The Cave Singers at The Earl (Atlanta - 6/5/12)

Seattle-based folk-rockers The Cave Singers are a band born from the ashes of others.  Founded in 2007 by former Pretty Girls Make Graves bassist-turned-guitarist Derek Fudesco, vocalist Pete Quirk of Hint Hint, and drummer Marty Lund of Cobra High, The Cave Singers have cobbled together a distinctive sound that is very much their own.

It is a sound both balmy and bleak, delightfully twangy and occasionally raucous yet quietly melancholy at the same time, all blended together with a shrewd maturity that could easily confound them for an act far older than five years. It’s the kind of music that’s perfect for a melancholy Sunday—just lively enough to brighten your mood, just weary enough to appeal to your hangover.

Recording their first album, Invitation Songs, mere months after the breakup of Pretty Girls Make Graves, The Cave Singers have been on a steady track ever since, following up with two more excellent records—2008’s warm and breezy Welcome Joy and 2011’s rather darker No Witch—both of which have become personal favorites of mine. The band has passed through Atlanta several times since then, most notably as openers for  fellow Seattlites Fleet Foxes, but somehow I kept missing them. In fact, it was not until this past Tuesday evening at The Earl in East Atlanta that I was finally able to experience The Cave Singers live.

The show began with two very different but not particularly memorable opening acts: the mellow country blues of Shane Tutmarc and the spastic garage punk of Dan Sartain.  Finally, after a bit of hemming and hawing, The Cave Singers took the stage.

The night’s lineup included the three founding members plus Fleet Foxes bassist and flutist Morgan Henderson, who rounded out the quartet quite nicely with his rich, multi-instrumental sounds. However, it was vocalist Pete Quirk, looking like the long-lost towheaded cousin of the Luigi Brothers with his small stature and baseball cap, who really set the tone for the night.   Quirk’s lovably awkward between-song banter and spasmodic little dances endeared him to the audience and provided an interesting contrast with the rawness of his vocals, along with a whole slew of instruments he’d pick up, play, and throw aside—guitar (electric and acoustic), tambourine, harmonica, melodica, maracas.

Drummer Marty Lund provided the steady heartbeat behind Quirk’s warm warbling while guitarist Derek Fudesco was nothing but a mask of shaggy brown hair and sound, completely immersed in his music with no audience interaction whatsoever. The music, however, was great, from the clambering stomp and swagger of “Black Leaf” to the wistful amble and creak of “Swim Club” to a sun-dappled rendition of “Beach House” that made you want to pick it up and wrap it around you like a warm blanket. 

Ultimately, the performance was an apt re-creation of their recorded work, but didn’t really bring anything new to the table, aside from a few unfamiliar songs that hopefully indicate a new album in the works.  The Cave Singers turned out not to be a band that really jams out live, which was a bit frustrating as they seemed like they could be capable of doing so.  As such, while they played a fair number of songs, the entire performance, encore included, lasted only a little over an hour.  Perhaps they forgot that this time they were, in fact, the headliners we all came to see.

Hangout Music Festival 2012

Review by Hilary Cadigan & Rob Royall
Photos by Rachel Mills of bassismyboyfriend.com

As of 2012, Hangout Music Festival of Gulf Shores, Alabama, has officially solidified its role as a major player in the ever-expanding summer festival scene. And that’s saying a lot, considering the fact that this is only Hangout’s third year of existence.  But really, what’s better than a music festival on the beach?  The general public seemed to agree.  Hangout sold out within weeks of unveiling its lineup, capping attendance at 35,000 and promising a weekend of sand, sun, and sweet sweet music. 

Last year, the Hangout lineup was one of the greatest I’ve seen, with Paul Simon and the Foo Fighters headlining, alongside personal favorites My Morning Jacket and The Black Keys.  This year, the bill exhibited a slight downgrade (who the fuck invited Dave Matthews?) but the overall festival experience improved, showing that the organizers took note of the few flaws of last year’s set-up, and fixed them.  Most notable was the shifting of the EDM tent from a small and anxiety-inducing corner of asphalt to a much more spacious patch of grass across the street, and the gracious proliferation of port-a-potties. In fact, the improvements showed what a strong team Hangout has in place, which may be due in part to the fact that the festival founder seems to own pretty much every establishment in Gulf Shores, including The Hangout, the beachside bar and restaurant for which the festival was named.

Because of how much of a workout it is to slog through sand, the lighter lineup actually felt like a good thing once we were there.  To be honest, I think we still would’ve had a great time if the line-up was back-to-back jam bands.  When you’re lounging on the beach under cloudless skies, pretty much anything with a mellow groove will do just fine, and often the best method is just to camp out in one place and let the good vibrations wash over you.

Day 1:

Alabama Shakes

Upon entering the sunny festival grounds early Friday afternoon, we found a cozy spot to settle in at the Chevrolet Stage just in time to witness a truly feel-good performance from local up-and-comers The Alabama Shakes.  Led by gravelly-voiced anti-diva Brittany Howard, the Shakes crooned their way through a variety of scruffy Southern rockin’ soul ballads off their month old debut, Boys and Girls.  Each song had the sound and feel of an instant classic; especially their heartfelt hit “Hold On,” which had the whole crowd singing along. 

M. Ward

Next, we considered wandering around to explore but the draw of the fluffy white sand and a rare patch of shade proved too strong, so instead we pitched our blanket and proceeded to get sloshed on frozen margarita bags. We had no regrets as M. Ward took the stage and provided the perfect soundtrack for our mellowed-out afternoon at the beach. Drawing mostly from his last three albums, 2006’s Post War, 2009’s Hold Time and this year’s Wasteland Companion, Ward and his 5-piece band blended electric and acoustic guitars and keys into a soothing cocktail of sound that far surpassed the syrupy taste of the margarita bags (did you know those things are made with wine?).  Despite his tendency to collaborate with everyone from Zooey Deschanel to Jim James to Lucinda Williams, Ward’s solo performance proved that his own soft-spoken vocals can hold down a stage just fine.

Wilco

It's incredible to think about how long it's been since Wilco reached the apex of their critical praise with 2002's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Way back then, they were lauded for shedding their alt-country label and showing they had many other tricks up their sleeves. The ensuing four albums have been nothing short of solid, but none until last year's The Whole Love have displayed something close to YHT's sense of musical exploration and song craft. As fans that perhaps haven't paid as much attention to Wilco in recent years, we were surprised and delighted by how much these guys still rock. As the sun was setting behind the condos of Gulf Shores, Wilco seemed to say, "we're still here", with a set heavy on old favorites and the best of their newer material. Jeff Tweedy and the gang seamlessly mixed songs that span a 17-year career, usually landing somewhere between easygoing pop and snarling experimental rock. It all amounted to a great summertime vibe that couldn't be dampened by the snottiest of music critics.

Jack White

Friday concluded with a blistering rock show by the one and only Jack White, now finally touring solo on the heels of his latest masterpiece, Blunderbuss.  And by solo I of course mean with two full bands in tow.  White decided to keep us on our toes by switching from an all-male ensemble (The Buzzards) to an all-female one (The Peacocks) halfway through the show.  Necessary? Perhaps not, but as one of my companions noted, “Jack White is the Tim Burton of modern day alt-rock,” meaning Jack White can be as weird as Jack White wants to be and that’s okay with us. The setlist drew heavily from Blunderbuss and White Stripes material, but left no stone unturned, including The Dead Weather’s fiery “I Cut Like a Buffalo,” The Raconteurs’ “Top Yourself” and even “Two Against One,” the eerie little ballad White wrote for the Danger Mouse/Daniele Luppi collaboration, Rome.  On top of all this, out came gorgeous Grammy-nominated songstress Ruby Amanfu to perform a very sexy duet with White on “Love Interruption”, the first single off Blunderbuss.

White brings his signature sound and rock star mystique to everything he touches, and while the explosive delivery of each track almost seemed to melt into one long fit of pounding guitars after awhile, the enormity of it all sticks with you long after the band(s) leave the stage.  Especially when the last song is “Seven Nation Army,” featuring the first of three night-ending fireworks shows and an audience-wide hand-clapping percussion section that continued in our heads long after we left the beach. 

Day 2:

Randy Newman

A beautiful Saturday began with a memorable performance from Grammy-winning singer/songwriter veteran Randy Newman at the Chevrolet Stage.  Just straight up Randy Newman and a piano, no accompaniment whatsoever.    From a little ditty about how short people have no reason to live to an autobiographical number about geriatric rock stars entitled “I’m Dead (But I Don’t Know It)” that required the audience to chant “he’s dead, he’s dead” as the chorus, Newman’s show was delightfully hilarious in a far more acerbic way than the average Toy Story fan might expect.  A unique gem of a show and a testament to the refreshing eclecticism of the lineup as a whole.

Gary Clark, Jr.

Texas-born electric blues-rock wunderkind Gary Clark, Jr. is currently in the process of taking the music world by storm, performing at countless festivals across the country.  In fact, his latest record, a mere four-track sampler, was tagged as one of Rolling Stone’s top 50 albums of 2012, and his Hangout performance showed us exactly why that did (and should have) happened. For an hour, the unassuming, good-natured Clark coated our eardrums with sweet and sticky blues and the kinds of nimble-fingered guitar riffs that make Hendrix comparisons inevitable.

Dr. Dog

Then it was off to the Letting Go Stage for the ever-lovable Philly-based indie rockers Dr. Dog, with their charming blend of late 60’s pop and timeless lo-fi rock.  They played fewer tracks from their newest album, this year’s Be The Void, than expected, instead choosing to fall back on crowd favorites from the more widely acclaimed Fate (2008) and Shame, Shame (2010).  But it felt right.  Without ever getting too saccharine or smart-alecky, these guys have a knack for making people feel good, and this show was no different.  We left early to spend some time in the dance tent with Kaskade, which made for some enjoyable booty-shaking, but mostly served to remind me of the fact that no regurgitated electronic blips and bleeps can ever match the sunny soul of rock n’ roll.

String Cheese Incident

I've come to the conclusion that no matter what your taste in music is or what type of festival you're attending, it's nice to see at least one jam band, even if from a considerable distance. Arguably, these guys are responsible for the resurgence of The American Music Festival as we know it, with their Bonnaroos, Wakarusas, and Whathaveyous. Furthermore, this type of music is generally of the feel-good variety, which makes for a pleasant reprieve from the hard rock and heavy electronica that tends to dominate festival lineups of recent years. Anyhow, while none of us have ever been members of the String Cheese fan base, their 2.5 hour late afternoon slot provided the perfect opportunity to just sit and enjoy the simply wonderful scene that is Hangout. We recognized a few of their original tunes, as well as covers of Weather Report's "Birdland" and The Grateful Dead's "I Know You Rider," and we even found ourselves dancing about on occasion. Frequently, however, it sounded like 2 different bands were on stage, as bouncy bluegrass/rock made way for clunky electronic flourishes. It seems that String Cheese likes to keep one foot in the door of their late 90s heyday and the other awkwardly toward the trends of the new millennium.

Shpongle

Expectations can completely affect the way one experiences music, and this was certainly the case with Shpongle. The festival website billed the act as, "a strange hybrid of electronic manipulation and shamanic midgets with frozen digits squeezing the envelope and crawling through the doors of perception." And so on. That, along with an accompanying picture straight out of Pan's Labyrinth, had us hoping for a flying circus of a performance, with masked creatures on stilts, didgeridoos, and actual shamanic midgets. And alas, we got a DJ set. A pretty awesome DJ set, with a cool light show, and some pretty unusual beats, but a DJ set all the same. It was no circus and perhaps not worth missing the beginning of Red Hot Chili Peppers, as we'd supposed it might be.

Red Hot Chili Peppers

After getting Shpongled for 20 minutes or so, we made our way over to the big stage for perhaps the festival's most anticipated performance. By the time we settled in a decent spot, the band was just wrapping up the title song from their classic Blood Sugar Sex Magik, and sounded like they were in top form. It took us a while before we realized that the guitarist was not longtime Chili Pepper John Frusciante, but some younger looking fellow. Then we recalled that new guy, Josh Klinghoffer, had taken over guitar duties when Frusciante left the band a few years ago. This is all to say that Klinghoffer was more than capable at meshing with a band currently in their third decade of making music together. What he lacked in volume and fiery solos was made up for by Flea's monster bass and stage antics. Flea is the clear anchor of this band and easily it's most likable asset. Shirtless and energetic as ever, he never looked like a man nearing 50, much less someone too old to still dress like a skateboarder. Meanwhile, lead singer Anthony Kiedis looked ridiculous in his hipster mustache and trucker hat look but sang well throughout. Drummer Chad Smith was solid, but perhaps was given too much time on a few drum solos that went nowhere and served only to help fill up their allotted 2 hours.

Besides a handful of new songs from last year's I'm With You, this was very much a greatest hits concert. This, however, was not unwelcome, nor unexpected, as the Chili Peppers are a band that thrives on the strength of their singles, and most would agree these are their best songs. They're one of the few mainstream bands everyone can get behind, and they've somehow managed to not sound dated while always sounding like themselves. It was truly fun to hear them play "Give It Away" and their classic cover of Stevie Wonder's "Higher Ground," alongside sing-along ballads like "Under The Bridge" and "Soul to Squeeze." Plus, did we mention that we were on the beach and the weather was perfect? What's not to like?

Day 3:

Steve Winwood

Despite appearing 4 rows deep on the festival poster and getting a short afternoon time slot, Steve Winwood has perhaps the best resume of any of the weekend's performers. He may not have the name recognition of frequent collaborator Eric Clapton with today's younger audiences, but he's certainly left his mark on the history of rock & roll. Sunday, the final day of the fest, Winwood and his loose, jazzy backing band brought a number of his own classics to life, including Traffic's "The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys" and "Dear Mr. Fantasy," and The Spencer Davis Group's "I'm a Man" and "Gimme Some Lovin." We kept hearing people in the crowd say things like, "Ohhh... He sings this song too?", especially when he pulled out his 1986 solo hit "Higher Love." Occasionally playing electric guitar, but mostly sitting at the organ, Winwood showed he still has the chops, as well as a barely aged singing voice.

Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros

You know that episode of Portlandia where Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein play two impressionable locavores who accidentally get sucked into a polyamorous organic farm cult led by Jason Sudeikis?  Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros has always kind of reminded me of that, even before I heard the Edward Sharpe back-story, as told by frontman Alex Ebert.  Ebert describes the fictional Sharpe as a messianic figure who "was sent down to Earth to kinda heal and save mankind... but he kept getting distracted by girls and falling in love."  So I guess that’s kind of the vibe they’re going for. Whether this vibe strikes you as funny or creepy or a little bit of both, there’s no doubt that the Zeros put on a good show.  Not a blow-you-away spectacular show, but a fun and energetic experience that encourages audience participation and the sharing of positive vibes.  Ebert spent a good portion of his stage time off the stage altogether, opting to stand among the crowd instead as he belted out Up From Below pleasers like “40 Day Dream”, “Janglin’” and of course, the feel-good anthem of 2010, “Home.” The group also performed a few songs from their about-to-drop sophomore album, Here (out May 29, it's the first of two albums Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros will release this year).  From what we heard, the new songs didn’t have quite the same level of appeal as the older ones, but they fit in well with the show as a whole, and provided yet another great installment for our beach day soundtrack.

The Flaming Lips

After a rousing introduction from Andy Kaufman alter ego Tony Clifton, The Flaming Lips took the stage to do that thing that they do. Lights. Confetti. Disco ball. Action. If you've been to at least a few music festivals in the last ten years, then you couldn't have missed this band. If you somehow did miss them, you will still have numerous chances, since they show no signs of letting up. With noisy guitars and synths, psychedelic video imagery, droves of costumed characters, and so on, The Flaming Lips have been putting on more or less the same show for years now. And, it's almost always a great time. They don't try to match the precise, multi-layered sound of their albums. Instead, those extra layers show up in crowd interaction and wonderfully absurd visuals. Frontman Wayne Coyne seems intent on having at least as much fun as the audience does, and how could someone who gets to crowd surf in a giant bubble not?

It had been announced on the festival bill that The Lips would be performing Dark Side of the Moon, and sure enough, they performed just five of their live favorites before submitting to the power of The Floyd. Wayne announced that they would be soundtracking an actual solar eclipse by the time they got to "Eclipse," noting however that the band was not actually responsible for this natural phenomenon. Unfortunately for festivalgoers, as well as the entire Eastern Seaboard, this eclipse was not visible from our corner of the globe, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Joining the band for the album tribute were members of the electronic rock group Phantogram, as well as singer Lizzie Allen, whom Wayne introduced as “a witch from Scotland”. It was somewhat surprising how the performance tended to sound much closer to Pink Floyd's original than the fuzzed out version the Lips recorded in 2009 with Peaches and Henry Rollins.

One of the highlights featured Wayne introducing the song "Money" with a story about Dave Matthews giving him $10,000 in cash backstage. Wayne said the money had been inserted into balloons, which floated into the crowd as he sang, "Money / so they say / is the root of all evil today," with the frenzied crowd up front reaching desperately for the cash-filled globes. Aside from this bit of social commentary, Wayne kept his usual preachiness to a minimum.  All in all, it was another fun Lips show that made for a good finale for the musical portion of our festival experience.  

Dave Matthews Band

Personally, I haven’t been able to take Dave Matthews Band seriously since The Great Poop Scandal of 2004.  I was annoyed to see him headlining such an otherwise great festival, namely because of the particular breed of fans that the band seems to attract.  You know, the ones who travel in pastel-colored, Greek-lettered, croakie-wearing packs with humiliating tattoos, arguing about who loves DMB more.  However, these guys are probably the reason Hangout sold out as fast as it did, so I guess the festival organizers knew what they were doing.

Anyway, Dave’s 3 hour closer on Sunday night provided the perfect opportunity to inhale a trough of deeply desired ground beef nachos at the beachside Pink Pony Pub while our waiter hula-hooped beside us. And that, friends, is what I call an excellent conclusion to an excellent weekend.

The Soulphonics & Ruby Velle at The Earl (Atlanta - 2/10/12)

I love a good dose of sweet and funky soul, especially with a big brassy-voiced female vocalist taking the spotlight.  Which is why it feels like blasphemy that this past weekend was my first ever experience seeing one of the best soul/funk revivals Atlanta has to offer: The Soulphonics & Ruby Velle.

Yes, they took up residence at Starbar, which is walking distance from my house, for a full six months of Wednesdays in 2009, but in all fairness, I didn’t live in that house until 2010 and well... Okay, you get the point.  I was stupid. But not anymore!  Now that I’ve gotten a taste, I know exactly what I’ve been missing, and I will take every opportunity to make up for it.

It was a very chilly Friday evening in Atlanta—the kind that makes all the lily-livered Northern transplants (i.e. me) whine about how we thought Georgia was supposed to be warm, goddammit.  But upon entering toasty East Atlanta mainstay, The Earl, I immediately ditched my coat and settled in for what was surely going to be a wonderful evening of music.  And so it was. 

Ruby Velle, a healthier-looking, Florida-born Amy Winehouse doppelganger with a strong and sultry voice to match, commanded an enormous stage presence that far exceeded her tiny stature.  She was backed by a lively and talented six-piece band, dressed in suits and featuring a rollicking three-man horn section (note: if you want to guarantee a good review from me, just add a horn section). 

The Soulphonics know what they’re doing, and thus are happy to let Ruby soak up the spotlight while they groove out in a semi-circle around her.  They find a happy equilibrium between vocals and instrumentals, never letting their music fade into the background but never overpowering Ruby’s vocals either, despite the volume that a six-piece band with three horns is capable of.  The charming sense of communion between Ruby and the Soulphonics was palpable, and really cast a cozy glow over the whole show, amplified by that special sense of pride you get from seeing a great local band in your own beloved town.

Cool, calm, and totally compelling, The Soulphonics & Ruby Velle strutted their way through an assortment of classic covers and classic-sounding originals, never straying from the boisterous blend of funk and soul that they do best.  From a smooth as butter rendition of Dusty Springfield’s “Son of a Preacher Man” to rousing covers of James Brown’s “Think” and Arthur Conley’s “Sweet Soul Music,” these modern day masters paid tribute to the greats, with a fun-loving reverence that said greats certainly would’ve appreciated.  

The band’s own original catalogue, while small, is stacked with back-to-back gems, from the freewheeling “Feet on the Ground” to the steamy swagger of “The Man Says”, to the mellow glamour of the Soulphonics most recent single, 2011’s “My Dear.”  These original tracks blended nicely with the classic covers, adding to the evening’s overall sense of fluidity. 

Pre-encore closer “Heartlite,” was the runaway highlight of the whole performance, with its exuberantly bouncy melody, catchy hooks, and vivacious vocals waking us from the inevitable lull that such a cohesive bunch of melodies can evoke.

Ultimately, this was the kind of show that just makes everybody feel good, whether they’re dancing, listening, chatting, or all three.  A perfect way to spend a Friday night in Atlanta, and one that I hope to repeat in the very near future.

Cass McCombs at The Earl (Atlanta - 1/19/12)

On a cool January evening in East Atlanta, Baltimore-based singer/songwriter Cass McCombs performed at The Earl.  Not knowing much about McCombs from the outset, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect.  Upon leaving, I still wasn’t quite sure what to say.  Here’s my attempt.

Rightly or wrongly, first impressions are important, and I felt like McCombs made a mistake by opening his show with the pretty but plodding “Prima Donna,” off 2009’s Catacombs.  The song, with its overwrought, somewhat whiny lyrics and barely-there percussion, ambled along without anything that even attempted to grab and reel in the audience.  Whatever the reason for this decision, it felt misguided to me, and didn’t make me excited about being where I was, preparing to experience what I was about to experience.

Photo © Nick Rallo

Things certainly improved as the show progressed, but it felt like a painfully slow process.  This is not to say that the music was unpleasant; in fact in was quite soothing and lovely at times, but it just never wowed me, even when it felt like it was supposed to.  The band itself seemed suppressed, especially at the beginning, with nothing to play but repetitive, slightly boring hooks while McCombs crooned into the microphone with a broody face and tousled brown hair parted straight down the middle.   I guess it boils down to the fact that McCombs’ voice seemed to be what was emphasized here, and nothing about it really moved me.  It felt devoid of passion but also devoid of that desperate desolation that makes a voice like Elliott Smith’s (an artist that McCombs has been compared to more than once) so spellbinding.

As they strolled through tracks from an extensive decade of discography—from 2011’s “Robin Egg Blue” to 2004’s “AIDS in Africa”— McCombs’ five-piece band had the look, feel, and sound of a nerdy 90’s stoner band transported into 2012.  There was a moody, Slacker-esque white boy earnestness about the whole performance that seemed dated in this decade, despite the pop-culture lyrical references to Facebook and Bradley Manning, the American soldier who was charged for “aiding the enemy” by passing classified information to WikiLeaks in 2011.  I certainly appreciated the tribute to Manning, but the style of the song (aptly titled “Bradley Manning”) felt unsubtle and a bit contrived. 

So did tracks like “Love Thine Enemy,” the opener from last year’s Humor Risk.  The song’s simple melody served only to highlight McCombs’ rather cloying and monotonous directive: “love thine enemy / but hate the lack of sincerity.”  Okay, if you insist. 

The band’s drummer, dressed in a blue striped rugby shirt that stylistically set him apart from the rest of the band, was the only guy on stage who seemed determined to keep me awake, despite the fact that he was forced to satisfy himself with endearingly spastic head nods in order to keep time between the slow shuffley beats he was assigned to play.  O loveable drummer, you seemed capable of so much more! 

The keyboardist did get a chance for a passionately drawn-out solo that was much appreciated by the audience, but it was one of the rare moments of vigor in an otherwise drowsy evening.  Even the rollicking Allman Brothers “Ramblin’ Man” outro that came near the end felt cut short, as though the band had been under strict orders not to upstage McCombs’ vocals. 

Am I being cynical? Probably.  Maybe I was looking for something that I should’ve known not to expect here, but the overall performance left me with a pesky sense of lack that I couldn’t shake. In the end, I simply could not see what set Cass McCombs apart from all the other moody, scraggly-haired singer/songwriters out there.  And in a world full of moody, scraggly-haired singer/songwriters, I think that’s important.

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.