This is the sort of news that I wouldn’t bother posting, but Jens Lekman news is a big deal in this house.
The news comes via Jens’ blog, which explains how he contracted the virus while in South America. Kinda scary to be honest, and hopefully he has a speedy recovery. And ignore that bit about him singing a song about it, probably won’t happen, but you never know…
I picked home one last souvenir from South America, it’s called the H1N1 virus. Wrongfully known as the Swineflue.
I was crossing the Atlantic when things started getting really bad, the fever was hallucinogenic and shaking me like a leaf and I grabbed the sleeve of the Air France steward. “I’m not feeling well, I should see a doctor” I said and the reply came as a brilliant mix of death anxiety and french rudeness: “Uh, yes… Terminal D… go there maybe… when we land”. After that the stewards and stewardesses took long detours. A ring of empty seats formed around me. Peoples eyes were kind but determined, they read “Poor you, I really wish you all the best but if you come near me or my kid I will have to stab you with this plastic fork”. I got up and went to the bathroom where I fainted.
Now I’m in quarantine for ten days. I can see the summer through my window and it’s just perfect. Summer is always best through a window.
I am really digging this new single from The Depreciation Guild, the video of which was recently premiered on Pitchfork. Check out this previous post for a more in-depth look at the band, but the gist of it is that Kurt Feldman, who also moonlights as the drummer for The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, also heads up The Depreciation Guild. But the two bands couldn’t be any more different if you ask me.
While I was watching this video, for a couple of minutes I almost thought the band ditched their usage of 8-bit bleeps and bloops, but those familiar sounds enter the equation as soon as that thought crossed my mind. Like I’ve said previously, they’re probably only one of a few bands that can make this sound work for them. In fact, I think I like this more than anything off of In Her Gentle Jaws (which is available for free download); it’s more dreamy and ethereal.
The single is set to be released on July 7th on 7″ (which you can order from Kanine Records) and digital formats as well. This should be more incentive to catch them when they support The Pains of Being Pure at Heart starting in September.
You may remember Air France and their EP No Way Down, which seemed to come out at a perfect time last year right around this time. With it’s total playing time being only around 23 minutes, it meant for a brisk listening experience of whimsical summertime pop.
A new song has recently surfaced, and from the information I’ve managed to dig up, this seems to just be one-off sort of deal as this is part of a three part dedication to Gothenburg titled “GBG Belongs To Us: A Love Letter In Three Parts.” You can check out the rest here, but the video in part III seems to not work at all for me.
The first time I heard Fruit Bats was a few years ago through Cable & Tweed; a song called “The Earthquake of ‘73″ from their 2005’s Spelled in Bones. So in a sense, it only seems fitting that I find this new song through C&T once again. I ended up listening to that album constantly for a couple of months afterwards, and a couple of years passed without kind of updates on any new material.
That being said, since I don’t receive press emails from Sub Pop (over here guys!), this bit of news is coming a few weeks late. The band is finally releasing a new album titled The Ruminant Band, which is set to be released in early August. Usually, when it comes to this kind of folk-laced pop, it tends to go in one ear and out the other, but these guys know how to craft a great sounding song.
The new single called “My Unusual Friend” is available here as a free download as well as part of the new Sub Pop Free Summer Sampler. The link to download this must be visited, as it’s hilariously designed and echoes some of the more forgettable times of website design. Just visiting it myself made me want to reformat my hard drive immediately afterwards.
Welcome to Day 2 coverage of Bonnaroo! Look at my sweet wristband!
I’d debated on whether or not to even catch the Dirty Projectors or whether to stake out a good spot for Animal Collective. I decided catching the first 45 minutes of Dirty Projectors would be worth it and man, was I right. The set started with just David Longstreth playing guitar and Angel Deradoorian singing “Two Doves” but soon expanded into full band plus backup singer and extra bassist. I was truly moved when they went into “Cannibal Resource” and those harmonies took full effect. I feel like a fool saying this, but I really thought I was going to cry. They were that good. One dude in the crowd yelled out, “You have the voices of angels!” And one of them is named Angel. Convenient. However, it’s Amber Coffman who does the primary vocals on “Stillness is the Move,” and she took full advantage of her moment. She danced around the stage like there weren’t five other people on it and grinned the whole time. They played mostly Bitte Orca songs, but hearing the title track from Rise Above was a nice touch. I left during “Temecula” but I left happy.
Animal Collective will probably go down amongst a lot of festival goers as the disappointment of the weekend. Bonnaroo was the final date of the American tour and whoever decided to put these guys at 3 in the afternoon really didn’t think that one through. They were obviously tired, and couldn’t be as visual as was necessary to make an essentially electronic album translate into a live setting. No amount of weed was going to make up for the fact that they couldn’t effectively use their lighting rig (and Geologist doesn’t even bother with the headlamp) but on the other hand, no amount of energy usage can make up for the fact that “Daily Routine” should not be made into a 10 minute song. It’s kind of a sleeper to begin with and admittedly, when the band takes out all of the electronics and instrumentation and just lets Noah Lennox sing “Just a sec more in my bed” it was breathtaking and everyone cheered as they should have. But David Portner (that’s Avey Tare for those of you who only pay attention to monikers) actually left the stage for a couple of minutes during that song, which just should not happen. I’ve said it before, he is the heart and soul of their live performances. When he got excited during “Slippi,” everyone else got excited right along with him. When he went into the shouting in the middle of “Brother Sport,” everyone else shouted along with him. Whenever he screeched, period, it was a beautiful thing because I’ve yet to see anyone else change to three different vocal pitches in the course of one breath. Because I’m a huge Animal Collective fan, it’s easy for me to point out the amazing points in their set and squeal but I don’t think most people in that audience were huge Animal Collective fans as this seemed to be the only crowd I’ve seen so far at Bonnaroo that wasn’t intensely loud, energetic and thoroughly knowledgeable about who they were seeing. Which is too bad. Don’t feel too sorry for them though…they’re still sitting on the best show I’ve seen so far this year.
Next was one of those unfortunate decisions…go see Santigold, go see Grizzly Bear or stay at the Which Stage for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I opted for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and I can say with certainty that Karen O is a badass. She has this ability to grab a collective attention and hold it in the palm of her hand as she entertains and everyone gives up of it willingly. She comes out in this kimono saying “Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Bonnaroo!” and proceeds to give a pretty animated performance, complete with costume changes, smoke machines and a few quick blasts of confetti. The set was a pretty good mixture of all three albums and they even went back to their EP for “Art Star” (although unfortunately, not for my favorite song of the EP, ***, but if that’s my biggest complaint, I’ll live.) Nick Zinner had some tuning problems during “Maps,” so they restarted it as an acoustic number. While this meant no killer guitar solo, it was a nice effective way to hear the song. Had we not been in an open field, it would’ve even felt intimate, but intimacy is one of the intricacies lost to an outdoor summer festival. Another thing that’s lost is the ability to hold your place in the audience for multiple bands. Because the only way not to pass out in the searing Tennessee heat is to drink liters upon liters of water. I probably went through five liters on Friday alone, and actually, I don’t think that was good enough, because I got a headache during TV on the Radio that never quite abated. As such, I actually spent the last two songs of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs set waiting for the port-o-john to get into good position for TV on the Radio.
And good position I got. I’m definitely more familiar with the TVOTR discography than I am with that of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, but unfortunately, I never really got into Dear Science and that material comprised at least 40% of their set. “Golden Age” is a cool song, but most of the set didn’t really match up to the “Wrong Way”s or “Wolf Like Me”s that the band had to offer. Tunde Adebimpe still has incredible amounts of energy and can jitter his way across the stage with great speed but seems to have figured out how to do so without losing the correct pitch of the song. Although the best show that I saw them put on was in 2007, this is the best the songs have actually sounded. They’ve definitely smoothed some edges while still keeping some cool effects like the windchime that occasionally appears at the end of David Sitek’s guitar. Kyp Malone also had the most Bonnaroo-appropriate attire of any artist I’d seen, sporting a tie-dye shirt and pants. So some jackass kept shouting “I want your pants! And your beard! I want your beard!” TV on the Radio also had the largest quotient of celebrity viewers that I could actually see (I couldn’t usually see the backstage area.) Yes, the Dirty Projectors had David Byrne…and TV on the Radio had the Dirty Projectors (two of them) and two members of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs amongst their viewers. Awesome. But not as awesome as the fact that they decided to buck tradition and end their set not with their biggest hits but with two tracks from Young Liars. They played the title track and then broke out “Satellite.” Which was the perfect ending to that set. The fact that this wasn’t the best I’ve seen them was all but forgotten after that ending.
Then the most irritating scheduling conflict of the festival. The Beastie Boys were scheduled from 8:30pm-10:30pm and David Byrne from 8:45pm-10:45pm. Not okay. I decided to catch at least the beginning of the Beastie Boys set and decided, okay, if it starts to go south, I can always move over to the Which Stage. Now, when they Beastie Boys played all of their staples (”No Sleep Til Brooklyn,” “Intergalactic,” “So What’cha Want”) and some less familiar cuts off of Hello Nasty, like “Remote Control” and “Three MCs and One DJ,” all seemed pretty much right with the world. I say pretty much, because I could not actually see them for the majority of the set, even via jumbotron. Because somebody decided that getting artsy with the visuals on the jumbotron would be fun. It was not fun, the power kept going out on the ‘tron and I could barely tell what was going on. I was able to tell that the Beasties switched on and off between moving across the stage and actually playing their instruments and I saw that Nas came out to introduce a new song with them. I’m not sold by the new material solely based on the live performance, but since it’s the Beastie Boys, I’m sure I’ll listen to the album in its entirety when it comes out. They finished off with “Sabotage,” which was damn near sabotaged early on thanks to a fuck-up from Mix Master Mike, prompting The King Ad-Rock to make sure the audience understood that this was in fact, a LIVE show, with no ipod or tape playing the music. Yeah, dude, we got it. But when they finally played the song…gold. So, despite my lack of a sight line, I did enjoy the Beasties set and thankfully, they actually ended it before 10pm, allowing me to catch more than a mere 15 minutes of the David Byrne set.
The David Byrne set…holy crap. He has backup singers, he has choreographed dancers, he has a band that also does choreographed moves and he (and the band) all got into tutus during “Burning Down the House.” If David Byrne and co. end up with a Broadway production in the next couple of years, I will be able to say, I told you so. And of course there’s the music. I walked in during “Wild Wild Life” and heard them play their cover of Al Green’s “Take Me to the River” and roughly two encores. The kitschiness fits, and gimmicky though it seemed, David Byrne has the star power to pull it off. In short, I was completely blown away.
This was the point where I thought, okay, the whole festival is going to see Phish now, I’ll be able to get a good position in That Tent to see Phoenix. Not so much. That Tent was utterly packed. I’ll admit, I’m not totally on the hype wagon with Phoenix. I never listened to the first two albums that much and I think the praise on the new album, which seems like watered down Blur and Supergrass songs with added synthesizers, is misplaced. But when everyone else in that cramped space started jumping around, I’ll admit the energy was infectious and Phoenix, who seemed humble and grateful whenever they talked, seemed bombastic whenever they played. They have the rock star act down and it made for a fun, sweaty 45 minutes. It also made my last show of the night. I attempted to sit down in That Tent after their set and make it long enough to catch either Public Enemy or Crystal Castles, but I started to fall asleep. Luckily, I’ve caught Public Enemy and Girl Talk before, because I was way WAY too tired to continue.
Sorry for the late post, guys…I haven’t had internet since I left for Bonnaroo for more than an hour. But I actually have everything written already, so you’ll be getting my posts throughout the weekend.
Welcome to The Yellow Stereo’s coverage of Bonnaroo 2009! Hopefully, it’ll go better than my coverage of SXSW 2009, right? This is my first time here and I’d never really understood the magnitude of the festival. I’ve been to festival shows…ones that have like, 3 or 4 stages. This one has 7 main stages – and then there’s all the extra dance tents, comedy tent and so on. Most festivals I’ve been to have a couple thousand people – maybe tens of thousands even. Here, there are people as far as the eye can see. And tents. And tie-dyed t-shirts. Seriously, I’ve never seen so much tie-dye in my life…nor have I seen so many camel backs. That said, it was still easier to get into the farm than it was to get into the Nissan Pavilion for the Radiohead show last year. I’ve only seen a few sets so far, and will probably spend the rest of my night getting my bearings, figuring out where all of the stages and the showers are located and playing with some of the fun toys and games like the Ferris Wheel and the Silent Disco. No seriously…everyone dances with headphones on and it’s really a sight to behold. See?
Now for those of you who have never been at the festival, there’s no wondering what stage you’re at or what band you’re seeing because there are signs determining the stage that look like this.
And band signs that look like this.
The first act I had the pleasure of seeing was Atlanta’s Janelle Monae in The Other Tent. She clearly uses up so much energy over the course of her set, but she makes it look easy and fluid. I got in late for her set and still saw her a) create a painting and distribute it amongst the crowd, b) crowd surf, c) drop to her knees and back and d) play a guitar solo that would make other soulful artists jealous. That was about the perfect way to open the festival.
At This Tent, White Rabbits did their best to follow. They did have the misfortune of not only having an interminable sound check but also having a few mechanical problems during the set. During “While We Go Dancing,” the power went out but the Rabbits shrugged their shoulders and led the audience in a group clap-a-long until it came back on. During the following set, one of the stand alone drums took a tumble. However, this was probably the most energetic I’ve seen the White Rabbits and certainly the most energetic I’ve seen their crowd. Between the singing along during “The Plot” and the pounding of hands and feet during “Percussion Gun” as various members of the band took turns playing percussion, White Rabbits had the audience in the palms of their blistered hands. And then for some reason, they decided to finish up the set with two eerie slow burners. Why? Because they had the audience in the palms of their blistered hands.
In short, this feels like a huge playground and I’ve already seen fireworks and a guy going around offering people (or asking for?) mushrooms. I’ve also seen someone aspirating and convulsing on the ground and medics called to the scene. Drugs (and heat stroke) are bad, mmkay? Yeesh.
After a short tent break, it started to drip a little bit, and I thought…it’s okay…I don’t need my rain jacket!Bad move. The rain went from dripping to all out deluge for the rest of the night and although I hardly fear being wet, being cold is another story.But I ended up seeing three bands that I’d had no intention of seeing. The first was the Tangiers Blues Band in the Troo Music Lounge who pretty much did blues-inflected covers of everything from “Rainy Day Women” and “Folsom Prison Blues” to “My Sharona.” It was a nice palette cleanser.
Then when I realized that I couldn’t get into the comedy show I wanted to get into without a ticket, I decided to suck it up and go see Passion Pit who had thoroughly underwhelmed me when I saw them back in February. Of course, back in February, they had only released six songs and I’m pretty sure that Michael Angelakos had not been touring much with the band. Now they have a full length release out and four more months of touring under their belt and it showed. For starters, Angelakos’ voice beforehand had one volume (loud) and one pitch (dog whistle high) when I’d seen them before. Although he still sings everything in a falsetto, he seems to have figured out that varying pitch and volume is a good thing. “Sleepyhead” is still the main attraction…and you can tell that, because that’s when the band has the most fun. But now the fans are singing along to other songs too…and clapping their hands and jumping which motivated the band to do the same. That full tent was all about some Passion Pit and now that they’ve finally found their groove, they were able to deliver. I’m still not 100% sold on this band (which I wish I was, I love Frenchkiss Records and I love Q and Not U which is an obvious predecessor) but this at least shows promise that in the future, they could be great.
Passion Pit was supposed to close out the night and after their set, about half the tent cleared out, but Delta Spirit had been stuck in the Dallas airport, missed their allocated set time, and therefore, went onstage at 12:30am. I’ve seen Delta Spirit before and I’ve only been but so impressed by them. The Bonnaroo set didn’t really change my mind, but on account of the pouring rain, I stayed under This Tent for almost the entire set, finally giving up after “People, Turn Around,” their sort of “We Are the World”-esque version of a protest song. Their singer made probably the most accurate point about their band. To paraphrase, “We aren’t the most talented band out there and we know that there are better bands with better songs…(cue booing and shouts of “Nooooo!” from the audience)…but we really mean it. And we’re glad you appreciate that.” And that’s really the key to enjoying a Delta Spirit set. If you enjoy the wild facial expressions and gesticulations of the band and appreciate their penchant for multiple band members doing percussion (not quite to White Rabbits’ extent) then it’s a fun experience. Of course, if one has only gotten 4 hours of sleep and then driven for 8 hours, one is DONE by 1:30am.
Or at least, that’s what I thought. I walked over to the Troo Music Tent and watched the last half hour of Tobacco’s set and was more inspired to dance than I’d been during Passion Pit. Wow!
Annie Clark aka St. Vincent recently performed a set of three solo acoustic songs as part of the “Lake Fever Sessions”, which documents artist performances with HD video and multitrack audio. The three songs include “Actor Out of Work” and “The Strangers” both of which can be found on the latest album, Actor — along with bonus track “Oh My God”.
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart seem to have been on a never-ending tour since early February in support of their self-titled debut, which is still one of my absolute favorites so far this year. If you happened to miss them the first go around (shame on you!), fear not, as it’s just been announced that the band will be playing a slew of additional tour dates all the way through October. This time around, they’ll be accompanied by both The Depreciation Guild (drummer Kurt Feldman’s band) and Cymbals Eat Guitars.
It’s been twelve years since the death of Jeff Buckley, who drowned in the Mississippi River on that fateful day of May 29th at the age of 30. We were left with only one completed album to remember him by called Grace. Of course, we have what he was in the process of recording that ended up being Sketches (For My Sweetheart the Drunk), but knowing that it was incomplete and never intended to be listened to — I just can’t bear to hear it a lot of the time. We’re left with that potential though, of what he could have been if his life wasn’t so tragically cut short.
When I first picked up Grace at nearby music store, I remember the words the person working the cash register said to me when he noticed that I was purchasing it. “Every man should own this album,” he said. After listening to the album for myself, there isn’t one person I haven’t said that very exact sentence to when discussing this album. Honestly, what more is there to be said? How else could I describe that listening experience as a way of looking into the man’s soul.
His music lives on, and his influence is seen through many, especially through the many tribute songs, reissues, and new releases that have come down the pipe over the years.
Which leads us to this, in honor of the 15th anniversary of the release of the highly seminal album Grace, a DVD+CD package called Grace Around The World hit the shelves. It contains previously unreleased live performances, along with audio and video footage from television performances filmed during the first world tour in support of Grace from 1994-1996. The deluxe edition also includes the Amazing Grace documentary, available for the first time.
I’m just going to be up front with this and say that this is one of the best contests we’ve ever had the pleasure of running here on the site, and I’m incredibly jealous of who actually wins this. I was actually offered two different prizepacks for this, so we’ll actually have two winners, courtesy of Toolshed, Fun Palace Entertainment, Cornerstone and Jeff Buckley Music. That being said, a few of our lucky readers will be able to win this Grace Around The World prize package that includes the following:
– Jeff Buckley guitar picks/tattoos
– One Grace Around The World poster
– A copy of the Grace Around The World DVD/CD
– Postcards from Grace Around the World
– a Limited Edition Mystery White Boy t-shirt with Merri Cyr’s photo image of Jeff (and band)’
And another which includes:
Deluxe Package of Grace Around the World:
– Grace Around The World DVD
– Grace Around The World CD
– The award-winning documentary Amazing Grace: Jeff Buckley
– “Be the Best” T-shirt
– A Jeff buckley poster
If you would like to win either of these, please leave a comment with anything regarding Jeff Buckley that you would like us to know about. Whether it be his music, his life, etc. — just make it good! Let’s hear your stories of how you discovered his music.
Here are some extra goodies, including a series of podcasts conducted by Rolling Stone, which includes the likes of Moby, Duncan Sheik and Mary Guibert, Jeff Buckley’s mother.
As you may have noticed, along with the lack of posts going on around here, the Graboid has seemingly disappeared as well the past couple of weeks. To catch everyone back up to speed, I’ve decided to post the album releases from the past few weeks that we’ve missed along with everything from this week. I’m sure I may have missed some releases, but I think I’ve covered most of the important stuff for the most part. As usual, let us know what album(s) you’ve been excited about and if we managed to forget anything!
This is the sort of news that I wouldn’t bother posting, but Jens Lekman news is a big deal in this house.
I am really digging this new single from 
Welcome to Day 2 coverage of Bonnaroo! Look at my sweet wristband!
It’s been twelve years since the death of 
As you may have noticed, along with the lack of posts going on around here, the Graboid has seemingly disappeared as well the past couple of weeks. To catch everyone back up to speed, I’ve decided to post the album releases from the past few weeks that we’ve missed along with everything from this week. I’m sure I may have missed some releases, but I think I’ve covered most of the important stuff for the most part. As usual, let us know what album(s) you’ve been excited about and if we managed to forget anything!
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