CHPB KICK OFF JAM

July 22nd, 2010

The Crodile

Seattle, Wa

You’ve heard of the “after party”, but this year Seattle festivals have adopted the new tradition of holding “launch” or “Kick Off” parties.  “Before the party’s the Kick Off Party.“  It’s like R. Kelly in reverse.  The “Re-remix to Ignition“.  When your festival already contains the term “Party” in its title, it can feel a little unnecessary or excessive.  I wish that I could honestly say that it didn’t feel that way at the actual event, but I can’t.  [Correction: in all fairness, this was technically a kick of "jam" not "party".  Our apologize for anyone that was dying to correct me before I was able to apologize.]

Just like the Sasquatch Festival‘s “Launch Party” equivalent, The Capitol Hill Block Party‘s “Kick Off Jam” was held at the somewhat-recently reopened historic local club, The Crocodile.  Sasquatch‘s event featured performances by Surfer Blood, Atlas Sound, and local hip hop duo, Fresh Espresso.  I believe it was sponsored by E-Surance.  This event was headlined by Holy Fuck Holy F! with OBITZ and Unnatural Helpers opening.  We were contacted by DICKIES workwear about being VIP-listed for the show.  It was still a free event, otherwise, as long as you RSVP‘d on the site of their co-sponsor, FILTER Magazine.

The concert was held on Thurs. July 22nd, the night before the Block Party officially “kicked off”.  Sean Prince headed down to the show with me as the “plus 1” and we were given bracelets upon entry.  They didn’t seem to have much use, except for allowing us into the mostly dead area of an upstairs bar.

Unnatural Helpers took the stage in full-on DICKIES coveralls.  Some might have been turned off by the idea of that “corporate” element, but DICKIES is honestly not a bad sponsor to be affiliated with.  It’s not like it was Hollister; this is the clothing of choice for skateboarders and vatos.  I just saw it as a fun opportunity for them to grab some free shit.  Unnatural Helpers have gone through quite a few lineup changes over the years, rotating around original member/front man Dean Whitmore.  Whitmore sat front and center behind his drumkit, doubling up garage punk beats with screaming vocals.  The group was high energy and Whitmore is an engaging figure live.  At the beginning of the set, he joked about how they were the obvious choice to kick start the entire weekend.  At one point, an audience member requested the song, “Girl in the Window” and Sean Prince followed it up by screaming “Girl in a Pinto“.  The barrier between audience and stage seemed to all but dissipate.  It felt much more like a house party than anything.  Joking or not, the rock quartet was definitely the perfect band to start off the evening.  The show was energetic enough to get shit rolling, but light enough not to burn out too fast.  It’s no surprise that they are booked as the openers for Mudhoney‘s upcoming European tour, because I couldn’t think of a better act to support them right now.

Obits was next and, although they aren’t a terrible band, they just didn’t do it for me.  Genre-wise, they have a similar sound as Uunnatural Helpers, but their stage presence didn’t have much of a pulse.  Besides guitarist/vocalist, Rick Froberg (ex-Hot Snakes and Drive Like Jehu) the rest of the band seemed to be mentally adrift.  The set was just kind of boring.  We went back up to the “VIP” balcony, when someone came up to me and gave me some drink tickets.  Finally those fucking wrist bands were proving good for something.  I pointed him out to Sean, who went and requested some more for himself.  We left for the rest of the set and I wound up drinking and eating nachos and pulled pork at an establishment a few blocks away.

Eventually, I came back to catch Holy Fuck! and to cash in on those free drinks.  The place was still moderately full but the energy that had been stirred up by the opening act must have seeped out the window.  The “official” event silk screen poster (pictured above) was advertised as a limited item that would only be available to those who arrived early enough.  By this time there was still a woman sitting with a stack of them, which hardly anyone even came over to claim.  For me, it wasn’t even worth carrying it around.

Holy Fuck! was on stage but there seemed to be a bit of disconnect between them and the audience.  With the drumkit and bass in the back and 2 tables filled with electronics facing each other towards the front of the stage, the quartet was arranged in a pseudo-circle.  They were playing towards each other as much as they were to anyone in the crowd.  I was standing towards the back by the bar where the sounds of disinterested drunken chatter challenged the electronica from the stage.  It was clear that half of the people didn’t really give a shit and were only there because it was a free event.  Holy Fuck! has garnered a solid amount of critical praise, but I didn’t experience anything that helped to separate them from any of the other myriad of the synth-focused groups which are multiplying at the moment like Mormon rabbits on MDMA.  Sean bounced out with a bunch of people who were heading up to Cal Anderson park on Capitol Hill and I waited around for a little while longer before given my last drink ticket to a stranger and hopping on a bus myself.

The whole night was fairly anti-climactic and the hype fizzled out incredibly quick.  Compared to its Sasquatch counterpart, the entire concept of the CHBP pre-event feels like it was a bit misguided and destined for lackluster results.  Even when the Sasquatch Launch Party was first announced, I was a bit confused.  Seattle is quite a distance from the Gorge Amphitheatre where it was held and the two headliners of the launch party, Atlas Sound and Surfer Blood, weren’t even playing the actual festival.  However, in retrospect, it actually makes a whole lot more sense than this vanilla soiree.  Beyond just giving locals who might not be able to make it out to Eastern Washington a chance to catch a free show, the Sasquatch pre-party was also used as a public unveiling for the festival lineup.  The KICK OFF JAM, on the other hand, took place about a mile from the actual block party location and was held only the night before.  To make matters worse, that night was a Thursday.  So, to really break it down, this was a show held on an inconvenient weeknight and made up of bands that were just gonna play the next day anyway.  With the exception of Unnatural Helpers, it felt like the bands had adopted a similar attitude of “Fuck it, we’re playing again tomorrow anyway.“  I have the feeling that Unnatural Helpers are the type of band that is able to throw down regardless of the environment and are accustomed to doing so, while Holy Fuck! is handling a ridiculously rigorous touring schedule already and could sense that the crowd was only there in physical form.  As for Obits?  I just don’t find them very interesting.  Honestly, I don’t even feeling like writing about this shit anymore… it’s boring me.  No big deal.  It was a gracious attempt at throwing a free event, but that event was one to be missed.

[all photos by Bobby Mcugh]

Back in March, we posted a review about the Spike Jonze-created short film, “I’m Here“.  The project, which is provided for free of charge on it’s own specially designed website, focuses on the love connection between a pair of robots, inhabiting some alternate version of Los Angeles.  Of course, there are underlying elements in the film which are much deeper than that.  The complexities of love, self-worth, social hierarchies, risk, trust, and even life itself are all explored throughout its half hour running time.

After reviewing the film we got a few comments, all relating to the soundtrack which accompanied the piece.  For those who haven’t read that last article about the project, the following excerpt should bring you a little more up to speed on the subject.

“One more thing that I feel is important to bring attention to is the soundtrack.  Given equal consideration as the actual film, it features music by Sleigh Bells, Girls, Animal Collective, Gui Boratto, and the “fictional” group, “The Lost Trees Band” which includes Aska Matsumiya (Moonrats, ex-Your Enemies Friends,) and Nick Zinner (Yeah Yeah Yeahs).  Also credited with being part of  Lost Trees is “Nick Thelan“, which I’m assuming is a typo for Nick Thelen, who is formerly of Pretty Girls Make Graves and currently works with Matsumiya in Moonrats.  The credits also make note of a “cover” of Of Montreal‘s “The Past is a Grotesque Animal” by the listed members of The Lost Trees Band with Kevin Barnes (Of Montreal) himself.  Additional music/production was also contributed by Jonze‘s brother, Sam “Squeak E. Clean” Spiegel.“

Since this information was already provided by us, it seemed that the real question for everyone was about how they could actually find and obtain the music for themselves.  Being as it was a free short/side project, it wasn’t clear if the music would ever be available in any truly official form [Ironically enough, the short about cybernetic organisms is presented by Absolut Vodka.]  This week, however, I received a press release that answered that very question and, since our readers have been expressing interest about the topic, I’m very pleased to be able to provide the following news that the Chicago-based label Chocolate Industries will be collaborating to make the official soundtrack available to the public.  Further information was also provided, as follows:

“In creating the soundtrack for the film, Jonze enlisted the help of Red Hot Chili Peppers’ bassist Flea, Nick Zinner of the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s, and Aska Matsumiya to compose original music under the moniker The Lost Trees, the remainder of the soundtrack boasting the current cream of the crop of the indie world, including Animal Collective, Sleigh Bells, and Girls, amongst others..“

The press release further states that the official release date is marked for OCTOBER 5th, but it appears that it may have already been pushed forward.  Pre-orders for the digital version, currently available on iTunes ($7.99) and Amazon.com ($8.99), both have the release date listed as August 31st, with Amazon listing an additional CD version ($10.99) as officially dropping on September 14th.

Here is a complete list of what is slated to be featured on the album,
whenever it does finally become available

TRACKLISTING

1 There Are Many Of Us – The Lost Trees
2 Beautiful Life – Gui Boratto
3 AB Machines – Sleigh Bells
4 The Past Is A Grotesque Animal – The Lost Trees
5 Did You See the Words – Animal Collective
6 Hellhole Ratrace – Girls
7 There Are Many Of Us (Electric Dream Version) – Sam Spiegel
8 Lonesome Robot Theme – Sam Spiegel
9 Y.O.U – Aska Matsumiya

Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers

Chateau Ste Michelle Winery

Woodinville, Wa

June 19th, 2010

“Steve Martin Banjo Tour,” were sweeter words ever put together?  Turns out, some things might be better in my “Wild & Crazy” Imagination.” Last month, I was lucky enough to get tickets to see the legendary comedian/banjoist perform with North Carolina‘s Steep Canyon Rangers; part of the Chateau Ste. Michelle winery’s annual summer concert series. I was thrilled at the opportunity. But –now– I kinda feel like a “jerk.” I was, unfortunately, just a little let down by the whole Steve Martin banjo experience… and, now I am putting it out there for the whole world to see.  The following is my totally neurotic review of the whole experience.

To start out –and before you rabid Steve Martin fans begin hunting down my home address, to fire bomb me– I should mention that I am actually a huge fan of Martin’s work. At four years old, I would sneak out of bed and watch SNL skits. So… from very early, Martin sorta bounced around my primal subconscious. I am child of 1973, so  I grew up with the “new comedy” that Martin pioneered. You could even say –with some real accuracy– that Mr. Martin’s antics (and Pee Wee Herman’s playhouse, but that’s a story for another time) are responsible for approximately 65% of my carefully groomed public persona.

To my delight, my research revealed that Martin and I have a “freaky” lot in common.  Many people have difficult relationships with their father, but… how many of these people transform that pain into an obsession with E.E. Cummings, a respect for Vaudeville, dead pan humor, and an unexplained love of the banjo.  Yep, I took up playing the banjo and can’t get enough of it; and, I dragged my waterlogged sister –and her icy feet– to visit Cummings‘ old New York home (Patchin Place) in a hailstorm. Martin brought a friend, when he tracked down the poet’s old Harvard residence. We also share an odd (and embarrassing) Disneyland connection. Steve spent his childhood working there.  I spent so much time in the “magic kingdom” that it often appears as a setting in my dreams.  So, yahadah yahdah… basically, I have a deep respect for the man, his passions, and the banjo.  I couldn’t wait to see some of my favorite things in one place.

On the day of the show, I headed to my waitressing gig at the brash, yuppie fueled diner that I call my job.  It was my birthday. At thirty-seven, I had made my way from waitressing, to the non-profit sector, working in the music industry, creating paintings, cleaning paintings, owning a coffee shop, brand marketing, and am now back to waiting tables again. I was grim and questioning what to do with my life now. But, for now, I was hurrying to get through the day; with a sweet, but sardonic, Steve Martinesque (?) shtick that I employ to turn tables into cash for bills. Soon I was shuttling home to kiss my five year old, shower, and wave goodbye to my roommate/ex-husband. I picked up my friend Laura, who had picked up a fancy pizza and some strawberries for our dinner. We drove as fast as possible to Woodinville.  I was running late, as usual, and didn’t want to miss my wee chance to get up front and snap some pictures of Mr. Martin playing my favorite instrument.

Chateau St. Michelle is a beautiful location, and even with light rain showers, it was a beautiful night.  I parked my dented-second-hand Suzuki next to a fleet of Subarus and Mercedes, strolled through a sea of Arc’teryx and Patagonia raincoats, and headed through the vine marked pathways.  This, typically, ain’t no cheap night on the town folks.  It’s a pricey ticket at the faux Chateau, but the location alone may be worth it; 87 wooded acres and lawns, lanes, and classic architecture, including some buildings which date back as far as 1912.  Through a series of accommodating staff members, we found our passes, then our seats, and hunkered down to eat pizza, drink the wine, and hear the tunes.  I feel it necessary to state that “the staff at Chateau St. Michelle could not have been nicer.” I use to work in the music industry, and this level of service is a rarity. Everyone helped us along the way.  The staff manager, Steve, made sure that we had a good spot for taking our photographs. He tracked us down at our seats, to confirm that we knew what to do.

So far, the night had started off beautifully; when the music began, that theme continued.  Old timey, clawhammer-style banjo was provided by Abigail Washburn. Steve Martin seemed truly gracious and delighted to have her opening the show. He introduced the newcomer and her yet-to-be officially named project as “Abigail Washburn and the Incredibly Drunk Band.”  The highlight of their set was a newfangled murder ballad.  The fiddle, bass, keyboard, and flute set a calm, yet fun, tone. Abigail’s ethereal voice brought me back to consciousness.  I was sitting down, listening, and nearly forgetting that I had been slinging plates all day.

When Martin took the stage with his banjo, the weather was affecting the instrument’s tuning.  He joked about the banjo being a barometer. We were, he said “essentially, paying just to watch him tune it.”  I, a newish banjo player, nodded “knowingly”.  He made fun of himself for having four different banjos to play; all of which, I’m guessing, were necessary and tuned to different keys.

He affectionately introduced the Steep Canyon Rangers and, although he feigned aloof and egotistical, he came off as generous and likable. He made room for his accompanying musicians to display their individual chops.  The bluegrass was nearly flawless and the Rangers were a strong complement to Martin’s often humorous tunes.  “Daddy played the Banjo” and “Atheist Don’t Have No Songs” alluded to some of the entertainer’s nostalgic and comic themes. And, the break-up tune “Go Away, Stop, Turn Around, Come Back” had me tapping my feet to my own recent relationship disaster.  This audience was incredibly reserved. Martin Joked “There is a rumor that some bad antacid is going around.” I do wish that someone had been dancing; bluegrass is made for it. But, in all fairness, I wasn’t dancing either. I was sitting, eating stale cookies, and drinking wine from the bottle; when The Ranger’s amazing harmonies on “I can’t sit down” brought me clapping and to my feet.

Yup, it’s pretty remarkable that Steve Martin found it in himself to embark on a banjo tour, and create a fine album of formidable “new” bluegrass tunes.  In my mind, he’s been a 64 year old dreamboat: an actor, magician, juggler, novelist, (sigh…) banjo player and yet…  I pause…and …I hesitate, because, as much as I hate to, I have to admit that something was missing in this Steve Martin performance, for me.

Perhaps, this jaded disappointed stems from the fact that I am not unaccustomed to seeing great showmen live.  I attended a Tito Puente performance, just weeks before he died. At age 77, the late timbale master still managed to get every person, in a room of hundreds, to respond and boogie.  I witnessed the Spice Girls first American Tour, in which they engaged a full stadium of 9 year old girls. I saw Elliot Smith mesmerize a showroom with nothing but his barely audible voice and an incredibly quiet guitar. And, recently, I stared awestruck, as Tortoise made me feel as though it was only them and me in the club. The Tortoise performance was so fresh; it truly seemed that they had never played that way before. Spontaneity and engaged presence felt absent on that night at the winery.  Don’t get me wrong, the music was good, the company fantastic, the location lovely, wine delicious, and Steve Martin played the banjo like it was part of him. The jokes, quips, and comments just seemed too well worn.  The routine was, well… it was way too “routiney.“  This amount of over-rehearsal, and phoned-in one-liners, may just be the difference between seeing a comedian, who just happens to play really good music, and a really good musician who also happens to be funny.

I have now read, at least, eight glowing reviews that relay the exact same breakdown of the act that I saw.  All of them were from different cities, but they seem to reference every phrase and humorous anecdote that I had witnessed, verbatim.  Many reviewers mention the cute bit about Steve’s dog, Wally coming onto the stage and/or the gag regarding the beer hiding in a secret compartment in the bass.  Then there is the part where Martin says, “This evening is about my two favorite things, comedy and charging people to hear music” or the amusing moment where he compares his banjo act to “Jerry Seinfeld writing and performing original music for bassoon.”  I do realize that it’s not uncommon for some performers to reuse their “clever” repartee night after night, but it really did feel as if Martin had mentally wandered off into some other world or city. During this performance, he could have been in Saratoga Springs or Tucson.  It could have been any night of the year.  Martin was reciting the punch-lines between playing his heart out. But, it would have been nice to feel as if he was present in the same location as I was. After all, isn’t that the point of live performance, anyway?

It is possible that Steve Martin could never have lived up to his reputation, at least, the one that I had in my mind.  He was the first rock star comedian for Christ sake. I had been blabbing about seeing this show for weeks. Maybe, it was all of the pre-hype that I inflicted on myself. The Steve Martin funny-guy bit could have been left out altogether.  For me, a “Steve Martin, the Badass Banjo Playing Guy Show“, minus the recycled remarks, would have felt a lot more genuine and entertaining.

Martin made the following statement in a 2005 IGN interview, while promoting his novel-turned-film Shopgirl,  “…basically the book is about small moments and the movie is about small moments, which are obviously the biggest [in life].”  What he, perhaps, should have added is that the reason that many of these “small” moments will hold such a large impact, can often be attributed to their ability to reflect some level of authenticity within them.  Unfortunately, as evidenced by this performance, when small moments are fabricated, they can often take more away from an experience than they contribute.

Despite any minor disappointments, I am still a big fan of Martin‘s and have every reason to believe that I will remain as such.  I just inhaled his biography, Born Standing Up, and two dozen, or so, articles and interviews [the interview conducted by Charlie Rose is a particularly good one].

Those who loved this show will be happy to hear that I do have a Jewish mother. I assure you that the real guilt, from my real feelings, is killing me right now. I promise to watch The Jerk and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels tomorrow (a pleasant penance).  I’ll listen to The Crow in my car on the way to work. I’ll keep playing the banjo. But, as a birthday present to myself (uhum, just to keep the illusion going), I will pretend that Steve Martin was physically ill on June 19^th. I have decided that what I witnessed: was just some brilliant, banjo-playing impersonator in a Steve Martin suit.

Whether or not the mainstream media had already lost it’s interest, Korine didn’t truly grab my attention until he was able to gain control of his own projects for himself.  I think that Harmony shook a lot of people after his directorial debut with the beautifully unsettling, GUMMO.  Let’s face it, the mainstream demographic is often open to the idea of offensive and/or crude material, but not beyond any context that they can easily process or recognize.  This was 1997, so think marketable Hollywood “bad boys” like Eminem, Marilyn Manson, etc.  While KIDS presented some graphic ideas, GUMMO was so realistic and raw that it actually pulled viewers into the grime with it.  It had the ability to instill a subconscious feeling of guilt for observing the voyeuristic footage and not having anyone to report the indecencies to.  This isn’t what America wanted; simple shock value they understand and this wasn’t it.  I think that a lot of people ironically determined that Korine was a one-note with nothing more to offer than vulgarity, while not realizing that what they were actually responding to was the fact that he had taken a drastic turn away from what they had expected of him.  One man who responded emphatically to the work was German master of film, Werner Herzog.  After seeing GUMMO, Herzog labeled Korine as “a very clear voice of a generation of filmmakers that is taking a new position” and followed that up by saying, “It’s not going to dominate world cinema, but so what?“  You’re not likely to find a more accurate breakdown of the filmmaker anywhere.

While many filmmakers and critics focus on how content fits into their preconceived notions of pre-manufactured film structure, Korine has always seemed much more focused on re-examining the film making process altogether and in exploring what it’s capabilities are as a tool and an artform.  In 1998, a book of his random musings, fragmented thoughts, and suicide letters titled Crack Up at the Race Riots was published, challenging the idea of what determines a legitimate piece of literature.  In 1999 the film, Julien Donkey Boy pushed the envelope further with an even looser structure, hidden cameras, and minimal scripting.  Unfortunately, it’s association with the recently birthed Danish film movement, Dogme 95, tended to overshadow what the film was able to accomplish on it’s own merits.  For the all but abandoned Fight Harm project, he ran around getting his ass kicked while David Blaine filmed him, but, for the most part, Korine didn’t return to film until Mister Lonely in 2007.  This was arguably his most accessible work and, although I still found it incredible, it seemed to float by without much widespread detection.  With his latest project, Trash Humpers, Korine proves that he still has no intention of playing it safe or sticking with any semblance of what could even be considered a “familiar” format.  Believe it or not, this may actually be the most inaccessible piece of film that the native Tennessean has ever presented.

TRASH HUMPERS

It’s borderline pointless to even try and review this “film” and, since I hadn’t originally planned to, I’ll try to just hover around it’s basic essence.  One word that I’ve seen thrown around in reviews quite a bit is “nightmare“.  I can totally understand what the reviewers had intended by using that term, because there is is a grimy dreamlike quality created by filtering the footage through a weathered VHS style aesthetic.  While I can in some ways confirm the concept of it being nightmarish as strikingly accurate, it can also be completely discounted, just based on the sheer subjectivity  of the term itself.  Everyone has their own hell and everyone has their own idea of beauty.  As with most of Korine‘s work, the director doesn’t hold much value in “directing” or controlling what the viewer will take away from the work.  He makes “feature presentations” and just presents material to be interpreted and/or experienced by the viewer.  He doesn’t seem to be interested in breaking his work down much more than that, but everyone else seems to feel it necessary.  This may be because Harmony‘s work is based more on feeling than created for analysis and, when people are trying to understand something so badly and feel the need to be considered as “in the know“, getting that clarification is treated like something of necessity and urgency.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I saw Trash Humpers in Seattle during the second of two showings featuring Korine in attendance.  As you will further discover in our accompanying article, Harmony‘s Q&A for the second showing came prior to the screening of the film.  To alleviate any potential worries for audience members who might feel that, without viewing the film first, the Q&A would be rendered useless, the director began by asking, “Any of you seen the trailer?“  He then followed the question up by saying,  “Yeah, so it’s that same shit.  You know what I mean?  You saw the trailer, you know what it is.“  On the simplest level, his statement is pretty much true.  For those who don’t know, Trash Humpers is basically just a bunch of footage collected over a 2 week period by Harmony, his wife Rachel, and a couple of other associates/accomplices, as they lived the lives of destructive and elderly social deviants.  Korine has stated that the footage is presented in the order that it was recorded and that the actors stayed in character throughout the duration of the filming, sleeping in places such as behind strip malls and underneath bridges.  There is no defined storyline or any official “meaning” behind the film.  There is, however, plenty of footage involving firecrackers, loins being writhed against dumpsters, and various property being smashed to shit.

If you remember that scene from GUMMO with skateboard legend, Mark Gonzales wrestling chairs in a kitchen, Trash Humpers is often like an extended version of that.  As a young child, I spent uncomfortable nights at friend’s houses that felt or resembled that scene.  I’ve also been a teenager and bought weed from apartments holding that vibe.  When I was about 19, I was doing renovation work for a friend’s parents who bought and fixed up properties.  This one was in Lake Stevens, Wa and, after getting paid one day, we went on a mission to track down a sack of the chronic herbs.  We met some random fool who brought us to an apartment where we could hook up and he introduced us to some woman that was anything but unfamiliar with indulging in bathtub crank.  From what I remember, I think she made subtle advances towards us and, when her kids walked into the living room, she told them all to get completely outside of the apartment.  They were young kids; there was at least one toddler.  She wanted to party and keep getting high.  We just wanted to leave.  Unless you are a merciless pole-smoking crackhead with a closet full of grenades and nugget tweens locked in your basement that you feed bleach to, you are likely to find yourself in a situation that’s a little out of your comfort zone, at some point.  If you want to buy weed, you’ll eventually wind up in the tweaker den with a closet full of stolen car stereos.  If you want to get some pills, you might have to get them from the chick a decade or two older than you, who swiped them from her dying grandma and who’s boyfriend looks at you like you are trying to fuck her, while her child is drinking Natty Ice in the corner.  “You may find yourself living in a shotgun shack.“  You may find yourself blowing lines in a house and look up to discover some wingnut playing with an assault rifle.  No matter how sketch what you’re doing is, there is usually a place that can, simultaneously make you feel both less and more sketchy just by being there.  Places that I’ve lived in have even provided that environment for others.  Trash Humpers manages to bottle that feeling of uneasiness and the grating paranoia of a first-time double spy, but it also reintroduces the beautiful simplicities that accompany the sound of broken glass, sun-damaged garage sale wares, and unchecked aggression.  You might find yourself questioning if you should even be judging if the  judgment of others is questionable.  Perhaps, the only question you might have is why YOU aren’t out breaking more shit.  This isn’t exactly a cerebral film, but it’s hard to believe that you won’t feel anything.

Korine has been quoted repeatedly as saying that his intention for Trash Humpers was that it would come across like some sort of “found object” or “artifact“.  Something that you could find “in a ditch” or floating down a river in a plastic bag.  About 8 years ago, I was at an estate sale in Rancho Cordova, Ca and we came across a ton of VHS tapes with cow mutilation footage on them.  The woman who had owned the home that we were in was some sort of conspiracy theorist that was paranoid of alien abduction.  Even more interesting than the shit we found was the speculative history of it’s previous owner that I was forced to create on my own.  The environments that are explored in the film range from parking lots and basements to unkempt dying lawns and rooftops at night.  Korine has stated that, aside from weathered/poorly-tracked VHS cassette tapes, the aesthetic was partially inspired by the beauty of streetlights.  I’ve lived in a Datsun 510, smashed bottles, and have slept in rest stops and parking lots.  I drank Hypnotiq while a dead possum (with a row of dead feeding babies attached) got its own backwoods Viking funeral in a pile of yard waste.  I’ve blown snus with flannel-clad locals in a Eureka bar that was straight out of the Lobo on Roseanne and gone to bars in the Atlanta ghettos to watch rap battles.  I’ve drank 40 ounce generic malt-liquor in the streets of strange suburban neighborhoods in foreign states and thrown shopping carts off of anything that I could find which was high enough to throw shit off of.  Some of my memories are clearer than others, but the feelings are still the easiest thing to access.  I can’t remember everything that happened in Trash Humpers either, but these are the type of personal memory flashes and feelings that are roused up when I think about the film.  Perhaps the greatest thing that the project could achieve would be to simply acknowledge the validity in the random pieces of debris left behind in the form of anonymous photographs, home videos, and vandalized wheelchairs, along with the indescribable and ghostlike emotional residue that can be tied to them.

“Is the film worth seeing?“  I don’t know the answer to that.  I guess it depends on what you’re looking for and how open you are to dealing with what you might get instead.  People often sing along to songs like ridiculous assholes, not even knowing the real lyrics or what these songs are supposed to be about.  The power of music is that it can help to create and/or facilitate emotions in the listener.  Movies are the same, but there seems to be some level of narration or direction that people expect when they’re watching a film.  They want a build up to what’s coming; a bit of a heads up, if you will.  Trash Humpers doesn’t provide that; it just drops you dead in the middle and swims around in any direction that it chooses at any given moment.  Maybe something explodes… maybe something gets dry humped.  Maybe someone gets fatally smashed in the head and maybe nobody gives much of a reaction before moving on to something else.  Maybe the footage just buoys out and does little more than exist.  Perhaps its says something about humanity and the simple pleasures in the comradery of destruction… but really, who gives a shit.  The real answer is, “Do you want to see some random grainy video of people smashing shit and acting like mongrels for 90 minutes?“  It turns out that I do (not really a surprise).  So like Harmony said, it’s pretty much just like the trailer and, like I wrote earlier, there’s really no point in reviewing it.  It’s easier to describe what it’s not than what it is, because what it is, is whatever you feel from it.  It’s an experiment in generating an emotional reaction or feeling, which is all that any real art is at it’s core anyway.  You basically have to just decide to watch it or decide not to.  It sounds like a cop-out, but it’s true.  There was a situation once where I was in a car traveling around a mountain road and I saw a dead horse laying in the other lane.  We had been smoking, I was faded, and it’s organs were strewn out along the dirt and asphalt in plain view.  It made a blunt and definite impact, but I don’t know how I could possibly ever “review” something like that.  This film is a simple gift that a man from Nashville made for himself and anyone who wants to see it.  I think that’s pretty much the extent of it and, if you do see Trash Humpers and feel the need to understand what it was “all about” or decipher the real “meaning” behind it, you’re probably missing the entire point.

This following video contains the audio track from an “interview” that aired on May 11. 2010 on the KXLU radio in Los Angeles.  The program, Center Stage, is hosted by a man named Mark Gordon, but this video wasn’t posted by him or the station.  The party responsible for uploading the video to youtube is actually the film distributor, Drag City records, which is ironic, considering that it does little to shine a “positive” light on the project.  It is, however, a good example of how little importance Harmony Korine really places on marketing himself or trying to explain where he’s coming from with the project.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Early last month, multi-Oscar-nominated actor, Edward Norton was invited to the Northwest as part of the 2010 Seattle International Film Festival.  Beginning on June 3rd, with American History X, and ending on the 5th, with Spike Lee‘s 25th Hour, SIFF helped to celebrate the actor’s illustrious career by screening some of his most successful work.  Norton was on hand to provide short personal introductions to each of the films, but the most substantial portion of the tribute took place on June 4th at the Egyptian Theatre and included the festival honoring him with their trademark Golden Space Needle award.  The festivities at the Egyptian also featured a live interview with the actor and a screening of his latest project, Leaves of Grass.  I was there for the events and, for an artist who’s managed to build a career off of his ability to shift characters effortlessly, often within the same role, I can safely say that Norton only exposed one of his faces that night.

The Egyptian Theatre

Seattle, Wa

June 4, 2010

The evening started with a slide-show of sorts, showcasing dramatic scenes from each one of Norton‘s movies.  The biggest applause was delivered for the 1996 film Primal Fear, that provided him with his breakout role as an altar boy on trial for murdering a priest.  Through various twists, his character was able to avoid incarceration by fooling his own lawyer, played by the “master thespian” Richard Gere.  Apart from an educational ESL film, this was only his first professional movie role, but it allowed the young actor to truly display his range early.  The other greatest crowd noise greeted Fight Club, the 1999 generation defining film of which Edward claimed “didnt do much at the box office but has since gone into the world and formed its own, deeper connection with an audience“.  This movie epitomizes the term cult film.

After coming out and accepting his award, Mr. Norton provided the introduction to the film screening that night.  Leaves of grass was directed by Tim Blake Nelson and features Edward Norton performing double duty, acting simultaneously as twin brothers.  One of the brothers is a clean-cut perfectionist with big city smarts, who has gained prominence as a philosophical thinker and professor.  Through a lot of effort, he has managed to lose his accent and is only visiting his twin after being swindled by a crossbow murder hoax.  The other brother is the owner of a seriously sophisticated pot growing operation located in the deep south of Oklahoma.  These two have interactions so seamless and natural that I quickly forgot that they were being played by the same guy.  Although those transitions were aided by one of the brothers having long hair, tattoos and whatnot, while the other was much closer to the very clean-cut Edward Norton we all know and love, his work was still impressive.  About halfway through, the film segues into what has become a somewhat typical Nortonian darkness, where carnage, duplicity, and duality show their strange and shadowy faces.  Overall, I found “Leaves” to contain plenty of splendid acting and to be a movie with genuine heart.

After the film, the man of the evening returned to the stage to be interviewed by local critic, Tom Tangney. Edward Norton was reluctant to reveal even one iota of information, as far as his personal history was concerned.  Slightly chagrined by this, Tangney inexplicably countered with, “Well you know, with celebrities, everyone wants to know everything about you.. ha ha ha“   To which Mr. Norton then replied, “That in no way compels me to answer these questions“.   He stated that, although he didn’t want to go quite as far as Bob Dylan‘s quote of ” just because you like what i do, doesn’t mean I owe you anything” he feels that knowing the personal information and/or history of an actor can in no way improve on a movie watchers experience.  He went on to further explain that such information can actually be counter-productive to the viewer, as they will start to see them through THAT prism, rendering a performance as less of a “blank” canvas.  This early exchange launched into what became an extensive interview with the Academy Award nominated actor.

Throughout the conversation, I was surprised to learn that Mr. Norton is ivy league educated (he went to yale), and has a degree in history.  The interview lasted for nearly two and a half hours, with the actor waxing at length about various preparations and anecdotes as an actor, regarding each of his movies.  He spoke very slowly,  kind of stammering through, sometimes rambling, but always answering questions and countering the interviewer’s points in the end.  By my estimation, the reason that he is one of the more successful and respected actors of his generation is due to his incredible attention to detail.  He also exhibits a very cerebral approach to the craft, often eschewing the notion of instincts as the most “legitimate” form of acting.  He approaches everything both clinically [from the outside in] and emotionall  [from the inside out].  These are just some of the concepts that he philosophized over during the night’s sit-down.  He actually came across as a little nervous or uncomfortable about being there at first, but seemed to eventually relax.   Whether it was an act or not, the “lost boy in the woods” thing clearly won people over in the end, myself included.

Edward Norton, the very rich, very well put together man who’s face is familiar to so many of us, came off as down to earth as anyone that I’ve ever come across.  This is probably part of his appeal.  Like Jimmy Stewart before him, Norton is an “every man” figure who just happens to be an incredibly gifted actor and is seemingly grounded in craft, as opposed to fame.  As he exited stage right, a few folks moved in for a couple of autographs.  He still looked nervous and, after about one and a half minutes of that noise, he was gone, disappearing into the shadows of the Egyptian Theatre.  I heard about him introducing Fight Club at a midnight showing later that night, but Ive seen that movie too many times and I had to get on home.  Fortunately, we were able to locate the following video footage of the introduction posted below.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The following audio was taken from Tagney‘s blog “Behind the Screens” featured on MyNorthwest.com and contains sound bites from a follow up conversation that the critic held with Norton the day after the event.

INTERVIEW MP3

All photos above were generously provided by photographer Casey Broadwater.  Please check out more of his images at CaseyBroadwater.com.  View more from this specific photo set, by linking to his Flickr account through HERE.

The Coleman 2-person had turned into an EZ-Bake and I woke up cooking again.  My face felt like sand had been dumped in to shrink it and I had a crazy bump on the middle knuckle on my right hand.  No big deal… but Kim was convinced that it was some sort of bug bite that needed to be tended to, so I let her whip out her little first-aid kit and try to sanitize it or whatever she wanted to do.  I was in this same campground 12 years ago, high on acid, and eating marinated chicken out of the same silver cooking bowl as a Rottweiler, so I’m clearly not as concerned about shit like Purel and antiseptics.  I had a positive outlook about the final day and a really simple game plan: “Enjoy Myself.”  No more drama.  No more bullshit.  I felt like I was adjusted to the format and the pacing of everything by this point and the lineup for the day was solid.  Tonight would be the WEEN set and I was so happy drinking my coffee and thinking about it, that I hadn’t even noticed when Kim squeezed some crazy 1/2 inch stinger out of my knuckle.

Patrick made another delicious breakfast and Jesse mentioned how much the Pavement set and Malkmus had re-inspired him lyrically.  He also seemed interested to finally check out WEEN and had mentioned that he was only familiar with two of their songs; one of which was “Your Party” from their most recent album, La Cucaracha.  For some reason or another, I wound up talking about David Bowie‘s “Let’s Dance” era.  As we sat around, ate, and talked, the morning seemed a lot more relaxed than the days prior.  Monday was supposed to be the least attended day.  My assumption was that any lower attendance was due to people having to work the next day, as well as them not really giving a shit.  When looking for tickets, I did notice that people rarely advertised their sales by mentioning any of the acts that I wanted to see, so this clearly wasn’t considered a “big day” for everyone.

After breakfast, we all kind of separated back into our individual spaces to relax before the shows really began.  The first band that I planned to catch was QUASI at 3:25 on the Bigfoot stage.  I wanted to knock out the last couple of cigarettes that we had, so that we could quite again (and we did).  As Kim and I were sharing one of our last Camel‘s I heard something that sounded like “Wake Up” by Arcade Fire coming from the Main Stage.  I commented about it to Kim, but I didn’t think much of it until Patrick and Angel also popped out of their tent looking confused.  Then Jesse and Briana came out of the van asking we were also hearing the same thing.  Whoever was performing sounded as if they were playing one Arcade Fire song after another and, once Patrick confirmed that they were on their 4th in a row, we collectively decided that it was time to get the fuck down there and find out what was going on.  “Did The Arcade Fire actually make a surprise appearance and fill in a set that early in the day?“  We weren’t sure what was going on but, if it wasn’t them, then somebody was playing all of their material and, if I was going to review the festival, I better be there to catch wacky unannounced shit like this.

QUASI

When I got to the media check-in I asked what the real deal was with all of the Arcade Fire music and was told that it was just The Seattle Rock Orchestra and that, by covering their material, it had been creating quite a commotion.  A lot of people had the same idea and, for what was labeled as the least attended day, the crowd to get into the show was the largest yet.  Some folks must have really been losing their shit earlier, because the wooden planks had all been smashed out of the fence next to the entry gate and everyone was just climbing through what was left of it.  Once through, there was nothing more than a motionless herd to stagnate in.  A couple of dipshits threw a football around in the crowd and it continued to smack people in the back until someone finally got a hold of it and through it out into the distance.  I was wearing wearing a hoody and vest for the rain, but it was heating up now.  A guy next to me commented by telling me that I “looked really hot” so I responded with a “thanks man” and explained that, although I DO try, it’s hard to ever know for sure and I appreciated the complement.  As he stuttered and tried to clarify his intention, I cut him off with, “It’s cool.  No, no… I get it.  Adult men can complement each other.  It’s 2010, don’t worry about it.“  Then we were through the check point and finally in.  We had wasted a lot of time in that crowd, but I’m glad that we headed in when we did because, after that huge delay, we were actually just in time for QUASI.

It’s easily been a decade since I’ve seen QUASI perform and I’m not really sure if their overall popularity has risen much since then.  It’s not that they don’t deserve to be more widely renowned, because they do, and it’s not because they are past their prime, because they definitely aren’t.  However, some of the exact same factors that have helped to gain QUASI some of their name recognition are also the factors that may have helped it to plateau.  While all three current members are incredibly accomplished individually, the other high-profile projects that they have been involved with have often unfairly overshadowed the tremendous work that they’ve managed to create as a unit.

In certain ways, I view QUASI as the Portland equivalent of a band like Mudhoney, where many people have heard their name mentioned, but most of them aren’t quite familiar with their catalog or of exactly what they’ve accomplished.  It’s similar to the way that people may reference MUDHONEY by saying something like, “Some of these dudes were in Green River with those guys from Pearl Jam” or, “You know, Matt Lukin lived with Kurt Cobain and he used to play bass for the Melvins.“  What I’ve always found unfortunate about this type of pseudo-recognition for Mudhoney is that, along with Nirvana, I’d rather listen to their music above most of the bands that came out of Seattle during the “grunge” era and I feel that it is among some of the music which has held up the best over the last two decades.  QUASI isn’t much different, especially in the respect that they are still going strong as a group, have continued to create great new material, and can still be accurately considered as an entertaining and high energy live act.

QUASI was originally a duo composed of drummer Janet Weiss and multi-instrumentalist, Sam Coomes.  They essentially stayed that way until 2007, when they added bassist, Joanna Bolme as an official third member.  After disbanding his San Francisco band, The Donnor Party and moving to Portland, Oregon, Coomes quickly formed the group Motorgoat with Weiss and bassist, Brad Pedinov in 1990.   After Pedinov left in ’93, they reformed as a duo under the name of QUASI and self-released their self-titled debut the same year.  A year later, Coomes also signed on as the bassist for the Elliott Smith fronted Heatmiser.  As Smith‘s solo career continued to take-off, Heatmiser dissolved in 1996.  That year QUASI‘s previously unreleased material was compiled with the tracks from their debut and re-released under the title Early Recordings.  This is also the year that Janet Weiss became the drummer for influential riot girl trio, Sleater Kinney.  In 1997, the duo released R&B Transmogrification on UP records, a label noted for releasing early pivotal works by Modest Mouse and Built to Spill.  In fact, Coomes has been featured on every Built to Spill studio release since Keep it Like a Secret [1999].  Featuring “Birds” [UP] followed in ’98 and featured production work by both Elliott Smith and Joanna Bolme.  Smith‘s involvement with the group continued over the years, with the songwriter providing bass work on their album Field Studies [1999, UP] and with QUASI even operating as Smith‘s backing band on multiple tours.  In 2000, Stephen Malkmus created his post-Pavement project, The Jicks, with Joanna Bolme as the bassist.  When John Moen left The Jicks to become the full-time drummer for The Decemberists in 2006, Janet Weiss stepped in to take his place.  This means that QUASI shares the exact same rhythm section as The Jicks, only with a less recognizable frontman.  With so many other names connected to and associated with them, the name “QUASI” often gets lost in the mix and, when it doesn’t, personal relationships can often overshadow their work instead.  Bolme is currently married to Gary Jarman of  The Cribs and is widely recognized for having a romantic relationship with the late Elliott Smith.  Before the White Stripes burst onto the scene, Coomes and Weiss were arguably the most famous ex-husband and wife indie rock duo and Weiss has recently been linked to Erik Menteer of the experimental folk-rock group, Blitzen Trapper.  Not to claim that their rich musical affiliations hold no bearing on their identities, because they do, but for anyone that takes the time to actually listen to their work, it should be painfully clear that they have a style unique unto themselves and are more than capable of standing on their own 6 feet.

The crowd for this show was sizable enough, but the energy was fairly relaxed.  The weather would start out blazing hot and then the sky would begin to sprinkle, only to heat back up.  A lot of folks sat on blankets and backpacks.  Weiss was positioned to the back at her drumkit, while Coomes‘ organ sat off to the right unattended.  On the opposite side of the stage, Joanna Bolme‘s shaggy hair covered her face like a member of The Way Outs.  The addition of Bolme on bass has really freed up Coome‘s to incorporate his guitar skills live without losing the low end, but it was still a position that I wasn’t as accustomed to seeing him in.

Click here to view the embedded video.

They kicked the show off with “Ape Self Prevails in me Still” from Featuring “Birds” and then tore through a few tracks from their new release, American Gong.  “Repulsion” starts off with a lot of guitar sludge but, just like “Ape Self“, it features some really nice harmonization between Weiss and Coomes.  Harmonies have always been one of QUASI‘s strengths and something that contributes to them constantly being labeled as an indie-pop group.  It’s not that the title is completely inaccurate, but it often feels like too simple of a classification for what they do.  The static and chaos that QUASI creates with the instrumentation in many of their songs provides a film like layer that forces the vocal harmonies to penetrate and transcend then, in turn, helping the tracks to grow and expand in interesting directions.  Whereas they have often relied on Coomes‘ prowess on the organ to effect their sonic girth in the past, this newer material showcases the group experimenting with other ways to pull off tweaks in their sound.  Their next song was “Rockabilly Party“, which had often been labeled as “Never Coming Back Again” in performance footage prior to American Gong‘s February release date.  This song is a lot better than it’s title may imply, focusing on longer stretched-out classic country notes rather than sped up rockabilly flash.  The vocals have a nice old-timey country sound to them as well, but the real highlights come from Coome‘s squawking feedback-tinged guitar solos.  “Little White Horse” contains a classic driving rock rhythm with a heavy Stooges- style drumbeat, but it takes a sharp left turn when in drops into a sluggish minimalist breakdown before coming back at full speed.

Eventually, Coomes took his helm behind the organ to play “All The Same To Me” from Field Studies.  This is not only one of the tracks that’s recorded version features Elliott Smith on bass, but the vocal delivery is also very reminiscent to that of their deceased friend/collaborator.  In general, Coomes vocals have often tended to land somewhere in an area where Smith and Doug Marstch overlap anyway.  These are the type of things that would likely jump out at you if you’ve never listened to the nearly two decades worth of material that the group has managed to produce.  You’ll probably hear a little Elliott Smith, some Built to Spill… maybe even a little Pavement, etc.  You’ll not only hear aspects of the peers that have bled into their sound but also the elements that they have contributed to the sound of others and where the they all have managed to blend together.  It’s true that Malkmus and Pavement originally hailed from Stockton, CA, but Coomes is from SF and Heatmiser originally formed in Massachusetts.  It seems like most of the bands in Portland have migrated there from somewhere else, but there’s a specific Northwest sound that has developed in that area South of Seattle and QUASI has been an integral part of that development.  Along with their contributions, QUASI maintains elements that are all their own and Coome‘s helped  to demonstrate this point by transitioning from the highly melodic “All the Same to Me” into the crazy freak jazz intro of “The Rhino.“  When the Going Gets Dark was the last studio album that QUASI released before American Gong and you can really hear the changes that have taken place since then.  As the name suggests, the overall feel of the release was very dark and heavy, with the then-duo even venturing into territories bordering on” jazz metal (the song Presto Change-O” even has a Zappa meets early Yes/King Crimson vibe to it).  It was released the same year as the self-titled debut by Coome‘s improv / noise jazz side-project, Pink Mountain, and is colored by that same feeling of experimentation and loosely reigned in chaos.  When the Going Gets Dark is one of my favorite releases by the group, so I was really happy to hear them revisit that era by playing “The Rhino” and to see Coome‘s get the opportunity to maniacally cobra strike away at the keys, before smashing the shit out of them with his balled up fists.

They took another 180 by slowing it down with piano heavy “Laissez Les Bon Temps Rouler“, another track from the new album.  Then, as the wind began whirling heavily, Coomes returned to his guitar for “Sea Shanty” [Field Studies].  Weiss worked a shaker,while sprinkling in her backing vocals, before picking up the beat on her drum kit and harmonizing for the second half.  From “Sea Shanty” they went immediately into “Bye Bye Blackbird“, a stand out track from the new album and a perfect example of why I have mixed feelings about the title of “indie-pop” being applied to their work.  This song has a chorus that could be considered the epitome of “indie pop” until it veers off into the Mudhoney circa Piece of Cake realm shortly and then back into something even poppier than before.  What really works for this song is that it feels like an honest group effort with everything coming together and working to help it progress at all times.  Bolme‘s solid basslines ground out the track when they needs to, but they also adapt to push the sound out, elevate it, and/or add a punch when necessary.  It’s a fairly impressive composition that manages to take melodic, almost nursery rhyme-esque pop attributes and warp them into areas of mutated psyche rock, stamp them dead and then resurrect them all over again.  During the space jam, Coome‘s haphazardly chopped away at his guitar in a way that suggested both precision and random chance.  I always associate him with his keyboard work, but he’s a much more impressive guitarist than I had ever realized.  I recognized a similar approach with Malkmus during the previous night’s Pavement show.  They’ve been handling these instruments for so many years and in so many situation that, what some may perceive as laziness or apathy, just come across as being second nature for them to me.  It began to rain during the sonic onslaught and then the trio brought it back to an upbeat finish with lyrics like, “I got no time to drop LSD.  Oh, I guess I still got time for DMT.”

The show felt kind of short, but I thought that it sounded great and it was about as good of a start to the day that I could have hoped for.  They played a lot of new material and it was good to hear it paired with a short selection of samples from the past, because the new stuff fit in seamlessly and the older material didn’t sound dated.  If you’re new to their material and are interested in checking some of their work out further, I have a few suggestions.  R&B Transmographications is a great album from their UP records period and provides a really distinct classic QUASI sound of melodies layered in grime.  If you’re into really discordant experimental sludge rock accented with jazz,  When the Going Gets Dark is definitely the way to go.  I’m actually rediscovering that one for myself and will probably be listening to it a lot over the next few weeks.  Finally, American Gong is actually a tremendous new output for the band and sounds surprisingly fresh, especially at this stage of their careers.  This album is the first for QUASI to come out on Kill Rock Stars and I really like the way that the label has chosen to release it.  If you pick it up on vinyl a download card is included so that you can get a full MP3 version as well.  Another bonus with the download is that 2 bonus tracks are also included.  KRS has actually started providing download codes with all of their vinyl and many of them, like their re-release of Deerhoof‘s Green Cosmos EP, also feature additional tracks, which is awesome.

[Additional Note: despite what the video and MP3s provided above may suggest,
not every Quasi song is based around some sort of animal reference]

Towards the end of The XX‘s set, Kim woke up confused.  She was half asleep and must have still been lost in a dream, because she was talking nonsense.  She tried to prop herself up and people were stomping and moving all around her, so she had to make like a recently birthed giraffe and get to figuring out how to walk with the quickness.  I got her up and we started moving out of the crowd, but it seemed like she was doing even worse.   She was having some trouble breathing and, as is often the case with panic attacks, it was difficult to figure out if she was actually physically sick or if it was just an anxiety issue.  It was clear that she wasn’t feeling well, but didn’t want me to miss the festival. “We are going back to the tent, now. I don’t want to talk about it… c’mon.”

We reached the turnstiles and it hit me that I might just be able to pay for that re-entry fee that I’d heard about.  I figured that I was going to miss everything that I wanted to see that night but, we had a couple of hours and there was a chance that Kim would still be able to see Massive Attack.  Fuck it, we still had tomorrow.  While Kim waited off to the side, I asked some kid working on the staff how and if I could hook up one of these $10 re-entry situations.   His answer was that, although they actually had instituted the re-entry policy, I couldn’t pay for it anymore because it was after 7.  I made it clear that I needed this fiasco worked out and they pointed me towards the woman who could make that happen.  These guys just want to work at a festival and they don’t want to deal with my shit.  If you are cool with them, talk fast, and make it clear that you understand this and are willing to become someone else’s problem, they will usually help you out. I went up to the lady, flashed my wristband and said something like, “My girlfriend over there is sick. I’m covering the show and have a wristband, so I won’t have any problem getting back in. The problem is that she doesn’t and these guys won’t scan her ticket.  I’m working right now and need to get back inside later, but I’m not gonna leave her in the campground by herself.  Can you help us out.  I was told that I needed to talk to you.” All she said was, “Where’s your ticket.“  Then she scanned it for free and we were out.

The trip back to the campground was pretty rough.   At first, we stopped every few feet, so that she could sit down.  Then she was having chest pains.  “Let me know if we need to go to a med tent or if we just need to walk back to the camping spot.” She’d say that she wanted to keep moving and I would respond with, “Let’s get there quick then.“  Thirty seconds later, we’d be taking another break.  It was stressful and when we hit the general store I stopped and bought a pack of cigarettes.  We hadn’t smoked since August, but it seemed like a necessity.  A mini lighter and a pack of Camel Lights cost $15.  On the way up the trail I could hear “Daft Punk is Playing at My House“. Fuck!  I was missing LCD Soundsystem, but I didn’t want to show any disappointment… she felt bad enough.  We eventually got back to the tent and she laid down again.  We didn’t have access to the van, but I made her drink some water and eat as much as she could of one of the sandwiches that she had smashed with her head while sleeping on the backpack.

The one thing that I truly discovered, regarding the re-entry policy, is that the best way to benefit from it is by camping outside of the campground and leaving your car in the parking lot out front.   If a shitty beer costs $9 a pop, then heading back to your car to take a break, eat a full meal, and drink endless delicious beers for the price of $10 is probably a better idea.  The issue with heading back to the campground is that it is way too far away.  The benefit of having a campground, however, is that you have a place to lay down once you get there.  Still, in my situation, just being able to make it back to a car faster would have been nice.

Anyone that’s familiar with anxiety attacks knows that they are not awesome. I had pretty much given up on seeing Pavement and that was going to have to be good enough.  Every once in a while, I would think that everything was cool and that there was a possibility that we could actually head back, but then it would instantly become clear that she wasn’t better yet and I didn’t want to go unless she was. “You should go back without me.“  “Nope.  I’m not leaving you hear to freak out by yourself.“  “I don’t want us to have to miss The XX.“  “We already missed the XX.  Remember?“  Then she’d feel shitty again.  I came up with a lot of pseudo-logical backwards explanations for why it wasn’t a big deal to make Kim feel better.  I realized that they almost sounded as if they made sense,  if I said them quick enough.   She was having a problem with anxiety and I couldn’t think of one possible scenario where her feeling guilty was going to help make this situation any better.  It was a catch 22, but the quicker that she was able to stop feeling bad about missing the show, the better chance there was for her to actually see the show.

PAVEMENT

We laid in the tent for a while and time continued to pass.  Pavement‘s start time came and went, but I still didn’t hear them playing from where we were.  This wasn’t gonna happen, I thought.  “I guess I won’t have much of a review.“  I looked back over to Kim and she still wasn’t looking good.  Then something happened; I heard the music shift and the sound was now clearly coming from another stage.  “Was this Pavement?  Did they just go on late?”   Then it was obvious that it was… and that they did.  Yep, I had just heard “Cut Your Hair” kick in.  I knew that Kim heard it too, because she sprung up a little.  Then she said,  “I think I can make it.“  She even looked a little different… a little better, but I didn’t want to get too excited.  I tried to remove any emotion from my voice and asked, “Are you sure that you can actually make it down there?  I just want to make sure that you’re alright.  It’s not a big deal, we still have tomorrow.“  “Yeah… I can do it.“  “Alright, lets get the fuck out of here now then.“  “How are we gonna get back in?”   “Don’t worry about it.  I told you, I have it covered.”

We hobbled from our tent and out of the campground pretty quickly and, on the way out, I could hear the song end and the next one begin.   It sounded like “Trigger Cut“.  As we stumbled down the long trail up towards the parking lot, “Rattled by the Rush” was playing.  Kim looked at me and said, “I think that I was just rattled by the rush.”   She was smiling.  We walked past the general store, then the will call.  I could hear “Father to a Sister of Thought” playing so clearly from there that I actually slowed down.  I knew that the minute that I turned the wrong corner there would be a dead moment for the sound and I really wanted to enjoy it.  Kim had been so out of it that she had kind of missed me getting the ticket scanned and was still skeptical about our ability to re-enter.  The ticket scanned without a problem and, as we speed-walked towards the main stage, we were hitting that pocket of mashed sound from different directions.  They were playing “In the Mouth of a Desert” at this point, but I wasn’t hearing it. We walked over the hill and saw the stage.  It was slightly cool and the evening backdrop was amazing.  It was generic and cliche, but it was still magical.   This is what makes the Gorge worth it.  Somehow I always forget and this was the first time that I actually felt this all weekend.  They had just started “Kennel District” and I was happier than the Vatican with a glass-bottom kiddie pool?

Sure, we had a disappointing day up until this point, but everything had slowed down to the point where it felt like time had stopped.  I wasn’t worried about what I had missed and I didn’t care to think about what was coming up next.  I wasn’t running around with my fucking camera or trying desperately to document everything for the future.  I was actually present and sitting in the cool grass with slight breezes floating past.  Pavement played “Grounded” next and it sounded great.  I had actually forgotten that I had even wanted to hear that one but, like everything that they played that night, it felt like the perfect song for that moment.  Kim looked at me and mentioned how she had lost a whole afternoon, but that didn’t matter to either of us anymore.  Damn… this Pavement show really sounded amazing.

When “Silent Kit” came, I thought to myself, “Yes! This is awesome but, of course their gonna play one of the hits.“  Then I realized that, besides “Cut Your Hair“, I’m not really sure which ones are considered the Pavement “hits” and what aren’t.  This also meant that anything from the catalog was game.  Next was “Date With Ikea” and then a wonderful performance of “Spit on a Stranger.“  For such a crudely titled song, there’s something really beautiful about it and I loved knowing that there was really nothing else that I should be doing, besides sitting on the hill with my lady with a beautiful landscape unfolding into the distance and all of that sound pouring back at us.  The lyrics of “Spit on a Stranger” are based in the ideas of being a “perfect match” and working through anything and doing whatever it takes. Lines like that, which reflected our day, would pop out at us and help to verbalize the wonderfully corny shit that I was feeling.  It also reminded me about the importance behind the bands reunion.  Malkmus has been making criminally under-appreciated albums with The Jicks since their disbandment and the last time that I saw Mark Ibold perform, it was as a bassist for Sonic Youth.   It was nice to see them all back together and I would make the claim that they sounded as if they never broke up, if they didn’t actually sound so much better than ever.  When the song had finished, Malkmus reinforced what I had been feeling by saying that the song had come, “right from the fourth chakra.“  My guess it that he was only mostly joking.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The energy was amplified for “Unfair” and it provided Bob Nastanovich with an opportunity to showcase his abilities as the all around wildcard.  When his moment came, the percussionist/multi-instrumentalist/backing-vocalist hopped around like a fucking maniac and it was great to see that his trademark scream has more than remained in-tact.  Then came “Starlings of the Slipstream“, another amazing song.   They played “Fight This Generation” and when they got to the second more aggressive half, Nastanovich pulled out a slide whistle and followed it up by contributing more backing vocals screams.  This was also the point where Malkmus’ understated guitar skills really took center stage.   Pavement is notorious for “fucking off” in their live shows from the 90′s or simply just accused of playing terribly on purpose.  I never got a chance to see them during that time period, so that isn’t anything that I can personally verify, but somehow, through his lackadaisical and seemingly apathetic approach to his guitar work, he still sounded amazing.  This bastard literally had the body of his guitar resting on top of his bicep, while he glanced off at the floor and chopped at the neck, but the notes still sounded impeccable.

I doubt that it was just because it was Stephen Malkmus‘ birthday, but the energy was great.  I love Pavement‘s music, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that I will love them performing it.  Having it ingrained in my head so much actually increases my ability to be more critical of it.  Everything sounded perfect.  I don’t really know how else to describe their sound except for… “perfect”.  Generally, when there’s something that I’m really looking forward to, there is also some basic outline of an idea that fuels that enthusiasm.  Then once I’m at the event, the preconceived expectations adjust to the slight variations and merge into whatever the reality of what I’m actually experiencing is.  This show was different and, somehow, it felt exactly “right”.  I’ve had shows surprisingly blow me away and I’ve been let down, but this was some kind of freak Goldilocks-style scenario.  The transitions throughout the setlist were really smooth and never seemed to slump.  They alternated the tracks in a way that stabilized the energy and kept the show fresh; never burning out the intensity too fast or heading too far in the other direction and putting the crowd to sleep.

They followed “Fight This Generation” with the slower “We Dance“, which featured Nastanovich‘s young daughter, Lulu playing keyboards as her proud father stood behind her.  Next was “Gold Soundz“, another favorite that I had hope to hear that night.  For this one, Malkmus pulled off even more ridiculous guitar work than before.  He threw his guitar over head and swung it around, all the while maintaining his solo.  Again, it visually appeared that he was just fucking around, but the audio was so on point that what my eyes and ears were witnessing didn’t line up.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Obviously, by arriving late, I was afraid that I had missed a large percentage of the show.  By this point, however, it was becoming pretty clear that they had planned to play a hefty set.  In total, they wound up playing a full 22 different songs that night.  People who’d seen them earlier on this tour had told me that “they played everything” but I guess that I didn’t completely grasp what they meant by that.  They played “Stereo“, “Here“, and “Two States“.  This didn’t feel like some corny mandatory stop on a cheesy reunion tour, it just felt like an amazing show.  Just as I was reflecting on how any and all of the physical and/or emotional wear that we had endured up until this point had dissipated, I heard the beginning chords of “Range Life.”  This was going well and nothing could fuck this up… or, at least that’s what I thought.

Just as I was finally hearing the one song that I had been waiting for, some drunken asshole stumbled backwards onto us and stepped on my arm.  In retrospect, I probably should have pushed him forward and down the hill, but he was about to crush my camera bag, as well as my girlfriend.  It was a really nice romantic moment.  This dipshit was wearing a big goofy ass straw hat and carrying a giant plastic guitar-shaped drink in one hand.  He was a typical party cliche.  I’m honestly surprised that he didn’t have a fucking lampshade on his head.  We prevented him from falling forward, by catching him him as he stomped hard on both of us, so I just wanted him to leave.  He tried to lean over and talk to me, but I told him to just go back to where he was sitting before.  With his thick Australian accent and drunken slur, I couldn’t understand what he was squawking at me.  He was talking to me during the show, so I didn’t really want to try and decipher what the fuck he was saying anyway.  He kept at it saying something that sounded like, “My phone!  My phone!  I think you have my phone.“  “I don’t have your shit, man.  Just go back to your seat.“  I was writing with a pilot pen that has a light at the end, so I shined it around next to me really quick and showed him that I didn’t have anything.  Then I asked him to piss off again.

A moment later, he came back and interrupted us again, telling me that he thought I had something of his.  We were sitting down with him looming over me.  This time he decided to grab the collar of the Wesley Willis hoody that I was wearing.  He was getting a little belligerent and was still trying to unsuccessfully talk over the music.  “Let go of my fucking hoody!  Take your fucking hand off my collar.“  Here’s where things shifted quick because, as everyone knows, you shouldn’t put your hands onto strangers.  I was wearing my wool jeep hat with the spikes across the front, but I wasn’t gonna head-butt him.  I still had that pen with a sharp tip in my right hand and this dick was leaning his neck towards me yelling shit.  A quick image flashed in my head of me shoving it into his neck- then blood- then a crowd of his friends and me being pulled out by security.  Then there were the secondary thoughts of Kim being disappointed, Live Nation being pissed, and me not getting in the next day.  That’s an instance where my Jewish side snuffed out my Puerto Rican side, almost immediatey.  I decided to use my words.  “Hey!  Hey!  You just fucking stepped on me and my girlfriend.  I don’t give a shit!  It’s over, leave!  I don’t want to talk to you, fuck off!“  Then I realized that he wasn’t saying “phone“, he was saying “thong“, but he was trying to communicate drunk, with a thick accent aggressively during a live show.  I looked around again and found that his flip-flop had falling off and was on top of my camera bag, which actually pissed me off even more.  I threw it behind me and said, “There you go, leave.”  A moment later he came back to say something to the effect of, “See, I told you mate.  You had my thong.  Don’t fuck with me!  Don’t you ever fuck with me!“  Whatever, pal.  I told him to fuck off again and went back to watching the show.

Pavement played “Summer Babe” next and I could swear that I heard that guy yelling something down the hill at me, but when I looked back it was dark.  I’m pretty sure that I could also hear his friends trying to get him to chill out.  I just tried to keep enjoying the show.  Then it was “Shady Lane“.  Nice.  I wrote it down in my little book and a wad of paper or something hit my knee.  I looked back again, but didn’t see him.  I told Kim that I thought I was having shit thrown at me.  Then a water bottle hit my leg and I turned around.  I noticed the guy was now wearing a yellow poncho and seated in the middle of the group.  “What’s the deal, pal?  What’s up motherfucker?“  He smiled and waved at me.  Kim yelled back at him, “Stop!  Just fucking stop!“  I told her to get up and as we walked up and out towards the walkway, I thought I saw him starting to follow us out of the corner of my eye.  This shit wasn’t going to stop on it’s own and it was possible that it was going to end bad, so I found a security guard.  I don’t always have much luck with security figures, so I flashed the wristband again and explained that I was trying to cover the show and that this fuck was trying to get me going.  “I could stab him, but I was hoping that you guys could help me out instead.  I have another day here and I don’t want to deal with this shit later.“  One guy called another guy, who called another guy.  Eventually, the right person, or at least the right number of people, were there.  They asked me to point him out from afar, because they didn’t want us to get close.  Then I guess they changed their minds and went with the opposite approach.  Security brought him up to where we were and he was even starting shit with them.  They asked him to stand somewhere, but he didn’t want to.  They asked him to sit, but he wasn’t feeling like it.  I was just pissed because I was trying to hear the show finishing up with “Stop Breathin’.”  Eventually, they asked us to talk face to face about everything.  The other guy immediately lost it, threateningly saying, “Don’t be stupid mate!  Don’t do something stupid!“  I responded fairly calmly but dismissed his bullshit. “You stepped on my girlfriend and then you started throwing shit.“  He continued moving towards me, ” I apologized to you mate!  I apologized for that!  Don’t be stupid!  Don’t do somethin-“  He was moving closer and right after I said, “You better back the fuck up!  Get the fuck out of my face!“  They grabbed him and took him out, with his friends following slowly and telling him that it was probably time to call it a night anyway.  I don’t get into a lot of confrontations like this, but it felt like we were a couple of chained dogs.  Crazy.  Great idea, putting two people that were having an altercation face to face.  The show was over.  This guy was just a reminder of the different reasons that people attend festivals like this, and concerts in general.  This guy showed up for a “rager” like it was a fucking Mardi Gras /Girls Gone Wild party.  Pavement just happened to be there at the same time.

Massive Attack

As we made our way closer for the Massive Attack set, I could hear Public Enemy playing in the distance.  Along with Pavement and They Might Be Giants, it was really rounding out to be a nineties throwback night.  Once we hit the floor, we settled next to a bunch of guys standing around in absurd get-ups.  Basically, they were all decked out in costumes and wigs.  A guy in a smoking jacket asked us how our night was going and we told him that some clown just tried to start some shit with us, but he was tossed and everything was cool now.  “Really?“  “Yeah, it was some Australian guy that was wrecked.“  That’s just when I noticed their accents and realized that all of these guys were Australian too.  “Maybe it was one of our guys.“  It wasn’t, but they unnecessarily apologized for their entire country.  These guys were in a great mood and were really excited to be at the show.  It was a nice little twist of events and we kicked it with them for a minute while we waited for the show to start.  Then we noticed Jesse and Briana up ahead, so we left to meet up with them instead.

I don’t have much of a history with Massive Attack, but Kim was really excited about seeing them.  Jesse and Briana seemed to be working with that same dynamic, because she had a look of anticipation, while he didn’t look like he gave a shit.  He leaned over to me and commented that, next to My Morning Jacket, this show might wind up in the running for the “most overrated band of the weekend.”  I had a feeling that he might be right about this, but it didn’t matter.  We had already gotten to see Pavement, we were happy, and they played everything that we had talked about earlier in the day.  Now it was only fair for our red-haired ladies to be able to enjoy some “trip-hop” music, or whatever the fuck was about to go down.

Essentially,  Massive Attack is now composed of the production duo of Robert “3D“ Del Naja and Grant “Daddy G“ Marshall working with a selection of both random and reoccurring collaborators.  For this tour they are promoting Heligoland, their first non-soundtrack full-length release in seven years; even longer if you consider that Del Naja was the only original member of the original 3-piece to appear on the last release, 100th Window (2001).  Their touring format involves a fairly elaborate stage show and began with an array of lights and smoke enveloping the silhouettes of a full electronic band set up.  Their lead off song, “United Snakes” is featured as a bonus track on their new release, but was originally a B-side from the “False Flags” single back in 2006.  Yep this show was gonna get political.  The energy that the introduction provided was promising, though.  It had a bit of a driving rhythm, propelled by the warbling buzz of a possum stuck in a bug zapper.  Strobe lights flashed and the fans stared at the stage mesmerized like it was a Jones Town for moths.  They had a giant LCD screen for a backdrop, which constantly changed throughout the show, and it was used for a lot of shit that ranged from corny to preachy.  On the corny end was having a rotating list of various drugs flash across it.

Click here to view the embedded video.

British vocalist, Martina Topley-Bird came out on stage to sing “Babel“,  one of her collaborations from the new release.  She had performed on the Yeti stage earlier in the day and was still dressed in a giant pink ballgown.  She almost looked as if a Neutrino from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had gone shopping in the 5th Element.  She even manned the keyboards for a moment during the track but, once it ended, she waved to the crowd and left the stage.  Del Naja took control of the mic again to sing “Risingson” from Mezzanine.  The band looked exactly like you would expect a downtempo stadium electronic group to look; dressed in black with crisp hairstyles and headset mics.  Del Naja‘s vocal style is fairly monotone and he leaned up against a keyboard stand as he sang like some form of trip-hop crooner.

Horace Andy came out on stage next.  He’s an old ass grey-haired rasta who enjoyed a decent amount of success with his personal work as a roots reggae artist, before he began contributing vocals on Massive Attack albums in the nineties.  He has since gone on to appear on all 5 of their releases.  The song that he was performing now was another new track called, “Girl I Love You”.  This song actually has a pretty cool and brooding feeling to the instrumental but, without it, the lyrics would make it a pretty one-dimensional love song.  Andy‘s stage presence these days is about as exciting as drywall, but the high production value on the set is supposed to fill in for that.  During this song, statistical figures were consistently being generated behind him.  These figures were number values relating to government spending, Hurricane Katrina… basically, a ton of  unrelated political shit.  Yep, without the massive light board and effects, these guys don’t offer much in the way of live excitement.  The energy of their music doesn’t fluctuate much and they aren’t very animated as performers, but Kim was still dancing around and smiling.  “That’s good” I thought.  “She seems happy.“  Then I looked over and saw a couple of kids liquid dancing with glowsticks.  “Fuck!  Did I get dragged to a bad rave… again?”

The show continued with a similar ambient vibe and glitched out LCD effects.  The zeros and ones of binary code flashed across the back screen, but it never really felt “futuristic” to me or like the computer age; it felt more like I was in the nineties all over again.  This is a very structured live show, so there isn’t a lot of room for improvisations or spontaneity.  It was like a cross between a Vegas show and a hep local hangout, like the bar from The Crow.  Vocalists continued to come out for a single song and then leave with a bow, only to return later for another track.  It was a little like a variety show special or Ringo‘s All-star trip-hop band.  Topley-Bird came back out in a catsuit and the image of an eye appeared on the back screen.  People went nuts when they realized that she was going to sing “Teardrop” (Mezzanine).  In fact, Massive Attack actually did a few songs off of Mezzanine that night, including the title track, “Angel“, and “Inertia Creeps“.  Horace Andy returned for “Angel” and, for “Intertia Creeps“, random news headlines flashed across the backdrop.  Most of them were celebrity based, such as “Lohan Drama Reunites Family“, “Huff Hit By A-Rod’s Line Drive“, or “Mariah Carey Hush-Hush Fertility Secrets.“  One of them, however, contained an odd and coincidental reference to an “Aussie” being kicked out of a bar.  Shara Nelson was also on hand for a couple of songs.  She came out to provide the vocals for “Safe From Harm” and “Unfinished Sympathy” from the Sliver soundtrack.

I like electronic music, but I’m more into Venetian Snares and Squarepusher; the kind of shit that makes me feel like I’m having an anxiety attack and that my heart’s gonna explode.  Needless to say, Kim‘s not as into that shit so much.  I also love Daedelus, Four Tet, Crystal Castles, Aphex Twin, CEX, Ratatat, Kraftwerk, …  Truthfully, I like a lot of electronic music, but I guess I’m just not that into the trip-hop.  Then again, I also love DJ KRUSH‘, DJ Shadow, Funki Porcini, and pretty much everything that Amon Tobin‘s ever done… so, maybe I’m just not that into Massive Attack.  Massive Attack doesn’t create straight-up house music, happy hardcore, or any of the other type of techno shit that I typically can’t handle, but they also didn’t provide enough of a range for me in their sound.  It didn’t feel as much like a concert to me as it did a presentation; a little too clean… a little too sterile.  Plus, it was hard to get over the preachiness of the messaging being stacked over the generally shallow lyrical content of contrived love songs.  The contradictions didn’t seem to be as evident to the people around me but, when you have such an expensive and over the top production for your shows, it’s hard for me to listen to you speak for the every man.  For their final performance of the night, they had corporate logos rapidly flashing across the LCD screen, as if to say, “Down with the man!  Down with capitalism!“  A couple of companies that were noticeably absent?  Ticketmaster and Live Nation.  I’m not saying that they should have gone out of their way to attack the company that’s paying them but, it’s hard to believe that they were intentionally not added.  If you want to try and act hardcore, then do it for real.  I remember reading an article about a year or 2 ago, where  DEVO was actually paid to appear at some sort of Apple computer conference and they went all out.  Dressed as Booji Boy, Mark Mothersbaugh warned everyone about the dangers of computers and encouraged them to throw their computers out of the window.  Massive Attack‘s imagery spun like a slot machine and ended with a BP logo that read “Beyond Petroleum“.  The self-important crowd cheered and the lights went up.  As everyone scattered, I looked down at the floor to see endless wrappers, DOMINOS pizza boxes, Coke-a-Cola cups, and crushed Coors-Light cans strewn everywhere.  Yep, we really changed the world that night… we really did something.  Take that America.

A Tortoise song came on the soundsystem and I thought about how amazing it would have been to see them that night.  We walked past the Booka Shade crowd, again too tired to catch the late night set.  It had been a long day and it was nice to lay down and relax in the tent.  I could hear someone who was camping next to us throwing their own little dance party.  I went to sleep with a smile on my face, listening to Mark Morrison‘s Return of the Mack.

I woke up from the blazing heat in my tent.  It was about 7:30 – 8 o’clock in the morning.  By the time that I would manage to get myself shoed up and standing, the outside would already be slightly chilly and overcast.  This is a pattern that I would become accustomed to over the next couple of mornings; wake up early to the heat and then immediately put a sweatshirt on and hobble around looking for a different line of outhouses.  We were camped pretty deep into the grounds, which meant that our Honey Buckets took a while to be maintained and were usually “full” in the morning.  Such is the way of the music festival.

Apparently, Patrick has trained in the culinary arts and that fact, along with his generosity, resulted in us eating pretty well in the mornings.  He was in a really good mood from getting to see My Morning Jacket the night before, but the festival wouldn’t really be starting for me until today.  That morning, Jesse and I also got the chance to speak more about music.  We were both really excited about the opportunity to finally see Pavement and had different songs that we were hoping to hear.  I was betting on “Range Life“.  We knew that once we got into the venue we would be in there all day, so we tried to decide at which point we needed to head in and what we were willing to miss out on.  The collective decision was to wait and go in to see They Might Be Giants at 3:20.

THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS

We were slacking a little and got a few things ready in advance; things like hidden sandwiches in the backpack, etc.  I walked up to the media check-in again and waited behind a couple of girls, who were obviously in the wrong place, to get the fuck out of the way.  These broads were already hammered and were trying to babble some kind of request for special access or something.  They weren’t accepting the fact that they were “not media” and they were in the “wrong” spot.  The women working the table from Live Nation didn’t have much of a reaction and you could tell that they’d been dealing with shit like this a lot.  As I waiting for my wristband to be located, I saw the woman who rejected their requests looking past me and laughing to herself.  Then, I heard one of the drunk girls yell, “Lick my ass!” and turned around to see her stumbling over and pointing at it real classy-like on her way into the show.

When we  reached the Main Stage, TMBG were already on, so we sat down at the top of the lawn and watched.  They were playing “Birdhouse in Your Soul” from Flood (1990).  I had thought that we had arrived late but, based on the setlist, they were only the second song in.  Next they played “Clap Your Hands” from their 2005 childrens album, Here Come the ABCs and “Upside Down Frown” from 2007‘s The Else.  After that they revisited Flood with the songs “Your Racist Friend” and “Dead“.  I was a bit confused about this tour and this set in particular.  They pulled out a kids song, but then went into some adult themed and morbid classic tracks.  They continued with the “newish” material for “The Mesopotamians” (Else) and “Stalk of Wheat” from Spine (2004).  Then they went on to even newer material and played “What is a shooting star?” from Here Comes Science (2009), an album that ICP could benefit from giving a quick listen.  They finished the show off with “We Live in a Dump” from The Else bonus disc and a rendition of “Instanbul (not Constantinople)” that ended with a crazy whipped up theramin outro.  Somewhere in the mix, there was a close up of hand puppets on the big screen and a portion of “Free Ride” by the Edgar Winters Group.

I grew up with They Might Be Giants and I have a great deal of respect for their work and originality, but this show was awkward.  All of the tracks were either from kids albums, their last two non-kids albums, or from the classic Flood.  On paper, it almost seemed like there was something for everyone, but in reality, it felt more like there wasn’t anything for anyone.  It couldn’t be considered a childrens show, because of the adult themes that were mixed in around it.  It wasn’t really a classic throw down, with all of the post 2000 shit they played.  To be honest, TMBG kind of lost me over the last decade, once they wrote that terrible Malcom in the Middle theme song, and I’ve mostly rediscovered them through my 5 year old niece’s albums.  They have a quarter-century of material to pull from and I wasn’t too psyched on the selection but, if you’re still following their career extremely closely and have kids, you may have felt differently.  The environment was weird and I believe that their set may have have thrived better on a side stage.  I saw them play in 1993 at a local festival and I remember it being great.  Their energy was contagious and it was the first time that I saw an adult woman pull out her boobs, so my memories of that show were especially fond.  This time, it just felt like their energy was falling dead into the crowd and there was something about the sound on the early Main Stage shows that had been sounding flat anyway.  Like I said, their whole scheduling situation felt a little off and some people just stay at the main stage no matter who’s playing.  I’m pretty sure that there had to be a mix of hardcore TMBG fans grouped in with a bunch of folks who were probably indifferent about the whole scene.  Next on the bill was the young and popular hip-hop golden boy/ Kanye West prodigy, Kid Cudi… so, who knows… maybe this was their crowd?  No?

Kid Cudi

Kid Cudi came out to an excitement and an uproar of recognition.  Everyone might as well have been screaming, “We recognize this guy!  Play that song!  That one hit… The famous one!  Or maybe that one from the commercial!  Woo hoo!!!”  Yeah, I know his track “Day ‘N’ Nite“, the one that drives the kids into a frenzy.  It’s not bad and I have nothing against this guy, but the sound at live rap shows usually isn’t that great, in general.  Unless you’re an act like THE ROOTS, rap performances in a live setting are usually limited, with one-dimensional sound and muffled vocals .  I’ve seen exceptions with people like KRS-1, who was amazing, but even artists who are typically impressive on tape, like Talib Kweli, can have their audio fall flat in the wrong forum.  With such an enormous amphitheatre, it was crazy to see a single man trying to command that overwhelming crowd all by himself.  Under the circumstances, Kid “Cutie” (as we were referring to him) actually did a fairly adequate job.  [Hey, Cutty Ranks doesn't spell that shit like that].

The young rapper was sporting an Anthrax T-Shirt when he came out.  I can only assume that it was worn as a nod to Public Enemy who had worked with the thrash metal band on “Bring tha Noise” and who would be performing on another stage at the festival later in the day.  This extremely non-intimate stadium rap show wasn’t really engaging me and I was relieved when Jesse leaned over to me and casually said, “If I’m not quite sure of what Anthrax did as a band, I seriously doubt that this 16yr old brother is… and I’ve seen Anthrax.”  I thought it was the funniest thing that I’d heard all day, partially because I was thinking the same thing.  At that point, I was really happy that we wound up traveling with these guys and even more so that someone else was around to talk shit about the same things that I was noticing.  This was also the point where I snapped out of my surroundings and decided to get up and leave to explore the rest of the festival.  Kim decided to stay seated with the group and I went off to go see Mike Birbiglia in the Rumpus Room tent.

Mike Birbiglia

Just like the day before, I had to push my way up towards the front to hear anything.  The Bigfoot stage was crazy loud and conflicting with the poorly insulated comedy tent.  I walked up to the little barricade and was stopped by a security guard who told me that he wasn’t allowed to let anyone into the photo area anymore.  I mentioned that it wasn’t a problem the day before and he explained that they had only just told him today.  Then I pointed out that there were already 2 other fools sitting down there with cameras and he responded by trying to tell me that he let them down there before he knew that he wasn’t allowed to anymore.  I exaggerated the importance of me “needing” a photo and tried to focus on how ridiculous the logic keeping me out was.  He told me that I could take 1 photo, which I changed to 2 photos and then to, “No problem, but I’m gonna shoot a few more than that to make sure that I get one.“  Then I walked past him.  I knew that he was a little stressed out and I wanted to show that I appreciated his help, so I took my shots, but I did it quick and walked back out and nodded as if to say, “See buddy?  Everything is ok.  No big deal.  It’s gonna be alright.”

Birbiglia‘s a great comedian and I like his work, but the environment in that tent wasn’t the best for a comedy show.  The acoustics are just off and it’s hard to believe that the people in the back could either hear and/or see much, if anything at all.  Just like with Patton Oswalt on Friday, Birbiglia is a seasoned professional, but there was something about their sets that made me feel like they were constantly aware of the environment and were simply working through it.  All that I really remember from this routine was a section about a nightmare that he had which involved a flying jackal.  He climbed up on a stool to help emphasize the exponential amount of danger that a jackal with wings could possess over the standard Earthbound model.  After leaving the photo pit, however, it was difficult for me to see anything and, once I backed up into the section where the sound was being muddled with the Bigfoot Stage again, I decided to just give up and leave.

The XX

I walked past the Avi Buffalo crowd at the Bigfoot Stage, past the Yeti Stage and into the media section again.  I found myself wandering around and needed some water and a place to sit down for a minute.  This time I saw someone interviewing the duo from Yacht back there.  I called Kim and could instantly hear that something was wrong in her voice, so I headed right back over to the spot where we were before to get her.  I rushed over there so fast that I didn’t even notice that Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band had made a last second and unannounced appearance on the Yeti stage that I was walking past.

Kim was looking bad but wanted to go over to THE XX show anyway.  She was disoriented and spacey, so I laid down a blanket for her in the grass at the back of the Bigfoot Stage area and she fell asleep with her head on the backpack.  I had big plans to shoot this show but, based on the way that everyone was stomping around, I knew that it wouldn’t have been safe to leave her there alone.  People were openly walking over her with me sitting there.  Their shoes would narrowly miss the top of my sick girlfriends head by mere inches or they would carelessly do shit like stand right on her feet.  I had to stay low the entire set and listen to it from there.  I was chopping at mother fuckers legs and mean mugging these bastards who should have known better.  “Sorry“…  “Excuse me“…  “Thanks“   Thanks?  For what, telling you to fucking check yourself?  There was room to go around and there’s no excuse to step on someone that you see laying there.  We were in the back, not up front in the crowd I was actually surprised at how much people really never stop walking around during a set.  Stop for a minute and pay attention to what’s happening people.  Just for a moment.

People’s barriers change in different environments and they can even feel that they have a different set of secret rights that go along with their ticket price.  When The XX came out, some guy instructed me to wake Kim up to see them.  I looked at him as if to say, “Eat a dick!” and he got the message pretty quickly.  Obviously, my plan was to watch the show and not to sit on the ground like a shield, but I had to adjust to my circumstances.  The girls that were standing with him were incredibly helpful with recognizing my situation and even formed a nice little barricade while they watched from behind me.

I never even got an opportunity to see the members of The XX from my crouched position, but I did hear them and they sounded pretty good.  I remember hearing the song “Crystalized” kick in immediately after the intro.  Later came other recognizable tracks like “Basic Space“, “VCR“, and “Islands“.  The truth is, they basically played their entire album.  These kids from The XX were thrown into the spotlight so quick and their debut took off so fast, that they really don’t have much material to pull from.  I like them though, and I like their understated approach to their work.

Click here to view the embedded video.

These band member are extremely young, but they also seem incredibly focused on creating music, as opposed to become “stars”.  Incidentally, the song “Stars” seemed to be the only track from their self titled album that was actually absent.  Their strong focus on music as a craft and less on the marketing which can surround it, undoubtedly stems from their education at London‘s Elliot School.  The institute has an impressive list of former students and even claims Kieran Hebden (aka: Four Tet) as an alumni.  I’d hate to imply that the entirety of The XX‘s appeal and worth stems from their youth, because it doesn’t.  The reason that their youth is so relevant is because of the possibilities that it represents for the future, not only of their careers but of musical directions in general.  Of course, my hopes are that groups like this are a mere foreshadowing of younger artists beginning to experiment with more subtle and interesting approaches to Electronica and songwriting, instead of just trying to throw out a catchy Casio beat and dressing like a Rubik’s Cube to gain a fanbase, like shiny objects to an infant.  Then again, maybe I just miss the Eurythmics.

*Read Part 2*

MiiKE SNOW

To avoid any confusion right off the bat, I think it’s important to clarify that Miike Snow isn’t the name of a man.  It’s actually the name of a Swedish electro-pop trio.  I first became aware of the group, thanks to friend of the site, Sean “Har Mar Superstar” Tillmann, whose personal tweets and Facebook postings expressed an appreciation of their recent self-titled debut.  Much like Har Mar, the trio has managed to gain a solid level of popularity in the UK.  Although Miike Snow are arguably still more recognizable overseas, I believe that, if they aren’t on your radar yet, they will be soon enough.  In fact, Miike Snow isn’t unfamiliar with the concept of “Radar“, because 2/3 of the group actually helped to produce a hit song of the same name for Britney Spears.

I use to be a barista at a place where I was lucky enough to work with someone who had similar musical tastes as myself.  Sometimes, our co-workers didn’t feel as lucky about that situation as we did.  A lot of Silver Jews, Dungen, Pavement, Ween, Tortoise, Talking Heads, Sonic Youth, free jazz, etc, was played during our shifts, but one day Josh brought in the Britney Spears Blackout album and everyone was so pissed off that they lost their minds over it.  Both of us, on the other hand, got really into playing it more and more.  It’s extremely popular to trash pop-stars like Brit Brit, especially at that time, but there was something really intriguing about that album.  Once you get past the ideas of commercialism, shallow marketing tactics, and Total Request Live tweens buying scrunchies at a Claire’s in a Westfield shopping mall, it contained some brilliant layering and production work throughout.  Above all, “Radar” had a super catchy hook and was the one track that I couldn’t shake.  It turns out that, along with “Piece of Me” and two other tracks from Blackout, “Radar” was produced and co-written by the Swedish duo of Christian Karlsson and Pontus Winnberg (aka: Bloodshy and Avant).  In 2007, Karlsson and Winnberg teamed up with American frontman/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist, Andrew Wyatt to form Miike Snow and did so without any real expectations.  Bloodshy and Avant had already achieved a high level of success from their production work with vagi-centric pop acts like Spears, Kylie Monogue, Madonna, J-Lo etc.  In fact, these guys even produced and co-wrote the song “Toxic” which was credited by multiple publications as being one of the greatest songs of the Two-Thousands.  So, although their names as artists may not be as recognizable as the acts whose careers they helped to boost, most people are still very familiar with their work.  With Miike Snow, the production duo is now stepping out into the forefront to endure any risks and rewards which may come along with it.

Miike Snow was performing back over at the Bigfoot Stage and, based on the promotional and live images that I’ve seen of the group, I figured that they would provide a good photo opportunity, if nothing else.  For a band that was created without any real intention of touring, their visuals are crazy impressive.  Their spirit/logo animal of choice is a jackalope, for chrissakes, and it’s featured on the cover of their album in the form of an engraving on an ice-block.  Their myspace page even currently has a huge photograph of the mythical rabbit/deer hybrid rocking a gold medallion and with antlers in the shape of a biohazard logo.  It also appears in the backdrop of their club shows, but playing outside away from the mainstage affected things like backdrops and eerie lighting through puffs of smoke.  The other aesthetic focus for them seems to be matching outfits and either printed respirator masks or freakishly blank masks in the vein of Buckethead.  My hopes were that they would at least be sporting some of those.

When they took the stage, Miike Snow was in their touring form as a 6-piece.  There were no crazy masks, but they were wearing matching black satin jackets.  To the left was an additional member playing the keys.  In the back was a drummer who resembled David Caruso with a mustache.  Next to him was a keyboardist wearing a black hat that, when combined with his all black outfit, made him look like he was an Amish or Orthodox Jewish man.  All 3 of them were wearing sunglasses.  The 2 keyboardists had beards and, with the mustached drummer between them, they were like an electro version of ZZ TOP.  To the right were two keyboard X-Stands side by side with Karlsson and Winnberg behind them.  Winnberg‘s held a Prophet 08 synthesizer while Karlsson‘s supported a drum machine and various other equipment.  Wyatt stood center stage and, although he’s American, I couldn’t help but think that he looked like a Euro-version of David Berman (Silver Jews).

For a band whose live shows should generally thrive much better inside of a spooky ice cave, their set went incredibly well on the sunny outdoor stage setup.  At points, the hatted member picked up a bass and Wyatt even strummed a Gibson SG for a while.  Keeping their C&C Music Factory producer vibe in tact, Bloodshy and Avant remained joined at the hip from their section of the stage, alternating intense focus with energetic outbursts.  They pitch shifted notes and tweaked nobs, while Karlsson would use the drumstick in his right hand to knock the shit out of his electronic pads.  Beyond Andrew Wyatt‘s vocals, the subtle intricacies in their production are the real strength fueling Miike Snow‘s appeal.  The sextet managed to pull off singles like, “Animal“, “Burial“, “Black and Blue“, and “Silvia” with near perfection.  If you like their studio work as a trio and are worried if such a production-heavy sound has the ability to translate effectively into a live forum, it definitely does.  The backing band does an incredibly efficient job and the drummer didn’t seem to have any issues adjusting to the varying drum styles showcased throughout their work.

For those who are unfamiliar with their particular brand of dance jams, the Guardian‘s description of Miike Snow‘s sound as a cross between A-Ha and Animal Collective isn’t far off.    The song “Animal” contains synth-pop, reggae elements that cause them to sound a lot like The Police.  Wyatt‘s vocal delivery even resembles early Sting, but I like the Police and this song is undeniably catchy as fuck.  “Silvia” is a slower track with a fairly dramatic build-up.  It isn’t bad, but there’s something in it that reminds me of “Sunday Bloody Sunday“, especially in the introductory verse.  “Black and Blue” is a really dancy Jamiroquai-meets-Prince soul mix.  Everything has a familiar sound, but that’s what pop music thrives on.  Like I said, Miike Snow makes music that is hooky as all get-out and, if you are into electro-pop, this is as good as any of it.  It’s fun music without being overly cheesy and they did get the crowd amped up, but they’re not Bob Dylan and it’s probably not gonna change your life in any deeply profound way.  Miike Snow makes simple, straight-forward, good time dance music.  They do not construct complicated mind-bending prog-rock, or Sun Ra-esque space noise, but they aren’t trying to either.  If you just want to go to a show and hop around in a positive mood, they’ll supply the soundtrack.

WHY?

During Miike Snow, we met back up with the group we were traveling with.  However, before the set was over, I decided to go off on my own to finally locate the media area.  It turned out to be a little section over by the YETI stage and right next to all of the little food stands.  I flashed my wristband to a security guard and walked through an entrance in a wooden fence.  The section had a few picnic tables and a little table with some Sun Chips and Nature Valley granola bars on it.  There was also a portable building, a cylindrical chest full of ice with bottled water in it, and a singular Honey Bucket sans the giant line.  The portable was provided as a spot for media to set up their laptops, utilize the wi-fi, and go through their photographs, but I didn’t bring my computer for 3 reasons: I didn’t want to lug it around, I wanted to enjoy the festival, and I didn’t trust that my shit wouldn’t get jacked in the campground.  Some guy was interviewing a couple of the members from OK GO at one of the tables.  I sat down at a different one, drank some water, and chomped on a granola bar.  Then I heard a sound that I recognized coming from the YETI stage and left the media section to check it out.

Performing on the stage was the group WHY? and the song was “These Hands“; something that I must have heard while researching the band prior to the festival.  I went up in the photo pit area and sat down.  Ryan Neighbors from PORTUGAL. THE MAN was sitting down there, among a handful of other people.  Frontman Jonathan “Yoni” Wolf was wearing a white and grey striped long-sleeve polo with a white collar and a large white hat.  In the past, the vocalist has resembled his Jewish heritage much more closely but, with his current mustache and tan skin, his outfit made him look a lot more like a Hispanic Gilligan.  Wolf‘s older brother Josiah sat behind a drumkit and vibraphone set up, with Doug McDiarmid on keys and Andrew Broder and Mark Erickson of FOG handling the guitar and bass duties.

WHY? was originally just the rap alias of Yoni, until he chose to make “solo” albums, at which point WHY? slowly morphed into some level of indie-rock/hip-hop hybrid.  Prior to that, he worked heavily with other Anticon hip-hop artists in groups such as cLOUDEAD.  I snapped off a few pretty good photographs but, eventually, I couldn’t really take the full set.  The band sounded capable enough and I actually liked them at first.  However, after about 3 or 4 songs, their sound became grating and irritatingly monotonous.  These guys have garnered critical praise elsewhere, but I just couldn’t do it.  Wolf‘s vocal delivery has the same nasally quality as endless other “conscious” rappers and it’s a quality that I find to be of sub-quality.  I spent six years in Olympia, Wa with corny-ass rap crews that sounded like these guys and, regardless of the fact that WHY? may be better than them, it still reminds of trust fund gangsters trying to “drop knowledge”.  The type of kids who know who Atmosphere and Sage Francis are, but have never heard of KMD or listened to “Planet Rock” and “Raising Hell“.  This type of shit doesn’t inspire me to want to plant trees and read poetry; it makes me want to burn trees and listen to the most gangstered out shit that I can get my hands on.  If your vocal delivery mirrors that of John and John from They Might Be Giants, you better be singing quirky pop songs over an accordion.  I’m not sure when that became the go to vocal tone of underground prophets and neo-beatnicks, but it just sounds like whining to me.

Kim was hungry, so she came over to meet me and I gave her a granola bar as we waited in line to get financially raped by the concessions stand.  While we stood there, Wolf announced that they would be playing the theme song from the Dustin Hoffman classic, Marathon Man.  That was actually a nice detour for them to take in the set.  We spent $8 a piece on some mini Dominos pizzas that were about the size of a tiny sandwich plate.  We walked back over to the Bigfoot stage, scalding our mouths as we tried to shovel some food into our stomachs and keep ourselves going.

THE HOLD STEADY

Two of the best things about Sasquatch is their booking and scheduling abilities.  Bonnaroo has a rapeload of stages and an incredible amount of acts, but hardly any of them ever interest me.  Sasquatch, on the other hand, provides a higher concentration of quality music and does so by taking the focus off of quantity.  The other thing that always pissed me off about a lot of large festivals was the way that they always double-book shit that I want to see.  It’s not really a personal taste issue either, because the double-booking that they do is generally so obvious that it just seems fucked up and intentional.  In 2004 I went to Bonnaroo and they booked Primus at the same time that Ween was playing on a separate stage.  Both of those acts have a similar fanbase, but it gets worse… In 2005, Bonnaroo had 3 amazing jazz acts that I really hoped to be able to catch.   The Benevento/Russo Duo feat. Mike Gordon (Phish), The Bela Fleck Trio (includ. Jean Luc Ponty and Stanley Clarke), and Herbie Hancock doing all of his old Headhunters-era work, were all booked around the same time on different stages.  It’s not listed that way on wikipedia, but I remember having to deal with that dilemma and it was fucked up.  If nothing else, there were at least 2 of them booked simultaneosly, so why would all of the jazz acts all go on at the same time?  Poor planning?  Just a dick move?  It doesn’t really matter.  What matters is that, although there can always be inevitable overlaps here and there, the people in charge of that area of the Sasquatch Festival are a lot more conscientious about their scheduling and have done a remarkable of job avoiding such conflicts.

Before heading to the main stage for the nights final two headliners, we had the option of choosing between The Hold Steady and The National.  You could say that this was one situation where I was equally as interested in checking each of them out, but a more accurate way of saying it would be that I was also equally as disinterested.  We chose The Hold Steady.

I was standing in the photo pit and when they entered the stage they did it like a hurricane.  To say that The Hold Steady puts on a high energy performance is an understatement.  Lead singer, Craig Finn was ridiculously animated and he hopped around with spastic movements that would rival those of an epileptic meth addict with Parkinsons being administered with shock therapy.  It was really infectious at first and I was actually pretty excited myself.  I was feeling really lucky as I caught Finn in one choice pose after another.  One moment he clenched both of his hands tightly to the sides of his head.  Next, he gripped the mic with his left hand, while he extended his right arm out to the audience like he was saluting the Third Reich.  Then he spread his arms to the side, as if to embrace the entire crowd.  The whole time he was singing with a tremendous smile across his face.

The next song started and was equally as high energy.  In fact, it was pretty similar to the first.  Finn pointed his arm out to the crowd again and then spread them wide as if to hug them.  He grabbed his head like he couldn’t believe what was happening.  “Wait!“, I thought.  “This motherfucker only has 3 poses and he rotates them incredibly fast“.  If you search out anyone else’s photographs from The Hold Steady Sasquatch set, you’ll notice very little difference between them.  Occasionally, Finn would actually strum the guitar that was hanging around his neck.  This generally occurred during the upbeat chorus that tends to exist after each of their typical and formulaic, casually delivered straight-ahead verses.  Sometimes, when the singer’s arms were extended with his palms out, I could see him repeat the words, “What?!  What? What?” through his giant smirk.  The sides of his mouth were wet with spittle, like an infant trying to handle Gerbers.  I found myself wondering if this guy had ingested too much Adderall or if he hadn’t taken enough.  The next song… same thing.  I’ve never gotten burned out on anything quicker.  I couldn’t take it and I needed to get the fuck out immediately.

I didn’t have much familiarity with their catalog, but I don’t remember their sound being quite so poppy.  I have since listened to some of their work and I do believe that Craig Finn has a pretty good voice and I recognize his talents as a lyricist.  They even have a Seventies Springsteen and Elvis Costello influence that I’ve since noticed and can also appreciate.  Still, while I was there, it felt like little more than a high-speed pop-punk show fueled on mis-prescribed Ritalin, smoothie boosts, and a disdain for curfews and homework.  I was not a fan.

Vampire Weekend

Even though I wasn’t into The Hold Steady‘s set, I knew that I had still taken some good photographs.  I sifted through my camera images to check out my shots but, as I tried to show them to Kim, photos that I had taken from before began to disappear and come through as “unreadable“.  This was not good, so I freaked out and pulled the SD card immediately.  In preparation for the festival, I wanted to pick up an additional SD card, so that I knew I would be able to handle any number of images that I could possibly come away with that weekend.  This provided me an opportunity to work another classic hustle.  I had won some DVD‘s in an internet contest and one of them was the first season of The Sarah Silverman Program.  I returned it at a store for credit and put the value towards a Kodak SD card.  Now this brand new purchase, that was supposed to take the place of a sketchy budget version, was glitching out and fucking up my whole game.  All but one WHY? shot (pictured above) was still readable and a ton of The Hold Steady shots were now missing along with some Miike Snow photos.  Even though it wasn’t their fault, it made me hate their set even more and we left early to head over to the main stage.

We caught the very end of the The National and waited for Vampire Weekend, who was scheduled next.  Here was my opportunity to see what all the hype that’s been surrounding these clowns was all about.  Everybody likes these guys, right?  Isn’t that the deal, that they are supposed to be some young indie stars that everyone from kids to critics can really get behind?  All that I knew was that, I’d been walking around this festival all day, excited about discovering a lot of knew music but, for the most part, it was becoming a bust.  I had been in this human zoo for hours and Saturday wasn’t really the day for me lineup-wise.  Mostly, I had just been using the first day to feel things out and the poor pacing was starting to wear on me hard.

Vampire Weekend hit the stage looking like a bunch of preppy kids that I would never have any desire to kick it with… ever.  I could picture them driving themselves to the show, blasting Jack Johnson from a teal colored Ford Probe.  They say that their name has nothing to do with the Vampire film craze that’s big right now and I believe them, but I doubt that the fans in attendance that night got the memo.  A fair share of their music definitely pulses through the iPods of tween girls while they wait in line for the new Twilight tickets.

The first song they played was called “White Sky“, but I didn’t know that then.  For all I knew, they were about to do a cover from Paul Simon‘s Graceland album.  I couldn’t help but wonder if any of the little hipster kids hopping around in the audience had any idea how much that song sounded like something taken directly from the early String Cheese Incident catalog.  Next they played their song “Holiday” and it was actually happier than the last one.  Yep, I fucking hated these guys, but not as much as their crowd.  Never has there been a band more deserving of beach balls flying around during their set.  Frat boys in white sunglasses and neon hoodies hopped and stumbled around everywhere.  Girls wore flip flops and flung their arms carelessly into the air and everyone smiled from ear to ear.  I thought about grenades.

Next was a song called, “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa“, which kept their little island party jam vibe going.  These guys are actually a solid live band, as far as being able to play their instruments, but I couldn’t give a fuck about them overall.  Is this what people want these days?  Happy happy happy!  These guys write little sing-along tracks with little substance and, in my opinion, are the equivalent of listening to a Raffi album.  Guitarist, Rostam Batmanglij was obnoxiously dressed like a cross between one of Griff Tannen‘s sidekicks in Back to the Future 2 and Meshach Taylor‘s character of Hollywood from the movie Mannequin.  Lead singer, Ezra Koenig had a sly Corey Haim smirk across his face the entire time as if to say, “I’m gonna try to fuck your girlfriend.“  In his little button up shirt and Karate Kid-era Ralph Macchio haircut, I’m assuming that he’s supposed to represent the dreamy boy from English class who started his own band.  These chachis even have a bassist with the last name Baio.  There are worse songwriters and definitely worse musicians, but the overall scene is a difficult one for me to stomach.

I don’t mind “Island” music but… actually, I do mind Island music like this and I think that Jimmy Buffett sounds like shit too.  If I want to listen to something like this, I’ll just listen to something like Graceland or “Naive Melody” by the Talking Heads.  If I want to hear something “ethnic”, I will put on something awesome like Fela, Orchestra Baobab, Toumani Diabate, Os Mutantes, any number of Studio One albums, etc.  I’m not really interested in hearing a bunch of derivative shit from a group of Handsome Boy Modeling School rejects from Columbia University.  Their whole set sounded like “Kokomo” on repeat to me.  I will admit that I have slightly more respect for Sublime, but these guys do hold some similarities in the way that they make cultural music for the lazy and xenophobic.  Hey kids!  Turn off the 40 oz to Freedom, throw this Vampire Weekend shit out the window, and go pick up a Big Youth record or something.  Turn on some Sizzla.  All this happy shit just makes me want to listen to the Melvins.  Seriously, what the fuck is going on with these goddam kids?!

My Morning Jacket

The mainstage headliner for opening night was My Morning Jacket.  This was the band that Patrick was primarily enthusiastic about seeing.  He absolutely loves this fucking band and this show would mark his 5th MMJ show overall.  It was my first.  Jesse didn’t seem to care either way, but I think that we were both on the same page with being open to seeing how it turned out.  I wasn’t super familiar with their catalog, but I do have a couple of their albums and have heard their name mentioned repeatedly over the last decade.  Somewhere and somehow over that time period,  they’ve grown to the point of being considered as a formidable act, capable of headlining during a major festival.

The introduction for the Louisville band was dramatic.  A quick burst of sound came through with smoke and a flash of light.  Then total darkness.  Then another flash of light and sound, followed by more darkness.  There was a sonic electric buzz from the guitar and pulsating keyboards.  This was what could only be described and their THE WHO moment.  As far as I was concerned, that intro was already sounding more promising than the entire Vampire Weekend set.  When the actual song finally kicked in, it was “One Big Holiday” from the 2003 album, It Still Moves.

Front and center stage was some sort of stuffed, plastic-headed donkey figure with a mic propped up to its inanimate grill for show.  Frontman, Jim James was like a dirty outlaw, with his long duster-looking trench-coat and unkempt beard.  There was a Gibson Flying V strapped to him and, to further complicate his overall look, he had some crazy Legion of Doom/ motorcross/skeleton/ moon-boots situation going on with his foot wear.  The closest assumption that I could make is that they were some skeletal version of Gene Simmons‘ infamous dragon boots.  I still have no idea about the meaning behind the band name, but I did notice that guitarist, Carl Broemel and bassist, Tom Blankenship were wearing their evening jackets that night.  Blankenship went for the full look by adding a tie and jeans, while Broemel opted for the blazer with the open collar dress shirt.  The “sexy rocker” look, if you will.  Like Broemel, drummer, Patrick Hallahan was also wearing a black button up, as if they were waiters at an upscale restaurant downtown.  Everything felt just a little too Super Bowl halftime for me.  You may be reading this and thinking, “So what?!  Who cares how they were dressed?  Why does that even matter?“  My only answer to that is that I honestly don’t know why it should matter, but they definitely seem to put in a conscious effort to achieve the “seasoned rock band” look.

Song number 2 was “Gideon“.  This one is a dreamy track, which also contains a bit of a Michael Kang from String Cheese-style riff throughout it.  It’s the kind of fanciful riff that could soundtrack a public market at a renaissance fair.  I guess some things about Sasquatch‘s musical selection really haven’t changed too much since the first year.  To follow it up, MMJ played their song “Off The Record“, which incorporates a super upbeat dub rhythm and a blatant jack move of the Hawaii 5.0 theme song.  In essence, it’s basically just another pop song.  Both of these songs can be found on My Morning Jacket‘s highly successful album Z (2006).  Z marked a rather large shift for the band, as they had replaced both their original guitarist and long-time keyboardist, just prior to it’s release.  I had heard Z a few times in passing and remembered it sounding pretty good but, like most of their work, I only had a basic outline of an idea about what I thought MMJ sounded like and that idea was constantly being jostled and mutated.  These guys are both a lot more southern rock and more poppy than I had ever realized.  These are two that, in their generic form, I am not really too big on.

Between each song, the lights would go out again for dramatic effect.  In fact, there was a lot going on for “dramatic effect” and I personally felt like it took away more from the performance than it added anything to it.  The poor staff camera work that projected them onto the big screen didn’t help out the cause either.  The camera operator must have felt that there was something artistic about shooting everything at a 40 degree angle and there were a lot of off-center transitions into zoom shot’s of eye-brows, cheeks, and unfocused nonsense.  Jesse and I had found some time to talk about music earlier in the day and he had mentioned something to me about being turned off by seeing video footage of Jim James wearing a cape in concert.  I was surprised to hear that, but had to agree that it sounded fucking ridiculous.  I believe that it was during the next song that the cape made its appearance at this show.  The lights came back on just in time to expose someone fastening a cape around the lead singer’s shoulders and my speculations were right; it was definitely unnecessary and over the top.  The song, on the other hand, was a more understated track called “Touch Me I’m Going To Scream Pt. 1“, from their most recent effort, Evil Urges.  It has a Flaming Lips inspired sound with a lot of subtle effects and layering.  In fact, I could aptly describe a lot of their work as a more Southern rock version of the Lips.  The song ended and the lights went off.  When they came back on,  James‘ cape had turned back into his gunslinger jacket.  The only difference was that, now it was accompanied with a scarf.  The first real concert that I ever saw was the Motorhead, Metallica, and Guns ‘N’ Roses tour, and I remember Axl Rose changing his outfits at least 8 different times that night.  This was also around the time frame where Metallica was really laying the groundwork to sound like terrible, misguided shit for the future.  Motorhead, of course, was still awesome.  The point is, when you get to the point where you have to start wearing a different outfit and pausing between each song, you’re well on your way to being played out.  That is, if you aren’t there already.  This was rockstar shit and it was beginning to turn me away from these guys fast.  Plus, the long day was already beginning to wear on me and my lower back hurt like a bastard.

The scarf was worn for the straight-up Southern rock “Amazed“, also from Evil Urges.  It’s a pretty simple track, but I never found it too interesting and it’s especially, not very innovative.  I believe that next was “Magheeta” from It Still Moves and then the yacht rock/Christopher Cross sounding “Tonight I Want to Celebrate“.  I think that I made it to the song “Golden“, before I couldn’t stand there anymore.  Jesse and Briana had already slipped out, while Patrick stood there, lost in the show with a giant smile across his face.  He loved the show and I was genuinely happy to know that they were playing all of the tracks that he wanted to hear, but the day had taken it’s toll and my back felt like someone had been throwing die-cast metal Tonka trucks at it all day.  The cement floor just wasn’t working with my feet and My Morning Jacket had not won me over in any way that would make the discomfort worth it.

The ironic thing about us leaving when we did is that this acoustic “Golden” was probably the best thing that they had played yet.  It’s just a simple country/folk song, which is not only the genre that I feel that MMJ thrives best in, but also a direction that I feel that they should have continued to embrace.  I feel that it’s important to note that Patrick told me that, out of the 5 times that he had seen them, this was the best show he had witnessed the group perform yet and the show went on forever.  So, if you are really into them and their current sound, you probably would have really enjoyed this.  I, on the other hand, am worried that they are believing their own hype a little too much.  People use to really like old U2 and their Irish working man sound.  Then, one day, they decided to become “rock stars”, their music got even shittier, and they arranged the excessively elaborate PopMart tour.  I fucking hate U2.  People say that it was all a joke and that Bono was trying to make a statement about stardom, but I don’t entirely believe that.  I think that the lines blurred and that they actually became part of their own joke.  Those jack-offs eventually even got stuck in their Lemon-shaped pod, exactly like Spinal Tap.  The irony is that, while U2 always claimed that their intentions were to parody over-the-top productions of acts like the fictional Spinal Tap, in the end it was still a reminder that Spinal Tap was originally created to mock bands like what U2 actually became.  GNR went from whiskey drinking biker bar rats and got to the point where Axl Rose was firing everyone from the band and sporting corn rows and velour.  Jim James sometimes refers to himself as “Yim Yames“?  Maybe this is his alter-ego, like Mephisto.  Why doesn’t he just change his name to J. Diddy?  Or better yet, Morrissey… or even Oprah?  Don’t believe your own hype buddy, it’s not too late to turn it all around, or maybe it is… I don’t know.

The fucked up part is that, while other critics seem to believe that this band is getting better, I actually believe that they are getting worse.  Their attempts to emulate Prince on Evil Urges made me cringe.  The only album that I own besides that one is their debut, The Tennessee Fire and I actually think that it’s is a really solid effort.  Coincidentally, they didn’t play one single track from that album.  In fact, they avoided anything from their first two albums like the fucking plague, except for a bonus track from At Dawn (2001).  However, they played almost all of Z, and went through a ton of material from Evil Urges and It Still Moves.  It always makes me wonder about a band when key players who were vital in their growth end up leaving.  My friend KB has a theory that MMJ is a “safe” band for all of the people who are afraid to listen to Phish and the Dead.  I wasn’t sure if I understood it at first, when he told me that.  Are these guys supposed to be a jam band?  I’ve since noticed them listed that way, but they don’t really jam out and they definitely don’t seem very experimental or improvisational to me live.  They felt more like a business and less like a band.  Everyone had their role, their own little spot/job, and their own little area.  Smoke billowed and there was a solo, right on cue.  That type of shit.  Jim James scurried across the stage like Axl used to do and he even unnecessarily spun around in a circle at one point.  Jerry was an old fat dude, Bob Weir wore daisy dukes, and Phish are a bunch of nerds, but the music comes first and they’ve always played with and through each other’s parts impeccably and with everything that they had.  The idea of those 2 bands is to hand the music over to the audience like a gift and play off of the energy and appreciation that was given back.  It’s new-age hippie shit, but there’s something legitimate about it.  Processed stadium rock stars are more inclined to elevate and separate themselves from their audience, as if they are beyond them.  This MMJ scene felt incredibly processed and it was disappointing to me because, in listening to The Tennessee Fire and even at points in their current material, I feel like this band could be more.  Unfortunately, it feels like their focus has become more about presentation than truth and songwriting.

I should have known better, but I recently saw some footage of James performing with John Prine and I let it cloud my judgement, because of my huge respect for the musical legend.  Then again, Noel Fielding hangs out with Courtney Love so… I guess that associations aren’t always a sufficient gauge for much.  Hell, Herbie Hancock even had John Mayer performing as part of his band, when I saw him last time.  By respecting and restraining themselves during collaborations with their more influential predecessors, the musical talents of some artists can actually be re-directed and honed in more productive / impressive directions.  I think that more “rock stars” these days could actually use an Obi-Wan.

We originally walked towards the lawn seats, but just kept moving on our way out of the venue.  We went by the Rumpus Room and I realized that the Z-Trip set was already over.  Fuck.  Then we walked over by the Bigfoot Stage where a DeadMau5 late night set was going to be kicking off.  I was too beaten down and, although I really wish that I could have, I just didn’t have it in me to stay.  Based on the video footage of what I missed, it’s clear that it must have been one of the most amazing parts of the entire festival, let alone that day.  As we walked, wasted out kids who couldn’t handle their psychedelics lurched around and bumped into us like zombies.  We stumbled back to our campsite battered and I met up with some friends who were camping only a few rows away from us.  I downed a couple of beers and a muscle relaxer from Mexico they had given me for my back.  Day one was over and it was time to get some sleep.  There were 2 more days left in this fiasco, but tomorrow was Pavement… so we were just getting started.

[To view all of our images from Day 1 of Sasquatch,
check out our flickr set HERE.]

To give you a little background on my fascination with Prine, we must travel back in time to Olympia, Washington and Crazy Leland’s Mormon Mansion on Biscay RD, about a mile away from The Evergreen State College.  I was getting pretty wasted in the kitchen and staring into a huge tropical fish tank that was built into the wall.  It was Bond movie type shit, except that it was financed with the trust fund money of a wingnut with an addiction to weed and comic books.  I must admit that the fish never looked so pretty (I believe that I was probably on mushrooms at the time).  Friend and fellow Monster Fresh contributor, MEMES had suggested that we go into his room to jam some records.  I figured that it sounded like a good idea, so I grabbed a couple of beers from the fridge and moved on.  When we reached his room, the first thing that he asked me was if I wanted to smoke some glass.  I declined, both because I was already high and drunk and because, after growing up in the suburb of Kent, I was perfectly aware of what that shit can do to your teeth.   I’m pretty sure that  99 percent of people would have immediately left the room at that point.  In fact, I might have even been one of them, if it wasn’t for MEMES‘ next comment, which went something like this, “Hey bitch, you wanna hear my favorite Country music?”   I had to know what a glass-smoking hippie with a drum n’ bass obsession could possibly know about country, so I stayed.  He put on Prine‘s self-titled debut and the first song that he played was “Paradise“.  I thought to myself, “Wow!  This is a great song.”   Next I heard “Sam Stone“, a track that would both change the way that I view Country music and music in general.   It has honestly established a formula with which I would  judge lyrics by any artist from then on out, whether it be country, rock n roll, soul, blues, singer/songwriter etc.  If you have never heard “Sam Stone“, you should probably stop reading this right now and Youtube that song of a bitch (or simply view it in this pop-up box HERE).  It’s a great piece of work; similar to Oliver Stone‘s  Born on the Fourth of July, except that Prine‘s version involves a wife and kids and more drugs.

John Prine

Paramount Theatre

Seattle, Wa

April 17th

We arrived at the show in time to see the opening act, Dan Reeder, who is a standard American Redneck character, but one that has been living in Germany for the past ten years or so.   He is a truly light-hearted and funny entertainer.  Part of his act consisted of having a group of city-slicker cowboy types to sing, “I got all the fucking work I need“, for about 6 minutes straight.   This is not an exaggeration, that was seriously all that they sang, and he even made sure to include some wise cracks about George W. Bush.  I’m sure that knowing that he was in the most liberal fucking strong-hold in the nation helped, but I wonder what he says when he performs in other places, like Texas.  I wonder if he’s like, “Fuck this country going to shit.  Gays wanna get married, and they want us to pay for their health care!  I mean, shit… I just want a guy who loves the Country the way I do.  Someone like the former Governor of this state.  Someone like former President George W. Bush!”   Honestly, I doubt it, because Dan‘s routine was pretty effective and he actually seemed like a really stand up guy.  I guess that I always wonder if musicians do that shit because I would.  Hey, I just wanna be accepted… but I digress.  Reeder was a very solid opener, as well as a capable song writer.  Above all of the songs in his set, my favorite was the one that he closed with.  Unfortunately, I can’t recall the name of it, but do remember that it was about death and that he finished on a high note.

It would be another 30 minutes before Johnny came on, so we headed down to the Paramount Club and I got a couple of Gin and Juices.  “Two ice cubes please.“  The drinks were stiff and the free appetizers were wonderful.  The private club was filled with older couples that looked at Megan and I as if we were from Mars.  I was dressed like somewhat of a biker at the time, wearing a patched denim vest, cuffed 501 jeans, and a T-shirt for the black metal group Von that read “Satanic Blood Angel“.  Basically, I  didn’t looked like I belonged in a private club with a much older and distinguished crowd, if you can grasp the visual there.  Still, everyone was really nice and I got the feelings that the employees may have loved that I was in there pounding drinks at the bar, as if I was Billy the Kid or something.  There was the sense as if we were a couple of real outlaws, taking over one of those really classy two horse towns, bleeding the land dry and running off with the kids’ lunch money.  It made me feel unwelcome and I liked that.  We were alerted that Prine was going be on in five, so I took one more drink and then headed back to my seat.

Johnny opened up with “Spanish Pipe Dream“, which was so great that it actually started my heart pounding.  I looked over at Megan and said, “This is going to be an amazing show” and she looked back at me as if my statement was so obvious that I was an idiot for even feeling the need to say it out loud.  By the second song in, I had already began to cry.  He played “Six O’ Clock News” and, afterward, Prine offered up an amusing insight into his music by saying something like, “It took me awhile to realize that I was killing off the protagonist in all my early songs.  I guess I was going to the drama, but it sure makes it hard to write a sequel.“  I believe that “Picture Show” was next; also amazing.  I’m not exactly sure what order the setlist was in, but here’s what I believe he played:  “Aimless love“, “Souvenirs“, which also brought a tear or two, “Grandpa was a Carpenter“, and “Fish and Whistle“.  After that, I’m pretty sure it was “Glory of True Love” and then “Christmas in Prison.”  His backing band left the stage so that Johnny could play “Sins of Memphisto” solo, which is such a magical song to listen to.  I wish that I could explain to you how this show made me feel, but there are really no words to describe it.  Everything that he played was in perfect order and it was like Heaven’s jukebox had opened up just wide enough and long enough for a few of us to sneak in.

“Bruised Orange” was next and some of the lyrics in the that song are just mind-blowing.  For example, “I heard sirens on the train tracks howl naked getting nuder, an altar boy’s hit by a local commuter, just from walking with his back turned to the train that was coming so slow“.   Wrap your mind around that one.  Or how about…

“For a heart stained in anger grows weak and grows bitter.
You become your own prisoner as you watch yourself sit there
wrapped up in a trap of your very own
chain of sorrow.

I been brought down to zero, pulled out and put back there.
I sat on a park bench, kissed the girl with the black hair
and my head shouted down to my heart
‘You better look out below!‘”

It’s amazing stuff, written and delivered flawlessly.  The next song was “Please Don’t Bury Me“, followed up by “Donald and Lydia” and then “That’s the Way That the World Goes Round.“   Then came “Sam Stone“, which is obviously one of my favorites.  As Johnny began playing it, his band returned slowly to join in and back him up.  Prine‘s accompanying guitarist, Jason Wilber had been displaying amazing guitar work and solos throughout the entire show, and for this track it was no different.  During the ending of “Sam Stone“  Wilber laid down the perfect solo line to finish it off .  The next in the set was the up-tempo rock song, “Bear Creek“.  Then they played a few more rock n’ roll-style tracks that I wasn’t familiar with, before going into “I aint hurting nobody“, a bluesy number that’s pretty good, but not exactly life changing.

The songwriting legend performed “Dear Abby” next, with which he added a hilarious story that consisted of Abigail Van Buren contacting Prine‘s manager to request a ticket for an old show that he played in Kansas City.  Apparently, John had thought that it would be a good idea and, when he got to the point in that show where he was about to play the song, he had called out, “Abby, where are ya?!  I ain’t doing this song unless I know you’re here!“  After some time had passed and she was nowhere to be found, Prine followed that up by asking, “Where is she, does she ever come out?“  John then told us that some guy from way back in the rafters had stood up and yelled the response, “She only comes out on groundhogs day!” sending the rest of the crowd into laughter.

Prine followed up that song and story by playing “Hello in There” and then “Lake Marie“.  I wasn’t familiar with “Lake Marie” before the show, but I felt that, out of the songs that he’s written in recent years, it was definitely the strongest one that I’ve heard.  It was arranged beautifully and in a way that formed sonic landscapes of multiple shapes and colors.  It contains portions with swirling harmonies, and sections which incorporate a solid story-telling aspect.  The show closer was “Paradise.”  For this song, Dan Reeder returned to the stage to sing and Prine even let guitar player, Jason Wilber take a verse.  In all, I would say that John Prine probably put on one of the best shows that I have ever seen.  Everything was done to perfection from the song selection to the timing.  If you ever want the chance to see an old-timer/ living legend who is still in their prime, your best bet would be to catch a performance from Johnny yourself.  I have made the mistake of trying to see many of the other “great ones” later in their careers and none of them were able to hold a candle anywhere near John Prine.