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(04/26/12 4:12am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Das Racist will headline the premiere party for the spring 2012 edition of Canvas Creative Arts Magazine at 7 p.m. today at Alumni Hall in the Indiana Memorial Union.The Brooklyn hip-hop trio behind underground classics such as “Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell” and “Michael Jackson” will round out the bill. Jacobs School of Music students will play original compositions inspired by poems that have appeared in Canvas and Michael Mlekodaj, a beat poet, will also perform.“The one thing we’re trying to promote is it’s not just a Das Racist concert,” said sophomore Jared Thomas, director of Canvas. “It’s also for people who read Canvas, people who don’t, people who read poetry, people who like classical music.”The program was assembled to reflect the magazine’s editorial mission, which focuses on building and fostering a community for the arts within IU.“Canvas isn’t just a magazine for the artists,” said senior Dan Harting, the magazine’s editor. “It’s for the art community at IU, which is something we’re interested in fostering and developing. That’s why we’re bringing this party together.”It will be the biggest issue launch Canvas has had yet, and Harting sees this as directly correlated with the success of the magazine.“The real focus of the last two years has been really expanding our audience, not really in number but in demographic,” Harting said. “Over the past four or five semesters, we’ve increased the size of our premiere party pretty dramatically. forty people came five semesters ago. Now it’s 700.”The staff said the presence of a well-known rap act at the party has been the biggest draw, but it’s been easy to roll that into a conversation about Canvas.“As far as when I’ve been talking to people about it, it’s just a draw to the magazine,” said freshman Mara Abonour, a committee member at Canvas. “It’s a big name that leads people to the knowledge of the magazine, and it’s going to be an easy process to show it to people once you’re at the premiere party because we’re going to make it be about more than just Das Racist.”Still, the group was chosen because its vibe is similar to the feel of Canvas. MCs Heems and Kool A.D. met at the small liberal arts college Wesleyan University and formed Das Racist with hype man Dapwell shortly after.“The whole indie rap movement is focused on viewing it not as music, but as art,” Harting said. “You’re not selling albums, but you’re dispersing your art.”Thomas pointed to an even more direct connection between Das Racist’s music and Canvas’s role as a one-stop shop for art and literature fans on campus.“One of their singles is ‘Art School,’ which I think is great,” he said. “It’s very cohesive with Canvas.”
(04/26/12 3:42am)
WEEKEND previews this summer's big TV seasons
(04/26/12 3:36am)
WEEKEND previews this summer's big upcoming albums
(04/26/12 2:53am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>This column should feel like a goodbye, but it doesn’t.Even though these are the last words I’ll ever have attributed to me in the pages of WEEKEND, and even though I’ve written for WEEKEND since about a week after I arrived at IU as a freshman, there’s no finality here.Some of that is probably about the mutability of the newsroom experience, about the great friends I’ve made, about all the things these three years of reporting, writing and editing have taught me. More of it, I suspect, is about the fact that I’m not leaving Bloomington.The official reason I’m staying is a pretty good one: I got a job with the distribution wing of Secretly Canadian, Bloomington’s acclaimed indie record label.The real reason is a little more complex. I came to love the Bloomington music scene so much during college that I made a conscious effort to do everything in my power to stay.I spent the first half of college plotting my escape route to London, Chicago or Toronto, thinking that the bigger the scene, the happier I’d be. Meanwhile, I was spending just about every weekend seeing buzzy national acts brought to town by Spirit of ’68 Promotions, falling in love with local bands such as Stagnant Pools and Racebannon, listening to albums mixed at Russian Recording, browsing the endless racks at Landlocked Music and bumping into the people who employ Bon Iver at the Bishop.It’s a wonder it took as long as it did to hit me. Bloomington is as underrated a music city as any in the world. Despite its small population and lack of a marquee act — even my hometown of Dayton, Ohio, can claim Guided By Voices — every night here is another chance to see a great live show and chat with people who care deeply about music.What makes Bloomington’s music scene so special isn’t just how surprisingly robust it is. It’s also because of how knowable it feels.I spent last summer in London as an intern for the Quietus, and I went to quite a few record stores, concerts and music press gatherings in my capacity there.After three months, I had hardly met anyone more than once, I had never been to any venue twice and I didn’t really have a grip on what the London scene was like — if there was a cohesive one at all.Bloomington isn’t like that.The same guy you see in the corner booth at the Bishop is playing bass with a band there a week later and thumbing through hardcore seven-inches next to you at Landlocked the week after that. Maybe you become friends. Maybe you don’t talk.But you’re aware of one another, and there’s an inclusiveness in that that’s hard to find in New York or Los Angeles.Long story short, this final column won’t mark my ride into the sunset.If you want to jive about the new Spiritualized record (it’s fucking amazing, right?) or the Pitchfork Fest lineup (ended up being pretty good, didn’t it?), just swing by Secretly Canadian HQ. Or the Bishop. Or Landlocked. Or Tracks. Or Russian Recording.I’ll be there.
(04/19/12 4:16am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>"Feistodon" 7"Mastodon and FeistWhen Atlanta prog-metal crew Mastodon and Canadian singer-songwriter Leslie Feist played on the same episode of “Later ... with Jools Holland” in October, the mutually admiring parties discussed in passing the possibility of covering one another for a split. Six months later, it’s a reality; Feist will cover Mastodon’s “Black Tongue” and Mastodon will cover Feist’s “A Commotion” for a Record Store Day-exclusive 7”. It’s currently unknown whether Mastodon wore sundresses or Feist grew a beard during the recording sessions. — Brad Sanders"The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends" double 12"The Flaming LipsThe Flaming Lips have produced a double-vinyl album, “The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends,” that is loaded with outlandish surprises for their fans in honor of Record Store Day. The record features collaborations with Bon Iver, Ke$ha, Coldplay’s Chris Martin, Erykah Badu, Neon Indian, Yoko Ono, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros and Biz Markie, among others. As if this enticing list of featured artists wasn’t enough to reel listeners in, the Flaming Lips have decided to release a few special records with an embedded vial of the collaborators’ blood in the center. In an interview with MTV, eccentric Lips frontman Wayne Coyne said he expects the individually made bloody records to be snatched up by the extremely dedicated and extremely wealthy sector of the group's fan base. — Megan Walschlager"Transverse Temporal Gyrus" 12"Animal CollectiveAnimal Collective hasn’t released a proper full-length record since 2009. In the meantime, the band has instead opted to tour the world, record EPs and singles, make a visual album called “Oddsac” and create a special exhibit at the world-renowned Guggenheim Museum in New York City. That last project, called “Transverse Temporal Gyrus,” is an experimental collaboration with “Oddsac” director Danny Perez. It features contributions from each band member randomly channeled throughout the museum’s performance space, and it’s now being released as a limited 12” vinyl that collects the individual tracks, in addition to live recordings of the piece. “Transverse Temporal Gyrus” should feature the band at its most bewitched with heavy doses of choppy samples and pitch-shifted incantations. Brace yourself. — Patrick Beane“A.D.D. Complete” 7” Chuck PersonsLast year, sample mastermind Daniel Lopatin, better known as Oneohtrix Point Never, released the sonic gem “Replica” to critical acclaim. Before that, however, Lopatin recorded underground cassettes that reworked FM radio hits into deliriously noisy and catchy loops, which he dubbed “eccojams,” under the pseudonym Chuck Persons. Lopatin is bringing that alter ego back with his upcoming 7” vinyl release, “A.D.D. Complete,” which compiles new “eccojams,” along with samples used to make “Replica.” Unfortunately, the release is limited to 120 hand-numbered copies, only available in-store at Piccadilly Records in Manchester, England. At least you can soon look forward to copping a guilt-free vinyl rip. — Patrick Beane“One Drop” 12” Public Image Ltd.It’s been 20 years since former Sex Pistols provocateur John Lydon churned out any new material with his seminal post-punk outfit Public Image Ltd., but that will change this Saturday with the release of the “One Drop” EP. Lydon calls the title track a “reflection of where I grew up in Finsbury Park, London. The area that shaped me and influenced me culturally and musically, a place I will forever feel connected to.” — Brad Sanders“Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessions” box set Billy Bragg and WilcoIn the spring of 1992, Woody Guthrie’s daughter, Nora, contacted English folk-punk musician Billy Bragg about putting music to thousands of sets of lyrics that filled her father’s notebooks before his death in 1967. Bragg subsequently reached out to then-up-and-coming alt-country group Wilco, and they collaborated on two critically acclaimed compilations, “Mermaid Avenue” volumes 1 and 2, that came out in 1998 and 2000. Appropriately, these sessions spawned many unfinalized tracks of their own, as well as a limited-release documentary film, “Man in the Sand.” More than a decade later, all the aforementioned material is coming out in one big package that will also include a 48-page book of photographs and reproductions of Guthrie’s lyric sheets and sketches. — Steven Arroyo“Do Ya Thang” 10” Gorillaz, André 3000 and James MurphyConverse’s “Three Artists, One Song” series has produced a handful of curious collaborations in the past two years, but none more so than its most recent edition, which put Outkast’s André 3000, LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy and Damon Albarn of Gorillaz and Blur in a studio together. An abridged version of “Do Ya Thang” was released as a free download on Feb. 23, but the original ran more than 13 minutes, and it will see the light of day Saturday. “André just goes off,” Albarn said of the full version in a recent interview with Pitchfork. “And what he’s saying just gets more and more ridiculous. It finished on its own will, we really had nothing to do with it.” — Steven Arroyo
(04/19/12 4:08am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Coachella ruined my weekend. It also made it wonderful. Clearly, I’m struggling with this.The lineup for this year’s Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio, Calif., is possibly the best festival lineup of all time. Any summary does it a disservice, but reunion sets by Pulp, Refused and At the Drive-In and nights headlined by Radiohead and Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg serve as a pretty good indicator of how successful this year’s booking team was.The announcement of this incredible lineup was frustrating because, as a college student living in the Midwest, I knew I had about no chance of making it out to the West Coast for the festival. I also knew, for better or worse, that I’d experience everything that happened at Coachella in real time.Despite not spending my weekend in Indio, I know that Jeff Mangum played nearly all of Neutral Milk Hotel’s seminal “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea” LP because @SPINfestivals tweeted that he did. I know how dominant MC Ride looked fronting Death Grips during their afternoon set because Pitchfork posted a photo of him on Instagram. I know Pulp played a brilliant set because I watched a recording of the live feed on YouTube.Social media has changed what it means to not be at a festival. On one hand, you’re practically there. With live tweeting, photo blogging and entire sets being uploaded to video streaming services, it’s now possible to simulate the festival experience to an unprecedented degree. We’re probably one big mobile app development away from being able to drop acid with someone across state lines.On the other hand, you’re not there, and the glut of information pouring in from the festival grounds makes that fact all the harder to process. I spent Friday wishing I could block all tweets including the word “Pulp” from my feed, and the chills I felt watching Frank Ocean open his set with a take on Bob Dylan’s “Long Time Gone” were countless miles away from those felt by the people seeing it in person.It’s evident that there’s no turning back from this new share-everything festival culture, but it’s interesting to think about who it actually benefits. Attendees remain objects of jealousy but are mostly unaffected. People who want to go but can’t have to deal with the dilemma I’ve outlined. Publications’ hits increase, but they also become targets of rage for people who don’t want to read about what they can’t attend.The real winners are the festivals themselves.Seeing how awesome this year’s Coachella has me halfheartedly planning a trip to next year’s Coachella, and I’m sure I’m not the only one. I’m already heading to Orion Music and More Festival in Atlantic City, N.J., in June and Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago in July, and in each case, the reason is how much the Internet made me feel like I needed to go.And for all the festivals I can’t make, I’ll settle for the tweets. As painful as they can be, they’re still better than nothing.
(04/17/12 3:58am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>If thumping EDM and bands With Rome aren’t your thing, Dan Coleman’s Spirit of ’68 Promotions will have plenty of alternatives during Little 500 week.Anais Mitchell with Cuddle Magic9 p.m. todayThe BishopTickets are $12 at the doors, and the show is open to guests 18 and olderHanni el Khatib with the Sundelles and Charlie Patton’s War9:30 p.m. ThursdayThe BishopTickets are $8 at the door, and the show is open to guests 18 and olderCults with Spectrals and Mrs. Magician8 p.m. SaturdayRhino’s All Ages Music Club Tickets are $15 at the door
(04/05/12 1:29am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Mixtapes, by their nature, are almost always uneven affairs. That’s part of their charm. When they get a physical, promoted release, though, the expectations rise.“The OF Tape Vol. 2” offers Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All an opportunity to atone for Tyler, the Creator’s disappointing “Goblin.”Tyler is less frontman and more facilitator on “Vol. 2,” letting everyone from Mike G to Domo Genesis shine unencumbered at points in its 18-track duration.Not every song works, but the diversity on the tape makes the ride fun even when they don’t. Frank Ocean channels Stevie Wonder for the beautiful “White”; Tyler, Taco and Jasper send up Waka Flocka Flame on “We Got Bitches”; and the entire Wolf Gang contributes to song-of-the-year contender “Oldie.”The increased maturity of the Odd Future crew is evident all over “Vol. 2,” and suddenly, it feels justified to look forward to more solo albums by its members.
(04/05/12 1:15am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All’s “Oldie” is the best song of 2012 so far. A true posse rap, its muscular 10 1/2-minute runtime gives every member of the OFWGKTA crew a chance to shine.In addition to bits by Taco, Domo Genesis, Left Brain, Mike G and Hodgy Beats, de facto frontman Tyler, the Creator gets two verses; the group’s non-musical member, Jasper Dolphin, spits a nine-bar; crooner Frank Ocean flexes his rapping chops; and, most crucially, Earl Sweatshirt delivers a truly monstrous flow.It’s a great verse — arguably the best on the track — but that’s not why it’s significant.The main reason Earl Sweatshirt’s verse on “Oldie” dropped jaws is because Earl Sweatshirt disappeared for more than a year prior to its release.He was gone for so long, in fact, that the lyric “Free Earl” has appeared on nearly as many Odd Future tracks as Earl has.The now-18-year-old rapper’s return makes him a prodigal son of sorts, though rejoining the Odd Future fold after a stint at a Samoan boarding school turns the Biblical myth on its head.If the recorded “Oldie” verse weren’t a loud enough return, Earl also joined the group for a live rendition of the song at New York’s Hammerstein Ballroom on March 20.YouTube videos of the performance show a Wolf Gang even more enthusiastic about Earl’s presence than its audience, with Tyler, the Creator bursting into an uncontrollable grin when his best friend joins him onstage for the first time.Earl’s return has done more than giving Odd Future its most talented rapper back. It’s also reminded us why we fell in love with Odd Future in the first place.Last year’s “Goblin” LP by Tyler, the Creator was the first high-profile Odd Future release.The hype that surrounded it before it dropped, based largely on the strength of lead single “Yonkers”, gave way to crushing disappointment and a series of debates about the Wolf Gang’s often misogynistic and homophobic lyrics.Almost overnight, the music world’s wide-eyed excitement about a crew of teenaged Los Angeles skate punks with immeasurable gifts for rapping and beat-making transformed into resentment for a bunch of hooligans who were really old enough to know better.The absence of Earl, Odd Future’s youngest member, seemed almost metaphorical for the group’s lost innocence.His return comes with something of a sea change for OFWGKTA. Tyler, the Creator told SPIN that “talking about rape and cutting bodies up, it just doesn’t interest me anymore,” and indeed, “The Odd Future Tape Vol. 2” shies away from the horrorcore themes that dominated the first tape and “Goblin.”The Golf Wang hooligans haven’t exactly grown up, but they’re more conscious of their strengths and have learned to play to them.That’s why Earl’s return feels more like continuity than change.Odd Future needed a year to flounder without his stabilizing presence.Now that he’s back, it feels as though the band is finally ready for him. “Oldie” is the best song the group has ever done, but it couldn’t have happened in 2009 when Earl was a 15-year-old wunderkind and the rest of the Wolf Gang was practicing its kickflips.Earl’s time away galvanized the crew — the “Free Earl” maxim remains the most mature Wolfism — and his return came at a time when they finally seemed prepared to channel their talent into something productive.If the sky was always Odd Future’s limit, now it finally feels attainable.
(03/29/12 1:40am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>With a whopping 117 official releases under his belt since 1986’s “Gluey Porch Treatments” first inspired Kurt Cobain to pick up a guitar, it’s difficult to imagine there’s much more for Melvins mastermind Buzz Osborne to say.“The Bulls & the Bees,” a free digital EP distributed by Scion A/V, defies that notion. Its five lean cuts of vintage Melvins mine the dark recesses of the band’s experimental and rock ’n’ roll sides alike to create their most consistent release since the 1990s.The simultaneous embrace of straightforward heaviness and Earth-like dirge also makes for a bipolar experience in which four-on-the-floor rockers such as lead single “The War on Wisdom” and bizarre abstractions like “A Really Long Wait” are coerced into coexistence.The uneven experience isn’t necessarily a demerit, though. Melvins music has always been characterized by something being just a little bit off, and in the distilled format of the extended play, it’s as gloriously disconcerting as ever.
(03/29/12 1:28am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Winning the 2011 Best New Artist Grammy made Esperanza Spalding immediately more visible than most jazz bassists ever get to be.It might seem reasonable to assume she’d have been just as happy away from the limelight, but if the quality of her pop record “Radio Music Society” is any indication, it’s a good thing she was forced into it.The indisputable virtuoso isn’t content to be the master of just one realm; tracks such as “Radio Song” and “Black Gold” are serpentine and abstract like the best jazz but have more hooks than anything on Top 40 radio.Spalding’s voice is also at its seductive best here. As a pop outsider, she attacks the romantic lyrics of songs such as “Crowned & Kissed” with a verve that’s difficult to find in a genre so hellbent on writing the perfect love song. Spalding might have found it by accident.If “Radio Music Society” has a weakness, it’s that jazz purists and bubblegum addicts alike will be let down. For the rest of us, it’s the sound of an immense talent flirting with a masterpiece.
(03/22/12 2:12am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>A decade after his debut LP and two and a half years after the launch of his “WTF” podcast, Marc Maron finds himself in some rarified company as one of the most important people in comedy.In an era marked by the radicalization of the distribution model, the 48-year-old comic has emerged as a master, pairing pathos with hilarity on “WTF” and selling out comedy clubs across the country with his neurotic stand-up act.Live Buzz interviewed Maron by phone while the comedian drove around before a string of dates in Minnesota and a live taping of “WTF” in Austin, Texas. Maron will perform at 8 and 10:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday at the Comedy Attic.Live Buzz You were critical of a recent article on the A.V. Club that suggested comedy podcasts have reached a saturation point and are now negatively impacting stand-up. Can you elaborate on that?Marc Maron We live in a culture now that is highly accessible to technology, where people can record us when we don’t want to be recorded.Especially if you have a podcast, there’s a lot of us out there. I thought he paid short shrift to the idea that having a conversation and the way that we craft a joke are very different.And the fact that he happened to show up at two unpublicized shows where I was working out the material and judging me, he’s talking about a very small world.Even the world of podcasting, in terms of audience, is a small world in the media landscape, and the fact he was making these broad generalizations about overexposure and judging the new medium that we’re all trying to develop, I thought was diminishing and shortsighted.LB Has podcasting changed the way you think about stand-up material?MM I speak my mind on my podcast the first 10 or 15 minutes, just talk off the top of my head with no censorship in terms of self-censoring or in terms of whether people are laughing. I’m just speaking freely, so if I find something interesting that I can build into a nice stage bit, then I’m excited. I used to have to work that out on stage, so now I’ve got a whole ‘nother outlet that’s free-form thought for me, and sometimes I hit upon ideas that I’d like to use.LB Do you feel you have to manage how you present yourself to the world via Twitter and the podcast since it’s such a freer format than stand-up?MM Yes. I think you’re only one tweet away from getting the world angry at you. So yeah, there’s a little bit of pressure.You have the knowledge of how many people are seeing what you’re tweeting or saying because it’s just you at a computer or microphone. I don’t always think about how many people are reading or seeing this, and maybe I should.LB Your stand-up has always seemed to carry a certain amount of self-consciousness. Has your recent success changed that?MM I think self-consciousness, using that term, that implies to me a certain fear, a certain level of being stifled, but if you’re saying I’m self-aware, yeah, that’s who I am. That’s sort of the way my brain works. Am I less neurotic because of my fame? I don’t know if it’s even fame.I’m just doing what I’m doing, other than being a comedian, and because I talk to comedians, I’ve become a resource and an anomaly. But I don’t feel better about myself because I’ve had some success after working very hard for 25 years. I just didn’t think it would take this form. I’m still freaking crazy, but I’m not as freaked out about finding my place in the world.
(03/22/12 1:58am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>We may be nearing the end of March Madness, but fortunately, March also marks the start of music festival season. So of course we had to bracket-ize 32 of the country’s biggest festivals between now and August to let you know which should be 2012’s best. Read our music festival guide for more information on each.ROUND ONESOUTH#1 Bonnaroo defeats #8 Old Settler's#4 Hangout defeats #5 Beale Street#3 Wakarusa defeats #6 Free Press Summer Fest#7 Forecastle defeats #2 Jazz & HeritageIt’s hard to believe that the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival could get upset in the first round, but Forecastle had just the lineup to pull it out. With headliners such as Wilco, Sleigh Bells and Girl Talk, it looks like Louisville, Ky., is now Upset City. — Jonathan StreetmanWEST#1 Coachella defeats #8 Treefort#5 Pickathon defeats #4 High SierraIn a battle of West Coast fests, Oregon’s Pickathon bested California’s High Sierra by boasting a rootsy lineup centered around performances by Neko Case, Dr. Dog and Heartless Bastards. High Sierra buried similar bands under flash-in-the-pan EDM acts, so Pickathon gets the edge. — Brad Sanders#3 Outside Lands defeats #6 Harmony#2 Sasquatch! defeats #7 Sunset StripEAST#8 Orion defeats #1 The BamboozleThe Metallica-curated Orion Music and More Festival might be in its inaugural year, but its wildly diverse bill — and the promise of full performances of “Ride the Lightning” and “The Black Album” — earned it some serious buzz. Meanwhile, The Bamboozle is putting Skrillex and Mac Miller at the same place at the same time. ’Nuff said. — Brad Sanders #4 Ultra defeats #5 Wanee#3 Gathering of the Vibes defeats #6 Camp Bisco#7 Governors Ball defeats #2 Mountain JamJazz and blues acts spread over a four-day period in Hunter, New York, can’t compete with Governors Ball’s lean two days of acts such as Beck, Fiona Apple and Passion Pit on Randall’s Island in New York — not to mention zero overlapping sets in that short and sweet weekend. — Mikel KjellMIDWEST#1 Summerfest defeats #8 North Coast#5 Electric Forest defeats #4 Summer CampAside from Electric Forest having evolved from the fabled Rothbury Festival, it boasts a more diverse lineup than Summer Camp. With names from Das Rascist to Thievery Corporation enhancing its breadth, Electric Forest strutted away the winner. — Rachel Hanley#3 Pitchfork defeats #6 All Good#2 Lollapalooza defeats #7 NelsonvilleSWEET SIXTEENSOUTH#1 Bonnaroo defeats #4 Hangout#7 Forecastle defeats #3 WakarusaAny lineup with a range from Flying Lotus to Real Estate will get our votes over usual suspects Pretty Lights, Umphrey’s and Slightly Stoopid; Forecastle, easily. — Steven ArroyoWEST#1 Coachella defeats #5 Pickathon#2 Sasquatch! defeats #3 Outside LandsEAST#8 Orion defeats #4 UltraIt’s kind of hard to imagine how awesome it would be see Metallica perform two of its seminal albums alongside Best Coast, Modest Mouse and Titus Andronicus in the middle of the summer. How can a three-day dance music festival with an inconvenient late-March time slot even attempt to compete with that? — Mikel Kjell#7 Governors Ball defeats #3 Gathering of the VibesThe annual Gathering of the Vibes Festival has been running for 17 years, but the two-year-old Governors Ball seemed to edge Vibes out with ease. Fortified with a wider range of music, Governors Ball has a distinct identity in a scene of summer music festivals typically dominated by hippie themes. — Rachel HanleyMIDWEST#1 Summerfest defeats #5 Electric Forest#2 Lollapalooza defeats #3 PitchforkELITE EIGHTSOUTH#1 Bonnaroo defeats #7 ForecastleWEST#1 Coachella defeats #2 Sasquatch!EAST#7 Governors Ball defeats #8 OrionMIDWEST#1 Summerfest defeats #2 LollapaloozaFINAL FOUR#1 Coachella defeats #1 Bonnaroo#7 Governors Ball defeats #1 SummerfestContinuing a remarkable Cinderella run, Governors Ball rode its immaculate roster to take down the #1 seed out of the Midwest, Summerfest, cementing its spot in the finals. They face Goliath-fest Coachella in a battle of the coasts next, but Passion Pit, Modest Mouse and the now-defunct LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy and Pat Mahoney nearly took the Ball all the way. — Jonathan StreetmanTHE WINNER#1 Coachella defeats #7 Governors BallSo many things about Governors Ball impressed us here — among them, a gorgeous location on Randall’s Island in New York, an offer of no overlapping sets and a diverse and near-spotless lineup. Unfortunately for the Governor, the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Annual Festival offers most of those things, too, and it’s offering them twice. Its unfathomably lucky attendees will enjoy an unbeatable lineup of more than 100 artists, from Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg to Radiohead, playing two consecutive weekends in scenic Indio, Calif. Governors Ball might just prove itself as the country’s best-kept secret of music festivals, but Coachella was probably going all the way from the start. — Steven Arroyo
(03/22/12 1:45am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>There’s a somewhat derogatory term for what Brooklyn’s the Men engage in on their masterful third LP, “Open Your Heart”: “record collection rock.”The faux-genre tag suggests a dedication to one’s own influences so passionate that actually forging a distinctive sound falls by the wayside.Indeed, “Open Your Heart” plays like a pastiche of everything from Floor to the Replacements to Foo Fighters to Earth, with specific tracks and riffs serving as signposts on a painstakingly assembled map of the Men’s collective tastes.Where so many other record collection rock albums fail, though, this one succeeds. Nothing feels like plagiarism; everything feels like homage.The Men take two-plus decades of post-hardcore, noise rock and punk clichés and transform them into something that belongs only to them.The band’s earlier material also leaned on its influences while building around them, but what sets “Open Your Heart” apart is the emotional vulnerability evident right there in its title.Last year’s “Leave Home” was excellent, but it played things much closer to the phlegm-filled chest, with its most memorable lyric being a disgusting cough by then-guitarist Chris Hansell.“Open Your Heart,” meanwhile, is full of earnest, heartfelt poetry, manifesting itself mostly in mature self-acceptance, both personal (“There are no mirrors here / I am who I am / And I’m here for you to see”) and professional (“When I hear the radio play / I don’t care that it’s not me”).The lyrics are delivered mostly by a gruff Mark Perro, who is at turns precise and rambling, as though the album’s songs were recorded at varying stages of sobriety.This is fitting, as it has moments equally suited for a raucous night out as a bleary, whiskey-aided breakup.This feels wholly intentional. The Men don’t want emotional resonance to come at the cost of a good time, so they write songs that work for both.It’s hardly a coincidence that the result is the deepest — and arguably best — record of the year so far.
(03/22/12 1:40am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Throughout his storied career, Bruce Springsteen’s songs have been reappropriated by advocates for blind patriotism, most notably when Ronald Reagan copped “Born in the U.S.A.” for his 1984 presidential campaign.Cultural borrowers will have it easier than ever when looking to “Wrecking Ball,” the Boss’ 17th studio album and first since the death of sideman Clarence Clemons.Songs such as “We Take Care of Our Own,” “Land of Hope and Dreams” and “American Land” are barely even sardonic, seemingly worlds away from the work of the man who created “Nebraska.”Springsteen’s creeping roots influences are glaringly evident here, too. The instrumentation for much of the album resembles the stepchild of Irish folk music and outlaw country, and it doesn’t work nearly as well as the blue-collar bombast and dark Americana that used to be his specialty.The highs are still high, and Springsteen hasn’t lost his touch as a songwriter, but for a guy who already “got it” in his 20s, he doesn’t seem to have much new to say at 62.
(03/07/12 11:22pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The battle lines might be drawn for a rock ’n’ roll civil war.In a Feb. 20 Pitchfork column titled “Embarrassment Rock,” music critic Nitsuh Abebe addressed the mostly made-up crisis surrounding “rockism.” The rockist, Abebe argued, is “comfortable with the way rock works, values the stuff rock values and gets all hostile or dismissive toward all the wonderful music in the world that happens to work some other way.”This insulting definition not only singles out people who like, say, Girls but not Grimes, but brands them with a needlessly snarky neologism. Abebe didn’t coin the term, but his defense of it speaks volumes.His argument becomes more nuanced later in the piece, but that there’s even an argument shows we’ve entered a new, contentious age for what it means to specifically “rock” within the generic “rock ’n’ roll” idiom. Today, in an effort to avoid describing acts such as tUnE-yArDs and Oneohtrix Point Never in rock terms, we’ve also narrowed the definition of the genre so much that honest-to-God rock ’n’ roll bands are thrown under the bus for somehow not meeting arbitrary rock standards.The Men’s excellent “Open Your Heart” LP is already stirring up rockist mini-controversies in its first week of release. The Brooklyn quartet has drawn favorable comparisons to Foo Fighters and Fucked Up, but many of the same people who have called for the end of rockism have criticized its production and songwriting for — get this — not rocking hard enough.Part and parcel with the rockism debate is the even duller debate about authenticity. It dominated this year’s Grammys, in which dubstep producer Skrillex accepted his three awards before the broadcast began, Adele was lauded for her massive pop record that she insists isn’t a pop record and Dave Grohl jammed with the Rock Hall-approved corpses of Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen and Joe Walsh. For a growing segment of the music industry machine, it’s more important to be real than interesting.If the mixed reactions to “Open Your Heart” are any indication, indie music is no longer safe from this mode of thinking. The Men’s second LP nods in some of the right directions for a stereotypically-rockist crowd, but it’s more expansive than that, cutting its lo-fi and punk tendencies with a bombastic tunefulness that hints at an affinity for Steve Brooks-fronted acts such as Floor and Torche. Like its predecessor “Leave Home,” it’s also downright experimental in places, which is a definite rockist no-no.And it’s not just rockists who have criticized this rock record for not adequately fulfilling its rock ’n’ roll narrative. Rolling Stone associate editor and noted Skrillex enthusiast Matthew Perpetua went on a Twitter rampage March 5 to eviscerate “Open Your Heart,” eventually declaring it part of a movement marked by “the vibe of rock without the guts.”Overreacting to accusations of rockism and debates about authenticity has turned rock ’n’ roll into a bigger pissing contest than ever, in which only a chosen few can make great records that are sufficiently rock ’n’ roll, and everyone else should strive to thrive within some other niche.But here’s the thing: The Men did put out a rock record — a great one, at that. Finding a half-dozen other subgenres to describe them doesn’t grant them any more legitimacy than if they all had matching Iggy Pop tattoos and slept with copies of “London Calling” under their pillows.Nitsuh Abebe’s closed-minded rockist isn’t an inspirational figure, but I’d rather be accused of being one than forget why we listen to rock ’n’ roll in the first place.
(03/07/12 11:01pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Collecting spoons isn’t something sophomore journalism major Catie Laikin obsesses about.She doesn’t rummage through flea markets looking for gems. She doesn’t attend conventions. She doesn’t visit collectors’ websites. She doesn’t even remember what her first piece was, though she has a hunch it might have come from Disneyland.It’s just this thing she does.“I didn’t go into it to be a collector,” she said. “I just went into it to have memories of all those places.”Laikin said she has been gathering souvenir spoons from everywhere she visits since she was about 8 years old and that her greatest impetus for collecting is to help remember her trips.She also collects minerals, postcards, stamps and coins — the latter thanks to a lineage of numismatists — but her largest collection is made up of spoons. She has about 120, and each one helps her recall the place she found it.“They usually have the name of the place or a picture of it,” she said. “Collecting them is about the memories I have with them, being able to say, ‘Oh, this was this place’ or ‘Oh, that was that trip.’”Laikin first began collecting spoons through a friend, Christine Augusta, who introduced her to the souvenirs when they were both in elementary school.Laikin started buying spoons for Augusta on family vacations, which led to picking up two so she could also have one for herself, which led to becoming a fully-fledged spoon collector.What makes Laikin’s collection interesting is her apparent distance from it.“I haven’t looked at them in quite a while,” she said.The California native, whose collection remains at her parents’ house, can’t even name an absolute favorite spoon.Admittedly, she isn’t at her peak of collecting anymore, even if she does still keep an eye out for the occasional flashy spoon.“In middle school, whenever I would go on family trips or wherever, and my friend who collects them, she would send them to me,” she said. “I’m still always looking for them, but I’m not going that many places anymore.”If the stereotype of the person with a quirky collection is a socially-maladjusted Internet dweller who goes to the convention center every month to meet up with her fellow nerds and determine whether the 2001 or 2002 model of a given trinket is superior, then Laikin is a breath of fresh air.She loves her collection and takes good care of it, displaying favorites in a shadowbox her parents bought her for her birthday one year and keeping all the original packaging, but it doesn’t rule her life.One theme that keeps reappearing in her discussion of her spoons ties the whole collection together: memories.“I’m just doing it to remember all the stuff,” she said.“Some people like to have shirts from different places, or have something from a place. It’s why souvenir shops are there — to buy a souvenir.”
(03/07/12 10:48pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>In an early 2012 that has seen a glut of electro-influenced, female-fronted pop releases, it’s easy to overlook “Ghostory,” the third full-length by School of Seven Bells.The record feels almost afraid to commit to its strengths, burying its shoegazing guitar, ambient accents and breakbeat drums beneath Alejandra Deheza’s vocals, which are so high in the mix it would be reasonable to assume she borrowed Adele’s producer.Fortunately, the vocal hooks on “Ghostory” are as good as any School of Seven Bells has ever written. Opener “The Night” and vaguely occult lead single “Lafaye” are huge, danceable numbers that have more in common with the Sisters of Mercy than Grimes.It’s the infectiousness of songs like those — not the misplaced ambition of songs like eight-and-a-half minute closer “When You Sing” — that might keep the album from being lost in the shuffle.
(03/02/12 2:25am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Rhino’s All Ages Music Club will put on a 20th Anniversary Retrospective showcase Friday and Saturday, bringing together more than 15 bands that have played at the venue in its two decades in Bloomington. Tickets cost $10 per night or $15 for the whole weekend, and the doors open at 5 p.m. each night.“I’m really super-excited about it,” said David Britton, assistant director and booking agent at the club. “My thought was to try to get as many bands who were a big part of Rhino’s over the past 20 years. It’s been a very nostalgic month and a half for me.”Britton started coming to the club in the early 1990s when he was a teenager, and he said representing two decades of Rhino’s performances in two days was a challenge. One thing he wanted to make sure of was that he didn’t misrepresent the venue by booking too many bands from one genre.“I definitely wanted it to be all over the map,” he said. “We have metal bands, we have hip-hop bands, we have indie rock bands, punk bands and people just playing acoustic. I wanted it to, as much as possible, reflect what we’ve done over the past 20 years.”Rhino’s has changed a lot in those 20 years, too. In the early days, it was simply an all-ages rock club, whereas today the venue works with the Bloomington Parks and Recreation Department to put on after-school programs and engage high school students in the area with the arts. Britton said he hopes the Retrospective will reflect this dimension of Rhino’s, as well.“We’re about so many things now, so it’s hard to do,” Britton said. “We’ll definitely try to get some of the kids’ artwork up for people to see, and on Saturday, all the employees who are in bands are playing back to back.”Employee performances aside, ultimately, it’s still all about the kids.“Rhino’s wasn’t started by adults. It was started by high school kids as a senior project,” Britton said. “That, more than anything, explains what Rhino’s is about. Kids wanted it here, kids made it happen, it’s here for them, so this is a celebration of that.”For a complete list of the bands playing the Rhino’s Retrospective, go to idsnews.com/livebuzz.
(03/01/12 12:53am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>I just finished listening to “The Writing of Gods in the Sand,” the debut album by Cape Town’s Wildernessking. It’s hands-down the best black metal album of 2012 so far, and even though I haven’t paid for a copy yet, I have every intention of doing so.The only problem is I don’t know how much to pay.If I pay $5, I get a digital download. If I pay $10, I get the CD. If I pay $25, I get the album on double vinyl, with a poster and a patch. I can also pay $35, $40, $50 or even $80, which would get me the CD, vinyl, digital download, poster, patch, an exclusive T-shirt and a numbered test press of the vinyl with a screen-printed cover.All these packages are still totally hypothetical, of course. If Wildernessking fails to reach $3,500 in contributions, these options become moot, and the money has to be refunded. Even though the software the band is using isn’t Kickstarter, the strategy is still symptomatic of something of a revolution the company has been staging within the music industry these past few months.Kickstarter was founded in 2008, and since then, the crowdfunding website has raised more than $125 million and launched 15,000 projects. The idea behind the site is simple. In the age of a ubiquitous Internet, people with ideas they want to see realized shouldn’t have to be beholden to the whims of huge investing groups. Individuals can pledge small amounts of money to projects they believe in, and the robust social media can help show these projects to more and more people.The site has helped produce the first 3-D printer and launched a PID-controlled espresso machine, but musicians are turning to Kickstarter more and more to get help booking studio time or pressing their releases on vinyl. Contributors aren’t simply making donations. When the goal is set, they get a copy of whatever release they helped come to life.We are all now participants in an music industry defined by collapse and response, and Kickstarter is an interesting signal of where we might be going. When the major players fail to adapt to the changing environment, it’s empowering to see the little guys — bands and indie labels alike — taking things in their own hands to make their musical dreams come true.At the time of this writing, Wildernessking is on pace to fall pretty significantly short of its $3,500 goal, and this is a shame. Kickstarter only boasts a 44 percent success rate, and it isn’t altogether surprising that a progressive black metal band from South Africa using a similar software would come up short.In this way, Kickstarter and similar programs are already making the leap to full assimilation in the music industry. Most bands fail. Most labels fail. There’s no reason this shouldn’t be reflected in the brave new world of social media DIY, and even though that sucks, in a way, it’s the purest capitalism imaginable.That said, for the love of Nelson Mandela, please give your money to Wildernessking. I can’t stop listening to these dudes.