Thursday, August 27, 2009

Drake ft. Eminem, Kanye West, Lil Wayne - Forever



Well isn't this is a MidPoints dream come true. Someone decided to put the four dudes I seem to blog the most about on one insanely hot track. It's just shy of 6 minutes long, giving plenty of time for all four of these guys to do their thing and do it right. Drakegrassi sings the hook and gives us the lead off verse about how awesome he is and how quickly he got to where he is. Not particularly original, but still fun to listen to. But after the three other guys get their shot at a verse, Eminem flat out kills it. Drizzy, Yeezy and Weezy might be good at what they do, but this track reminds us that they all pale in comparison to Em's lyrical and flowdacious prowess. I mean he threatens to literally eat your face. What more could you want?
Download this ish. Now!


Thanks again to my buddy Kia for the tip.

Monday, August 17, 2009

New Radiohead - These Are My Twisted Words



Radiohead just put a new song up as a free download in their W.A.S.T.E. Shop. It's called "These Are My Twisted Words". This new cut come hot on the heels of their tribute the the last WWI survivor "Harry Patch (In Memory Of)". Its a pretty straightforward Radiohead song, brooding guitar, haunting vocals, weird sonic effects, the usual. There have been a lot of rumors circulating about the potential upcoming release of a new EP. Maybe something called Wall of Ice? Who knows. The download comes with a bunch of weird pictures and instructions on how to print them and other weird extras.

Friday, August 14, 2009

Lollapalooza Sunday Recap

Sorry for the delay. I've been busy. Let's not waste time with the boring stuff. Lollapalooza 09. Sunday. Lets go.

SUNDAY (8.9.09)
By sunday the heat/humidity was ridiculous. It was easily one of the hottest days of any Lollapalooza I have attended. Luckily, it was also had some of the best performances of weekend.

BAT FOR LASHES

Bat For Lashes was an unfortunate victim of scheduling. She played a great set, with plenty of energy and fire, she just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Playing the kind of subtle, piano driven stuff that she does is lost on most of the crowd this early in the afternoon. At 130 most people are just hanging out or walking around trying to find something to watch and those who have planted at stage are far more concerned with finding a beer and chatting with their buddies than watching the band. I don't blame those folks, I've been there, I'm just saying Bat For Lashes probably would have been a lot better with a time slot later in the day. It didn't help that some drunk asshole yelled all the lyrics to her set finishing "Daniel" as she was singing them. Still a solid, enjoyable performance.

KAISER CHIEFS

I used to like the Kaiser Chiefs, but I kinda got bored with them pretty fast. They did put on one hell of a show. I just chilled back and layed out in the grass, but they were giving the crowd all the stuff us festival goers eat up; handclaps, call & response, etc. They were one of the most pleasant surprises of the weekend. This massive fire hose attached to a giant fan that blew mist over the crowd was THE most pleasant surprise of the weekend:

THE HOOD INTERNET
I actually planned on seeing Gang Gang Dance in the time slot following the Kaiser Cheifs, but as I was walking past Perry's DJ stage I heard something familiar. The music of french electronic duo Justice...except some Phil Collins vocals had been mixed on top of it. At that moment, all bets were off. I made a bee-line for Perry's and yet again, this turned out to be a great decision. I saw some DJ pair called The Hood Internet. Whatev, they were just mixing for the crazy-ass dance party that was going on around the stage. Like I said, when in doubt always always always go to Perry's, its where the party never stops. Don't believe me? Check this out:
The whole crowd stopped to cheer on this 10 year old crowd surfer with dyed green hair. What a badass. This is much weirder.
Yes. That is an old dude crowd surfing with a lightsaber. I love you Lollapalooza.

OLD POET DUDE
Those who have been to Lolla before know to always keep a look out for this guy. I have no idea who he is. I do know that he goes around to random stages at random times and reads original poetry. Its usually about the band, but is also too abstract to really figure out how or why. Anyway, he usually gets the people pumped.

PASSION PIT
Best performance of the weekend. Period. They were just incredible. I only got into them a few weeks before Lolla but I really fell hard for their debut LP Manners. I still can't stop listening to that album. So I was pretty amped up to see them because they are such a new and exciting band, and there is something special about seeing a band right on the cusp of taking off. The crowd was beyond packed. Once they started, it was just pure chaos. There was so much jumping and dancing and crowd surfing. Only two times in my Lollapalooza history have I jumped/danced harder than at Passion Pit and that was at Girl Talk in 08 and Daft Punk in 07. And I don't dance for just anybody. Passion Pit was the apex, the pinnacle of the weekend. I had more excitement, sweat, and fun during their set than any other during the whole weekend. Their brand of pop is just pure energy and it translated beautifully live. Every chorus is an epic sing a long, and each song seemed to big more epic than the last. They were, in a word, perfect.

SNOOP DOGG
It took me about a half hour to recover, both physically and emotionally, from Passion Pit and as soon as I did, Snoop D-Oh-Double-G was there to get the party going again. Although I wasn't able to enjoy the show in quite the manner in which I had hoped, I still had a blast. I mean, he started his set with "The Next Episode" and then "Gin and Juice". Snoop Dogg is the crowd pleaser. He did his hits, he did a Tupac tribute, he played "Jump Around" which caused break dance circles to form, he did call & response, he did it all. There was a cloud hanging over the crowd that you wouldn't believe. He finished his set with a repeating chorus of "Na na na na Na na na na hey hey hey Snoooooop Doooooooggg".

Look. People dancing in the middle of the crowd. Hilarious.


I LOVE MY CITY

I love my city. I mean just look at it. Ain't Chicago the prettiest thing you ever did see?


THE KILLERS





The Killers headlining set, much like both the Kings of Leon and the Yeah Yeah Yeah, felt like a coming of age ceremony. Lead singer Brandon Flowers even humbly announced that this was the largest crowd they had ever played for. But Perry Ferrell doesn't pick somebody to headline his festival if he doesn't think they can handle the job. So the Killers did their home city of Las Vegas proud and put on a Show. I loved the band's first two albums Hot Fuss and Sam's Town but to be honest their third album Day & Age didn't do much for me. However, the songs that were boring and forgettable on that album were given new life on the giant Chicago 2016 stage. I mean, any concert with pyrotechnics is going to be a good time. Their biggest songs like "Mr. Brightside" and "All These Things I've Done" were huge, but the weekend closing "When You Were Young" accompanied with a shower of sparks and other explosives was truly one of the best moments of the weekend.






Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Lollapalooza Saturday Recap

After the miserable conditions of Friday, as soon as I saw the sun on saturday, I knew I was going to have a a much better time. It got hot and humid fast but being the Arizona boy that I am, I'll take sunshine and heat over rain any day of the week. Lets get to the good stuff!

SATURDAY (8.8.09)
My first stop on Saturday was the Kidaplooza stage. In my previous years of Lollapaloozaing, I'd never visited the Kidaplooza stage so I was presently surprised to catch the last few mintues of boy wonder Quinn Sullivan and blues guitar legend Buddy Guy. I only saw them play a few songs, and sadly didnt get any pictures, but it was enjoyable while it lasted.

KASKADE
The biggest lesson I learned this weekend is to always always always go to Perry's DJ stage when I have down time. I didn't have any firm destination once I got to the festival on Saturday, so I was just moseying around when I saw some crazy shit going down at Perry's. DJ Kaskade was spinning and scratching and mixing up a storm and it was a blast. There were two scantily clad identical twins dancing and throwing t-shirs into the crowd, and everyone was dancing up a storm, despite the intense mid day heat. I honestly have no idea who Kaskade is and I will probably never listen to him again, but he sure did put on a fun set.

ANIMAL COLLECTIVE (DJ SET)
I knew I wasn't going to be able to catch Animal Collectives performance later in the day, so I thought I would catch their DJ set at Perry's to make up for the loss. After hearing Kaskade provide the mastermix soundtrack to a party in the park, I was pretty excited to hear what AC had up their sleeve. I was expecting them to do the same kind of thing as Kaskade or maybe do dancey mixes of their own tunes, I would have been happy withe either. But boy oh boy was I disappointed. As far as I could tell, they just plugged in their iPod and played a bunch of bizarre, rhythmic world music. Whatever it was, it wasn't dancey, wasn't fun, and wasn't a party. I stayed for about a half hour, waiting for something interesting to happen. It never did, so I took off and headed for the Chicago 2016 main stage to catch the last half of Atmosphere's performance.


Although attendance on Friday was still in the tens of thousands, it seemed about 12 times more crowded on Saturday. Look at all those people!

ATMOSPHERE
I don't really know much about Atmosphere, beyond the fact that he is a white rapper and most of my hardcore hip-hop fan friends aren't particularly huge fans of his. Still, what I caught of his set was decent and I enjoyed what I heard in that 'its live music and the sun is shining so I can't complain' kinda way. Not a bad way to kill a half hour, but not particularly great either.

ARCTIC MONKEYS
I have long been of the opinion that the Arctic Monkey's are one of the most grossly overrated bands in the indie world. But that didn't stop me from checking out their set on Saturday afternoon. They rocked it pretty hard, and although I still don't really see what all the fuss is about, I definitely enjoyed their performance. Whatever, live music is live music and when the weather is nice, there ain't nothin' better. No complaints. Keep doing what you are doing Arctic Monkeys, it seems to be working for you.

SANTIGOLD
Santigold put one of the most fun sets of the weekend. She burned through most of the songs from her debut LP but not without taking some truly awesome detours. First, she played the Jay-Z track "Brooklyn We Go Hard", singing her part before then transitioning into "Shove It", the song Jay-Z sampled for his track. Later in the set, for reasons that escape me, she and her dancers/back up singer started dancing to Soulja Boy's "Turn My Swag On". It only lasted about a minute, and like I said, I have no idea why it happened, but it was pretty fun. Then, just before closing her set with "Creator" she cover the classic Cure track "Killing An Arab". Her show was the last one of a tour that has spanned the last 2 years and was her first show back in America in some time. Artists always love to end their tours with a bang and that's exactly what she did. Way to deliver, Santi.

Also, check out the GZA of Wu-Tang Clan fame chillin' on the side of the stage. WU-TANG-WU-TANG

TV ON THE RADIO
I saw TV On The Radio at Lollaplooza 2009 and they were great then, but they were much better this year. They were on a much bigger stage, and they played louder, and harder than I expected. Their music is so inherently energetic, but the often bizarre rhythms present on their latest albums suddenly made so much more sense when played at a deafening volume. Although bands like TVOTR depend a lot of the sonic composition of the studio environment, they take on an entirely different, but equally enjoyable feel live. Their set was mainly comprised of stuff from Dear Sceince, but they included some of their classics like "Wolf Like Me" and an epic, set finishing rendition of "Staring At The Sun". They were definitely one of my highlights from the whole weekend.

YEAH YEAH YEAHS



It hurt my heart, but I had a pretty decent spot for TVOTR and I knew if I skipped Animal Collective and moved up for the YYYs I could get a pretty decent spot. It was the classic conundrum of the festival. I could abandon my post to squeeze one more band in but then have a bad view for both, or skip the one and get a great spot for the headliner. These past few years have taught me that it's always worth it to get close to the headliner. So thats what I did, and boy was it worth it. Just like the Kings of Leon, I've been a fan of the YYYs for a long time and seeing them fill the shows of a festival headlining spot was awesome. They opened with the slow building "Runaway" and the high priestess of alt rock Karen O took the stage wearing a giant colorful head dress. They played a great mix of material from all three of their studio releases. From the scorching dance punk of "Heads Will Roll" and "Pin" to the slowjam ballads like "Skeleton", the band was clearly having a the time of their life, more than taking advantage of their last minute headliner status. However, they were at their most human when they played an acoustic version of their love ballad single "Maps", with Karen O forgetting the lyrics midway through. Luckily she had thousands and thousands of fans their to help get her on track. Overall, it was an outrageously high energy performance and one of my favorite shows of the weekend. It was an exhausting but perfect end to a long day of great music. For however miserable Friday was, Saturday more than made up for it. Once the YYYs played the final notes of "Date With The Night" and brought the day to a close, I knew the festival had been redeemed.


Check back tomorrow for my recap of Sunday!

Monday, August 10, 2009

And On The Fourth Day He Rested (And Blogged): Lollapalooza 2009 Friday Recap

Well, now that the big weekend is over, I feel that same post-Christmas depression I felt as a child after all the presents were opened. I'm exhausted, sick, sunburned, sore but completely and utterly satisfied. Lollaplooza 2009 had a rough start but ended up being yet another great festival. In the past three days I saw 20 artists play on 7 different stages totaling up to more than 25 hours of live music. I took nearly 300 pictures through out the whole experience and since that is a lot of stuff to cover in one post, I am going to break my recap up into three segments; one for each day. First things first, Friday recap, lets go!


FRIDAY (8.7.09)


So to be completely honest, Friday was my least favorite day of Lollapalooza I have ever been a part of. It was cold, rainy and didn't really get to rockin' very late in the day. That's not to say I didn't see some great performances by some great bands, but ya know...I like sunshine.

White Lies
The first band I saw was the Interpol wannabes White Lies. I accidentaly saw them last year when someone (I can't remember who) canceled and they filled in. I was fairly impressed last year, and they sounded even better this year. But as you can tell from the picture, the weather was pretty miserable. And like I said, I'd rather just listen to Interpol. But still, they played a solid set. Not a band kick off to the weekend.

I brought a sweatshirt to the festival and I always have an emergency poncho in my bag but I was trying to hold out as long as I could. I lasted about an hour before I ponchoed it up. Look how happy I am about the conditions:


Bon Iver

Of all the bands I saw on the wet and rainy Friday, Bon Iver fit the mood best. His music is so soft, and dark sound it feels as if its almost meant to be played on rainy days. Not a particularly high energy set, but beautiful none the less.

Ben Folds
I've liked Ben Folds for a while, although I've never explored far beyond his live solo album Ben Folds Live. Unfortunately, the rain was at its heaviest during his set and I was feeling particularly wet, cold and grumpy while he was playing so I wasn't in the mood to fight for a good view and just hung back a bit. However, he did play "Bitches Ain't Shit" to great effect and that made for one of the highlights of the festival.

Also, while watching his set I may have been standing next to a celeb. Eric (Kevin Connolly) from Entourage? You decide:



Fleet Foxes
I was pretty damn excited to see Fleet Foxes play. When I picked up their album early this spring, I had that thing on repeat for weeks. It was the first time since 2005 (Sufjan Stevens' Illinoise) that I actually really really liked Pitchfork's #1 Album of the Year (Person Pitch and Silent Shout were decent, but I never fell in love with either of them). Unfortunately, I didn't know a single song the entire first half of their set. I found this very odd considering the band only has one album. Judging from the reactions of the crowd, I don't think I was alone. But once they started playing stuff from their self-titled debut, the show really picked up. I was pleasantly surprised at how polished their harmonies sounded live. I was expecting them to lose something in the translation to live performance, but their voices really are that good. Way to go Fleet Foxes. Also, they are such folkies. From their outfits to their outrageous beards, these dudes are indie-folk-poppers through and through.


The Decemberists


By the time The Decemberists took the stage around 6pm, I was very very sick of the rain but just minutes into their set, the downpour finally let up. Whether it was because I was finally starting to dry out or because they played their entire Hazards of Love album start to finish, this was easily one of the best performances of the weekend. I especially loved that Shara Warden of My Brightest Diamond was there to sing her part on "Wanting Comes In Waves" and its reprises. I've now seen the band three times, once on their Picaresque tour in 2005, once on their The Crane Wife tour at Coachella in 2007 and although they always deliver the goods, this was by far their most rockin' show. It was also their least gimmicky (no giant whale costumes, or marching through the crowd), and this really allowed the music to speak for itself. It's equal parts funny, embarrassing and awesome that The Decemberists were one of the hardest rocking bands of the festival, but I loved every single second of it.


Kings of Leon



Seeing Kings of Leon headline a massive festival was a pretty special experience for me. I know this is so snobby of me, but I've been listening to these guys since way back in the Youth & Young Manhood days, long before "Use Somebody" stormed the radio waves earlier this year. They were one of the first indie bands I ever got into and to see them go from nothing to one of the biggest live stages in the biz was pretty damn cool. The Kings have come a long way even since I saw them last at Lollapalooza 2007 when the legendary Eddie Vedder sang a few songs with the band. They were clearly still very new to an audience of this scope, but their humility only made the band's performance feel that much more honest and endearing. About an hour deep into their show, lead singer Caleb Followill delivered a heartfelt speech about how grateful they are to be given such an incredible opportunity and dedicated the show to some random, lucky fan. Although it wasn't the most epic headlining set I've seen at the festival, it was easily one the more emotional. The show reached it's zenith when they finally performed their big summer single. There are some songs that just sound like they were meant to have a chorus of 30,000 people singing along and believe me when I say "Use Somebody" is one of those songs. My only complaint is with the brevity of the set and the lack of an encore. We liked what we heard and we wanted more, why leave us hanging? Still, the first day of Lollapalooza ended a thousand times better than it started.


Whew, I'm exhausted. Check back tomorrow for my recap of Satruday.