So I found out about this show the day of, and I went in an attempt to entertain my cousin with something interesting and free. It was at the Apple Store on Michigan Avenue. There was a line? I found out later some people had been there since 11 am...weird. The Floss DJed and did not fail to deliver as usual. My favorite part was a mashup of "Around The World" and "American Boy". Kid Sister was probably getting paid obscene amounts of money to say 25 words introducing the bands and hang out with her brother. She was still hella cute though.
The Black Kids are not good. They haven't really mastered their instruments, and as a result their inexperience shows. The sister of the frontman plays several drumpads so I don't know how one could master that in the first place. Their drummer is talented but lacks control. I had never listened to anything by them besides the remix of "I'm Not Going To Teach Your Boyfriend To Dance With You" by The Twelves (it's incredible, by the way). I haven't been missing anything.
Foals were a lot better than I remember them being when I listened to their album. Their abrupt changes in rhythm and tempo make for sporadic and catchy math rock. Jack Bevan is an animal on the drums. I'll be re-obtaining their album. I got tired and left before The Kills. The end.
Important observations about this video:
-Akon at the beginning=Darth Sidious?
-This is a serious departure from the vague-allusions-to-drug-dealing videos that DJ Khaled normally makes. The majority of it is really bad blue-screen type stuff and has nothing to do with anything, really. There is no theme or plot; everyone is just making a very feeble attempt at looking cool.
-Goofy hats: Busta Rhymes is wearing a cookie monster cap (I want one) and T-Pain has a huge mad-hatter style top hat on.
-Rapping in nature's harshest elements is a key motif of this video. Khaled and Akon could get struck by lightning on top of that building. Rick Ross came somewhat prepared with an umbrella. Lil' Boosie...is being chased by a giant fireball. Trick Daddy spit his hot verse in the middle of a tornado. Inclement weather is not going to stop our heroes from being out there grindin', thank goodness.
-Rick Ross' chain always reminds me of this awesome piece of jewelry that belongs to Gucci Mane:
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Anyway, this song sounds so much like "We Takin' Over" combined with "I'm So Hood" that I can't even listen to it since it's just a weaker version of the former two. The rappers and rapping are worse, the beat is worse, and the video speaks for itself. Try again, DJ Khaled.
One of those hard-hitting, epic tracks that makes me want to dance uncontrollably. The Touch are Swedish. And they're night dominators, obviously. Lina is the girl in the video.
Plies never fails to deliver. The beginning is a little confusing, but just keep watching, it gets better.
"My hands have been getting me in a lot of trouble lately..."
Well, at least they're apologizing for the sexual harassment/objectification. This is what I like about modern Top 40 rap: There is a certain subtlety to it that you can't find in older videos like this one:
It's almost too much. I don't think MTV would play that if it came out today (ok, not really. But in a perfect world, yes). However, would they not play it because it's grossly offensive, or because it's incredibly boring? There are limits to how many times one can reinvent all of the gimmicks of rap videos. Therefore, it's understandable that music video directors would begin to change the tone of their work to try and keep shit hyped up. Note that, too: It's not the subject material of the videos that's changing, just how it's presented. It's as if the girls, money, and cars are the only medium with which the rappers can express ideas. But then you have to ask yourself why that's all they're rapping about in the first place, and that's a WHOLE 'NOTHER POST!! No time for that.
Ah, Wiley. A man at the forefront of the UK Grime scene. He's well known for keeping the scene on its feet with the subgenre he popularized, Eski. I really can't tell the difference between that and regular Grime but whatever.
And so, I collected all of the knowledge I had gained about the Pitchfork experience in the last two days and applied it to the best of my knowledge on Sunday (Read: I looked for all the free stuff). I saw about half of HEALTH's set. I watched Les Savy Fav from a distance. I lamented the absence of El Guincho. The first show I actually put effort into seeing was Ghostface Killah and Raekwon. It was decent. I've heard that Ghostface gives the best live performance out of everyone in the Wu. They looked tired and insisted on reminding the crowd how they just got off a 9 hour flight from Europe. does this mean they didn't play Rock The Bells the day before? I do not know. I was impressed by how well the Pitchfork crowd sang along. It wasn't embarrassing for either of them. We requested Kilo, but for some reason the DJ hadn't keyed it up in his equipment...what gives? How would you not have one of the singles off of a recent album available? This, coupled with the fact that their set went on longer than expected, took the edge off of things during the second half.
My spirits were raised by Occidental Brothers Dance Band International, a Chicagoan/West African dance band. Great rhythmic stuff. The frontman can be summarized in one sentence: "If you like the music, say YAYAYAYAYAAH!" Once they finished, I wandered around some more and then went to watch Bon Iver, who was alright.
The wait for Cut Copy was excruciating. 15 minutes after they were supposed to come on stage, King Khan and Brandon Cox appeared to let everyone in the crowd know that CC was still at the airport. So they jammed for an increasingly volatile crowd. After a long period of unhappiness, they finally came on and played a half set. It was great, life-threatening, and too short. Stupid noise ordinances. What's worse, they won't be back in Chicago until September...on a Wednesday. Life is cruel.
Got to Union Park in time to catch the back end of A Hawk and a Hacksaw's set. I wasn't really paying attention, so I can't tell you if it was good or not. Caribou was pretty ferocious, which was entertaining to watch. I liked how the two drum kits were set up, so that they semi-mirrored each other. As expected, the crowd left after that so my comrades and I were able to obtain excellent seating (standing?) for Dizzee Rascal.
It was a lot of fun. Dizzee has a great stage presence and really seemed to enjoy standing out from the rest of the festival as some sort of groovy, hard-banging anomaly ("Y'all been listenin' to dat folk shit all weekend-yo fuck dat shit!"). He played all the hits, notably a spot-on rendition of "I Luv U" that has re-addicted me to its sinister, ear-fucking bassline. As they would say in the East End, "it's some heavy blood, innit?" It is a paragon of UK hip-hop equaled by few other songs. I really wanted to yell "Roll Deep!" during the set, but I couldn't remember if he was still on good terms with them. Turns out he isn't, so it's a good thing I kept my mouth shut.
Not surprisingly, Vampire Weekend was a disappointment following such a high-energy performance. The only people who were really enjoying it were the festival bros. Erza Koening is letting the fame get to him. Extra Golden, on the other hand, was really really great. Pitchfork would be a lot more one-dimensional if it weren't for the hasty addition of world musicians. Anyway, their take on Kenyan pop, which is called benga, is refreshing and a lot of fun to dance to. I caught the beginning of Bradford Cox's (Atlas Sound) set, which seemed like it was off to a good start. Then I got tired and decided to head home. I regret not staying for No Age (and Animal Collective, I guess).
so i'm coppin' pitchfork's pictures, what're you gonna do about it
I walked in the front gates just as Mission of Burma began their set. If I were to characterize a 'textbook' post-punk sound, it would definitely be this band. Sporadic rhythym, abrupt changes in speed, and really great lyrics that speak volumes with a few simple words. I particularly enjoyed "The Ballad of Johnny Burma": "I said my mother's dead/well I don't care about it/I said my father's dead/well I don't care about it/it happens anyway." And more importantly, they can do all this despite their age. HARD ROCKING, to say the least. They did not disappoint.
After that, I skipped Sebadoh and left the C stage so that I could get a good spot for Public Enemy. Brothers Hank and Keith Shocklee, better known as The Bomb Squad, opened and "played" some beats to rile everyone up. It didn't sound anything like the production they're known for on It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back; It was really skeletal, with most of it being built around bass-heavy snares and kicks with short, loud synths. It reminded me a lot of UK grime (this is good). I got my groove on. After more waiting (WHY do hip-hop concerts always feel obligated to start late?), Chuck D came on and tore me a new asshole. He performed with a frenzied intensity that was exhausting and mesmerizing to watch. When Flava Flav finally came on after two songs, he essentially functioned as a foil for Chuck. Between every song, he would get the crowd going on some stupid call-and-response bs, while D would sit there and roll his eyes. Then he tried to tell the audience that he was still legit despite his reality tv career. When they booed, he got a little upset and said something like "there ain't no ghosts in this place! Boo is something you say to your spouse!" very humorous.
Once they finished It Takes A Nation Of Millions, PE put on a sort of late-night variety show: DJ Lord had a little solo to show that he was just as competent as Terminator X (who runs an ostrich farm in South Carolina since retiring), Flava gave a "Fuck John McCain and George W. Bush" speech, and they played the rest of their singles from other albums. The show quickly went from classic to cliched and tedious. Throughout all this, the S1W's (pictured above) continued to do their same three dance moves over and over. I have no idea why they were holding toy katanas instead of the usual Uzis. After several warnings to Flav regarding time constraints, Chuck D simply said "No, it's over" and left the stage. Flav gave one last rant about how we're all one race (the human race, in case you were wondering) and then we all got to go home, finally. A good night, I think.
I have every intention of writing a day-by day review of pitchfork. I probably should have started last night, but oh well. Today is day 2. In the meantime, I leave you with this:
So about a week ago, I went to my local library just to browse, and I found Gang of Four's Entertainment!, which was a surprise. The last time I remember hearing anything about this band was in my junior year of high school, when this pretentious girl who was really into post-punk wouldn't shut up about them. Naturally, I decided to check it out and give it a listen.
Something that I’ve taken to recently is listening to music spatially, if that makes any sense. It’s an interesting feeling when I “hear” shapes in music, and that is definitely something I sense in Gang of Four. The guitar and percussion create a jarring, asymmetrical pentagram in my mind. It’s like an iTunes visualizer in my brain, man. I feel that relationship between rhythm and discord is key to the success of this album; too much of either would make it a lot more boring. On “Natural’s Not In It”, Hugo Burnham’s drums settle into a steady drone, but all of the snares, kicks, and cymbals sound separate from each other, as if different people were playing them. Andy Gill plays guitar with a sharp, mechanical intensity that fills the gaps in Burnham’s drums with just enough sound. The rest of the space is for Dave Allen’s bass, which completes this image I have of a wall of irregular spikes coming towards me when I hear a track like “Guns Before Butter.” Finally, Jon King’s powerfully callous lyrics slink through and around the tracks and kind of leave me feeling like a snake or a rodent or something has bitten me. Yes, this album is some Indiana Jones Temple of Doom shit, with the spiked walls and dangerous animals and whatnot.
Lyrically, I was pretty impressed. King draws a lot of influence from Situationist ideology, so the majority of the lyrics are about the subversion of popular culture. What makes this so good is that it predates all of the post-ironic facetious bullshit that modern independent music is perhaps most famous for. It’s fairly obvious on one of the singles, “Damaged Goods”: “Sometimes I’m thinking that I love you/But I know it’s only lust.” Or maybe on “I Found That Essence Rare”: “The worst thing in 1954 was the bikini/see the girl on TV dressed in a bikini/she doesn’t think so but she’s dressed for the H-Bomb.” Word. I have a pretty sweet mashup of “Damaged Goods” with “Just A Lil’ Bit” by 50 Cent, which is something I feel obligated to point out.
On a somewhat related note, my research for this article led to a really good session of the Wiki/Internet game: Gang of Four>Jon King>Situationist International>Watts Riots>1992 L.A. Riots>Reginald Denny incident.
So then I tried to find a video of the Reginald Denny incident on youtube, but it was difficult because they’ve already been sued for that. Instead I found this:
God bless the Internet (read the comments).
The copy I got was a 2005 re-issue, so there were a bunch of bonus tracks. One of those was a pretty good cover of “Sweet Jane.”
Yeah, good album.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
I wish I understood how it is possible, but Ashley Tisdale has greatly improved both of these songs:
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Especially the second. It's like a very simple meal prepared by a master chef. All of the ingredients (synth, autotune, backup vocals) are in perfect proportion, resulting in a masterpiece. She should really release a cover album to compete with Scarlett Johansson's Tom Waits thing. This would obviously sell better, and not just because she has infinite legions of tweens obeying her every command.
So Pedro Winter (Busy P, manager of Ed Banger Records) says that Daft Punk is in the studio working on their next album. To put it simply, this is a good thing.
And now, the highlight of Spike Jonze's career:
The child starring as Biggie Smalls is no other than a young Sean Kingston. That's weird. Good thing this song/video is incredibly awesome to compensate for that.
1. DJ Mehdi - “Signatune (Thomas Bangalter Edit)” 2. Mr. Oizo - “Patrick 122” 3. The Shoes - “Knock Out” 4. Three 6 Mafia - “I’d Rather Get Some Head (Start The Violence! Remix)” 5. Switches - “Every Second Counts (Ocelot Remix)” 6. Hostage - “Stab Up” 7. Riot In Belgium - “La Musique (Sinden Remix)” 8. Hot Pink DeLorean - “Miami Snatch”
