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.
I'm going to be a bit closed mouthed with the idea for a while, but I'm pretty happy with how this one is turning out. I'm not quite done, but its almost there. Sorry for the grainy quality. Its still a bit wet and I couldn't get it without glare marks in normal lighting. 
It may seem like an homage to MUNI, the public transportation company in SF, but I'm actually trying to not use it anymore. They've hikyed up their prices, cut services, and have become increasingly hard to know when they will be at my stop. So, its time to buy a bike.
Thanks to Michael and his wife for buying this one (and leaving a cool note on my last entry letting me know its in safe hands) The other painting that I sold was actually the painting I did for this spot, Madame S. Sialis. Crazy enough, someone bought the painting four days after I put it up, which makes less than a week after I started it. That is officially the shortest amount of time I've had with a piece. Thanks also to Ziv, the owner of Tango Gelato, for helping me with the sales.
Here is Yeasayer performing up around Fisherman's Wharf at a free concert we found. Microsoft put on the show to promote their new phone, and from the production of the whole thing, it definitely showed its corporate strings. Ironically enough, I overheard about this show while leaving another free show I attended earlier in the day. It was the Dodos, a local SF band and one of my favorites. That one was put on by Verizon and a coffee shop. Nothing like French pressed coffee, doughnuts, and the Dodos for FREE on a Saturday.
TONS of people. Originally, I didn't really dress up. I put on a poncho and moccasins, just to have some type of theme, and called it day. Then I entered this and realized how lame I was.
Completely ridiculous by normal standards, but somewhat modest for Bay to Breakers. Casey and I met up with our friends Ryan and Thomas and had a great time. We stopped by different areas with music, enjoyed the sun showing its face, were overwhelmed by the crowd and ended our day in Golden Gate Park.
I just thought this was hilarious. Please note the passed out people in the background. Let's just say they're sunbathing. 
The show as great. They ended the show with everyone standing up, some on the stage, and yelling out a common chord progression as loud as we could several times. I love show that do that.
I was stoked how it came out. Being new to painting buildings, I was a bit nervous. It actually took me several sessions to do this one, mainly because of the anxiety of painting something with actual perspective to take into account. But I'm so happy with how it came out and hopefully it will do well in June.
I'm calling it Madame S. Sialis. It's 24 x 20 in. oil on canvas. I painted it to have a new piece to add to the older paintings that I just installed on the walls of Tango Gelato, a gelato/cafè in Pacific Heights. Kind of a last minute thing, I spent the weekend both enjoying the sunny weather and putting together some old and recent work to show at the cafè. This painting was also my effort to try to find some cohesion in the work I put up. 
And here it is on the walls. I just put it up today and it was weird seeing people look at a piece that's still really new to me. I really dig the light fixture above the painting. It seems to all fit together. 
Its 26x44 inches and after a long three day, I finished it on Friday with time to touch it up on Sunday. The shoot for the scene was yesterday and I'm pretty excited to see it. They all seemed to dig the painting and said it looked great in the shoot.
This one's called Two Stripes, 30x15 inches. It was a bit more composition and image driven than anything else.
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. 