So, as anyone who has had the misfortune of speaking to me for more than two and a half minutes knows, The Wire is my favorite work of art of all time. (It's also Barack Obama's favorite TV show). It's the captivating, heartbreaking, gut-wrenching, hilarious and shattering definitive artistic statement of the early twenty-first century. I have never been more thoroughly engrossed in anything--anything--in my entire life, nor as moved. As such, I devote a large chunk of my personal time to considering various aspects of the show. Tonight I'm posting the first in what I hope becomes an ongoing series, as I list my five favorite characters with brief analysis. Enjoy! (A note to the reader: this contains spoilers, so read on at your own peril).
5) Omar Little, Stick-Up Man
I realize this is a bit of a cop-out as Omar is everyone's favorite character. There is a reason for this: Omar is the show's coolest and most interesting character. The fearless, homosexual stick-up man who is a constant thorn in the sides of the city's most feared and powerful drug organizations is an enigma. Omar lives by a code--he rarely swears, he takes conscientious care of his grandmother, he "never put his pistol on someone who wasn't in the game"--he is a gentleman among killers. Unfortunately, he's also a stone cold killer who doesn't back down from a fight. Interestingly, Omar was slated to die in the first season but was so popular that the show's creators developed a different arc for him. This new story--from the third season's first stick-up, through his incarceration and ultimate ignominious demise--makes an important point about the drug game: nobody gets out and nobody gets famous.
4) Slim Charles, Chief Enforcer, Barksdale Organization, later, Prop Joe's Crew
Slim Charles has one of the most interesting story arcs in the entire series. First appearing in the third season as the main enforcer in the Barksdale crew, Slim serves as counsel to the operation's leaders and a gun on the streets. Slim displays the same odd nobility as many of the dealers, notably in his impassioned speech against the hitters who broke the Sunday morning truce that nearly killed Omar and his grandmother. Most importantly, though, Slim makes it clear that the drug business is, often, just a business. Since he evades capture in the raid that cripples the Barksdales, Charles finds himself in the employ of Prop Joe until the latter's demise at Marlo's hands. After the serial killer operation forces Marlo to exit the game, Slim is seen in the final montage meeting with Spiros Vondas, planning to take over the illegal importing of narcotics into the city. You see, Slim Charles works for one employer until they go out of business, gets a new job with another firm and then moves up the ladder as the old bosses leave the operation. All in a day's work.
3) Det. William "Bunk" Moreland, Baltimore Police
While I do identify with McNulty (specifically, "What the fuck did I do?"), if I were a character on the show I would be Bunk. A veteran homicide detective and partner to McNulty and later Freamon, Bunk is a skilled investigator who has a reputation for clearing difficult cases. Why is he important? Two reasons: 1) the Omar storyline that begins with their meeting in the project where they discuss their shared past as classmates and the loss of community in Western Baltimore as drugs continue to cannibalize the region. Bunk eventually extracts from Omar a promise to commit no more murders; it is this promise that Omar violates to seal his fate within the moralistic framework of the series. 2) The prolific and often comical philandering that, however unsubtly, shows the toll that the job takes on a person.
2) Det. Lester Freamon, Baltimore Police
Freamon is as good an example as any of the total inability of the police to mount any sort of effective resistance to drug trafficking. Perhaps the most skilled detective that we meet at any point during the series, Freamon gets the ball rolling on the original Barksdale case in the first season. He remains an integral part of the department, leading the way in the dead prostitutes case in the second season, cracking the burners in the third, opening the row house killings in the fourth and eventually sidelining Stanfield thanks to the fictitious serial killer. While unpopular with the bosses due to his tenacity, Freamon is a brilliant investigator who is instrumental in crippling two of the most violent gangs in Baltimore. The fact that he spent the thirteen years prior to the series in the pawn shop unit and then finds himself pushed out at the conclusion is a testament to the supreme political idiocy of law enforcement.
1) Russell "Stringer" Bell, Head of Barksdale Organization
Though Stringer's untimely demise at the end of the third season is entirely justified, it is no less regrettable. Stringer begins the series as the smarter, headier half of the Barksdale leadership, balancing out his more street-minded cousin Avon. As the series progresses (and when Avon finds himself in prison) Stringer begins a move to legitimize himself and get out of the drug game. He operates the Barksdale gang like a straight business, continually seeking to avoid the needless killing that only serves to draw police attention. To wit: the third season in which all of the Barksdale meetings are run according to Robert's Rules of Order. Furthermore, Stringer spearheads the creation of the New Day Co-op, the drug trade union that tries to minimize violence and parcel out territory in a rational fashion. In my mind, Stringer represents the series' ideal: a dealer who sees the game for what it is: business. His fate, however, is the same as everyone else's.
There are, of course, a myriad of other brilliant characters: Avon, Shamrock, McNulty, Daniels, Sobotka, and on and on. Stay tuned for more.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Pop Radio '08
I recently spent a week at the beach with my family, which meant that I would have to take a vacation from the knobby indie rock and post-punk music that generally dominates my playlist for a brief jaunt into the world of corporate radio. Full disclosure: I do enjoy a brief trip right of the dial every summer, if only to see what kind of music major record labels believe humans should go apeshit over. As my taste in overproduced radio music veers more to top 40 than the boring and misogynistic post-grunge cock rock that populates guitar stations, I became familiar with a number of the hits of Party Summer '08. These ranged from pleasantly forgettable (Katy Perry's "I Kissed a Girl") to abominably horrible (Jesse McCartney's "Leavin'"). One song, however, stuck out from the rest: "See You Again" by barely pubescent media juggernaut Miley Cyrus.
Up until two weeks ago, I was largely ignorant to the Miley Cyrus phenomenon. I had a vague notion that she was some sort of double-life leading middle schooler from a Disney Channel show and I heard there were some borderline creepy pictures of her on the internet with her dad, the world's most famous punchline, Billy Ray Cyrus. Still, in spite of her supposed ubiquity, I had never seen an episode of her TV show (still haven't, though the premise has been explained to me) or heard any of her songs (even now, only just the one). Now though, I'm starting to see what the big deal is.
As it happens, "See You Again" is one of the most baffling mixtures of the elevated and the banal that I've ever heard. Here, for the benefit of the reader, is a breakdown of the song's lyrics, with commentary.
"I've got my sights set on you and I'm ready to aim."
Okay, perfectly normal. Girl likes boy. Although it is odd that she simultaneously has her sights set and is also ready to aim. Hmm...
"I have a heart that will never be tamed."
Holy cow! What the hell? Where did this come from? If a girl said this to me when I was 15, I'm pretty sure I would have soiled myself. In fact, I'm not convinced I wouldn't react the same way now. Perhaps it's for a more mature audience?
"I knew you were somethin' special when you spoke my name/ now I can't wait to see you again."
Okay, again--normal. A standard pop song trope, the "When can I see you again?" angle.
"I've got a way of knowing when something is right"
Okay...
"I feel like I must have known you in another life"
What?! Most 15-year olds aren't even conscious that they're living this life, let alone reaching out to loves from past incarnations. And what high school romance has the depth of a love for the ages?
"'cause I felt this deep connection when you looked in my eyes/ now I can't wait to see you again."
Deep connection...okay, makes sense and another repeat of the song title. Now, to the chorus, where the listener discovers exactly why she wants to see him again:
"The last time I freaked out, I just kept lookin' down,/ I st-st-stuttered when you asked me what I'm thinkin' 'bout"
Makes sense. Everyone--particularly teens--makes a jackass out of themselves in front of a crush at least once. Woody Allen has made a career out of it. I do find it odd, though, that the girl with the un-tameable heart can't summon the courage to speak to some pasty nimrod who runs the popcorn machine at the local multiplex. Also, the st-st-stuttering is a nice, if somewhat theatrical little trick for a pop song.
"Felt like I couldn't breathe, you asked what's wrong with me/ my best friend Leslie said, 'Oh, she's just being Miley.'"
Another head scratcher--does this not seem to be a legitimate medical concern? Altered speech, shortness of breath? Is she having a stroke? And why is the best friend character okay with all this?
"The next time we hang out, I will redeem myself/ My heart can't rest 'til then/ Oh-whoa-whoa, I--I can't wait to see you again."
Curiouser and curiouser! Redemption? Another reference to her heart's restlessness? Most people would hope never to see the other person again--maybe she really does possess a heart that will never be tamed. An odd juxtaposition with the reference to "hanging out."
"I got this crazy feeling deep inside/ when you called and asked to see me tomorrow night"
Another normal thing for a 15-year old girl to say. I find it odd that he would want to see her again, though, after her poor showing on their last encounter. As someone who feels profoundly embarrassed for other people, I certainly wouldn't put myself through something like that. Apparently, that "deep connection" she talked about earlier is pretty profound.
"I'm not a mind reader, but I'm readin' the signs/ that you can't wait to see me again"
Hmm...
From that point, the song just repeats lines until its conclusion. Sonically, it's in the propulsive tradition of a dancefloor single, with a heavy beat and the quiet-loud-quiet arrangement. It's fun, yeah, in the boring way that radio dance music often is, but the lyrics are endlessly engaging.
A large amount of the criticism directed at Miley Cyrus revolves around her status as a role model for young girls. Particularly in the flap over her Vanity Fair spread, critics accused her of being too sexualized at too young an age. Apparently, these people are afraid that seeing Hannah Montana's back in a fashion magazine will lead to an army of preteen sluts engaging in rampant sexual acts with total abandon. While this would be a negative (as far as I can tell, the age of consent is pretty accurately set) but it seems to be the wrong concern to me. What strikes me as more troubling is her emotional maturity.
Ultimately, parents could censor their daughters' abilities to see the Vanity Fair spread. VF isn't pumped into every facet of a girl's life the same way that pop singles are. And while those pictures were creepy and probably not the best image, songs like this encourage something even worse.
Although a large part of "Hannah Montana" deals with MC trying to conceal her celebrity identity so that she can experience a normal childhood, the girl herself has no such luxury. No normal girl has top 40 hits, makes movies and plays to sold out audiences in giant arenas. Face facts: Miley Cyrus is a celebrity and is, therefore, beholden to a different set of concerns and priorities than the rest of humanity. That's just the way our celebrity obsessed culture works. And as much as people like to bitch about it, they're all a part of the problem when they pay for those Hannah Montana notebooks, movie tickets and that Disney Channel subscription. Love the world you find, I guess.
Anyway, unless someone's daughter is dangerously psychotic, she's not going to actually believe that she is Miley Cyrus. Outside of idle fantasy, I would wager most girls don't think of themselves in Miley's sneakers. We've bred too strong a visual culture for that. Musically, on the other hand, I imagine that almost everyone--preteen girls and their dads alike--cast themselves as the singer in any given song they hear. And there's the problem.
"See You Again" is a really mature song. And not mature in the way that a peep show is mature--mature as in grown-up. It deals with the notion of love in a way that is simultaneously over-romanticized, totally abstract and yet grounded in some form of relatable reality. It arms the preteens of America with the idea that they, too, could immediately find their true love, some Prince Charming from a past life re-incarnated as the worthless gadabouts their fathers lie awake worrying about. (See my cynical characterization of the song's male hero above.)
Yes, Miley Cyrus might totally flip out someday like Britney or Lindsey. Yes, she might go on to become a symbol of all society's negative projections of "sluttiness." But let's remember what happened with both Brit and Lindz when they started sleeping around and stopped wearing underwear: the media turned on them, revoked their good girl cards and slapped an NC-17 rating on everything they did. Just because Miley Cyrus got her start on the Disney Channel doesn't mean that she herself is a more insidious Trojan horse of pre-pubescent hypersexuality. If she were to start showing her nether regions to photographers her Disney roots would disappear just as fast as her predecessors. Let us not forget--Americans love smut, trash and garbage as much as anyone else in the world, but insist on pretending to be morally superior whenever possible.
The horrible, banal truth is that she is selling--directly over the airwaves and right into the hands of elementary school girls--an idea of love that may be even more damaging. After all, girls already mature more quickly than boys--remember the freshman/senior hookups from high school? Do we really need to give this shark a gun?
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Pitchfork '08: Sunday
Alex and I arrived shortly after Jeff on Sunday and hurried to meet him just as Times New Viking were getting ready to start. To be honest, I've never been 100% in love with their recorded music, but their live show was a blast. The trio stopped between each song to discuss their next move and they cranked out a surprising amount of voltage for a three-piece. Also, Beth Murphy is rrrrrrrrreally hot.
We skipped Dirty Projectors and the opening of Boris to merch around a bit and get set up to see HEALTH, which ranks as the biggest mistake I made all weekend. First of all, the B stage was running behind due to adjusted showtimes after the El Guincho pullout, which meant that we had to sit through most of the High Places set. While they made interesting music, I was about as engaged as I would have been by two people reading from Bartlett's onstage. Another hot girl in the band, though.
Next up, HEALTH, a noisetet from L.A., came out with their specific brand of screaming, shrieking ear violence. I liked the group's aesthetic philosophy and I would have been interested in hearing more of the set, but Chicago's biggest cocksword took a spot next to us and insisted on clobbering the living dogshit out of me during each of HEALTH's "songs." I got fed up with battling Mr. Cuntlips after about ten minutes and we slipped away to get better spots for Les Savy Fav.
As it turns out, I owe that pretentious dicksuck a thank you because we were superclose for LSF, which turned out to be the highlight of Sunday afternoon. Lead singer Tim Harrington wore a headband with a small camera attached and started the set clothed in a neon fringe getup that he shed before the conclusion of the first number to reveal shiny, skintight leggings that left one of his legs bare. (Note: if you've never seen Harrington, he's a flabby, balding nutcase who looks like a disgruntled bear). During the second number, Tim leapt from the stage and ran through the audience, stopping to lie down in front of Jeff, Alex and I for a bit while we all mugged wildly at his camera. Further antics included: donning a Sherlock Holmes outfit and encouraging the crowd to contact their alderman to buy the park so that we could have a concert there every day; climbing into a garbage can which the crowd hoisted, followed by a hilarious Oscar the Grouch impression; rolling in mud before delivering another hilarious monologue about Native American rituals and an explorer named Charles Chicago; anointing each of his band members with mud; starting every song with something along the lines of "oh, this song, sweet!"; a skintight body stocking which was anatomically labelled and said "every body has a body." While Harrington's escapades were the highlight of the concert, the band's set was unspeakably tight and featured "Yawn, Yawn, Yawn" and "The Sweat Descends," amongst other superhits. A total blast.
We then skipped most of Dodos to eat and get good spots for Ghostface Killah and Raekwon, which meant catching the tail end of the Occidental Brothers Dance Band International, a tight act that just didn't appeal to my taste. On the heels of that, Ghost and Rae should have been awesome, but they ended up being my biggest disappointment of the whole festival. They were fine and did a fun version of "Nothin' to Fuck Wit'," but overall they seemed tired and never played more than two minutes of any song. Not bad, but not as mind-blowing as the Clipse show from '07.
Alex and I skipped out then to catch Spiritualized and Dinosaur Jr. To ensure a good spot for Dinosaur, Alex and I saw J. Spaceman from across the field. He was undoubtedly the loudest fucking set of the entire weekend--he was louder from across the park than Dinosaur was from twenty feet back. I'm not super-familiar with his stuff, but he played my favorite two tracks from Songs in A&E and didn't speak to the audience once during the set. Also, though his band kept playing, Pierce hurled his guitar at the drummer and walked offstage two minutes before his set was over, coming back out to wordlessly clap his hands and stare into space. If the "is this dude still on drugs?" jury was still out, I think they're returning a verdict sometime soon.
Spiritualized's ungodly noise got me superjazzed for Dinosaur and, as they warmed up, Alex leaned up to shout "I think I may shit myself from noise!" Though he didn't (how awesome would that be?!?) they were mindblowing. Mascis is a guitar god, although he seemed about as interested in playing a show as he would be in fighting an actual dinosaur. Lou Barlow was still really into what was going on and Murph is as thrilling a pure rock drummer as I've ever seen live. The power trio opened with "Been There All the Time" and "Back to Your Heart," my two favorite songs from Beyond. After the show, I asked Alex if it was obvious that they didn't like each other. His observation: "I don't think it matters because of how fucking good they are." Sage.
Spoon closed out another superb weekend of indie rock in the park with a tight set that, though not as good as the show I saw them play last October, was by no means disappointing. With some canny light effects, they played a solid mix of older and newer songs. Bradford Cox--of Deerhunter and Atlas Sound fame--joined the band onstage as we were leaving to bring the 2008 festival to a close.
And Now:
Greatest Misses of the Weekend:
No Age
Elf Power
Dirty Projectors
Dodos
Bon Iver
Cut Copy
Names I'd Like to See Next Year:
Okkervil River
Robert Pollard
Hot Chip
Bishop Allen
Belle & Sebastian
Islands
Wire
My Bloody Valentine (ha)
Pavement (ha-ha)
Dumbest Conversations I Heard:
"You know who they should get for next year's Don't Look Back? Guided by Voices doing Bee Thousand!"
"How are they gonna put Ghostface back here with this shitty speaker?"
To which Alex responded:
"How do you work with that shitty brain?"
As the 19-year-olds were passing a joint:
"No man, I have too many addictions already."
"But...you don't drink that much?"
"Yeah, I don't...but I have a HUGE collection of books and records."
-This one was actually Jeff, but I'm counting it anyway
We skipped Dirty Projectors and the opening of Boris to merch around a bit and get set up to see HEALTH, which ranks as the biggest mistake I made all weekend. First of all, the B stage was running behind due to adjusted showtimes after the El Guincho pullout, which meant that we had to sit through most of the High Places set. While they made interesting music, I was about as engaged as I would have been by two people reading from Bartlett's onstage. Another hot girl in the band, though.
Next up, HEALTH, a noisetet from L.A., came out with their specific brand of screaming, shrieking ear violence. I liked the group's aesthetic philosophy and I would have been interested in hearing more of the set, but Chicago's biggest cocksword took a spot next to us and insisted on clobbering the living dogshit out of me during each of HEALTH's "songs." I got fed up with battling Mr. Cuntlips after about ten minutes and we slipped away to get better spots for Les Savy Fav.
As it turns out, I owe that pretentious dicksuck a thank you because we were superclose for LSF, which turned out to be the highlight of Sunday afternoon. Lead singer Tim Harrington wore a headband with a small camera attached and started the set clothed in a neon fringe getup that he shed before the conclusion of the first number to reveal shiny, skintight leggings that left one of his legs bare. (Note: if you've never seen Harrington, he's a flabby, balding nutcase who looks like a disgruntled bear). During the second number, Tim leapt from the stage and ran through the audience, stopping to lie down in front of Jeff, Alex and I for a bit while we all mugged wildly at his camera. Further antics included: donning a Sherlock Holmes outfit and encouraging the crowd to contact their alderman to buy the park so that we could have a concert there every day; climbing into a garbage can which the crowd hoisted, followed by a hilarious Oscar the Grouch impression; rolling in mud before delivering another hilarious monologue about Native American rituals and an explorer named Charles Chicago; anointing each of his band members with mud; starting every song with something along the lines of "oh, this song, sweet!"; a skintight body stocking which was anatomically labelled and said "every body has a body." While Harrington's escapades were the highlight of the concert, the band's set was unspeakably tight and featured "Yawn, Yawn, Yawn" and "The Sweat Descends," amongst other superhits. A total blast.
We then skipped most of Dodos to eat and get good spots for Ghostface Killah and Raekwon, which meant catching the tail end of the Occidental Brothers Dance Band International, a tight act that just didn't appeal to my taste. On the heels of that, Ghost and Rae should have been awesome, but they ended up being my biggest disappointment of the whole festival. They were fine and did a fun version of "Nothin' to Fuck Wit'," but overall they seemed tired and never played more than two minutes of any song. Not bad, but not as mind-blowing as the Clipse show from '07.
Alex and I skipped out then to catch Spiritualized and Dinosaur Jr. To ensure a good spot for Dinosaur, Alex and I saw J. Spaceman from across the field. He was undoubtedly the loudest fucking set of the entire weekend--he was louder from across the park than Dinosaur was from twenty feet back. I'm not super-familiar with his stuff, but he played my favorite two tracks from Songs in A&E and didn't speak to the audience once during the set. Also, though his band kept playing, Pierce hurled his guitar at the drummer and walked offstage two minutes before his set was over, coming back out to wordlessly clap his hands and stare into space. If the "is this dude still on drugs?" jury was still out, I think they're returning a verdict sometime soon.
Spiritualized's ungodly noise got me superjazzed for Dinosaur and, as they warmed up, Alex leaned up to shout "I think I may shit myself from noise!" Though he didn't (how awesome would that be?!?) they were mindblowing. Mascis is a guitar god, although he seemed about as interested in playing a show as he would be in fighting an actual dinosaur. Lou Barlow was still really into what was going on and Murph is as thrilling a pure rock drummer as I've ever seen live. The power trio opened with "Been There All the Time" and "Back to Your Heart," my two favorite songs from Beyond. After the show, I asked Alex if it was obvious that they didn't like each other. His observation: "I don't think it matters because of how fucking good they are." Sage.
Spoon closed out another superb weekend of indie rock in the park with a tight set that, though not as good as the show I saw them play last October, was by no means disappointing. With some canny light effects, they played a solid mix of older and newer songs. Bradford Cox--of Deerhunter and Atlas Sound fame--joined the band onstage as we were leaving to bring the 2008 festival to a close.
And Now:
Greatest Misses of the Weekend:
No Age
Elf Power
Dirty Projectors
Dodos
Bon Iver
Cut Copy
Names I'd Like to See Next Year:
Okkervil River
Robert Pollard
Hot Chip
Bishop Allen
Belle & Sebastian
Islands
Wire
My Bloody Valentine (ha)
Pavement (ha-ha)
Dumbest Conversations I Heard:
"You know who they should get for next year's Don't Look Back? Guided by Voices doing Bee Thousand!"
"How are they gonna put Ghostface back here with this shitty speaker?"
To which Alex responded:
"How do you work with that shitty brain?"
As the 19-year-olds were passing a joint:
"No man, I have too many addictions already."
"But...you don't drink that much?"
"Yeah, I don't...but I have a HUGE collection of books and records."
-This one was actually Jeff, but I'm counting it anyway
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Pitchfork 2008: Saturday
I had more hope going into Saturday as I had a much better hangover (Friday started at 6pm and it's hard to carry a hangover that deep) and our team was four strong, burgeoned by the addition of Alex and Adrienne. The downside, however, was that we were staring down the barrell of at least two hours of rain. Nevertheless, we soldiered into the afternoon as both Adrienne and I wanted to make it in time for openers Titus Andronicus.
And thank God we did. Frontman Patrick Stickles opened by playing a solo cover of Pulp's "Common People," making it through the first verse and one chorus before the rest of the band joined him and the group slammed into an original number. From there, the set was a frenetic half-hour bash along that featured some scaffolding-climbing by Stickles and several unhinged and awesome cuts from their debut record The Airing of Grievances (which I subsequently picked up). They somehow managed to combine some crazy Dylan-y swinging with about as much punk force as a blast furnace. Stickles closed his set with a speech about remembering the community spirit of an indie rock festival when we all returned to our normal jobs on Monday where everyone is out to get one another. My surprise hit of the festival!
We skipped most of the Jay Reatard set to meet up with Jeff and secure solid spots for the upcoming Caribou performance, which turned out to be quite a spectacle. With a decent selection of both older songs and stuff from Andorra, Dan Snaith and his band put on an excellent show. The band's drummer is an ungodly good musician and the moments when Snaith stopped playing guitar to join in on drums were transcendent. As Jeff observed, "It looks like a mirror!" Highlights included "Melody Day" and "She's the One," my favorite song from the new record.
I'm not exactly sure how I fucked up and missed this part, but I've heard that the opening section of Fleet Foxes set was quite moving as they charmed the audience to silence. I saw most of the set from the extreme right of the stage, close enough to hear the music but too far away to hear Robin Pecknold's audience banter. Fortunately, I got to hear "White Winter Hymnal" before we split to get a better spot for for Dizzee Rascal.
After bursting onto the stage and dismissing Fleet Foxes as "folk shit," Dizzee Rascal started his first song twice in between shouting at the sound guy. (Note: Caribou went on about ten minutes late due to sound problems at the same stage and apparently the sound tech was a dick about it. What goes around comes around, eh?) After the initial fuckups, however, DR put on a highly fun and refreshingly gunshot-free hip-hop show.
We caught about a third of the Vampire Weekend set from somewhere near the sound tent, surrounded by a number of much bigger fans. According to Adrienne, we really pissed off a bunch of the people around us (my best joke: "I think the bassist is one of their dads!") and they were pretty boring out in the open air. Frankly, VW makes music aimed at indie-ish girls (to wit: the whole front row was filled with cute blondes who knew all the words) and I don't really care for it. "Oxford Comma" is a pretty good song, though.
Though Jeff was pretty excited for !!!, he graciously agreed to watch them from across the field so we could get close for the Hold Steady. I'm glad with our choice, because then the heavyweights showed up.
I've been enamored of Craig Finn and Co. for almost a whole year now, with feelings of admiration persisting for almost two years. I understand there's not a terrible amount of innovation to what they do, but once you see them live you realize that there doesn't need to be. Since Saturday, I've seen two responses to their set. Response A: I love the Hold Steady and they were awesome!!! or, Response B: I don't really like the Hold Steady...but they were awesome!!! And indeed they were. The emcee introduced them by saying "Ready? Hold...hold...Hold...Steady!" and then the five gents strolled onstage. Finn stepped to the mic and shouted "Hey Chicago, we're gonna build something this summer!" after which the group threw themselves headlong into "Constructive Summer" from their excellent new LP Stay Positive. I was grinning so much that I nearly forgot to breathe as Finn jumped to the front of the stage and began excitedly punching the air. As the song slowed down, I noticed that I had been squealing with delight throughout the opener but it was too loud for me to hear myself. Anyway, he introduced the group's next number as being about "A girl, a guy and a horse!" before the quintet slammed into "Chips Ahoy!" The set included a fair number of songs both from the new record and Boys and Girls in America. At one point I turned to Alex to shout "I'd pay five hundred dollars to go drinking with them one night! One of us wouldn't make it!...It would be me!!" Other highlights: Finn changed some lyrics in "Massive Nights" to involve drinking in a church and closed it out with "You guys are the hardest motherfuckers in this town!" Also, the audience got the group out for a one-song encore, "Killer Parties" from their debut Almost Killed Me. Before the song, as the band vamped, Finn offered: "I'm gonna say something...and I say it a lot, but I say it because it's true...there is so much joy in what we do up here--and we're glad that all of you could be a part of it." As the song drew to a close, he gleefully announced "All of us--and all of you--and all of your friends--and all of our friends--we are all...The Hold Steady!" I've never had more fun at a show and I've never seen a band take more joy in playing music. It. Was. Awesome.
Jeff had dipped out midway through THS to check out Atlas Sound, so Alex, Adrienne and I refilled our Goose Island beers and took up spots near the edge of the crowd for Jarvis Cocker, another of my heroes. While I was a bit far from the madding crowd to get the brunt of the set, Cocker is an undeniable showman and I'm glad I got to see him. He managed to take off his jacket by leaping and delivered a charming lecture on notable Chicagoans with a hefty amount of his British sense of humo(u)r peppered in to boot. The set contained no Pulp songs (oddly, Titus Andronicus were the only band to play anything by his old group) but did close with "Running the World," perhaps the only protest song to so prominently and gracefully feature the epithet "cunt."
I'm not all that into ghost effects so, though the light show was quite impressive, we skipped Animal Collective to see a bit of No Age before slipping out the back gate with Jeff. Unfortunately, I missed the NA/Abe Vigoda Replacements cover, though I could hear it from the other side of the wall.
Crammed full and exhausted after nine hours of live music, we set out to drag each other through every seedy watering hole that the Windy City had to offer. Though by that time I was too tired to get drunk (!), we still managed to drain Chicago of an admirable amount of its beer in preparation for the next day.
Stay tuned for Sunday highlights.
And thank God we did. Frontman Patrick Stickles opened by playing a solo cover of Pulp's "Common People," making it through the first verse and one chorus before the rest of the band joined him and the group slammed into an original number. From there, the set was a frenetic half-hour bash along that featured some scaffolding-climbing by Stickles and several unhinged and awesome cuts from their debut record The Airing of Grievances (which I subsequently picked up). They somehow managed to combine some crazy Dylan-y swinging with about as much punk force as a blast furnace. Stickles closed his set with a speech about remembering the community spirit of an indie rock festival when we all returned to our normal jobs on Monday where everyone is out to get one another. My surprise hit of the festival!
We skipped most of the Jay Reatard set to meet up with Jeff and secure solid spots for the upcoming Caribou performance, which turned out to be quite a spectacle. With a decent selection of both older songs and stuff from Andorra, Dan Snaith and his band put on an excellent show. The band's drummer is an ungodly good musician and the moments when Snaith stopped playing guitar to join in on drums were transcendent. As Jeff observed, "It looks like a mirror!" Highlights included "Melody Day" and "She's the One," my favorite song from the new record.
I'm not exactly sure how I fucked up and missed this part, but I've heard that the opening section of Fleet Foxes set was quite moving as they charmed the audience to silence. I saw most of the set from the extreme right of the stage, close enough to hear the music but too far away to hear Robin Pecknold's audience banter. Fortunately, I got to hear "White Winter Hymnal" before we split to get a better spot for for Dizzee Rascal.
After bursting onto the stage and dismissing Fleet Foxes as "folk shit," Dizzee Rascal started his first song twice in between shouting at the sound guy. (Note: Caribou went on about ten minutes late due to sound problems at the same stage and apparently the sound tech was a dick about it. What goes around comes around, eh?) After the initial fuckups, however, DR put on a highly fun and refreshingly gunshot-free hip-hop show.
We caught about a third of the Vampire Weekend set from somewhere near the sound tent, surrounded by a number of much bigger fans. According to Adrienne, we really pissed off a bunch of the people around us (my best joke: "I think the bassist is one of their dads!") and they were pretty boring out in the open air. Frankly, VW makes music aimed at indie-ish girls (to wit: the whole front row was filled with cute blondes who knew all the words) and I don't really care for it. "Oxford Comma" is a pretty good song, though.
Though Jeff was pretty excited for !!!, he graciously agreed to watch them from across the field so we could get close for the Hold Steady. I'm glad with our choice, because then the heavyweights showed up.
I've been enamored of Craig Finn and Co. for almost a whole year now, with feelings of admiration persisting for almost two years. I understand there's not a terrible amount of innovation to what they do, but once you see them live you realize that there doesn't need to be. Since Saturday, I've seen two responses to their set. Response A: I love the Hold Steady and they were awesome!!! or, Response B: I don't really like the Hold Steady...but they were awesome!!! And indeed they were. The emcee introduced them by saying "Ready? Hold...hold...Hold...Steady!" and then the five gents strolled onstage. Finn stepped to the mic and shouted "Hey Chicago, we're gonna build something this summer!" after which the group threw themselves headlong into "Constructive Summer" from their excellent new LP Stay Positive. I was grinning so much that I nearly forgot to breathe as Finn jumped to the front of the stage and began excitedly punching the air. As the song slowed down, I noticed that I had been squealing with delight throughout the opener but it was too loud for me to hear myself. Anyway, he introduced the group's next number as being about "A girl, a guy and a horse!" before the quintet slammed into "Chips Ahoy!" The set included a fair number of songs both from the new record and Boys and Girls in America. At one point I turned to Alex to shout "I'd pay five hundred dollars to go drinking with them one night! One of us wouldn't make it!...It would be me!!" Other highlights: Finn changed some lyrics in "Massive Nights" to involve drinking in a church and closed it out with "You guys are the hardest motherfuckers in this town!" Also, the audience got the group out for a one-song encore, "Killer Parties" from their debut Almost Killed Me. Before the song, as the band vamped, Finn offered: "I'm gonna say something...and I say it a lot, but I say it because it's true...there is so much joy in what we do up here--and we're glad that all of you could be a part of it." As the song drew to a close, he gleefully announced "All of us--and all of you--and all of your friends--and all of our friends--we are all...The Hold Steady!" I've never had more fun at a show and I've never seen a band take more joy in playing music. It. Was. Awesome.
Jeff had dipped out midway through THS to check out Atlas Sound, so Alex, Adrienne and I refilled our Goose Island beers and took up spots near the edge of the crowd for Jarvis Cocker, another of my heroes. While I was a bit far from the madding crowd to get the brunt of the set, Cocker is an undeniable showman and I'm glad I got to see him. He managed to take off his jacket by leaping and delivered a charming lecture on notable Chicagoans with a hefty amount of his British sense of humo(u)r peppered in to boot. The set contained no Pulp songs (oddly, Titus Andronicus were the only band to play anything by his old group) but did close with "Running the World," perhaps the only protest song to so prominently and gracefully feature the epithet "cunt."
I'm not all that into ghost effects so, though the light show was quite impressive, we skipped Animal Collective to see a bit of No Age before slipping out the back gate with Jeff. Unfortunately, I missed the NA/Abe Vigoda Replacements cover, though I could hear it from the other side of the wall.
Crammed full and exhausted after nine hours of live music, we set out to drag each other through every seedy watering hole that the Windy City had to offer. Though by that time I was too tired to get drunk (!), we still managed to drain Chicago of an admirable amount of its beer in preparation for the next day.
Stay tuned for Sunday highlights.
Pitchfork 2008: Friday
After seeing The Dark Knight, Jeff and I hiked back to Don's apartment where I discovered I'd lost my tickets. After a few minutes of very loud swearing and throwing some of my possessions about, we headed to Union Park where I hoped to score a weekend pass for not much above face value. Fortunately, thanks to the world's worst lowballer, I got three tickets for only five above face. Not too bad considering I paid DOUBLE PRICE to see Wolf Parade a week earlier...
Anyway, we entered the park as Mission of Burma were tearing through their post-punk classic Vs. with as much energy as they put into the original recording. They were easily the highlight of Friday night, though I sort of missed more of the concert than I'm proud to admit.
This was my second time seeing Sebadoh and, frankly, I don't understand why they played second. Maybe MOB had somewhere else to be? Anyway, they were fine and very similar to their recorded output: half moving balladry and skewed pop bliss and half punk rock screaming/ garbled nonsense. Lou Barlow's charming, if somewhat awkward, crowd chatter was endearing and I enjoyed their set more than most festival attendees, though Jeff and I slipped out three-quarters of the way through to get better spots for the PE show. I did feel bad, though, when I looked across the field to see Lou Barlow playing an acoustic guitar that was totally drowned out by the throbbing bass of the Bomb Squad's warm-up.
Confession: I've never been as enamored of old-school hip-hop as most whiteys. I know that the music is good and I do enjoy listening to it, I just prefer my rap to be slicker and about horribly irresponsible topics like killing and drugs. That being said, I was fairly excited for the live rendition of It Takes a Nation of Millions... and was...a little disappointed. To begin with, the Bomb Squad opened for PE and played almost a fifteen minute set of snoozarific beats that brought me down faster than Jim Cooper at a campaign rally. Public Enemy never fully climbed out of that hole as far as I was concerned. Chuck D's chiding of Flav for missing opener "Bring Da Noize" was funny, as was Flava Flav's repeatedly calling his own album by the wrong name. Frankly, the whole thing left me a little cold and Jeff and I boned out before the big closing medley, which I've read was awesome. Alas...
Anyway, we entered the park as Mission of Burma were tearing through their post-punk classic Vs. with as much energy as they put into the original recording. They were easily the highlight of Friday night, though I sort of missed more of the concert than I'm proud to admit.
This was my second time seeing Sebadoh and, frankly, I don't understand why they played second. Maybe MOB had somewhere else to be? Anyway, they were fine and very similar to their recorded output: half moving balladry and skewed pop bliss and half punk rock screaming/ garbled nonsense. Lou Barlow's charming, if somewhat awkward, crowd chatter was endearing and I enjoyed their set more than most festival attendees, though Jeff and I slipped out three-quarters of the way through to get better spots for the PE show. I did feel bad, though, when I looked across the field to see Lou Barlow playing an acoustic guitar that was totally drowned out by the throbbing bass of the Bomb Squad's warm-up.
Confession: I've never been as enamored of old-school hip-hop as most whiteys. I know that the music is good and I do enjoy listening to it, I just prefer my rap to be slicker and about horribly irresponsible topics like killing and drugs. That being said, I was fairly excited for the live rendition of It Takes a Nation of Millions... and was...a little disappointed. To begin with, the Bomb Squad opened for PE and played almost a fifteen minute set of snoozarific beats that brought me down faster than Jim Cooper at a campaign rally. Public Enemy never fully climbed out of that hole as far as I was concerned. Chuck D's chiding of Flav for missing opener "Bring Da Noize" was funny, as was Flava Flav's repeatedly calling his own album by the wrong name. Frankly, the whole thing left me a little cold and Jeff and I boned out before the big closing medley, which I've read was awesome. Alas...
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