Coachella Line-up Announced

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.

Songs about the City: I *heart* Chicago

As a little intro, we thought it’d be cool for the three of us to talk about what song we feel best fits our little towns.  Araceli, for NY, has chosen the illustrious rat packer himself, Frank Sinatra’s  “New York, New York” as a befitting jewel of a song for the Big Apple.  (Does anyone call it that anymore?)

So, yeah.  Araceli chose a song BY a New Yorker ABOUT a New Yorker, so now I’ll do the same for Chicago.  There’s a few tempting choices:

• I could easily go the Wilco route and say “Via Chicago,” but if you’re listening to that song you’ll quickly figure out it has very little to do with Chicago.
• I’m a big fan of “Slow Down Chicago” by Canasta but that really doesn’t SAY that much about the city that it doesn’t say about every metropolis — it’s busy.
• Gil Scott-Heron’s “Home is Where the Hatred Is,” is tough not to choose.  Scott-Heron not only is a soul icon, hip-hop progenator, poet, author, and freedom fighter, but was also born in Chicago proper (though raised in Tennesse).  The same song was sampled more recently by another icon raised by accomplished southside civic leaders — Kanye West’s “My Way Home” from the Late Registration LP samples it exclusively.
• Paper Lace’s “The Night Chicago Died” is a hilarious song.  And quite a re-telling of a riot during Al Capone’s bootlegging days… unfortunately it was written by four guys from Nottingham UK that have no idea what they’re talking about.  E.G., starting the song, “Daddy was a cop / on the east side of Chicago” (Psst, the east side wold be a lake).  Also adding to its Chicago lore –  in the movie High Fidelity, Barry (Jack Black) adds it to his Top 5 Songs About Death: A Laura’s Dad Tribute List.  He ad libs some new lyrics though… “The night Laura’s daddy died. Sha na na na na na na na na! Brother what a night it really was. Mother what a night it really… angina’s tough! Glory be!”

Though Scott-Heron would be, like, the “well-informed” one to pick, I have to go with one I’ve always loved forever and ever.  That’s Aliotta, Haynes and Jeremiah’s “Lake Shore Drive”

It’s a beautiful piece of music with a wonderful shambling piano part, a road-tripping feel and some great lyrics.  They lyrics not only recall some vibrant nostalgic drives, but also drops some references that show the artist was certainly familiar and fond of Chicago, even if the band was from West Allis, WI.

It was not until recently, when I heard this song again, that I realized it was also a road tripping song.  AH&D may have just been using my favorite road in Cook County as a thinly-veiled drug reference… “Just slippin’ on by on LSD, Friday night trouble-bound…” is just one of the many acid references in the song , most of which are equally unclever.  Regardless, it’s still a really pretty song.  Enjoy! (Along with some shoddy photography):