All right now. I just sat down at the ol’ Macbook with a fresh cup of coffee after a nice restorative sleep last night and yoga session this morning, and I’ve noticed that a lot has happened over the last few days. I was camping in the Catskills with friends and caterpillars, but mostly caterpillars. We had some heavy rain on Saturday, that we waited out and weathered and ended up having a rockin’ good time in trout country. We saw the world’s largest kaleidoscope ™ and even swung by Woodstock to make sure nobody was slacking on the drum circle. If a drum circle happens in Woodstock and no one is there to hear it…maaaaahhhhhn. Anyway, let’s look what happened in the less-trippy world outside of Woodstock. I know that a ton of rock fans (as well as fans of Jack Johnson) did some camping in Manchester, TN over the weekend for the country’s biggest music festival ™, Bonnaroo. Let’s check out some stuff…
Winning Bonnaroo’s biggest-douchebag award looks like it was, hands-down, Kanye West, who had already forced organizers to change his time-slot to late-night so that he could take full advantage of his ‘amazing’ glow-in-the-dark set. With the later time granted, it seems he still couldn’t even get to the stage on time. I think it would be you though, that would be Bonnaroo’s biggest DB if you would wait till 4:30 am for a hip-hop show. It just couldn’t possibly be interesting enough to warrant that kind of wait!
After hitting Bonnaroo on Thursday night, Vampire Weekend played to a soaking-wet Central Park Summerstage crowd on Saturday. Both of these videos are very much worth watching…1) this Bonnaroo video has some good festival footage and a hilarious MGMT interview at the end (which shows us how young the MGMT boys are), and 2) in this one from Saturday with Andrew WK, I’m kinda like, c’mon VW, just play the Petty song and stop making an excuse for liking Petty since your Columbia friends think he’s ‘frat rock’!
Here are some great Bonnaroo pics on Pitchfork.
I just gotta say that for some reason, my Sh*t L*sts post featuring the lovely Duffy, got around 1000 hits over Saturday and Sunday. She didn’t play Bonnaroo, but maybe it’s because she won the Mojo award for Song of the Year. No Rock & Roll Fun seems less than thrilled about the list of winners, although it doesn’t look so bad to me…but I’m also an easily-amused Yank!
No Rock & Roll Fun also posts this Duffy live video, against it’s will. I guess Britain is just inundated with Duffy and tired of the hype, but listen to her sing! Beats the shit out of American fave, Fergie!
Bob Lefsetz continues to know everything about everything in the music world. Which is sometimes very insightful and other times a bit annoying. Bob should see Dave’s math on the pressing of vinyl though!
Just in, Carrie Brownstein at NPR’s Monitor Mix is also opposed to the new wave of British soul singers, and she’s not even British! What do you think, is this genre just too derivative?
Ben Folds does ‘Bitches Ain’t Shit’ at Bonnaroo, for the last time.
And on a random note, here’s an interview with Nick Drake from 1971.
More fairly-solid Phish rumors (yet still rumors).
Crystal rocked Round 10 on NewmRadio Rock Trivia, and will soon receive her booty, and Round 11 will start some time this week. Be prepared.
Well…what a week! Matt McCarthy‘s 40th birthday was on Saturday, Led Zeppelin‘s music finally became available through online digital services such as iTunes, I did my first volunteer project for NY Cares (which was planting bulbs in Ft. Greene Park), my brother’s birthday is Thursday (11/15) and my sister’s is Sunday (11/18), Paul and Jamie returned home from their long stay in L.A., the Bengals won a game on Sunday, I learned about the band Exmagma, I’m going to see the amazing Gabrielle Stravelli sing on Saturday night, and Cymbeline on Sunday afternoon. This is one of the gifts that Matt got on his birthday….
Indie Rock may not be so hip and underground as it thought it was. Or does this make it even hipper? I don’t know how these things work anymore.
Seen the new NPR music site?
Or the great NPR sub-blog, Monitor Mix, written by ex-Sleater-Kinney’s Carrie Brownstein?
More on the state of the music industry at The Week Daily.
Super-cool douche, Thom Yorke snubs Paul McCartney. More reason for me to dislike Radiohead. If a Beatle wants to work with you…DO IT! Jeez! Come on…you gotta agree here.
Whoa! Just saw this on Hidden Track. The self-tuning Gibson guitar introduced.
More Van Halen shows coming in 2008!
And for you Phish geeks, Hidden Track also commemorates the 10-year anniversary of Phish Destroying America. You can download some killer cow-funk shows there too. I’m listening to Dayton 12-07-97 now!
The great slur-off. Winehouse vs. Dylan.
What else is up, ya’ll?
