COACHELLA 2010: Sunday, April 18th (Part 2)

We watched the beginning half of Spoon as the sun was starting to draw lower in the sky. Ever so nice; ever so picturesque. Ever so euphonious! We only stayed for about half, but definitely heard some favorites. “Don’t Make Me a Target”, “The Way We Get By”, “I Turn My Camera On”, “I Summon You” <333 Lead singer Britt Daniel is easy on the ears… and eyes. Haha.

Had to tear ourselves away to catch the latter half of Miike Snow. Which was worth doing, but it again made me sad I couldn’t catch the whole set. They had a huge crowd going and everyone seemed really into it.

They also had a lot of fog and blue/white lights, made for a very mystical look and feel. These dudes know how to wield some frickin synths… their set very much had the aesthetic of a rock show, but with totally badass synths that act kind of like an electric guitar would in more traditional rock. Rly awesome! Heard many a good track from the album – “Black & Blue”, “Sylvia”, “Sans Soleil” (reeeeally gorgeous slow burner at sunset), “Plastic Jungle”, and of course finishing with a rousing rendition of “Animal”. Party tiiiime!

Then MORE set-splitting sadness, but we caught the last third or so of Phoenix, which was absolutely the largest crowd I can even imagine at the Outdoor theater, but it made it even cooler. You didn’t really need to see what was going on onstage (I guess their lighting guy got stranded because of Eyjajofafyullkullayahfyll) and the sound was sooo incredibly beautiful and perfect. This was just as the sun’s light was disappearing, so it was dusky and *magical*.

Every song was sooo so good, but I especially liked “If I Ever Feel Better” (wow, my new fave song.. where have I been all these years, haha), “1901” (ho-leee shit, biggest sing/jumpalong EVER? So sublime and heartwarming! Srsly.), “Love Like a Sunset”, et al. Thinking about this set always makes me feel warm and happy inside. It was such a special thing, and probably one of my all-time favorite Coach sets.

Ok, interlude… the art this year was SICKK. I already talked about the crane, but this electricity-tube organ thing was INTENSELY DOPE.

It made the most dramatic sounds ever. People were lined up to take turns playing it. Throughout the fest you would hear hilariously dramatic electricity organ music to all kinds of amusing recognizable songs.

Plus it just looked crazy awesome.

Anyway, this evening seriously blew my mind in so many ways, and it just didn’t stop. Next up was Little Boots. Whose name I feel should be announced like, LITTLE. FUCKING. BOOTS. Who DESTROYED me!! (in the best way).

Holy SHEEEIT, GIRL!

I found out afterward a number of her crew had also been volcano’d, but I think it seemed to work out for the best, because not only is she an amazing performer/musician no matter what the circumstances, they tricked her out with some FAT LASERS and a really cool sparkly outfit, haha (‘Little Boots, and littler pants’ was my comment.) Having seen her show in SF in early March, I thought I had some idea of what to expect at Coach, but I was wrong, ‘cause this was even more ahhhmazing.. it was a little bit new and different and surprising, and above all… DOOOOPE.

The setlist was pretty much perfect. Similar to the SF show, but it was a shorter performance. The only omission that made me sad (and was probably due to volcano) was the bitchen keytar rockout on “Symmetry” (didn’t play that one, prob cause of no male singer present either). She started with “Ghost” which is such a cool opener (disco druid.. yes!), into “New in Town”, then proceeding through 4-5 more awesome tracks like “Meddle” and “Mathematics”, each one seemingly more awesome than the last, haha.

Oh yeah, then she played her fucking LASER HARP. OH MY GAWWWWD. *dies* Coolest shit ever. (Note: Ke$ha’s thing on SNL srsly makes me want to PUKE. Preferably on Ke$ha. Fuck yoooou) I fondly remember when they first fired up the harp and she was playing the opening bars of “Earthquake”, and EJ to my right was shouting, “What the..? WHAT THE?? OH GOD!! OH FUCK!!!!” Pretty much saying what everyone was thinking. ahahahah ^_^ Sooo good.

Then an awesome danceblast version of “Remedy”, and a barnstormer finale with “Stuck on Repeat”. The bass was so fatt that my camera speakers got totally blown out in the video I took :\ Haha. Oh well. I can only be a little bit sad. Cause this is also one of my top amazing tiems had at Coachella ever! I might even say second only to last year’s Ghostland Observatory set in terms of sheer make-me-lose-my-mind-itude.

So anyway, I freakin love that Little Boots. Sooo much. She really kicks ass and is so talented with the songwritin’ and the singing and the synthing, and she is darn adorable too. Little B, let’s hang out, k? <3

(Haha since Coach I have bought 2 diff formats of her Hands album – GAWD IT’S GOOD – a cd of it for my mom for Mother’s Day and the LP for meee. I also got her sickk Areceibo EP record at Coach, which has the sweet-ass-sweet long danceout version of “Stuck on Repeat” and several other good tracks.)

When that sadly had to end, we decided to make a run for the ferris wheel. The line wasn’t that long and we got to do it!! Yay! How neat. The festival grounds are such a magical place to me, and that has never been more apparent than on this Sunday evening.

Back on land, we rolled over to the Sahara to investigate what Plastikman was up to. Only stayed for maybe 10-15 minutes, weren’t all too impressed with the section we saw, TBH. I guess I was just expecting more, based on the videos I saw to check out who Plastikman was and why so many people were excited for his thing beforehand. It sounded like.. minimal deep deep house, and the tent was really dark, with a trippy red&black video projection in the center that wasn’t all that exciting. It was all pretty simple compared to pretty much every set I saw this year. Also I imagine it would probably seem cooler on *crazy* drugs. Hahaha.

Annnd lastly… GORILLAZ. Wow. Now, there have been a lot of things said about this set. Many insults and rebuttals bandied back and forth. After contemplating it a bit, I feel it was a very good set overall, but the expectations for it were impossibly high/totally different from what they gave us. A lot of people seemed to expect 3-D holograms of the characters, but the band played as… themselves. I know I wasn’t expecting to see that, but when it’s Damon Albarn playing ringleader to a sizeable and eclectic posse of awesome musicians, it shouldn’t really be seen as a detraction.

(After the festival, they seemed to come up with a better story – that the “real”, cartoon band had too been stranded by Ejyafyallefakull, and that this real, live band were ‘”mercenaries” of a sort. They propounded this story on The Colbert Report soon after, also doing a cool performance of “Stylo”. Watch the full episode on Hulu.com!)

I will admit some parts of the set seemed off (like the canned rapping/other problems with “Clint Eastwood”, though the singalong chorus was awfully fun). but the music itself was incredibly awesome, and it was a really well-chosen setlist mixing mainly new songs from Plastic Beach with some favorites from Demon Days. However they ended with “Cloud of Unknowing”, a new, slow, melancholy and kind of haunting track featuring Bobby Womack, and this was not really the best way to end a festival. Especially right after “Feel Good Inc.” got the entire crowd, well, feeling good. The crowd seemed confused by this ending, especially when the band just walked offstage without a word… HmmmMMm. Strange, and not very fulfilling, but the day had been so thoroughly amazing I couldn’t really complain…

So that was it! We headed back to the campsite, where most of the world was swiftly being dismantled around us, with huge lines of cars queuing up to leave for hours into the night. Glad to say we weren’t among them. This was my first year spending Sunday night there, and I gotta say it beat the hell out of making that loooong terrible drive back up I-5 all night.

Getting back home to SF was a 2-day ordeal since I decided to come back “via” Reno, which is of course not at all in the same direction. Haha. Driving back up the road through the Sierras was gorgeous though, and then I took the train to SF. Very fun/relaxing, and I saw all kinds of lovely scenery. And listened obsessively to all the great music from this year!!

We drove past this really pretty lake, Mono Lake, which has interesting salt formations called tufas. (The white rocklike things are the tufas.)

Anyway! Tufas aside, that’s my writeup for Coachella 2010. What a grand time it was. It was not without its snags, but overall I think it was probably the best one yet for me. And I’m already looking forward to next year, gahh!! Haha. My top ten acts from this year (loosely ordered):

Little Boots, Muse, Devo, Phoenix, Gossip, Hot Chip, Yeasayer, Miike Snow, Rusko, Aeroplane. Runners-up: The Dead Weather, Gorillaz.

(One last entry on the topic will be my videos. I’ll try to get those up tomorrow.)

Coachella 2010: Thursday, April 15th. The Trials and Tribulations.

So, COACHELLA was exactly two weeks ago! I’m going to try to do an entry on each day this weekend for the corresponding day of the festival… like, this time two weeks ago, I was only halfway through my 4+ hour wait to get into the campground!! Awesome. NOT.

Anyway, before I get ahead of myself, I decided to just put everything up to Friday in this entry, since my actual fest entries are going to be long enough as it is. This entry won’t involve music and I didn’t take any pictures on the way down, but I want to write about my whole experience, and you get to feel like you were right there with me, eh Reader??

Well, you’re lucky you weren’t actually there, cause we spent at least 3 hours spent in traffic, and then had the camping wait on top of that… all in all made for a voyage of about 17 hours :X Soooo exhausting.

Also, I rode down with 3 nice girls I found online (none of us knew each other beforehand). Most of the ride was actually pretty enjoyable, up until the afternoon, and then things started getting unpleasant, haha. (Just the looong delays and wanting to GET THERE!!!)

By the time we finally got in and parked in the camping spot, it was almost 2 AM. OMFG. (We had left SF a little after 8 am.) Then I had to wrestle with my stupid tent, which turned out to be busted, finally only getting it to stand with duct tape borrowed from the neighbors.

By then it was about 3 and I was too tired to really wander or party or enjoy being at COACHELLA. Never thought I would say those words. But the campground setup actually was pretty good overall this year, and they added a lot of fun stuff for the campers, like the roller rink, glowing swings, art stations, etc.

One part that was not so cool was the pounding house music until about 3:30 am, once I actually laid down and tried to sleep. The soothing sounds of Deadmau5… haha. I put in earplugs and it did absolutely nothing. It pretty much felt like the entire earth was vibrating with that beat. I feel really bad for the people whose tents were right next to that!

Anyway yeah so it was not the best way to start off the weekend, but things improved majorly over the rest of the time, and there were really no problems after all this, so in some ways it was… kinda good to get all the dumb shit out of the way?? haha.

Afterwards I just did my best to forget this day ever happened. Like… Oh, I magically woke up and I’m at Coachella! I have no recollection of how this came to be, but I am joyful!

The Coachella Update

MY Coachella update, that is Sometimes we need to have these nerdout moments. And sometimes when we have them, we also have blogs. So, sorry in advance if this bores you.

Well, in personnel news, I am kind of pissed that most of my friends appear to be *lame*, or they don’t want it badly enough, or don’t want to spend the money (blah blah blah!!!! that’s all I hear. haha) so now I have to get down to the festival alone, and then meet up with EJ once I have already assembled the camp site. Oh well. I would say this only diminishes my excitement overall by about 10%. Well, it could end up being a lot more depending who I find to ride down there with

ANYWAY! Let us talk of band-age. I’ve gone through the lineup now checking out bands and finding the most promising stuff (according to my tastes, obviously) so now I’m making my priority lists, like a true festival nerd. Definitely going to write longer entries about some of them beforehand, too.

(sorry for the weird formatting. also, sadly I am not loser enough to link all these to their myspaces or whatever, you can find them easily with this neat thing called google. also these are pics I took from various things during last year’s fest.)

FRIDAYAPRIL16: Jay-Z, LCD Soundsystem,

Them Crooked Vultures, Vampire Weekend, Deadmau5, Public Image Limited, The Specials, Grizzly Bear, Passion Pit, Echo and the Bunnymen, Benny Benassi, Fever Ray, She & Him, Imogen Heap, Erol Alkan, The Avett Brothers, Calle 13, The Whitest Boy Alive, The Cribs, La Roux, Yeasayer, Lucero, DJ Lance Rock, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Proxy, Ra Ra Riot, Deer Tick, Wolfgang Gartner, Aeroplane, Iglu & Hartly, Sleigh Bells, P.O.S., Baroness, Hockey, Little Dragon, White Rabbits, Wale, Kate Miller-Heidke, As Tall as Lions, Jets Overhead, Alana Grace, Pablo Hassan, Ceu, Gil Scott-Heron, Street Sweeper Social Club, Perry Farrell vs. Steve Porter.

Hit list: LCD Soundsystem, La Roux, Yeasayer, Fever Ray, The Whitest Boy Alive, Aeroplane, Passion Pit, Little Dragon, Hockey, The Cribs, Deadmau5, Benny Benassi, Them Crooked Vultures, She & Him, Ra Ra Riot, Grizzly Bear, Sleigh Bells

SATURDAYAPRIL17: Muse, Faith No More, Tiësto, MGMT, David

Guetta, The Dead Weather, Hot Chip, Devo, Coheed and Cambria, Kaskade, 2Many DJ’s, Major Lazer, Dirty Projectors, Gossip, Z-Trip, The xx, John Waters, Les Claypool, The Raveonettes, Mew, Sia, Camera Obscura, Tokyo Police Club, Porcupine Tree, Old Crow Medicine Show, Aterciopalados, Bassnectar, Frightened Rabbit, Dirty South, Flying Lotus, Corinne Bailey Rae, Pretty Lights, Shooter Jennings & Hierophant, RX Bandits, the almighty defenders, Edward Sharp and the Magnetic Zeros, Craze & Klever, Zoe, The Temper Trap, Portugal. The Man, Band of Skulls, Girls, Beach House, Steel Train, Frank Turner, Bad Lieutenant.

Hit list: Hot Chip, Devo, Gossip, Dead Weather, Pretty Lights, Portugal. The Man, Edward Sharpe, Muse, the xx, Band of Skulls, Camera Obscura, Girls, 2manyDJs, Mew, RX Bandits (maybe)

 

SUNDAYAPRIL18: Gorillaz, Pavement, Thom Yorke,

Phoenix, Orbital, Spoon, Sly and the Family Stone, De La Soul, Julian Casablancas, Plastikman, Gary Numan, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Sunny Day Real Estate, Yo La Tengo, MUTEMATH, Deerhunter, Infected Mushroom, Club 75, Matt & Kim, The Big Pink, King Khan and the Shrines, Florence and the Machine, Yann Tiersen, Little Boots, Miike Snow, Talvin Singh, B.o.B., Babasonicos, Owen Pallett, The Glitch Mob, Mayer Hawthorne & the County, Local Natives, Rusko, The Middle East, Hadouken!, The Soft Pack, Kevin Devine, Paparazzi, Delphic, One EskimO, Jonsi, Hypnotic Brass Ensemble.

Hit list: Gorillaz, Miike Snow, Phoenix, Spoon, Florence & the Machine, Julian Casablancas, Little Boots, Delphic, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Jonsi, Gary Numan, Matt & Kim, Sly & the Family Stone, Club 75, Mayer Hawthorne, The Soft Pack, King Khan & the Shrines, the Big Pink

Oooh man. Such a good freakin lineup. So excited.

SOOOO. EXCITED.

Vicereine Radio Episode 2

Vicereine Radio returns with a doubled-up episode: double the flavor, double the fun, and quadruple the grooves. Click the image above to listen, right-click to save, alternate link here

Vicereine Radio launches

EJ and I have been talking about dabbling in the podcasting (or as I would term it now, blogcasting.. ooh, look at me go) and we finally did one!! You can tune in at our blog, Vicereine Radio, and listen to cool tunes and us talking about these cool tunes.

Hope you like it!! We are just getting started so hopefully we will get better, haha.

 

(You can also listen directly by clicking the image above)

Quick note…

Today, February 9th, the new Yeasayer and Hot Chip albums both come out! HURRAY! (I just realized it’s spelled ‘hooray’ usually, but maybe you should take it like, HURRAY OUT AND BUY THESE RECORDS!!)

A few videos…

So, Chromeo has a new video out for their fantastic single “Night By Night”… it’s not the best video ever, but it is fun and I like the dancing. As EJ noted, it seems Chromeo has been given a significantly bigger budget for this new album… which they used to hire a choreographer and a cadre of ladymodels, haha. At first I was like uhhhh this is really weird, they’re like humping each other in an empty warehouse while all the other ladies watch?? But EJ was like “Well it’s like secret dance lessons” and I was like ohh, ok. hahah. Also the Chromeo dudes are amusing.

Then there’s THIS little beauty I just discovered yesterday, from the Danish band PRIVATE… this song is sooo cool. Just from the vocals, it sounds a little like it could be a Maroon 5 remix, if Maroon 5 was WAY cooler. And again the video features a cadre of ladies… most with very prominently displayed breasts. But they do have snazzy outfits.

PRIVATE – My Secret Lover (UK Explicit Version) from PRIVATE on Vimeo.

And finally, this one isn’t a music video (well.. it is a video and there is music but you know what I mean), but I felt compelled to share it anyway. It’s Herbie Hancock performing “Rockit” at the 1984 Grammys. And oh my god it’s awesome. Herbie indeed rocks it with his keytar, while robot legs and other robot parts “dance” around… about halfway through it takes a cool turn!

Well, that’s it for now. I *finally* got a wireless extender so I can actually use the internet like a real person now… so doing posts with real songs (uploaded by me) is going to be a lot easier now (which hopefully means more frequent).

Last.fm 2009 Countdown – Part III

5. Miami Horror – 317 plays

I think it says a lot that Miami Horror is my 5th most played artist when he/they (I get really confused about articles now) don’t have a full album out yet… haha. I listened to the Bravado EP SOOO much.. so much. I still love it. I just love everything Miami Horror does, apparently. Furthermore all their awesome remixes aren’t reflected in this play count but I definitely listened the hell of out those too, so this is a well-deserved spot on my top list this year.

The new video for “Sometimes” is worth watching for the ending. I also like this one because it’s ssso 80s.

I think they’re gathering steam to come out with an album and tour this coming year too?? WHICH MAKES ME WANT TO PEE MYSELF WITH EXCITEMENT ok sorry I just had to say that

Check them out on The Hype Machine

4. The Black Ghosts – 329 plays

This one is a little surprising, although I guess their album did just come out in 2008. And it’s really good. Also they were huge on my gym playlist, which helps. Workin it out with the Black Ghosts… get buff.

Also, this is a cool video for a cooool song.

And this is one of the coolest remixes EVER in my humble opinion.

Anyway You Choose to Give It (Boy 8-Bit remix)

3. Franz Ferdinand – 419 plays

Ummm Franz is awesomeeee and this year was a major installment in that saga. The latest album is FREAKIN TERRIFIC and also caused me to listen to their previous albums a lot again too. Also they were at Coach. Also ahhh they’re so good. [I feel like this top list part might be repetitive because obviously it’s all things I went BANANAS over, haha]. They really took their sound to a new level and I expect we will be hearing great things from them for many, many years to come. Also Alex Kapranos is HAWT.

This one got done up with a big production and some edgy fashion. Fashion Fun with Franz Ferdinand!

2. Grafton Primary – 553 plays

I have talked about them a bit on here before, but yeah. Definitely earned this one. They’re just… really fucking great!! Both Eon and the EP Relativity are ridiculously cool, and then of course there’s the Miami Horror remix that started some major love affairs for me, haha. They also have some of the most awesome lyrics.

I Can Cook (Miami Horror remix)

1. Ghostland Observatory – 637 plays

AHHHH it had to be. Ghostland Observatory blew my mind repeatedly in 2009. I listened to the Paparazzi Lightning album crazytons in 2007, but hadn’t heard much from them since then. But after their phenomenal Coachella performance this year I got their other two albums, which are also AMAAAAZING!! It seems like I will never get sick of them. I have been meaning to write a longer entry about them, so I will get around to that eventually. I also saw them again in May and that wassss no doubt my favorite single show of the year. Good job dudes. YOU ARE SO COOL please do more shows around me plz plz.

I love this video from Coachella (not taken by me). It looks so cool it could almost be a regular music video.

And there you have it! I had a great year listening to so much wonderful music and I can’t wait to hear what 2010 will bring.

Next up, I will try to amass my actual favorites of 2009 list, because as we’ve seen I didn’t mention many of those in these entries

Last.fm 2009 Countdown Part II

Continuing on in my most-scrobbled tracks of the year from last.fm, here’s what came in at #6-10.

Tie for 10 + 9: Dragonette + The Last Shadow Puppets  – 249 plays each

Dragonette had a new album out this year, and I also discovered their very enjoyable first album. Further, there’s an awesome Midnight Juggernauts remix that has been a heavy hitter for me this year. And I went to their show and had a blast and I danced with the guitarist (different guy than the one pictured above) and Martina Sorbara (the singer) complimented my earring!! I’m pretty sure she and La Roux should have an edgy hair battle. Whatever that would look like.

I Get Around (Midnight Juggernauts remix)

The Last Shadow Puppets were one of my most-played albums this year (though it also came out in 2008.. haha), both in mp3 and the LP form (yess). I completely love every song of theirs I’ve heard so far… it’s like the Beatles reincarnated. Suchhh great songs and voices and everything.

Also, I just discovered they covered a Rihanna song, haha.

8. The Kills – 259 plays

Again the album that caused me to fall for them came out in 2008, but SHUT UP IT DOESNT MATTER. haha. They were another Coachella band, too. I guess Alison is pretty busy with the Dead Weather nowadays and thass kewl. She is badass in a major way. So many awesome Kills songs. SOO MANY.

7. The Beatles – 263 plays

Ok, they’re probably going to be on my list every year just by the sheer mass of amazing material to choose from. This year I also became exceedingly fond of the White Album and listened to it all the time while painting. Also, reading Helter Skelter.

6. Metronomy – 300 plays

Metronomy = so awesome. Just get a load of this, for starters.

I got their second album, Nights Out, on Jan 4 last year (honestly, this list is more like a best of 2008 list by this point, haha), and it swiftly became one of my favorites of the year. I also saw them live twice and that was very enjoyable. They seem to just be heating up and I’m sure they’ve got some more great stuff coming this year.

Tune in tomorrow for the third and final installment, with #1-5 on the list.

Wassail Wednesdays: Volume 3

Well, here we are for our third and final installment of Wassail Wednesdays. Christmas is drawing near, ever so near! The time for last-minute shopping and wrapping is at hand, so allow these tunes to both sooth and invigorate you in these trying yuletimes.

Cornelius – Silent Snow Stream

Cornelius is kind of like the Beck of Japan, and he’s  put out a lot of truly fantastic material over the years. This song hails from his first album, The First Question Award, which I think is probably his most accessible, and probably my favorite (so far). It has a really groovy and unique retro kind of 70s-lounge sound, and almost every song is amazing. I highly recommend it!

The Raveonettes – Come On Santa

Admittedly, I haven’t listened to the Danish shoegaze-alt rock duo the Raveonettes all that much, but I did snag their Christmas EP, Wishing You a Rave Christmas (which.. doesn’t sound as rave-y as you might expect, given the title, haha). This song sounds like.. Christmas in a hazy drug den, or something. In a good way!

Islands – Abominable Snow

“After the breakup of experimental lo-fi indie rock band the Unicorns, members Nicholas Thorburn and Jaime Thompson formed Islands, which found the two more focused on brighter production and neo-psychedelic indie pop.” That sums it up pretty well. Their material thus far is kind of hit and miss for me, but some songs stand out as being pretty great. This is one of them.

The Pixies – Winterlong

The Pixies have pretty much been my favorite band since I was 15. I’m sure I could easily write a full entry on many of their single songs, let alone albums. This is a Neil Young cover they did, released on their “Complete B-Sides” release, which has quite a few good ones and should definitely be heard by anyone who considers themselves a Pixies fan.

Dreams Come True – Snow Dance

I don’t really know much/anything about Dreams Come True, other than that they are Japanese (and apparently pretty popular there?). I downloaded an album of theirs called “Monkey Girl Odyssey” which [understandably] intrigued me. This is the only song I became attached to.. for some reason it reminds me of like, Peru, and hiking through snow in the Andes (which I have never done, so maybe it sounds nothing like this, but in my mind, it DOES).