Archive for the ‘bonnaroo’ tag

climax week day 2 – arcade fire – my body is a cage

so what did everyone think of day 1 of climax week with dailybeatz? was it as good as you thought it would be, or even better? i sure hope so. if it wasnt, just tell me what i can do to make it better next time. im watching an hour long recap of bonnaroo on the fuse channel right now. why did nobody tell me about the fuse channel before? i think its basically what mtv was before it became 24/7 reality television, but much better. looks like they show tons of live shows, interviews, and exclusive performances. i will probably watch it at least a few more times in my day.

todays track, while still climactic, is much more understated than yesterdays. its from everyones favorite canadian indie rockers arcade fire. im pretty sure that the butler brothers are not actually from canada, but now we are really getting down to the nitty gritty. one thing i like about arcade fire is that they utilize the medieval looking hurdy gurdy. i never knew what a hurdy gurdy was, but its this weird instrument that looked sort of like the body of a guitar with sort of accordian keys and a crank. i was kind of waiting for the jack in the box to pop out halfway through the song. not to mention the name of the instrument sounds like something a 5 year old made up. but no, thats the official name.

if youve never seen a hurdy gurdy, please see the above picture. whats even cooler than the hurdy gurdy is that todays post features a photograph taken by none other than myself from when karen and i saw them at judson church in nyc a few years back. we didnt think we would get tickets, but we did, so we went there just for that and were right up front. that shirt is blinding in photographs. on to the song. the original plan was “in the backseat”, the closing track from “funeral”. but then i remembered “my body is a cage”, which is way way way more of a climax. it, too, closes out an album, this time “neon bible”. i like this song quite a bit. especially “just because youve forgotten doesnt mean youre forgiven”. i thought the lyrics were “just because youre forgotten”, but i think they both express the same point. just sit back, relax and let me take care of the rest.

arcade fire – my body is a cage

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

buy this track on itunes
buy this track on amazon

dirty projectors – stillness is the move

my history with dirty projectors is a short one, but they seem to be turning up everywhere i look. first i heard their duet with david byrne – knotty pine – which is the opening track of the red hot compilation “dark was the night”, and i liked it quite a bit. then i read about their show in new york with bjork. i guess they wrote some original music for five voices and performed at housing works bookstore in new york city with bjork. the show was to benefit housing works, which according to their site works to end the twin crises of aids and homelessness. i wonder if bjork approached them or vice versa. either way, maybe the coolest thing ever. then i heard todays track and loved it. then i was walking to fill up my water at bonnaroo and was lucky enough to walk by their show and catch a few minutes of it. i never really searched out any of these things, so i feel like they are following me, but in a really good way.

then after all this happened, i remembered a video i stumbled upon many moons ago, long before id even heard of dirty projectors. it was on perhaps the coolest site ever for music fans – la blogotheque. this site does a bunch of what it calls “take-away shows”. basically, they pick all of your favorite musicians and film them performing in every day places. like arcade fire in an elevator. and yeasayer at some french apartment afterparty. warning: you may be compelled to watch every single video here, and i think there are about 100. dont say i didnt warn you, but you can thank me later if you havent already been fortunate enough to stumble upon this site. but sure enough i looked back and the crazy man and harmonizing three women that i remembered (although it turns out that the lineup changes up quite a bit) were in fact dirty projectors performing in, yes, some random mcdonalds.

so todays newish song is off their new album “bitte orca” and is rather funky if you ask me. one thing thats for sure is that these ladies can hit the high notes and really belt it out like its their job, which technically i guess it is. this jam, along with the other numerous appearances dirty projectors have made in my life recently (see above) have definitely peaked my curiosity in this group. does anyone have any other recommendations about where to start in their catalogue? something tells me that the sounds of “stillness is the move” are not really their usual sounds and that they are pretty versatile. i only wish i had stayed to catch the rest of their set last week.

UPDATE!!!! its happened yet again. apparently on tuesday, just one day after my post, the band was in a pretty bad car accident, just outside of detroit, aka where i live. fortunately everyone is OK and they are home resting now.

dirty projectors – stillness is the move

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

buy this track on itunes
buy this track on amazon

my morning jacket – it beats 4 u

my morning jacket is one of those groups that sort of snuck up on me. id heard about them for a while but for some reason, i thought it was going to be some sort of mtv punk group that i hated, a la fallout boy. so imagine my surprise when i heard their album z for the first time. not even close to anything i thought it would be. then i discovered the rest of their catalog and was fortunate enough to see them at the state theater last fall, and that just sealed the deal for me. definitely a top show ever. we actually got really lucky that we even got to see them because just 3 days after our show, the group was performing another show in, i think, chicago? or somewhere around there, when singer jim james slipped and fell and had to cancel a bunch of shows in the next few weeks (i actually have no idea how many shows were cancelled).

basically if you ever have a chance to see them live, you take it and ask questions later, at which time you wont have to ask any questions. the group is a bit of a regular at bonnaroo having played 5 or 6 of the 8 years the festival has been around. the other interesting fact that comes to mind is that singer jim james (im not sure if its the rest of the band or not) makes an insanely weird cameo in the insanely weird biopic (pronounced by’-oh-pic, not by-ah’-pic) “im not there”. it took me probably an hour to realize that all the weird characters were supposed to represent a stage in bob dylans life, but seriously, that movie went right over my head, and i usually like weird movies. but i definitely remember being more confused when suddenly my morning jacket was in the old west singing a song.

there were literally millions upon millions of songs i could have chosen from their repertoire and i would have been content. but in the end, the lucky winner was “it beats 4 u”. the first reason i chose this song is because it is awesome and i think it sums up mmjs sound quite nicely. the second reason is the use of text speak in the song title. the third is because i like to think that the whistler near the end of the song is andrew bird because really who else can whistle like that in the world? but then i also think it would be a random pairing…….

……so i just looked it up, and it turns out that andrew bird AND m. ward both appear on this album, and that andrew bird has also appeared on about a million other albums. without further ado, enjoy the show.

my morning jacket – it beats 4 u

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

buy this track on itunes
buy this track on amazon

tilly and the wall – bad education

one month in the books kids. as of today weve brought you exactly (actually a few more than) 30 totally awesome songs and plan on bringing you at least a few more over the coming days, weeks, years, centuries and millenia (right? not milleniums?). its sort of like making a mix tape every single week, except i dont have to worry about the songs fitting together in any sort of way. except if theres a theme week which there will be very very soon. then they will all fit together in some way. and that will be cohesive and good.

what is also exciting about today is that the lollapalooza schedule was released. im a bit disappointed in the schedule because out of the 6 headliners, i really only wanted to see two: kings of leon and depeche mode. and of course because i have no luck when it comes to festival scheduling, they are both playing at the same time on the first night. im definitely seeing depeche mode since i just saw kings of leon a few months back, but its still a little upsetting. other notable conflicts are fleet foxes vs crystal castles (crystal castles wins as i havent seen them), thievery corporation vs decemberists (likely gonna choose decemberists), lykke li vs tv on the radio, and silversun pickups vs mstrkrft vs band of horses. all in all not nearly as bad as bonnaroo conflicts.

today were going to bring you the quasi flamenco track “bad education” from nebraskan foot percussionists tilly and the wall. this was the first song id heard by them and instantly loved the foot stomping and clapping percussion and thought it fit well with the music of this song but i later found out that they dont even have a drummer and instead use tap dancer jamie pressnall for percussion. how cool is that? whats also interesting is that several of their members came from various conor oberst projects. and sorry bright eyes, but i think i like them just a little bit more. im kind of in love with the beat in this song and it would be sweet even if it was played on drums and not with metal bottomed shoes, but those make it even better.

tilly and the wall – bad education

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

buy this track on itunes
buy this track on amazon

these modern socks – no one’s gonna miss me

now that im finally back to some sense of normalcy after a weekend of insanity and sleeplessness, its time to present this years bonnaroo lineup with some awards:

best show of the weekend – tie between wilco and phishs second performance

sweatiest performer with tightest clothing – bruce springsteen

best performance i didnt want to go to that turned out to be awesome – amadou and mariam

performance that was as eerie and unique as i hoped for and lived up to all my expectations – yeasayer

biggest disappointment – mgmt. im sure the show was great in the tent but we were so far back and there was some malfunction with the second set of speakers so we couldnt hear any bass. all the people in the tent looked like they were having fun and i heard it sounded great in there.

favorite bar of the weekend – the fruit bar. we subsisted mostly on bars for the weekend. granola bars, fruit bars, all bran bars, etc. but the fruit bar is ridiculously good. its basically a really soft fruit roll up thats about an inch thick. i need to find out if its available in america.

best footwear for the weekend – sanuks – wore them all 3 days with no problems whatsoever.

favorite vendor food – the chicken kabobs from the areppa stands.

shows i most wanted to see but missed because of exhaustion/conflicts – band of horses, phoenix, crystal castles, paul oakenfold, yeah yeah yeahs, grizzly bear.

any other categories youre curious about?

so that about sums it up. the rain was pretty bad on the drive down on thursday but after that it didnt rain again the whole weekend and the mud was minimal and very avoidable which made things about a zillion times better than they would have been. now that bonnaroo is over, you can get excited to hear me talk nonstop about my next getaway to pitchfork festival in chicago for my second year there.

back to the music. todays track is no ones gonna miss me by minneapolis band these modern socks. this group is pretty much electro-pop goodness. i especially like the spaceyness (fake word alert), the the unassuming drumbeat, and the bass explosion near the end of the song. its kind of a pretty sad song, both pretty and sad. kind of like my return home after bonnaroo. pretty because i get to take showers and sleep in beds now, but sad because the excitement is over and im going back to work tomorrow.

these modern socks – no ones gonna miss me

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

buy this track on itunes
buy this track on amazon

bonnaroo preview – phish – peaces en regalia (live)

well, here we are at the final day of bonnaroo. its been pretty crazy so far and we’ve done a lot of things we never thought we would do and seen a lot of things we. again this is all based on assumptions and expectations, but i hope it was all awesome. what i do know for sure that this excellent weekend will be closed out with a second performance by phish. ive seen phish probably about 10 times total over the past several years including the mud-laden coventry festival, which im praying has not been repeated these past few days. while im partially talking about the music and the performance, im mostly referring to the ridiculous insane crazy quicksand mud that seemed to engulf everything and everyone in its path. while it sucks being all muddy, the real problem i have is that youre already completely exhausted from walking, standing and dancing all day at these fests, and to have to trudge through the mud the entire day only saps away lots of that precious festival energy that youve been stocking up on for the last few weeks. it definitely wouldnt ruin my time there, but id really prefer it to not even have the chance.

phishs time slot tonight is 8pm-12am and then im sure there will be some crazy partying and then we will pass out forever and have to drive home 10 hours tomorrow. im hoping theyll be in top form after playing a few shows in the week before but anythings possible really. im looking forward to their famous light show, which you get a glimpse of above. the shot at the top of this post was my computer background for quite some time back in the day and one of my favorites, but there are a multitude of moments like this in the course of any show of theirs.

ironically, the phish track im bringing you today isnt a phish track at all. its a cover of frank zappas “peaches en regalia”. they used to play it all the time, but the legend goes that zappas family asked the quartet to refrain from performing the song in the future. im not sure why, but supposedly they did, and i dont think theyve played it since. trey has been quoted as saying that he drew a lot of inspiration from frank zappa. namely in that he inspired him to use instruments in ways they arent typically used (on a side note, i believe st. vincent aka annie clark has said the same thing about all the instrumentation on her latest album “actor”). for example, in one of his recent solo tours, he performed “sultans of swing” by dire straits regularly. instead of playing the crazy guitar solo himself, however, it was played note for note by an entire brass section. its pretty cool to hear. anyway, enjoy the track below. and dont ask what show this is from because i have no idea. i think theres also a little blip in the middle, so please ignore that.

phish – peaches en regalia

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

buy this track on itunes (another live version)
buy this track on amazon (another live version)

BONUS!!!! since phish played twice at bonnaroo, im providing you with another track thats pretty neato. its called talk from the billy breathes album. soft chromatic descending baselines overlayed with jazzed up piano chords? youll like it. and it will quietly close out the weekend just as our exhausted drive home will close out our weekend. have no fear, i will spend all of tuesday at rest.

phish – talk

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

buy this track on itunes
buy this track on amazon

bonnaroo preview – yeasayer – tightrope

day 3 of bonnaroo. things have been pretty good so far, except for the herd of hippos that rolled through the campsites last night eating everything and everyone in their paths and the patchouli flu thats been spreading around the festival. just kidding, that didnt happen, or at least if it is going to happen, i dont know about it yet, because its only tuesday and i havent even left. but im going to pretend that im posting live from bonnaroo, even though theres no way in heck im bringing my computer and im pretty confident that i wont get cell phone reception in manchester, tennessee, much less a wireless internet signal. this is a little trick we use in the blogging industry called “saying its one day when its really not”. its pretty sneaky and only us insiders of the biz know about it. lucky for me, the secret dead poet free mason blogger society anonymous teaches you this little trick of the trade after youve had a blog for 3 weeks or more, so i just made the cut.

im pretty excited for the late night shows tonight. i didnt know about the late night shows until a few weeks ago, and if my prior festival experience is any indicator, i have no clue how im going to stay awake for the late night shows, but im gonna try. tonight is going to provide us with the 1-2 punch of yeasayer and mgmt. i was supposed to see mgmt at lolla last year, but we missed them due to the “brand new” debacle (for which we also missed explosions in the sky). ask me about that one later. im not still bitter at all. not in the slightest. what gave you that impression?

anyway, yeasayer is one of those groups for me that has a sound all its own. their album “all hour cymbals” is a strange mix of dark and light. id say 60% dark, and 40% light. if not, then id say 55% dark, 30% light, and 15% viking. that was an obscure reference to the drink order of jeff lewis on bravos “flipping out”. i tried for a long time to find the video clip and couldnt but you should try, its worth it. todays track, tightrope, is part of the red hot compilation entitled dark was the night, put together by the national’s aaron and bryce dessner to help fight hiv. this track is a favorite of mine from the compilation because it shows the brighter and happier side of yeasayer. what say you of this tune?

yeasayer – tightrope

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

buy this track on itunes
buy this track on amazon

bonnaroo preview – passion pit – sleepyhead

by the time you read this post, i will be well on my way to my first bonnaroo ever. i have kind of no idea what to expect, and its been a long time since ive done any sort of camping so im nervous and excited. im traveling and camping with a bunch of seasoned pros though, so im sure all will be well. the disappointing part is that out of all of the bands that i wanted to see the most, they seem to all be playing at the same time as another band i wanted to see the most. so there will be difficult decisions to be made but im going to make those decisions on the fly. itll be based on the mood im in at that moment, so ill always be seeing the perfect band for whatever mood im in. sounds like a pretty fail proof system if you ask me.

here at dailybeatz, we would like to give you a little taste of the bonnaroo experience, which is why the next four days will feature songs by artists playing each day of the festival. today we will be driving most of the day and will likely miss most of the bands that are playing. but todays track is “sleepyhead” by passion pit, who will be playing at 11 15 tonight. if we make it there by then were going to be cutting it real close, so hopefully we get there in time. this isnt even really my favorite passion pit song, but i wanted to post it anyway because i think overall its an extremely well produced song. all of the pieces work together in perfect harmony. its also a very good use of what i like to refer to as the chipmunk voice. you know what im talking about — when a regular track is sped way up to sound like the chipmunks. you may all remember the chipmunk voice from circa 2002 when it was a part of just about every rap song that made its way to the radio. it was kind of really overused and annoying, but every once in a while the chipmunk voice actually feels right in a song and adds a lot to it. this track is one great example. the other example is a cocorosie song that ill probably be posting at some point in the future so keep an eye out for that. this track was on passion pits “chunk of change” ep and it was so good that they decided to put it on “manners”, their full length debut that was released in just that past few weeks. for anyone keeping track, “the reeling” from the aforementioned full length release also made my scant summer/running playlist this year and was very nearly the topic of todays post. but the great production of sleepyhead won out in the end.

passion pit – sleepyhead

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

buy this track on itunes
buy this track on amazon

« Older Entries