A Few Good Shows: 8/3/12
August 3, 2012
As usual, there’s no shortage of good shows to see in Nashville this weekend, both local and non-local. Here’s what sounds good to me.
FRIDAY:
Ponychase w/ Deloreans and Echo Group @ the 5 Spot. 9pm $5 21+
Majestico, Magnolia Sons, and Jamie Kent & The Options @ 12th & Porter. 9pm $10
Quichenight album release w/ Fancytramp, T. Rust, and New Pleasure @ The End. 9pm $5
Diarrhea Planet, The Weeks, Grass Giraffes, Junior Astronomers, and No Regrets Coyote @ Mercy Lounge. 9pm $7
SATURDAY:
Poly album release w/ Cortney Tidwell and Natalie Prass @ Zombieshop. 8pm $7
Ill Communication: A Tribute to the Beastie Boys @ Exit/In. 9pm $8
P.S. In case you missed it yesterday, the official lineup for Soundland 2012 was released. The headliner is My Morning Jacket, with support from Divine Fits, Young the Giant, Johnny Corndawg, JD McPherson, The Weeks, Kopecky Family Band, Wild Cub, Night Beds, PUJOL, Nikki Lane, Mystery Twins, and Kansas Bible Company. A fine lineup featuring a good mix of established locals, up-and-coming locals, and THE go-to outdoor festival act MMJ. Good job Jason, Janet, and all others who work so hard on this event every year!
Have a great weekend!
First, I must point you to the official Next BIG Nashville schedule. It’s up, and it will probably change, but it’s there so start planning which sacrifices to make. Planning your schedule at these types of music festivals is always a delicate balance between seeing people you know and like, and branching out to see some new acts you might not get to see otherwise.
Secondly, I have some exciting news that some people know about, but others don’t. I will be doing a photo documentary project with Those Darlins next week; joining them on a week-long leg of their tour with Strange Boys and Gentleman Jesse & His Men. I got the idea after the death of famous rock photographer Jim Marshall last year. News of his death got me thinking about his photographs, and how a lot of the truly iconic shots are very casual, candid, off-beat images taken off the stage. I thought about how I could do more of that type of behind-the-scenes work (not that my images will ever be as iconic as Marshall’s shots of Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, and the like), and I thought of Those Darlins. I’ve known them for years, they’re some of the best people I know, they have room in their van, and after some discussions with their awesome manager John “JT” Turner, this idea is now becoming a reality. They’re what most would consider a mid-level act, but they’re headed for higher places and I think it’s the right time to do this type of project with a band like them. Those Darlins know how to party, and I think the results of this little experiment will be interesting. So, if you’re in Chapel Hill, D.C., New York, Cambridge, or Brooklyn, I hope to see you at one of the shows! Obviously, I may not be posting much next week…
My other news is simply that Miami Horror is awesome and you should go buy their album now. Seriously, I’ve been seeing mp3’s from these guys popping up in the blogosphere for a few months and I kept thinking “oh, this is an awesome track… nice…” But just yesterday I saw my friend Joseph’s review of their debut album on his blog Nashville Nights and it finally clicked in my head that these guys were different than your average “3 or 4 singles a year” DJs/producers. I urge you to checkout the quality interview Joseph did with them as well… I totally agree with his sentiment that it’s hard to find a good, quality dance floor album these days. There really are no sleepers or filler on this album- pure quality all the way through. Honestly this material is exactly what I personally want out of electronic/dance music: it’s got a great disco-ey, funky groove to it, smooth bass lines, and most of all the songs are songs, not just a bunch of loops layered together that build and fade (via trancewave). If you like Cut Copy, AIR, or Neon Indian, you will love this record. This is the best thing to come out of Australia since Silverchair. J/K J/K J/K
Miami Horror-I Look To You (Ft. Kimbra)
Oh, and the link to buy the album goes to Amazon. Fuck iTunes and their non-mp3/non-DJable formats. And while I’m at it, fuck their new ugly skin/layout for iTunes 10, too.
Bonnaroo rant/BISB/Morning Benders
February 11, 2010
After some thinking, I have this to say about the Bonnaroo 2010 lineup: 1/2 good, 1/2 FAIL. Part of it is just my personal taste, but part of it is just plain WTF?
First the bad part: the headliners. The combination of Stevie Wonder, Jay-Z, Kings of Leon, and Dave Matthews Band (the 1st 4 listed in the lineup, thus assumed to be headliners) is pretty weak compared to Phish/Springsteen, or Metallica/Pearl Jam, or The Police/Tool. As much as I hate Phish, they were a HUGE score for the festival last year, and IMO, they needed someone like the widely-rumored Paul Simon or Paul McCartney to really stand up the last few years. I don’t think Jay-Z, despite his legendary status in the hip hop world, can quite fill the shoes of past headliners. Stevie Wonder is awesome and I’m glad he’s playing but somehow I just don’t see him as quite headliner material. DMB has played Bonnaroo before, and of course will please the hippie crowd, but will also draw a considerable number of collar-poppin’ fratastic douchebags.
Now for the good part: the tent-playing (or maybe Which Stage-playing) mid-level indie acts. I’m more than elated to see She & Him, LCD Soundsystem, Phoenix, Flaming Lips, Miike Snow, They Might Be Giants, OK Go, The Melvins, Neon Indian, and many more of the “indie rock” acts on the bill. Let’s just say that if I go to cover it for the Scene again this year, I will no doubt be spending most of my time in the tents.
In other lineup news, Vanderbilt’s Rites of Spring lineup came right on the heels of the Bonnaroo announcements, and the list is not surprising, though Phoenix and Passion Pit together make the lineup a tad bit stronger than past years, IMO. Headliners Ben Harper & the Relentless 7 and Drake fit right into the typical RoS formula of putting an up-and-coming rap star on one night, and a frat-pleasing, jam-ish act on the other. But this broad, please-all formula has worked well for the festival in the past, so I can’t blame them for doing what works. This ain’t no Pitchfork afterall.
As most Nasvhillians who pay any amount of attention to the local electronic/DJ scene already know, Justin Kase has been on the road for several months as a the DJ in Ke$ha’s backing band. He also ran a pretty cool, though sparingly updated blog called Blogging Is Serious Business. Sadly, though, he’s putting that blog on indefinite hiatus:
Touring kept me from updating recently, but now i just don’t have any interest to continue this blog. Never say never, but don’t expect anything new for some time to come.
What’s utterly flattering, though, is that he mentioned my blog, along with the obvious Nashville Nights, as an alternative for “your Nashville dancing fix…” Therefore, expect me to attempt to live up to that plug by bringing in a little more coverage of the DJ/electronic/dance scene beside my usual plugs for gigs at which I’m DJing. Don’t expect many mp3’s though, because A) Joseph at Nashville Nights has that very well-covered, and B) I don’t have the time or energy to devote to climbing the HypeMachine charts and getting labels/producers to send me shit to post. I will however, post a link to my last mix, just in case you missed it back in Dec. (Spring 2010 Mixxxx is currently in production for release next month.)
Finally, I was excited to this nicely-done video of the Morning Benders performing/recording the track “Excuses” for Yours Truly with about 50 of their best musician friends crammed into the studio, Phil Spector-style. In fact, as the singer Chris Chu talks about in the interview segment, the song is a bit of a tribute to Spector and his “Wall of Sound” recording method. They even wrote a cute little letter to him which you can read at Yours Truly. Here’s the video. (All of this via Gorilla vs. Bear and Pitchfork)
Some cool/cute videos
February 9, 2010
You’re no doubt going to be spending a lot of your internet time today following the “great unveiling” of the Bonnaroo 2010 lineup, and I have little interest in competing with that. Furthermore, I don’t have time to cover such a long, drawn-out process in the first place because this blog happens during small breaks, luls, and at lunch during my “real” job. According to the main Bonnaroo website, the place to keep up with the lineup unveiling (which is entirely up to the artists themselves this year) is Bonnaroo’s myspace page. They will start keeping tabs of the announcements at noon EST today. As of 10am the only artists I’ve seen are Weezer, Flaming Lips, Phoenix (weird because Bonnaroo doesn’t normally book acts 2 years in a row), John Fogerty, Jeff Beck, and Blues Traveler. That last one gave me a major flashback to watching Woodstock ’94 coverage when I was 13….
So, instead of focusing on the Bonnaroo craziness, I will simply post some interesting cute videos thanks to Yewknee’d:
Very cool time-lapse video of the snowfall in Washington, D.C. this past weekend:
A dog reacting to the Law & Order theme song: (Many many more here.)
Lineup announcements
January 19, 2010
Today is a day of announcements.
If you’re a Nashvillian surely you know that Mercy Lounge is hosting a series of free shows this week featuring the best of Nashville’s local rock. It’s their 7-year anniversary bash. You may have seen that they had two “special secret guests” in addition to Friday’s already awesome lineup of the Non-Commissioned Officers, How I Became the Bomb, De Novo Dahl, and the Ettes. Today they announced the 1st of those two special guests: The Features. Apparently you’ll have to wait until friday to see the other one. I smell another Kings of Leon rumor mill/controversy on the horizon… keep checking their calendar for updates, or follow them on Twitter.
Rumors abound about possible Bonnaroo lineups/headliners. Here’s one blog that attempts to predict some of the artists. (Via Nashville Cream)
And of course, today was the official announcement of the 2010 Coachella lineup. This should allow you to hone your Bonnaroo predictions a bit, if you’re into that sort of thing. Here’s the lineup:
Twighlight Heroin/SXSW lineup
November 25, 2009
I’m not making this up. SXSW is already announcing an initial batch of bands for the 2010 festival. Unbelievable. I mean, I must admit that I’ve been thinking about it some, but it’s still about 4 months away! Regardless, some highlights that I noticed: Deer Tick, The Brunettes, The Coathangers, Robyn Hitchcock, We Are Scientists. Decent list, I guess. I’m pretty sure it will improve drastically when the full lineup finally comes out. SXSW ’09 was literally one of the best trips of my life, so one way or another, I’m going back next year! Check out the full list here. (Via Pitchfork)
Twilight has officially gotten out of control. It’s already sad enough that New Moon had the most successful opening weekend in history… but now we have people biting other people in the theaters? And to top it all, Twilight-themed heroin was confiscated in Florida! See for yourself at io9. WTF?!?!?
So this will probably be my last post till next Monday. Have a great Thanksgiving weekend!
