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Damn you MusicfestNW!

and your little dog too!

MusicFest NW - why did you have to be so amazing!?!  Why!?!  Seriously - ten times more than I ever expected.
First you made me resentful - I mean you took Justin Timberlake away from me!  Seriously - I had been counting on going to that concert since at least May, gabbed about it to my friends, and then - poof, you make him disappear by having Grizzly Bear, Starfucker, Dan Deacon, and Rilo Kiley all on the same night.
But you redeemed yourself with what made me resentful in the first place.  I don't care how many times I've seen Grizzly Bear, it's never enough.

Ed after the show:

Live at the Doug Fir:

(Drummer Christopher Bear was rocking a brand-spanking new Deerhunter T)

Still, why Justin couldn't you have postponed Portland too?

But - oh the lack of sleep!  Never fully expected it to the extent it existed, but now I know not to have a day job during all the days of the fest and schedule myself to participate in Crafty Wonderland on my only day off my day job but still on a MFNW day.
But still I stayed out until 2, then stayed up even later uploading photos when I had to be at work at 9:30 the next day.
Oh MusicFest NW - why do you only have to last four days!?!
I now can't wait for SXSW!  I think I'm really gonna try for 2008, even though I already know I have a conflict with the dates in March.

Girl Talk and Dan Deacon were my favorite sets of the fest. 

I have tried and tried again to listen to 'Crystal Cat', but accepted that Dan Deacon was not my bag.  When assigned to turn up to his gig I did so with curiosity only emboldened by the fact that when I turned up, Justin Kent was there after having just put his camera equipment away - there was no way to shoot it apparently - the strobe lights breaking three minutes of just a blackened room completely packed with people like a gas chamber.  Oh how that made me want to witness it all the more.  I came for a concert, what I got was a cult. 

He had lyrics sheets for 'Wham City':

People sang from them covered in sweat:

(It was SERIOUSLY hot in there!  People's sweat was dripping in actual drops onto my camera)

It's so funny too, because I am like the most drug-free person - I mean I've never even smoked a cigarette or drank coffee, yet I found myself gleefully chanting along with everyone in attendance - "Harry Potter, Book 6!  Smoke weed everyday!"  In fact, I'm still chanting it.  Seriously - as I bounced around between sets of Swim Swam Swum, Holy Fuck, and Wolf Parade two days later on Sunday night, that chant and talking about Lorin of the Thermals was all that occupied my time.
I heard from two people - Cary Clarke and Jason Simms that Dirty Projectors was their favorite set of the fest.  Wish I could've been in two places at once, but I was over onstage shooting and dancing at Girl Talk.

Where's Waldo Girl Talk?

Can you find him?

With Girl Talk I got exactly what I expected - times ten!  I wondered with the Roseland's security as notorious as they are with a seemingly "no fun" policy - how would my man Gregg Gillis' set look without people clogging the stage alongside him?  Well, one - he didn't perform on the stage.  He performed in the barrier between the stage and the crowd - until he actually started performing because as soon as his beats began, people were hopping the barrier too fast to time.  And security was game with it!  They stood on the stage in protection of all of the fancy/swish/expensive hip-hop/rap/DJ equipment and let the crowd go WILD!!!!!!!!!!  He had a pretty copy of Finder besides his laptop.  He played Grizzly Bear's 'Knife' minus Clipse's vocals proclaiming "Wamp, Wamp, what it do, what it do?"
Oh Gregg!  You finally got to steal my heart live!  If you (actually you, not Gregg :) read this blog in November, I was actually scheduled to do a photo shoot with him and attend his show at Holocene, but he still had his day job at the time and didn't get into Portland until WAY LATE crushing our previously scheduled commitments.
And oh my god - did he look like Garrett or did he look like Garrett!?!:

My biggest upset was missing Typhoon.  Enough said... oh how I tried!
Eugene Mirman = super super crafty/clever/funny.

I accidentally spit what I had in my mouth on someone due to uncontrollable laughter.  Ten minutes later, someone spit a mouthful of beer on me for the same reasons, for which I could forgive him.  If you do not know him, I am NOT exaggerating - he is TOO funny.  Even when I think something is funny, I typically don't laugh out loud.  This was not the case with him.  Tokyo Police Club were trying so hard to see him at Bumbershoot.  I now know why.  Wolfcats forever!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Was there any gig that the Mercury's Rob Simonsen wasn't at?  I ran into him without actually talking to him too many times to count.
Oh and Fist Fite - "Ooohhhhh, love to love you baby.  Ooohhhhh, love to love you baby"!  Perhaps my favorite Portland band.  Perhaps hands down. 

I was really scared they'd start evolving into a more normal band - ie more normal antics, maybe become predictable, but they haven't at all.  They remain at the top of their game - you can guess, but you don't truly know what's coming next with them.  They owned the stage at the Doug Fir. 

It was great to see them again after months and months of not doing so.  Jonnie threw glitter all over us in the very front and her glitter remained there long after.  I spied it on the monitors during Deerhunter and then when I was selling bobby pins and scarves at Crafty Wonderland the next morning, my table was directly over a patch of glitter on the floor.
Prepare yourself for what I'm about to type.  I d-o n-o-t g-e-t D-e-e-r-h-u-n-t-e-r.
Yeah, I just wrote that.
Let's leave it at that, but still talk about them.

They were seated on the sidewalk outside of their label mate White Rainbow's gig on Saturday at Satyricon.
I wanted to take (scheduled) portraits of them minus Colin who quit last week, but it didn't happen.  I will next time though.  I have two specifically generated ideas for them and they are entirely too fun.
So what were my other highlights?  Even with my anti-social self that was surprisingly social after laying low and working six-days a week during August, my highlights centered around interaction.  I met Erik and we talked endlessly about the goddess that is Beth Ditto, Britney Spears, and Perez Hilton as well as sang Yo majesty songs at each other after he yelled "I love your blog," as I walked by trying to make it to the last four minutes of YACHT's gig.  His friend looked like Corbin Bleu from High School Musical.  My favorite quote of the weekend stems from this.
"Do people say that to you all the time?"
"All the time.  Mostly homeless people."
I met Max at the Crystal before Thermals who I ended up missing to shoot Clipse.  All of drummer Lorin Coleman's brothers were in attendance helping erect giant trees onstage.
Oh god - and Starfucker.  Can we talk about how much more he continues to rock with each gig!!? 

SEE HIM if you can cos he's gonna stop playing local shows too soon.  I have 30 Starfucker tracks because that was all that'd fit on the disc he gave me back in June-ish, but the absolute best of the night was his unrecorded ode to the Mariners' 'Ichiro'. SOOOOOOOOOOOO good!  We were texting back and forth before his set because I wanted him to save 'German Love' for me since I'd be shooting the first few minutes of Tiny Vipers' set at Doug Fir then high-tailing it across the bridge (with the Burnside bridge inconveniently closed) for his set that also started at 10 and he typically whips that one out early.  He assured that he wouldn't be playing it too early and when we arrived at Towne Lounge he was mid-way through.  Perfect timing!  And he had another drummer with him too!  And not his Sexton Blake co-patriot.  He briefly drummed with a juice bottle.
I ran into a lot of people from high school who I haven't seen for at least a year each.  It was weird/cool/surreal.
So yeah - Bobby Bare is fun.
I was gonna do a Bobby Bare/Cat power specific post, but not anymore.  Here is some of what I wrote:

Bobby Bare Jr. arrived in Portland via Nashville to open for Cat Power care of an earned free flight on Southwest Airlines and to an awaiting free pair of orange Nikes - not that he needed them.  When he took to the stage at Audio Cinema, he did so in stocking feet with an acoustic guitar and the Decemberists' Chris Funk in toe.  Together they rolled through half of the set -- Bobby Bare Jr.'s country sound made complete with his Hank Williams-esque yelps and Funk's guitar picking and mandeolin playing.  Mid-way through, the tempo turned rock at which point several more Decemberists made their way onto the stage, minus Colin Meloy who joked beforehand that he was an employee of Adidas and that's what prevented his partcipation.
What is a Cat Power show minus the breakdowns she seems to have left behind a couple tours ago and the seemingly mindless chatter that can plague her sets?

A kinda normal one, still uniquely Cat Power.  She performed quite a different set to her last Portland showing that included two shows in one day without accompaniment at the Aladdin.  This time around Chan's only duties were that of singing and hoofing it around the stage while her Philadelphia hailing companion commanded both the piano and guitar.
Masked in an unchanging blue light, she shook her hands, tapped her white shoes like a pony, and sang with very little interaction with the audience other than a brief comment about her "skinny jeans," passed off a lit cigarette after one drag, and admitted to being nervous, but that did not detract.
It was a set of covers including her Cat Stevens cover that appears in the Debeers commercial plus 'The Tracks of My Tears' originally by the Miracles.  Absent were her typical cover of the Rolling Stones and even Velvet Underground, or 'Freebird' as she played upon request at the Aladdin.
She closed her set with two originals - 'The Greatest' which drew cheers from the audience for the song itself and to finally be hearing something more familiar and 'Lived in Bars'.

Oh and I spied Quasi's Janet Weiss backstage at Spoon.

MusicfestNW started with a bang for me when I came from Seattle day of to catch Cat Power - literally went straight from Greyhound, into a taxi, over the river to Audio Cinema with 7 minutes to spare before Bare hit the stage and shot some candids of him and the Decemberists.

(He's managed by Trevor, who is the director of MFNW)

My weekend came to a very sad end both before and after Wolf Parade when Britney Spears failed to nail her VMA performance.  Can we cry collectively?  And you know, I realize that people's hopes should not be hinged on one human being - there is no way she can support all of the weight of that many expectations, but that doesn't mean I'm not disappointed and that I'm not going to cry or that I haven't already... multiple times... once while watching Holy Fuck tear up the stage with distorted casio rocking crap-pop.

My MusicfestNW experiences over the internets:

My Pitchfork photo expose

I blogged MFNW Day 2 at LocalCut

I blogged MFNW Day 3 at LocalCut

I blogged MFNW Day 4 at LocalCut

And you can pick up this week's edition of Willamette Week to see seven of my observations in print from Fist Fite to Deerhunter's dress sense plus a bit about Wolf Parade's set and spy three of my photos!!!!!!!

And my mini photo story of the fest: I typically don't LOVE my photos.  In fact I have such a hard time looking at them after I've taken them that I can sometimes be kinda late on deadlines because I don't want to look at them and see how close they could've been to being one step better, but the photo at the top of the post I immediately fell in actual love with.  I originally submitted it to the MFNW invite only flickr group for editors to browse through as I was submitting some of my top tier photos there, but then I realized that even though I loved it, some other editors might not and I didn't want to risk it not running, because I wanted other people to see it, so I removed it and sent it to Pitchfork where I knew it'd appear.
Today I got an email from the editor of the Bend Bulletin saying how much he in all-caps LOVED the photo and how he was happy to use my other Girl Talk shots he had access to in the MusicfestNW flickr, but that's the one he really wanted.  Since the exclusivity has expired now, I sent it his way.
I almost feel like a real photographer lately.  Keyword: almost.

Here's to next year!

(And no, I was not wearing a backpack even though it looks like it)

Now I'm sick, but it was worth it!

'Wham City' Dan Deacon MP3

'Knife' Grizzly Bear Girl Talk remix MP3

'How Can I Tell You' Cat Power clip MP3

PS - I'll be uploading ten million more photos that have yet to appear anywhere to my flickr within the next week.  So bookmark it if you wanna see them/yourself in the crowd at Girl Talk.

Grizzly Bear hit the 'hood

My what a blue shirt you have. My what blond hair you have. My what organic food you're holding. Wait! - you're not my grandma! You're Grizzly Bear!!!
Actually that's not how I approached them, but the result was still the same - it wasn't only regular shoppers at Whole Foods, but a band in disguise. Actually they weren't in disguise at all - they were just plain old Chris and Chris from favorite band Grizzly Bear.

It was sehr fun running into them only 20 minutes before their set opening for Feist and let me tell you, their last song was worth the ticket price alone, maybe because I only saw their last song due to photopass issues.

Of course they closed with 'On a Neck, on a Spit' - magic, pure magic I tell you!

And then, the unbelievable happened.
Where I work a guy occasionally walks by that resembles Grizzly Bear lead singer Ed Droste to a T. Every time he walks by I excitedly announce with glee to whoever is standing next to me, "It's Ed! It's Grizzly Bear! Oh my god - it's Ed from Grizzly Bear!"
Who was in the dimly lit audience that night? Why only fake-Ed!!! So I caught him with my camera:

He has since walked by several more times at work and uncomfortable smiles have been exchanged. How delightful. I think my fangirldom for him may scare him, but I can't help it. Previous to seeing them open for Feist, he had never seen them before so when he spied Ed onstage it was more than a little weird for him. Yes!!!!!!

So who else was in the audience? The drummer from Helio Sequence and also Spoon's Britt Daniel who was quite the social butterfly of the evening. He gave me his email - meticulously spelling and repeating it without prompt, but you know I totally disappeared for about a month so I have yet to send one over. I'll put that on my to-do list right now.

On a stage decorated by very little light, Feist semi-surprisingly brought her current single 'My Moon My Man' out of the gate pretty early on - 3rd or 4th song in.

She closed her set out with '1,2,3,4' and 'Mushaboom'.
A lot of people played a lot of musical chairs over the course of her fairly long set. I especially liked when she made her way over to the piano sans guitar to singalong to accompaniment.
I enjoyed when she led the audience in singing along and knowingly offended a large segment by commenting they were too old to be at a concert. Ha - saying so at a concert sponsored by KINK. Ha...

'Reprise' (Acoustic Version) Grizzly Bear MP3

'My Moon My Man' Feist MP3

Grizzly Bear myspazz

Grizzly Bear Flickr

Sasquatch Festival Day 1

After attending and experiencing the chaos that was last year, I had zero expectations for this year's Sasquatch. Once again I'd be working it - last year I was there under the 2:30 Publicity umbrella, this year I was there shooting it for Pitchfork. M.I.A. - my only real reason for going canceled a few days before, so my non-existant expectations were brought even lower, which is great because then they can only be exceeded.
My trek started at 7am when I missed my bus and caught a cab over to the Jupiter Hotel to meet up with my fellow travelers made up of Bill, Carrie, and Taylor and Rebecca of CMJ, though Rebecca was doing the words for the Pfork piece.
We headed out on the open road a little after 8 and guess what - we didn't make it there until 3:40! We went the wrong way for over an hour, so . . . yeah. . .
That means I totally missed the Hold Steady! When I started working for 2:30 in 2004, they were the first press kit I ever put together (followed by Les Savy Fav and Visqueen (who also played this year's fest)) - I still have a master copy in storage. Anyway - I have yet to see them! I am in love with their latest album and I am just so pissed I missed them! I'm also pissed I missed Blitzen Trapper as we listened to a track of theirs on the way there (along with "boner jams" as they referred to the the songs as - ie Bon Jovi, Guns N' Roses, and Billy Joel as well as Van Morrison).
And who else did I miss aside from those acts? - Viva Voce and The Blow! How I've been counting the minutes to see the Blow live, but it just wasn't fated.

I made it over to Electrelane and caught a bit of their set. Because I am "professional" (haha) I couldn't figure out why all of my photos of them were turning out like shit. It did not dawn on me until 3 hours and countless photos later that my white balance was still set on the Starfucker show I'd seen the night before.
Unfortunately I got zero cell phone service at the site, so I missed meeting up with Electrelane after their set which had been planned a few days previous.
Cue me approaching random people to use their phones. I traded a few people earplugs in return for the favor. So a lot of random people now have Aziz Ansari's phone number among others.

After that I walked to catch a little Neko Case and then back up to Yeti stage and asked myself - "What is that sound?"

It was Ghostland Observatory! My oh my - had never heard of them - but WOW!

'Silver City' Ghostland Observatory MP3

Sadly a few songs in I had to depart to happily run to meet up with Khaela aka the Blow.

Khaela was decked out in a fanny pack and pink visor. I LOVE HER! She is so awesome! So open, honest, and neat. I didn't ask about Grey's Anatomy, but after meeting her I understand why she said no and I'm happy she did. We had a chillaxin' story-telling good time for about an hour, discussing everything from castles to zits - seriously I think the only letters we didn't cover were A and B - no actually, I mentioned Belmont, so only A.
She assured me that she's playing PDX Pop Now too - so I will finally get to see her live.
Somehow we ended up on the fact that I find it funny that some people think I've just moved back to Portland, when I've actually been back since mid-March 2006. I call from that to March of this year my year of being dead as I didn't have a phone, I was always moving so I didn't have an address, I didn't even have a bank account - it was arranged so I was paid cash or on prepaid debit cards. I just existed on the outskirts of a life after being trapped in Glasgow Scotland for a year and a half. She totally understood that.

So amid our bonding she said she wanted the photos we were taking as her new publicity shots! I then told her how I actually had a million and ten concepts in mind already for her publicity shots, so we might be doing a location shoot at Chuck E Cheese's. Stay tuned.
Then it was down to the Easy Street signing booth at 6pm to meet up with Kevin as I was taking photos of him and Anita.

It was fun finally making the accquaintance of the Robinsons, but I had to dash to see Grizzly Bear, so we only chatted for a minute and took a few photos.  I'm so glad I finally got to see them live when they opened for the Shins in February, which I never blogged about here, but did a post on Pitchfork about.
I mentioned that my first exposure to them was through the Portland Music Liberation magazine and we talked about our mutual love of that periodical for a while - discussing our favorite issues that were printed before it sadly folded.  Then we talked about 2005's Lowlands Festival, which we were both at, but missed each other.

(Viva Voce Warrior Woundz - it's brutal being in a band yo)

So onto Grizzly Bear.  Oh how I love my boys. 

And if you read this blog way back when, you'd know that maybe I love them too much.  Maybe to the point where I think they should file a restraining order against me.  Their publicist Frank put me on the list for their late PDX show at McMenamin's Mission Theatre this past February, but I flew in from New York that same night and my flight was a bit late, so even in trying to get to the venue with all my luggage, I missed their set.
My love of Grizzly Bear was actually the subject on my very first post on this blog and last year's Sasquatch was my introduction to them.  I went to the 2006 fest with Frank and in his apartment, in the car, and in the hotel room he played nothing but Grizzly Bear to the point where my dreams were probably sound-tracked to 'The Knife' and 'Colorado' .  I love when people working with/for a band love the band that much - that's how it should always be!
So I sat up front shooting their set and it was during theirs that I finally noticed and adjusted my camera's white-balance.  I sang along to every song which Throw Me the Statue's girlfriend totally noticed and mentioned to me once they finished.

(TMTS+gf)

As I was packing my crap up (my laptop, camera, viewmaster (?), . . .) I saw Frank and he waved me back.  Patrick Wolf was chillaxin' with the Grizzly Bear crew. 

It was dead enjoyable - I mean one of my favorite bands and my favorite solo artist (he's tied with Britney Spears circa everything until 2004).  It was then that I met Throw Me the Statue and he lives only three blocks away from my mom in Seattle! 
Frank is going to be working his record and they're shopping around for a label right now.  I'm gonna be doing his publicity shots as soon as I get his music and can dream up some concepts.
A photographer from some skate mag wanted to do a proper photo-shoot with them, only one member of GB was missing, so Patrick got drafted in and they became Grizzly Wolf. 

(Patrick decided he needed "a veil" to cover his face, but everything but that was done with it)

She didn't seem to thrilled about the collaboration.  Especially when Daniel Rossen eventually turned up, but Chris Bear decided he needed an impromptu counseling session haha

After that I spied some Beastie Boys also backstage preparing for their instrumental set on the same stage. 

They may have spied me too.

So I sat in the grass and uploaded the photos onto my Macbook that I had just shot when Ed came over to shake my hand.  Before we'd just been casually talking about YACHT/David Shrigley/Tomlab without any introductions, but he'd just found out I was Nilina and came over to shake my hand and do a proper introduction.  Do you even know how cool that was/is!!???!!!  We've never properly met before and it was super sweet that he knew who I was.
Khaela also knew my first and last name even though we've never met - remembered from a blog collaboration.  That was very neat.
And you know what's funny!!?!!???  Ed, Frank, and I stood/sat around discussing what a bummer it was that Pfork wouldn't be using any of the shots of them and P Wolf.  Ed was like "You never actually worked on our campaign -- right?"  So true - when at 2:30 this past summer and fall I only dealt with the PDX repped bands ie Hold Steady, Thunderbirds Are Now! and a couple others, but none from the NYC office ie M.I.A., Be Your Own Pet, and Decemberists or Frank's Seattle HQ - ie Of Montreal and Grizzly Bear.  Still Scott was concerned about the conflict of interest so it was understood none of my shots of 2:30 artists would appear.
So I posted the shot to my flickr.  And Brooklyn Vegan ran it, which was an immediate thrill until it caused some MAJOR DRAMA with me and Pfork as they ended up running it as well - which was unexpected.  I sent the shots in just in case - as we (Ed and I) came to the conclusion that since they had Patrick in them, maybe Pfork would use them, but I wasn't betting on it.
Yeah.
Anyway, in a more sunnier spot, I am just so proud of Grizzly Bear and Frank.  He's already done working their Feist dates and is now onto Maximo Park!  So happy Warp is showing him further love - he deserves it - he is damn good.
After that I took off to have some food.  Some members of the media got catered dinner this time (last year it was just water and potato chips), but when I got there the vegetarian option was all gone.
I then went to watch Arcade Fire who I was super super super looking forward to as I haven't seen them live in two years.

I hadn't been all that interested in them until I read the reviews of their ground-breaking Coachella 2005 set.  I couldn't get into their album, but I was determined to check out their show.  Finally I got the chance while at Lowlands August 2005.  Oh my god!  Oh my god!  Oh my god!  They blew all of my super high expectations out of the water just by stepping on stage and playing the first few bars of a song.  I couldn't pull away even though I was getting calls from Art Brut's tour manager that I could shoot their set side of stage.
I then saw them the very next week when they supported Franz Ferdinand at the gardens in Edinburgh.  Winn equated playing Reading Festival to playing an ashtray.
Seeing them live is like an awakening. 
Do you even know how special it feels to watch people love what they're doing as much as you love it if not even more?

This set was just as fervent, though no helmets to protect against drumming on the head were worn.

They opened their set with grainy footage from a religious TV program and then they all took to the stage launching into 'No Cars Go'.  Lucky for me, the third song they played was 'Haiti' which is one of my absolute favorites!  It was thrilling being up front in the photo pit for that!
They rotated instruments at lightning speed and at one point one of them fell off the stage.  God I love them!  To be that into it - it really feels like a privilege to watch them live and it is just so amazing that they seem to treat playing live as a privilege the audience has given them.

They closed with 'Wake Up', but another definite highlight was 'Black Wave/Bad Vibrations'.
I bumped into Patrick Wolf again who had just gotten stung/bitten by some sort of bug.  I kept swatting his hand away as he continued to pick at it.  We had a bit of a gossip fest, but he swore me to secrecy back at Grizzly Bear in regards to the topic. 
After that I became Patrick's keeper of sorts for a bit as his band-mates Nick and Marcello later viewed me as the Patrick compass asking "where's Patrick?" To which I'd reply, "With Jess," or "Getting CDs out of the van."
I then skipped down and got some Ice Cream Man ice-cream and then down to the photo pit for Bjork's set.
I have never been a Bjork fan.  I've listened to at most 3.5 or her songs - nothing ever really grabbed me.  The Sugarcubes - that's a different matter.  I was in Echo park in LA when I first heard their song overhead at a TV on the Radio concert, but Bjork, not so much.
Well - when she took the stage to 'Earth Intruders' I knew that was gonna change.

To make it short, I am in love.
I LOVE some of the lyrics she has going on.  In fact I recited a few of them to my mom just last night - specifically 'Wanderlust'.

'I Miss You' could easily be a personal anthem of mine, and I also really got 'All is Full of Love'.

Her Icelandic girl's choir was decked out in neon with orange flags attached to them and it was a set of sound and bouncy energy on behalf of all on stage.

She closed with 'Declare Independence' which was TOO good!
After that I trekked it to the campsite. I had the cash on me to pay for camping, but no one was checking so I moseyed on in and set up my tent and got cell phone service for the first time!  Hells yes!  I got a text from my mom so I called her and we chatted and then I turned on Starfucker before falling asleep to the most subdued festival campsite I have ever slept at!  I remember my first festival was Roskilde in Denmark and it was during the Euro championships of '04 so at all hours of the night people would start shouting drawn out "Goooooaaaaalllllll"s which others would join in on and it'd pretty much be thousands of people yelling that all night long.
The music and chit-chatting at Sasquatch really didn't even contend.
Saturday was a very beautiful day in my life.  It felt like the culmination of everything I have been working towards for the past six years since I got my first pass at 15.
I got a good night's sleep of four hours before I was back up and ready to tackle Sunday, but not before listening to some more Starfucker :)

I'll eventually get around to blogging about Sunday which was fairly epic as well.

My million-and-one photos from the fest can be found in this flickr set and I still have tons of photos to add to it, which I'll continue to do.

My (and Matthew Solarski's :) Day One Pitchfork Post

Sound on the Sound's thoughts

Let's go on a myspace field trip!

Electrelane myspace

Ghostland Observatory myspace

The Blow myspace

Viva Voce myspace

Grizzly Bear myspace

Patrick Wolf myspace

Arcade Fire myspace

Bjork myspace

Knitting with Grizzly Bear and Patrick Wolf

Last Saturday I spent the day listening to Grizzly Bear and knitting. My idea of the perfect day (now only if it was in London or Paris. . .)
Anyway, much in the words of Grizzly Bear's 'Shift', I wouldn't have it any other way.

'Shift' Grizzly Bear Acoustic MP3

Watch the magic as it unfolded while being recorded

And actually, I would have it another way-Grizzly Bear wouldn't have been looted in Belgium.

And for a more literal take on "knitting with," here is Patrick Wolf knitting with friends on the London tube back when he was still in his Lycanthropy phase

My current knitting project is to raise capital for starting my clothing line of screen printed shirts and zip-up hoodies. More info hopefully soon. . .

In Grizzly Bear's Den

So I missed half of Grizzly Bear's set due to the LONGEST line EVER at the box office. The woman who runs it, aside from being slow, is also incredibly rude.
In front of me the girl from Wet Confetti stood with her partner of the night. Had I actually said to her "Hey you-girl who carries an axe in Wet Confetti!" I wonder if it would've been the first time she was recognized on the street by someone who has never seen them or heard a song of theirs.
Anyway-luckily I didn't miss my favorite two songs, as they were launching into 'Knife' the moment I propelled myself to the front of the stage. I was the only one singing along from what I could hear.

They closed the set with 'On a Neck, On a Spit' to which you could hear a few more voices from the audience chiming in. Their version that night was a treat! They added many more lyrics in the beginning-almost turning it into a new song. Basically a 'Good Night' version of the song as that's what many of their new lyrics had to do with.

Lead singer Ed Droste mentioned he had a cousin in Portland who often tried to convince him to move to Portland. He also remarked that Portland and New York are the best cities in the US. I would agree and also tack on San Francisco.
In the end I desperately wanted to pursue graphic novels so that I could draft a tale of kidnapping all four and having them live with me from then on. And singing renditions of the old-skool version of 'Marla' since my voice sounds a lot like hers.
Please someone file a restraining order against me before they have to!

Dreaming of a Yellow House

Photo Courtesy of Benny Post

The other night I had a dream about Grizzly Bear. While in reality their album steam was available for preview at many sites, my subconscious dreamt a whole new way to listen before it's release.
Influenced in part by their album cover, in my dream, Grizzly Bear all lived together in a house on Cannon Beach. Just before the release of their album Yellow House (named for their Cannon Beach retreat) they left the house unlocked and set their album up to play 24 hours a day for a full month and people could just walk in and stay there and listen to it and leave on their own accord. The thought behind it was to do something different and also since the house had such an impact on their recording if the album, it would bring listeners more in tune with their objective.
Well me being poor, I ended up staying there the whole month being the only one to do so and slept in the bedroom. Few people came in and the night I had a friend sleep over we got robbed. The burglar took all of my friends' expired film that he was using for a special project and we didn't mention my polaroid film because I couldn't afford for it to be taken.
Later came a call that I had to get all my belongings out of my former house mates basement, so I rode in a washed up refrigerator that I found on the beach all the way to Portland to collect it. After telling her about the ride, she joined me back to Cannon Beach in it, and then I used it to go back to Portland to go to a Scissor Sister's concert.
Only when I got there, each time I took a photo, it erased the last photo I had taken, so I came away with no photos of the show.
How this kinda relates to reality:
When I saw Grizzly Bear support TV on the Radio last week I was surprised by how few people knew them prior to the show. Like I am aware that not everyone in the world knows who they are, but I really expected the TVotR crowd to know them-similar audience, and very few people sang along to 'On a Spit, on a Neck' and after the show people were singing their praises and talking about how they had never heard of them. That kinda plays in with very few people visiting the house in my dream to listen to the album.
My friend in the dream was the guy from Goodbye Lenin, which I had just finished watching that night.
The polaroids because I am doing a polaroid project and I am too poor to replace any film after that.
Then last week I had one of my most horrendous concert going experiences attempting to see Scissor Sisters, and even though I was supposed to be able to take photos, I left with three away from none at all.

Anyway-it took along time, but here is the track:
'On a Neck, On a Spit' Grizzly Bear MP3
Chosen because while I'd LOVE to post 'Plans' this is the only track they've given away for free and I don't quite feel in the mood for redistributing Grizzly Bear's other music for free without consent. Them and Patrick Wolf.

More Cowbell: Scissor Sister's Throw Back Out (Serves them right)

Myspace: Grizzly Bear
Hint Hint: Listen to 'Plans'

Grizzly little thing called Love

This is THE moment when a band becomes your favorite band. Well maybe not your favorite band, but my favorite band and I always like when a situation presents you with a very specific moment. I've had three or four favorite bands all for different reasons.
I listened to Grizzly Bear relentlessly over Memorial Day weekend due to being trapped in an apartment, a car, and a hotel room with their publicist Frank Neito. To say that he's in love with them is an understatement. He carried multiple cds, and has them on his ipod - always ready to be plugged into a cassette tape car adapter, listening to every available song on repeat and gushing non-stop about their greatness. It's almost as if he's the bands biggest fan who somehow lucked into the deserved role of their publicist.
And I loved them. 'The Knife' quickly became my favorite song of theirs.
Then I happened upon this by way of Stereogum. I thought it'd be an interesting listening experience. After pressing play, I watched about a minute and then went into another window to add them to my favorite band list on flickr, but I couldn't. I had to return to the video to continue watching.
Often I wonder-what makes an article good on a band? There are some articles where I either love the subject or love the article after reading. I believe it's a combination of giving an in depth view of their personality as well as making them relatable. Two memorable moments of music journalism or in the instance of one-"music journalism."
I absolutely loved an article Toure did on Lauryn Hill for Rollingstone a few years back. It explored her, using so many angles to convey a point of view tthat still allowed you to draw your own conclusions without being over aware of the author's. Given on the basis of a question posed to Toure by his editor, the assignment was to find out "Why has Lauryn gone crazy?"
What Toure found is that she wasn't crazy, just control obsessed and then explored her more recent trials and tribulations¹, both public and private, to support his theory. So much was opened up that I was previously unaware of that made me really contemplate her character and motivations and brought me to a certain understanding. I didn't walk away loving her, or the opposite either, but I was captivated to the point of recommending that article to everyone.
My second example is watching a listening special on MTV showcasing Britney Spears' Oops. . . I did it Again album. In seventh grade and a portion of eighth, I loathed her, but watching this changed my perspective. When they detailed the tracks they spoke about 'Lucky', ² at which point Britney said she still cries and gets down, which wasn't so much an admission or prime time confession like her interviews of recent; just a statement uttered in matter-of-fact fashion-telling it like it is. At that moment I realized she was not necessarily normal, not exactly "real," but real in the sense of being a person and I no longer felt the need to root against her (though I do now). In that instance she became relatable, experiencing real things, and so on. . .
Isn't this about Grizzly Bear?
Yes! What band better embodies Lauryn Hill and Britney Spears?
Not in terms of music, but in terms of the reason behind why I couldn't just listen, but had to also watch, with a grin on my face experiencing an epiphany. Watch as they walk down a Parisian street, singing a capella. Lead singer Edward Droste appears self conscious with the figeting with the sweater and nervous smiles, very un-typical front man like, yet who wouldn't? Being filmed, walking down a public street singing, walking down a public street singing without backing music for security, people staring? Well several front men would instantly turn it on-Alex Krapanos (only if he was in his security blanket eyeliner, otherwise no), the Futureheads (they've had practice with 'Danger in the Water'³), let us not even mention Chris Martin as the extreme example. There is just nothing put on or artificial about this performance, and that may be a root of the desire to relate-artifical versus authentic. How has this become something that could mention Haley Joel Osment at anytime (AI)? Anyway,I think the ability to identify with something establishes some kind of quasi bond, which is what I am assuming to be the case when this clip became the moment they became my favorite band. They purvey an element of realness.

¹) 'Tribulations' LCD Soundsystem MP3 (megaupload)
²) 'Lucky' Britney Spears MP3 (megaupload)
³) 'Danger in the Water' The Futureheads MP3 (megaupload)