RANDOM THOUGHTS #1: Coachella

I can hear the groans already. “He’s doing a post about Coachella. We have reached… BLOG TERRITORY!” But fear not: this isn’t going to be about BFFs and booze and how terrified I’m already getting about seeing Bradford Cox's face in person. (As far as the heat and prices and sleeping in a tent for three nights go: It can’t be any more miserable than the 2006 OXEGEN Festival outside of Dublin, Ireland where it was 35 degrees and rainy the whole time and I only had three pairs of pants and no money and was surrounded by thousands of fifty-year-old whiskey-fueled Irishmen screaming about “tha fookin’ Arctic Monkeys!” But I digress.)

What I’m going to do instead is give a brief overview of ten bands I’m buzzed about seeing, overlooking the obvious ones like ECHO AND THE BUNNYMEN and PUBLIC IMAGE LTD. and PAVEMENT and THOM YORKE and JAY Z and DEVO and DE LA SOUL and YO LA TENGO and, of course, SLY AND THE Mamma Jammin’ FAMILY STONE. Full lineup here. Tickets, by the way, went on sale today (1/22).


LCD SOUNDSYSTEM – See #7 Album Of The Decade. The headliner as far as I’m concerned. After finishing my Top 25 list, I told myself that I wasn’t going to listen to another 00s album for at least six months. Nuh-uh. “Someone Great” is still my secondmost played song on iTunes; “All My Friends” the fourthmost; “Too Much Love” and “Get Innocuous!” at fifteen and sixteen respectively. So James Murphy has pretty much owned me of late. I’m even wondering if I should have included the debut as one of my Top 25, booting out Agalloch or Scott Walker or something. (I feel the same way about Clinic’s Internal Wrangler. Oh, the regrets of life!) Here are a couple of observations I’ve made about LCD in the past week:
- In about a third of his songs, James Murphy sounds like he has a head cold.
- LCD (a “disco” artist) strangely released the best punk song of the decade: “Tired.” It also reminds me of a high-quality version of something that might have appeared on Marilyn Manson’s Antichrist Superstar. No, I’m not kidding.
- How hard is Murphy trying to imitate Bryan Ferry in “Watch The Tapes”? It’s probably the best homage/parody since Brian Eno’s “Dead Finks Don’t Talk.” And, of course, every Roxy Music song post-1975.
As you can tell, I am VERY EXCITE.


VAMPIRE WEEKEND – This band exists in an entirely different world from me, the world where cardigan sweaters are worn year-round and “summer” is a verb. Listening to Vampire Weekend is a lot like watching that MTV show Jersey Shore—I can’t “relate” to it in any way (other than from a comedic distance) and yet I can’t look away. Their second album, Contra, came out a week or two ago and I have to say, they have greatly toned down the Annoyance Factor of their debut. They’re even messing around which electronics now, which I wholeheartedly endorse. It will be interesting to see how these kids will be viewed ten years from now: as a neat little flash in the pan, or as the second coming of the Talking Heads. I’ll give them credit though, they inspired me to look up the word “horchata.”


GRIZZLY BEAR – See #22 Album Of The Decade. Not really a whole lot to add from what I said there. Speaking of preppiness, how sad is it that I’m stoked about seeing a band that looks/dresses like this? Where in the hell did I go wrong?


FEVER RAY – Fever Ray is the solo act of The Knife’s Karin Dreijer Andersson (The Knife’s 2006 album, Silent Shout, is still one of the most frightening things I’ve ever heard). But this stuff is more downbeat, trip-hoppier, and equally as disturbing. It wonder how it will translate to an outside venue, considering that the typical Fever Ray show is a wash of darkness, fog and Venetian plague masks. Just the other night, Andersson appeared on some Swedish awards show wearing a mask that looked a lot like one of Peter Gabriel’s Slippermen starring in The Fifth Element. If that tells you anything.


FAITH NO MORE – Yeah, no Jim Martin (from what I’ve gathered), but still… It’s fuckin’ Faith No More! Mike Patton! First time in ten years! SONGS I HOPE THEY PLAY: “A Small Victory,” “Surprise! You’re Dead,” “Pristina,” “Everything’s Ruined.” And maybe a Fantômas song.


THEM CROOKED VULTURES – Haven’t really heard this yet (HINT: this is that new band with Josh Homme, Dave Grohl and John Paul Jones), but it seems to be getting good-to-pretty-good reviews in most places. I’m usually mistrustful of these modern supergroups, but the fact that this project hasn’t been seen as a major disappointment kind of gets me going. Because Kyuss still means things to me. And Nirvana. And “Hurdy Gurdy Man.”


2 MANY DJS – Haven’t heard these dudes either, but lately I’ve been obsessing over this mashup/plunderponics stuff (The Avalanches, DJ Shadow, Girl Talk). For those who don’t know, this is the genre that takes samples from eight billion other songs and throws them all together into an unrecognizable whole. The aesthetic pleasure from hearing this, I admit, is much different from that of hearing a well-written pop song. But if it’s done cleverly (i.e. Girl Talk), then it becomes true art. I wonder if these people actually enjoy music, or if their minds are constantly scanning for a bassline that will fit with the violin score from some 1960s British sitcom. Anyway, Girl Talk is one of the best. Here’s a track to show you what I’m talking about. By the way, I was originally going to post the song “Non-Stop Party,” but, you know, there might be children present.


GIRLS – A local (San Francisco) band that is just now starting to blow up. They’ve released one album so far (last year’s Girls), and the jury is still out for me. Their sound is mostly an early-60s garage pop type thing, which I respect and all, but it doesn’t really turn me on in this case (“Hellhole Ratface” is particularly excruciating). Plus, I’ve heard around town that Christopher Owens is a dick. How’s that for journalism?


DEERHUNTER – Stay the hell away from me, Bradford Cox.*


PHOENIX – This is the way shameless pop in 2010 should sound. Though the album kinda loses me in the second half, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix is pure class. I’ve dismissed this band before as “girl music,” but I was talking like a true asshole. “Love Like A Sunset” has already cracked my iTunes Top 10 (I’ve only owned the album for a month), along with “1901”. All in all, Phoenix remind me of The Smiths plus hooks, minus the personality. Don’t worry. You don’t have to be afraid to enjoy this.


* (See #17 Album Of The Decade. Also see Atlas Sound, Cox’s other project, which is also complete tits.)



Here are a couple of MADDENINGLY CATCHY tracks from some other artists that will be appearing on the bill:

HOT CHIP – “Take It In” (Check out the dude on the far right. He has boobs.)

MGMT – “Time To Pretend” (I think I might actually buy their next one, which is apparently being produced by Pete Kember.)

THE BIG PINK – “Dominos” (Most sexist song since “Under My Thumb”? Definitely not.)



SIDE NOTE: I didn’t really have anywhere else to put this, but it’s something I noticed the other day. Did AIR (the French synthpop duo who all the chicks love) rip off a song by SWITCHBLADE SYMPHONY (a forgotten goth band from the mid-90s who released a really good album called Serpentine Gallery)? YOU BE THE JUDGE!

SWITCHBLADE SYMPHONY – “Dissolve” (1995)

AIR – “Surfing On A Rocket” (2004)


That said, I prefer the Air version.