Quick Hits, Vol. 5 (Prince, Jackson Browne, Aphex Twin, Lenny Kravitz, Primus, Rich Robinson)

Prince/3rdEyeGirl - Plectrumelectrum.  Uh, well, Prince is still awesome at playing guitar! That guy can jam.  But give me When Doves Cry or Raspberry Beret, because this is mediocre-ness.

Jackson Browne - Standing in the Breach.  Guy has one of the most lovely voices in the world.  Some of his old songs are deservedly classic.  This new album isn't bad, but other than showcasing his voice, whatevs.

Aphex Twin - Syro.  WTF.  I just cannot imagine listening to this kind of electro-weird music all day.  I could totally listen to the new Weezer all day long, but this is so odd and twiggy that I don't comprehend it.  I am old.  We have already established that.  But nonetheless, Rolling Stone was super excited about this new album that went back to the EDM roots or something.  I guess it is nice that every song doesn't have a huge bass drop and sound exactly like all others, but it seriously sounds like a robot orgy with the Revenge of the Nerds house band playing.  And the song titles are stuff like "4 bit 9d api+e+6[126.26]"  No lie, that is a song title.  Is there a crap song title generator website out there like the band name one?  This song is about the only accessible one I could find:

Anyway, I was not able to finish this album.  Pretty rare occurrence for me, but while dissonance can sometimes resolve into something cool (like Radiohead songs with some of these weird glitchy bits), most of these just stay unpleasant until they are over.  

Lenny Kravitz - Strut.  Love me some Lenny.  In fact, I need to prepare a Classics review sometime soon.  This one doesn't reach that high up to become a classic, but its pretty dang fun, classic Lenny.  The songs lean hard on 70's rock action, as is usual in the Kravitz canon, with some Blondie references in both of the two opening songs. There is also a kind of terrible Happy Birthday song on here that is pretty ham-handed.  But overall, I like this one.

Primus & the Chocolate Factory with the Fungi Ensemble.  Er, WTF man.  I dug Primus a lot in high school.  Frizzle Fry and Suck on This and Sailing the Seas of Cheese are odd odysseys of awesome funk rock that still hold up well for me today.  Tommy the Cat, Jerry was a Race Car Driver, and Harold of the Rocks are jams.  Uh, this album is a cover album of the Willy Wonka soundtrack from start to finish.  Which is kind of awesome.  I loved that movie, and other than Cheer Up Charlie (which is a godawful, terrible turd of a song that I used to fast forward through on our HBO-pirated copy of WW back in the day), I dig that soundtrack.  The Oompa songs still have solid messages today (don't watch so much TV, don't eat too much, don't be a brat, don't chew gum so much), but these renditions are, sadly, kind of uninteresting.  They just hit one note - nothing adventurous once you get past the notion of Les Claypool twitching his way through these tunes.  They just keep it taut and creepy throughout, without much real interpretation or modification other than slight Primification.

Yep.  Sounds like Primus playing Pure Imagination.  Would have been cool if they had re-imagined it more, added more funky flair and not just played it straight with different instruments.  They funk it up a bit at the end, but I just wanted more.

Rich Robinson - The Ceaseless Sight.  Eh.  I love the Black Crowes, so I generally give them a pass, but this just sounds like a filler BC album.  Not bad by any means, and has some of those BC-esque touches that make me think it might be great, but overall just fine.

Quick Hits, Vol. 4 (Minutemen, Meat Puppets, Bee Caves, Wara from the NBHD, My Brightest Diamond, Death from Above 1979, Preatures)

Minutemen - Double Nickels on the Dime.  I would have been all over these dudes in high school if I had known about them.  I had a good, long love affair with Fugazi and Firehose (the latter of which was mentioned in a Chili Peppers song, so I bought several albums on that tiny recommendation alone).  Part of this band went on to become Firehose later on, and you can really hear it in the bass - funky and odd and awesome.  It is like some dudes wanted to be punk, but they had actual serious skills with their instruments, so this comes off as lo-fi and shouted/spoken like punk, with with really solid musicianship and fun eclectic takes on tunes (instead of the boring boom bap drumming and bass of normal punk).  The most listened to song on this album is Corona, but I think that is only because it was the intro music to the extra-dumb Jackass show.  I prefer Viet Nam, try it out:

Almost has an R.E.M. sound in there (although for all I know, R.E.M. cribbed their sound off these guys.  This album came out in 1984).  Don't worry, the song is only 1:29 long...

Meat Puppets - II.  Huh.  Sounds kind of like the Minutemen, and it appears that they were labelmates back in the 80's.  Promise I didn't load them up in my queue that way on purpose, but that American Championship Belt post brought both of these bands up.  This is pretty dang weird music. Kind of in the alt country/ punk country vein of early Old 97's or Sun Volt.  Has some Phish sounds as well (Aurora Borealis), maybe even some Dead through that country-ish sound.  The album also has multiple tunes that Nirvana used in their Unplugged album (Plateau, Lake of Fire, and Oh, Me).  

Pretty dang close to the way Kurt sang it on the Unplugged show.  Interesting.  I'm sure the true Nirvana fan-boys totally knew that these were Meat Puppets songs, but fun to hear the echos of the original in the covers.  Cool find.  I likely won't go back and listen to this album much again, but I've got more useless trivia in my head now!

Bee Caves - Animals with Religion.  Great music.  I feel like I've heard these songs before, although I know I never have.  Really nice relaxed rock and roll with good harmonies.

Wara from the NBHD - Kidnapped.  I have no freaking clue where I found this album or why I added it to my playlist to check out, but its actually pretty damn good.  No clue why his name is so weird, either.  But this is solid story-telling rap of nice sounding couplets and rhythm, with drug sales tales and very little dumb braggadocio or talk about his cars and shoes and artwork, over simple but well-made beats.  I wanted to add a link to Raw, but it apparently has no YouTube presence.  So check out Beige (which totally sounds like a Pharrell beat for Clipse):

My Brightest Diamond - This is my Hand.  She came to ACL Fest and I listened to her music when writing her up, but she has put out a new full length album that is really nice. Quirky and odd, I'll stick to my Bjork comparisons from my earlier review.  Great voice, although she doesn't just play it straight - she hits unexpected notes and sticks herself into weird arrangements.  This is good.

Death from Above 1979 - The Physical World.  Funny, I thought I had already listened to these dudes for the ACL previews, but it turns out that people are having a very difficult time coming up with original band names these days.  Death from Above 1979 didn't come to ACL, but Chain Gang of 1974 and Night Terrors of 1927 did.  Come on, folks.  Stop using the automatic band name generator already.  I know I should be talking about this album and all, but I just went to bandnamemaker and told it to make names involving 1976, and it made the absolute worst band names I think it possibly could have made.  Some examples:

• "1976 Rupture And The Twang Allison"  What?  Seriously, what did you just say?
• "1976 Of The Manual Mistress"  Did the 1980's Nintendo writers make this website?
• "Confidential 1976 And The Liberty"  Is my computer being hacked while I read this garbage?
• "1976 Of The Sink"  I wish I was making this up.
• And the winner, because it encapsulates this website so well, is "Sucky 1976"

ANYWAY, once you get over the band name, this is fun hard rock stuff.  Driving, relentless, rock and roll you should probably use to drive fast or dance hard.  Here is the most popular tune from the album, chug along and look at those buttons.

Preatures - Blue Planet Eyes.  Another band that came to ACL Fest, but previously they didn't have a full length album out.  They have one big hit song that plays on the radio quite a bit around Austin:

Which is a straight up jam.  I mean, try not to boogie while you listen to that stuff.  The full album includes that song as well as a bunch of similarly good tunes.  Reminds me of the pop/rock/80's references from Haim a year or two ago.  They've also got a chilled Sheryl Crow sound (Two Tone Melody) on here to bring you back down from your heavy grooving.

"Music that Makes You Dumb"*

*working subtitle, "How to create obnoxious things on the Internet and get people to click on them"

http://musicthatmakesyoudumb.virgil.gr/

A Cal Tech student has created a fun (if pointlessly useless when you really think about it) experiment to measure what bands are listed as "favorites" at schools with higher SAT scores.  He clearly understands that there is no real relationship between the two, but it is still kind of fun to look at and act like people who listen to Lil Wayne are super dumb, while people who listen to Beethoven are super smart.  More likely, people who listen to Lil Wayne like to party and therefore don't like to study, while people who listen to Beethoven are super boring and need to study to make their lives more fun.  Except my mom, she's plenty fun even if she listens to classical.  Love ya, mom.

Smartest rap?  Outkast.  Take that, intelligent rappers.  Ain't nobody dope as me, I'm just so fresh so clean.  If that doesn't just ooze intelligence from its pores, then what does?

Smartest Alternative?  Radiohead.
Dumbest alternative?  AFI (you can't listen to scream-o, cookie-monster vocals and know the big SAT words, folks).

Dumbest Rock and Roll?  Aerosmith and Nickelback
Smartest Rock and Roll?  Counting Crows and U2.  Sounds about right.

Smartest Country is actually Pat Green.  Which is interesting.  Have people outside of Texas heard of Pat Green?  Or does this just mean that Texas schools are the smartest? Yes?  Agreed.

Smartest "Classic Rock" is Bob Dylan.  Which is dumb, because Bob Dylan is not classic rock.  He may be old enough to be classic, but listening to the Peanuts teacher sing over folk guitar is not in the same wheelhouse as Led Zeppelin.

Dumbest indie includes Postal Service, which just can't be right.  And the smartest is Surfjan Stevens. I have never been able to get on board with Surfjan.

Only Beethoven for my kids from here on out.  While writing that, it just dawned on me that their actual favorite artist (right now, hopefully not for long) is Katy Perry.  She isn't listed on this thing.  How could the "Pop" category not have Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Lorde, or any of the other huge dominating pop stars of right now?  I take back my faint praise of this project - I smell a rat.  I think this guy just hates Lil Wayne and made this whole thing up just to troll his ex-girlfriend who loved Six Foot Seven Foot.

2015 bound!

Yeeeeeeehaw!  Just scored my early bird passes for next year.  Pumped.  I hope they bring Barbara Streisand and Queensryche!

It did dawn on me the other day how awesome it must be to own a festival.  I have no clue how many early bird tickets they release, but lets just say it is 50,000.  At $225 a pop, that means they just got $11,250,000 transferred into their coffers.  Which they get to invest for a year before they need to pay Salt n Pepa for their performance next October.  Awesome.  And they likely sell more than that in early bird passes.

Next year, I'm starting the new Austin Sounds Stages Festival.  Everyone send me $500 now and I'll reserve you a ticket.

Quick Hits, Vol. 3 (Big Daddy Kane, Kevin Gates, Weezer, Hozier, Protomartyr, Jessica Lea Mayfield, Afghan Whigs)

Big Daddy Kane - Long Live the Kane.  I forget why this guy popped into my head the other day, but I never listened to BDK back in the days when he was popular.  I was an LL Cool J guy and always figured Kane must be as corny as LL told me he was.  This album is pretty solid for old school scratchin' rap.  Sounds kind of like the Paris albums I listened to back in high school.  The raps are actually pretty good (On the Bugged Tip is nice), except he's one of those brag-rappers, where I don't think he's saying anything but how he is super awesome.  And he has a slow jam love song or two, which are kind of funny (The Day You're Mine).

Ain't No Half Steppin', has a supreme beat.  Again, all bragging, but still pretty solid.  AND that video is 80's comedy gold.  Look at that ring shaped like a business card made of gold!  Check those chains!  The hair!  The workout clothes!  Word.

Kevin Gates - By Any Means.  Louisiana rapper who had a great last album (Stranger than Fiction, go listen to White Tan and see if you don't feel the need to get down).  His production is mostly solid, southern-sounding trap.  This is strong gangsta rap that is fun to listen to and catchy.  Posed to be in Love is the current hit off of this album, which, in this current climate of hyper-sensitivity to domestic violence, why not have a popular video and song about beating up your woman?

Weezer - Everything Will Be Alright In the End.  Woohoo!  I dig on some Weezer.  Their blue album was high school and college good memories (although I tried to sing Buddy Holly to the four year old the other night as a lullaby, and she asked for a different song, so maybe it doesn't survive the years as well as I thought) and they have had some other good ones since.  Raditude and Hurley were not so good, but this one right here goes right back to the sound they had in the early nineties and jams it out.  Crunchy guitars and steady rhythm, along with catchy hooks and lyrics?  Nice!  Ain't Got Nobody is a good starter, but Back to the Shack is the popular song for a reason.

 Jammin' on the moon, baby!  Love it - going back to the original sound and admitting it in song.  Rockin' out like its 94!

Hozier - Hozier.  I know I already did a full post about this dude, but he finally put out a full length album.  It is awesome.  Jackie and Wilson is like a Black Keys tune, loads of fun and makes me want to rename my kids with cooler rock and roll names.  Someone New and Like Real People Do are just great little love songs.  This is mainly bluesy rock with a load of soul, along with a few really nice ballads (the duet on In a Week in particular) and it makes me even more disappointed that he missed out on the ACL Fest this year.

Protomartyr - Under Color of Official Right.  Punk, with talking-style lyrics most of the time. Interesting sound.  Also an out-of-place clear guitar sound on a lot of songs.  Make me think of Best Coast's guitar.  Worth a listen but I won't hang on to it.

Jessica Lea Mayfield - Make My Head Sing... - This gal used to work with Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys, and this still has a fingerprint or two from him on it.  I don't know how to categorize this music, bluesy at times, alternative rock at times, folky pretty at times, its all over the place.  Some Yeah Yeah Yeahs, some Nirvana, some Neko Case, some Black Keys, its actually pretty good.

Afghan Whigs - Do to the Beast.  I have fond memories of the Afghan Whigs because of the Beautiful Girls soundtrack.  Loved that soundtrack, and their cover of Barry White's Can't Get Enough of Your Love, Babe.  Rolling Stone dug on this album and made me excited to hear it, but nothing in here was especially noteworthy.  I was about to just skip writing about it, but what is the point of this blog except to tell you that this is uninteresting to me?

Quick Hits, Vol 2 (Drive By Truckers, Old Crow Medicine Show, Kid Cudi, Warpaint, Coldplay, Old 97's, Conor Oberst, Damon Albarn, Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger, Parquet Courts)

Drive by Truckers - English Oceans.  Somewhere between Wilco/Uncle Tupelo and the more normal Flaming Lips songs. Pretty good, but nothing I think I need to listen to forever.

Old Crow Medicine Show - OCMS.  Even without Wagon Wheel, which is a dang fun song, this is solidly enjoyable bluegrass actions from the hollows of Carolina.

Kid Cudi - Satellite Flight.  The album title is actually quite a bit longer, but I just can't be bothered with all of that nonsense.  I have never gotten into Kid Cudi.  His other albums have never been all that interesting to me and this one doesn't change that perception.  The beats are boring and the whispery delivery just doesn't hold my attention.

Warpaint - Warpaint.  In general, not my cup of tea.  Brooding, soft, dark, pretty, kind of meandering ladies.  That being said, some of these songs are kind of tight - Love is to Die is actually pretty catchy.  I'll keep this one around for the next time someone really cool comes to visit me from Brooklyn or something.

Coldplay - Ghost Stories.  I was fully prepared to dislike this album, because the radio songs sound like they just took a page out of the EDM playbook (see Sky Full of Stars) to make a popular new album for the club kids.  I loved Coldplay for their first two or three albums - Yellow, Clocks, Spiders, Trouble, those are money songs.  I worried that leaving behind their rock roots to go all electronic would suck.  While I still think those original albums are better, this one is actually pretty good.  Chris Martin's voice and lyrics are still fine, and the music still takes you from relatively funky bounces to tender balladry.  I'll keep this one.

Old 97's - Most Messed Up.  Heck yeah.  I like the Old 97's a lot, but had been a little underwhelmed by the last album or two.  This one is great, loose, swagger-filled alt-country/rock fun.

Conor Oberst - Upside Down Mountain.  Pretty nice.  Makes me think of some of those Ryan Adams albums he made when he was doing like 9 a year, where it is eminently pleasant while the album is playing, but then when you try to remember a single thing that happened while the album played, you've got no idea.  Amnesia rock, baby!  Zigzagging Toward the Light may be the best one on here.

(gotta go to 2:40 to hear the tunes).

Damon Albarn - Everyday Robots.  Lead singer from Blur and Gorillaz, both of which I like. Definitely more Gorillaz on this album than Blur - glitchy, synthy beats with Albarn floating around over the top.  Good but not great, I kind of doubt I would go out of my way to find it and listen again.

Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger - Midnight Sun.  Trippy psych rock from Sean Lennon, you can tell the kid has listened to some late Beatles in his day.  Actually a pretty good album.  Animals is my favorite tune on the album.  Another one that was fine through a few listens, but I doubt I'll seek it out to hear again.

Parquet Courts - Sunbathing Animal.  Garage band Strokes-y bashing.  I know this album had critics salivating openly (Pitchfork says "Sunbathing Animal's considered, whip-smart rock revivalism is a work of substantial growth from a band that already did "simple" quite well, placing Parquet Courts in their own distinct weight class."; Rolling Stone gives it four stars, and like Pitchfork, invokes Pavement as the closest comparison, in saying it has deadpan vocals and fantastic guitar rambles.). I've tried to like Pavement, but I just haven't gotten into it.  Same thing goes here, I'd like to really enjoy this, but it feels like an early, raw album from a band who got a lot better as they aged.

More to come...

Skrillex: Stubb's: 10/10/14

If you have been reading my other posts, you'll know that I have been excited about seeing Skrillex.  I still couldn't tell you what the hell the difference is between dubstep and techno or EDM or whatever else name this stuff has been given, but I freaking love Bangarang.  One more time!

However, I wanted to go see Eminem play the Saturday night of ACL 2014, so I knew I was going to have to miss out on Skrillex's show.  Until my friend Joseph scored us a pair of tickets to go see him at Stubb's outdoor for the second weekend of ACL.  Both of us were pretty pumped, and I spent a large part of that Friday playing the new album (Recess) to get myself all ready to go.

And it was lame.  So lame.  I think the underlying reason is that I just don't do the drugs like the kids these days.  The only way that the people around me could have been as excited as they were by this concert is if they were doing the ecstasies or Molly or freebasing bathsalts or whatever.  This concert consisted of Skrillex hitting buttons on his control panel to play songs, and then doing his best to pump up the crowd by pumping his fists or shooting finger guns or yelling super original things like "Whats up AUSTIN!?!" or "get your hands UP AUSTIN!!"  Multiple times during the show he would step up onto his control console thing and try to hype us up or get us to clap together.  

This is not from Austin, but you can catch a flavor of what the guy is doing and what people on all the drugs look like.

In case you want to know, dubstep is defined as a genre of EDM that originated in South London and generally features syncopated drum and percussion with prominent sub bass frequencies.  Reading about it hurts my head.  The stylistic origins noted on Wikipedia are reggae, dub, grime, 2-step garage, drum and bass, and breakstep.  Uh, reggae?  I'm not a huge reggae guy or anything, but No Woman No Cry did not spawn Skrillex.  And no one has ever heard of those other styles of music. Someone in their parent's basement in Cleveland just made that stuff up to confuse old people like me.  

I was hopeful that Joseph was going to give me a glowing review of the show, because he was hammered with pre-plans for a cab ride, and that would support my theory that I needed to be in a different mind-set to have enjoyed the show.  No such luck.  A random sampling of some of his texts from after the show: 

• "Not gonna lie... Awful" 
• "Unless you are high and 18"
• "I'm going to eat some tacos and go home"
• "It's much worse than you and I mixing a show" [which really can't be true.  I wouldn't even have the first clue how to torture synthesizers and drum machines into making those noises]
• "But serious.  Wtf was that show?"

As well as some fun auto-correct entries like "Syrah" and "I marry."

Thinking back on the show, I think it had all of the pieces I was expecting.  Ridiculously loud and deep bass (thank God I brought ear plugs.  I am sooo old).  Some of the popular songs I had heard before, plus a few other ones incorporating current rap hits that were kind of fun. A huge sweaty crowd, almost exclusively under 30, filming every second on their phone so they can watch it over and over again (I guess?  Weirdos).  So I'm not really sure what my problem was, but I just didn't feel the hype or excitement once I was standing there among the crowd.  Glad I gave it a shot.  No need to try to see him again.

Postmortem: Sunday

I called it.  Sunday was most definitely the best day of the weekend. 98% of that is because Pearl Jam absolutely killed it.  Just phenomenal.

To get rolling on Sunday, there was just no way I was going to make it happen by 12:15 to see MODOC or The Districts.  While I liked them both quite a bit when writing the blog, I just needed to not stand up for 10 hours and was feeling a little sore.  So Jason and I went to Pluckers to watch some Cowboys/Texans action and fill up on wings.

Jason wanted to walk over and see Kongos (called it!), so I got to start the day off with Nikki Lane by myself.  She was exactly as advertised.  Foul mouthed, redneck all the way, excellent country twang with all the sass she could serve.  She asked the small-ish crowd to raise hands if they were rednecks.  When just about no one raised their hand, she cussed us out and told us to fake it since we were at a country show.  Kinda funny.

I left there after about 6 songs to go check out Jamestown Revival with Joseph and Jessica.  They were really really good.  Very chilled kind of harmonic rock with a lot of frontman energy from the two main dudes.  They also fired up a spot on Creedence cover that was pretty cool.

We went for Cults at 3, and I have to say I was not as into them in person as I had been before.  Their music was crushingly loud and quite a bit more noisy than I expected.  I felt like their albums are pretty rocking, but something about the live show was just too much for me.

DUDE.  Fitz & the Tantrums was flipping so much fun!  Massively groovy, with the band absolutely dedicated to getting us up on our feet to party along with them.  At one point, they asked everyone to get down low, and proceeded to call people out who were still just standing there.  They kicked out a jam, and everyone stood up and started jumping and going crazy - really fun.  I also did make sure to do some Molly Ringwald foot shuffle moves, I feel like I really lived right then a there.  Slightly bummed to miss The Gaslight Anthem, but less so once I realized how fun Fitz made everything.  Out of My League got the whole crowd in a dance frenzy.  Jason told me his review for the blog was "Fitz is high energy, great showman, a plus."  Or something to that effect.

Next was Real Estate.  I was bummed to see the size of their crowd, but they were fantastic. Their music is just so dang pretty.  Talking Backwards and It's Real were highlights.  We just sat down on the grass and had a few beers enjoying the show.  Really nice moment.  The band really seemed to enjoy just hanging out together and making the world a prettier place.

After Real Estate, we stocked up on drinks, hit the port-o's, and waded as deep into The Replacements crowd as we could get so that we would be prepared for Pearl Jam. Honestly, I know everyone who is anyone loves the Replacements, and loads of great bands (including Pearl Jam) list them as an influence, but I just don't get it.  They aren't bad, but I think that the bands who have come along afterwards to steal their style just did it better.

Once they ended, there was a depressingly small number of people who swam upstream to escape the crowd, and the crush from behind started.  We ended up about 50 feet from the main stage, right in the center by the aisle.  We were crushed in there for a good while, listening to the faraway thump of Major Lazer and making small talk with the people sitting on our feet or complaining about their bladders.  But it actually didn't feel like too long of a wait.

Their first song was something I didn't know, and it was a weird realization that Pearl Jam is still a massively popular band with new music that other people would think is the best PJ music.  Which is insane.  Ten, Vs., and Vitology are the greatest for me, but I soon realized that the young gal next to me was not singing along to any of the awesome old songs, but knew all of the new ones that I don't know at all.  Which is strange.  

Anyway, they tore through Go and then Why Go before running up through some of their newer songs.  Do the Evolution had some big euro-soccer chant moments Eddie Vedder worked on starting up.  Mind Your Manners was straight punk pummeling.  Corduroy was a good version on that smaller hit.  Their take on Even Flow was cool - fast paced and a little different but really fun with an insane solo in there.  Daughter (acoustic) and then Rearviewmirror were fantastic to scream along to - just felt like I was 17 again listening to these things in high school and feeling like they were important songs.

Eddie, swilling red wine directly from the bottle, also had some political commentary to hand over to the crowd, which was not unexpected.  But you could tell the dude is older now than 20 years ago when he would have led everyone in a screaming chant against his causes instead of just talking about it for a sec and then going back to his bottle.

(not actually from ACL, but you'll get the flavor)

Love me some Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town.  I think I broke my voice on Rearviewmirror, so I had some trouble with this one, but the band killed it.  Next Eddie broke out the acoustic and did Imagine and some more sermonizing, but then the band came back out and absolutely broke it down for the last few songs.  State of Love and Trust, Porch, and Alive - I almost passed out from screaming them at the top of my lungs.  I could not have felt more excited, happy, jubilant, nostalgic, and thankful.  Just so damn awesome.  They ended with the usual Rockin in the Free World cover that was good, but whatevs.  I was already spent.

I would truly put that show up against anything else I have ever seen.  Memory may be clouding my vision and all, but I haven't felt that amazing while watching music in a while. Alive, for real.

Solid weekend.  Monday morning was pretty brutal, but worth it, as usual, to wring every last Imperial and sweat flavored drop out of the festival.  Looking forward to next year!

Live Nation to buy C3?

The New York Times ran a story on Monday saying that Live Nation is "in advanced talks to buy a majority stake in C3 Presents," who is the promoter for the ACL Festival.

As first blush, this seems like a bad thing.  McDonald's taking over Torchy's or Wal-Mart buying out Franklin BBQ.  Live Nation has swallowed up a ton of different aspects of the music business, owns the extremely unpleasant Ticketmaster fee machine, and has taken some cool, iconic venues like the Fillmore in San Francisco and turned them into derivative chains.  

Can we expect new Stubb's venues to pop up across the country and dilute the cool of what we have here in Austin?  Will they sign a new 360 degree contract with Jay-Z that puts Beyonce's tail on every bottle of Stubb's sauce?  Will they increase ACL wristband prices with a $9.50 convenience fee, $12.50 order processing fee, $22.50 microchipped wristband fee, $18.99 Zilker Park grass seeding fee, $7.50 sound ordinance abatement fee, and a $1 screw you fee?  Will they take over booking for ACL and make us watch even more jenky EDM music?  

I have no clue, but I think I am going to feel positive about this thing.  Maybe they'll bring a House of Blues to town, which are actually pretty good venues even if they are a homogeneous chain.  Maybe they'll bring some of their exclusive, top artists to town, like Jay-Z, Madonna, or U2, for the festival. Maybe they'll merge Ticketmaster with Front Gate Tickets and the feds will force them to be nicer and quit charging stupid fees on top of crazy ticket prices.  So long as they keep the smart brains who have been making ACL Fest so kick ass for the past decade, I'll probably give them a pass for just about anything they do.

Postmortem: Saturday

Dude.  If you are reading this, then hopefully you are going for weekend Two and I can make your weekend the best it can be.  Assuming that is the truth, then know that you will need to gird ye loins.  It is time to look deep inside of yourself and decide whether you are a mouse or you are someone who likes kick ass music.  Because I know you are the latter, you must make plans to be there at 12:30 for Spanish Gold.

I got to see them on Friday night at the aftershow, so I skipped the Saturday morning show to see Benjamin Booker.  But other than Pearl Jam, I think Spanish Gold might have been the best thing I saw all weekend.  Sadly for you, this means a 12:30 start time to your day in the sun.  But you should do it.  Go to Spotify right now and listen to their album and just realize that it is greatness.  Spanish Gold.  

Instead of Spanish Gold, I went and saw Benjamin Booker, who was raw as raw can be.  He bounced between a kind of rockabilly swagger and punk rock jams, with an odd bluesy interlude in the middle where his fiddle/bass guy (Casey Affleck, swear on a stack of bibles!) and drum/mandolin guy broke it down and Booker put down his axe to kick around the stage and sing some blues.  I liked Booker, but he was kind of all over the place - guitar parts were not quite on, his voice devolved into guttural growls, and while I love the raw rock and roll-ness, he could use a little bit of polish for his live show.

The promise of awesomeness is right there in this song.  But when playing it live, he seemed to have some trouble running through the solos at full speed.

2:00:  Falls.  This was excellent.  They had lovely little Aussie accents in between songs, and their music is just dang pretty.  Jason and I sat down and then ended up laying down on the grass and just letting them do their thing.  Perfect afternoon band at the little Austin Ventures stage.  Threw down a Heart of Gold cover for all the old people to sing along to and all the young folks to mumble along with and everything.

We didn't stay for the whole show but walked over to just check out what Trombone Shorty had going on.  It was absolutely a blast.  He can freaking jam, both with his 'bone and with a trumpet.  He also had five UT band kids come up and jam out with him for a few songs, and when they weren't playing, the goofy, happy, blissed out look on their faces as they bounced back and forth to the funk was really cool.  You could tell they had a blast with it.  His backing band plays pretty dang hard rock and roll, and he just funks right all over it.  Really fun and glad I went to check it out.

Stupid Kodaline.  I was super excited to see them, and they bailed on the weekend.  http://www.thestar.ie/star/kodaline-cancel-gigs-after-silly-accident-53611/.  What the heck kind of silly accident kept you from me?  Irish jerkfaces.  With godawful hair.  Go click on that link and seriously.  Seriously.

So, with nothing to see at the 3:30 slot, we went to check out Tune-Yards.  Who suck a fat one.  I swear they made a bet before the show to see who could make the worst, weirdest noises and yet keep the crowd there.  Super experimental and out there.  On top of them being freaky, there was a super weird dude in the crowd wearing masks and chewing on dog toys, who had a little kid with him who could dance really well, so they were freaking me out even more than the twiggy little gloop bloops from the band.  I swear, I took no drugs, but this part of the day was an issue for my well-being.

Next, we got nice and close for Head & the Heart.  Awesome music.  Feels wrong they are from Seattle, I feel like they ought to be from North Carolina or Vermont.  I cannot defend this, it is a gut feeling.  But they make me want to move to the woods and mash my own cider and rot my own cheese and grow a terrific beard full of yesterday's quinoa.  Loved that show.  Oh, and cherry scented e-smoke is actually kind of lovely.

In trying to walk across the park to get to the next show, we ran into the ridiculous 87 car pileup that was Iggy Azelea.  They put her at one of the middle stages, but she had a crowd as big as damn Outkast.  It was a mess.  And after listening to three songs, she also was a mess.  Years ago, I would have just enjoyed the beat and been happy with her music, but if you pay any sort of remote attention to what she is saying and doing, it is just so damn dumb.  #Vanilliggy indeed.

Once we escaped the idiotic morass at Iggy, we made it really close to the stage for Avett Brothers.  They are so very fantastic live.  All of the guys and girl on stage seem to just love jamming out together, and they put on a hell of a fun, foot-stomping, singalong show. 

This song, Murder in the City, isn't one that I knew before the show, but it is such a sweet, fine nugget about family love that struck me right between the eyes.  The line of "nothing worth sharing like the love that let us share our name" is too good.  

Oh, Eminem.  Before I begin my internet-fueled diatribe and conspiracy theory, let me just say that the show was really fun.  He stalks the stage like a crotch-grabbing, scowling, white panther.  If I could have just relaxed and gotten into the show, I think I would have had a blast.  He tripped through old classics and got the crowd going for the new Rhianna songs - everyone really had fun.

However, right near the beginning, Jason pointed out to me that he kept lowering his mic before he was finished saying his lyrics.  It happened multiple times, where the last word or two of his line could be heard in full voice, even though his mic was swinging away from his face.  Which made me also notice that he never sounded winded, no matter how much he bounced around or moved.  He had a hype man up there with him who would yell stuff to get the crowd excited ("whats up Austiiiiiiiin???"), but Em never varied his songs in the slightest.  Which made me think that he was just lip syncing and I got all whiny in my head about it and had trouble just enjoying the fun spectacle of his show.

Afterwards, I found multiple stories out there of people noticing on SNL, Coachella, and elsewhere that Eminem appears to lip sync his songs.  

Yeah.  Ends up that he has admitted to using a "backing track," with one website saying that he claimed that the "live performance aspects are still there."I suppose he means the crotch grabbing and scowling.

• Spin's article ("words they were hearing were not coming live from Eminem's mouth")
• LA weekly ("His lip-syncing was especially obvious because he's so animated, constantly gesticulating in a way that pulls the mic away from his mouth, mid-lyric.")
• and many others, including TMZ and Perez Hilton, which I just can't link here without being sad for the news and the general state of America

Honestly, I wish I hadn't noticed it at all so that I could just bounce around with the teenagers all around me and enjoy the show instead of trying to analyze his every move for signs of cheating.  In the end, this was a fun show, and his raps really are something to behold, whether they are really live or not.

After all of that, off to Taco C for some late night sustenance and then the sweet siren call of my son's twin bed.  Two nights down, one to go.

Postmortem: Friday

Despite all my hopes to get out there early and hit up Sphynx and Temples, I just couldn't get my biz together so we only got out there at about 2.  I'm just going to have to find some other time to go see Temples do their thing (if you haven't listened to them, you should do it).

My friend Jason was excited about seeing Capital Cities at 2:15.  I was not excited about seeing Capital Cities at 2:15.  However, sometimes in a relationship, you have to give some to get some, so I watched these two bearded goofballs dance around and sing some pop songs.  Favorite part here was people watching.  It never gets old to feel musically superior to people fully enjoying themselves to a song you think is inferior.

Sadly for me, Hozier bailed on the weekend.  ACL's twitter said: "Unfortunately, @Hozier had to cancel tomorrow's #ACLFest appearance due to illness."  Major bummer.  I had fired up his EPs a few times this last week to get all properly geeked up and ready.  

So with my 3:15 plans up in the air, I decided to give Bleachers a shot.  They were surprisingly good.  The "band" was interesting - two drummers, each with a full kit, two synth guys, and then Antonoff bouncing around out front with his guitar.  The above hit (I Wanna Get Better) was a party time in the crowd, and the rest of the songs were pretty solid as well, bouncing between rock and chill.

4:15 was Chvrches time, who I was really excited to see.  They were fabulous.  On top of great music and well-done renditions to a pretty damn big crowd, their between-song banter made me laugh.  The lead singer is the tiniest little Scot, who at one point started commenting on some of the flags in the audience, noting that there were two big dong signs in the back of the crowd with clever witticisms written on them like "cum this way."

I audibled out of St. Vincent (Amy's comment via text: "You are not following your schedule.  Your fans will be dissapointed."  She thinks I have fans!  She believes in me!) and went to J. Roddy Walston & the Business instead.  They freaking rock so hard.  Made me want to kick dirt and pull gauges out of people's ears.

That Zeppelin riff!!!  Ahhhhhh!!!  While getting the business from J. Roddy, I jammed some East Side Kings pork buns down my gullet (mighty dang tasty) and we wandered on.

Jason wanted to do Foster the People at 6:15 and I'm damn glad I listened.  They put on a hell of a show, played a lot of great pop rock tunes, and the whole crowd ate it up.  I ended up knowing more of their songs than I thought I would, and even got to see miss fancy VIP Amy for a song or two before they had to go backstage and eat some popular people buffet.  One new hit (Comin' of Age) rips off U2 and the Edge so hard it must have hurt the Edge's little skull-capped melon.

Now we walked over to get into a good spot for Outkast.  Man, they were freaking awesome.  I could not have been happier when they played International Players Anthem (I Choose You).  Some of you may wonder why that would make me so happy.  First, not their song (UGK, fool!), so it was a welcome surprise.  Second, the song absolutely bangs better than any beat alive.  Third, the line "trash likes to F with forty dollars in the club," which is so very well crafted and makes me laugh.

Finally, if you have never felt bass so loud that it actually shakes your clothing where it hangs off of your body, click on that song, turn the woofer up to 11, and then wait for the kick in at 1:59.  My dad, who lives out by the Salt Lick, literally texted me to ask if I was wearing ear plugs because he could hear the bass.

On top of that song, they did a handful of their great hits, split up to do their respective Speakerboxx/Love Below solo hits, and then came back together to finish it off.  They seemed like they were having a great time, and the crowd just ate it up.  I thought they wouldn't be into the show - I just read an interview where Andre 3000 mentioned how lame it is to still be rapping the same lines he made up when he was 17.  Fair enough, but if that is true, he hid it well for us.  The kids around me didn't know the Aquemeni or ATLiens tunes, but I think the entire crowd sang Mrs. Jackson and So Fresh and So Clean.  Great time.

While most people were now done with their ACL experience for the night, not this band of intrepid explorers!  You know the dumb thing you do every time you go to Vegas or some other similar party weekend?  Where the first night you just go all in and burn the candle on three ends and what seems like an awesome idea later turns out to make you real real sleepy and sore?  Yeah.

We drove to my office to park and walk over to Stubbs for the Rosebuds/Spanish Gold aftershow.  The Rosebuds were actually pretty dang good.  I didn't remember much about them from my earlier listens to blog about them, but then when they played I totally recalled the tunes.  Actually pretty awesome.  You should go check them out.

But the prize of the night was that Spanish Gold action.  I don't understand why these guys haven't overtaken U2 or Springsteen as the greatest band in the world.  Something must be wrong with me here, because I feel like every lyric, every riff, every eyes-closed-kinda-creepy roll of the head by the drummer, is just right spot on perfect.  I promise the band is not made up of my kids of something, but I just dig it all.  Their show was excellent.  The Stubb's indoor venue is also excellent - probably like 150 people total in there for the sold out show, and while it was full, we could still stand up right by the stage.  As the guys left the stage, I clapped the drummer on his back and yelled something that was likely super dumb and would be embarrassing if I could remember ("way to go, bro!"  "killed it, brah!"  "Spanish oro, amirite!?!").  I have to say, his shirt could not have physically held more liquid.  The Indian Ocean might actually have less liquid in it than his shirt did.  People 20 feet away from us got drenched like the log ride at Six Flags.  That was one sweaty dude.

Still sad I had to miss Blackberry Smoke, but this was an insanely fun day.  More to come.

Spanish Gold can live with Benjamin Booker!

Through the magical healing powers of the late-night shows, I'm going to get to see everything I want. Children, if you believe, you too can enjoy all the badassery you want to find in your heart.

My little brother let me know that his good friend had scored him tickets to see Spanish Gold on Friday night at a late night show. I checked the web and there were still tickets available. For some, not a big deal.  For me, this is the greatest ACL miracle I could have received. I can see Spanish Gold on Friday night and then still see Benjamin Booker on Saturday morning?  Let's do this damn thing!