff, who may very well be the world’s most chipper 62 year-old.
While the Dead Weather brought their sexy stomp to the What Stage later that afternoon, Weezer lay waste to the nearby Which Stage. Rivers Cuomo, only recently recovered from a near-fatal bus crash, was a whirl of hyperactivity and Buddy Holly eyewear. With no apparent regard for his safety, he climbed the stage’s scaffolding, balanced atop some wobbly speaker cabinets, and threw his floor monitor across the stage. He also lurched around in a blond wig during Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face,” which the band attached to the end of a synth-heavy cover of MGMT’s “Kids.” Although it was great watching Cuomo strike a Michael-Jackson-crotch-grab pose while declaring, “I’m bluffin’ with my muffin,” his best line came earlier in the set, when he pointed to a plane soaring overheard and shouted, “Hello, airplane! May you always rock!”
Saturday night may have been the best evening I’ve ever spent at Bonnaroo. First up was Stevie Wonder, who ended up abandoning his original setlist — which reportedly left out audience favorites like “My Cherie Amour” — in favor of a two-hour set of greatest hits and sing-along soul tunes. When the audience started botching the lyrics to “Living in the City,” he fed us each line before it began, creating a sort of call-and-response relationship. Toward the end of his set, his 13-piece band swelled to nearly 40 members, including a gospel choir and at least five culturally-stratified djembe players. And then, with an ear-to-ear smile and a promise that he, too, would be watching Jay-Z’s set, Stevie Wonder was out.
At 11:30 p.m., rapper/mogul/Hova/Mr. Beyoncé Knowles kicked off a 90-minute set that walked a fine line between hip-hop bravado and genuine gratitude. Bonnaroo is perhaps the most Caucasian festival this side of the Isle of Wight, but Jay-Z — who, coincidentally enough, played the Isle of Wight only 24 hours before he took the Bonnaroo stage — had no trouble engaging the audience. “Sing!” he yelled during “Hard Knock Life,” and we sang. “Throw your hands up!” he commanded, and up went our limbs. Jay-Z’s backing band was fantastic, with a drummer that could sub for any rock ‘n’ roll percussionist and a horn section that rivaled Stevie’s, and Jay-Z himself was in fine form, stalking both sides of the stage and barreling his way through 15 years worth of rap hits.
Toward the end of the show, Jay-Z removed his sunglasses and peered into the crowd. “Let me take my sunnies off so I can see who rockin’ with me tonight,” he explained before pointing to various people in the audience. “You with the… what is that, a Gremlin? I don’t know what that is, but it’s a hardcore. You, with the funny glowstick. You, I see you with the New York sign in the air. You, with the American flag right there. Who else do I see? Hey, you were going crazy when Stevie Wonder was on! You had your groove on. It’s your birthday? Today’s your birthday? Come onstage.”The birthday girl, Maggie, climbed onstage and received a massive, rousing version of “Happy Birthday” courtesy of Jay-Z and over 60,000 Bonnaroo attendees. And then it was back to Jay-Z’s regular set with “Young Forever,” followed by “Numb” and a well-deserved encore.
Jay-Z’s set was great, the sort of show that roots you to the spot long after the performance ends and makes you engage in spirited games of “remember when they played this?” for hours. There was no time to waste, though, as I ran back across the festival grounds in hopes of catching Lissie before she started her own set. A folk-rock songwriter with one of the best voices since Neko Case, Lissie and I had spoken a few hours earlier in the Media Area, where she talked about writing “Oh Mississippi” with Ed Harcourt and recounted her memories of the very first Bonnaroo festival, which she attended as a fan. Backed by a two-person band, she walked onto the tiny Troo Music Lounge stage at 1:30 a.m. and opened up with a cover of Hank Williams’ “Wedding Bells.” Lissie’s voice is meant to be heard in more traditional venues — i.e. places with walls, where her melodies can reverberate and resonate around the room — but she still sounded fantastic up there.
Sometimes, the best Bonnaroo performances are those you catch late at night on small stages, with no fancy lighting or splashy jumbotrons to enhance the music. Such was the case with Lissie’s show, which trumped about 90% of the performances I caught that weekend.
How does one follow an intimate singer/songwriter performance? By going to check out Gwar, of course. It was 2:30 a.m. by the time I left the Troo Music Lounge, but people were still milling about Centeroo, with most of the Deadheads shuffling over to the Disco Biscuits’ show and others making a beeline for the Deadmau5 performance. Over at Gwar’s tent, the costumed musicians were doing their best to freak out the crowd, which they ultimately accomplished by bringing comedian Margaret Cho onstage for a simulated bondage-style sex act. Whoa! Afterward, the guys squeezed themselves into golf carts and drove to the nearby festival fountain, whose water they attempted to dye “blood red.” It came out pink instead.
Sunday
Sundays at Bonnaroo always seem to move in slow-motion. People are hot, worn-out, and super-hungover, and the bands can’t help but notice. Five years ago, I interviewed Jim James after a Sunday afternoon set by My Morning Jacket, and he summed things up pretty well: “Everyone’s been tripping balls all weekend, and they just end up staring at you.”
I kicked off the afternoon with Ingrid Michaelson, who launched her career as a coffeehouse-styled songwriter before maturing into the leader of a tight, talented pop band. Flanked by two guitar-toting females — and supported by a male percussionist, bassist, and keyboard player — Michaelson looked like a redheaded Lisa Loeb and sounded like Regina Spektor’s conservatory-trained sister, with exceptional vocals to boot. In keeping with the recent Bonnaroo tradition of ending each set with a quirky cover song, Michaelson busted out her ukulele for an electro-acoustic version of Britney Spears’ “Toxic,” followed by a choreographed dance that ended with the band hoisting Michaelson up on their shoulders, cheerleader-style.
Speaking of Regina Spektor, the quirky pianist took the stage later that afternoon, her porcelain skin visibly flushed by the heat. “How do you do it?” she asked the crowd after flubbing two chords. “I’ve only been here for a few hours. You guys are like heat superheroes.” Spektor quickly pulled things together, making her way through “The Calculation,” “Us,” and other highlights while the audience swayed casually.
Despite it being a Sunday, things went by in a blur as the afternoon wore on. Against Me! played political punk songs, John Fogerty reprised some of his CCR country-rock staples, Kris Kristofferson kept the country torch burning, and Ween got their jam on. Over at That Tent, the day wrapped up with a 90 minute set from Miranda Lambert, a country firebrand who deserves to steal Taylor Swift’s crown as the Queen of Contemporary Twang. Some of Lambert’s stage banter was visibly rehearsed, but the walls came down during the show’s acoustic interlude, which included a solo rendition of a John Prine tune and two stripped-down, full-band versions of Lambert’s own songs (most notably “Airstream Song,” arguably the best track from her 2009 album Revolution).
Meanwhile, Phoenix closed things out on the What Stage. Earlier this year, frontman Thomas Mars talked to me about the band’s newfound status as festival headliners. “We’re not playing at 2 p.m. to people who are eating sandwiches, looking at their cell phones, and being bored,” he explained, reminding me that the last time the guys played Bonnaroo, they were relegated to a 60-minute set on one of the festival’s smallest stages. This was different; the group played from 7:15 until 8:45, orchestrating the last few minutes of daylight with a mix of pop, indie rock, and electronica. “Love Like a Sunset” never sounded so appropriate.
Sunday night ended with a performance by Dave Matthews Band, whose jammy music harkened back to Bonnaroo’s early days. Since 2001, the festival has transformed itself from a Deadhead destination into an American Glastonbury, with no one genre holding precedence over another. DMB kept things retro, though, with improvisatory jams and extended horn solos that appealed to the festival’s noodle-dancing contingent. Mr. Matthews himself scaled things back during the encore, when he returned to the stage for a solo version of Neil Young’s “Needle and the Damage Done.”We left town as soon as Dave Matthews Band wrapped up, hoping to get a head start on the 9-hour trip back to Michigan. My car ended up breaking down in Cincinnati the following afternoon, sputtering to a stop during rush-hour traffic. We managed to find a mechanic and resumed the drive two hours later, eventually pulling into my driveway at 2:30 on Tuesday morning. It took me until Friday to gather my thoughts for this article; I blame the “Bonnaflu,” which had me hacking and blowing my nose for days after I got back. Sleep deprivation may have been a factor, too.
Yes, Bonnaroo is difficult. But Bonnaroo is also great.
*** Jay-Z and Phoenix photographed by Jeff Kravitz. All others by C. Taylor Crothers. Photos reprinted with permission from Big Hassle Media. ***
Переслать - News Roundup: 6/21/2010
R.I.P. South African singer/dancer Busi Mhlongo, who died on June 15 after battling cancer. The first woman to popularize Maskanda vocals globally, she was known as the queen of Maskandi. However, her music incorporated other traditional South African styles, including Mbaqanga, Marabi, and traditional Zulusongs. Her 1998 album Urban Zulu brought her international fame, and her powerful performances made her an equal of Miriam Makeba and Letta Mbulu. Mhlongo was 63. R.I.P. also to opera’s “anti-diva” Maureen Forrester, who died June 16 in Toronto at age 79 after a longtime struggle with Alzheimer’s disease. She made her Carnegie Hall debut in 1957 singing in Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, and eventually moved to opera, singing roles she described as “mothers, maids, witches, bitches, mediums, nuns, aunts, and pants.” She continued to perform and participate in philanthropy into the ’90s. [GenerationBass.com, MontrealGazette.com]Nearly a year after his death, Michael Jackson’s estate has generated over a billion dollars since his passing. Nearly half of that came from his music, including album, digital download, and ringtone sales, while the movie This Is It generated $329 million for the estate. Deals such as a new contract with Sony Music helped his estate pass the billion-dollar mark since his death on June 25, 2009. [Gigwise.com]
Radiohead may have a new album out as early as this year, according to guitarist Ed O’Brien. In a BBC 6 interview where he also called the sessions for In Rainbows “a slog,” O’Brien said it may be just “a matter of weeks” before the new material is available. [WeAllWantSomeone.org]
Katy Perry’s “California Gurls” is the fastest-moving pop single on Billboard’s Pop Songs radio airplay chart in over five years. The song reached number one in six weeks, the swiftest ascent since Gwen Stefani’s “Hollaback Girl” topped the charts within six weeks in late May of 2005. “California Gurls”‘ move from number five to number one is also the biggest jump a song has made on the chart since Mariah Carey’s “Shake It Off,” which made the same leap in September 2005. [Billboard.com]
Kanye West and Marion “Suge” Knight met on Friday to discuss matters surrounding West’s 2005 party, during which Knight was shot in the leg. Though the rap titans’ meeting lasted six hours, it was mostly fruitless. A bone in Knight’s right leg was shattered due to the gunshot, costing him more than $200,000 in medical expenses, and he filed suit in 2008. Knight and West will see each other in court on December 6. [MTV.com]
Did MySpace’s deal with Google help kill the social networking site’s user experience? [TheDailySwarm.com]
Celebrate the timeless design of Blue Note album covers with Vintage Vanguard, a site displaying artwork from Blue Note releases as well as selected covers from Camden, Decca, and other jazz labels. [MetaFilter.com]
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