Prepping for Bumbershoot

Bumbershoot is next weekend and I've started preparing my devices and planning my strategy. I've got a new 2 hour Flip so I can record 168 minutes of video plus whatever I add with my digital SLR. The SLR does nice HD videos but the sound fails badly when recording anything that's loud so the Flip produces usable video, SLR mostly does photos.

I'll try my new Flip out tonight at the Vera Project with Braille, Theory Hazit and Knowmads. I may borrow or purchase a field recorder too.

I'll do a few Wii Fit yoga and exercise workouts this week to keep my back limber and my strength up, and we'll pay attention to hydration and good food choices at Bumbershoot and hope things go well. No major physical trauma heading in this year, but my neck and shoulders are still out of sorts from my epic unpleasant trip back from India.

Plotting out Bumbershoot bands, why did they have to have Shelby Earl and the Presidents of the USA at the same time? Brite Futures and Craft Spells too, and Nice Nice vs. PS I Love You, tough choices, that plus Shabazz Palaces and it isn't even 6PM on the first day yet. I count 38 bands I wouldn't mind seeing, if I can get to 20 of those that's better than 50%, anyway. Saturday is shaping up to be a good day, both of my daughters and my son will be going with me. This will be the 4th or 5th time I've seen the PUSA, my daughters have seen 3 or 4 I think, and this will be Ben's 3rd at least. They're definitely a family favorite, always put on a hot energetic fun show. STRFKR, Lawnchair Generals, Meklit Hadero, Ray LaMontagne and Mavis Staples and others I've never heard of. Awesome lineup for the first night!

I should be able to get some good videos, here's a favorite from last year's Bumbershoot:

This performance is on the Broad Street stage, they aren't using that stage this year. and they also aren't using Memorial Stadium as the main stage. They are using 2 stages in the EMP, the Key Arena as the main stage, and an additional fountain stage, so the venue lineup is a little different.

Sunday kicks off with Sol, local reggae, Lonely Forest and Whalebones at the same time, Mad Rad and Massey Ferguson at the same time, No Means No overlapping with Broken Social Scene, Thee Oh Sees, DaM FunK + Master Blazter, Atari Teenage Riot, Com Truise, Das Racist, Anti-Flag, Warpaint, Butthole Surfers and Leon Russel at the same time, with Macklemore and Ryan Lewis 30 minutes later, Tori Y Moi, The Kills, Joe Pug, Whiz Khalifa and more. Sunday's lineup looks excellent.



Monday has Motopony and the Horde and the Harem at the same time, a stretch of unfamiliar (to me) bands: Legendary Oaks, Fly Moon Royalty, Quadron, Curtains For You, Kendric Lamar and DJ Introcut. Finally bands I recognize: My Goodness, Head Like A Kire, Grand Hallway, Big Boi, YACHT, WD4D, MASH HALL, Ill Cosby, LAKE, Sharon Van Etten, Vendetta Red, Urge Overkill, Ravenna Woods, Fitz and the Tantrums, Phantogram, Truckasaurus, The Reverend Horton Heat, Hall & Oates, Grant Lee Buffalo. Other new to me bands like Sallie Ford & the Sound Outside, SPLATINUM, Over the Rhine, 214, Eisley,
Charles Bradly, and Greensky Bluegrass. Quite a lineup, I hope I can do it justice!

I'll bring 2 Flips and my digital SLR and (hopefully) a field recorder. I try to get a video of a song and some photos from each band, with favorite bands (PUSA) getting several songs.

Even 168 minutes of Flip will get used up pretty quickly and I can be pretty picture happy with the SLR. I'm trying to arrange a spot for my laptop so I can download videos wile recharging the Flips and download my photos and recharge the SLR batteries too. A 45 minute pause to get downloaded and recharged (overlapped with food and water and cleanup etc.) could double the daily capacity!

Sasquatch Is Coming

I managed to finagle a trip to Sasquatch, admission, camping space and even some food in exchange for participating in the creation of the Sasquatch 10th Anniversary Year Book.

After giving us a class on interviews we were all assigned to do interviews with anybody we wanted. I picked the Knowmads, a young hip hop duo I had just seen and enjoyed who were local, had a good following (they sold the Vera Project out) and only had a few interviews out there.

I have to admit I enjoyed it, so when the Seacats (my then 12 year old son's first local band crush last Summer) got CD release show booked I tracked down an obscure web site and got in touch for an interview with Josh Davis of the Seacats, who are doing a CD release show at the Vera Project on May 20th. This one wasn't tasked or reviewed by the Sasquatch Yearbook committee, hopefully some of them may read it though.

Now I get to go to Sasquatch and if it can be arranged Ranni and I get to interview Macklemore and Ryan Lewis. So another assignment was researching the artists, which was an unexpected pleasure. If you've read enough of my blogs you've seen my rap/hip-hop disclaimer: it came after my time, it doesn't favor guitar, it emphasizes beat and rhythm over melody, it's not really my native style or comfort zone, and my knowledge of the genre is thin to say the least.

All that being said, I keep on running into hip-hop shows that I enjoy immensely. Mad Rad, Das Racist, Dyme Def, Knowmads - I end up having a great time at their shows. The crowd's are into it, rhythm and beat rule during live performances, and I saw a lot of talented performers at a high creative level just killing it. Awesome live shows!

Macklemore and Ryan Lewis are the first of the modern local wave (well Das Racist aren't local, so local and national wave) of Hip Hop performers that I got into via their recorded output. Several of their songs just knocked me out, and that arguably cheesy eulogy "My Oh My" made me cry - the bit about listening to the Mariners in the garage with Dad was a direct hit, I still miss my father and lived through exactly that so many times; nothing has evoked him that strongly for me in a long while. Wonderful stuff, very powerful, it connected with my emotions intensely.


Macklemore and Ryan Lewis put out interesting stuff when it comes to the backing track too, with more variety in the instrumentation than I'm used to for hip hop - horns, strings, classical sounding piano, quite different from most of what I've heard before.

I read a criticism recently of Macklemore and Head & the Heart, effectively that they're music is too naive, simple, or un-ironic, it just doesn't have the complexity and depth to really be classic stuff. I would argue that what has made them so noticeable is that they are working the emotion side of creativity pretty directly, and the passion is intense, interesting, and exciting. I saw Head & the Heart open for Vampire Weekend last year at the Paramount and they were awesome, and I'm really looking forward to finally seeing Macklemore and Ryan Lewis at Sasquatch too - the youtube footage of his shows looks great! Interviewing will be icing on the cake if that works out.

That's just one band of a huge number of interesting acts like Das Racist, Death Cab For Cutie, The Decemberists, Deerhunter, The Flaming Lips, Flogging Molly, Foo Fighters, The Globes, Guided By Voices, Iron & Wine, Modest Mouse, MSTRKRFT, Old 97′s, Reggie Watts, Rodrigo Y Gabriela, Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings, Surfer Blood, The Thermals, Tokyo Police Club, Wilco, Wolf Parade and the The Young Evils - and that's just the shorter list of bands I've heard of and/or seen. Half the fun at a show like this is the bands that you;ve never heard of, you see all kinds of cool things that you just wouldn't have made it to otherwise. It's almost an embarrassment of riches!

The real challenge is to figure out how to get pictures and videos from every act I see, if possible. Can I take a laptop so I can download them as I go along and free up room on my Flip? We'll see, I'll blog about it one way or another once I get back after next weekend. It should be awesome!