Matt: November 2004 Archives
This entry was originally posted at Homogenized and later merged into Neckbeard. Images and links may be broken. Sorry.
Just a friendly reminder: Friday is Buy Nothing Day. I don't expect most people to participate, but you should just keep in mind that our lives don't have to be defined by the things we accumulate during them. The X-Mas season has been getting longer and longer and more and more disgustingly commercial, and participating in Buy Nothing Day is a good way to make a small stand against the marketing of emotion and the replacement of love with money. At least that's how I see it, you may disagree.
And yes, BND is sponsored by Adbusters and the like, but even if you dislike the organization you don't have to dislike the idea.
This entry was originally posted at Homogenized and later merged into Neckbeard. Images and links may be broken. Sorry.
Holy hell, I am one neglectful website owner. If Homogenized were my child I would hope the authorities would have locked me away a long time ago for gross negligence. But Homogenized is not my child, it's not even a human, so put those cuffs away, pig. The web server went through some problems and when I recovered Movable Type no longer worked and I have yet to reinstall it. So in the meantime I'll be updating manually in BBEdit.
So what the hell have I been up to, you ask? No? You didn't ask that? Oh. Well I was at All Tomorrow's Parties, that's where and it was incredible. For those not "in the know", ATP is a music festival, started something like five years ago in England. The thing that makes it different from other festivals is the basic premise: each year an artist is chosen to curate the festival, they are given free reign on the bands they invite, usually making for a very eclectic and diverse lineup. Last year, the first year I attended, Matt Groening (of Simpsons fame) curated an incredible hodgepodge of left-field musicians, including a reunited Mission of Burma, a kind-of reunited Stooges, a sans-Beefheart Magic Band, and more indie rock than you can shake a stick at.
This year the curator was Modest Mouse, currently riding a wave of popularity thanks to Epic's pimping of their newest offering Good News for People Who Love Bad News. This year's lineup was considerably smaller and somewhat less diverse, but still excellent. Arriving at Long Beach's Queen Mary about 3:00 I caught most of Explosions in the Sky's blistering post-rock set. A friend noted the similarities between Daft Punk's "Around the World" music video and Explosions in the Sky's live show. Each of the band's 3 guitarists seems to have picked a move out in advance to perform while rocking. These moves are not to be deviated from for the duration of the show. After Explosions came the Black Heart Procession, who would have had a good set, were it not for the 10-minute opener with the saw, which seemed to drag down the momentum of the entire show.
While my cohorts stayed on the outdoor stage to catch J Mascis, I ran back to the ship stage to watch Sufjan Stevens play. Sufjan's show is not the sort of thing suited to a large festival atmosphere, but ATP isn't just any festival. The stage on the Queen Mary itself (as opposed to the larger stage in the park adjacent) presents a much more intimate setting. At the bottom of a three-story atrium, it's possible to watch from the dance floor or any of the upper levels where you can get a view. It's a truly unique setting, and I caught Sufjan's act from one story up and just behind the band. He was no better and no worse than the first time I saw him, which I suppose is saying something when you have to distill an very intimate storytelling session (literally, ask him about Michigan if you get the chance) to it's 45-minute essence. After a quick dinner I caught the Walkmen's intense set, singer Walter Martin's usually Bono-esque vocals pushed way, way past their limits as he screamed favorite songs like "The Rat" until his voiced cracked and nearly disappeared.
The headliners for day one seemed, to me, to be curators Modest Mouse and "very special guest" Lou Reed. I was looking forward to the Mouse's set, but was let down. Some funny moments aside, such as Isaac jerry-rigging some duct tape as a guitar strap, they didn't seem to be into it. Unfortunately, they played the same songs they've been playing since Good Times came out. Passable, but ultimately unsatisfying, and who the hell told them "Black Cadillacs" is good enough to waste my time with even once? Lou Reed gave me mixed feelings as well. It was a good experience seeing the old VU leader sing the song that is the festival's namesake, and Lou himself was great. My only gripe was with his backup band. They bore the unmistakable sheen of a studio band, everything was too perfect, it all sounded prerecorded. There was an impressive cello solo that one might have mistaken for something by the Velvet Underground, but that aside, the band may as well have been a drum machine and MIDI playback.
Ah well, on to day two, before this gets too long. The Constantines were fantastic, Stephen Malkmus (and the Jicks! don't foget them) musically solid but other than an unimpassioned riff on the election from one of the Jicks not very entertaining. The Shins, on the other hand. Oh, The Shins, who could have ended up like Modest Mouse, seeing as they're riding a monstrous wave of exposure...fine, not monstrous, but sort of steadily swelling, thanks to some shameless product placement in Garden State. But they haven't lost it at all. James Mercer's incredible voice drove the band while they played some of my personal favorites: New Slang, Girl on the Wing, Pressed in a Book, Mine's Not a High Horse. Between songs, Marty the keyboardist flowed on such worthy topics as the quantity of drama existing in the LBC. Definitely a highlight of the weekend. Built to Spill, who was way, way off the first time I saw them live and way, way on the second, was just a little off on Sunday. Playing almost all new songs, Doug seemed completely aloof and disaffected by the audience. But the music he created with his vintage Stratocaster was engaging enough to make up for it.
So it started raining then and, seeking shelter, I boarded the Queen Mary again to see Peaches. Peaches was, well...Peaches. There's not much more to say than that, is there? Always divisive, and always entertaining. The highlight of the entire festival was yet to come. It was day two headliners the Flaming Lips. If you have heard rumors about how good a Lips set is, believe them. If you have not I'll start one for you to spread: it was sublime. Trying to cheer the crowd up in the wake of Tuesday's election, Wayne allowed a man to propose to his girlfriend onstage, showered the audience with giant balloons and encouraged the throwing of hands in the air which were to be waved as if one did not care. But two truly bizarre and psychedelic scenes stood head and shoulders above the rest. The first was an unexpected duet with Peaches on the classic Sabbath track "War Pigs." Imagine a crowd of 5,000 indie kids head banging to Sabbath while a blood-soaked Wayne Coyne and a barely-clothed Peaches egged them on. It was truly surreal. The second was the return of the giant space bubble first brought out at the Coachella festival in May. While the Lips played the instrumental Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Pt. 2, Wayne crowd surfed in what appeared to be a big hamster ball, losing his balance several times and probably injuring some people in the process.
I am resolved to make every person I can go see the Flaming Lips the next time they come to town. It has made it into my top 3 shows of all time, which now stands as such:
- The Dismemberment's House of Blues show on their final tour.
- The Flaming Lips at ATP Pacific 2004.
- Sigur Ros at the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion.
Yep, it was that good.
