Coachella 2011

I have no idea why it has taken me so long to realize this, but the best part of live music, especially a weekend full of it, is camaraderie. And I don't mean just between guys, as the word is generally used, but between everyone. On the broad level, I am surrounded by a ton of strangers that have at least one common point of interest as me - the music. We enjoy, relish in, and in some cases, individually have our minds blown by the showmanship, musicality and badassness of the bands. We uphold an unspoken code, which when respected, strengthens the bond. On a more personal level, I get to hang out with my close friends and experience this camaraderie fueled by great weather, great music, and a ton of walking. If you haven't figured it out yet, I just got back from Coachella.

Usually, I like to go in order of the shows I went to, sprinkled with a few interesting things I saw/did. But, seeing as I am limited on good pictures this time, I'm going to show you Coachella through different aspects of it. First - The Environment. The fist picture up there is the art installation that has grown to define Coachella for me. A common meeting place and just a cool sculpture.

Here's another art installation. It was somewhat interactive with music playing the whole time, but as you can see, most people used it as refuge from the sun. It's a human formed shadow in the shape of a bus shaped cassette tape player.

Crazy sky writing. At first, it was cool to hang a banner from your plane and advertise. Then it was cool to blow smoke from your plane and write cursive messages. NOW, it's cool to hop into your plane, get four of your buddies to do the same, and actually write text in the sky with synchronized and choreographed spurts of smoke. Insane.

Sun down is by far the the most beautiful part of Coachella. Not only does the sky perform its visual spectrum, but the intense heat dies down, leaving the warm winds to slowly cool you. Sometimes the experience, paired with the right music, is too much.

Next part of Coachella - The People. Did you know that there are A LOT of different people in the world? If you answered "no," first, please realize that it was a hypothetical question in joke and second, please get out more; diversity it awesome. With that said, the crowd was actually pretty normal with sprinkles of special.

Here's a sprinkle of special. I think this guy is top 3 of best outfits for the festival. There was something about the outfit that reminded me of the San Francisco. Maybe the suspenders...?

Did I mention it was hot down there? On Saturday, the day of this picture, the high was around 98. These ingenious kids took the tops off the compost and recycling bins and used then as shade. Not the most hygienic source of comfort, but it gets the job done.

I thought this shirt was homemade and thought it funny that THIS dude not only made it, but wore it. Turns out, its not homemade.

This label must have been homemade because, come on, The Boss? I guess I just don't get who she was trying to tell this to.

Ok, I feel a little bad for posting this, but it was just too good not to. If you don't yet know what a douche bag is (in reference to a person), here is your definition in picture form:

From my count, there are at least four examples of a douche. It's not necessarily the bro status of over worked-out, waxed and tanned torsos and the irony of a group of narcissist that think they are each god's gift to the world. It's the disrespectful use of a Native American headdress. In trying to give them some credit, this was somewhat of a trend this year. But in my opinion, you have to realize what was done to Native American's and what making a trend out of their traditional dress means.

Ok, time for me to get off my soap box and on to The Music. Just short intros since I've been yapping up till now.
Thao and the Get Down Stay Down. It was great to see this SF girl perform again. Consistent and crowd pleasing.

Another SF performance was the Morning Benders. They get "Best Song of the Festival" with their performance of Excuses. In a hot tent packed with old and new fans, they lead us all into a harmonious round of uninhibited singing.

Glasser. Amazing. Amazingly weird.

Rye Rye. I only caught a few songs of hers, but it was all high energy and a ton of fun.

Not to mention a ton of sas to go with it!

This Kills did just that. Killed! We got up close for this show and they rocked it. With hair all in her face, the occasional spit across the stage and a voice controlled from melodic to scream in the a deep register, Alison Mosshart defines cool. As a pictorial definition, please refer to the picture below.

And then there was The National. The National that made the sun set. The National that controlled the wind. It was an eerie effect that bordered along the lines of sublime how The National somehow coordinated their songs with the intensity of the wind. Hands down best experience of Coachella.

Now on to The Stages. Actually, now that I look at the pictures I have, just the main stage. The Coachella stage is where all the big acts perform and is usually the one with all the tricks. This year, the festival outdid itself.

Interpol gave us an amazing audio-visual show with unique videos, giving their performance dimension. I was pretty far back and only included this pictures because of the pumped fist. Total empathy for that dude.

Kanye West had pyro at his show. PYRO! I've never seen that before and he just kept pumping it out with bursts of fire, fireworks over the stage, and this waterfall of fire. Crazy! Fire!

Animal Collective had these awesome cubes that displayed their psychedelic backdrop. OOOooo, the colors!

And Arcade Fire's giant face. Their show was actually satisfying from afar. Their performance is so theatrical with so many members, that the camera guys probably had an easy time capturing something cool at all times.

I will say that Coachella's intermission stage show was pretty cool. Two giant grids would close the stage off, followed by an audio-light show that pumped the crowd up. My only beef is that it came off more as a stall tactic when they would start it 10 minutes after the band should have started. I've got another beef to pick with that stage, and that was the sound. They messed up on the sound way too many times for me to be cool about it. There is nothing like being disappointed at an awesome show because of the sound. Lame.

Who did I go with you ask? The Friends.

Well, the original crew was back together for another Coachella. Casey, Richmond and I saw most of the shows together.

From left to right, it's Rose, Dawson, Casey, Mary, Damien, and Richmond (although since this was a sneak attack picture, it only looks like Casey and Richmond were meant to be in it)

Similar crew again, minus Mary and added Kristen (and me). Its a bummer that it came out blurry, but it works. I had so much fun with my comrades this weekend. Thanks guys!

Coachella was awesome as usual. And, the more awesome part of the whole thing is that it was Casey and my kickoff for our big trip. In seven hours we will be on a plane for France! Thus said, the next post will be entirely in French! Haha, just kidding, I don't speak French yet :/

Noise Pop 2011

The last week of February was the 19th Noise Pop Music Festival, the leading music festival for up-and-coming independent music and art. Not to mention, the festival that Casey where works. We somehow made it to at least one show every night that week and came out of it better people, enriched and inspired by some great musical acts. Here's a little recap of the week.

We started the week off at The Independent - our local, neighborhood venue and one of the best venues in the city (in my opinion). Headlining that night was Dan Deacon, a hyper electro music maker and commander of audience. His live show is all about audience participation and he somehow always creates a uniquely intimate experience out of a packed room.

He set up at the bottom of the stage, eye level with the crowd. We got to hang out and dance on the actual stage behind him (thus the vantage point of these pictures), encapsulating him in the crowd.

This picture doesn't really translate the feeling of this music. I just like it.

This is how close his fans were able to get to him. I'm not sure if the proximity of his fans affected his performance as he kept apologizing for the mistakes me made, but I didn't notice anything wrong. Needless to say, it was an awesome show and a great way to start off the festival.

The next night was at The Independent again, this time to see headliners Geographer. I had only heard their single (maybe once or twice) before going to their show. And after seeing them live, I immediately got their album and listened to it on lopp for weeks.

What I appreciated most about their performance was the tightness of their sound. You could tell they rehearsed a lot, not just to get things sounding right, but to be comfortable playing it live. The end result was music better than studio recordings and an air of ease of musicianship. To top it off, they are still relatively unknown and still very humble and appreciative for the crowd.

One reason their sound is so unique is the cello. It straddles the solidity of the bass and adds the melody of the violin. Added with good drumming and catchy synthesized hooks, its music that sticks in your head. Oh, and the vocals are immaculate.

The Independent for the third night in a row! That's definitely a record and the most convenient concert experience. We got to eat dinner at home and stroll over 10 minutes before we wanted to arrive. This Thursday night show was headlined by the Bay Area's The Stone Foxes, but equally present were the also-local openers The Ferocious Few and The Soft White Sixties.

The name of The Soft White Sixties gives you an idea what its like to watch them, except for one misnomer - soft. Their music is a throw back to good ol' rock music from when they were doing it right.

I felt like I was watching The Faces perform an early career show - ready to rock but not quite comfortable with their stage presence. Still, they got my feet tapping.

There is something satisfying to watch , by all definitions, a cool frontman. Maybe its being a younger sibling and idolizing something cool, or if its just immediately living vicariously through the lead singer frontman. In any case it makes for a show you can get in to.

The Ferocious Few were next, who we were most excited to see. They've been a hard working band in San Francisco for years, playing outside infront of the Mac store on Market Street and at Dolores Park on a sunny day. Their music is raw and makes you want to stomp your feet and make a fist.

The lead singer, Francisco, has such a cool stage personality which is almost an alter ego from his kind hearted and friendly off stage personality. On stage he contorts and grinds his face, paired with head twitches, foot stomps and nonstop strumming. He's already drenched in sweat after the first song.

One disappointing aspect of the show was the new drummer. Not that he's not a good drummer, he's just not the old drummer. Apparently, the old drummer left the band two shows before this one, and its showed. The tempo was way off on a couple songs and you could see the discomfort to the changed song on the lead singers face. All in all, it started off good and ended with an "Ouch!"

The Stone Foxes put on a good show, but I didn't get any good pictures of them. Their set was thoroughly satisfying, especially with an encore cover of Black Sabbath's War Pigs. Amazing!

We found ourselves at The Great American Music Hall on Friday night for a very interesting juxtaposition of talents: corky-folky singer songwriter Kimya Dawson and hiphop rapper Aesop Rock. The common ground: talented story telling lyricists. Kimya Dawson's set was light heart, yet very heartfelt, funny, sad, weird and happy. Seems like a basic and elementary list of adjectives, but that's quite appropriate for her sound.

Aesop Rock united the crowd and it was a very unique experience for me. It was an almost entirely white crowd, which by all means is not a negative thing, just difference from what I envision when I think of a hiphop show. Like most rap, I got a bit lost in long streams of words and unrelatable subject matter, but I was still entertained. Especially when Jeremy Fish got on stage.

This is Jeremy Fish, one of my favorite artists, dressed in a pig costume! He, with Alex Pardee, another local contemporary artist, painted about 30 boxes which served temporarily as the stage decoration. At the end of the show, they handed them out to the crowd, which soon turned into a mob over the free art. And to give you an idea, Jeremy Fish sells art for thousands of dollars. So, I'd say a mob was an appropriate reaction.

Here is Aesop rock on stage with everyone that was in the show - Kimya Dawson with her crazy hair and giant rain shell and friends. You can see people in crowd protectively holding their new found box art.

On to Saturday at the Regency Ball Room was Best Coast and Waaves - two up-and-coming indie bands that are the closest equivalent in the indie music world to Brittney Spears (in my generation). These bands have the attention of the alternative teen population, evident in the sold out show.

Here is Waaves performing for a dance happy crowd. We were watching the show from aside, but moved into the crowd for the full experience. Their music is pretty basic and somewhat punk and for this reason, dancing and shoving in a giant crowd is what makes it fun. What wasn't fun was the immature relationships on the stage, with the frontman bagging on the drummer, who, as I can only assume happens all the time, nervously laughed it off and apologized. That disrespect really ruined it for me.

Best Coast didn't redeem the show either. The music was a lot better than Waaves and it was nice to hear some of my favorite songs. But at the intro to one song, the frontwoman couldn't get it right, even on the second try, and ended up ditching the song giving the explanation, "Sorry, I'm too high. We smoked too much before the show." This got a great reaction from the teeny boppers who think drugs are cool, but for me, it was a bit lame considering they sold out a relatively large venue. I didn't get any good pictures, but I also didn't stay very long.

The last night was an intimate solo performance from Ben Gibbard, the lead singer for Postal Service and Death Cab For Cutie. We sat in the back for this show and I don't have pictures for it, but his show was completely about his songwriting and singing anyway. Ben Gibbard seems to write nostalgia, referencing his own past that somehow seems to also be ours too. It may seem to stir up old memories because the height of his bands were a few years back when I was getting into indie music, but I think its also just the imagery in his words. It was a great way to end the week with a mellow, thoughtful acoustic performance.

Treasure Island 2010

Treasure Island Music Festival happened again this past weekend. There was a bunch of great bands playing in a ton of cold weather. Having enjoyed 80+ degree weather in the city earlier in the week, it was a bit painful at time to endure the coldness during the festival. But, the bands were totally forth it and needless to say, I had an amazing weekend.

Thanks to the hardworking Noise Pop interns, the festival went on without a hitch. Here's intern Jaime, intern Casey and intern Allison in the back.

The highlight of the festival, for me, was Monotonix, a band from Tel Aviv who is practically banded from all the venues in Israel. Knowing they put on insane shows, Casey and I dug our way through the crowd the get face to face with the band in the middle of crowd.

Here is the lead singer, sitting on a stool that a few guys were holding up while beating on a drum a few other guys were holding. At one point, he had his foot on my stomach while I held up held his body weight with another guy.

The guitarist got up there too, but he was a bit more subdued and just enjoyed the new vantage point. I haven't been to a show like this for a very long time.

Seeing everyone up on the crowd, Casey decided she should be up there too.

Here's Casey riding the crowd for the first time. She was up there for a good amount of time and got down like a champ.

The best part about being on Treasure Island is the view of San Francisco. It's easy to forget what you actually live in when you don't see it, but we were all in awe when we looked across the bay to see our city. Go Giants!

The thing about this festival is that the crowd noticeably grows throughout the day. By the last four bands, the island is packed.

Here is the crowd during Deadmau5's set. He a DJ with an awesome aesthetic and a very entertaining, and technically impressive, performance. Throughout his whole set, he wears a helmet in the shape of a mouse head (basically Mickey Mouse) that turned out to be electronic. He had a digital/animated face on the front synced to the lyrics. Pretty cool!

This is Belle & Sebastian, who headlined the festival and closed Sunday. I wish I had more pictures of the bands, but I was usually too far away or they just weren't interesting. All together, I saw a good part of 21 bands this past weekend. Not too shabby.

Now its time for work. I've got a bunch of things Im working on and will be posting soon.

Coachella

Last week I drove down to Indio, California with Casey and friend Dawson for another Coachella Music and Arts Festival. I've only been once before in 2006, and with such a great experience, my expectations were high. This year did not disappoint, and its hard to say, but it might have even surpassed my expectations. There were great performances, beautiful weather, awesome art installations, and it was a great weekend with new friends.

Here are some highlights, not to mention the "good" pictures I got, from Coachella...

Yeasayer pretty much started off the festival for us. They have been one of my favorite bands for a while now and Casey and I randomly met them a couple of hours before their set. We were walking around and I spotted them headed in our direction. Casey masterly intercepted them and we had a short chat. As for their show, I was a bit worried as their new album is a huge departure from their older music and that of which I became a fan. But the show was awesome and the crowd was insane. It's weird seeing one of your favorite bands become rock stars... at least indie rock stars.

The festival brings a lot of different types of people together. This woman, who you can't tell but is probably in her 40s, reminded me that your personality doesn't really change with age, just your body. It wasn't hard to picture her this way in the 80s and 90s. Plus, I was convinced that she was from Hawaii, because it seems like this is especially true at home.

It's always funny when you see men sitting on shoulders, trying to get a better view. Its even funnier to see s couple of them up there just for the fun of it. Better yet, at an electronic disco show.

Beach House. They were my underdogs that proved themselves. I wasn't a huge fan of them, but seeing them live showed me what they can do and what they are about. It was probably in my top 5 performances.

King Khan and the Shrines were up there too. It was just really high energy and they put on a great show. They had a lot of audience interactions, one of which was a call for a dollar. "Raise it in the air and LIGHT IT ON FIRE!"

With the explanation that it disn't matter because of where we were and what we were doing in that moment, people were open to the idea.

One of these folks was my new friend, and Coachella valley native, Damien. He's an awesome guy and friend of Dawson, who you can kind of see next to his face in the yellow shirt - basically the beard wearing aviators.

Coheed and Cambria. I didn't see much of this show, but it was by far the heaviest. Basically a good metal show. One of the stage effects was billowing black smoke. Some say that it was just a fire on the stage scaffolding, but it went so well with the videos that it seemed intentional.

One thing that happened throughout the festival was the construction of these long chains of balloons. By the end of the third day there were four, impossibly long strands, reminding me of fundamental principals of physics.

Another nightly thing was a synchronized light show. There were probably 10 spotlights that would converge in different spots in the sky, change colors, or randomly dance above the festival grounds. It creates kind of a barrier of light above our heads and really adds to the "event" of it all.

The Dead Weather. Jack White and Alison Mosshart collide to define rock. We got up close for their show and got to see what being a bad ass rocker was all about. Needless to say, it was a very good show with awesome stage presence.

THOM YORK! As if he wasn't a big enough legend of contemporary rock music, he was joined with Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers and a few other musicians that formed Thom York's band and gave it a new, funky dance personality. It was definitely a highlight of the festival, not just to see both of these extremely talented and influential musicians, but to see them interact to create a very unique experience.

At the end of the last night, Sunday, there were two of the five stages left with performances, one of which wasn't Yann Tiersen, the talented composer and performer we were planning on ending on. Without notice, at least to us, his set time got bumped to an earlier time slot and we ran to the tent to find disappointment.

In the end, Casey and I saw 33 bands in three days play amazing shows. We got a bit of a tan, had a lot of fun with newly found friends and paid way too much for food. We drank a bunch of water to stay hydrated and looked at our programs probably over 100 times. We experienced some amazing hospitality at friends homes and restaurants and even got to eat a grapefruit, freshly picked from the tree. And after more than a total of 16 hours on the road, we went down and back from San Francisco for another amazing Coachella. I'm already looking forward to next year.