I finally got my Sasquatch posts written, ran out of gas a bit towards the end but that's OK.
Great memories this month!
Tea Cozies ripping it up at the Vera Project:
Aqueduct grinding out killer songs that same night:
That was an excellent show!
Turpentines were fun
Plenty of good Vera music to choose from, and I also saw massive numbers of bands over Memorial Day weekend at Sasquatch at the gorge.
Death Cab, this one always makes me think of my Dad, and now it will make me think of Mom and Dad - with the silence line it fits them as a couple even better. Give my love to Dad when you see him, Mom.
I think this is Pepper Rabbit.
The Antlers
The Globes
Got my YouTube channel going with long HD video support and improved the quality of my blogs by embedding long HD videos. Saturday Sasquatch blog has 73+ minutes of video embedded in it.
Got views of the blog up to personal record levels, over 2,000 total.
YouTube channel has 3,000 views and counting.
Knowmads interview got excerpted and posted on Knowmads web site, where it got 1000 views between the 2 sections.
I saw 15 acts at the Vera Project and at Sasquatch I saw 8 on Friday, 20 on Saturday, 19 on Sunday, and only 6 on Monday. That's 53 bands at Sasquatch and 68 total for the month.
Through March I saw 60 bands/sets/performances, 49 for the first time.
In April I saw 29, 25 first time.
In May I saw 68, 62 for the first time. Repeats: Death Cab for Cutie, The Thermals, Das Racist, Mad Rad, Iron & Wine, Seattle Rock Orchestra.
Through May I have seen 157 bands, 136 for the first time.
That works out to 31.4 bands a month. If only I could keep that rate up! 12*31.4 = 376.8, more than a band a day. Things are slowing down with family obligations and international travel taking some time and attention, so I suspect I'll end up somewhere in the mid to upper two hundred range, rather than 365+, but you never know, I've underestimated the rate before.
Showing posts with label Sasquatch. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sasquatch. Show all posts
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Friday, June 3, 2011
Friday at Sasquatch
Dropped off at the Vera Project early Friday to wait for my ride to the gorge. After a little applied tetris we got most of the luggage packed, tossed the last little bit in the bushes, and headed out.
The trip east went pretty well with some mild diversions that made us a little late but close enough to schedule. After sorting out our parking and getting colored paper bracelets we headed in to the site.
The booths got set up and the chalk came out.
...and the booth was open for business.
After a while the doors opened and the audience started trickling in, and pretty soon the music started.
Rival Schools kicked things off.
Good dramatic sound, punchy and interesting.
Next I nipped over to the Yeti stage, pretty much right next door, to see Mariachi El Bronx. Turns out it was a Mariachi set by the Bronx. This probably ended up being the most memorable music of the day, not sure what that means.
After Rival Schools I saw Mariachi El Bronx, which is the Bronx doing Mariachi, and doing it well. This performance stuck with me more than anything else on Friday.
Next up was Biffy Clyro
Fast guitar oriented power trio, good stuff.
Next was Bob Mould playing the first Sasquatch stage show of the festival.
The black backing on the stage blocks the view so you can't see the gorge.
Against Me played back at the Bigfoot stage.
The Bronx played their normal (non-mariachi) set next.
Back to the main Sasquatch stage for the two remaining acts, first up was Death From Above.
I saw them put on an interesting set, they've got a drummer all in a white with dyed blond hair and a bassist all in black with lots of dark hair and facial hair. The bass player did a fair amount of high end 12th or higher fret playing and the drummer sang, quite different and interesting. Somehow I ended up without any pictures from it so far, I'll keep looking. I did get some video, though.
The final act was Foo Fighters.
They played a fun, loud set. It was somewhat old school - overly loud, distorted, not just one but two drum solos, typical over the top rock and roll foolishness, which never gets old.
Friday has the fewest bands, but eight was enough to keep me busy checking things out well into the night. I'm not quite sure how I ended up with no Death From Above footage, but otherwise it went pretty well.
One day down, three to go. Next up is Saturday, the first full day of programming.
The trip east went pretty well with some mild diversions that made us a little late but close enough to schedule. After sorting out our parking and getting colored paper bracelets we headed in to the site.
The booths got set up and the chalk came out.
...and the booth was open for business.
After a while the doors opened and the audience started trickling in, and pretty soon the music started.
Rival Schools kicked things off.
Good dramatic sound, punchy and interesting.
Next I nipped over to the Yeti stage, pretty much right next door, to see Mariachi El Bronx. Turns out it was a Mariachi set by the Bronx. This probably ended up being the most memorable music of the day, not sure what that means.
After Rival Schools I saw Mariachi El Bronx, which is the Bronx doing Mariachi, and doing it well. This performance stuck with me more than anything else on Friday.
Next up was Biffy Clyro
Fast guitar oriented power trio, good stuff.
Next was Bob Mould playing the first Sasquatch stage show of the festival.
The black backing on the stage blocks the view so you can't see the gorge.
Against Me played back at the Bigfoot stage.
The Bronx played their normal (non-mariachi) set next.
Back to the main Sasquatch stage for the two remaining acts, first up was Death From Above.
I saw them put on an interesting set, they've got a drummer all in a white with dyed blond hair and a bassist all in black with lots of dark hair and facial hair. The bass player did a fair amount of high end 12th or higher fret playing and the drummer sang, quite different and interesting. Somehow I ended up without any pictures from it so far, I'll keep looking. I did get some video, though.
The final act was Foo Fighters.
They played a fun, loud set. It was somewhat old school - overly loud, distorted, not just one but two drum solos, typical over the top rock and roll foolishness, which never gets old.
Friday has the fewest bands, but eight was enough to keep me busy checking things out well into the night. I'm not quite sure how I ended up with no Death From Above footage, but otherwise it went pretty well.
One day down, three to go. Next up is Saturday, the first full day of programming.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
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!
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!
Monday, May 2, 2011
Looking Ahead to May
I won't be attending all that many shows in May, but I'll make up for the lower number of shows by getting into Sasquatch Fest for free (sort of). I should be able to see quite a pile of bands at Sasquatch, and I also get to interview a band.
I'm contributing to the Sasquatch Fest 10th Anniversary Year Book project - a coffee table book that should be available late this year or in time for next year's Sasquatch, anyway. I'm helpimg with a group that is coming up with ideas and some content and interviewing bands at the festival, looking forward to that.
I'll make it to an occasional Vera show, of course, like the upcoming Kina Grannis show on May 14, and the May 20 Aqueduct/Tea Cozies/Sea Cats Album Release show, but I probably won't get to nearly as many Vera shows this month.
In June I'll be spending some weeks in India and also attending a family wedding out of town so the blogging frequency and number of shows will drop off quite a bit.
Hopefully in July it'll pick back up, with a little luck I can make it to the Capitol Hill Block party and there are some free outdoor shows at places like the Mural Amphitheater downtown to watch for.
I hope everybody is enjoying the Spring, hopefully the weather will improve (record cold April here in Seattle, sigh) and by the end of June we get those really long days, leading into the gorgeous July and August weather. We can hope for it, anyway.
I'm contributing to the Sasquatch Fest 10th Anniversary Year Book project - a coffee table book that should be available late this year or in time for next year's Sasquatch, anyway. I'm helpimg with a group that is coming up with ideas and some content and interviewing bands at the festival, looking forward to that.
I'll make it to an occasional Vera show, of course, like the upcoming Kina Grannis show on May 14, and the May 20 Aqueduct/Tea Cozies/Sea Cats Album Release show, but I probably won't get to nearly as many Vera shows this month.
In June I'll be spending some weeks in India and also attending a family wedding out of town so the blogging frequency and number of shows will drop off quite a bit.
Hopefully in July it'll pick back up, with a little luck I can make it to the Capitol Hill Block party and there are some free outdoor shows at places like the Mural Amphitheater downtown to watch for.
I hope everybody is enjoying the Spring, hopefully the weather will improve (record cold April here in Seattle, sigh) and by the end of June we get those really long days, leading into the gorgeous July and August weather. We can hope for it, anyway.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Looking Ahead to April Shows
The Vera Project has a full roster of shows with 8 shows and more than 20 bands listed so far, with the Veracity show not up yet. I can also check out free shows at the Blue Moon on Sunday, so I should be able to see 20+ bands even if I miss a show or three at the Vera Project. Many interesting possibilities: Bright Futures, Karl Blau, Los Gentlemen, Titus Andonicus, Starfucker, Champagne Champagne, and Vivian Girls. Monica has been coming up with great Veracity lineups so I look forward to that and all of the bands I'll get see for the first time.
I'm looking at a more formal volunteer engagement for Veracity shows, we'll see if that progresses and has any usage.
I'm also starting to ramp up on some volunteer efforts for the Sasquatch Fest 10th Anniversary year book. Not only does it serve as my free ticket to Sasquatch Fest this year (and the bands are awesome) I also get some training on interviewing and an opportunity to interview some bands and fans. I missed the second meeting so I get to start with MusiCares (provides aid for musicians) and HeadCount (signs concert goers up to vote). Hopefully I'll get some bands that I like too.
I'm looking at a more formal volunteer engagement for Veracity shows, we'll see if that progresses and has any usage.
I'm also starting to ramp up on some volunteer efforts for the Sasquatch Fest 10th Anniversary year book. Not only does it serve as my free ticket to Sasquatch Fest this year (and the bands are awesome) I also get some training on interviewing and an opportunity to interview some bands and fans. I missed the second meeting so I get to start with MusiCares (provides aid for musicians) and HeadCount (signs concert goers up to vote). Hopefully I'll get some bands that I like too.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Upcoming shows in March
I'm not sure how many shows I'll make it to this month since it's a big birthday month for my family (3 of 5 family members have birthdays in less than 20 days) which always keeps us a little busy.
I think I'll do pretty well, though. Already I plan on seeing The Lonely Forest, The Oregon Donor and The Violins tonight and then the Magma Fest show tomorrow night with Tender Forever, Spurm, PWRFL Power and several other bands, and Marnie Stearns with Tera Melos later in the month.
There's another Smoke Wreck Kings show I'd like to make it to, and I'm sure I'll pick up a few more shows by the end of the month. I probably won't get to all that many, though, as things will probably be too busy.
My scheme to get into Sasquatch Fest (all 4 days! Reggie Watts, Death Cab, and on and on) is coming together, but that won;t pay of for a couple of months, so the rate should really start picking up by May and through the Summer.
I think I'll do pretty well, though. Already I plan on seeing The Lonely Forest, The Oregon Donor and The Violins tonight and then the Magma Fest show tomorrow night with Tender Forever, Spurm, PWRFL Power and several other bands, and Marnie Stearns with Tera Melos later in the month.
There's another Smoke Wreck Kings show I'd like to make it to, and I'm sure I'll pick up a few more shows by the end of the month. I probably won't get to all that many, though, as things will probably be too busy.
My scheme to get into Sasquatch Fest (all 4 days! Reggie Watts, Death Cab, and on and on) is coming together, but that won;t pay of for a couple of months, so the rate should really start picking up by May and through the Summer.
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