Summertime

This past week, Entertainment Weekly ran a small piece trying to predict what the “summer jams” of 2008 will be. A lot of mainstream music mags and websites generally do something along these lines around this time of year, and most lists are fairly predictable themselves. They will almost always include: 1 rap song with mail-order beats, tired references to how much money, cars and women the rapper has, and an incredibly annoying and repetitive hook; either a crappy Top 40 band masquerading as “punk” or “emo,” or some marginally “alternative” band slipped in by the editors in a desperate effort to hang on to whatever shreds of cred they might have once had; and inevitably, the list will be topped off by the current overproduced mess from the R&B or pop starlet of the moment, who 90% of the time can’t hit the high notes without the aid of pitch bending software. In recent summers, we’ve been treated to Rihanna, Beyonce, Avril, and Britney. This year, EW gives us three options: Mariah Carey (OK, she’s got a real voice), Fergie (absolutely hopeless without Pro Tools), and the coup de grace, Maroon 5 (kings of pitch shifting themselves) featuring Rihanna. Double the Pro Tools action, double the summer jam potential, apparently. Well, screw all that. If you can’t sing without a computer to help you, there’s no way you should be making money as a singer. But good luck trying to convince whoever is buying the iTunes Top 20 every week of that fact (I’m looking at you, High School Musical fans). Luckily for me, I haven’t crossed into that territory in many many years, and in that spirit, here’s my anti-summer jam mix. Perfect for rocking your Memorial Day picnic.

I Will Possess Your Heart… Death Cab for Cutie
Orange Crush… Editors
Grounds For Divorce… Elbow
Violet Hill… Coldplay*
Living Well Is The Best Revenge… R.E.M.
The Righteous Path… Drive-By Truckers
Rich Kid Blues… The Raconteurs
Just Like Heaven… The Watson Twins
Outfit [Live]… Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit
I Like What You Say… Nada Surf
I Thought I Saw Your Face Today… She & Him
M79… Vampire Weekend
Lights Out For Darker Skies… British Sea Power
The Light… Sun Kil Moon
Shooting Star… Air Traffic
One Day Like This… Elbow

*Full disclosure: Coldplay is treading dangerously close to falling into one or two of the categories I listed above (for that matter, Death Cab’s not far behind), and I’m not 100% sold on the quality of this, their new single. But I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt until I hear the new album. Plus, c’mon, it’s Coldplay. They’ll be impossible to avoid in a few weeks anyway. Might as well start assimilating now.

Interactive

Elbow at the Bluebird Theater. I always prefer small venue shows for a lot of obvious reasons—clearer sound, actually seeing the people onstage, and the chance for the artist to embrace and interact with their audience, an opportunity Elbow’s lead singer Guy Garvey grabbed with both hands last night. Kicking off off with “Starlings,” the opener from their new album, Elbow proceeded to mix their “golden oldies” with several more new songs. Elbow’s lush and layered sound came off surprisingly well live (if you’ve never heard their music, imagine Peter Gabriel fronting an older, smarter, and more cultured Coldplay). The band sounded tight, switching smoothly between rockers and the more mellow acoustic stuff. I was happy to hear “Scattered Black and Whites,” “Leaders of the Free World” and “Grace Under Pressure,” and the new single, “Grounds for Divorce” was a high point as well. The only disappointment for me was no “Fugitive Motel” in the set, but overall, I left quite satisfied. And openers Air Traffic showed a lot of promise, despite wearing their influences pretty blatently on their sleeve (I’m betting Coldplay, Muse, and even their tour mates are in heavy rotation in their van). They impressed me enough that I bought their album, and I’m happy to say it was well worth the $10.

But what stuck with me most on the night was Garvey’s electric personality and ability to handle the crowd. He provided interesting banter between each song, convinced a group of fans to buy the band a round of shots, drank toasts with the audience throughout the set, had the front row grabbing for his hand like some superstar televangelist, and shamed the ubiquitous howling Denver douchebag contingent into silence with a brilliant display of Northern English charm and wit. He even convinced the audience to sing a song of our choice instead of stomping and clapping to get the band to return for an encore. Unfortunately, the only song we could come up with that everyone knew was “The Wheels on the Bus.” Pretty lame. Still, I can count on one hand the shows I’ve seen where a performer has had the audience in the palm of their hand the way Garvey did last night. It’s an incredibly difficult stunt to pull off, which makes it all the more exciting when it happens. Most impressive.

Festivus (for the rest of us)

Summer approaches, and that means summer music festivals. I’ve got several options to choose from this year. I can stay nearby for the return of the Monolith Music Festival at Red Rocks (which was a great success, for me anyway, in its inaugural year but has yet to announce a lineup for this year) or the new, well-intentioned but somewhat mish-mash Mile High Music Festival at DSG Park. If I feel like traveling (which seems likely, since Radiohead has decided not to play a solo show anywhere within 1,000 miles of Denver), there’s the pretty spectacular lineup of this year’s Lollapalooza in Chi-town.

But as fun as festivals are, they also have their drawbacks. Weather (hot or wet), overpriced food and beverages, and general music fatigue from watching 30 or 40 bands over 2 or 3 days can sometimes make festivals a trying experience, not to mention the high prices promotoers can charge for gathering so many artists in one place. So to avoid all that, I decided that this year, I’m flipping the script and putting together a summer music festival the way I want it. To start, I’ve worked with different concert promoters to spread the bands out so that this is truly a “summer” festival. None of this BS 3-day nonsense. This puppy lasts four months (from May to September). By spacing the artists out this way, I avoid music overload, but get the privilege of paying the ridiculous food and beer prices on multiple occasions, not to mention getting to see a good number of the more disgusting bathrooms in the Mile High City. Plus, as an added benefit, this setup lets me give Ticketmaster a lot more of my money. And trust me, there’s nothing I enjoy more than paying an extra 50% on top of the ticket price in “convenience fees,” “venue fees,” “sales tax,” and whatever other bullshit those greedy bastards have come up with so that their fat fucking pig of a CEO doesn’t miss out on his $12 million bonus check this year.

Aaaaaanyway... I’ll be announcing more acts as they come along, but so far, I’m pretty excited about my lineup. (Confirmed means I have tickets, unconfirmed means I’m still debating.)

April 28: The Raconteurs @ The Fillmore Auditorium (I’m considering this a pre-festival warmup show—Unconfirmed)
May 2: Elbow @ The Bluebird Theater (Confirmed)
May 16: Margot & The Nuclear So and So’s @ The Larimer Lounge (C)
May 20: Sea Wolf @ The Bluebird (U)
May 29: The Kooks @ The Ogden (U
June 2: The Roots @ The Fillmore (U)
June 3: R.E.M./Modest Mouse/The National @ Red Rocks (C)
June 5: Rush @ Red Rocks (U)
June 14: Drive-By Truckers @ Westword Music Showcase (U)
June 21: Robert Plant & Alison Krauss @ Red Rocks (U)
July 21/22: The Police/Elvis Costello @ Red Rocks (U)

So far, so good. Rock ’n’ roll will never die. It just gets more expensive.

Elbow Room

Man, I am slipping. One of my favorite Brit bands, Elbow, has had a new disc available on iTunes since September 27th, and I just discovered it today. Granted, the physical CDs won't be released in the U.S. until October 18th, so technically, I haven't really missed the release date, but the fact that I didn't even know they had something new in the pipeline worries me. Am I slipping in my old age? Luckily, I was clued in today by two things: an ad in the latest Paste magazine, and a glowing review from Frank at Chromewaves. Since he and I seem to have similar taste in music, I downloaded Leaders of the Free World right away. I haven't gotten through much yet, so the jury's still out on whether Frank's effusive praise was warranted, but so far so good. One thing I agree with right away: the Peter Gabriel influence is front and center on this disc, especially on the third track, "Picky Bugger." With a little reworking of the backing instrumentation, it would fit right in on a number of Gabriel solo albums.

Frank's Radiohead comparison also prompted me to do something I've been thinking about for a while: complete my Radiohead collection, which meant finally purchasing Kid A, Amnesiac, and the live disc, I Might Be Wrong. All three discs have some good songs, but mostly listening reminded me why I was so happy to hear Radiohead's compass point swing back towards a more traditional rock sound on Hail to the Thief. I still maintain that had Radiohead combined Kid A and Amnesiac, they could have produced one great album and had some solid B-sides left over.

A two-goal lead is the most dangerous score in soccer.

Don't ask me why, but this has been the prevailing wisdom among coaches since before I started playing futbol all the way back in 1978. Apparently, teams tend to mentally relax and give up soft goals, and it happens often enough that the idea keeps kicking around (yes, pun intended). DC United did a good job of proving this nugget of wisdom this evening in the second game of their home-and-home series against Universidad Católica in the Copa Sudamericana, South America's club tournament. United is the first MLS team ever to participate (but not the first North American team; Mexican League teams have been involved before). United and Catolica tied 1-1 in the first match in DC, and because these series are decided by aggregate scoring, a win tonight would have put DC through to the next round. If they tied, the score needed to be at least 1-1, because goals scored away from home are the first tiebreaker. After 20 minutes of rather shaky soccer, United got off to a dream start, with Christian Gomez (above) scoring two quick goals to give them what seemed to be a comfortable margin. But Catolica pulled one goal back before halftime, and DC spent the entire 2nd half fighting against an erratic referee, hard fouls, injuries, cramps, and a general lack of defensive shape before finally surrendering two late goals that ended their run in the tournament. I'm not making excuses for them, because they deserved to lose this game. The players are probably relieved, because these matches happen to fall right during the MLS playoff push, so the timing couldn't have been much worse. But no matter what the situation, watching the Black and Red give up a lead like that is always painful, especially in a game where they had something to prove.

I bought some new music from the iTunes store tonight, and in both cases donated to charity at the same time. All the proceeds from Coldplay's Fix You EP are being donated to Hurricane Katrina relief funds, and Help: A Day in the Life supports the War Child charity, which works towards improving conditions for children in war-ravaged countries. It's great collections of songs from some of my favorite British artists. Radiohead, Coldplay, Keane, Elbow, Bloc Party, and the Magic Numbers are just a few of the contributors.

Odds and Ends

My concert future is starting to look very bright. Just got tickets for my brother and I to see Gift of Gab and Lateef the Truth Speaker from Blackalicious in two weeks. Ben Folds is going to be here the first weekend in May, and the week after I'm heading up to Chicago to see Doves. Add in back to back U2 shows in October, and I've got a pretty good stretch coming up. Hopefully, there will be a few more to fill in this summer. I'd love to see Coldplay, Stereophonics and Elbow if they get over to the US this year.

Todd passed this along from Kottke.org. It's a pretty ballsy example of culture jamming, which just happens to be the last chapter I read in Naomi Klein's excellent book, No Logo, a look at globalization and the growth of corporate conglomerates that spun into a movement (and of course, requisite website). I forgot how much I was enjoying that book before I got sucked into Gormenghast, so I've added it to my sidebar. And no, the irony of linking to her book for sale on a giant corporate conglomerate website is not lost on me. If you want to buy it, try your local bookstore, as long as Barnes & Noble hasn't squashed them out of business. (Steps off soapbox.)

And finally, apparently, laughter really is the best medicine. Well, maybe not the best, but good enough for a physician in India to start a laughing club 10 years ago and for the idea to spread to the US. That's funny stuff, people.