Seattle Bound

It's finally time.  Today, I'm off to Seattle, Washington to check out the newly legalized marijuana attend the Bumbershoot music festival, my third straight year at the event.  This is one of the strongest schedules yet, and I've done pretty well getting signed up for the KEXP Music Lounge performances, so if I stick to my tentative schedule, it looks like I'll be seeing 34 performances by 32 artists over the weekend, including Thao & The Get Down Stay Down (twice), The Joy Formidable (twice), Death Cab for Cutie, !!!, Washed Out, Sallie Ford & The Sound Outside, Crystal Castles, Deerhunter, and Ivan & Alyoshi.  What's more, the weather is forecast to be excellent most of the weekend, with only Labor Day Monday even slightly questionable. 

However, I've probably eliminated any possibility of rain when I went to REI earlier this week and bought an expensive raincoat, one I really can't afford but also the kind that I had wished I had at Shaky Knees. Packing the raincoat and a sturdy pair of rain pants will likely ensure that I won't encounter any rain.  

After Bumbershoot, I'm taking Amtrak down to Portland, Oregon for MusicFest NW, a 6-day event beginning Tuesday evening.  So far, the forecast is looking about as good as one could possibly hope for in the Pacific Northwest:  

Performances at MFNW are almost too numerous to mention, but will likely consist of about 50 sets by 45 or so bands, including Thao & The Get Down Stay Down (again), !!! (again), Chvrches (twice), The Head and The Heart, Animal Collective, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, The Love Language (twice), Sonny & The Sunsets (three times), Pickwick, Neko Case, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, and on and on (On An On will also be playing, as will Ages and Ages, but I probably won't be crossing paths with either one of them).

There will be updates here, but their timeliness and coherence will probably depend on several factors including the schedule, high-speed internet access, and fatigue or lack thereof.  You can also follow me on Facebook, Flickr and YouTube over the next week and a half to document in real time my inevitable mental collapse and descent into dementia and madness.

This will be fun.

Beatle Paul

In 1966, when he was 24 years old, Paul McCartney wrote and recorded a song called When I'm Sixty-Four with three other Britannics of whom you may have heard, eventually releasing the song in an album called Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band. 

Sir Paul passed the age of 64 himself a while ago and is now 71 years old, yet still is able to write and record new songs, like the aptly named New, above.  While you can say it sounds like something straight out of the Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band sessions, you can also say it sounds like something straight out of the Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band sessions.

Franz Ferdinand

Likable, intelligent, Scottish pop-rockers Franz Ferdinand has done a huge disservice to English-speaking Buddhists.  It's hard enough to quiet the mind in meditation and not engage in imaginary conversations or recite lyrics you've memorized somewhere along the line, but now Franz Ferdinand has made it even more difficult.  

They've taken words from the Buddha's Eight-Fold Path and turned them into a catchy and melodic song that I'll never be able to get out of my head while trying to sit.   Right Thoughts Right Words Right Action are three parts of the Eight-Fold Path (Right Understanding, Right Thought, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Meditation) enumerated in the Buddha's very first sermon.  Virtually all Buddhists know them, and now, all English-speaking Buddhists, or at least all English-speaking Buddhists hip enough to have heard this terrific song, will have this stuck in their heads even while they're trying to empty their heads.

And I had just finally been able to stop singing Steely Dan's Bodhisattva to myself during meditation.  

But now you've heard the Franz Ferdinand song, too (if you haven't before), and now it's stuck in your head as well.  Because I posted it.  

So much for my karma.  

Spark & Whisper

Here's some bright new music by Marin County, California indie-folksters Spark & Whisper.  Thanks and a tip of the ol' hat to my kid sister (and Marin resident) Jackie for sharing this with me.

!!!

It now appears that I'll be seeing !!! not once but twice next week.

Hilang Child

Two new songs from Hilang Child, who will be your favorite musician of 2014.

Alex Bleeker & The Freaks, 529, Atlanta, August 23, 2013

New Jersey indie-rock jam-band Alex Bleeker & The Freaks played 529 last night, with Atlanta's Metroscene opening.

I didn't know Metroscene, but according to Atlanta Magazine, "Between 1999 and 2004, Atlanta rock quartet Metroscene played non-stop at the city's best rock venues, including Music Midtown and notably, opening for Interpol at the Cotton Club. At the band's last gig, bassist B.J. Alden proposed on stage to his girlfriend.  And then, after five years, one successful EP Weekenders and one full-length album First Light at Last Orders, the quartet . . . simply vanished from the city's music scene."

The band, now a trio, opened their set at around 10:30 pm by admitting they hadn't played in front of an audience in a while, but you wouldn't have known it for their performance.  They played tight, gritty, alt-rock that wouldn't have sounded out of place during their early '00s heyday, but still sounds good today.  Not quite punk, not quite garage, and not quite polished either, they managed to hit that Goldilocks zone right in between.  Singer/guitarist John Phillips was all over the stage, also playing bass and keyboards as the set progressed.  I don't know if Metroscene are back together as a band for keeps now or if this summer was just an occasion for a few nostalgic sets, but they would be a welcome addition to the Atlanta rock circuit and would pair very well on a double bill with Atlanta's Palace Wolves.

There was another band on the bill, Brunch, of whom I also had not heard, but for some reason they didn't play and the evening went right from Metroscene to Alex Bleeker, which was fine with me.

We last saw Bleeker, who also plays in the excellent New Jersey band Real Estate, back in March when he opened for Ducktails just up the street at The Earl by setting the bar so high with his extended jam-band enthusiasm that it was everything his fellow Real Estate alum Matt Mondanile could do just to play the same stage afterwords. Bleeker's sound has been described as a hybrid of Woods' lo-fi style and the more easygoing sound of Real Estate.  Here's a sample of something they played last night (but from a recent New York set) - their song Epilogue, channeling both Dylan’s You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere and Brewer & Shipley’s One Toke Over the Line. 

Bleeker tried to get the small 529 audience dancing with frequent reminders that it was Friday night in Atlanta, Georgia, but except for a few people in the back of the club, his exhortations fell on deaf ears.  As a result, the band didn't quite reach the stratospheric heights they achieved that night at The Earl, but they still induced several blasts of serotonin in this listener's brain with the guitar interplay between Bleeker and the band's second guitarist, and the overall feel-good, party-hearty attitude of their set.  Bleeker seemed almost as disappointed as the audience when his set finally ended shortly before 1 am.  They didn't quite manage to scale Mount Olympus, but they were still led us up onto some pretty high Alps.

My pictures didn't come out very well, but in case you're curious, more are posted over at the Flickr page.