Saturday, June 27, 2009

local garage rock scene


here's a list of awesome chicago garage rock bands......you should check them all out........

lover! (although he sort of maintains his home is memphis, he plays enough shows here...)

more to come. i'm in the process of making a DIY mixtape of the local scene for all you kids......

friday night

jay reatard was awesome. fun times always....only played one new song, nothings going to save me, so i guess we'll have to wait for the rest of the LP til it comes out in august.

lover! opened. good garage punk. and the smith westerns started things off. nuggets era garage mixed with a bit of glam and pop punk. watch out for these guys in the future. they ought to be the nest big thing. buy their LP on hozac records now, it just came out.......

Friday, June 19, 2009

pitchfork fest set times are released. and tickets are almost gone.


The Pitchfork Music Festival, which takes over Chicago's Union Park July 17-19, is only a month away. Now we've got the schedule for all three stages for all three days. Check below for the set times, and start planning now!

In other news, Sunday tickets are now completely sold out. Three-day passes and two-day passes are long gone.

A = Aluminum Stage, B = Balance Stage, C = Connector Stage

Friday, July 17 (Write the Night: Set Lists on Demand)

8:40 (A) Built to Spill
7:20 (C) The Jesus Lizard
6:10 (A) Yo La
Tengo
5:00 (C) Tortoise

Saturday, July 18

8:40 (A) The National
8:30 (B) The Black Lips
7:30 (B) Matt and Kim
7:25 (C) Beirut
6:30 (B)
Lindstrøm
6:15 (A) Doom
5:30 (B)
Wavves
5:15 (C)
Yeasayer
4:30 (B) Ponytail
4:15 (A) Final Fantasy
3:35 (B)
Bowerbirds
3:20 (C) The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
2:40 (B) The Antlers
2:30 (A) Fucked Up
1:45 (C) Plants and Animals
1:45 (B) The
Dutchess & the Duke
1:00 (A) Cymbals Eat Guitars
1:00 (B) Disappears

Sunday, July 19

8:40 (A) The Flaming Lips
8:30 (B) The Very Best
7:30 (B) Mew
7:25 (C) Grizzly Bear
6:30 (B) Vivian Girls
6:15 (A) M83
5:30 (B)
Japandroids
5:15 (C) The
Walkmen
4:30 (B) DJ/Rupture
4:15 (A) The Thermals
3:35 (B) Women
3:20 (C)
Pharoahe Monch
2:40 (B) Killer Whales
2:30 (A)
Blitzen Trapper
1:45 (C) Frightened Rabbit
1:45 (B)
Dianogah
1:00 (A) The Mae
Shi
1:00 (B) Michael Columbia



(sorry p4k, i just copy and pasted....)

king khan + bbq + black lips = almighty defenders


my dreams have come true.

king khan, mark sultan and the black lips recorded an LP together in berlin. down time with friends well spent , i'd probably just have a hangover to show, not a new collaborative project........

the LP is set for release of vice records on september 22......

above is a picture from their first performance at north by northwest music fest. below is the track list. i cannot fucking wait. all of these guys are insane........

01 All My Loving
02 The Ghost With the Most
03 Bow Down and Die
04 Cone of Light
05 Jihad Blues
06 30 Second Air Blast
07 Death Cult Soup n' Salad
08 I'm Coming Home
09 Over the Horizon
10 She Came Before Me
11 The Great Defender

Sunday, June 14, 2009

free music in downtown chicago



june 22nd, 6:30-8:30....sea and cake, dirty projectors
june 29th, 7:30-9:30...feelies, icy demons
august 10th 6:30-8:30...shearwater
august 24th 6:30-8:30...red red meat

way to go chicago park district...

thao and the get down stay down


so i finally got to see thao and the get down stay down yesterday at ribfest, and they were so fun live.  high recommended.  awesome musicianship, great stage presence and the ability to pull of their songs as well as they were recorded.

i don't usually get this indie pop, but there is something about thao that i just can't resist.  the alt folk twee pop genres aside, their music is upbeat, the lyrics interesting and their songs get stuck in my head all the time.   for instance below is a video for bag of hammers, which has been etched on my brain since i first heard a year ago....



....anyway everyone should check them out live.....and should pick up thao's new LP in october when it comes out........

Monday, June 8, 2009

kurt vile


philly's kurt vile just signed to matador and will have a new LP out this fall.

you really ought to check his lo-fi pysch folk.  neil young , syd barrett and 80s shoegaze crammed into warm analog sounding songs..... click above for his myspace or below to preview him on lala....  and if you see constant hitchhiker on LP, buy it.......

Sunday, June 7, 2009

kid congo.


just get back from seeing KID CONGO and his pink monkey birds at permanent records.  holy shit it was awesome. 

kid congo was in gun club, the cramps and in the bad seeds, nick cave's band.  the guy has been a part of so much seminal 80s post punk.  and his new band is that same dark garage rock sound that has become very hip, but he's been doing it for years.  

kid congo played 12 songs, most from his new LP on in the red records and 2 covers, gun club's sex beat and the cramps "i'm cramped"

i only wish i could have bought him a beer and asked for some of his stories......

check out one of the songs he played below via lala...... i'll share his new LP with you as soon as i get ahold of it......

blue cheer - vincebus eruptum

BLUE CHEER's first lp is one of my fav records of all time...... garage stomping psychedelic blues rock that blows out yr ears and predates much of what became hard rock, heavy metal and any good rock n roll to that we have now......

their cover of summertime blues could be one of the best songs of all time....well at least i think so......

so you need to grab VINCEBUS ERUPTUM now......

i promise it's a good time......  and after you digest that record, go find it on vinyl and then buy their second lp OUTSIDEINSIDE......  yr life will never be the same.......


watch below.....


genius you say.


i've stayed away from iTunes updates since apple has added the genius feature.  but recently i gave in and updated the version on my macbook.  i just had to see what the fuss was about.

now i love to make mixtapes--and i was always call them mixtapes whether they are zip files of mp3s or mixes burned to cdr--but the problem with genius is that it takes the creativity out of making mixes.  all you have to do is select one song and hit the genius button and then viola you have a mix. 

i selected battles and got a mix full of noise, math and post hardcore songs.  i picked be your own pet and got a selection of punk, post punk and fast indie pop songs that all seemed to fit the mold.  so i guess in a bind, genius works better than the old party shuffle function on iTunes.  we all have too much music and too much diversity in our genres for party shuffle to work without making a schizophrenic playlist.

but really do we need a genius function?  i make mixes all the time and genius isn't going to supplant that urge.  its one size fits all, basing its mixes mostly on genre and nothing else.  so you get a fairly cohesive mix, yet if you want anything more specific you can't use genius.  i often make mixes of new songs i've acquired.  or mixes by label or mood or content of the lyrics.  genius can't do that.  maybe it will at some point, but not without allowing apple some big brother leverage.

so genius is alright i guess.  but the way it works is by feeding your playlist info to apple and collating the data into some sort of secret formula.  and yet for all the data mining and science, you can still make a better mix than the apple robots.  and for some of us music junkie and djs, we will always be able to slay the dancefloor much better than apple.  so take the genius function for what its worth.

but please keep making yr own mixtapes.