Moogfest 2011 (Asheville, NC)

Review by Hilary Cadigan

Moogfest is a music festival with a clear focus.  When AC Entertainment’s Director of Connectivity, Jeff Cuellar, first described to me the rather nebulous criteria the festival organizers were using to select artists for their lineup, I was skeptical.  But what emerged this past weekend was a hand-picked selection of hugely talented musicians that truly did deliver “genre-bending music, a sound-splicing way of pushing the boundaries, artists who are testing the limits, coming up with new sounds people haven’t heard before, challenging what music can do, mixing art with soundscape and creating a great live show overall.”  Mission accomplished, Jeff.

Nearly every performance brought the thrill of the unexpected, and the weekend as a whole was not just fun but exhilarating and thought-provoking to boot. 

Upon arrival, I was immediately delighted by the awesomely bootleg decorations—main venue Asheville Civic Center had the look and feel of a high school gym set up for the big Halloween Dance, complete with dayglow streamers and tape lining the walls and grumpy parental figures passing out [unfortunately not free] refreshments.  But Moogfest upped the ante with some unique festival features, including 80s-esque blown up TV screens by the main stage, glittering space-age stilt walkers with bubble guns, and two-person bicycle cars with giant butterfly wings circling the area.  Best of all was the aptly named “Cluster Flux,” a spinning tube of colored patterns with a walkway inside that festival-goers entered with 3D glasses for the ultimate substance-free trip to the 5^th dimension.

After some initial explorations of the cavernous Civic Center, we headed up a ramp and through a set of heavily and inexplicably guarded glass doors into the Thomas Wolf Auditorium for Tangerine Dream. 

Stoic and slightly dated but still clearly legendary, Tangerine Dream’s mesmerizing performance was a great way to start off the weekend.  They followed their performance with a drawn-out curtain call that soon became the norm for the weekend—nearly every artist took a time out before, after, or during their set to speak directly to the audience about what an honor it was to perform at a festival honoring somebody as awesome as Bob Moog.  And folks, I’ve seen the documentary and Bob does really seem like a pretty awesome guy, beyond even his cataclysmic contributions to the music world.  This sense of mutual appreciation lasted all weekend and really gave a neighborly vibe to the festival as a whole.

I’m not going to lie—before Moby’s explosive live performance at the Asheville Civic Center on Friday night, I had somehow convinced myself that he was only a DJ.  Not so.  In fact, Moby is not only an expert at mixing beats, he can also make magic on just about every instrument that touches his hands—guitar, drums, keyboard, microphone—with a stage presence so compelling that it took me about half the set to gleefully realize that he and his bandmates looked like three bald triplets.  (Like Blueman Group, but not blue.)  At the end of the show, when he took off his shirt and squatted on top of a speaker, bald head shining in the strobe lights, it all became clear: Moby is Buddha. And Buddha knows how to make your booty shake.

Wrapping up Friday night at the Civic Center was TV on the Radio, a band that totally blew my expectations out of the water.  With their one-of-a-kind blend of pop-friendly art rock and indie electronica with worldly influences, their performances reek of cool, while their earnest passion and energy make them impossible to dislike.  Their new stuff is awesome and their old stuff is classic. These guys can do no wrong.

Saturday was a whirlwind of vastly different performances tied together only by the artists’ shared uniqueness. Our day began with the disappointing news that YACHT’s plane “broke” (YACHT, are you okay?), therefore rendering them unable to perform their 5:00 set as planned.  This ended up being one of several unfortunate cancellations, including Little Dragon and Glasser.  Saddened, we headed toward the Animoog Playground, Moogfest’s only outdoor venue, where the freezing temperatures that plagued us all weekend made the hammock tent a perfect place to burrow in and listen to New Zealand indie electronic ensemble The Naked & Famous rock out. 

Next up was Dan Deacon, but we decided it was too early in the day to listen to someone blather on about spirit circles, so we hightailed it to Thomas Wolfe to greet the legendary Terry Riley and his son Gyan, whose weirdly wonderful combination of psychedelia and minimalism provided a testament to the cross-generational power of experimental music.  Unfortunately, we had to cut our experience short to sprint over to SBTRKT’s show on the Civic Center Stage, which we missed almost completely thanks to the annoying bureaucracy of the venue set-up, which required us to take the absolute longest way possible in order to re-enter the building we’d just exited.  Boo.

Okay, let me be the first to say that I adore the Flaming Lips.  Always have and always will, but on this cold and blustery evening in Asheville, I have to admit: my patience was worn thin.  Maybe it was the weather, or the cutting edge newness of the other acts on the schedule, or the fact that I really had to pee.  Maybe I’ve just seen the same exact performance one two many times, but at a certain point, as I stood there watching the giant balloons drift southward into a nearby parking garage, I felt not exhilarated, but exasperated.  As Wayne, in a more long-winded mood that usual, admonished the crowd for not being excited enough (“Come on you guys, this is all there is, this is it! GET EXCITED!”), I felt the need to shout, “Hey Wayne, SHUT THE FUCK UP AND PLAY!”  I mean seriously, we’ve been standing in a freezing parking lot for an hour waiting for you to set up your damn hamster ball.  If you want the crowd to be excited, you have to excite us, not yell at us for not cheering loud enough. I’m going to stop there, because it breaks my heart to say these things, but Flaming Lips, hear this, from one of your biggest fans: It’s time to step up your game, and I’m not talking about song length here (believe me, 24 hours is long enough) or gummy encasements for your albums (although I would like to get my hands on one of those skulls).  I’m talking about good old-fashioned concert etiquette.  Also, I hope those balloons are biodegradable.

Next up was Amon Tobin, the Brazilian-born drum ‘n’ bass deviant who was said to be performing his new album, ISAM, inside “an 8x8 cube while 3D images – machines, layers of pulsating light – cascade from side to side, top to bottom,” according to the Moogfest iPhone app.  This was not something we were going to miss, so we dipped out of the Flaming Lips’ show early (something I’ve never done before) and sprinted over to the Asheville Civic Center.

Talk about cutting-edge.  The spellbinding visuals projected onto the giant cubist structure mingled with the futuristic space noise of ISAM in a way that seemed to blur the line between sound and vision itself.  However, part of me just kept wishing that Amon would drop a fucking beat.  Call me old fashioned, but it’s not easy to stand in a huge open dance floor surrounded by amped-up festival-goers for 75 minutes listening to a patchwork of electronic manipulations and field recordings that stop just short of forming into a steady beat.  It’s kind of like being constantly on the edge of an orgasm with no sweet release.  Plus, it was hard to see the visuals with everybody standing up, leading me to conclude that this show could’ve been better appreciated if it took place in one of the seated venues. 

The next two performances made me want to stand up and dance, but unfortunately took place in the Thomas Wolfe auditorium.  However, that did nothing to dull the glow of the artists themselves. First, St. Vincent a.k.a. Annie Clark, a woman so goddamn cool that you can’t help but just stare at her in wonder as she strums away on her electric guitar.  Annie hits the sweet spot between kick-over-the-speakers rock abrasiveness and swoony, swirly, feminine sensitivity so dead-on that it’s like she invented both genres.  I have absolutely nothing negative to say about her. 

I also have nothing negative to say about the act that followed, Battles, a band that would put anyone else who resembled them to shame, if anyone else actually resembled them. An excellent example of what happens when truly talented musicians get experimental without forgetting that music is supposed to make us dance, this quartet turned trio (they lost original member Tyondai Braxton in 2010) seems collectively determined to attain perfection by the most difficult means possible.  I’m referring to the playing-two-keyboards-at-the-same-time-without-looking-at-either-of-them agility of synth-master Ian Williams as well as the hey-my-percussion-sounds-like-a-machine-gun-even-though-I-decided-to-position-my-high-hat-three-feet-above-my-own-head absurdity of human drum machine John Stanier.  These guys redefine awesome, and were a wonderful way to wrap up a Saturday.

Sunday began with a stroll around beautiful Asheville followed by a trip to the YMI Center for the highly anticipated “77 Million Paintings,” a multi-sensory art exhibition created by the honorable godfather of modern ambient music, Brian Eno.  And let me tell you, Eno did not disappoint.  In fact, “77 Million Paintings” emerged as one of the biggest highlights of the entire weekend.  I don’t want to give too much away, but let me just say: multiple screens + ambient music + red velvet couches = one of the most mentally invigorating experiences I’ve had in a long time.  After two hours spent mesmerized in a darkened room, I’d decided I was going to move to Thailand, go back to school, and start writing poetry again.  This, my friends, is some powerful shit.

Lucky for me, my favorite art exhibit ever was followed by my favorite live performance of the weekend—Beats Antique. Any group that can flawlessly fuse experimental electronica with traditional belly dance tunes is a win in my book, and they didn’t even stop there.  The live Afro-Arabian beats! The live belly dancing! The live animal vs. pro wrestler battle finale! Does it get better than this? No, it does not.

Next up: another dose of totally unexpected brilliance.  Who knew Donald Glover, a.k.a. Troy from the meta-fabulous sitcom Community, could rap more ferociously than Kanye, and sing with more soulful soprano R&B charm than Usher (in his glory days)?  Not I, until Sunday night at Moogfest.  Did I mention he was dressed like an elf in a Christmas colored collared t-shirt, khaki short shorts, and a hat with a pom pom?  He was.  And he rocked it.

We had to leave Troy behind prematurely to rush back over to the Asheville Civic Center for the mysterious “Special Disco Version feat. James Murphy and Pat Mahoney.”  And by James Murphy, I do in fact mean the founding member of the all-too-short-lived indie empire known as LCD Soundsystem.  Murphy has also been named one of the coolest people on the planet by more than one magazine, and on Sunday he proved that he doesn’t even need to be a frontman to retain this lofty title.

But let’s be clear: LCD Soundsystem this is not.  As Murphy was quick to remind us the moment he walked onstage, “we’re just going to be playing some records, that’s it.”  And that was it, but damn did they rock!  A welcome break from the experimental bleeps and blips that dominated the weekend, this was a fresh take on disco classics, spun together into a syncopated soup of sound that had the whole room dancing our pants off while aerial artists somersaulted overhead.

Sadly, all good things must end, but we picked a great way to conclude our Moogfest weekend.  Over at The Orange Peel, an Asheville institution in its own right, Portlandian trip-hop up-and-comer Emancipator, a.k.a. Doug Appling, coordinated a live violinist over soothing synth beats that had everyone in the room bobbing and swaying the night to a close, with a lovely cameo from a female vocalist to boot.  Chilled to perfection—a perfect way to slip off into the night, back to our various abodes, and into our beds, where visions of Bob Moog would dance in our heads. 

Moogfest, I’ll see you next year.

Photos by Rachel Mills & Hilary Cadigan

The Australian Pink Floyd Show Comes to the Fox Theatre

Get ready, friends, for the internationally renowned show that promises to be "the biggest and most spectacular Pink Floyd show on the planet!"  Lauded by David Gilmour himself, this 11-piece tribute band is the only one to play for any Pink Floyd member, with live shows that attempt to recreate the look, feel, and sound of Pink Floyd's later world tours.


The Australian Pink Floyd Show comes to The Fabulous Fox Theatre in Atlanta, GA on Saturday, November 12, and yours truly will be there to report on all the action.

If you'd like to be there too, you're in luck!  There are still a few tickets available here.

To learn more about Australian Pink Floyd, check out http://www.aussiefloyd.com/

tUnE-yArDs at The Basement (Atlanta, GA)

Review & Photos by Hilary Cadigan

I was initially surprised that tUnE-yArDs, the blissed-out brainchild of one-woman melody machine Merrill Garbus, would play in a venue as small as The Basement.  Located underneath East Atlanta Village mainstay Graveyard Tavern, the venue is an awesome but small and somewhat hidden place, with little name recognition since it’s so new.  However, my doubts soon proved unwarranted.  In retrospect, I can’t think of a better place than The Basement—with it’s intimate size and understated allure—for what turned out to be one of the most epically wonderful concerts I’ve been to in a long, long time. 

The sold-out show began with opener Pat Jordache, a Canadian quartet whose creator/bassist, Patrick Gregoire, was once a member of Garbus’s original indie-pop outfit, Sister Suvi.  Jordache’s performance was good, particularly in the percussion department, but weakened by mumbly vocals that sounded like when the guy from The Knife sings in that weird atonal way that only works when it’s sporadic and well-placed.  In this case, it was neither sporadic nor well-placed, only mumbly. It distracted from the skillful melodies that almost but not quite obscured it.

However, these shortcomings only highlighted the flawlessness of what came next.

At last, Merrill Garbus mounted the stage, decked out in a snug black dress with pink feathered sleeves and her characteristically asymmetrical face paint/mullet combo and fiddling with an array of microphones, instruments and wires.

The DIY set-up served as one of the many reminders that for Garbus, tUnE-yArDs is and always will be a truly solo project.  Since she began writing and performing as tUnE-yArDs in 2006, she has melded unbridled creativity, brawny self-sufficiency, and undeniable talent into something utterly unique and deliciously refreshing.  Her first album, BiRd-BrAiNs, took two years to create, and was self-released as a pay-what-you-can download on her website.   

This year’s W H O K I L L emerged as the quintessentially perfect follow-up, and made a huge splash amongst critics and enlightened listeners alike.  Despite the fact that Garbus recorded this album in a studio and added bassist Nate Brenner to the mix, the finished product preserved the untamable charm of BiRd-BrAiNs, and brought to the table an even funkier and more refined sound.  It was my personal favorite album of the year, so needless to say, I had very high hopes for this show.  However, I did wonder how the patchwork production of the album would translate into a live setting.

Quite perfectly, as it turns out.

From first note to final gasp, Garbus had the entire tightly-packed room in a state of elated hypnosis.  Accompanied by Brenner on bass and a Blues Brothers-channeling duo that alternated between saxophone and aluminum pan banging, Garbus shone like an imperfect and thereby infinitely more fantastic Princess Odette (the lead ballerina in Swan Lake—thanks Google). Or King Midas, since everything she touched—from her drums to her ukelele to a row of glass beer bottles to the pipes hanging from the ceiling—turned to sonic gold.

Best of all, however, was her voice itself.  Soulful, funky, and unabashedly eccentric, Garbus’ miraculous vocal chords can transition from a tribal howl to an earnest croon to a low pitched growl to a piercing scream in the span of about one second.  Her expertise in live looping allowed her to build layer upon layer of vocals into an altogether stunning castle of sound, which would suddenly fall away to reveal the kind of self-effacing litotes that clench around your heart and jam it into your throat: “What if my own skin makes my skin crawl?”

Garbus’ true genius lies in her unending ability to build a magnificent sense of wholeness by gathering up and retaining the individual charm of a thousand sparkling pieces.  Tied up in everything she does is the kind of magnetic yet humble personality that could hold a room captive even without musical talent.  Barely pausing for breath after the final line of the night’s last song, Merrill announced that she’d had to go to the bathroom “soooo bad” since the beginning of the show.  Then she dropped the microphone, jumped off the stage, and ran through the crowd toward the public restrooms, shouting, “I CALL FIRST DIBS!” 

Darling, you earned it.

Chromeo at Masquerade (Atlanta, GA)

What do you get when you combine a tall and skinny Canadian Jew named Dave 1 with a short and tubby Canadian Arab named P-Thugg?  No, this isn’t one of those jokes about guys who walk into a bar, although it could be.  Rather, it’s the self-described “only successful Arab/Jewish partnership since the dawn of human culture”: Chromeo.

This electro-funk duo is so damn lovable—from their sitcom-esque disparities to their earnest lyrics to their catchy melodies to the palpable sense of enthusiasm they exude on stage—that one simply cannot have a bad time at one of their concerts.  Even if the venue is devoid of air-conditioning on a particularly sticky night in Atlanta, and the people around you smell like they made a group decision that deodorant may cause cancer and should not be worn.   

At Masquerade on Thursday evening, after a bout of similarly endearing and surprisingly great white-boy soul from opener Mayer Hawthorne, it was time to get the party started.  The crowd—a diverse group of everyone from the polo-wearing UGA contingent to the ATL scenesters to the highly enthusiastic 50-something lady who was getting her groove on right next to me (this review is dedicated to you, madam!)—was visibly amped, diving into the “CHRO-ME-O, OHHHH-O” chants the moment the stage crew brought out the light-up leg keyboards. 

Finally, the impressive array of colored lights began to flash, and the duo emerged, dressed in outfits (Dave 1 in tight-fitting skinny jeans and Wayfarers; bearded P-Thugg in an open vest with his Buddha belly proudly spilling out of it) that only intensified their resemblance to non-evil versions of Aunt Spiker and Aunt Sponge.

What followed was an all-out electric funk-fest, with Dave 1 schmoozing it up on guitar and vocals and P-Thugg unabashedly voiceboxing and synthesizing up a storm.  From “Needy Girl” to “Tenderoni” to “Momma’s Boy” to “I’m Not Contagious”, the duo rocketed through a catalogue of greatest hits from their three LPs (2004’s She’s in Control, 2007’s Fancy Footwork, and 2010’s Business Casual) and had the whole crowd dancing throughout.  They paused only to deliver a heartfelt tribute to their friend and peer, the recently deceased DJ Mehdi, with whom they worked on the song “I Am Somebody” a few years back.

The show ended with a shower of silver confetti, which seemed perfectly designed to coat our sweaty bodies in Dalmatian spots of glittering mylar.  A successful evening, indeed.


Review and Photos by Hilary Cadigan

Countdown to Moogfest: An Interview with AC Entertainment's Director of Connectivity, Jeff Cuellar

By Hilary Cadigan

Robert “Bob” Moog, according to Wikipedia, is not only the inventor of the Moog synthesizer but also an American pioneer of electronic music.  But in today’s fast times, where the looming behemoth of electronic music has become such a standby that even the subcultures surrounding it are starting to feel mainstream, one might wonder if anyone is paying attention to how it all began. 

Bob Moog

In an era where few people have any idea how to even pronounce Moog’s name (answer: it rhymes with “vogue”), turning a historic legacy into something that modern music fans can not only acknowledge but also celebrate is not an easy task.  But if there’s anyone that could rise to the challenge, it’s AC Entertainment, the Knoxville, TN-based promotion company in charge of none other than Bonnaroo, one of the biggest and most popular music festivals in the country.

In a phone interview with Jeff Cuellar, AC Entertainment’s Director of Connectivity, I got the full scoop on the company’s newest brainchild: Moogfest, the three-day, eight-venue music and arts festival that he and his team created in response to this challenge.

Moogfest began in 2005 as a small, one-day event in New York City that sought to pay homage to Moog’s original followers.

“It was a great event, but the organizers at Moog Music came to us because they didn’t feel like it was hitting the mark,” Cuellar explained.  “It was more like a flashback than a flash forward, and we wanted to change that.”

According to Cuellar, the rebirth of Moogfest was based on one simple question: “How can we take the vision of Bob Moog and make it into something people can experience right now?”

For Cuellar and the AC Entertainment team, that meant showcasing the industry’s current innovators, artists whose work embodies Bob Moog’s legacy every day.

“I’m talking about genre-bending music, a sound-splicing way of pushing the boundaries, artists who are testing the limits, coming up with new sounds people haven’t heard before, challenging what music can do, mixing art with soundscape and creating a great live show overall,” he said. “At AC Entertainment, we’re connoisseurs playing off our palates.  When it comes to selecting musicians, at this point, it’s just something you know. Flaming Lips? That’s Moogfest. We’re keeping our finger on the pulse, knowing what’s new out there while also letting our fans know about older stuff, like Tangerine Dream and Suicide, bands that put a stake in the ground to allow for newer bands like Neon Indian and Washed Out. It’s not genre specific—we’ve got everything—it’s about the sound.”

And so, the new and improved Moogfest was born, complete with a newfound location—Asheville, NC—the place Bob Moog called home for the last 30 years of his life. 

“Asheville is a unique place,” Cuellar said, “Perhaps it’s the mountains, perhaps its the people, perhaps it’s just the great food, but it all adds up to one of the most halcyon settings known to man, and ties together a beautiful package for a perfect weekend. In Asheville you can fully engulf yourself into the city itself—Downtown is walkable and unbelievably hip, the people love live music—we’ve got something amazing to be tapped into and a culture that supports it. It’s truly the perfect setting for an event like this, and the hometown response has been incredible.”

Asheville will also provide the site for the East Coast debut of Brian Eno’s newest labor of love: 77 Million Paintings, which Moogfest’s website describes as “an evolving sound and image collection born from his continuous exploration with light and the aesthetic possibilities of generative software.” According to Cuellar, the exhibit “utilizes several flatscreen televisions and culminates in an endless kailodscope of imagery that is both thought-provoking and inspiring. It’s not something you glance at and walk away.  It makes you want to sit down and debate the perils of life.” 

77 Million Paintings has only been shown in California so far, but Cuellar says that Asheville’s YMI Center, where it will be displayed throughout Moogfest weekend and up until November 30^th, has such cultural relevance, that it “adds a mind-blowing mix of new and old that has been inspiring even for Brian Eno and his team.”

Ultimately, that mind-blowing mix of new and old seems to be the backbone for Moogfest as a whole.  With emphasis on the mind-blowing. So join me in Asheville on Friday, October 28^th, and, as Cuellar says, “get ready for a trip to the fourth dimension!”

For tickets and additional information, visit http://moogfest.com/.

Music Midtown Returns to the A!

This weekend, Atlanta's Piedmont Park will once again provide a site for one of Atlanta's best-loved--and most missed--events of the year: Music Midtown!

Join me on Saturday, September 24, 2011 for short but sweet line-up that spans 2 stages and includes big-name acts like Coldplay and The Black Keys alongside local favorites like The Constellations.

Tickets are on sale now for $55.  Click the link below for more information and stay tuned for a full review!

http://musicmidtown.com/

Manu Chao at Masquerade Music Park (Atlanta, GA)

By Rob Royall

Manu Chao, on his La Ventura tour, made his Atlanta debut on a perfect night at Masquerade Music Park last weekend. The French-born, Barcelona-dwelling musician has been lighting up crowds with his latin-reggae-ska-punk amalgamation in Europe and South America since the 1980s with bands Mano Negra and Radio Bemba Sound System. Only in the last decade has he begun to achieve recognition in the U.S., highlighted by appearances at festivals like Coachella and Bonnaroo. Word has gotten out that he puts on one of the best live shows around, and on this night, the crowd appeared well-informed.

With a setting sun on the city's skyline as the backdrop, The Masquerade's back yard music park made the perfect venue for the night's performances. The crowd of a few thousand was treated to an upbeat opening set of roots reggae from local outfit The Rocksteady 5. It was a good primer for what was to come.

It should be noted to those who know Chao's studio albums -- but have never seen him live -- that these are two vastly different experiences. His albums may inspire you to go relax by the pool, while his concerts may inspire you to start a revolution. While Chao's multilingual lyrics are full of left-wing politics, it's more the emotion of the performance that gets people moving. The band came out and immediately got the crowd hand-clapping to a groovy reggae number. The feel-good mood quickly turned to feel-great when they abruptly transitioned into speedy ska punk, replete with fist pumping, chanting, and call and response. This slow-fast-slow-fast formula became the norm for the entire show, as the band never settled for long into any style. Over and over the crowd was wooed by soothing, acoustic guitar-driven world music, then worked right back into a fervor by the pounding rhythm section and racing guitars.

Radio Bemba Sound System has been known to include as many as 12 members on stage, including horns, keyboards, and accordion. But, backed by a stripped-down group of only bass, drums, and lead guitar, Chao was more than able to flex some muscle and make the show feel bigger than it was. This was aided by great stage presence, with all band members singing/chanting along, and the awesome guitar work and oft-cartoonish showmanship of sideman Madjid Fahem. Chao himself showed no signs of being 50 years old, while jumping around stage shirtless for most of the night and frequently beating the mic on his chest.

The crowd was appreciative and enthusiastic throughout and were responsible for one of the show's true highlights. During one particularly energetic song, a handful of fans made it up onto the stage and began hopping around and hyping up the band. Predictably, security made an effort to remove these guys from the stage until Chao motioned to them that it was OK. This led to upwards of 30 other people deciding they should join, and the band only played louder and faster, enthused by the onrush and the encouraging cheers of the rest of the audience. This lasted approximately 10 minutes and was a great show of kinship between a band, its loving fans, and a cooler than expected security crew.

Shortly after, the band left the stage, but they quickly returned for a long encore that left the audience more than satisfied. The group may have a tendency to repeat its best elements too often throughout the show, and would benefit from the more varied sounds other instruments offer, but nonetheless give an unforgettable performance. It is clear that Manu Chao and his band love what they do, creating an infectious quality that helps make this and any of his tours a can't miss. 

A Tribute to Amy Winehouse

By Patrick May

Where does one start when talking about Amy Winehouse? It makes
sense to start off addressing the tragedy that was her life, the international
fame and relationship problems that led her down a dangerous and
ultimately fatal path. Amy wasn’t made to be a star, she was made to love
and to be a musician. It’s important to first acknowledge her troubles, if
only to get them out of the way. They have nothing to do with Amy and her
musical legacy.

As a lover of soul music, I am often unimpressed by the majority
of throwback soul records that come out every year, attempting to
recapture “real” music but coming off as cheap imitations. I’m talking to
you Joss Stone, Duffy and even you, Adele. None of these women even
remotely touches the level of genius that Amy possessed. On her first
album, Frank, she showed us she could sing and write a kick ass song, on
Back to Black, her second and last, she showed us that she was a musical
movement.

Back to Black was not just some British girl pretending to have soul;
it was a revolutionary reworking of old school Motown arrangements
from the 60s, with the hip hop swagger of the 90s, sung in the style that
Dinah Washington and Sara Vaughan made popular in the 50s. All of this
coupled with Amy’s blunt, humorous, painful and eye opening observations
about real life made for a perfect storm of a record, an instant classic.
When she sang, she often looked off into the distance, seemingly unaware
that the best voice of our generation was coming from her. She created
magic simply by opening her mouth and her seemingly oblivious stage
behavior made her seem like a musical inevitability, something that had to
happen. It didn’t have to, but we’re so lucky it did.

Amy Winehouse sang her brilliantly poignant lyrics with the same
nonchalance, taking her musical statement to a new level. They
transmitted the feelings of a woman who was suffering breakups and
crushes and frustration in a way few can do. Each word was given intense
weight, and the jazzy way she strung them together made the listener
double-take: “wait, did she really just say ‘kept his dick wet?’” She did.
And it sounded amazing. And above all, it was truth! Some men are
unfaithful, most keep their dicks wet, some men look at you adoringly
while others “lick [their] lips as [you] soak your feet.” Her way of discussing
relationships—and sex—was so human that it hurt sometimes. When
she sings “I stay up / clean the house / at least I’m not drinking / run
around just so I don’t have to think about thinking,” the picture is clear and
identifiable: we’ve all been there.

That was Amy’s legacy; using the music of the past and the language of
now to create music that makes our modern day troubles seem timeless
and just as important as Aretha’s or Etta’s. Amy was self aware and
vulnerable, but brutishly so. Anyone who listens to her music can tell that
she was a sensitive person who felt deeply and lost herself to everything
she did, whether it was writing autobiographical lyrics, falling for Blake
or ingesting entire pharmacies worth of drugs. On her first album she
sings, “I’ll take the wrong man as naturally as I sing,” a lyric she surely
had no doubt would go on to define her life and her career. Maybe no
one can really sing like that unless they feel as much as she was feeling.
Amy communicated her darkness through her golden, glowing voice and
created fireworks on records and disaster in the streets of Camden. She let
everything in, and in the end, all of it took her out.

Rest in peace, Amy.

Glitch Mob at Masquerade 7/15/11

By Hilary Cadigan

FLASHING FLASHING LIGHTS LIGHTS BASS BASS BASS.

If you asked me for a seven word review of The Glitch Mob’s show at Masquerade in Atlanta this past weekend, that would be it.  Unfortunately, my actual word count requirement is a bit higher than that, so I will try to dig through the layers of glowing, pulsating bliss to eke out a slightly more comprehensive account of Friday’s extravaganza. Here goes.

With their seemingly effortless ability to hit a genre-defying sweet spot between hard-hitting hip-hop basslines and cinematic electronic noise, Glitch Mob has created their own brand of raucous dance music with a metallic edge, a more sophisticated precedent for the ubiquitous Dubstep scene that reigns today.

Since 2006, this Californian trio (formerly a quartet—founding member “Kraddy” left the Mob behind in 2009 due to “creative differences”) has been burning up dance floors and blowing minds at clubs, music festivals, and underground raves across the globe.

On stage at Masquerade, after a mysterious last-minute venue changeover from King Plow Arts Center in Westside, the evening began with two perfectly selected openers to get the crowd warmed up in doses.  First came chillwave wunderkind Com Truise, who we unfortunately just missed.  We arrived just as New York-based trip-hop duo Phantogram took the stage, masterfully melding the woozy, haunting vocals of keyboardist Sara Barthel with scratchy-smooth melodies and mesmeric beats.  My only complaint about this performance was for the sound guy—the vocals were often drowned out by the music, which was a shame given how excellent they were.

Then, it was Glitch Mob time. Against a pulsing backdrop of multi-colored LED squares, the three DJs, “edIT”, “Boreta” and “Ooah”, collaborated behind three individual turntables bedecked with their trademark LED light squiggles.  And, from there on out, it was a non-stop dance party.

Glitch Mob had the crowd simultaneously entranced and unable to stand still as the unstoppable trio churned out a seamless sequence of back-to-back gems, from the industrialized groove of “Animus Vox” to the orchestral bleeps and blips of “Fortune Days” to the grand whir and boom of “Drive It Like You Stole It”. The set list, comprised almost entirely of original material, included the majority of their latest album, this year’s excellent Drink the Sea.  And when the Mob did venture outside of their own catalogue, the results were nothing short of spectacular—an explosive rendition of “Seven Nation Army” had the whole crowd screaming and stomping along.

All in all, a seriously great evening. I only wish it could’ve lasted longer.

Album Review: Sondre Lerche - Sondre Lerche

Self-titling a record that isn’t one’s first is always a risky move. An eponymous album inevitably implies some kind of definitive statement right off the bat, so if the content doesn’t stack up, the artist may end up seeming uninspired or even—for lack of a better word (or, as the case may be, lack of a better title)—lazy. As such, while Norwegian-born singer/songwriter/all-around cutie pie Sondre Lerche’s seventh LP, Sondre Lerche, is by no means a bad record, it fails to live up to its self-inflicted expectations. It also suffers the misfortune of being released within weeks of one of the most impressive self-titled non-debuts in recent memory, Bon Iver’s Bon Iver, but that is neither here nor there.

Expectations and comparisons aside, Lerche’s newest album does provide listeners with a solid 40 minutes of lovely melodies. Opening track “Ricochet” begins with meek and wistful vocals layered sweetly over muted guitar chords. “Shimmering underneath the sea/sentimental echoes spike my memory/hard to make believe nothing means anything to me,” croons Lerche in a melancholy falsetto, before the track builds to an orchestral crescendo rife with spiraling strings and wordless vocal harmonies. Then it’s off to Rome—a.k.a. “Coliseum Town”—where Lerche slips dreamily into the well-worn role of Tourist Using Travel As A Metaphor For His Own Provincial Limitations: “I go stumbling cobbled streets/with the map you drew on me/and I can’t decide/did you leave or ever arrive?”

Ultimately, Lerche retains his flair for quality song making, but hasn’t quite managed to reignite the youthful idiosyncrasies of his earlier albums. While still the lovable, bright-eyed émigré he’s always been, Lerche isn’t 19 anymore, and at times it feels like the endearingly self-deprecating charisma that oozed from his earlier albums has been replaced by a rather blasé outlook on the American adulthood he seems to have settled into. But perhaps that’s just because the whole album was recorded over three weeks in Brooklyn, and thereby reflects just that one particular intersection of time, place, and mood. As Lerche reminds us in “Coliseum Town”, “I try to make another love song rhyme/but it’s harder than it seems/to describe what I just dreamed.”

Clearly, Lerche has not lost his power of introspection, nor has he given up his love for sonic exploration—it’s all just been a bit smoothed over. “Tied Up to the Tide” experiments with breathy, echo-y, M. Ward-style vocals alongside a plodding beat and delightfully unexpected accordion accents. Then “Domino” submerges us into a warm bath of chiming acoustics and soothing percussion alongside a chorus with tones reminiscent of a Wayne Coyne soprano.

To keep listeners from drowning in the not unpleasant but slightly bland soup of sweetly wistful ambivalence that seems to constitute the majority of the album, we can call upon a trio of buoyant pop songs scattered throughout the effort. These upbeat tracks are the record’s true gems, from the radio-ready repetitions of “Private Caller” to the poly-rhythmic sparkle of “Go Right Ahead” to the grand finale “When the River”, which twists Lerche’s pretty falsetto around an unexpectedly funky beat before blossoming into a harmonious choral chant that evokes the kind of hard-won joy depicted at the end of movies, where people with tear-stained but smiling faces sway back and forth with their arms around each other. Ah, redemption. Or at least a pretty way to tie things up.

Roll credits.

Album Review: YACHT – Shangri-La

Ever since I watched the weeklong special on The History Channel about how the world is scheduled to end in 2012, part of me has been living my life with that expiration date in mind. Hundreds of dead birds falling from the sky… Thousands of fish washing up on the shore… Sarah Palin… All signs point to looming apocalypse. As a result, my pseudo-subconscious attitude for the past year or so has been something like, “Well, the universe may implode soon, so I’m gonna go to another music festival now, and worry about finding a real job after December 2012.” In other words, “the earth, the earth, the earth is on fire/we don’t have no daughter/let the motherfucker burn.” At least that’s how indie-electro art-rockers Jona Bechtolt and Claire Evans of YACHT put it in “Dystopia (The Earth is on Fire)”, the compulsively danceable single off their newest LP, Shangri-La.

“Dystopia (The Earth is on Fire)” is our post-apocalyptic fight song, a cautionary tale, a science-fiction story for our particular eco-socio-political landscape,” explains the band’s website. “But as tempting as it is to give into a horror of our crumbling, radiation-leaking, bomb-launching reality, where the tracks lead is ultimately up to us.”

With Shangri-La, YACHT takes us away from this crumbling, radiation-leaking, bomb-launching reality on a fuck-all magical mystery tour of chimerical musical landscapes laden with beguiling beats and sparkling synthesizers that leave us dancing in the face of doom.

“If there was a hell/that’s where I belong/for breaking all the rules/and singing all these songs,” chirps Evans in “Paradise Engineering”, a tambourine-filled call to come together and create a bliss so large that it dissolves all the world’s negativity. “And if you want me to be your god then I will be your god!”

Yes, please.

There’s a certain magic in being able to shake your booty to music with heavy themes, and YACHT nails that duality perfectly here, whether they’re discussing God, love, or the space-time continuum. Opening with some rather ominous religious intonations buoyed by echoing snaps and stark synth spikes, “Holy Roller” explodes into a grooving odyssey of big brass crescendos, electronic bass wobbles, and a catchy hook assuring us not to “worry about God up above/we’re gonna live life in love!”

And don’t worry about getting bored either, because love is no tired platitude in YACHTopia. “I love you like a small-town cop/Yeah, I want to smash your face in with a block,” the duo croons on the slow-burning “Love in the Dark”, before heading to the cosmos, where frenetic beats, low-pitched, stuttering vocals, and literary allusions aplenty make for a pretty sublime combo in “Beam Me Up”.

Overall, Shangri-La prevails as a light-hearted if not slightly heavy-handed piece of social commentary, addressing the woes of organized religion, global warming, and the daily grind without ever surrendering to self-pity. In fact, the record begins and ends in paradise, but the bright and bubbly “Utopia” for which the opening track is named (where we’re told that “there’s nothing in the future/it’s up to us to make”) is a very different place than the concluding title track. “Shangri-La” feels like the ultimate exit music, the bright and bubbly notions of “Utopia” now fleshed out with a gratified sense of enlightenment, a more clearly delineated sense of the same kind of secular contentment that Belinda Carlisle sang about in 1987. “If I can’t go to heaven let me go to L.A.,” trills Evans over a bouncy piano-laden melody as sweet and bright as a lollipop in the sun. “If we build a Utopia, will you come and stay?/Shangri-la-lala-la-la-lala-la-la.”

Can I get a hell yeah? When the world ends, I’ll be joining Bechtolt and Evans. We’ll build a new world, where bliss reigns and people sing instead of talking and dance instead of walking. You can come, too, if you want.

Hangout Music Festival 2011

What’s better than a music festival on the beach? Not much. And what happens when said music festival features a line-up that is literally perfect? It’s sort of like watching your own head explode, yet feeling no pain.

Hangout Music Fest 2011 was a force to be reckoned with. The weather was ideal, the festival grounds were beautiful, and the consistently awesome performances were some of the best I’ve seen, ever.

The sandy terrain sculpted our calves and kept our minds free from worries of strange diseases contracted from the swamp-like mix of unidentified substances that typically coats the ground of music festivals.  Note: you should, however, bring a pair of flip-flops to the festival grounds; about 50% of the total area is comprised of hot black asphalt. And don’t expect to quickly hop from stageside to ocean deep—while the fest does allow unlimited reentry for every patron, it took awhile to trek out the front entrance and all the way around, since the ocean alongside the festival grounds was  unfortunately but understandably blocked off.  Cops on dune buggies hung out between the ocean and the fence, a barrier that made for some exciting people watching scenarios, including several strung-out individuals attempting—and in a few cases, succeeding—to dive over the rickety wooden fence and toward to the beckoning waves before getting tackled by an army of blue-suited officers.

Last year, a mere 15,000 flocked to the Gulf Shores beachside to jam out to Trey Anastasio, John Legend, and The Roots, among others. This year, tickets sold out entirely, a rare feat for a festival in its second year of existence, capping attendance at 35,000.

The 35,000 cap was definitely a necessary measure, and at times I wondered if maybe they should’ve cut sales even sooner.  While the two main beachside stages were great, the aptly titled Boom Boom Room tent was a bonafide clusterfuck.  Because the sides of the tent were blocked off, the back was the only way to get in or out, thereby creating the dreaded bottleneck effect worsened by the fact that everyone was sweaty.  As such, despite all the hugely popular electro-acts like Bassnectar, Pretty Lights, and Girl Talk performing in this tent, after a dicey first experience trying to get in, I went ahead and avoided the Boom Boom Room altogether, thereby missing a significant number of shows at which I’d planned on shaking my booty quite a bit.

The fact that I enjoyed myself so immensely despite these losses is a testament to the greatness of the rest of the lineup, and to Hangout as a whole.  While the festival’s fledgling status was clear, particularly in the face of crowds more than twice the size of the previous year, its organizers’ attention to detail and overall dedication to Hangout greatness outshined its missteps by a landslide, catapulting it into the festival big leagues with ease.  Yes, the Porta-Potty placement could’ve been better (wading through a crowd of amped-up festival-goers to reach a fleet of toilets located behind the main stage is not ideal for those in dire need of bladder relief), but there were fireworks every night, VIP-style accommodations for all (hammock and palm tree oasis, anyone?), and the freaking ocean at our feet, so you know what?  I was willing to hold it. 

Hangout’s success was made particularly clear by the reactions of the artists themselves, who repeatedly took time out of their all too short sets to note the general awesomeness of a music festival on the beach.  David Grohl himself said this was the most fun he’d had performing in 20 years—and that’s a serious statement. 

Another serious statement: Hangout Music Festival brought me what I can safely dub the most epic festival moment I’ve ever witnessed, or, if I may, The Greatest Festival Fook-Up of All Time.  Bear with me. 

So, we all know that in the world of music festivals, timing is everything.  In order to keep such an intricately arranged event running smoothly, it’s crucial that artists arrive on time, deliver a condensed version of their typical set list, and exit the stage at the end of designated block. Festivals are as much if not more about the overall experience than any individual performance. As such, any dedicated festival-goer will expect the artists to adhere to what I will call festival etiquette, and will likely react in a negative fashion if said etiquette is violated (see: Kanye West, Bonnaroo 2008).  Which brings me to my point.  On Saturday at 3:00 p.m., one Cee Lo Green was scheduled to perform at the Hangout Stage.  A large crowd eagerly assembled, but one thing was missing: Cee Lo.  As the minutes ticked past, I began to fear the worst.  At 3:15 there was still no sign of Mr. Green, and the crowd let out a communal groan as a festival organizer took the stage.  As the guy made his way to the mic and began a feeble, mumbly attempt to connect with the pissed off crowd, I thought to myself, “there is no way this poor dude is going to leave this stage without taking at least one Miller Lite can to the face.” 

I was wrong.  Suddenly the guy smiled. “Well, it seems like Cee Lo Green couldn’t make it here” [cue the boos], “but we say, Cee Lo, forget you—we got the Foo Fighters!” Whhhhhhhhat?  Enter David Grohl himself, exploding onto the stage like a bat out of heaven with a fist-pumping rendition of Alice Cooper’s “Schools Out” that had the confused but elated crowd eating from the palm of his hand in a matter of seconds.  Grohl tore through a masterful selection of covers, including Queen’s “Tie Your Mother Down” and Tom Petty’s “Breakdown,” then paused. “We actually really like Cee Lo Green, and if he were here, I’d hope that he’d sing with us,” shouted Grohl, before launching into a spine-tingling rendition of “Darling Nikki.”  Then suddenly, out of nowhere, Cee Lo himself appeared at the mic, clad in a velour tracksuit and diving right into his own down and dirty version of Prince’s ode to sadomasochism.  As he stripped down to a white tank top and grinded with the mic stand like it was Nikki herself, it was clear that he’d earned full redemption from the ecstatic crowd.  Then after a brief break, he re-emerged with the cherry on top of the sundae—a short but spot-on set of hits, including “Fuck You” and a rendition of “Crazy” (from his Gnarls Barkley days) that had everybody dancing madly.

For some mysterious and undoubtedly stupid reason, photos of the unplanned Foo Fighters show were strictly prohibited from being published, but you can see a fan video here.

Other highs of the weekend: a gorgeous set from My Morning Jacket, which included songs from their brand new album, Circuital; a magical, multi-sensory sing-along with the Flaming Lips; a rousing hour of pitch perfect blues-rock from The Black Keys; and a delightfully energetic Ween show (Gene Ween, pointing to the ocean: “Hey, everybody look, a boat!” [Everybody turns to look at said boat.] Gene Ween: “FUCK YOU, BOAT. DON'T LISTEN.”). As one of my fellow festival-goers exclaimed, “There is something really epic about watching your favorite band move the waves of the ocean while feeling the sand between your toes as you dance.”

And what better way to finish off a perfect weekend of music than a performance from one of the most lovable music icons of all time: Paul Simon.  Paul wrapped all 35,000 of us in a cocoon of sheer joy as he paraded his way through two hours of back-to-back gold, including cuts from his wonderful new album, So Beautiful, So What, and a generous portion of Graceland gems.  To ease the pain of Paul’s departure and conclude what may very well have been the best weekend of my life, the sky exploded into an epic fireworks show.  As the smoke cleared, all I really wanted to do was lie down on the soft white sand and bask in the beauty of it all, but sadly, the patrol cars were coming to clear us all away.  Gulf Shores, Alabama—I’ll seeya next year!

An Interview with Singer/Songwriter/Bank Robber Nico Walker of Safari

NOTE: Just days before this article was set to publish in Consequence of Sound, Nico Walker (the guy I interviewed) was arrested for armed bank robbery (yes, seriously). So it got taken down there. But you can read it here!

In Swahili, the word safari means “long journey”—a good name for a band of Cleveland-based indie garage-rockers who’ve had more member changes than albums, even though they’re one of at least five other groups with the same moniker—including a Chilean hip-hop ensemble, a band of Japanese instrumentalists, and a synth-beat five-piece from London.  “As far as the future of the name, I've given thought about changing it, or augmenting it because of all the different Safaris out there,” says Nico Walker, Safari’s singer, songwriter, and sole permanent member. “I've been considering Sexual Safari. Every now and then I come close to changing it to that... or spelling it using the phonetic alphabet. The name will be different by the time we play our next show, or when we put our new record out.  I just haven't settled on how it will be different.”  

Walker cites Graham Coxon, Mick Jones, and Lou Reed as his biggest influences, and specific facets of each can be heard on Safari’s October 2010 LP, Maybe Tomorrow. This jangly little album features the kind of upbeat alt-rock that would fit nicely into the Empire Records soundtrack, along with one track, the melancholy “Murray Swill,” that could pass for a Lou Reed B-side.  Most importantly, says Walker, “all the songs are about something, so it's not bullshit.”

The critical response was varied. “A guy in London said that one could find our brand of clichéd spew in any East London toilet,” Walker laughs. “But we've mostly gotten good reactions from people at our shows and from other bands. Some even came up and said that we had the goods, which was nice – even if we don't have the goods.”

Clearly, positive feedback has not turned Walker into a diva, nor a PR-monger. Having dealt with pushy, uptight bandmates in the past, he’s pleased with the way things are now, citing that none of Safari’s current members “have any gift for promotion, and that’s a good thing.” His most recent roster includes Marco Nerone (drums), Alex Lackey (guitar), and Doug Roj (bass). Roj is already in the process of being replaced, since he had to move to New York City for school, but Walker isn’t worried. “This incarnation of Safari is the best yet,” he says. “Hopefully, it stays intact for a long time.”

Safari’s next album is expected to drop in June, and the plan is to support it with a local tour, starting in Cleveland and surrounding areas. What to expect? You’ll have to wait and see. “Our sound develops organically,” Walker says. “Lately, I've come in and started playing something and then Marco and Alex drop in and we really focus on working up some interesting textures, juxtaposing rhythms, and getting full clean tones or rounder fuzz sounds.”  Anything else?  “We play loud.”

Ultimately, Walker says, “I'm not in a band to get laid or do drugs. You don't have to be in a band to do either of those things.  I'm in a band because I write songs that I put everything into. My life is fucked like so many other people's lives are, and music helps that. The older you get the more you see that everybody's spinning plates, just hanging on by a thread, and at any moment everything can fall apart and your house is gone and you have no money and people say you're a loser. But a song somebody can really feel is consistent. No matter how fucked things get, you're guaranteed to feel something when you hear it, and that sort of thing can keep people from losing it altogether.”

Album Review: The Sea & Cake - The Moonlight Butterfly

The Sea and Cake’s newest mini-album (six songs puts it somewhere between EP and LP), The Moonlight Butterfly, opens with a warm deluge of ringing sound, a beat that slides in softly, murmured vocals reminiscent of the quieter moments had by Kevin Drew of Broken Social Scene.  But what makes opening track “Covers” so tranquil is the same kind of soothing monotony that ends up turning me off from the album as a whole . Yes, this is a collection of cerebral songs for the quiet life, the zen garden moments—a leaf changing colors, rippling pond water, a butterfly… in the moonlight—but there isn’t enough heart to sustain them, and they end up making me feel more like I’m mindlessly riding in an elevator or sitting in a waiting room at the dentist’s office than contemplating life’s big questions.

Coasting along for nearly 20 years, The Sea and Cake has earned a fair share of indie cred for their seemingly effortless ability to master the serene art of flow, crafting their albums so that each track slides seamlessly into the next. However, Butterfly leads me to wonder if maybe these Chicago-based post-rockers haven’t taken it a step too far, sacrificed charisma and spirit for the sake of their almighty flow. Gone is the unique flavor that kept the band’s earlier music from falling flat. Gone are the unexpected moments of strangeness—bursts of steel drums, crunchy textures, odd little moany background vocals—the kinds of blips and lumps that kept their sound fresh and alive. Now the sound feels smoothed over, almost glib, like the band learned how to make a new kind of cake with half the calories, and moved to Florida, where the sea has no waves. 

There are a few distinctive elements—a bubbly beachy vibe in “Up on the North Shore”, some scratchy guitar slides on “Monday”—and plenty of quiet beauty to go around, but ultimately, there’s simply not enough to cling to, not enough to feel. Nothing breaks through the cool gloss of overproduction and the vocals feel all but sedated. It’s not bad music, but it’s boring. Each song ends up sounding like a slightly different version of the song that preceded it, and all we have to interrupt the endless smoothness is the strange (but not strange enough) title track, “The Moonlight Butterfly”, an electronic interlude rife with sparkly staccato and mounting synths that build and build and build… to nothing.

This album takes me past relaxation, past tranquility, into a place that leaves me numb.  I really do want to appreciate the intricacies of vocalist and lead guitarist Sam Prekop’s instrumental layering and laudable experimentation with analog synthesizers, but they sound stifled under their own weight, cancelled out, pureed into soup, like the individual pieces are never nurtured enough to thrive or isolated enough to shine.

In a 2001 Pitchfork interview with Prekop, writer Brian Roberts describes the artist as “content with himself, his art, and his world,” allowing him to create music that is “the very soul of contented beauty.”  But that was ten years ago; now the contentment feels stale and I find it hard to believe that nothing within the past decade has broken through Prekop’s beautifully contented soul enough to bring some real passion into his voice.   If anything, it seems like the contentedness has faded into lethargy. The more I listen to this album, the more I want to grab the man, shake him and scream, “The world is on fire! GIVE ME SOMETHING I CAN FEEL!” 

By Hilary Cadigan

Originally published in Consequence of Sound