| Riottt |
[Nov. 15th, 2006|05:19 pm] |
I went to the Riott festival in San Francisco on Saturday. Sorry, no pictures, but if you go to Pitchfork's recap you can kind of see my girlfriend really blurrily in the background of one of the Girl Talk pictures. Anyway, here's my recap.
Unfortunately, traffic and running around the Tenderloin trying to find a bathroom when all public buildings are closed for Veteran's Day conspired to make us miss Birdmonster. I have honestly never heard this band, but my friend Troy knows them, so I'd hoped to check them out.
The actual first act we caught was POS, apparently Rhymesayers' newest signee. He sounded pretty much what you would expect Rhymesayers' newest signee to sound like, which is not really a bad thing. The gap between the barrier and the stage was like 38 miles wide for some reason, so he jumped down and sat on the railing for most of the set. He seemed kind of nervous though- he kept asking the crowd whether we were "feeling it." Granted, as he was the first rapper of the day most of us in the crowd were probably shaking off hangovers but if we hadn't been feeling it we'd have gone into the other room (or maybe not, I caught one song by that band, the RX Bandits, and it was pretty fucking wretched).
I think I was the only Wrens fan at this entire show and that made me feel very old. Perhaps noticing that 90% of the crowd was in elementary school when Seacaucus came out, all but one song was from The Meadowlands. The guys did a great job of putting on a raucous show for an initially indifferent crowd, though their attempt to get everyone involved in a complex spectator handclap orchestra didn't really do much other than reinforce that stereotype about white people not having any rhythm.
The 5 o'clock hour presented the option of seeing Zion I, X Clan, or Fall of Troy. The choice was obvious: Dinner.
Of course, after that lull Asobi Seksu and Busdriver had to be playing at the same time, and on opposite sides of the building. Micah and Jenny checked out a few AS songs before joining us over at the hip-hop stage, and the report was favorable. Busdriver, though, absolutely killed it with a high-energy show that not only easily trumped his performance in Ashland a few years ago (when he had permanent "where in the fuck are we?" look on his face), but was funnier than his appearance on Blind Date. In the first of several awesome fapper fashion statements of the night, dude was rocking a tore-up Christmas sweater. Micah of course yelled, "I love your Christmas sweater," to which Busdriver replied, "No, this is my Kwanzaa sweater, man."
Following this, we ambled over to the mainstage to get into position for Sage Francis. Living Legends were still playing and the crowd was inexplicably gigantic, so we all headed to the balcony. Sage's voice sounded a bit tired (and in a WTF moment he actually smoked a cigarette onstage) and he took a lot more breathing pauses than I'd seen him do previously. Still, he was a consummate showman, at one point throwing a garbage bag of produce into the crowd with an exhortation to "Eat the lettuce! Eat, eat the lettuce!" Other gems: "It's so great to be here at your humongous corporate-sponsored musical event. Did you know that if you mix Scion with Vodka it makes your heart explode?" "Today is my birthday. Yep, I'm 25 years old. Quarter of a century." Dude even did a front handspring during "Dance Monkey." I can't do a front handspring and Sage has 13 years and 75 pounds on me.
Following this, Explosions in the Sky played. The set was much tighter and actually longer than the last time I saw them. This is likely due to the fact that before their previous SF show my friend Joe got them horrendously wasted. Jack Daniels and intricate post-rock compostions do not mix well and thankfully our boys from Austin waited until after the show to hit the bottle. The crowd went absoultely nuts when they did their trademark synchronized power-chord choreography thing (I'm not sure what else to call it, but if you've seen them play you know exactly when I'm talking about. After EITS, we went over to the indie rock ghetto stage and caught the last two songs by The Presets, who I've never heard before but were off the chain; I kind of wished I'd caught more of their set.
Xiu Xiu took seriously a fucking hour to set up (they had Primus playing over the loudspeaker during this debacle- I could have stayed home and listened to Pork Soda) so we only caught a few songs before going and getting in position for Girl Talk. Before Gregg came out on stage they were playing some booty rap as bumper music, and Lisa and I were obviously getting our collective groove on. As a result of this, we were tapped along with like eight other people to be onstage as Girl Talk's backup dancers. Unfortunately, about two songs into the set, a wall of humanity spilled over the barriers and there were suddenly about 200 people on stage (Funny thing, Gregg was mixing TI's "Bring Em Out" when this happened, and the last time I saw the entire crowd rush the stage was at that TI show when there were more of us on stage than in the audience). So the organizers, obviously not wanting to live up to their own slogan, shut the show down.
After getting hustled off stage like those baby chickens in a funnel in that movie Baraka, we went back to the hip-hop pen and got our spots for The Clipse. Saw Aesop Rock chillin' by the wall, but not wanting to be a stan just nodded politely. The Clipse were tight; I caught a T-shirt that they threw but it's an XL so it looks like a nightgown on me. We were about three people from the front, and at one point I saw Sandman nudge Malice and point at me and say "Holy shit, that motherfucker knows every word". Also, Pusha T (who was having easily the best time of anyone at the show, even Sage) was wearing a blue Pyrex hoodie. I fucking want one. |
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| The List |
[Dec. 13th, 2004|08:24 pm] |
As you all know, every year I compile a list of my favorite albums of the year. The process goes as follows: When an album comes into my possession, I listen to it at least five times (to account for those "slow burners"), then assign it a numerical score from 0 (Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman and Howe, Am I Cool or What?) to 100 (Funcrusher Plus, OK Computer). Having listened to roughly 130 albums that saw release in 2004, I have to say that this year had a bumper crop of great albums. Normally, I judge how "good" a year was for music by the number of albums I give a score of 85 or above. Last year, there were 22, 2002 had 19. 2004, on the other hand had no less than 31. There were also 18 albums scoring above a 90, seven above 95, and one receiving the rare 100. I'll be posting the list in five parts over the next five evenings. All of these albums come highly recommended (in fact, there were a few that missed the top 50 that I would recommend as well). So, without any further ado, let's get it started.
( 50-41 ) |
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| (no subject) |
[Nov. 3rd, 2004|09:24 pm] |
Allow me to be the first to say,
Russ Feingold in '08. |
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| (no subject) |
[Sep. 23rd, 2004|11:41 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | T. Rex - "Lean Woman Blues" | ] |
No one is ever going to be cooler than Marc Bolan.
That is all. |
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| Vanity y y y |
[May. 11th, 2004|04:12 pm] |
Oh yes.
You're welcome. |
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| (no subject) |
[Mar. 30th, 2004|10:54 am] |
Apparently John Kerry came to my school yesterday.
I was not informed.
Someone has some explaining to do. |
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| More pix |
[Mar. 3rd, 2004|06:22 pm] |
All of these pictures were taken less than five blocks from my apartment.
( Read more... ) |
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| Game |
[Feb. 18th, 2004|10:05 pm] |
Stolen from the guy with the best screenname ever, alaric3
Step 1: Open your MP3 player.
Step 2: Put all of your music on random.
Step 3: Write down the first ten songs it plays, no matter how embarrassing
1. Giddy Motors - "Venus Medallist"
2. O'Brien - "Guerrillahead"
3. Ted Leo - "Bridges, Squares"
4. Angels of Light - "All Souls Rising"
5. Prefuse 73 - "Why I Love You"
6. The Microphones - "The Mansion"
7. The Strokes - "12:51"
8. Silver Mt. Zion - "Babylon Was Built on Fire/Starsnostars"
9. Decemberists - "Red Right Ankle"
10. Broken Social Scene - "Pacific Theme" |
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| Roommate search |
[Feb. 5th, 2004|12:22 pm] |
So, my roommate's moving out, and I need somewhere to live.
If any of you Sac-area people know someone who needs a roommate, hook me up. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jan. 27th, 2004|02:12 pm] |
Ffom last Wednesday, Ted Leo rocks it like a magikist during "Where Have All the Rude Boys Gone?"
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