Just a glimpse at some of the madness taking place in Austin, Texas at SXSW next week in terms of bands and parties. I’ll be covering what I see there right here next week.
Some MP3s from the official SXSW of bands on my hitlist:
Brahms – Toward The Ghost
Boat Beam – The Rain Pauly
Everything Everything – My Keys, Your Boyfriend
Freelance Whales – Generator 2nd Floor
Lissie – Little Lovin’
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Fanfarlo – the first band of my CMJ 2009 experience at The Music Slut Party at Piano’s, Ludlow St, Manhattan, NYC.
The last ten days in NYC have been amazing. The food (Aoife’s got that part covered), the bars, the hotels, the people, the buildings, – I’ve consumed what the city had to offer but still want more of it. Of course, the real reason I was there was for CMJ 2009 – a showcase of 1300 bands taking place over five days in Brooklyn and Manhattan. I missed so many bands I wanted to see but here are the 8 best bands that I did catch at the festival. You can also read my piece on CMJ buzz bands from the Indo here.
The first thing we hit at CMJ was The Music Slut’s Day Party in Piano’s and the first band we saw were Fanfarlo. Having absolutely fallen in love with their album Reservoir, I was delighted to see their live show is just as good. Swooping indie-folk music in the vein of Beirut and Arcade for sure, but strong enough to stand on its own two feet. Hopefully, they’ll hit Irish shores in the new year as I’d love to see them again.
Malt liquor and hipster beer empties at the Crystal Antlers show in Williamsburg last night.
In the city that never sleeps during CMJ, a million gigs pass you by and you’re powerless to do anything about it. That’s why you have to pick and choose a venue and pretty much stay there. We’ve had two full days so far and my highlights have been Fanfarlo, Suckers and Crystal Antlers.
Tonight sees the Irish bands doing their thing at The Bowery Poetry Club. If you can’t make it, you can stream it here. Then, tomorrow night – Chromeo, Solid Gold, Holy Ghost!, Theophilus London and Amazing Baby in a bowling alley is where I’m headed for the night. Proper report later, In the meantime, you can follow my moves at CMJ via Twitter.
LATFH refers to Look at This Fucking Hipster. I saw about a thousand hipsters yesterday.
The weekend before Electric Picnic, I got the opportunity, along with 11 other music bloggers to travel to Paris for the three day Rock En Seine festival courtesy of Eurostar and We Are Social on a Little Music Break.
The bloggers in question were: Boaz aka “Codfish” from Cougar Microbes, Stuart from My Chemical Toilet, Marcus from Stereokill, Paul and Mark from Fried My Little Brain, Joe and Sam from Hush House, Terry and Nikki from Buzzin’ Media and in a stroke of genius, a girl from Vice sent her dad Paul and his mate Gareth to cover the weekend.
The festival itself took place in a public park near the city and was great fun. What it lacked (a dance stage), it made up for in the weather, a decent outdoor food court, the best festival chilli I ever tasted, afterhours champagne, and of course, the bands. Here’s the pick of the bunch from this year:
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Some photos from the weekend including Marina and the Diamonds, Major Lazer, First Aid Kit, Micachu, Panti talking to Louis Walsh (eh, random), Amadou and Mariam, The Flaming Lips and Beach House.
If you’ve any photos or videos to share from the weekend, pop em in the comments for all to see. My State reviews are here: Friday | Saturday | Sunday.
Photos after the jump..
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There’s not a much better festival closer than The Flaming Lips is there? Confetti, Giant balloons fired out of a balloon gun, lasers, an oval screen, trippy visuals, Wayne Coyne, his blowup ball, a smoke machine in a megaphone -other bands must look at them and feel very inadequate on the live front. To top it off, the finishing song was a highlight, ‘Do You Realise?’ – which to me, marries the positivity and negativity of life together more poignantly in a lyric than many songwriters much more feted than Coyne can.
There were songs from forthcoming album Embryonic which sounded much more washed-out than more recent poppier stuff. Definitely a “freak-out vibe” as was suggested earlier in the year.
Here’s Mr Coyne in his bubble:
Here’s the confetti and balloon madness in two parts during ‘Race For The Prize’:
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Perhaps my absolute highlight of the weekend. Late Sunday night, Amadou & Mariam played a brilliant set befitting of their brilliant recent albums – Dimanche a Bamako and
I talked to a few people in the tent afterwards who were welling up in tears thinking about how good they were. I think seeing them being escorted off-stage reminded a lot of people that they were blind. They are amazing musicians first though. In contrast, my mate didn’t realise they were blind until later that night when I told him. He thought Mariam was just in a pissy mood. :)
The sound quality was a bit sucky for this video.
You know this song well. Windowlicker. Remixed. This was probably the most tame part of a show which featured a man and a woman beating each other for ten minutes (Flex), that Playstation ad, a wheelchair-bound deformed mutant (Rubber Johnny), Hitler, Star Wars footage and foreskin.
It was very violent and very visceral – like the ultimate breakcore slasher movie.
Much to mine and everyone else’s delight. What a tune. Check out the guy setting his lighter on fire to the left of the screen.
Check back throughout the day for more videos and a photo gallery of Electric Picnic. My review will be up on State.ie later today.
My absolute highlights were: Major Lazer, Amadou and Mariam, Marina and the Diamonds (met her afterwards, she was lovely as expected), The Flaming Lips, Four Tet’s DJ set in Body and Soul.
This might just be my post of the year. 20 songs from 24 artists (remixes double it up) who appear at Electric Picnic this year clocking in at 63 minutes. This mixtape has some of my favourite music of the year contained within it, mixed to the best of my ability in under six hours and you don’t even have to be going to the festival to enjoy it. The second half properly kicks off. It’s available as the latest podcast too.
Stage Times PDFs – Friday | Saturday | Sunday
Right click and save as to download.
Nialler9’s Electric Picnic Mixtape 09
As it’s a fairly beat-orientated mix, I will also suggest you do not miss the following at the weekend if you’re heading which did not feature here: Moderat (a project which will apparently not exist much longer), Brian Wilson, Jeffrey Lewis, The Rubberbandits, Roots Manuva, Bat for Lashes, Chris Cunningham, Jennifer Evans, Tunng, Villagers, Skream & Benga, Introducing (DJ Shadow live cover band), Flaming Lips, Duke Dumont, First Aid Kit , Beach House and Amadou & Mariam.
Also check out CubikMusik’s EP Mix.
Tomorrow I’m splitting from dull overcast Dublin for the weekend in favour of the three-day Rock en Seine festival near Paris. The lineup includes Vampire Weekend, Bill Callahan (really looking forward to this), Oasis, Faith No More, Passion Pit, School of Seven Bells, MGMT, Baaba Mal, Klaxons, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Bloc Party, Vitalic, The Horrors, Dananananakroyd, Metric, Yann Tierson and The Asteroid Galaxy Tour.
There’s even a free mini-Rock en Seine for kids who haven’t got too old to scoff at Oasis yet. Should be good.
The trip has been made possible by Eurostar and We Are Social who are bringing myself and some UK music bloggers over for the festival on a little break (see previous art and fashion breaks). I’m looking forward to travelling by the Channel Tunnel for a laugh (especially as it’s a FREE bloody trip – blogging can have its perks and it’ll be a nice respite from 18 hour days). If you’re interested in following suit, check out Little Break, Big Difference for ideas for entertainment and culture-themed breaks to Paris, Brussels and Lille. Here’s a track from Danish band The Asteroid Galaxy Tour which reminds me of something else.. Anyone know it?
The Asteroid Galaxy Tour – Around the Bend
Full report ASAP (and possibly through Twitter too) and a new Podcast and an Electric Picnic mixtape coming next week.
