Pitchfork Music Festival!

Pitchfork Music Festival is in a few months, and piece by piece the lineup is being revealed to the public. After excellent rosters in 2006 and 2007, 2008 has quite a bit to live up to (but will probably be better than Lollapalooza and Austin City Limits, regardless).

For the uninformed (if not only for the daylight, climb out from that rock you've been hiding under; you're no lizard): Pitchfork Music Festival is a 3-day indie rock extravaganza that since its inception in 2006 has been an annual Midwestern hipster pilgrimage destination. What's unique about the festival is that, aside from the bands and the cheap price and amazingly inexpensive bottled water, some hipsters actually even actually wear shorts! It's also not uncommon to see really colorful and close-fitting t-shirts with ironic slogans, band names/logos, swirly modern graphic designs, and the occasional vintage Cubs shirt. Those who don't wear shorts usually have tight jeans on, and some even have *gasp* cargo pants. Sometimes utility actually does eclipse fashion as a primary concern of the cool kids who are quick to utter quite potent doses contempt for the crass assumption that they actually give a shit about what you think. Oh yeah, and the shoes. Chuck Ts, Onitsuka Tiger, Pumas, or bare feet. There are no other options. Enough about stereotypes. I wear things that look like what I just talked about. I am a walking cliche (+10 for Shins reference).

The lineup usually spans the entire chronology of "indie rock", and includes performers who perform music that people who tend to like indie rock also like (or at least pretend to like so as to not appear close-minded, even though as J stated below many would probably instantly wince at the mention of the Grateful Dead--I've been guilty of this but am slowly getting better) such as indie pop, indie dance, indie jazz, indie electronic and indie world music. Past years have seen breakouts (Danielson, Man Man, CSS, Tapes 'N Tapes, Dan Deacon, Girl Talk, Deerhunter), veterans (Yo La Tengo, the New Pornographers, Spoon, Of Montreal, Silver Jews, Stephen Malkmus), and legends (Yoko Ono, Os Mutantes, Sonic Youth). There has been the quiet of Beach House, the completely opposite loud of Mastodon, the funky of Jamie Lidell, the perfectly sincere of Jens Lekman.

This year's lineup as it has been announced so far again offers something for everyone.

Friday, July 18:

Pitchfork Music Festival and All Tomorrow's Parties
present "Don't Look Back"

Public Enemy performing It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back

Mission of Burma performing Vs.
+ one more to be announced

Saturday, July 19:

Animal Collective
Jarvis Cocker
!!!
Vampire Weekend
Dizzee Rascal
Fleet Foxes
No Age
Jay Reatard
King Khan & His Shrines
Atlas Sound
The Ruby Suns
A Hawk and a Hacksaw
Occidental Brothers Dance Band International
+ many more!

Sunday, July 20:

Dinosaur Jr.

Spiritualized

M. Ward

Ghostface and Raekwon

The Apples in Stereo

Boris

Dirty Projectors

Cut Copy

Extra Golden

El Guincho

Fuck Buttons

+ many more!

Yeah, the formatting sucks. I don't know.

Anyway, I've got two predictions that, if true, would make this year's lineup infinitely more awesome than those of years past.

Prediction 1: The Black Lips. How perfect would the Lips be at the tail end of Saturday's dirty garagerockathon? Seriously. Atlas Sound, King Khan, Jay Reatard, No Age, and Black Lips? Fuckin' A!

Prediction 2: The Feelies just reunited. There is one slot open for "Don't Look Back" on Friday. Crazy Rhythms is one of the greatest albums ever recorded. You. Do. The. Math. That would be all kinds of amazing.

The Mother Lode- Grateful Dead Complete Winterland Recordings, 1973

I am the guy at work who has to go and pick up the mail everyday at the downtown Tulsa post office. I go at about 9 am, and the <15 minutes I spend in the car I find myself flipping between the radio stations. It is amazing how many of the same songs I hear. I've gotten my limit of Nickelback's "Rock Star"- all I know are the lyrics "everyone's got a drug dealer on speed dial." There's a new band Paramore that I've discovered, and they are terrible. I've heard the same Spin Doctor's song from 1993 a few times, and what I can enjoy the most is "Our Song" on the country station by Taylor Swift, who's apparently like 18 years old. The best thing you can really ask for is something like a "Bullet with Butterfly Wings" or an "Interstate Love Song." I saw one of these typical rock stations was doing a March Madness bracket online, except instead of basketball teams they had their favorite rock bands. I think there was a Fuel/Korn matchup.

Why do I say this? Because the trip to the post office pretty much constitutes my entire music listening during the week. Until now, sucka! I've always been a Grateful Dead fan, and I'm not ashamed of it. The package on my door yesterday was a gold mine- Nov. 9, 10, 11 concerts from Winterland, San Francisco, 1973- a 9 disc feast, three for each show! Plus I got a 10th bonus disc for ordering before April 30! I wouldn't label myself a Deadhead; obviously I've never been to a GD concert. I think I was 12 when Garcia died, and I don't trade concert tapes or anything like that either. But I have more shows to say I go beyond just a casual fan.

First of all, what is better than getting CD's when their packaging is tip-top? This set comes in a nice box with psychedelic squiggles behind the skull logo. Each concert is in its own tri-sleeve case with the same pattern but different colors. And the box smells really great, too. I'm halfway through the second disc right now, watching the Card's beat up on the Astros, and the music is amazing. The sound quality is great- I can get bass, drums, boards, and both guitars crystal clear- a lot of times with my bad ear I can't hear at least one of the instruments very well. So far the solos and jams are real good, and there are 3 X "Bertha" in the collection, one on each night- a favorite of my favorite Dead tunes! There was a similar collection released awhile ago from the Fillmore West in 1969, and is now unavailable. I have seen it go for $600++ on eBay, another reason to pick up your copy of this box set today! Plus, I could possibly be convinced on any given day that 1973 is my favorite year for these guys.

It has been a lifelong dream of mine to write something about the Grateful Dead on charz2k, and I thought what better time to defame a perfectly good indie rock blog with something on this band. I feel like the Dead get a bad wrap sometimes. They must be one of the least pretentious bands ever, but can do more musically than 10 other bands combined. I've always found their sound to be the most colorful of any group; the jams can evolve into something as quality as, say, "Bitches Brew," but garner none of the latter's "coolness." I even like some of their other shorter songs, which some consider more as throwaways- but I dig the combination of folk and pyschedelia that they did so well. Their whole music is the perfect blend of country, rock, and jazz- like John Wayne on his horse meeting up with Neal Cassidy's Hudson in the middle of the 1960's San Francisco Haight. Bottom line- you can keep all your Animal Collectives and Arcade Fires, I'll take this any day of the week. This and maybe Slanted and Enchanted.

Songs of the Day

Happy Monday! Garfield the cat disagrees with me (he hated Mondays), and I disagree with myself too. Mondays suck. I've never listened to the Happy Mondays, but even if they were great I don't think I could come to like Mondays.

Anyway, I've got a few songs that are Monday-appropriate. They're all a few years old and all have some sort of intangible lingering hint of melancholy in the melodies. There are only three I could immediately think of:

Enon - Natural Disasters
Stars - Set Yourself on Fire
Crystal Skulls - Airport Motels

Also, my family dog was put to sleep yesterday. It kind of came out of nowhere (his spleen ruptured yesterday afternoon because of an undetected tumor) and I'm bummed, but not as much as I should be. What's wrong with me?

R.I.P. Whiskey (1997?-2008).

Xiu Xiu, The Conservatory, Oklahoma City, OK 4/2/08

I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to drive all the way to Oklahoma City last night after I got off work to see Xiu Xiu. The show started at 8:00, there were two openers so it would be late when I got back, and I would be driving upstream from Tulsa to OKC into pouring rain. But I decided I did want to go- got there early, and had a McD’s fish sandwich, and headed to the Conservatory.
I’d never been there before, and I know there are certainly dumpier concert venues that I don’t know of because I don’t go to that many shows, but this was a pretty good dive. It felt like an abandoned building- no ceiling, open air pipes hanging above you like in Super Mario Bros., scant lighting of only a few random bulbs or stage lights, and around my feet I think I could discern 4 different types of flooring in my 2 foot standing radius: broken up tile, scraped up tile, ripped up carpet, and concrete. Not necessarily saying this scores negative points for the venue, but it’s just all I have to look at for an hour because I discovered the show actually starts at 9:00.
There is a small record store right next door to the venue and I rummaged around in there for awhile. I ended up buying a Circulatory System CD because I think I heard Garz say that band was good some years ago! Anyways, Xiu Xiu came in the store and was looking around at stuff before the show too. I’ll just cut to the chase and say they came on stage around 11:00 and I don’t feel worthy of reviewing their music. I know Jamie Stewart has had more heart-wrenching experiences in life that I can only dream about and this emotion comes through in their music; someone I would say fits the definition of artist to the fuller definitions of the word. The tunes to my amateur ear seem to swell between Stewart’s fragile vocals and violent onslaughts of instrumental noise. Much of their music can be unsettling at times, like a brick thrown at you. At the beginning of the show they turned the house lights off and just had the colored stage lights, but Stewart quickly told the manager it was better with them on. So they played in the light and they could see us as much as we could see them, as starkly open and honest as the music itself.
I was worried maybe the OKC crowd was lackluster for Xiu Xiu- there was genuine applause after songs, but what do you do in the interim before the next one? Cheer and holler to request the next brick? The venue almost got eerily silent in these intermissions. The stage was a festival of instruments, stuff that I don’t even know the names of. Stewart had a combination of like 5-6 cymbals and gongs in front of him, and a little snare or two. McElroy played keyboards, flutes, percussion, something that looked like an accordion. I won’t even try to chop up their material by throwing out abstract adjectives or comparisons, I wouldn’t do it justice. If you’ve heard the band I hope you know what I can’t fairly describe and if you don’t I do recommend their music. It is experimental but for me it consistently seems to have a purpose, not just weird for the sake of it. Is Xiu Xiu my new favorite band? Probably not, not if you mean exactly how many times I actually spin their records. Something like the Black Lips is obviously just an easier listen. But they are possibly one of my more admired or respected bands as musical artists. The performance hits hard and I am sure I don’t entirely get it, but I certainly appreciate it. I told Stewart thanks for the show as he was packing up his equipment, shook hands with him, and headed home, and I am really glad I went.

The Worst Beer in the World

I'm no connoisseur, but when it comes to drinking beer I usually like to maintain a decent standard. This almost always eliminates beverages sold in 30-packs of cans, sold individually in bottles of 32oz or more, and virtually all malt liquor. In fact, I tend to avoid any variety of canned beer altogether.

This past weekend, however, I was thinking of economy over quality and I succumbed to the evils of "that section" of the beer aisle and dropped about $14 on a 30-rack of Old Style. I had been jonesing for a PBR, but sadly the Copps on Park St. doesn't carry beers that nice. So Old Style it was. And after having already downed a few bottles of imports and micros, it wasn't as terrible as it could have been. But it was still pretty bad and it's not something I'm likely to do again in the near future.

Now let's talk about Danny. Danny likes decent beers (I've seen him drink them!), but when the order of the night is home-based boozing and general hangouttery (and there isn't enough in the house already to keep all parties adequately imbibed) he inevitably wanders to "that section" of the grocery store to pick up a 6-pack of 16-oz cans of the Worst Beer in the World.

Nope, it's not Natty (Ice, Light, etc), or Keystone (all varieties), Miller, Busch, Blatz (up north) or any of the preferred beers of the guys whose favorite season isn't summer, but rather "cargo shorts and flip-flops time". It's not Lonestar, or Schlitz (which holds the same special spot in my heart that Carlo Rossi does, but I'll likely not ever drink either of them again), or even fucking Milwaukee's Best (false advertising!)!

It's Olde English. And according to ratebeer.com (which is an awesome site), Olde English is the absolute worst beer in the world. It's even ranked below every type of non-alcoholic and low-alcohol beer.

Danny, please start drinking better beer. http://www.ratebeer.com/Ratings/TheWorstBeers.asp

Review - Sam's April Fools' Day Joke on Me

Thanks to the internet, no one is safe from jokes on the first day of April. The first cruel joke played on me today was the weather: high temperature of 39 and snow flurries. It's fucking APRIL!!! Besides that the day progressed without incident (unless you count getting Rickroll'd a few times as incident, which I don't because Rickrolling is my favorite internet phenomenon [did you hear that LoLcats? Fuck LoLcats.]) until I got a facebook message from Sam saying that he'd written his first charz2k article ever. I was legitimately floored. SAM posted an article? No way. No FUCKING way.

I checked. There was no article.

How do you deal with heartbreaking situations? You respond via facebook, telling him he should post that amazing article he wrote! Then you wait, and check again a few minutes later. If you're me, you get to suffer the indignation of being April Fools'd after you'd come to expect if from every other possible angle. But from Sam? I didn't expect that at all. Check mate, man, you fucking got me.

Anti-bears: 4.8. You fucking got me!

Bears: 2.5. You didn't Rickroll me. Douche.

To Eric:

April Fools.

Love, Sam