Computer vs. Hot Tea; Also, COACHELLA HAPPENED.

*not my compy, thank god.

HI. Wow, it’s been ages since I posted, and there are several reasons for that, the main one being that I KILLED MY COMP with fucking hot tea ><<<< the day before I left for Coachella (second reason for not updating). Now I am on my old n busted previous computer, which is rather trying, but better than nothing.

However in good news I took the poor laptop to be repaired and evidently nothing major got ruined, and they already got it working again!! HAPPY DAY. I know you are oh so happy for me, Internet. So hopefully I get it back tomorrow!!!! I am optimistic.

Anyway, I will resume real posting soon! Coachella was FUCKING INCREDIBLE and I of course intend to prattle on at length about every aspect of it, as well as post some photos, and some videos which are mostly really shaky cause I couldn’t make myself stop dancing to take them, haha.

COACHELLA 2010!!!

Oh my GAWD!! I am excited. I was excited even before they announce the lineup today and now I’m REALLY excited 😀

For those who don’t know, I’m referring to the Coachella Music and Arts Festival, which is basically the pinnacle of my year. It’s set for April 16-18 this year. They always announce the lineup around this time in January and I always get so eager to know what wonders it will hold, then they announce it and I get all excited and start investigating all the acts I have never heard of, and basically my anticipation ramps up all the way until the festival itself which is THE BEST. THING. EVER. and then in the afterglow I start thinking to myself, “jesus I cannot WAIT for next year” haha. Then the cycle starts all over again!

Anyway, here’s the poster with all the announced bands so far. (click to enlarge)

For the last few years, I’ve definitely been more interested in a lot of the smaller bands than the main acts, but this year a lot of the main acts are like OMG YESSS. Especially the freaking Gorillaz to close out Day 3… AHHH!! Sooo exciting.

Anyway, I’m sure I will ramble on at length as times goes by and I investigate more of these bands and find things that are particularly great or especially terrible, haha. I like to keep track of what I’ve already checked out or am interested in and update it as I go, so I will do that here. Bolded are things I’m planning to (or hoping to) see, italic are things I’m familiar with or have already checked out that I don’t really care about.

FRIDAY APRIL 16: Jay-Z, LCD Soundsystem, Them Crooked Vultures, Vampire Weekend, Deadmau5, Public Image Limited, The Specials, Grizzly Bear, Passion Pit, Echo and the Bunnymen, Benny Benassi, Fever Ray, Grace Jones, She & Him, Erol Alkan, The Avett Brothers, Calle 13, The Whitest Boy Alive, The Cribs, La Roux, Yeasayer, Lucero, DJ Lance Rock, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Proxy, Ra Ra Riot, Deer Tick, Wolfgang Gartner, Aeroplane, Iglu & Hartly, Sleigh Bells, P.O.S., Baroness, Hockey, Little Dragon, White Rabbits, Wale, Kate Miller-Heidke, As Tall as Lions, Jets Overhead, Alana Grace, Pablo Hassan.

SATURDAY, APRIL 17: Muse, Faith No More, Tiësto, MGMT, David Guetta, The Dead Weather, Hot Chip, Devo, Coheed and Cambria, Kaskade, 2Many DJ’s, Major Lazer, Dirty Projectors, Gossip, Z-Trip, The xx, John Waters, Les Claypool, The Raveonettes, Mew, Sia, Camera Obscura, Tokyo Police Club, Porcupine Tree, Old Crow Medicine Show, Aterciopalados, Bassnectar, Frightened Rabbit, Dirty South, Flying Lotus, Corinne Bailey Rae, Pretty Lights, Shooter Jennings, RX Bandits, The Almighty Defenders, Edward Sharp and the Magnetic Zeros, Craze & Klever, Zoe, The Temper Trap, Portugal. The Man, Band of Skulls, Girls, Beach House, Steel Train, Frank Turner.

SUNDAY, APRIL 18: Gorillaz, Pavement, Thom Yorke, Phoenix, Orbital, Spoon, Sly and the Family Stone, De La Soul, Julian Casablancas, Plastikman, Gary Numan, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Sunny Day Real Estate, Yo La Tengo, MUTEMATH, Deerhunter, Infected Mushroom, Club 75, Matt & Kim, The Big Pink, Gil Scott-Heron, King Khan and the Shrines, Florence and the Machine, Yann Tiersen, Little Boots, Miike Snow, Talvin Singh, Ceu, B.o.B., Babasonicos, Owen Pallett, The Glitch Mob, Mayer Hawthorne, Local Natives, Rusko, The Middle East, Hadouken!, The Soft Pack, Kevin Devine, Paparazzi, Delphic, One EskimO.

Man! It’s hard to even say which day is the best… I think they did a really good job of spreading out awesome acts (well, to me) across all three days. Day 2 is probably the best though: Muse, Dead Weather, Hot Chip, Devo, and Gossip?? That’s pretty much a festival right there. I also think the lineup is really exciting because I’ve hardly seen any of these acts live already (usually there are some repeats, which isnt to say they aren’t awesome repeats).

Right now I think I’m most excited about 1. Gorillaz, 2. La Roux, 3. Gossip, 4. Devo, 5. oooh. Tie between Hot Chip and Yeasayer (seen HC before but still excited for it again). This ranking is subject to change but probably won’t, haha.

The Sounds – Warfield, 10/24

Maybe I was just in an especially bad mood (trying to park in SF often makes my blood boil, it seems), but I just couldn’t get into this. Their music and performance were fine.. I enjoyed some parts of the set, don’t get me wrong. It all just seemed a little too.. commercial? practiced? I’m not sure. There wasn’t a whole lot of variation, and much of their behavior seemed like they read it in a “big time rock stars” manual.

Frontwoman Maja Ivarsson (yes, they are from Sweden – they actually are pretty big stars over there) is for the most part entertaining – a little bit mesmerizing, in that Madonna-esque kind of way.. but she also can be kind of annoying. She definitely seems to think she’s hot shit, haha. Which I guess she is.. but still.

She was also wearing those pants this time (pic not from our show) and apparently is fond of doing high knee kicks (if you don’t believe me, google image search her name!). Wikipedia also informs me she is a longtime martial artist. Ok, Maja Ivarsson.. I guess you’re pretty cool.

Also contributing to my ill humor was the above-average money-grubbing level of this entire production. First of all, I could lament against Ticketmaster for DAYZ, and this was just one example of their filthy greed. For a show that was advertised at $25 a ticket, it ultimately came out to being almost $40 thanks to “convenience” fees. >< Further, at the venue, when I asked for water, they informed me I could buy a bottle for $3.50 (wouldn’t give me a cup, and there wasn’t a drinking fountain anywhere I found). You’d think they could include WATER with the convenience fee that is already like, half the ticket price added on!!

/rant

TRON 2.0, Dark Side of the Moon 2.0

So, who’s excited for the TRON remake? I am, for at least one reason:

Probably the only thing anyone’s heard about the remake is that Daft Punk will be scoring it, and that news is mighty exciting. Rumor has it that the duo will be touring in support of the release, too. Having seen only about half of the original TRON, I would label it as ‘endearingly nerdy’, but I’m sure the remake will probably not be either of those things! Too bad it’s not coming out until 2011, so hopefully people don’t get tired of hype before then.

Further, I just discovered that Wendy Carlos (previously Walter Carlos) scored the original! I enjoy Switched-On Bach, so maybe I need to watch the whole movie and pay better attention to the music this time 😀 Wow, I can’t wait to see this movie.. our understanding of “cool” technology has obviously changed a lot since the original was made, and I’m excited to see and hear the new interpretation.

In other remake/cover news:

The Flaming Lips will be releasing a track-by-track cover of the Pink Floyd classic, Dark Side of the Moon. Innnnteresting… Apparently it’s going to be an iTunes exclusive and feature Peaches and Henry Rollins O.o I’m definitely curious to see how they’ll take this on, and I certainly hope the result will be totally crazy and new (in a good way). I think I’d be skeptical about any current band trying this, but if anyone can pull off a wild reinterpretation of a classic album, I think the Lips are a pretty good bet. It’ll be interesting, at the very least!

Getting this show on the road…

Posts to begin anon; still getting things underway. STAY POSTED FOR FUTURE DELIGHTS!!