Two Step Inn 2024

Well, that was a wild ride, y'all.  We got both sides of the proverbial Texas Weather coin there - freezing cold downpour and drizzle on Saturday, followed by maybe the prettiest day of Festival weather I have ever experienced.

Saturday kicked off with hearing the last track or two from Sam Barber, who I thought was great.  Crowd was singing along, and that is such a magnificent sound.  I then wandered over to hear a touch of Lee Ann Womack, who sounded strong even if I really don't know much of her music.  Got snuggled in for Pat Green, and he was fantastic.  Very obviously overserved before the show, but it made for a really fun show.  My son's friend nailed it when he said Pat was feeling sassy.  He had lots of little moves and expressions and whatnot that ruled.  And while his voice is pretty rough and tumble these days, he was still able to handle his stuff just right.  Very fun to see him again.

At this point, the teenagers with me needed the bathroom, and so we got to experience the absolute hell of the bathroom situation at this Festival.  The first line we stood in was going no where, so we tried one a little more hidden off in the corner.  They pretty much waited in line for the entirety of the Colter Wall show.  So, I got to see it from nine miles away.  He sounded great!  My boy said he wasn't much for entertainment, just kind of played the songs and stood there.

It was at this point that the heavens opened up on our heads - fat ass raindrops falling hard, with a stiff and cold breeze.  Pretty damn miserable.  I had little ponchos for the girls but zero in hand for myself, so it was just time to get wet and push through.  We went over to see Sammy Kershaw, but the festival had cancelled his show in order to just move the headliners up a few hours to beat the heavier part of the storms.  Which also meant that Ryan Bingham got nixed, which freaking sucked.  That was the guy I was most excited about for the whole dang day.  Bummer.  So, this went from Sammy to Martina McBride without any announcement at all (in part because there was zero cell service, which is SO aggravating).

After a few songs of Martina - she sounds good!  and the crowd super loved singing along to her hits and filming themselves doing it - I had had enough.  If no Bingham, I didn't really need to hear Cody Johnson, and was cold and wet anyway, so we just gave up and bounced.  it felt amazing to get in the warm car and drive home!

Then, Sunday was just the absolute opposite.  Perfect weather.  Blue skies, light breeze, 65 degrees, just MONEY.  The ground was a little waterlogged in places, but mostly it was all good.  Sadly, the lines to get in were awful, so we missed the entire Wyatt Flores show while standing in line.  That made me bummed out.  This Fest really needs to get the entry thing in a better place - there were multiple metal detectors just blocked off and not being used, so they may need to hire more people to make that go more smoothly.

Music today was magical for me.  Marc Chesnutt took a few songs to really get his voice warm, but that dude just has hit after hit that are all fun to sing along with.  Sierra Ferrell sounded amazing - the guys I took over there to check her out were blown away.  The only issue there?  Some sort of weird tooth prosthetic thing so that she looks like she has a mouthful of rotten blueberries in there.  I've seen other photos of her and she has pretty teeth, so I don't get it.  49 Winchester was excellent - southern rock and country-leaning blast.  Charley Crockett was as good as ever - he just has a swagger about him that goes really well with his classic sound.  

We missed out on John Anderson (who a friend told me was fantastic) but that was so we could be closer for Hank Jr.  That dude crushed it.  I was honestly shocked - he's 74 freaking years old - and yet he sounded top notch and was able to play and walk the stage and just have a whole presence about him.  Great show.  The crowd was very in to it and that made it even more fun.

Clint Black sounded great as usual, but my crowd I was with was too disjointed.  I am such a creature of habit for concert festivals, where my goal is to travel light and get up in the best spot I can to see the tunes.  But when you have like 10 people in a group, you're always waiting on someone - bathroom, food, drinks, whatever - and so we never made it close enough to see much other than the screens.  Still fun though, his voice is still smooooooth.

By the time we got over to Turnpike (again, waiting on friends, who then needed the bathroom), we weren't going to be anywhere near the stage.  So, we just posted up in the way back and watched the screens.  Honestly, they freaking jammed.  The lead singer doesn't have much charisma about him, but the rock and roll/country mash made for some really fun renditions of their songs.  And like I've mentioned on some of these other ones - when the whole crowd is singing every word, it really is a lovely experience.  I love that sound.

Excellent festival.  Missed a few artists I had wanted to see, and the weather was psychotic, but the lasting memory will be the happiness of listening to Turnpike Troubadours crush a headlining spot.

Predicting ACL 2024: Lollapalooza Lineup Check

As I have mentioned before, this Lolla lineup for 2024 is super not in my wheelhouse.  I'd be deeply disappointed if this came to Austin.

I have already talked for years about the close-knit relationship between these two Festivals.  For many years, I have always thought of Lollapalooza as the sister show to ACL.  They get some things that we just saw last year.  We get some things that they just saw.  We're linked and its fun.  I was very grateful though, that the link between them has been fraying more over the past few years, as their lineup seems to be consistently leaning more towards the pop stuff that I don't want to see.  

I the past, I've spent a lot of time making little charts to show the linkage, but here I'll just give you the facts instead.  The closest were 2012 and 2014, with 7/9 matching at the top of the bills.  2015 was a 6 of 9 year.  2016 was 5 of 9.  2011, 2013, and 2018 were only 4 of 8.  2017 and 2021 only shared 3 of 9.  2022 was a ZERO - a few matches on the poster overall, but none of the headliners.  2023 shared Kendrick Lamar, The 1975, and Odesza for the top line folks, and then a lot of lower-level folks like Revivalists, Maggie Rogers, and Noah Kahan.

Some of the differences come because the two festivals apparently value people differently.  For example, in 2018, Khalid was the #7 artist on the ACL poster, but only #11 on the Lolla poster.  Camilla Cabello was #9 on the ACL poster but was all the way down at #24 on the Lolla poster (which is honestly weird).  Chvches was #13 on ACL, but #15 for Lolla.  Why are all of our bands worse in the eyes of Lolla?  So, you can't solely judge off of the top two lines of the poster, even if those are usually the most exciting things to see.

So, how likely are we to see the top artists on the Lolla poster for this year?  Let's dig in.

• Tyler, The Creator.  Not on tour right now, and he was here in 2021.  So, on the one hand, he is doing the Festivals with Coachella and Lolla on his plate, but then again he isn't doing anything else.  The Internet says he has no music until 2025.  It would not make any sense for him to come back (and I super don't want to see him), so I'm going to lean no.
• Hozier.  Nope.  Was just here!  Great show though.
• Sza.  She was just here in 2022, so that would not make sense to me to have her back.  Her tour ends on Sept. 7, so she has the time, but I just don't see it.  No.
• Stray Kids.  I mean, I super hope not!  A Korean boy band is not what I need at all here.  Their confusing website seems to show they have a show on October 3, but Ticketmaster doesn't show that one.  I am just going to assume that the rest of the world agrees with me that this is not the right band for Austin.  Nah.
• The Killers.  Ugh.  Super hope not for this one too!  Hard to believe the last time they were here was 2017, felt more recent than that.  But I just feel completely uninterested in this show.  They have nothing new or interesting in many years!  Like Mumford coming back again last year, what is the point?  I was absolutely hoping that their touring schedule was going to hook me up so that they would be in Spain in October.  No such luck.  The last date on their calendar is 9/29 in St. Louis, meaning they absolutely have the time and space to show in Austin.  Dammit.  Yes.
• Future x Metro Boomin.  Another that I do not want, but also can begrudgingly say that some of the tracks on the two new albums bang.  They play Houston on 8/22, San Antonio on 8/23, Dallas on 8/24, and then the tour ends on Sept. 9.  They absolutely have the time and space and are avoiding Austin despite many of the big rap tours coming to Moody Center recently.  Yeah.
• Blink 182.  They already came through Austin last summer, and the current leg of the tour hits San Antonio in June.  They end the tour August 30 in the UK.  So, they could easily fit us in and be on the bill.  My instinct is that this is a no for now.
• Melanie Martinez.  I remember watching part of her set a few years back, and absolutely hating every second of it.  Just awful.  Her website doesn't even list Lolla on the tour, so not sure it is complete.  Ticketmaster though shows that she'll be in Austin at the Moody on May 24, so that makes this a relieved nope.
• Skrillex.  Hilarious that this dude is still out there doing this thing.  The last time he came to ACL I saw one of the official aftershows at Stubbs and it was so funny.  Just a pile of frat bros and aggressive amateur bodybuilders angrily pumping their fists to some boring beats.  His tour ends in August, so he has the time.  But he has no new music, and I had sort of forgotten that he even exists.  I guess he's as good of an electro guess as any.  Sure.

Then, the true hell of the Lolla poster is revealed because there ain't shit happening elsewhere on this lineup.  Two Door Cinema Club.  Deftones. Vince Staples. Killer Mike.  WIlderado.  Militarie Gun.   Otherwise is it things I've never heard of or things I know to be actively bad (looking at you Conan Gray and Tate Mcrae and D4VD).  Brutal.

The Killers, Skrillex, and Future - its like we're stuck in 2017, y'all!  Hopefully Pearl Jam is coming and all the rest of this won't truly matter to me anymore...

Quick Hits, Vol. 340 (PILE O' SINGLES!)

 We are probably about a month out from the ACL announcement, and so I am doing my darndest to clean out the queue on my Spotify so that I don't have ancient stuff still left in the hopper by October.  I need to do another guess post or two, but man, the Lolla lineup has me shook.

• Balming Tiger (and a bunch of other people) - SEXY NUKIM.  I'm guessing Rolling Stone told me to check this band out, since it feels like all they wrie about anymore are foreign bands and singers.  It is not great.  Kind of a whisper-mumbled vibe track.  Don't need it.
• Guns N Roses - Perhaps.  Not too bad!  A little plodding, and Axl is very restrained (but still hits a few higher notes like the old days), and Slash never really tears the roof off.  But overall, good enough to feel like they can still hang.
• Noah Kahan with Kacey Musgraves - She Calls Me Back.  Kahan is just killing it right now - doing collaborations with Kacey, Zach, Mumford, Hozier.  He's the flavor of the month.  And this one sounds great - driving groove and imminently sing-a-longable.  They sound awesome together.
• Earthgang - Die Today.  Meh.  I like some of their older stuff a lot, but this one is a little too pop forward.
• Kevin Abstract - Blanket.  Weird tune.  Heavy guitar and some singalong "woo!"s to open it up like its an indie pop dude instead of the Brockhampton guy.  Nah.
• U2 - Atomic City.  What a weird way to blatantly rip off Blondie's "Call Me."  It starts out with banging drums and a fun little riff, and shows off some of the usual tasty Edge theatrics, but the chorus just fucks it all up.  Why did they do this?

• Gnome - Wenceslas.  Hilarious.  Not quite cookie monster singing over the top of a heavy chunk of riffage, but close.
• Noah Kahan with Hozier - Northern Attitude. Another badass song.  Even better than the Musgraves one.  These dudes sound magical together.
• MEUTE - Hey Hey.  I saw the video for this somehow, and it is unhinged band nerd fun in the best way - xylophones and horns and the singer all just launching it into the sky.
• Dave - Sprinter.  One of those UK rap styles, can't recall what it is called, but this has a cool sound and feel.
• Central Cee - LET GO.  Another UK rap guy, but with an annoying interpolation of that Passenger song.  Don't love it, innit.
• Hovvdy - Jean.  Local dudes making a good tune, although I still have so much trouble getting past how goofy their name is.  This is a nice little nugget of indie pop.
• The Beatles - Now and Then.  Meh.  I know people got all excited for a new Beatles song, and this is just fine, but its not going to replace any of their canon.
• Kylesa - Scapegoat.  Like some tasty Red Fang rock and roll action.  Dig.
• Mannequin Pussy - I Got Heaven.  I want to like this more than I actually do.  The backing music is great, but the vocals grate on me.
• Guns N' Roses - The General.  Oh no.  Should have stopped with that last one, because the vocals on this one sound just awful.  Even through whatever effects machine he is using, Axl's caterwaul ain't it.
• Lana Del Rey - Take Me Home Country Roads.  Good version of a great song.  Her ghostly voice nails it.
• Taylor Swift - You're Losing Me.  This is one of those tracks from the vault - always amazing that she has so many good songs that she can just leave some off the album.  This one isn't revelatory by any means, but it is a pretty little tune that easily could have been big.
• Black Keys - Beautiful People (Stay High).  I really think that they might be the best rock band making music.  I know that its likely not the jam for the young listeners, but these guys just regularly reach back into the past for fresh jams.  I've already heard this one in a commercial too.
• Tame Impala/Justice - One Night/ All Night | Generator.  Speaking of GOAT musicians, Kevin Parker of Tame Impala is untouchable.  So freaking good.  This one has a little more Euro-sleaze/Daft Punkiness from the Justice guys slathered onto it, but generally fun.
• Megan Thee Stallion - HISS.  Perfect subtweet diss track.  Just destroying all the haters who try to get famous of mentioning her name.
• Cage the Elephant - Neon Pill.  Good one.  These guys have done it for me for a long time, and this track just fits right into the slip of their prior efforts.  Sounds good and sticks in my brain afterwards.
• Mumford & Sons with Pharrell - Good People.  Weird song.  Feels like a Jon Batiste southern protest track.
• Khruangbin - A Love International.  Love how singular these dudes are.  When their track kicks in, you immeiately know you are jamming with the 'bin.  Nice groove here.
• Billy Joel - Turn the Lights Back On.  His voice is still pretty solid, although I don't know that this one really gets us anywhere.  A little schmaltzy, with a good piano solo in the middle, but good enough to enjoy.
• Del Water Gap and Holly Humberstone - Cigarettes & Wine.  Pretty solid Harry Styles copy.
• Logic - Fear.  Logic's flow freaking rules.  This beat isn't my favorite, but his dexterity is infectiously fun.
• Nothing but Thieves - Oh No :: He Said What?  Terrible song title.  And the song ain't much better.  Like some Panic at the Disco type thing.  You guys are supposed to slay with rock, brah.
• Earthless - Uluru Rock.  TAP IT INTO MY VEINS.  Like a psych rock classic unearthed from the halls of Valhalla.  14 minutes of pure guitar-loaded freakout and I dig it.
• Pearl Jam - Dark Matter.  Fuck yeah.  The drums in this are so fucking brawny and badass.  I played this about 5 times in a row the other day in the car and it made me feel like a God.  My wife hates it too, so just perfect.
• Caroline Polachek - Butterfly Net.  Who let Sarah McLaughlin in here?  Super pretty tune also has some Fiona Apple and Florence Welch flavor to it.  Her voice on the chorus is amazing.
• Iron & Wine - You Never Know.  This is going to be shocking, but this is a pretty little indie tune!  It builds in a very satisfying way.
• T.F. feat. ScHoolboy Q - Hooty.  Nothing terribly exciting.  I was wanting some more Q before his new album came out, and I spotted this out there.  Too much skirt skirt here for me.
• St. Vincent - Broken Man.  Starts out goofy with the little plinking beat, and then the riffage piles on.  Fine.
• Catfish & the Bottlemen - Showtime.  Still not a great band name, but still an excellent band.  Another driving rock and roll nugget that could be at home in the Kings of Leon catalog.
• Kings of Leon - Mustang.  Did someone say Kings of Leon?  hey-o!  I generally dig the tune, but what is up with the lyrics?  ARE YOU A MUSTANG OR A KITTY? is a really weird thing to yell, but also: "There's a golden globe in my office space, A muscle magazine next to the toilet, I'm getting big and strong just thinking about it, And I can feel the heat of the water rise."  Wha?  Don't love it.

Quick Hits, Vol. 339 (The Smile, Katy Kirby, Lil Simz, IDLES)

The Smile - Wall of Eyes.  A Radiohead album by any other name would sound just as odd.  This is Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood, of Radiohead, with Tom Skinner, a London-based drummer and producer, making music that pretty much sounds like a Radiohead album.  I guess they hate their normal drummer or something.  Like "Read the Room" 100% sounds like some of the more recent spacey-distorted Radiohead.  It's fine.  I love some of the old school Radiohead - like Mount Rushmore stuff - but this is just a nice little meandering set of stuff.  Top track is "Bending Hectic," with 5.4 million streams.

Sounds like a guitar tuning exercise for about half the song.  Pretty, but like I said, just feels kind of meandering and unfocused.  And maybe that is the point - they're not making killer indie pop rock or mind-bending synth rock here, they're doing a vibe piece.  And once the song shifts, at like 3 minutes in, I like the song so much more.  I don't need to add this to the canon.

Katy Kirby - Blue Raspberry.  Kirby was a late add to ACL last year, and I really loved her debut album.  This one is likewise a really solid piece of lovely indie rock.  Love songs abound, and she generally keeps the sound close and intimate without a ton of instrumentation.  I think they are wonderful.  "Cubic Zirconia" kind of jams, and the lyrics are interesting to parse for sure.  Unsurprisingly, that is the top track.  333k streams.

"like a barbed wire electric fence of personality" is a great line.  And I think the instrumentation is really enjoyable too - makes me want to jam it.  Really good album from start to finish.  You should try it out.

Lil Simz - Drop 7.  Disappointing.  After jamming her a lot last year and deeply enjoying her ACL set, I was looking forward to a new set of tunes.  But this is definitely matched by the cover - Simz as mostly robot - as the tracks mainly hew to electronic stuff that does nothing to contribute to her normally pleasant flow.  "SOS" is fun, just because it is more like a Afro-Carribean jam session.  At first, I thought this was just a remix album, like an electro reimagining of some of her hits or something.  The streams tell the same story, with the stream count starting low and then just getting lower over the runtime of the disc.  "Mood Swings" is the first track and the top streamer - 3.5 million.

Like that M.I.A. lady who ended up being a nutter.  "I Ain't Feelin' It" might be the top track on here for me.  More of a regular banger beat and flow.  I don't know.  The whole thing just feels a little like a b-sides collection, not the top tier stuff.

IDLES - TANGK.  Ever since I saw them at ACL, I've had a lingering fear of these dudes.  Their lead singer paces the stage like an animal, kicking and snarling and generally looking unhinged.  The opener to this one is odd, but the "Gift Horse" comes in swinging for your teeth with a tense dance beat and floating bassline, followed by an aggressive sing-along chorus.  He comes even harder on the LCD Soundsystem-assisted "Dancer," which would be a great mosh pit dance track.  10.4 million streams.

I'm not the biggest LCD fan out there, but this groove freaking jams.  Some songs are even kind of pretty - like the gentle "Grace" that comes on like a Radiohead tune.  But they bookend that little ditty with more aggressive danceability in "Hall & Oates."  I really dig the combination they make here of angry boogie.

Quick Hits, Vol. 338 (Dolly Parton, The Struts, Dirty Honey, 2 Chainz/Lil Wayne)

Dolly Parton - Rockstar.  I know that the current mood in the world is to find no fault with Queen Dolly, but this sucks ass.  The first two songs, which I assume are originals, are just brutal.  Her voice is strained and lyrically it is so trite as to be laughable.  It makes me sad.  Also, it is TWO FUCKING HOURS AND TWENTY ONE MINUTES!  GTFOH with that.  Longer-than-a-movie-ass karaoke album.  She gets a huge pile of stars to come along for the ride - Sting, P!nk, Steve Perry (whose voice is apparently trashed), Stevie Nicks, Steven Tyler, Stapleton, Carlile, Miley, Elton, Ringo and Paul, etc. etc. etc.  She ends the album with an insufferable 11 minute long version of "Free Bird."  I apologize, Dolly, but this is not it.  Top track is a remake with her goddaughter Miley.  "Wrecking Ball" with 7.8 million streams.

Little too whispery and treacly to feel like I am listening to a rock and roll song.  It gets 100 times better once Miley takes over the singing.  Sadness.  Also, I will readily admit that I quit listening to this disc before the end - just picked some of the tracks I was hoping would be interesting once I saw how insufferably long it is.  So, if you determine that "Whats Up?" was actually a banger, then my apologies.

The Struts - Pretty Vicious.  I'm a sucker for what the Struts do - got to see them live a few years back and it was a blast.  The songs are generically fun party rock, almost exclusively, with fist-pumping choruses like "I'M GETTING TOO GOOD AT RAISING HELL!" or "I SEE YOU SHAKING YOUR ARSE LIKE A ROCKSTAR, JUST LIKE A ROCKSTAR YOU KNOW THAT I WANTCHA!" as the guitars and drums chug along.  The songs definitely bleed together and start to sound the same, but it's still good fun to me.  You can tell that the album isn't really striking a chord with the world, as song 1 has the most streams, then song 2, etc.  The final track only gets 122k streams - by then people have shoved off to something else.  That first track is "Too Good at Raising Hell," with 3 million streams.

Over the top singer with your granddad's plodding rock backbeat, all wrapped up right there.  I'm happy that they keep doing it, even if nothing on this album is as good as the highs of that first disc.  They also do a few slow burners, as every band like this is required to do.  The final track has a "Let It Be" vibe.  We need to get these guys on the bill for ACL Fest!

Dirty Honey - Can't Find the Brakes.  Like a bastard child of The Black Crowes and Greta Van Fleet, I got to see them open for the Crowes a year or two ago and thoroughly enjoyed it.  Pure bombast and rock and roll drip off of every note, with a squawking, squealing singer blaring his heart out over the top.  Feels underproduced, which I dig.  Like a true garage band keeping it real and playing it loose.  Lots of guitar solos and crashing cymbals.  The stream count doesn't show that they are getting much traction with the throwback sound, but I enjoy it anyway.  Top streamer is the second track - "Won't Take Me Alive" - with 2.3 million.

Tasty guitar riffs by the pound, swaggerific shit.  They lean just enough into bluesy riffs to keep them out of straight hair band territory, but I could pretty easily see them going with a more classic L.A. hair band sound if this was 30 years ago.  And a lot of the riffs start to feel the same, even if they do catch me biting my lip and bobbing my head to the groove.  Yeah, kinda dumb, kinda overdone, but it makes me happy anyway.

2 Chainz/Lil Wayne - Welcome 2 Collegrove.  I had a long discussion with a friend, over Spring Break, about Eminem.  He said that Eminem is the best rapper of all time.  And I (likely rudely, likely with a few too many beers under my belt at the time) told him that was dumb.  While I completely agree that Em had some kick ass tracks - ridiculous bars, funny phrases, story-telling mastery, perfect beats - he flamed out after 3 albums and his schtick getting super tired.  He didn't like that and we went back and forth a bunch about who is the actual best and what the right criteria should be - great buzzed beach talk, just bringing up names and opining about them for a moment before naming some other dude.  At the end of the day, I think I decided that no one is the greatest of all time.  They all either died or fell off.

I bring that up here because we talked up Lil Wayne for a bit.  Because like Eminem, he had some undeniable bangers.  Top tier rap tracks with the smartest workplay around.  And then he has put out approximately 300 million terrible tracks with corny metaphors that land like a bag of dog shit missing a dumpster.  These guys can be really funny, very offbeat, totally strange, so that this joinder should be really great.  It is not.  Not that it sucks, but less amazing than could be hoped for.  The benefit you get here with this album is that 2 Chainz can do some of the heavy lifting, so that Wayne doesn't have to carry the whole load.  AND, importantly for me, they've found some good beats.  The top track is "Presha," with its cool little whistle loop and more Chainz than Waynez.  23.2 million.

I like the beat and that whistle.  But the lyrics aren't saying a damn thing.  "Long Story Short" is cool as hell, and "G6" has a cool set of beats that transition well.  "Pretty Pussy Award" is gross and funny and one of the few songs in here that really catches my attention - the line about making mac and cheese in here kills.  The end of the album is completely forgettable.  Too bad, because these guys could have made some really funny stuff.

Quick Hits, Vol. 337 (Rick Ross & Meek Mill, Mitski, Jimi Hendrix, Pinegrove)

Rick Ross & Meek Mill - Too Good to Be True.  I truly hate the sound of Meek Mill's rap voice. SO GRATING to me.  This album keeps starting right after I've been all mellowed out by Chris Stapleton, and each time it has really pissed me off.  Because the start of the first track, with that kind of interesting voice over of some lady receiving car keys, deciding the car is sweet, and then laughing, is cool.  And then Mill starts in and it just sucks butt.  I hate him so much.  Not sure if I have ever finished this album, but pretty sure I haven't gotten past the third song or so before I wake up and have to move on.  So bad.  And it appears that the world agrees with me, as the first track is for sure the top track, and then everyone runs away.  "SHAQ & KOBE" with 13 million streams.

I am soooooo relieved to be able to delete this album and move on with my life.  That whiny ass voice - I hope I never hear it again.

Mitski - The Land is Inhospitable and So Are We.  This is a beautiful album.  Mitski sucked me in with the chugging rock of "Your Best American Girl" but then has crafted this lush indie rock vibe that envelops in pure comfort like a perfectly tuned hot tub.  And the wild thing is, the stream count looks totally normal - 28 million here, 10 million there, 16 million here, and then about 3/4 of the way through the disc you hit "My Love Mine All Mine," which somehow has freaking 716.6 million streams.  Where the hell did that come from?  (I mean, I know the answer has to be TikTok, but still, that is wild for a chill indie gal like this.

Fascinating.  It's a very pretty song, all lush and laconic peace.  But to have Drake-sized numbers is so interesting.  I'll never understand this period of the culture.  "When Memories Snow" has a Bjork smell that then blossoms into more of a Fiona Apple sound.  Really good stuff - keeping it around for sure.

Jimi Hendrix - Live at the Hollywood Bowl, August 18, 1967.  Love me some Jimi.  Sad I never got to see him do his thing.  This recording isn't great, and there is some British bloke who pops up in some of these songs like Austin Powers but even more nasal, which messes up those songs for sure.  Like in "Fire," the bloke does the "let me stand next to your fire" bit, and it is jarring and unpleasant for him to jump in the way he does.  One of the cool things about the disc is that it isn't just a greatest hits playlist - he plays a Beatles track, a Dylan song, and a Howling Wolf song.  The top track on the disc is another cover, by a guy named Robert Petway and made famous by Muddy Waters in his song "Rolling Stone."  "Catfish Blues" has 310k streams.  Over 8 minutes of bluesy sludge.

The drum freakout in the middle of the version on this disc is hilarious.  ANIMAL!  EAT DRUM!!  Fun to go into some of these tunes, but I think I'd rather just stick to the main versions.

Pinegrove - 11:11.  I'd never heard of Pinegrove, but one of the artists who is coming to the Two Step Inn said something about them being a big influence.  Which is always kind of fascinating, to have people reference something you've never even heard of.  Well, so this is a New Jersey rock band that has been through a rotating cast of members, with singer-songwriter and drummer being the only core members over the years, who met as children and have been together for many years.  Sort of sounds like Death Cab for Cutie, The Decembrists, and Band of Horses combined forces, but with banjo involved.  This is a 2022 album, apparently their final disc before the drummer left the band.  It is really good - alt country rock bombast at its finest.  The biggest tune is the second one, "Alaska," with just over 8 million streams.

You heard that Death Cab comp right there, right?  I honestly would really like to see this live.  Feels like it would be fantastic.  The lead singer mainly reminds me of Ben Gibbard, but every once in a while I get a River Cuomo vibe in there as well.  "Orange" sounds very much like a heavy-handed Band of Horses crunch.  There is sooooooo much music out there in the world.  Amazing that something this good had never come across my ears.

Quick Hits, Vol. 336 (Hayden Pedigo, Andre 3000, Green Day, BabyTron, Chris Stapleton)

Hayden Pedigo - Greetings from Amarillo.  One of my wife's cousins suggested this one to me, and it has some really lovely moments.  The title track, which starts the album, is the best cut to me.  There is a certain class of musician who can make an instrumental guitar song and have it turn out cool.  This one walks a fine line between classical and popular that I think sounds great.  It's not a classic Eric Johnson instrumental or Leo Kottke classic, but the incessant picking makes it almost feel like a harpsicord or the intro to a Vampire Weekend song that rips off Bach.  My guy is from Amarillo, too, which is kind of different.  Some of the tunes are a little too "soundscape-y" for my tastes - swirling synth sounds and swelling noise in "Dark Heaven" just sounds a little hackneyed.  "Cloud Pharaoh" does the same to me - its more like a Trent Reznor vibe piece for a video game than the finger-picked guitar goodness of other tunes like "Madrid."  Top track is "Good Night," the final song on the album, with 292k streams.

It has a "Harvest Moon" imprint in my mind as I hear those notes.  It feels like I could turn it on and then sing Neil's words over the top and it would match up just right.  Pretty song though.  I don't think I need to save this album - some of the songs are lovely, but much of it is uninteresting at the end of the day.  I bet a concert with him would be rad though.

Andre 3000 - New Blue Sun.  Yeah.  Not getting this one.  I read a few things calling it innovative and blah blah blah, but the 12 minute opening track just sounds like he told the synthesizer to play a background rhythm and then he took out his little electric light saber/flute thing and started just making weird sounds with it to see where his mind took him.  Just a meandering set of toot toot toot toot toot toots weaving around some spacey background synths.  I hope making it made him happy and all, but I don't need to hear it anymore at all.  I know you won't be surprised, but that first track is the top one on Spotify, because no one made it past that one to hear the rest.  "I swear, I Really Wanted To Make A "Rap" Album But This Is Literally The Way The Wind Blew Me This Time" is the dopey ass name of that track.

Nah breh.  We good.

Green Day - Saviors.  I said something the other day about Blink 182 going back to their roots - same thing is going on here.  This is the classic Green Day sound - a little sneery and punk, but with a professional and poppy sheen applied liberally.  They have a tendency, which I like, to reference some weird things musically, like 50's doo wop.  So, musically, I enjoy the disc - classic chugging Green Day tunes.  I'd say that my big beef with it is how safe it all feels.  I saw them create some controversy at New Years when they changed the lyrics of "American Idiot" to say they aren't part of the MAGA agenda.  Sooooo rebellious!  But then this has nothing on it that feels as vital and exciting as their best work in the past.  Dookie was classic, but for chronicling the boredom and discontent and goofiness of youth.  American Idiot was classic, because it shit all over George W. Bush and also rocked ass.  And so this one came out at a time when they could have really dug into the MAGA mess and acted as a voice for the broken shit strewn around us every day.  Instead, they just kind of bop along and sing pointless crap about "calling all saviors tonight, make us all believers tonight," instead of actually telling us what we need saving from and how to do it.  The first song is the top streamer, and has the chance to talk about something deep about our situation, but instead says stuff like "Send out an SOS, It's getting serious, Bulldoze your family home, Now it's a condo."  Which, uh, okay?  "TikTok and taxes!"  YEAH!  RAGE AGAINST THAT MACHINE BILLY JOE!  So, I'm going to give you #2.  "Dilemma" has 10 million streams.

Hear that doowop start?  You can just hear a fifties girl group in that intro.  But then come the chugging guitars and bashing drums and you're back in the Green Day zone.  Being that Billy Joe has been sober for a while, kind of a strange song to throw out there at this point.  But it sounds badass!  Eh, I like it.  I'd keep listening to the album, even if I think they could have done more.

BabyTron - Out on Bond.  Rolling Stone had some article recently talking about the, like, "next up" rappers that we should be paying attention to.  This guy sucks major ass.  Terrible beats, weak bars, off the beat, just zero substance at all in this album.  By the way, I also cancelled my Rolling Stone subscription the other day.  The lady on the phone asked why I was cancelling, and I said that the magazine just doesn't interest me anymore.

Chris Stapleton - Higher.  Such an amazing talent - I love Stapleton so much.  And its weird, to consider why he's so great.  I guess in large part it is because the usual country star doesn't have much of a voice, and Stapleton's is an absolutely beautiful instrument.  Soulful and soaring and rich in ways that a Jason Isbell or Zach Bryan or Luke Combs or the other current crop of country stars just are not.  Like, take the power rock or "White Horse," immediately followed by the soul and falsetto balladry of "Higher."  Totally different songs, but they are both anchored by the magical voice.  So good.  I figured the album opener would be the top track, but it gets crushed by "Think I'm in Love With You" at 44 million and the aforementioned "White Horse," which jams its way to 108.4 million streams.

You know the man is big time when he hasn't put together a video for a hundred million stream song.  Any smaller artist would be doing everything they could to pump up those numbers, but he just cranks the guitar one notch louder and wails at his lover.  Excellent track, I can see it being amazing in a live setting.  "It Takes a Woman" is lovely, as is "What Am I Gonna Do" and "Higher."  Front to back, great stuff.

Madonna: The Moody Center: April 14, 2024

That show was a hell of a spectacle.  I really don't know of another show I have seen that was as big a production as that one.  So many backup dancers.  So many costume and hair changes.  So many stage changes - from rings of flames on the main stage at one point to multiple boxing rings somehow fashioned out of light beams to this rad flying box for Madonna to stand in and float around the stage.  It was amazing.  There was one point where a pile of dancers in flesh-colored tights and whatnot were posing and writhing and moving as this one amazing unit in the middle of the stages and it was honestly unbelievable looking.  Definitely was my first show at Moody where I was wishing I was down in the pit so that I could really see all of that stuff going on.

As for the music itself, a little bit disappointing.  I am unsure if she was really singing for some of the tracks.  Well, I know for sure she was not singing for Like a Virgin, since it was inexplicably performed as part of a weird video where fake shadow dancers representing Michael Jackson and Material Girl-era Madonna were projected onto a screen and the real Madonna was not even on stage.  She also very obviously took a swig of beer as she was supposedly singing La Isla Bonita, which usually makes it really hard to keep singing with your full-throated voice, when you are swallowing a mouthful of beer.

And, of course, the setlist was disappointing.  I would have been pleased as punch to just hear The Immaculate Collection from start to finish and then call it a night, but instead we pretty much got Into the Groove, Holiday, Like a Prayer, Live to Tell, Vogue, Crazy For You, and then either bad older stuff or the newer things.  And not all of those were bad - the first track that she purportedly performed at CBGB 40 years ago was especially bad, but I thought Human Nature and Ray of Light were cool.  The James Bond theme song was not great, and same with the dumb "Bitch I'm Madonna" song at the end.

The other not so cool thing was that she apparently is known for turning off the air conditioning at venues because it is better for her vocal chords.  Which sucked assssssss.  No AC in Texas is never a good thing, but especially in a huge room full of people yelling lyrics and dancing.  Speaking of which, little dude next to me was super on ecstasy and pretty much just danced through the entire show.  Loved it.

Despite those shortcomings, truly an amazing show.  Loved finally getting to see her!

Quick Hits, Vol. 338 (Danny Brown, Peter Gabriel, Kid Koala, Wednesday)

Danny Brown - Quaranta.  An odd album.  Sounds cool, like with interesting beats and good flow, but then when you actually listen to the lyrics you realize how deeply personal and fucked up these tracks are.  I guess stopping the drinking and drugging needed to come out in an album form and this is it.  Like, as an example, "Down Wit It" is interesting to me because it interpolates some lines from "Mind's Playin' Tricks on Me," from one of the most ungainly moments of that otherwise rad song.  I love "Mind," but I always found the bit clunky where Scarface raps about his woman but rhymes me with me and then drops a kind of off-beat "Now I'm feeling lonely."  But Brown takes a nugget of that and uses it in here really well to describe how broken he feels after the end of a relationship, over a Tame Impala ass beat.  I like that little nibble of reference to a deeply sad moment in the old song, in the midst of a new sad song.  This disc is like a confessional instead of a party album, which is a weird detour for Brown.  And apparently no one likes it - no song has more than 2 million streams.  I'll give you the title track, with 1.2 million streams.

Like, in comparison to his old crazy stuff, he just fired up a spaghetti western-ish beat and started dumping his heart onto the page.  I won't keep this disc around, but it was interesting.

Peter Gabriel - i/o.  What are we even doing here.  Two versions of every song?  Two hours and seventeen minutes?  Come on, Pete.  This is a slog.  I love me some old school PG - So is a masterpiece.  Us was a favorite of mine for a long time.  That Last Temptation of Christ album is beautiful.  And this is very lovely sounding - his voice is still wonderful and the songs have a generic pleasantness to them that works really well.  But the experience of starting and listening to the album feels like work.  The top streamer is the title track, with only 3.1 million streams.

"stuff going out, stuff coming in" - feels like a sex joke parody could be made of this pretty easily.  The video is freaky and cool.  If it was just one group of the songs, I think this would have been so much more enjoyable.

Kid Koala - Carpal Tunner Syndrome.  I read about this dude somewhere and just figured I'd toss an album in - deeply weird DJ stuff - lots of samples and scratches and sounds.  This is a 2000 album, it doesn't appear that he is doing much currently.  I don't know that I really have much to say about it - not my type of music.  It is almost hard to work to because it is so disjointed and spazzy.  "Fender Bender" is the top track with 746k.

That one is nice, smooth and laid back.  Won't keep it around, but was interesting to check out.

Wednesday - Rat Saw God.  This is unfortunate, because a lot of this music would really fit in and work well with what I like most about some of the good new indie rock.  But the part of the second song, "Bull Believer," where she just screams and wails for a little while?  Well that absolutely ruins the whole vibe for me.  Awful shit for that small chunk of time.  But then "Chosen to Deserve" comes on and its a rad combination of, like, Turnpike Troubadours, The Sundays, and Dinosaur Jr. and I'm wrapped in it.  Unsurprisingly, that is the top track on the album.  Just over 2 million streams.

She sounds so pretty singing about drinking until she puked on weeknights at her parent's house, or a friend overdosing on Benadryl.  Such a good tune though.  When the songs don't involve any screaming freakout, I really enjoy these tunes.  But, I really can't keep the whole thing because those moments of unpleasantness keep popping up.  Completely unnecessary (says old man, shaking fist at sky).