Creep

Raleigh Is the New Portland

For those of you keeping score at home, I'm still grieving and more than a little disappointed about the decision to scale back Portland's MusicFest NorthWest to a single-weekend, single-venue event that bears little to no resemblance to the week-long, multi-venue event of years past.  Not only did I really enjoy my time there, but after several years I was getting pretty good at navigating around the mammoth schedule and maximizing my experience.  In a way, the event even got tied into my sense of self identity ("I'm that guy who goes out and kicks MFNW's ass every year"), but now it's just some bleachers out in the sun for 18 bands on a mid-August weekend.

Before the announcement was made, I had already purchased tickets to Seattle's Bumbershoot for Labor Day Weekend, the weekend before the traditional start of MFNW (oh yeah, they changed the dates, too), so I still plan on visiting the Great Northwest on Labor Day Weekend, but instead of travelling from Seattle to Portland after Bumbershoot as I'd done in years past, I'll just be going up for Labor Day Weekend this year.  So what shall I do for that first week of September?

Today, the organizers of Raleigh, North Carolina's Hopscotch Festival released their initial list of performers, and it's pretty strong - Spoon, St. Vincent, Sun Kil Moon, Mastodon, Prince Rama, Mutual Benefit, and many more. What's more, I realized that, like the old MFNW, it's a multi-venue event but in downtown Raleigh instead of all over Portland, and that it's on the Thursday through Saturday after Labor Day Weekend.

So, theoretically, and I'm just spitballing out ideas here, I could return home from Bumbershoot on the Tuesday after Labor Day, take the 6-hour drive to Raleigh on Wednesday, enjoy the three days of Hopscotch, return home on Sunday, and be back at work the next Monday.

Okay, it's only three days, not six like MFNW had ballooned out to before the cut-back, but given travel logistics and new responsibilities at my new job, the schedule actually works better for me (I wouldn't have gotten back from Portland until the following Monday if MFNW had kept to their old schedule).  The venues seem to be more closely spaced and centrally located for Hopscotch than they were for MFNW (a lot of time was spent each night getting from one venue to another), and even though "only" 115 of the 155 or so bands for Hopscotch have been announced so far, the lineup is still pretty strong.  There's even headliner events planned for Raleigh City Square, similar to MFNW's Pioneer Courthouse Square concerts. 

So now I'm wondering, who really needs Portland, anyway?

Swans

More Real Estate

Little Dragon

Little Dragon have released a second track from their upcoming Nabuma Rubberband.  LD will be playing Variety Playhouse on June 14 (Flag Day, also my kid sister's birthday).  Better get your tickets soon (for Little Dragon - Flag Day's free and my kid sister's not planning anything special AFAIK).

Meanwhile, tUnE-yArDs' has releases a second track from her forthcoming Nikki Nack. She'll be opening for Arcade Fire here in Atlanta, unfortunately on the same night Mogwai is playing Center Stage.  The second time I'll miss her playing in Atlanta.

Coachella Knees

Coachella's been streaming all weekend on YouTube (Comcast Xfinity next weekend).  Here are some of the highlights from Friday and Saturday.

We missed Girl Talk at MFNW (RIP) 2012 due to our side trip to see My Morning Jacket in the Oregon countryside, but we did catch Warpaint in Seattle at Bumbershoot 2011.  We also saw Future Islands at the god-forsaken Masquerade before they exploded on Letterman last month.

Still, I'm thinking that the schedule for next month's Shaky Knees Festival here in Atlanta is even stronger than Coachella's, at least to my musical tastes.  Just sayin'.  Also, Fri > Sun > Sat.

S Carey & White Hinterland at Eddie's Attic, Atlanta, May 11, 2014

In one of the most startlingly non-rock'n'roll moves of the year, the promoters and proprietors of Decatur's Eddie Attic decided to put on a show featuring S. Carey (of Bon Iver) and White Hinterland starting at 7:00 pm, still the height of Atlanta's rush hour and an hour too early to allow one to eat some dinner beforehand - I had to arrive directly from work without even stopping home to feed the cats.

So with that off my chest, it was a great show, due entirely to the artistry of the performers and not the constant "shushing" of Eddie's management to the audience (note to Eddie's Attic: you might want to reevaluate your attitude toward your audience and honestly decide if promoting music shows is the right livelihood for you).

So, with that now off my chest, White Hinterland opened at 7:00 sharp (note the daylight coming in through the window at the upper right).  White Hinterland is Scituate, Massachusetts' vocal powerhouse Casey Dienel, a graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music and keyboard and loop-supported one-woman band.  She performed an emotive and stylistically diverse set of songs, ranging from quiet voice-over-keyboards songs to rhythmically complex orchestrations of multiply looped vocals.

    

Her set included a terrific cover of Leon Russell's ballad, Song For You.

Her set ended concluded with a call-and-response piece with the audience (poorly) attempting to match her wordless vocalizations, but as the keyboards slowly dropped out of the mix and Casey's unaccompanied voice filled the room (she even moved away from the microphone and sang unamplified), an otherwise cliched moment became truly transcendent. 

After that, the audience didn't want her set to end and at only 7:45 pm, it didn't seem like it should have to, but all was quickly forgiven when Eau Clair, Wisconsin's (god, I'm so specific today) S Carey took the stage.  

 

We've seen S Carey once before, back in June 2011 when he opened for David Bazan (Pedro the Lion). Much like Bon Iver, for whom he plays drums, S Carey's music is hard to classify, ranging at times from quiet, polite balladry, to rhythmic, tribal percussion, to indie rock with electronic flourishes and coloration. To put it another way, he's a skilled interpreter of his music, willing to add whatever elements are necessary to convey the emotional content of his songs.

S Carey performed several new songs from his new album, Range of Light, and ended his set with a great one-two punch, staring with his probably best-known song, In The Dirt. 

In The Dirt, including its enthusiastic audience clap-along, was then followed by White Hinterland joining him on stage to cover Bjork.

@hessie via Instagram

Despite the early hour and the restrictive (repressive?) nature of Eddie's management, there was still something magical about the performances, the evening, and the artists.  I can't wait to see White Hinterland and S Carey perform someday at a real venue.