Yeah yeah, so we’ve been busy and neglected Bembang, what with the holidays, moving, trips to Rome and Amsterdam (Brian), Taiwan and the Philippines (Lille), Chicago and Mexico (Araceli). But even from the remotest mountain in Baguio I have time to post the just-announced Coachella lineup. I’m not super excited about the lineup, but Sunday seems doable. See you guys there?
FRIDAY APRIL 16: Jay-Z, LCD Soundsystem, Them Crooked Vultures, Vampire Weekend, Deadmau5, Public Image Limited, The Specials, Grizzly Bear, Passion Pit, Echo and the Bunnymen, Benny Benassi, Fever Ray, Grace Jones, She & Him, Erol Alkan, The Avett Brothers, Calle 13, The Whitest Boy Alive, The Cribs, La Roux, Yeasayer, Lucero, DJ Lance Rock, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Proxy, Ra Ra Riot, Deer Tick, Wolfgang Gartner, Aeroplane, Iglu & Hartly, Sleigh Bells, P.O.S., Baroness, Hockey, Little Dragon, White Rabbits, Wale, Kate Miller-Heidke, As Tall as Lions, Jets Overhead, Alana Grace, Pablo Hassan.
SATURDAY, APRIL 17: Muse, Faith No More, Tiësto, MGMT, David Guetta, The Dead Weather, Hot Chip, Devo, Coheed and Cambria, Kaskade, 2Many DJ’s, Major Lazer, Dirty Projectors, Gossip, Z-Trip, The xx, John Waters, Les Claypool, The Raveonettes, Mew, Sia, Camera Obscura, Tokyo Police Club, Porcupine Tree, Old Crow Medicine Show, Aterciopalados, Bassnectar, Frightened Rabbit, Dirty South, Flying Lotus, Corinne Bailey Rae, Pretty Lights, Shooter Jennings, RX Bandits, The Almighty Defenders, Edward Sharp and the Magnetic Zeros, Craze & Klever, Zoe, The Temper Trap, Portugal. The Man, Band of Skulls, Girls, Beach House, Steel Train, Frank Turner.
SUNDAY, APRIL 18: Gorillaz, Pavement, Thom Yorke????, Phoenix, Orbital, Spoon, Sly and the Family Stone, De La Soul, Julian Casablancas, Plastikman, Gary Numan, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Sunny Day Real Estate, Yo La Tengo, MUTEMATH, Deerhunter, Infected Mushroom, Club 75, Matt & Kim, The Big Pink, Gil Scott-Heron, King Khan and the Shrines, Florence and the Machine, Yann Tiersen, Little Boots, Miike Snow, Talvin Singh, Ceu, B.o.B., Babasonicos, Owen Pallett, The Glitch Mob, Mayer Hawthorne, Local Natives, Rusko, The Middle East, Hadouken!, The Soft Pack, Kevin Devine, Paparazzi, Delphic, One EskimO.
Tickets for COACHELLA go on sale Friday, January 22 at 10 a.m. at all Ticketmaster locations and www.coachella.com. Three-day weekend passes are $269, plus surcharges. More details on layaway, camping options and up-to-the minute information, can be found at www.coachella.com.
I interviewed Billy Martin, the percussionist of Medeski, Martin and Wood, for The Onion. Read the interview here. MMW will be in Chicago tonight, and all over California in February.
Lille/The AV Club: Why is the series called Radiolarians?
Billy Martin: The images all over the packaging are actual Radiolarians [drawn by 18th century scientist German biologist Ernst Haeckel]. To us the drawings are architectural forms that we related to our music in an abstract way, evolution and life. We always use that word [evolution] as how we like keep going with our music. We like to evolve, and that’s what our creativity is about.
I interviewed Peaches for The Onion here. In the interview she talks about Lady Gaga possibly ripping her off, and fans who try to touch her inapporpriately, however that goes for Peaches. Tonight she’s going to be in Chicago! Next week it will be Los Angeles. Here’s an outtake from the interview:
Lille/The AV Club: Most of the reviews of this tour talk about the high level of energy.
Peaches: It’s just something that I do, actually. I have an entertainment disease (laughs). I just think if you’re nervous and you hold it back if you’re doing a live show, it takes more energy [then letting it all out]. I think I’m on top of my game in my live show and my music. Right now I have a full band, costumes, homemade lasers.
11.20.2009 Chicago, Metro - Smart Bar
11.28.2009 Los Angeles, The Wiltern
I interviewed Matt Friedberger, 1/2 of the Fiery Furnaces, for the Onion here.
As he talked about their new album, Matt also told me that they covered songs on I’m Going Away based on fans’ descriptions and reactions to the album. It’s now released as Take Me Round Again, and is available for streaming here.
Matt Friedberger of the Fiery Furnaces, on fandom and memory: “We feel obligated as a rock band to have things for fans to do, besides listen, so they’re not passive. And obviously that’s a fake thing, because fans are never passive. You’re always re-imagining [a song] whether you notice it or not, on your own end. Fans are re-imagining music all the time, otherwise how could you like all this crap that you like? You’ll find something to like, just make it up in your own head.”
The Fiery Furnaces play in Bembang cities on these dates:
The next time U2 comes to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena to perform for 100,000 people and you have tickets 10 rows away from the stage, take note of my To-Do list and learn from my mistakes.
1. Wear comfy walking shoes THAT COVER YOUR TOES, and park downtown ($7 parking, y’all!). Then walk to the Rose Bowl.
2. Go to the bathroom before going in a tunnel. It will take you an hour to get to your seat ONCE YOU’RE INSIDE.
3. Bring a camera so you can take photos of David Beckham, Barbra Streisand, Mischa Barton, etc. in the audience milling about.
4. Also bring a camera so you can catch openers the Black Eyed Peas singing “Sweet Child o’ Mine” with Slash of Guns ‘n’ Roses. Except Fergie will sing the wrong words (”where do you go now…”) and you will cringe in your seat.
5. Expect to not hear songs you like and sit through parts of it.
6. Expect to marvel at the clarity of Bono’s voice and the Edge’s bell-like guitar tone. (All delay, all the time.)
7. Print out a photo of Burmese president Aung San Suu Kyi. Or a Tehran Radio poster. Or have your One membership card ready. Bono will quiz you on these topics while he is singing “A Beautiful Day.” And “Sunday Bloody Sunday.” It’s a long test.
8. Prepare to launch rocketships and cell phones into the air. Do not, like me, leave your cellphone in your car because you will need it for the obligatory, participative “cellphone-taking-place-of-lighter” moment at the end of the show.
9. When the band walks away from the stage, three feet away from you, DO NOT HESITATE TO HIGH FIVE THE BAND. Because they will high five back. BUT, if you hesitate and miss your chance, you will regret it forever. Or at least for the hour that you’re walking back to your really far away parking spot, cursing the fact that you’re wearing strapless Dopies and a sundress to an outdoor concert in October.
I’ve been listening to Wax Tailor all day today trying to figure out what his music sounds like, exactly. The French hip-hop & trip-hop producer/DJ Wax Tailor (aka Jean-Christophe Le Saoût) makes music with a touch of everything — jazz, hip/trip-hop, soul, even bebop. It’s like RJD2/Massive Attack meets Moloko/Dido/Portishead — all downtempo, smooth grooves. Adam says his music has a hint of Chess Records’ old-school sheen to it. Whatever it is, it’s pretty hooky, and worth checking out tomorrow at the Troubadour.
Wax Tailor is promoting his third album “IN THE MOOD FOR LIFE.” Here’s the audio album trailer so you can preview all the tracks from one MP3. Here’s a free download of the first single off the album “Say Yes (feat ASM)”. Watch out for a review of the show, too.
So, obviously, I missed the show and wasn’t able to get tickets, even though I had five people simultaneously working Ticketweb at that time. Here’s the next best thing: NEW SONGS!!!
Get tickets if you can here. They’re on sale in an hour. The show is today, Friday, Oct 02, 8 p.m. at the Echoplex (below the Echo).
Here’s a message from my buddy Thom:
”
Hey what are you doing tomorrow night?
ok now with a link that works hopefully
so yes that band thats doesnt really have a name that im working with at the moment??????
have decided to do a warm-up show on Friday Oct 2nd around 9pm at… the Echoplex in Los Angeles
Its not that big, it’ll be total chaos and its kind of a rehearsal but .. if you are near by..
below is a link to get tickets.
hope you get lucky with it.
so ain’t no point hanging around if u dont im afraid
Last night, I went to see Dusty Rhodes and the River Band at one of the Knitting Factory’s last shows (it closes this month, RIP). It was so on, it was like a bright flourescent bulb was lit up on stage in place of a band. Here’s an easy equation to make sense of the ecstatic spasticness of the Dusty Rhodes and the River Band: Journey + Poison + Meatloaf + Gaslight Anthem + Arcade Fire.
There were maybe 30 people in the room, but the band performed as if it were performing for 30,000. I loved how they were all really skilled musicians and so much fun to watch. Catch them at the Eagle Rock Music Festival ; it’s totally free and open to everybody. The fest runs along Colorado Blvd. at Eagle Rock Blvd. from 4 PM to 11 PM on Sat., Oct. 3
EAGLE ROCK MUSIC FESTIVAL 2009
SAT., OCT. 3
ON COLORADO BLVD. BETWEEN EAGLE ROCK BLVD. AND ARGUS
WITH
THE EMERGING STAGE w/ L.A. RECORD DJ set and KXLU LIVE STREAM
I love Justin Vernon/Bon Iver; I love the Collections of Colonies of Bees. Together, they are Volcano Choir, and their new album, “Unmap,” is streaming on NPR for a whole week before its release. It’s AWESOME, probably my favorite record of 2009.
Cocobees does what they do best — layers of repetitive sound, pretty melodies, odd-time structuring and unexpected hooks. Vernon uses his voice as another instrument, so no one in the so-called indie supergroup gets more star time than anyone else. I hope they tour this album; I can’t wait to hear them live. Listen to it here.
