Quick Hits, Vol. 99 (Wire, Lukas Graham, Fitz and the Tantrums, Buzzcocks)

As an aside, I woke up the morning after the election all sorts of fuzzy and bummed out.  Partially from drinking the majority of 2.5 bottles of wine while watching the election results, but also because I just couldn't believe that Trump had actually won the election.  You know what helped?  Day drinking during the work day here at my desk certainly made things better, but I also listened to Tame Impala's Currents about 8 times throughout the day, and it made me feel better.  The great click in the middle of "Disciples," and the morose truth in "New Person, Same Old Mistakes," just seemed to make me feel right again.  I'm a big fan of that album, and it was good to take a break from new music and just find a groove in there.

Wire - Pink Flag.  A 1977 album of punk bounce from some Brits who were in on the original punk movement.  This thing is 21 songs, many of which don't even hit the minute mark, and none of which break 4 minutes.  One track, "Three Girl Rhumba" sounds like a riff later borrowed by Garbage.  One track, "Strange" is familiar to me because R.E.M. covered it years ago on 1987's Document.  Pretty great, fuzzed out track.  Not especially punk rock -ish, but still a good tune.  But the most popular track in their arsenal, which also comes from this album, is "Ex Lion Tamer," which in fact sounds like an R.E.M. track and makes me realize that those boys might have owed more to the punk sound than I ever thought.

This album is fine, but I wouldn't go out of my way to name it a greatest album of all time or keep it around for later listening.

Lukas Graham - Lukas Graham.  This band, confusingly named as though it is one individual, is several dudes from Denmark, and you've almost certainly heard of them despite not recognizing that name.  This is because their ubiquitous hit, "7 Years" has been an unstoppable radio juggernaut.  And for good reason, quite frankly, as it hits on the right nostalgia notes and is preciously solid.

The rest of the album?  No thanks.  Reminds me of someone, maybe Jason Mraz or Ed Sheeran, with that kind of vaguely whiny rap/sing thing.  Not terrible or offensive, just nothing memorable.  Have a feeling that VH1 (or whatever takes their place in the Virtual Reality world of the future) will be featuring this band as a one hit wonder in 20 years.

Fitz and the Tantrums - Fitz and the Tantrums.  Funny story, that one tenth or so of my readership already knows, is that a friend of mine has two twin boys, who are like 4.  And those twin boys freaking LOVE themselves some Fitz and the Tantrums.  They wanted to be Fitz for Halloween. They watch live Fitz shows in their free time.  They know the name of the drummer for the band.  I'm very jealous of this maneuver, as my kids wrinkle up their nose to any music that isn't the absolute most overplayed pop music at any given time.  Taylor Swift or the godawful Chainsmokers!  They're in. Zeppelin or Chilis, and they're yelling at me to change the station.  I've done something terribly wrong in the raising of my children.

Anyway, beyond my parenting shortcomings, this band is super fun.  I saw them play ACL a few years back, and it is just a straight up massive dance party when this group starts blasting you with their good times.  This is the new album from 2016, and it keeps the same vibe, lots of imminently danceable tracks and fun stuff ("HandClap" or "Complicated"), that really never slows down for any serious or slow jam tunes.  Obviously, the big hit is "HandClap" with just under 27 million streams.

Quite a set of dancers in that video.  Good song, very catchy and the kind of thing I think I could easily get behind jumping around to like a crazy person if seeing this band live.  The album really sticks that same fun and danceable flavor - I also like "Fadeback."  This thing is good and I'll keep listening.

Buzzcocks - Singles Going Steady.  Another old album (1979) I'm giving a shot because of its purported iconic status among punk people.  You gotta love the start to this album. The opening chords sound like this is a White Stripes b-side made in a garage, and then you realize that the song is literally titled "Orgasm Addict," and is actually about an orgasm addict.  Who like ends up with damp pants and stuff.  Which is an odd thing to make a song about, and an even more odd thing to make the opener for your singles collection.  But whatever!  These days, this song is probably being played on Disney Radio or something. And, then again, the freaking band is called the Buzzcocks, so maybe I'm the ignorant person here.
This music is fast and raw, but its not all that punky to me.  The singing actually sound pretty tuneful and harmonic, and while the pace is fast, it isn't the breakneck crazy speed of what I think of when I think of punk rock.  The top song from the album, with 1.2 million streams, is "What Do I Get?"

See, not all that sneering and asshole-ish, right?  I mean, a little whiny, what with repeatedly asking what he gets, but still they sound relatively clean in this track.  Do you know of a more boring video than that one?  I mean, white background, and the four guys just standing there playing the track?  Is there a music video anywhere set to an image of a snail crawling across a white board?  This album is just fine, but I'm not going to keep it around.

Quick Hits, Vol. 98 (Cheap Trick, The Coup, The Monkees, Gang of Four)

So, another bad week for music, with two of those musicians' musicians passing away.  I knew Leonard Cohen's music, first because of the Natural Born Killers soundtrack (which is pretty excellent, BTW) and then because of "Hallelujah," like everyone else in the damn world.  Including Shrek.  And every bad contestant on American Idol.  I really didn't know Leon Russell's music, and just went back and tried some to see if I recognized any of it. I know a few tracks that other people covered, but otherwise I didn't know his stuff.  Despite my ignorance, RIP to both of those gents.

Cheap Trick - Cheap Trick.  Rolling Stone wrote an article recently about how Cheap Trick were these fantastic power pop rock guys who had been misunderstood or forgotten by time or whatever.  I knew "Want You to Want Me" and "The Flame," but I just wasn't sure that I knew anything else about these dudes, so I decided to check out the OG album, 1977's Cheap Trick.  I'll have to agree, this is actually a really good album.  No big hit, hook-filled tracks on here, but you've got pop rockers like "Taxman, Mr. Thief" or "Hot Love" and then pretty nice ballads reminiscent of something the Foo Fighters would do between shreds like "Mandocello."  Some of this actually reminds me of the Beatles.  Check out "Cry, Cry."  But the top song on the album is "He's a Whore," which tunefully rocks it out.

Power rock it, baby.  This is a good album.  Like, right now, even without knowing it for the past 40 years, it still sounds like fresh rock and good stuff.  Weird to think that, but its true.

The Coup - Kill My Landlord.  If you've ever read my stuff before, you'll know that I consider old school Ice Cube to be the best rap to be enjoyed.  This album came out in 1993, but it borrows from/pays homage to so many things off of Cube's 1991 masterpiece Death Certificate, and it just makes me love the entire thing even more.  Heavy on the old school soul samples like Cube, but they even use a sample of Cube from "Bird in the Hand" ("Blacks are too fuckin' broke to be Republican") that works so very perfectly.  They also quote him at other times with "once upon a time in the projects, yo" and "be true to the game," sample his voice again, and then copy a piano riff in the middle of "The Coup."  This is one of those albums where, on Spotify, the songs decrease in popularity as they flow through the album, with 122k for the first track ("Dig It") but only 10k for the last three songs. Here is that opening track, "Dig It."

I do dig it, man.  Classic rap stuff, I can't believe I never knew about this stuff back in the mid-90's, this would have been right up my alley.  Going to keep this one around and keep listening.

The Monkees - Good Times.  I don't know about you, but I freaking loved the Monkees when I was a kid.  The show would play on Nick at Night, and I owned a tape or two of their music/comedy, and I thought they were hilarious.  I didn't care that they were a manufactured band, I just thought it was funny stuff.  I used to walk around singing "I'm Gonna Buy Me a Dog" all the time.  Well, this new album touches the right nostalgic points, but it is a pretty straight-forward recitation of classic Monkees-sounding tunes.  No real humor, mainly just a classic 60's rock sound and voices that are surprisingly solid for these dudes being 70+ years old.  The most popular is the standout track "Me & Magdalena," which is this achingly pretty, very simple love song.

Apparently written by Ben Gibbard, that is a good tune.  "Birth of an Accidental Hipster" makes me think of Sgt. Pepper era Beatles.  "She Makes Me Laugh" is a bright, happy love tune.  Surprisingly good album in general, although I doubt I'll keep listening to any of it after today.

Gang of Four - Entertainment!  Another of the old school punk albums that Rolling Stone thought I should check out.  Or I thought I should check out because RS said it was important.  Whatever, I'm jamming with Gang of Four today.  This music definitely influenced Fugazi, and therefore it sounds pretty good to me.  These guys are still putting out music, with a new album in 2015, but since I've never heard it mentioned ever, I suspect it is weak in comparison to this album.  In fact, if you look at their top ten most popular tracks on Spotify, all ten are from this 1979 album.  Pretty damning review of their more recent music. While the guitar is angular and the vocals are straight-forward and monotone-ish, the bass lines give it a little funk heft that makes this sound better than other punk I've been listening to.  Also, the simplicity of the vocals makes it easier to hear the lyrics, which is good. The song that sounds most familiar is "Not Great Men," I think mainly because it sounds like it is an old Red Hot Chili Peppers track.

I ran a search on Spotify to see if that song had been covered by anyone else, and do not see any cover versions of the track.  Which is weird, because I swear I've heard it before now, although I don't think I've ever heard this album before the past few weeks.  Whatever, I like the funk groove.  Same with "Damaged Goods," or "Return the Gift."  If this is punk music, then it is nothing like the intense fire of most of that music that I am used to.  This is way more groove and funk based (and a hell of a lot better for it).  I'm actually going to keep this album around to keep jamming.

Quick Hits, Vol. 97 (Santa Marta Golden, The Dirty Nil, Intelligent Hoodlum, Sam Lewis)

KUTX does these great daily music packs called Ocho Loco, where they grab a theme for the day and then play tunes that match the theme.  Like it'll be a rainy week so they'll play songs about rain. The other day, after the Cub's big World Series win, they had an eight pack of songs that (for the part that I heard) were so freaking perfectly curated and awesome.  Of the ones I heard, Sinatra's "Chicago" came before Queen's "We Are the Champions," followed by someone's funny song about a Cubs fan's dying wish.

Gave me goosebumps and grins and made me happy for music to just plain exist in the world.

Santa Marta Golden - Resilience.  Yikes.  Other than the fact that you can see boobs on the cover, this one in not doing it for me.  If you like that kind of pummeling metal that absolutely crushes you and makes you worry you might never be happy again, then this is the album for you.  They have no bio on Spotify, but from what I can tell, they scream/moan in French on this, and so maybe they are from France?  But their most popular city if Granada, so maybe they are Spanish?  I dunno, but I literally fired up a headache about 1.75 songs into this thing, so if you think this doom metal action might be your thing, I'll leave you to it.

Where the hell did I even find this album?  Only one track, the opener, even has more than a thousand streams.  Weird.  I do not recommend this one.

The Dirty Nil - Higher Power.  Holy hell, this is some noisy, grimy, pounding stuff.  After the first minute or so, I was about to just move along and brand this as too much, but then "Zombie Eyed" caught me up with a little bit of tunefulness, "Wrestle Yu to Husker Du" made me grin, and then "Lowlives" reminded me of old Smashing Pumpkins (like "Silverfuck" performed by the Refused), and instead I'm hooked and listened to this album on repeat all weekend.  For sweet Canadians, they sure do seem to be ready to pummel your face in with some power chord anger.  The key track of those three listed above is this one, "Zombie Eyed."

Pretty rare these days for a video to make me laugh out loud - this one is absurd and funny, as our heroine gains the power to make portions of people explode after an auto accident. She takes particular relish in her new power, using it on seemingly anyone and everyone in finger-pointing range.  The blood squirts and pile-o-bones drop scenes are just funny. Anyway, this is the most accessible of their tunes, a crunchy, 120-Minutes-era rager that should be used to soundtrack a rad skate video game or video.  Not surprisingly, this is their most popular track as well, at 216k streams.

My initial read on the disc is still valid - this music gets too screamy at some points and strains the ears - but I still enjoy the majority of this quite a bit.  If you are easily turned off by raw, hoarse, hard punk type music, then go elsewhere, but if that kind of un-hinged action might tickle your fancy, then this is the good stuff.

Kamaiyah - A Good Night in the Ghetto.  No reason to discuss this album more than during my ACL review, but I just had to note how weird it is that this album is so great, and yet her live performance was so terrible.  I mean, just absolutely mailed in and bored and lame.  Sucks.  But if you want to hear some good time rap action, go listen to "How Does It Feel" or "Out the Bottle" right now.

Intelligent Hoodlum - Intelligent Hoodlum.  Holy crap, this guy is freaking excellent.  This is an old rap album (1990), and I have no clue how it came across my plate, but it combines fantastic beats full of good samples with clever rhymes.  I may have found him through the Rap Yearbook, because it sounds like he was an OG rap guy who influenced Nas, and I just read that he worked on the Juice Crew with Big Daddy Kane and Kool G Rap.  He later changed his name to Tragedy Khadafi (also haven't heard of that) but it is this album that is awesome, not the later stuff.  The most popular track on here is probably accidental - I bet the alt-right people are searching for songs they can use to back their YouTube lynching re-enactments, and then find "Arrest the President."  This one sounds more like a Paris track, inciting the world to act.  But I can't find a video for that track, so we're going with "Black and Proud."

Solid beat and sample usage right there.  If you don't want to dance to that stuff, then you need to go back to school and learn about soul.  And a solid message and flow as well. This is legit stuff. Later, you've got a Soul II Soul sampling track that sounds like some classic LL Cool J ("Back to Reality"), another track that sounds like Paris ("Trag Invasion"), a James Brown-sampling Ice T-sounding track ("Game Type," I swear T used that same sample). The feel of these tracks is classic (as I guess it should be, since it came out in a classic time for rap), but since I am only discovering it now it seems new and awesome.  I am not much for the b-boy swing of "Keep Striving" (reminds me of "Illegal Search" from LL), but overall this album is good stuff.  Going to keep bumping this.

Sam Lewis - Waiting on You.  Nice soulful lite rock/Americana.  This guy has a lovely voice and a nice touch to his lyrics.  You can read his fart-sniffing bio here.  Choice quote: "His music is native to the infinite expanse that is exposed when human attention is full, and focused inward – harvested solely by the nuanced rhythm of love."  Hurrrkk.  Hurrrrrkkkk. Sorry, just ... I, huurrrrkkkk.  Just about full-on puked right there.  Aside from that bio, this is really nice chilling music, very relaxing and smooth.  His most popular is "I'm Coming Home."

Hot damn, that is pretty stuff.  Heck yeah.  Tastes like "To Live is to Fly" to me.  I was going to call this album forgettable after a few initial listens, but then it started to get to me.  If you like a mellow singer/songwriter kind of vibe, then go with this one.

Quick Hits, Vol. 96 (Paul Simon, TGoD Mafia, X, The Stooges)

Being that it is election day, please make sure that you have voted.  I just want this garbage to be over.  All that really matters is the music.  And from looking at the candidates' taste in tunes, I think I'm going to have to write in Marco Rubio or Martin O'Malley.

Paul Simon - Stranger to Stranger.  Good old Paul Simon.  Still got a gorgeous voice.  While I still hold Graceland and Rhythm up as the best things in his solo catalog, this one is good stuff.  He's got some wry observations and winking jokes in here that are instantly classic.  The killer track on here, both for the storytelling, plus the jazzy groove, plus the jokes, is "Wristband."

Such a clever slice of funny, poetic story, that then turns into a more general comment on the society of exclusivity.  And its funky.  On the live version, you can hear the crowd start to crack up when they hear how the story is going, and then get stone silent for the final verse.  Cool stuff.  Also new (at least to me) in these tunes is that he drops an MF bomb (on "Cool Papa Bell").  Did not expect that one to roll out of the speakers.  He immediately calls it an ugly word, but still.  He also drops a BS bomb, although that didn't resonate as hard.  I think it is the heavy tuba presence on the song that makes him want to drop cuss words like a gangsta.  He also does old tunes on this album in the form of "Duncan," a live track on the end of the album, that has a bluegrass sound that is damn pretty storytelling.  You should go listen to this album and enjoy it.  The guy is still a master.

TGod Mafia - Rude Awakening.  Truly bad rap music here.  Don't go listen to this.  I gave it a shot because this is Juicy J and Wiz Khalifa, but this album sucks on toast.  Just save yourself from the pain and sadness of experiencing this mess.  Not even going to link to a song.  Just move along. Nothing to see here.

X - Los Angeles.  I've mentioned this before, but will keep mentioning for the next few posts, but I'm making my way through a bunch of old punk albums based on Rolling Stone mentioning them as the best punk albums ever.  I've never really listened to X before (that I can recall), I know they weren't part of my high school foray into punk because of Fugazi.  According to their bio, while they weren't the first band to do punk in L.A., they were the first to be taken seriously and put L.A. on the map as a punk band.  This was their debut album, and was apparently produced by the ex-keyboardist for the Doors.  I can hear some Doors influence, obviously on the cover of "Soul Kitchen," but also a dose of Doorsian keyboards on "Nausea" and even more in both keyboards and guitars on "The Unheard Music," which brings to mind the backbeat of "Roadhouse Blues" or "Texas Radio and the Big Beat." But the interesting thing to me is how much rockabilly type sound is in here along with the obvious Ramones love.  This album came out in 1980, but the band was entirely broken up and gone by 1988. The most popular track from the album is the title track, "Los Angeles," with just over 2 million streams.  Nothing else in their catalog even tops 500k.

You know why else you might know these dudes?  Because they did the cover of "Wild Thing" that was used for Major League.

Yeaaahh!  So now you know.  This album is fine, but it is nothing so revelatory to me, at this day and time, that I'll want to keep it around and add it to my list of albums to keep listening to.

The Stooges - Funhouse.  I get this one a little bit more.  And I think I know why.  Iggy Pop is pretty awesome in his own way, but his sneer isn't all that different from other punk dudes. I think here it is the bass that differentiates this from others.  Just before this, while listening to the Ramones, I tried cranking the bass all the way up on my speakers to see if it made a difference in the sound.  Nope.  I don't know what Dee Dee was doing on that album, but you can't hear it.  On the other hand, the bottom end in these songs is meaty, full, and a good reason to listen to this stuff. The best representation of this is the decidedly non-punk, 7 minute long blues psych dirge "Dirt," which is freaking heavy and awesome.  The most popular track from this album is called "T.V. Eye."

Pretty cool, I guess.  Not nearly as cool as "Dirt."  And then "1970" comes along, with the sounds of my 6 year old picking up a saxophone for the first time and blowing it as hard as she can while she jams down every key at her disposal, and I don't want to hear this stuff anymore.  Blech, same with "L.A. Blues." Nevermind, I'm not on board with most of this.

Sound on Sound Fest 2016: Waterlogged review notebook washes up on banks of Old Potato Road

As a bona fide survivor of the Sound on Sound 2016 Sunday experience, I feel some pride in having made it through the dark and scary day.  Some random thoughts about the experience:

1.  Holy crap that drive out there sucked.  The website and materials claim that the grounds are just a short 35 minutes from downtown, but that is not accounting for the fact that there are 800 billion stop lights in between the end of the 290 toll road and the turnoff for the grounds.  We spent just under an hour driving out there, in crappy stop and go traffic for much of the drive.  And it was not due to a big crowd going to the Fest, because like 2 cars turned off on that road with us.

2.  Parking at 1pm was fantastic, because not a soul was there.  $20 for a slot in a field, which was about 100 yards from the front gate.  Easy peasy.  Also, the will call experience was super easy and the bag check was cursory at best.

3.  The venue was cool as hell.  When you walk through the big wooden wall into the forest, it really was kind of magical.  Lots of vendors and weird things set up among the forest, as well as the Forest stage, but I really liked that portion of the venue.  The main stage was all dirt and mud in front, which was not optimal, but they don't have C3 money pouring grass and water on these grounds yet.  Also some strange people juggling and dressed up as Robin Hood and a super tall deer girl thing, which was odd but kind of fun.  Curious to know what it would have looked like at night in the forest.  I bet cool.

4.  Beer selection was legit.  Several Big Bend Brewing beers, some other good local stuff from Austin, and then a handful of offerings from the Houston Brewery which now shall not be named because they just sold out to Budweiser like chumps.

5.  Attendance was awful.  I don't know what the final numbers will be like, but there were about 20 people standing at the main stage for the Emily Wolfe show (who was really good, by the way), and maybe 50 there at the main stage for the Leopold and His Fiction show.  Psychic Twin probably had about 50 as well.  Maybe the crowds were coming to be there for Courtney Barnett and Explosions in the Sky, but it was definitely weird being able to walk right up to the front of any stage during the middle of a show.  My kids are going to be very confused if they ever go to ACL and see massive crowds.  I know the Wolfe show was at 1:30, but still, it was weird to see the place so deserted.

6.  Hot dog jousting on mini motorcyles was freaking hilariously bad.  The tiny bikes couldn't really move in the sand when they had a full-sized man on board, and the hot dogs that were velcro'ed onto the riders' heads just fell off every 20 seconds or so, regardless of whether they were hit with the swim noodle.  The 10 people in the stands, boredly reviewing their phone screens as this went on, could not have been less impressed.

7.  And then the rains came.  Holy crap, man.  We were huddled under a tent in the Kid Kingdom area for about 30 minutes before the water started getting high enough to pour into my shoes, and then a guy carrying a huge beach umbrella came by to tell us that the grounds needed to be evacuated. Awesome.  So we jogged through the downpour to our car, splashing through rivers and huge ponds of standing water, finally making it to the car feeling like we had literally jumped into a river.  Totally soaked.  Then the roads out of there were closed and flooded (literally had to pull the turn around don't drown action at one point), until we finally got back to the highway and got back into the mass of people driving back through the 800 billion stop lights back to Austin.

I enjoyed two of the shows that I got to see - Leopold and His Fiction was really great - but feel bummed that I missed out on the rest of the stuff I wanted to see.  The venue was neat, but if this fest is held out at the Forest again, I think I'd skip it and save myself the road rage.

Sound on Sound Fest 2016: Speed Analysis of Sunday Lineup (7:00 to end)

Man, now is where the schedule gets meaty and awesome, but I'm going to be hard pressed to get my crew to stay for the late night stuff on a Sunday night in Bastrop.  Wish me luck, folks.  I'm going to need it.

7:10

• Baio.  Dance-y indie pop grooves, by the guy who plays bass guitar for Vampire Weekend.  "Sunburn Modern" is a pretty tight groove instrumental, and the most popular track is more of a Vampire Weekend-style tune, "Sister of Pearl" with 7.3 million streams.  I'd go watch this guy.
• The Monkey Wrench.  So, I bought an album by this band when I was in high school, based solely on the fact that it was from the Sub Pop label and I was jonesing for more Nirvana.  Clean as a Broke Dick Dog.  Never did understand that album name.  The band is a couple of dudes from Mudhoney along with a few other guys from the Seattle music scene of the 90's, although it looks like they haven't done any music in a long time.  Nothing available on Spotify, all I have are my fuzzy memories of skuzzy grunge-ish tunes that sound like Mudhoney.  I'd go see them do it again.

7:55

• Young Thug.  More rap from the AutoTune generation of rappers talkin' loud but ain't sayin' nothin'.  Atlanta guy, and he has some good trap beats on some of his tracks, but much of his lyrical output is just a waste of time.  His most popular track, which somehow has an RIAA platinum designation, is "Best Friend."  I present to you, the hook from this song, per Genius: "That's my best friend, that's my best friend, flexin', Big ol' booty bitch missus from Texas, what's next is, I'm gon' skeet off, lil nigga come catch me, catch me, And that's my bestie, my bestie, my best friend, go best friend, Nigga livin' TTG and everything is still on fleek, Bad bitch rollin' wit' me, she gon' smile 'cause she on fleek, Hundred thousand dollars inside my pants, my shit on fleek, Hey-yeah! Yeah."  Yeah.  The music that once allowed Chuck D to raise issues with 911 and Hollywood, or Eazy E and Ice Cube to blast on corrupt cops, is now the nonsensical brand of idiocy being used for nothing.

8:15

• Bob Mould.  Bob Mould is awesome.  I dug him as a kid and have enjoyed his most recent album as well.  I'd love to go see Bob Mould do his thing.
• White Lung.  Lady singer over lite punk tunes.  Their bio calls them an indie rock group, but I wouldn't call these tunes indie.  Meh.

9:15/9:20

• Courtney Barnett.  I love Courtney Barnett so very much.  I want to see her play so bad.  I doubt I'll get to do it, but she is so great.
• STRFKR.  When pulling up this band name (add some vowels to figure out how to pronounce that name) I figured this was going to be some EDM garbage.  Its actually pretty good indie pop/rock electro type stuff.  Pretty cool.  Another band with no new music.  Weird how that appears to be the thing with bands playing this Fest.  I wonder how much a band costs if they have new music versus if their last album is 5 years old?
• Protomartyr.  With this being on the death metal stage, I thought for sure that this was going to be some scary scream-core satan-swabbing stuff, instead, its actually pretty chilled and pleasant indie and lite punk.  "Maidenhead" makes me think of Real Estate with a few quick forays into noise.  This is good, but if I were still at the grounds at this time I'd be watching Barnett.

10:25

• Big Freedia.  This kind of music is apparently called "bounce," which sounds like rap that is faster and more dance focused.  Wikipedia says "Bounce is characterized by call-and-response-style party and Mardi Gras Indian chants and dance call-outs that are frequently hypersexual." Mmmmkay.  Don't hear that, but whatever.  Freedia was born Freddy, but while he says he is not transgender, he wears women's clothes and prefers being called "she."  Just one album, 2014's Just Be Free, is available on Spotify, and it is pretty fun, but it is hyped up.  She actually sounds a little bit like KRS-One.  You are not going to chill at any point in this show, you are going to be bouncing your ass off the entire time.
• Baroness.  These guys are freaking bad ass.  I did a Quick Hit about their most recent album, Purple, a while back.  Brawny metal tunes, and kind of a medieval theme about their cover art, so maybe they'll be the ones who are playing the castle-top and slaying dragons with their mighty riffage.

10:45

• Explosions in the Sky.  Yo no comprende how this band would be a headliner for this Fest. These dudes make the blandly lovely instrumental music that you hear in your mind when you think of Friday Night Lights.  I listened to their most recent album a few months ago and was unimpressed.  Its fine background music to just make a mood with, but a festival band?  Just seems weird.

11:40

• A-Trak.  Big EDM guy.  Don't care for it, but I get the appeal of dropping acid for a midnight bout of freaking out in a huge crowd in a forest surrounded by the trappings of medieval life.  This is one of those guys where, if you aren't paying attention on Spotify, you'll have to listen to the same damn song for 9 hours straight.
• Carcass.  God.  I mean, what kind of life have you lived when this is what you want to do at 11:40 on a Sunday night?  This is the kind of music I imagine the Marines play after they duct tape headphones onto an Iraqi prisoner when they want to torture information out of the guy. "Oh, yeah, you won't tell me about where you've got Bin Laden holed up?  Have some "Heartwork" at volume level 11."

I think it would be perfectly reasonable to make my kids stay up until midnight so that we can all watch Baroness together and then drive back to Austin.  Their elementary school teachers will fully understand the need to rock versus their need to pay attention to grammar lessons.

This is all going to be MUCH further afield than my normal music tastes, and absolutely outside the norm for the wife and kids, but I'm looking forward to it anyway.

Sound of Sound Fest 2016: Speed Analysis of Sunday Lineup (4:00 to 7:00-ish)

I get to go see the Sunday lineup for Sound on Sound Fest, the new festival from the folks who did Fun Fun Fun Fest, so I'm checking out the bands this week to see what I'll get to hear this weekend. You can see my thoughts about the first three hours here.

Before I get to the next few hours, a thought about the venue.  I think this sounds like it is going to be amazing.  About 30 miles east of Austin, in the pine forest of Bastrop, the Sherwood Forest Faire is a full-on medieval village nerd-fest with a castle and jousting stadium and the whole 9 yards.  So freaking weird.  For the sake of convenience, I would much prefer that this was held downtown at the Auditorium Shores or Waterloo Park, where FFFF was held.  But since this is what we have, I gotta say this place looks kinda rad.  I don't know if the bands will play from the top of the castle, but in my opinion, they should set up and jam out on the parapets. All of the hip kids Snapchats would be so cool and full of quips about Shrek or whatever castle-centric movie would resonate with a 20 year old these days.  For my old man generation, we'll be quoting the Knights Who Say Ni! the entire time.

On to the bands in the middle of the day on Sunday:

4:00

• Recover.  Never heard of these dudes before, but their music is actually really good.  I just kept listening to it for about an hour longer than I intended.  Austin band, doing an emo rock thing like Taking Back Sunday and Dashboard Confessionals.  No new music on Spotify since 2011, so maybe this is a big reunion show or something?  Their most popular tracks are from a 2002 EP called Leci n'est pas recover, which translates to Recover Kinda Kicks Ass, in French.  I think.  My French is a little rusty from high school.

 4:25

• The Frights.  Sweet!  Started daydreaming during the first track and thought this was FIDLAR after a little while.  This is awesomely fun pop punk lo-fi-ness.  I definitely want to see them play live.
• Youth Code.  I think I've figured out at least one aspect of this lineup poster.  While it is not as simple as the old FFFF poster that had a black stage where all the metal and scary shit lived, now I understand that the band playing The Keep stage is going to be the scary shit and death metal.  This stuff is some Front 242-sounding industrial music and yelling.  I do not want to hear this music any more.

5:00

• Open Mike Eagle.  Some smart sounding rap music.  When I first pulled up his music, it almost looks like this was going to be spoken word stuff or something, because the song titles are things like "Dark Comedy Late Show" and "Admitting the Endorphin Addiction."  His 2016 album is called Hella Personal Film Festival.  He says "ghost fart" in a song.  I like this stuff.
• Old Man Gloom.  Yikes.  Black stage action right here - heavy hardcore screaming.

5:30

• Wale.  This guy is an odd one to me.  In my mind, I like his a lot, because he is name-checked and part of the wonderfully tacky and amazing "No Hands."  But really, I'm not much for his actual songs.  They are fine, but when I tried his Seinfeld-influenced and -assisted The Album About Nothing, I was mildly into it and never listened to the album again.  His two most popular tracks are "MY PYT" (36 million streams) and "Ride Out" (60.7 million streams).  The fact that he co-opts the King of Pop's "PYT" just hacks me off, especially when the song bites the rhythm to "Sexual Healing" and just sounds stupid.  Pretty weak R&B flavored rap junk.  Maybe I'll go check this, or take the kids to find a taco during this time or something.  Don't care to see him.

6:05

• Kero Kero Bonito.  WTF, dude.  Her most popular track ("Flamingo") starts with a chant asking how many shrimps you'd have to eat before your skin turns pink, then devolves into a sweet Zamfir pipe tune, then the lyrics are in Japanese.  The music in this song is simple, weird, synth stuff.  According to Wikipedia, they are a band of three people from England. Freaking weird, man.
• Cherubs.  Oh man, I am so grateful for that "s" at the end of this band name.  At first, I thought this was going to be Cherub, who came to ACL a year ago, are kind of disco-frat-boy-pop, and are so very terrible.  Instead, this is Cherubs, who are more of an angry punk crush.  They are apparently local, and their top song on Spotify ("Stag Party") includes the sound of a phone left off the hook in the background, which is an awful sound.  The band had a few mid 90's albums (1992, 1994, and 1996) before they quit, but apparently got back together recently to release 2015's 2 Ynfynyty and 2016's Fist in the Air,  a 3 song EP.  This is good stuff, heavy, sludgy rock ("Donkey Suite" or "Red Carpet Blues") and brighter, drum-machine, Strokes-ian punk ("Fist in the Air").  The 2015 album is good too, kind of a Queens of the Stone Age cock rock vibe.  Maybe I can get the kids to jam out to this for 30 minutes.

6:40

• Thursday.  Emo rock.  Their top song sounds familiar ("Understanding in a Car Crash") but I don't know that I knew these guys before just now.  No recent albums, and according to their bio, they were a "significant player in the early 21st century's post-hardcore scene."  That phrase makes them sound significantly more important than they probably are, as though the early oughts post-hardcore scene was some sort of key moment in the history of human existence.  The band broke up in 2013, but has apparently pulled an LCD Soundsystem and reunited for a cash grab tour with no new music. These tunes are fine, but if there was anything else going on at the same time, I might go do that.

I'm a little worried about the bands in this 6 o'clock zone.  If the wife and kids aren't having an exciting time right about here, the wife is going to start dropping hints about bedtime and school in the morning and how long it is to drive back home, and we are going to lose momentum on this thing. Hopefully there will be some jousting or sword fights or dragons that we can watch for a bit to psych them back up to stick around.  More to come.

Sound of Sound Fest 2016: Speed Analysis of Sunday Lineup (1:30 to 3:30)

Alrighty then!  Happy November, chumps!
ACL may be over for another year (long live ACL!) but the music just keeps on rolling around here.  Because I am a big time player in the music industry, I managed to score two passes to the Sunday chunk of Sound on Sound Fest.  Before I show up, the exceedingly anal slice of my brain just absolutely needs to go listen to everything that I might get to hear, so that I can categorize and analyze every last second of a potential moment before it might occur unscripted.  Not really, I just want to check out some new tunes!  Right?  Right?!?

So, what is SOS, you ask?  If you remember Fun Fun Fun Fest, this is the phoenix rising up from the ashes of that fest.  For reasons that I've never seen made clear, Stratus Properties owned a portion of local promoter Transmission Entertainment, and earlier this year they bought out the rest.  This led to the creation of a new booking/music company, excellently named in homage to Fugazi, called Margin Walker.  I guess the real estate nerds at Stratus still own the FFFF name, so Margin Walker fired up a new fest named Sound on Sound, that sticks to the same general ethos as the FFFF did - medium level stars, leaning more alternative and off the beaten path, with some cool reunions or strange mashups.  The big headliners for this year are Phantogram, Run the Jewels, Big Boi, Beach House, and Courtney Barnett.  Then some old school stuff is tucked into the lineup as well, like the Dead Milkmen, Guided by Voices, and Monkeywrench.

Anyway, I only get Sunday, which I was pumped about because of Courtney Barnett, but sadly she doesn't go on until 9:15, and I'm taking the kids, so my guess is that I'll miss my time with the greatest new songwriter on the block.  But the kids are free, and I selfishly left them out of ACL, so let's make it up to them by showing them something called Sailor Poon, right?  Let's see who I might be able to see:

1:30:  I'm probably going with Wolfe, although Poon would be fun, but I'm scared about the questions my daughters will ask after that show.

• Emily Wolfe.  Great bluesy rock woman.  "Swoon" is her biggest hit and its poppy enough but still great fuzzy rock song.  I like it.
• Psychic Twin.  "Strangers" starts like the theme from Stranger Things, and then a lady starts singing.  Its not bad, but Wolfe wins my vote.
• Sailor Poon.  Easily wins the award for best band name,  I mean, no contest here. However, no music available on Spotify, so loses major points from the German judge. BUT THEN, HOLY CRAP, THEIR SONG "Leather Daddy" IS AMAZING. https://vimeo.com/160481575. Sample Lyrics from the chorus: "Eat me OUT!  Buy me SHOES!  Make me CUM!  And then please leave!"  I need more of this band.

2:20: Leopold wins the hour.

• Leopold & his Fiction.  Loved these guys when they came to ACL in 2015.  Would enjoy checking them out again.  No new music available on Spotify, which is too bad, but I still like the old stuff.
• BoomBaptist.  I can't take the name, man.  Makes me imagine a Baylor student rapper who is trying really hard to keep it real while still living his life for Jesus.  "Art Briles loves Jesus! Now I'mma followin' Leviticus!  Got that Baylor Line spirit, cause I'm just a BoomBaptist! Yo!"  Instead, this is electronic stuff with zero listens on Spotify except for "Happy to Be Sad," which has about 205k for some sort of chilled dance post-club jam that slides into a simple disco beat dance.  Doubt I'd do this one.
• Die Young.  There are three bands called "Die Young" on Spotify, but the photo on the one called "Die Young [TX]" looks like the photo on the SoS website, so I'm going with that one. Only two of their songs have more than 1k listens, so we're not killing it on the popularity front.  Oh lord, now I know why.  "The Last Good Age" is some growl/scream metal hardcore that holds no punches.  I should make my kids go listen to this for a song.

3:10/ 3:20: Well, toss up here but I suspect we'll go give Night Drive a shot.

• Bully.  I listened to their most recent album (Feels Like from 2015) and reviewed it at the end of last year, and really enjoyed a few tracks, especially "Trying."  Although if I think she's screamy, the wife might leave me if I took her to this one.  I remember all too clearly the time I took the wife to FFFF and thought she might enjoy the Riverboat Gamblers.  She hated the Riverboat Gamblers.
• Night Drive.  These guys came to ACL a few years ago, and while this brand of 80's nostalgia electro is fine, I avoided seeing them back then and would almost definitely do the same here. I'd still like to see a short film of the first time these guys met each other and figured out their connection to one another.
• Illustrations.  Cookie monster-type scream metal death sadness.  I couldn't even finish a single song.

Now that I've realized just how long this is going to get, I'm going to split this up into a few chunks. More to come!