I survived day one of Chicago's Intonation music festival with enough time and energy to check out a late show of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" last night (fast opinion? it's a snack-sized semi-sweet chocolate bore), and I'm just about ready to head to day 2 of the festival to see OUT HUD and The Decemberists, and to do some volunteering for Neighborhoodies to boot, slingin' letters and stuff.

Yesterday I bought a gargantuan amount of music, most of which I'd never heard before. Here's what I got...I'll letcha know what I think as I get a chance to digest 'em:

DIRTY THREE: Ocean Songs
SMOG: A River Ain't Too Much To Love
SUPER MADRIGAL BROTHERS: Baroque in Voltage
MATT TURNER: Dada Ear Ink
CLAP YOUR HANDS SAY YEAH: s/t
THE ROBOT ATE ME: On Vacation

And I'm sure I'll be getting more today.

Oh - and if anyone wants to get lots of weird stares from tourists in downtown Chicago, just go to the Magnificent Mile wearing a Death From Above 1979 t-shirt.

Anxiety said:

Awesome! I'm really bummed that I couldn't make it. Especially after reading what a good time you're having.

Tell me more about the Death From Above t-shirt story. Did you see their set? How were they?

And is most of the music you bought from artists playing at that festival?

GangstaFam said:

i wish you coulda made it too, but hopefully there'll be next year.

as for DFA1979, they were on my "i'll see 'em if i feel like it" list, and they were playing later in the evening on saturday and, well, i didn't feel like it. but i wanted to at least get a t-shirt because i like the CD and i really like the cover design. so there was that.

i mostly checked out a band called four-tet on saturday - electronic, kind of spacey, trancey stuff. i really liked it. i looked all around for one of their CDs, and i couldn't find one.

SUNDAY, however...

i FINALLY got to see OUT HUD live. and OH MY GOD are they good. great musicianship, great energy, great presence - it was like seeing a younger, hipper, more spastic version of tom tom club...and you KNOW i loves me some tom tom club. i don't know if it was the heat or if it was just my cold medicine kicking in that morning, but i actually got goosebumpy and teary-eyed watching them play. i didn't want 'em to stop. if you get a chance to see them....SEE THEM.

i kinda came in and out of the other bands on sunday - xiu xiu was interesting, though i don't know if they're my cup of tea. frank really liked andrew bird but i was busy volunteering with neighborhoodies when he played and i didn't hear him. i heard but didn't get to watch the wrens, but they sounded really nice - kinda straightforward rock kinda stuff, only really nice and melodic...i can see them getting kinda big if they're not on the way already. the band before the decemberists was kind of obnoxious and headbangy - whoever they were, they needed to play a shorter set in the afternoon and let OUT HUD open for decemberists with a longer set. ah well.

and the decemberists were divine. they sound even better live than they do in the studio. much lusher, fuller - the lead singer doesn't sound quite as nasally and fey on stage. i like their music, but i always think it sounds a bit dirgey - live, they're not so dirgey at all...yet their live arrangements are very true to the studio arrangements. i enjoyed 'em a lot.

as for the music i bought, i don't think i bought ANYTHING by the artists who performed at intonation this weekend, ha. i bought a bunch of stuff by bands i'd never heard of before, just from reading blurbs about them at the record label booths at the record fair. i wanted to do some blind taste testing, since i hadn't done that in quite a long time. i'm still digesting...

sounds like an AWESOME weekend and some fun shoppin!

let us know if any of these CDs are 'must-haves'!

glad to see you had a great time, anx! it sounds like it was a blast.

i'm salty about the whole thing. not realizing it was the weekend of intonation, i picked up a girl's shift at work. of course it was the day outhud was playing and les savvy fav and the decemberists. fucking typical, eh?

who?


sorry I had 2 do that

paisleypark4 said:

Yeah, me thinks some snobbery is detected. Not by u paisley, but by people who seem to just buy stuff thats underground most the time (no offence anxiety)

I never heard of any of that shit..lol

thesexofit said:

now its my turn...



.
[Edited 7/18/05 10:03am]

thesexofit said:

so should i wait until these bands are all famous in the mainstream media before i start enjoying them or talking about them?

what the hell, i'm on a prince web site talking about this stuff - it's not exactly like i'm an indie rock snob. if you're looking to dress down some pretentious music snob, you might want to find another thread. i like what i like - if you've heard of some of it, then great. if not, well, like the man says...you better ask someone!

SassyBritches said:

whaa?
[Edited 7/18/05 10:06am]

2freaky4church1 said:

that's why i'm writing about it on here. maybe someday you'll hear someone talking about a band like OUT HUD or the decemberists, and it'll ring a bell, and when you're bored senseless sometime, you might go to amazon.com or something and play some samples of their music, and realize that it's just really good stuff that you might want to hear more of.

there was a time when our dearly beloved mr. purplepants was considered obscure, remember.

Anxiety said:

No, I just wanted 2 know what type of music...who are they?

Somebody heard Vitamin C's last album...anyone? (im outta here b4 Anxiety beats me again ).

Anxiety said:

God said that? That isn't good advise really is it?


(Ok sorry. But music snobs really get to me at times.)

SassyBritches said:

it's okay. nobody's ever heard of any of it anyway.

paisleypark4 said:

"whoa" woulda been more appropriate. I think a flamethrower turned into a edit.

thesexofit said:

Im just tryin 2 make the thread more popular.

thesexofit said:

music snobs are obnoxious. what's worst is when they give people who just want to discover new music a bad name.

but then again, when someone casts aspersions on a potential snob without getting to the truth of the matter, isn't that just a case of reverse snobbism?

who's snobbier? the snob, or the person who calls them a snob?

paisleypark4 said:

i think she went back to being in an indie rock band. seriously.

don't shoot the messenger.

(fun fact: my ex-roommate went cross country distributing promo materials for eve's plum back in the day - he went from wrecka stow to wrecka stow with all kinds of SWAG and tried to drum up interest in her band.)

Anxiety said:

Anxiety said:

Yeah good point. Iam the oppostite or the same as a snob in some ways. Though I never force people to listening to my pop fluff. Though me humming a chorus to a song knowone knows gets my mates interested though at times.

Listening to stuff that is so out of fashion seems to appeal to me. It is not deliberate though. Iam so weird that if it is made in a certain year (ie 1992), then I know I may like it. Very narrowminded but Iam sure disco lovers do that sorta thing too. Plus the album cover is a dead giveaway at times.

Look at joys cover



I know u in particular will hate it. I hate it personally, but I know that the music will be aimed at the pop crowd (and often pre-pubesant girl crowd, which may be true but I still enjoy it). albums covers can speak volumes. I know I may enjoy it just by the cover

Why do we like the music we like? Fuck knows?

I got problems musically.

thesexofit said:

No I got Bakcstreet Boys and Spice Girls albums and I STILL enjoy them to this day!!! AND I wanna get their new album.

Anxiety said:

Sounds wonderful! I keep seeing you mention the neighborhoodies, but I'm not quite sure what that means. And how was the record show? Strictly indie or all sorts? Rare Prince? That's how I usually guage a good record show, although I'm not admitting to buying any.

thesexofit said:

So do I. But does that make me a music snob just cuz I've heard of and/or listen to several of these bands? No.

I still love me some Madonna, so that automatically disqualifies me. But it seems like you're painting Anxiety (and possibly me for even knowing what he's talking about) with your broad music snob brush.

I worked with troubled teens in a youth shelter for about 5 years. This was near the end of the alternative boom, and what I saw and what I still see really bothered me. I didn't get a sense of any real passion about the music they were listening to. Having the right CD's could almost be equated with wearing the right name brands to be popular. If you didn't have your Bone Thugs and Tupac discs, you just weren't cool. It was rare that I ever worked with a kid that could think for themselves and seek out what they truly liked.

And that's almost the same way I feel about music snobs. Artists just become a name to namedrop. And if you don't know the right bands, you're not part of the "in" club of outsiders. I'm sure music is their life, and blah, blah, blah, but think for yourselves people!

That said, I like what I like. If it's good, I'll probably like it. And that's why I can proudly file my Mu next to my Madonna.

Okay, I just turned into a snob about music snobs.

GangstaFam said:

well said!

look, i love my xanadu soundtrack. lord knows i do. i also love sonic youth. i also love sade. i also love the residents. i also love prince. what ties all this music together? who cares? it's stuff that i've heard and it made a connection with me.

when i was in grade school, i remember my classmates thought i was "weird" because i listened to a lot of my mom's records and it was my favorite music - beatles, hendrix, janis, sly stone - of course, none of this is considered especially obscure, but to a classroom of 3rd graders in the middle of indiana, it was. but it didn't matter to me. it's what i liked. and i was always encouraged to seek out stuff i enjoy instead of going with what was fed to me or considered trendy. i think i'm lucky, because i've had a lot of fun doing just that.

now does that mean i look down on stuff that's considered popular or mainstream? no. does that mean that i maintain some kind of appropriately obligatory respect for stuff that i think is crap? no. does that mean that i think everyone's tastes are valid? yes. would i like to see people expand their tastes and explore stuff that's new and different? HELL yes.

any kind of cultural snobbery - be it music snobbery or whatever other "scene" is out there - is just a form of insecurity to me. an indie rock snob is no better than someone who will only listen to 50 cent and ashlee simpson. people are afraid of what's different. and if someone's "norm" is someone else's "different", it doesn't matter what the variables are. the behavior is exactly the same. just different hairstyles and different drag.

Anxiety said:

I feel like yall are rubbing against me just cuz I asked who they werr, and STILL didnt get a response!!!

Ooooooh!

Anx, let me know what you think of Smog's new album.

I'd never heard of him before last week, and then i downloaded "Rock Bottom Riser", which is just the most gorgeous song, as well as "Say Valley Maker", which is also beautiful.

Have been meaning to buy this, but haven't got my bum down to the shop to buy it yet.

paisleypark4 said:

Not you hon.

paisleypark4 said:

rubbing against you? i'm not even sitting on the same couch as you!

sorry if you thought i was railing at your comments. i wasn't.

and as for who these bands are...well...they were all bands that played at the intonation festival in chicago this weekend, which was put on by pitchforkmedia.com - there are band profiles on the pitchfork site and on the intonation festival site.

beyond that, i tried to give some impression of the bands that i liked - the decemberists are kind of like arcade fire and R.E.M. (back when they were good), and OUT HUD are an NYC techno/funk/rock group with female vocalists and a cellist (and they kicked my ass).

everyone else who played, i know little or nothing about. i mainly went for the two bands i listed above, and to hopefully stumble across some good new music.

mission accomplished.

Cradams said:

so far i like it, though it really really reminds me of lambchop.