April 2008 Archives
It's the team-up we've been waiting for. Not since Julia Roberts winked suggestively at Lyle Lovett...or since Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler began messaging each other on Facebook...or since Felix met Oscar and the Odd Couple was born...
But now:
Frankly, I'm *dying* for this twosome to make their way to reality television.
From the Lefsetz Letter, Bob Lefsetz on Perez Hilton:
GossipPerezHilton.com
Please separate the man from the site. We’ll get to Mario in a minute.
Perez has got all the gossip you want, as soon as it becomes available. He’s rarely scooped by Harvey Levin’s TMZ and there’s a personal attitude that makes the site attractive. All those doodlings might befuddle you, but you certainly believe he created them, no underling drew them.
Perez knows that you want to both adore and trash celebrities, believe and hate. He understands the culture of gossip. That’s it just not presentation, but pure entertainment for the reader, more fulfilling than the entertainment products those featured create.
As for his entry into the music business… You’re just jealous. He’s passionate about acts, he’s got an audience, he’s a tastemaker. Are he and his picks for the ages? Doubtful, but in the Internet world, it’s all about the here and now.
As for the shameless self-promotion… He gets away with it because he’s gay. As an inherent outcast, he’s fighting for all those without standing, he’s entitled to trumpet his cause.
Amazing he’s doing it right and no one else can do it as well. Could it be that unlike the others looking for a buck, he just likes gossip THAT MUCH?
And right back atcha from PerezHilton.com:
Such An Honor!...
2) The amazing critic Bob Lefsetz just wrote these even more amazing words about the Gossip Gangstar!
cut & paste in the verbiage from above, then...
Wow. Wow. Wow.And thank you!
Yes, we love gossip THAT MUCH. This website is much much more than a job. It's our passion! It's a way that we're able to be creative, express ourselves and entertain millions of people worldwide every single day.
Thanks you Mister Lefsetz!
Who knew it might be possible to even dream of such a mutual admiration society. Indie 103.1, KCRW, whoever: get these folks on air for a tete-a-tete as soon as humanly possible. Or at least some logrolling.
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By Ryan Colditz
Get the folk out of the city on Saturday and mosey on over to Clarmont (just a few miles past the Glass House in Pomona) for the 28th Annual Claremont Folk Music Festival, held at Sycamore Elementary School. Sounds boring, right?
WRONG.
A full day of art and music performances (Da Lion, The BladeRunners, Yuval Ron, Joel Rafael and Squeakin' Wheels) and workshops (drum making, flatpicking guitar and more) to benefit The Dorothy and Charles Chase Folk Music and Culture Education Fund (FMCEF). That's quite a mouthful, but it is all for a great cause. For a full list of what's happening, (there's a LOT going on), checkout the web link below. Still bored...
WAKE UP!
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Final Check Yo Ponytail tonight starring Dan Deacon and Erol Alkan
by Randall Roberts
April 29, 2008 6:25 PM
I Heart Comix's long-running Check Yo Ponytail series comes to a close tonight at the Echoplex. The legendary party ends its run with a doozy: Dan Deacon and Erol Alkan.
Here's what you might see if you decide to hit it:
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New Release Tuesday: Jandek's 52nd album is almost definitely less interesting then #s 1-51
by Alec Hanley Bemis
April 29, 2008 5:00 PM
Previously in this series:
- SXSW Flashback: Even Jandek is a SXSW whore
- Discovering Jandek: his oeuvre & some typical Jandek jams
Don't tell me this multi-part critical/blogeriffic exploration of Jandek isn't timely. A week or so ago, the man in black -- by which I mean Jandek -- released his 52nd album, The Myth of Blue Icicles. I know this because I saw it listed in the email list of beloved San Francisco record store Aquarius Records. (No, Jandek's shit is not on iTunes except for an odd appearance on a compilation or two. Apparently Jandek is playing hardball with Steve Jobs, just like the Beatles and Radiohead.)
Here's an excerpt of Aquarius's review of the record:
JANDEK "The Myth Of Blue Icicles" (Corwood) cd 8.98
For a while there, we used to really try and keep up with the detailed reviewin' of new Jandek joints as they came out... but now that we, and he, are on his 52nd (!) record, it's tough. We still like getting a new Jandek cd, to get another shot of that one of a kind Jandek feeling (lonely, weird, confusional) and they're cheap enough, so we hope he keeps on cranking 'em out (pretty sure he will, based on his track record over the last thirty years!!) but having something new to say about the mysterious Texas troubadour isn't easy. Of course, he's not *quite* so mysterious as he used to be, with live performances (begun in 2004) now almost commonplace. The front cover picture on this one (a grinning red haired man, who now we can identify as Jandek himself in younger days, photographed against a portion of Houston skyline) needn't necessarily be read for signs and portents the way they used to, but his words and music remain pretty opaque.
Note the weary "our heart is not quite in this anymore" tone. The reception of Jandek's new releases among his most ardent supporters -- record geeks -- has become less and less welcoming over the years, revealing a few sad truths about the Jandek phenomenon.
One: In the internet era, anyone whose artistic aura depends entirely on mystery is going to have an entirely more difficult time sustaining that aura.
Two: Jandek's music, over the long haul, just isn't that interesting.
Also worth noting on this front is Jandek's full discography page at Forced Exposure, one of the earliest and most fervent distributors of Corwood Industries product. See if you can sense an evolution in that excitement over time as traced through the album descriptions:
The 4th album: "absolutely riveting"The 16th album: "It recalls the savage beauty of Mr. Howling Wolf..."
The 23rd album "Haunting, eternal genius, continued."
The 30th album: "As with Put My Dream On This Planet, this is an all-a capella affair, recording in same hi-hiss/gated-silence ratio. Opening with a 29-minute track, it follows through with 11 shorter vignettes. I have no idea what to say."
The 31st album: "The 31st Jandek album, this is the third document in Jandek's new solo-vocal style, following Put My Dream On This Planet & This Narrow Road. The cover photo depicts our man wearing a sweater I wouldn't be got dead in, standing in front of a red barn. Your views of the farming industry might just change ever so much..."
Don't feel bad Jandek, they're just not that into you anymore.
After the jump, Aquarius's full review of Jandek's new jam, and some more reviews from Forced Exposure.
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Death Cab for Cutie to play secret show at Spaceland at 5 p.m. today
by Randall Roberts
April 29, 2008 4:17 PM
It's a KROQ show, so there's no chance of getting in at this point. But you never know. I'm on my way over there now, though with LA Weekly's recent move to the West Side, I'm hoping to get there by midnight. If the traffic gods are with me, I'll be there by 5:15.
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Let the Grieving Process Begin: Pink Floyd's Inflatable Pig Found Dead
by Randall Roberts
April 29, 2008 3:19 PM
It's a hard time for everyone, I know. But we have to get through this together.
The LA Weekly would like to open the comments section so you, the reader, can share your thoughts and remembrances on Roger Waters' and Pink Floyd's inflatable pig, dead, we're assuming, as a result of exploding.
The pig, in happier times, floating above the Hollywood Bowl
The Zapruder Film of Coachella 2008: last known image of The Pig before it blowed up.
But it's time to start asking some hard questions. In whose charge was the pig? Had Waters and his production team ever combined the inflatable pig with a big explosion before? Was the Coachella crowd in any danger? What if the fire had burned through the vinyl pig? Could it have exploded above the crowd, sending searing hot vinyl pig carcass onto the fans below??? WTF???
Any theories? Have you seen a Roger Waters or Pink Floyd show where they did both pig and fire simultaneously? How did it make you feel? Should there be an investigation? Or should we just be thankful that we lived in the same moment in history as the pig?
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There are very few breaking news stories in the music biz, and Pink Floyd's escaped flying pig ranks pretty high up there. Sources tell us that there are now two reports of pig -recovery operations currently underway in nearby La Quinta, California.
Imagine this pig exploding high up in the atmosphere, and floating down onto the village of La Quinta. Somebody should write a boring rock opera about it.
LA Weekly will be offering round-the-clock reportage on what is perhaps the most tragic event in Coachella history. We dedicate this post to the pig. It was a great run, and you almost made it.
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She & Him
The Vista Theatre, 4/28/08
By Jonah Flicker
At 7pm, there was already a long line winding around the corner outside the Vista Theatre in Los Feliz, eager fans waiting to see She & Him perform. It soon became clear that there was some sort of delay, as 7:30 came and went and the doors remained closed. The only sensible course of action seemed to be cocktails, a surefire, age-old method of passing the time. Margaritas at the newly renovated El Chavo turned into fruity, neon-colored concoctions at Good Luck Bar, (The Tiki Ti was sadly closed). By 8:30, it seemed wise to leave the bar and secure a seat in the theater, but I’ll be damned if the line wasn’t even longer. Fortunately, the powers-that-be decided to open the floodgates shortly thereafter, and the crowd slowly trickled inside.
I had my doubts, but a concert at the Vista turns out to be a pretty good idea. The comfortable-for-a-movie-theater seating was filled with an extremely polite crowd and the smell of popcorn happens to be a very pleasant odor to enjoy music too. Lavender Diamond opened the show. Their beatific chamber-folk was surprisingly good, but I’m just not feeling singer Becky Starks’ little girl act. Her voice rings out true and clear when she sings, but, during her stage banter, her cutesy quirk felt put on and unnecessary.
(No photography allowed, so here's a clip of She & Him at SXSW a few weeks ago.)
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I wish I could say that this was a joke, but I saw the damned pig float away myself Sunday night during Roger Waters' set at Coachella. As it drifted up, I contemplated why Waters would release the pig, endanger the airplane circling the field advertising something or other, and litter the earth not only with his pomposity but with the symbol of that pomposity. But, no.
The pig in question, before sprouting wings. Will its arrival in the the jungles of South America be greeted by believers as a sign from God? (Photo by Timothy Norris)
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Coachella Day 3-Never Underestimate How Long It Takes to Blow Up An Inflatable Pig
by Jeff Weiss
April 28, 2008 2:26 PM
By the third day, we were knocked out, loaded. Hungover, weary, wandering the festival grounds like lethargic lemmings, queuing in lines off instinct, jostled, aggravated and in no mood for the weird Aramaic gibberish spouted by the kid seeing God underneath the Tesla Coil. Three days of this is too much to handle, unless you're either steadily downing a diet of amphetamines, booze and hash; 16 years old, and/or Keith Richards at 16 years old.
To make matters worse, Sunday's lineup had no chance in hell of topping Saturday's Prince/Portishead extravaganza and everyone knew it. Scalpers couldn't give tickets away and out of the five years I've been to Coachella, I've never seen fewer people on the field. It actually would've been nice, had my brain not felt it was composed out of hardened tapioca pudding and squelched grape fruit. The performance enhancing drugs, the miles of walking, and the dry desert heat have a way of sapping any and all energy you may have left after two days. Yeah, seeing Chromeo and Justice would've been nice, but the P.C.E. * levels would've been far too high. The followers of Vigo the Carpathian, scourge of Moldavia, were still out in masse, tucked away from the scrum, creeping their way through the VIP section. Even Carmen Electra was there and something told me that she and her ilk weren't staying late to see Roger Waters.
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Chromeo at Coachella
By Chris Martins
Roger Waters was neck-deep in pyrotechnics and paisley. The Gobi Tent was done, abandoned 'til next year, and the grass 'round second stage was given up to sleepers, trippers and young love. Black Mountain was beardily spinning country-fried psychedelia to a small but appreciative camp. Coachella was winding down. Then an odd chant, coming from the last tent: "Chro-MEE-oh, OOOOOOoooo," followed by a blast of light that revealed a solid third of festival population, crammed together under dust, smoke and stage-fog, nervously shuffling their feet and waiting for the dance fix that would carry them onward to Justice (the band, but quite possibly the concept as well). It was packed and as the curtain was pulled, a shot of crunchy synthetic bass blew the hordes back a step. For all of their cheeky bullshit, Dave 1 and P-Thugg blasted their Prince-biting electrofunk to the metal rafters, earning their billing for the night, and leaving no question that they weren't just fluffers for the act to follow. One young lady hit the ground, eyes rolling back. She'd have to be carried out. Even in 2008, disco is still destroying lives.
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If there was one transformative performance at this year's Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, I'd say it was Santogold's Friday night statement-of-purpose. The festival, which wrapped up last night with a Pink Floyd flashback courtesy of Roger Waters and a furious day-long Sahara tent throwdown with highlight sets by Booka Shade, Modeselektor and Simian Mobile Disco (who used to annoy me, but when they dropped Plastikman's "Spastik" rhythm halfway through their set, I forgave them all their lighter-than-air sins), contained multitudes, but it was Brooklyn's Santogold (born Santi White), who concentrated all the sounds into one sparse, beautiful essence.
It was the songs, of course, and Santogold's wide-ranging tastes and influences, that shone brightest. But her two dancers sealed the deal. Dressed in identical black pants, white sleeveless blouses and checkered sunglasses, they danced like Public Enemy's troupe/security detail, the S-1Ws, as choreographed by Bob Fosse. They moved, but in fits and starts with the rhythm. There was motion, but there was just as much non-motion. It was funky. It was fresh. It was a dance I'd like to learn (yeah, right).
Read all of LA Weekly's Coachella coverage.
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Coachella Day Three: Neil Diamond's Amazing Performance Opening for Justice
by Randall Roberts
April 28, 2008 8:40 AM
Sunday at the Empire Polo Field is softer than Saturday, more like Seurot than the previous day's Van Gogh, a little hazy and lazy and everybody's sleeping off last night's feast. Sunday = day of rest, except that at Coachella that's not true, at least in the Sahara tent, which is packed with LA's koolest kids walking around with cockeyed hats and 'tude, and have no more desire to leave Sahara today than the pampered VIPers do to leave to soft grass and the sushi.
"Hi, I'd like to order a box of headbands, overnighted to the VIP area, please." (Photo by Randall Roberts)
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I can’t freakin' wait until Yeasayer come back to Los Angeles. I feel itchy knowing that last Friday's show at the Ukranian Culture Center on Melrose was their only L.A. engagement.
Yeasayer is one band that requires you to hold your impressions until you’ve seen their live performance. As interesting as the single “2080” is for the dooming lyrics and the ethereal use of chant-like synthesized vocals, it can seem a little Ren-fair. And that’s totally why many people like it; it’s the Peter-Gabriel-trying-to-perform-like-David-Byrne throwback. Also, during the song “Sunrise,” I just can’t stop thinking of Traffic’s “Low Spark of High Heeled Boys.” The music could easily slip into the realm of, well, dorky. Compared to their oft-likened kindred spirits TV On The Radio, “Final Path” makes Yeasayer seem like TVOTR’s extremely smart, pimply, Magic: The Gathering little cousin.
But Yeasayer were crowned Ukranian Kings Friday night in that crazy (and really cool) hall, for two reasons. 1) the keyboardist and lead singer, Chris Keating, is a gifted performer, and confident as hell. His face and body contort under the dense pressure of their music and lyrics, almost to the point where he looks pained. It’s hypnotizing. If he hadn't been as entrancing, the live show would've been completely different. And 2) I haven’t seen such an stupendous light display feat since I was 12 years old and went to the observatory to watch the Pink Floyd laserium show. Straight out of Big Brother and the Holding Company. When I saw A Place to Bury Strangers powering through their “Ocean” finale a few months ago, I didn’t want to bob my head or blink because I was afraid of missing something. During Yeasayer, I may as well have been dipped in carbon freeze.
Yeasayer. Go see them. Go to the ends of the earth if you need to. Their music would be perfect along the way.
Groovy. Photos by Rena Kosnett
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Coachella Envy: Why did the artist formerly known as the unpronounceable symbol guy have to ruin it for all of us curmudgeons?
by Alec Hanley Bemis
April 28, 2008 7:00 AM
To recant my previous post, I will admit that the photographs of Beth Gibbon's performing over a 100x enlargement of her own face made me a bit jealous of you all that got to attend this shindig...as did this shaky video of Prince:
Fuzzy = yes. Blurry = yes. Doused in purple light = natch.
Somehow it gets the point across. Listen for the end where some dude near the guy filming it yells out "Epic!"
If the speedy takedown of Prince's Super Bowl performance from 2007 is any indication, you should watch this right now.
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Coachella Day Two: The Accidental Tourist, or Can We Please All Agree To Stop Using the Phrase “Coachella-Ella-Ella-Ella”
by Jeff Weiss
April 27, 2008 4:08 PM
I ran into a guy I knew from high school standing in line for the restrooms in the VIP area. I hadn't seen him in a decade but was about four glasses of $7 wine deep and feeling good. No reason not to be friendly, after all, I no longer harbored a grudge from that time in the 11th grade when he tried to tell me that Magoo was a great rapper, a moment in which I knew that our friendship was well on its way to being up-jumps-the boogied.
"Hey Vargas," I greeted him. (Names have been changed to protect the insolent)
"Hey Weiss," he responded with a dazed, bovine look on his face. "I'm so wasted."
"Cisco?"
"No. I didn't see him here. But I think I just saw Mischa Barton and I definitely saw Paris Hilton." he said,
"I meant...never mind...so have you seen anyone good today?"
"No, just some friends. We went to the Spin party, it was awesome."
"I mean like bands. Have you seen any good music."
"Ha..." he chucked drunkenly, leaning in towards me and spewing hot boozy breath all over me. "I don't know anyone who's playing. But they sound good from here!
"You can't hear anything from here."
He ignored the question.
"This place is an awesome party! Have you ever seen this many hot chicks?"
"Once, in an incubator."
"You've still got the same sense of humor, huh Weiss?" he slapped himself on the forehead, doing my work for him.
"It's not me, it's the drugs," I smirked and walked off, bobbing and weaving my way past the "hot chicks" re-intepreting Rihanna's "Umbrella," as "Coach-ella-ella-ella." Needless to say, if one were ever to start recruiting a Fourth Reich, he would be wise to begin conscripting the thousands of ding-bats lurking past the velvet rope, er chain link fence.
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Coachella Day Two: The Triumvirate of Kraftwerk, Portishead and Prince
by Randall Roberts
April 27, 2008 3:13 PM
The Coachella mainstage on Saturday night was a glory to behold, a spirit-lifting evening celebrating joy through technology, through contemplation and through celebration. In a single four hour chunk of time, the lucky masses at Coachella witnessed two-and-a-half humongous performances, two of which were nearly epochal.
The fans at Hot Chip were very excited and very happy. (All photos by Timothy Norris)
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Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, Day 2
Yo! at the Gobi tent, 7:40 p.m.
By Chris Martins
Yo! Majesty kept it in their shirts. It's true - the Tampa-based, female-fronted answer to 2 Live Crew adroitly circumvented legal woes by neither rapping with their mams in the wind, nor outwardly woman-handling any of the young, more lithe ladies of the audience. But what was lost in novelty and voyeuristic draw was more than made up for in sheer mic-wielding skills and a more family-friendly show - you know, the one with two hardcore black butches rapping about pouring Courvesier down girls' throats before they "fuck dat shit!"
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Nekromantix / FreakShow Deluxe
LA Convention Center
April 25, 2008
Could there be a less spooky place for the Nekromantix to play? Even late at night, walking through the parking structure of the Convention Center, through the huge empty hallways, there isn't a bit of menace to the place. You have to feel kind of bad for the band and all of the people who came out to see them in their Halloween-y best, only to end up in a room that probably recently served as the conference room for a convention of time-share salesmen.
While following the sound of some circus music, I did pass a row of the Coffin Girls just coming off of their fashion show. My camera was packed away, so, click the link if you want to see 'em for yourself.
Once in the ballroom, I made a beeline for the cordoned-off beer corner, which was inconveniently placed as far as possible from the stage, as if getting a beer too close to the stage could cause some terrible tragedy.
(View from the beer corner.)
Who knew the Nekromantix were a family show? yet quite a few kids milled around with their cool, punk/goth/rocker parents.
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All photos by Timothy Norris.
Vampire Weekend appear in broad daylight, above and below.
Kim (or Kelly) Deal of The Breeders
Jack White with The Raconteurs
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Coachella, Day One: The National, the Sunset, and the Masses
by Randall Roberts
April 26, 2008 2:08 PM
The National at Coachella, Day One.
By Chris Martins
Photos by Timothy Norris
The National were off to a strong start, but something wasn't right. The weather was just shy of idyllic; the band - expanded to seven with the addition of horns - was almost synced; the crowd was flirting with movement.
But singer Matt Berninger - dressed in black, looking in profile like a handsomer, whisky-soaked and wiry Philip Seymour Hoffman - seemed stricken by the audience's size. He'd grab his head like Thom Yorke, pained, reaching deep for those guttural man-pipes but coming back with a handful of nearly there. Then it happened. The sun hit the horizon and cast the crowd in orange, the white stage lights flared gilding the band in platinum, and Berninger swallowed whatever was in the cooling air, screaming to the scaffolding: "We're half-awake in fake empire!" He shredded his throat with abandon and, just like that, the baritone was there. Drums, guitar, bass, and voice hit an epic stride. The horns blazed. On the grass, ponytails flailed and feet moved. A guy in a sailor hat mouthed the wrong words. He'd probably never heard the song before.
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I hate lines. They're somewhere in the lower rungs of my own personal inferno along with club kids in fedoras, the Los Angeles Dodgers and the abstract concept of valet parking. Unfortunately, entering Coachella brings me into contact with three of those four food groups as quite often, while waiting in the Bataan Death march-like line to get in, you wind up next to a car full of trust-funders in fedoras maligning the Andruw Jones acquisition (seriously, you give the guy $40 million and he shows up to camp looking like Pop-N-Fresh?). It's times like this, I like to play a game creatively entitled, "What Band Are They Hear to See." As for the fedora fedayeen, I'd bet even money they were there to see Diplo. Or maybe Spank Rock. The guy strutting to the right of our car wearing a scarf in 100 degree weather? Vampire Weekend. The shirtless frat brahs tossing around a football? Jack Johnson. The girls to the left of us who wrote "Licking Windows all the Way to Coachella," on the exterior of their Toyota Carolla. Slightly Stoopid. No questions asked. But the lines. Good lord the lines. Two hours trying to leave, one trying to enter. An interminable snarl of scalpers hawking tickets and t-shirts, hazy beat-up brown dust, beads of sweat slipping slowly down your spine, dull heat-stroke headache, Lawrence of Arabia thirst, and that gnashed teeth silence where you ruminate on the simple fact that after nearly a decade of doing this, no one has been able to figure out how to get cars in and out of the Empire Polo Grounds faster than than 250 feet per hour. And all this while the palm trees tauntingly sway in the breeze, laughing, calmly, coolly, reminding you of all the wonderful things waiting to be seen. That is if you ever get in--chump.
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Coachella Day One: The Raconteurs Stomp the Bejeesus Out of Vampire Weekend
by Randall Roberts
April 26, 2008 12:38 PM
Coachella, Day One
It was hard to watch, honestly. There was blood all over the place. The security guys kept pulling Jack White off of Vampire Weekend lead singer Ezra Koenig, but White kept coming, veins popping, eyes way gone and spiraling, guitar sound set to “pummel,” prowling on the main stage of the 2008 Coachella Valley Art and Music Festival in Indio, California. He absolutely ruined Koenig's pink shorts - and on day one, no less. Hopefully Vampire Weekend's designer is on the case and they can overnight a new pair or something.
nice pink shorts, dude, but not very rock & roll.
Photos by Timothy Norris
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Bob the Lefsetz vs. Antony & the Johnsons. ALSO, some words about Coachella.
by Alec Hanley Bemis
April 25, 2008 3:30 PM
Well, I didn't put up the posts I was trying to get in this week on Jandek & Music Now. And unfortunately I have no interest in posting about Coachella and, now that I'm thinking of it, fairly minimal interest in actually attending Coachella. It strikes me as just another stop on the music industry's blog-friendly, media-worshipping clusterfuck of mediocrity.
Sure, I'd love to see whatever Aphex Twin is going to do -- if he even shows up. (I hear he sometimes sends doubles to perform in his stead.) And yes, groups like Simian Mobile Disco, Spank Rock, Justice, Black Lips and Kraftwerk will all thrive on that type of huge, drunk, whipped up crowd. Okay I guess this is a Coachella post and those are my recommendations...
But when it comes down to it, I have very little interest in that kind of expression and that kind of experience. The one and only time I went to Coachella I got a heatstroke and all I remember was that the Libertines canceled, the Rapture sounded okay, the Blue Man Group addressed the crowd as if we were all watching a mock-fascist rally, and the Beastie Boys did their whole old man rapper thing. (Not that awesome! Kind of sad! Neat orange jumpsuits!)
So, instead, let me offer some counter-programming, a video of the last artist one would never expect to see in a place like Indio, Antony & the Johnsons:
The person who introduced me to this clip was the most least likely of Antony supporters, our friend Bob Lefsetz, who introduced the singer with this total douchebag comment:
I know, you're asking yourself...is this guy gay? I mean what's up with his hair? Couldn't he go on a diet?
Really though, if you're anything like me that's not what you think about when you see this clip. Rather you're thinking about how much this performance just breaks your heart. It's not just the voice. It's the wet on his lips. It's the look on his face at the end of it. This almost total experience of ecstasy.
Antony's already been getting a lot of love this year for his performances on Hercules and Love Affair's s/t debut, a Pitchfork-acclaimed, as-of-yet-unavailable in America dance-type project to which he contributes his incredibly distinctive and evocative vocals. I can't wait for his band's new record which is coming later this year.
After the jump, Lefsetz's comments on Antony in their entirety. (Yes, Lefsez sort of redeems himself, as he usually does in my eyes...)
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At last night's cool Filter party at the Corona Yacht Club, I ran into sculptor Christopher Janney, whose Sonic Forest installation will once again appear as part of Coachella's art offerings. Janney has been working for the past week to install his work at the Empire Polo Field, where the 2008 Coachella Valley Music and Arts festival began today. One of the perks of being on site early are the sound checks, and Janney told a funny story from yesterday. While on site, music was carrying across the valley, which is nothing unusual this week. This was some nice sounding funk, a little unexpected considering the festival's rock bent. And then the singer stepped in, and immediately Janney realized that Prince was in the house, here two days early to work out his show. Of course Janney made a beeline to see the sound check.
Christopher Janney's Sonic Forest
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On the Coachella Express, there are a few distinct types of people: the media, which was invited to document the maiden voyage of the Amtrak line that departed LA's Union Station Thursday afternoon, and who wouldn't leave the kids alone. Local LA news crews were doing their two-minute Coachella stories for the ten o'clock news. A TV cameraman shot a group of hipsters while a square news reporter poked a mike in their faces and asked silly questions like, "Why are you going to Coachella? What are you hoping to find?" Answer, from an obviously disinterested dude: "Uh, music?" She was looking for something profound, but the dude wasn't budging. He was looking forward to Justice, as was everyone on board. They can't stop talking about Justice.
The media search for the meaning of Coachella on the train.
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This video for The Dodos new song, "Fools," brings to mind subtle advances in what -- just a few years ago -- seemed like aesthetic + technological breakthroughs. In the song itself, the band take the sound Animal Collective pioneered with Sung Tungs (heedless, avant-garde, equally indebted to ecstatic devotional music as it was to indie rock) and they imbue it with a friendly, indie pop-music sheen.
The video file itself takes the media revolutions introduced by YouTube (embeds, convenience, instant loading & playback) and turns up the resolution several notches. I grabbed this video from the recently unveiled Pitchfork.tv. Maybe the online video experience will one day serve up real eye candy like this rather than the current standard experience, which is fuzzy, pixelated, and not-as-good as television. It's akin to being offered a buffet of food (soup, cake, etc), and then being told you can only eat it with chopsticks.
BTW, while all the reasons I've just enumerated contribute to my critical interest in this song, when it comes down to it, I just like it because it moves, it moves, and it never never stops...
After the jump, the YouTube version of the same video. Eat that cake with chopsticks bitchez!
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Photos from the Calvin Harris show, Wednesday night, at the Henry Fonda Theater by Timothy Norris
More after the jump. All photos by Timothy Norris
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These days there’s every reason to be skeptical of a reunion concert. After the breakup we watch our heroes get older, buy their post-Great-Band solo projects with worried hearts and minds, certain that they have peaked and that nothing they do could capture the magic of the Grand Statement of Purpose they delivered when we were all young and in love.
photo courtesy of NME
And we’re usually right because that thing that was special about the band, say, for example, Jane’s Addiction, mostly exists in our head, in our memory of when they, like us, were younger, more beautiful and in better shape. They gave us their music, and we accepted it. It’s a memory of energy transfer, of constructing a conduit between musician and listener, and pouring music, beautiful music, through it.
Like the aging process itself, that conduit tends to shrink over time, and during reunion concerts only a smidgen of the former energy is able to squeeze through (okay, this metaphor is getting gross). It’s not the same. But last night at the El Rey, Jane’s Addiction totally tapped into whatever that was they once had, and shut us snobby-ass skeptics the hell up. Boom, like they’d been rehearsing for years, they kicked into “Stop” and the four original members, for the first time in 17 years, played their music together, and it was really great.
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On last year's None Shall Pass tour, Aesop tabbed Pittsburgh psych weirdos Black Moth Super Rainbow to open for him. It was an inspired move and one that I recommend more rappers do, lest I get stuck standing stupidly watching a bunch of mush-mouthed Myspace MC's clinging to arbitrary 20th Century notions of what constitutes "underground rap." (And why are you kids still wasting your night handing CD's outside the show? Haven't you heard of the Internet? )
Superficially, the pairing of Black Moth Super Rainbow front-man, Tobacco would make for a weird mix. They're hippie-freaks from the woods outside of Pittsburgh who play Richard Simmons videos at their concerts and name themselves after cash crops. Aesop is a misanthropic, hyper-syllabic B-boy from New York who used to call himself "Bazooka Tooth." Then again, marijuana has been known for its keen ability to unite seemingly disparate entities. Not to mention that last year's Dandelion Gum, with its woozy drum machines, cavernous mellotrons and pink bubblegum and LSD vibe, felt more like a cross between Moon Safari-era Air and Edan's Beauty and the Beat record than it did "indie rock".
This lazy Summer, aesthetic meshes nicely with Aesop's thinking man's stoner sensibility on "Dirt." Over Tobacco's fractured pop, Aesop falls back in the pocket and takes rapid jabs at the beat, rather than trying to overwhelm it to prove his virtuosity. It's a wise move and it makes for my favorite psych-rap song since "Beauty." Not to mention the thing got heavy burn on my iPod all day Sunday. Just listening to it, you can catch a contact.
Download:
MP3: Tobacco ft. Aesop Rock-"Dirt"
From Black Moth Super Rainbow-Dandelion Gum
MP3: Black Moth Super Rainbow-"Forever Heavy"
MP3: Black Moth Super Rainbow-"Sun Lips"
From the Split Collaboration with Octopus Project, The House of Apples and Eyeball
MP3: Black Moth Super Rainbow-"Spiracle"
From Start a People
MP3: Black Moth Super Rainbow-"Vietcaterpillar"
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Record cover design finally catches up with "the new ugly"?
by Alec Hanley Bemis
April 23, 2008 11:00 AM
It's always easy to come up with litany of "things that just depress us about contemporary pop culture today." You know things like upskirt shots of Britney Spears, whatever it is that Perez Hilton does, Josh Groban's stellar record sales history, et. al. To me, though, these things are simply trainwrecks. Best to just look the other way...
My disappointments tend to be a bit more subtle. Opportunities for aesthetic advancement and pleasure not taken. On my list, one peeve reigns supreme: record covers these days.
Here, via Pitchfork, are two of the worst examples thereof, by two of today's biggest genre stars, from hip-hop Lil' Wayne and from alt-rock Weezer. But wait, neither of these records are actually out yet, and all it takes is a cursory read of Pitchfork's headlines in debuting these covers (#1: Dear God, Please Let This Be the Lil Wayne Album Cover and #2: Is This Really the New Weezer Album Cover?) to realize what's amazing about them is their unlikelihood, their impossibility, the fact that critics are doubting they're even for real.
To my mind, shock tends to be a sure sign of artistic success (or at least artistic intrigue). And, at the end of the day, I've begun to take great pleasure in these covers, the way they seem to acknowledge the reduced graphic design standards of the day -- be it the ease & misuse of Photoshop, or the inherent limitations of interactive, internet graphics. Are these examples of "the new ugly" as discussed in Design Observer and the New York Times? (Both articles worth reading for those who want to stay on the cutting edge of graphic design cocktail chat.) The factors these pieces seem to consider are largely related to color and type rather than photography, but this is a natural difference that might occur in the record business (a business devoted to celebrities and the photographic deification thereof) versus the fashion and magazine scene (businesses devoted to style in its purest form, unhinged from personality).
After the jump, a single song that proves why Lil' Wayne is worth paying attention to.
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You can complain all you want about Coachella 2008's roster, but the reality that I'll be seeing Kraftwerk followed by Portishead followed by Prince on Saturday night is pretty frickin' exciting.
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10 Reasons Why The Wu-Tang Clan's "The Heart Gently Weeps" Video Might Be Their Worst Ever
by Jeff Weiss
April 22, 2008 4:00 PM
1. Who made the decision to have an Asian Bjork clone perform a feather dance for one of the video's main plot threads? Okay fine, we all know the answer was Rza, but really, was Erykah Badu that busy taking trips to Israel with Jay Electronica that Bobby couldn't convince her to show up for a couple hours to lip-sync the hook? In other news, there is an 82 percent shot of Baduian/Black Israelite influence yielding an Electronica song entitled "Shalom Bitches and Drugs."
2. Why is Gza listening to wire-taps for the duration of the video? Isn't he supposed to be doing all sorts of crazy liquid sword-type killings or at least playing chess? Did someone brain-wash him into believing that he's a War II Navajo from the film, Windtalkers. And by someone, I naturally mean the Rza.
3. Wu videos have side-stepped having nothing to do with the song itself. Shit, the "Triumph" video plot line barely extended past "New York City is Getting Invaded by Wu Killa Bees," but it remains the most awesomest video in the history of awesomeness. Yet "The Heart Gently Weeps" is a hackneyed re-hash of Kill Bill. I know Tarantino and Rza are really really into double-dating (no, Quentin, you drive this time, I drove last time), but this just as predictable and infinitely less entertaining than Rick Ross jumping off a bridge for getting a speeding infraction.
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Kanye West with Rihanna and N.E.R.D., April 21, Nokia Theatre L.A. Live
If you're going see Kanye West's second of two shows at the Nokia tonight, you should bone up on the narrative, because like all big ticket stage spectacles – Cats, Stomp, “Oh, Streetcar!” – there’s kinda sorta a half-assed storyline which ties all the stuff together. So: We’re on a deserted planet with a shipwrecked man, who we first see sprawled out on stage. A big computer screen drops from the ceiling. The Hal-like monotone voice of an omniscient narrator, Jane, greets us and explains something about the universe being in danger and there being only one hope. That hope is (who else?) Kanye West.
photos by Randall Roberts (sorry, Kanye's peeps didn't allow professional photographers to shoot, so you got me and a cell camera)
Yes, like Sun Ra, David Bowie, Kool Keith, Funkadelic, and Electric Light Orchestra before him, Kanye West is in outer space, the 21st century version of which is very high tech and features jumbo screen backdrops that project different settings (Mars-like surfaces, flying through galaxies, moving through robotic corridors, etc.). West as spaceman pumps through his jams in front of these settings, and between songs to add a little weirdness and indulge West in his fantasy of being Superhero of the Universe, Jane drops down from the ceiling and says things like “You’re the brightest star in the universe,” and “You’re our only hope.” She told us when the shooting stars were unable to continue powering the spaceship, and advised our hero to step it up a notch when necessary.
Not that he needed much prompting. It was just him, and he worked it. Except for a brief Lupe Fiasco appearance near the end, West was alone onstage the entire night, and were it not for a brief, awkward moment at the show’s close when he tried (but failed) to shine the house lights on his backing band (which he had hidden behind the projection screen) I would have left thinking that West had played to a backing track.
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Go out and visit your local independent record store today, if there is still one within 100 miles or so.
You know your business model is in trouble when you get a "day" devoted to it. Why, I remember celebrating "Floppy Disc Day" and "Blacksmith Appreciation Day" as if they were yesterday.
There are some really cool things going on at stores around town, though.
Amoeba Records in Hollywood has a DJ set by Daniel Ash and David J (And Love & Rockets are playing a pre-Coachella show at the Glasshouse on Tuesday by the way, if you can get in), and also sets by Peanutbutter Wolf, the Donnas and giveaways for $50 gift certificates and other goodies.
Hip-hop store Fat Beats has discounts on everything all day long, and free shipping online.
Fingerprints in Long Beach doesn't have info posted that I can see, but they're still cool as hell, and you should go support them.
Freakbeat Records in Sherman Oaks: If you haven't been there. It's run by Bob Say who ran the Moby Disc chain, and there is probably not a more knowledgeable record store guy alive. Tell Bob hi, and take advantage of cheap LPs (99 cent ones are marked down toa quarter for pete's sake) and other discounts.
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The Parson Redheads make sunny day music. I noted this in my Stylus review for last year's King Giraffe. It is now springtime in Los Angeles and everything is 85 degrees and radiant and glowing and even dedicated cranks such as myself have trouble being unhappy in these moments. This is when the Parson Redheads make sense. The group have a new EP coming out called Owl and Timber. I assume this is an homage to their Oregon upbringing, because as a life-long Angeleno I can safely say that I have never seen any owls nor any timber (though I did once see Tiny Tim). If you live in LA, or really any place with sunshine, downloading "Got It All" and putting it on your iPod while walking around someplace nice is strongly endorsed. Carry on.
MP3: The Parson Redheads-"Got It All"
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Part 1: Thoughts on Music Now. (The festival that is. You'll have to wait for my multi-volume treatise on the state of music today.)
by Alec Hanley Bemis
April 18, 2008 2:00 PM
Below: snapshot of Grizzly Bear founder Ed Droste "getting crunk" -- yes, that's a quote -- in the parking lot prior to their appearance at the 2008 edition of the Music Now festival:
Two weeks ago a lovely conjunction of work and pleasure took me to Cincinnati, OH to attend the third annual installment of the Music Now Festival, booked by my friend and business partner, Bryce Dessner, from the indie rock band The National. The groups billed to play the festival included Bang on a Can All-Stars, Wilco drummer Glenn Kotche, Andrew Bird, Dirty Projectors, Grizzly Bear, and Bill Frisell. More interesting, perhaps, was the fact that indie rock royalty like Sufjan Stevens and Arcade Fire's Richard Reed Parry were wandering about -- to participate in brief guest spots on stage, yes -- but moreov