Music | LovetheMusic

I'm not really sure how to do a write-up on a music festival that lasted a whopping 4 days. I'm a person that admires and needs organization, and I'm sure you'd want the same if I ended up writing one big garbled description of all that went on.

I think I'll do this by days.

Bonnaroo Thursday

Well, we actually got there Wednesday night. We drove up from Florida Wednesday during the day, and arrived late night at the pit-stop Walmart. The one where all the hippies go to buy and sell, including beer.

We were lucky enough to get in that night, and we set up camp, going to bed at about 3am.

Woken up by the sun at around 7:30, we set off for Centeroo at about 10:30ish. We were camped at a site called Camp M, or Pussy Galore. I'm not sure which one. We were in the pod that was located Southeast of Centeroo. It was about a 20 minute walk, which none of us minded. We got to Centeroo in time to see the gates open for the first time, and were in in about 10 minutes, after a light search.

We were all pretty unfamiliar with the bands first scheduled, so the first event we took part in was Lewis Black's standup. My first time attending stand-up comedy, and as Lewis Black is one of my favorites, I was quite chuffed to catch him live.

Here's a link to the Thursday schedule.

Me and my posse, which consisted of my boyfriend Wade and my friend Sean caught a little bit of Mute Math, and had every intention of catching Clutch and Rodrigo y Gabriela, but we were so exhausted we barely made it back to camp before those shows played, so we missed them. The rest of my group caught them though, and reported that Clutch was good and the bit they saw of Rodrigo y Gabriela was impressive. Oh, and we did catch a good bit of The New Orleans Klezmer Allstars, which were quite good. Me and Wade both agreed that the guy playing violin/fiddle/whathaveyou was a bit off, though. Our only complaint.

Pictures of Bonnaroo Thursday:

Me and Sean are sooper excited to be in the car for 10 hours.

Planet Roo

Waiting in line for Lewis Black.

Yet Another Comedy Tent

Prestage Lewis Black

Whoopwhoop Lewis Black

The New Orleans Klezmer Allstars

Coming up next, Bonnaroo Friday….

I did it : Bonnaroo 2007

Well, I'm back from Bonnaroo.

Yep. I went, I came back. Nothing disasterous happened while there, and my posse and I feel very fortunate in that. We did run over a tree on the way up though, but thats another story for later on after I do the post-Bonnaroo crash.

Roadtrip Soundtracks

So this post kind of got put on the back burner with the Ozma review and everything going on, but I still feel one of the most important aspects of a roadtrip is the soundtrack for it. Here are a four pointers for creating a mix disc or MP3 playlist to fill in the silent miles.
Call me clichéd, but I find songs about the road very roadworthy. There are a lot of Through Being Cool era Saves the Day tracks ["Vast Spoils of America", "Shoulder To the Wheel", etc.], but my favourite is definitely "Take Our Cars Now!" from the EP I'm Sorry I'm Leaving, so I've supplied it here for you.
Another great thing to consider is the sing along factor of a song. "Take Our Cars Now!" is a perfect example of that. Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy" proved pretty good at it, too, plus it's danceable. For your enjoyment in this category I give to last years slammin' summer anthem "If You Got the Money" by Jamie T. It's a British clean version, just so you know, the edited phrase is "Do you give a toss?" For those who plan on traveling through the Great Plains or the Desert South West or any other vast expanse of empty drudgery, music for driving fast becomes essential. Songs that just cause your foot to drop on the gas. Songs like "La Grange" by ZZ Top or something from that old Fat Wreck Chords compilation you've got kickin' around. One you wouldn't have thought of that I discovered going through southern Nevada is "Fortress" by Pinback, which is my offering to you. Finally, you must consider that the road to and the road from are generally quite different trips. Heading out to adventure warrants more raucous jamz. The trip back usually involves more night driving, and begs more reflective tones, stuff that the whole crew can feel united, maybe even infinite, around. Suitable sounds come from the Shins, acoustic Ben Harper, and Johnny Cash's American Recordings. One of the best night rides I've had has been set to Death Cab for Cutie, and I'm giving you "The Employment Pages" 'cuz I think it fits the mood I'm thinking of perfectly.
As always, though, remember my rules for mixtaping and be original, throw in a couple joke tracks and, above all, keep your audience in mind. Happy mixing!

Take Our Cars Now - Saves The Day

[audio:http://lovethemusicreviews.com/audio/07%20Take%20Our%20Cars%20Now.mp3]

The Employment Pages - Death Cab for Cutie

[audio:http://lovethemusicreviews.com/audio/07%20the%20Employment%20Pages.mp3]

If You Got The Money - Jamie T

[audio:http://lovethemusicreviews.com/audio/15%20If%20you%20got%20the%20Money.mp3]

Fortress - Pinback

[audio:http://lovethemusicreviews.com/audio/Fortress%20-%20Pinback.mp3]

Concert Review : William Tell, Kaddisfly, New Years Day, Ozma - Kilby Court, 05-09-07, SLC

This has been both the busiest and most satisfying concert season I've ever had, even with all the lateness and missing opening acts. This exciting season of loving continued recently with my second Ozma concert in less than a year. Before I get going on the concert, lemme just say again that Kilby Court rocks my socks all the way off. There. I said it. Again.
First act of the night was former Something Corporate guitarist William Tell. He plays nice poppy guitar-based musics, sometimes piano-y ones. It reminded Dave of an edgier Counting Crows, although I'm sure he's forgetting just how raw and emotional Recovering the Satellites was [I'm not alone on this, right?]. What I thought of was when Weezer toured with The Fray a few years back, if those two bands somehow merged. But without Weezer's quirky sense of humour. Anyhow, I've included his single "Fairfax" for your consideration.
Next was a Portland group called Kaddisfly. These guys really upped the energy level of the show, lemme tell you. When I saw the guys and the set up I was half worried that we were in for thirty minutes of screamo sludge. Not so! The band is really quite interesting to watch; Christopher Ruff [vocals/piano] really made the most of that tiny stage, running about, smashing his cymbal, shaking his maraca, etc. He also played an emergency flashlight. Way cool stuff. Speaking of multi-instrumentation, one guitarist played guitar [obviously], keyboards, and drums during the same song. An impressive feat. Kile Brewer [bass] is both a very nice guy and an obvious Primus fan. Not that he said anything, or has thunder thumbs, but his five-string sits about belly high, not around his knees, he plays technical bits, and even has the Les Claypool stance going.
Usually you can kind of get a feel for what a band's about before they start playing, but New Years Day threw me for a loop. The guitarists, Keith and Mike, looked very metal with their long hair and all blackness. Keith even had some metal band's shirt on [the more metal the bands get, the harder their fonts are to read, so I couldn't tell who]. Then Adam and Russell [drums and bass, respectively] were in nappy tuxedo shirts, which indicated a genre more ironic than metal can muster. During warm up we heard snatches of both NoFX and Rage Against the Machine songs. Turns out they play music that's hard to categorize, not because it's so highly stylized that you don't have words for it, but because it's so simple. You don't want to just call it rock because we have all these subgenres that go to waste if we do. So, if I must, I guess they're a little pop punk. Even littler emo tones. Their singer's a girl, too, so that puts them in whatever category people put those bands in. But the important thing is they put on a great show and Keith looks like Alan Ruck. And if it's important to you, Ashely Costello is pretty cute, and Adam Lorbach used to be in Home Grown. Their first album just came out, I kinda got flirted into buying it, so you'll get a review of that pretty soon.

Then there's Ozma. They've got a new album out on Tuesday. Hearing songs from it live made me realize that Ozma is a lot like AC/DC: they aren't all that interested in musical evolution, just rocking out; new albums are mostly an excuse to go back on tour. And I really mean this in the best way possible. I was going to buy the new Ozma record so I could be hip and review it before it's released proper, but, as I said, I got flirted into buying the NYD album.

Verdicts!

William Tell: Fairly good California pops.
Kaddisfly: Heady hardcore, kinda progressive. Excellent live energies.
New Years Day: Very probably going to be hot business in the near future. Super fun.
Ozma: Still rocking socks. Also, Daniel Brummel is still the sweatiest manbeast ever, but he's learned his lesson and started wearing black.
Overall Final Verdict: Amazing tour, only a few dates left!

P.S. Sorry this one's a little wordy. I'll do better next time.

Related Links:

Ozma Official MySpace // Buy CD

Kaddisfly Official Website // MySpace // Buy CD

New Years Day Official MySpace // Buy CD

William Tell Official Website // MySpace // Buy CD

Related Audio:

New Years Day - I Was Right

[audio:http://lovethemusicreviews.com/audio/01%20I%20Was%20Right.mp3]

Kaddisfly - (Noyabr) Empire

[audio:http://lovethemusicreviews.com/audio/07-kaddisfly-(noyabr)_empire.mp3]

William Tell - Fairfax

[audio:http://lovethemusicreviews.com/audio/William%20Tell%20-%20Just%20For%20You.mp3]

Ozma - No One Needs To Know

[audio:http://lovethemusicreviews.com/audio/02%20No%20One%20Needs%20To%20Know.mp3]

Concert Review : Shiny Toy Guns & the Rapture 05-02-07, In the Venue, SLC

Shiny Toy Guns // The Rapture

Venue : In the Venue, SLC

Date: 05-02-07

So you've already heard all the negatives about the STG show. Now you get to hear about the good stuff, namely the performances themselves.
We showed up pretty late, yet again, but this time we didn't miss the opening act. I'm so glad we did because the Rapture encapsulate all that is good about disco. It doesn't matter how you feel about disco right now, what matters is that if you take everything that is good about any musical genre, it will be good sounds. On top of that one member of the band, what you would call the keyboardist, is not needed on keyboards for every song. During those songs he fills the roll of either saxophonist or percussionist. And by percussionist I mean he dances around with a cowbell and beats it like nobody's business. It's superb to view. Also, his saxophoning is akin to that heard on the Beastie Boys track "Brass Monkey" [which I've decided to be the hyphy-est thing ever]. The Rapture are great, but they didn't adhere to the opening act standard practice of saving your biggest hit for the end of the set. Not a big complaint, but it threw of the momentum of the show.
Regarding the headliners, there are a lot of nice things that I want to say about Shiny Toy Guns and their live performance. I hope I cover them all.
First of all, these people take every aspect of their music seriously. I mentioned earlier that they scrapped the album We Are Pilots twice and redid the whole thing. That sort of obsession spills over into their live shows, too, with fancy lightings, projections, and serious energy. They also have and interesting positioning on stage. Normally a four-piece band will be set up like a diamond, with drums in back, bass and guitar on left and right, and a charismatic frontman out in [surprise] front. STG was, left to right, Mikey Martin [drums], Chad Petree [guitar, vox], and switching spots were Carah Faye [vox, keys, sometimes bass] and Jeremy Dawson [bass, keys]. I'm very, very, very glad they did this because Mikey Martin is one of the most entertaining people to watch ever. Dude likes hittin' stuff. And since a number of songs feature some kind of electronic beat in addition to his drumming, he has a lot of free space to work in. Also, he enjoys spitting on his bandmates.

One of my favourite things about the set was that after they played "Le Disko" a good number of the dumber people at the show made their exodus, leaving the rest of us to enjoy the show. "Le Disko", by the way, was dedicated to us in SLC, but then more specifically to Provo. I have no idea why, and am immensely intrigued. If anybody can tell me the reasonings, I shall repay you tenfold. Also they gave shoutouts to X96 for being generally kick-awesome.

Results:
The Rapture: Superfun dancy sounds. They like you very much.
Shiny Toy Guns: Amazing energetic times. They've only got one album out, so their set was actually shorter than the Rapture's. Got a cover of Depeche Mode's "Stripped" [a billion times better than Rammstein's], but no "When They Came for Us".
Final Verdict!: An amazing tour. Both bands are brilliant, keep an eye on STG.

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