Friday at Pitchfork Music Festival was the perfect intro to a music filled weekend being that it was the least crowded and the weather was near perfect. I roamed my way around the grounds when I first got to Union Park around 3 PM and it was noticeable that Friday pulled in one of the youngest crowds I’ve seen at Pitchfork in a few years. I can only assume that the reason was Animal Collective because the other bands lined up seem to appeal to an older crowd in my mind.

 

The first act I caught was EMA which I headed into fresh and excited after hearing about her, mainly through Pitchfork media, and was interested to see what she would bring to the stage. Unfortunately, she packed light. It may have been the early time slot she was awarded but she played to a pretty weak crowd and didn’t have much, if any, stage presence. She turned out to be playing a show that I had to really force myself to get into, thinking in the back of my head that if she has gotten so much buzz then there must be something noteworthy. Instead I ended up leaving her set early finding her live vocals uninteresting and that I couldn’t get one decent photo from such a lackluster performance. I left wishing that I would have skipped her act entirely and gone straight to Gatekeeper whose performance at the Blue Stage sounded pretty awesome even from the sidelines.

Luckily, the next stage I hopped to was the Green Stage at 4:35 where Battles was playing and they had me hooked from the first note. Battles is one of the four or five bands that I’ve wanted to see ever since I started liking halfway decent music in the latter part of my high school years. Not only were they extremely entertaining to watch (Ian Williams on the coolest keyboard setup I’ve ever seen) but they sounded good, really good. They started off their set with a few numbers from their recently released album Gloss Drop but they also played to their fans with numerous numbers off of Mirrored, the album that gave them so much notoriety in 2007. If I hadn’t caught a single other act that day I would have left happy knowing that not only does Battles sound good at home blasting out of my speakers but that they can live up to that in a festival setting.

 

After Battles I switched it up and caught Curren$y at the Blue Stage (where the shade is the best thing ever). The thing I loved about Curren$y’s set is that he really interacted with the crowd. He started off his set by jokingly (but not jokingly) addressing the crowd with “Don’t clap for me, don’t do that shit, just light up”. It’s great that he’s able to not take himself 100% seriously and just have fun. You could tell that no one felt more comfortable performing on that stage than he did. Besides having a great demeanor he also sounded awesome. His rapping wasn’t lazy, he had a bad ass girl DJ (new life ambition for me?), and he seemed truly grateful and even surprised that such an enthusiastic crowd had come to see him.

Unfortunately the day couldn’t stay as perfect as it was seeming to be because after Curren$y had finished it was time for Das Racist. Now, not knowing much about Das Racist, but having seen how much people all over the blawgz seem to love them, I had somewhat high expectations. I mean, even Rolling Stone awarded hahahaha jk? one of the fifty best singles in 2010. About 1/8 of the way through the first song I could see that this was definitely not what I was expecting. They were drunk, way too drunk to be rapping coherently. Good thing that their rapping isn’t very coherent in the first place. Their lyrics sounded lazy and gimmicky. I understand humor and I would like to consider myself humorous, but as a musical artist you need to have at least some respect for your talent and take yourself a little bit seriously. Das Racist has gladly held tight to this title of hipster rap but, seriously, if you want to consider yourself worthwhile don’t show up to a venue, where people have paid to come see you, wasted and slurring.

 

James Blake saved the integrity of the Blue Stage when he played his set at 7:30. Although a music festival isn’t the ideal setting for Blake’s sound he still put on a pretty impressive performance. He started his softer tracks and slowly built up to some dance numbers. It was clear that he thought through his set list and what would be the best for the type of crowd that was coming to see him play. His voice sounded great although if I were to see him again it would probably be in a smaller more intimate venue.

 

Animal Collective headlined day one of Pitchfork and they maybe weren’t my favorite act of the day but they were definitely better than the last time I had seen them which was in 2008. The thing that’s fun about Animal Collective live is their stage set up. The only way to describe it would probably be underwater Halloween (wut? I know, weird, but still pretty cool). They played a solid set with Pandabear on drums but unfortunately he was hidden by some sort of paper-mache iceberg, really the only member you could see clearly was Avey Tare so if you’re one of those people that needs to see the band up close then this might not have been the show for you. Regardless, the overall ambiance of their set was the perfect closing act for the day.

 

 

Pitchfork Music Festival (July 15-17, 2011) is one of the things I look forward to every summer and this time around Metal Lungies gets to do it right. If you haven’t heard of Pitchfork, it’s a smaller (and more reasonably priced) music festival located in Chicago’s Grant Park that is known for showcasing both well known and emerging artists. The artists that I’m personally the most excited to see range from Hip Hop to Electronica to Folk so expect a pretty diverse review. Also, on top of being a great platform for experiencing new music, Pitchfork also houses the FLATSTOCK 30 poster show (in relation to the American Poster Institute) which I highly recommend checking out. Talented artists and design coalitions come together and showcase their work and you can see and buy some pretty amazing stuff. If you happen to be joining me at Pitchfork you should check out Delicious Design League’s booth where yours truly is interning this summer (a shameless plug, wUtEvR).

 

Be sure to check back on the blog next week for a final review and pictures. Also, assuming I have cell coverage (fingers crossed), you can follow me at @Meaghatron on Twitter for extra cool stuff.

 

Here are my picks (which are obviously the best, duh) but I’ll be stage hopping because Pitchfork is all about checking out artists you’ve never heard of:

 

F R I D A Y . J U L Y  1 5 . 2 0 1 1 – - – - -

 

RED STAGE

*3:30 EMA

5:30 Thurston Moore

7:20 Neko Case

 

BLUE STAGE

3:20 Gatekeeper

**4:30 tUnE-yArDs

*5:30 Curren$y

*6:30 Das Racist

*7:30 James Blake

 

GREEN STAGE

**4:35 Battles

6:25 Guided by Voices

*8:30 Animal Collective

 

S A T U R D A Y . J U L Y  1 6 . 2 0 1 1 – - – - -

 

RED STAGE

*1:45 Woods

*3:20 No Age

5:15 Destroyer

7:25 DJ Shadow

 

BLUE STAGE

1:00 Chrissy Murderbot Feat. MC Zulu

1:55 Sun Airway

2:50 G-Side

*3:45 Wild Nothing

4:45 Off!

*5:45 The Radio Dept.

*6:45 Twin Shadow

7:40 Zola Jesus

 

GREEN STAGE

1:00 Julianna Barwick

2:30 Cold Cave

*4:15 Gang Gang Dance

6:15 The Dismemberment Plan

*8:30 Fleet Foxes

 

S U N D A Y . J U L Y  1 7 . 2 0 1 1 – - – - -

 

RED STAGE

*1:45 Yuck

*3:20 OFWGKTA

5:15 Superchunk

*7:25 Cut Copy

 

BLUE STAGE

1:00 Darkstar

1:55 How to Dress Well

2:50 Twin Sister

3:45 Shabazz Palaces

4:45 Baths

5:45 Kylesa

*6:45 Toro y Moi

7:40 HEALTH

 

GREEN STAGE

1:00 The Fresh & Onlys

2:30 Kurt Vile and the Violators

*4:15 Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti

*6:15 Deerhunter

*8:30 TV on the Radio

 

 

 

Even though George Fitzgerald and John Roberts sound like dudes who fought at Lexington and Concord, this track bangs something fierce.

via The Fader

Sonnymoon took some liberties with their remix of Flying Lotus’ “Zodiac Shit.” They plunged the beat underwater, they added hallucinogenic singing, and they slyly put an ‘f’ in the title to make it PG. Still psychedelic. Still makes the brain feel good. Listen here and watch the video for the original below.

Flying Lotus has posted some previously unreleased tracks on his soundcloud page and it is some seriously good stuff. My new favorite track is his remix of Massive Attack which is ambient and sort of eerie. Check it here:

via Pitchfork

Metal Lungies saw The Hood Internet this past year at SXSW. If you haven’t had the pleasure of hearing them, The Hood Internet is a Chicago-based production duo made up of ABX and STV SLV and they are best known for providing free downloads of their mash-ups on their site: thehoodinternet.com. So, how do you stand apart in an industry filled with remixes and mash-ups? The Hood Internet take a different approach than artists like Girl Talk and Pretty Lights by composing mash-ups that bridge the gap between indie, hip hop, rap, and r&b all the while staying fluid. Essentially they make music that serves to everyone, which is awesome, right? Not only are they great to listen to in your headphones but they also put on a great live show that gets everyone in the crowd dancing.

Listen to just a slight glimpse of what the Hood Internet is doing here:

Another June, another Bonnaroo Metal Lungies is going to. Starting today we will be roaming the farm in Murfreesboro basking in the glory of the 10th anniversary of the completely sold out festival.

Be sure to catch me on twitter, where we will be ranting, recapping, and instagraming… and other verbs.

If you aren’t fortunate enough to be in Ten-a-key, VEVO will be live streaming a lot of the performances, and Comedy Central will have an event on Sunday from the Comedy Tent.

In case you need to some suggestions on who/what to check out, here are our picks (in chronological order):

Thursday:  5Pm- DJ Neil Armstrong (Jay-Z’s former tour DJ, who earned that spot with his well honed skills) 6:00pm-Lewis Black, Wavves 7:15pm-Best Coast 7:30pm-The Knux 8pm-Lewis Black 9pm- J.Cole 10:15pm-Sleigh Bells (Most likely to melt your face off) 10:30pm-Twin Shadow 11:30pm-Deerhunter, Childish Gambino (see what all the hype is) 12AM- Dam-Funk

Thur night ends early performance wise, so rest up!

Friday: 12:30pm-420 Comedy Blaze (420 at 12:30pm, what?)  2:30pm-Lewis Black (the man is clearly the workhorse of ‘roo this year), 3:15pm-Matt & Kim 4pm-DJ Neil Armstrong 4:30pm-Lewis Black 5pm-Atmosphere 6:45pm-Florence + The Machine 11:00pm-Arcade Fire (*The* act of the festival?) 12:45am-Big Boi 1:30am-Lil Wayne (but after Big Boi ends!) 2:30am-Ratatat (can’t miss. have wanted to see these guys for years on years.)

Saturday: 2:30pm-Donald Glover 3:30pm-Chiddy Bang 3:45pm-!!! 4:30pm-Donald Glover 5pm-Portugal.The Man 5:50pm-Wiz Khalifa 6:15pm-Mumford & Sons 7pm-!!! 8pm-The Black Keys 9:30pm-Buffalo Springfield 11pm-Eminem 12:20am-Screening of 8 mile (I’m just curious to see who watches this after seeing Em live, ‘roo Stans?) 12:45am-Scissor Sisters 2:15am-Gogol Bordello 2:30am-Girl Talk

Sunday: 1:15pm-Mavis Staples (Just learned she was Sam Cooke’s boo.. thanks CBS Sunday Morning.)  3pm-Tig Notaro 4:10pm-Children’s Hospital [Adult Swim] (Cool down and watch this hilarious TV show) 4:30pm-Robyn 5pm-Cold War Kids 5:45pm-30 for 30: Reggie Miller (essential watching for basketball fans, if you are all music-ed out) 6pm-Robert Plant 6:15pm-Beirut 6:45pm-The Strokes

If you are like myself, and pack last minute, I’ve listed some non-camping, basic survival essentials after the jump that you want to make sure to have.

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Pretty Lights has done it again. This track is a seamless integration of three bands that I wouldn’t normally lump together. I want to say that my favorite element is the use of Radiohead’s Everything in its Right Place but then I find myself giving all the credit to Nirvana’s vocals from All Apologies and just as I’m making up my mind I begin to get spine tingles from Nine Inch Nails’ Closer. This mash up is definitely not a dance number (although I think that makes sense considering the bands used to make this song) but it kind of hits you on another level.

ML Note: We’ve invited Meg, a friend of ML to liven things up around these parts. ML has always dabbled in stuff that isn’t just the rappity raps and  Meg will lead the charge in getting ML readers hip to all sorts of new things. Be on the lookout for her proper introduction tomorrow. Lastly, don’t confuse Meg with MegH, who turned out to be ML’s own Detox of sorts after such a buzzworthy entrance.

Two weekends ago at The Metro in Chicago, Princeton served as the calm between two explosive acts and thank god someone had the foresight to set it up that way. DAAN, the first opening act, was a barrage of over the top homoerotic theatrics that didn’t help their music in the least. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for theatrics, but I found it physically impossible to give the music its fair share of attention when I had a gyrating crotch (covered in god knows what) 3 inches from my face. It was simply performance art gone horribly wrong.

When Princeton finally took to the stage the whole audience seemed to breathe a sigh of relief; normal boys doing normal things with instruments. They started off their set with two groove-inducing numbers that got the entire crowd dancing. It was great to see how their sound has evolved since the release of Cocoon of Love. They’ve moved from following in the footsteps of Vampire Weekend and Ra Ra Riot and are blazing a trail of their own. This clearly seemed like a conscious move for them when a girl in the crowd kept screaming “PLAY SHOUT IT OUT!!” (the quintessential crowd pleaser from Cocoon of Love) and frontman Jesse just jokingly replied with “you’re not invited to any more shows”. Princeton played their entire set with humble earnestness that made you feel like you were watching your close friends play. They have something special and I would be surprised if they didn’t blow up even more in the indie scene in the months to come. Hopefully with their next album Princeton can finally make the jump from opener to headliner. They obviously have a fan base and they aren’t lacking in talent so I find it confusing that even now, two years after Cocoon of Love was released, they’re still an opening band.

Although I think Princeton would serve well as a headliner, they did a fantastic job setting the stage for CSS. CSS proved to be a completely energetic show where I found it hard not to dance while trying to photograph the band. They played crowd favorites from their last album, Donkey, and also a few tracks from their upcoming album La Liberacion. Judging by the teaser they gave the crowd of the album dropping in August it’s going to be just as good if not better than Donkey. Lovefoxxx (is that not the coolest stage name?) had people losing themselves in dance in the crowd and it was clear that everyone in the venue only had eyes for her. She sat on my shoulders for a hot second, I’ve never felt so privileged to literally act as a piece of furniture. They closed out their set with a three song encore consisting of two older songs and one brand new which they engineered well and served as the perfect ending to the night.

Photos after the jump.

 

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Drum Talking is the distinct sound of a specific musical segment of a remote part of the world, recontextualized as dope beats. Mo Kolours worked the Sega music (no blue hedgehog) of his native Mauritius into funky beats worthy of the Beat Konducta. “8 Hours” in particular is disarmingly funky. Mo uses mostly handclaps and exotic, natural-sounding drums to avoid the synthetic feeling of garden variety beats. Mo further distinguishes himself by adding a layer of ghostly singing, which combined with the minimal drums, really distinguishes him from other artists. It beats the shit out of watching National Geographic.