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Coachella 2012 Recap

I wrote more than 4,000 words for MSN Postbox about Coachella, so if you want more, head over to postbox.msn.com and click over to the “Best of the Fests” section. And I'll write a longer post for here over the weekend about how EDM is taking over the world, or something else. For now:

Top Five Songs:

1. St. Vincent: “KROKODIL” - Annie Clark, stagediving while screaming the words to her unreleased punk song? Okay.
2. Pulp: “Common People” - The only part of the Pulp set that the crowd, a large chunk of whom were just reserving space for the Black Keys show immediately following, cared about.
3. Gotye (with Kimbra): “Somebody That I Used To Know” - It took seeing it live for me to understand the obsession with this one, but I think I get it now.
4. Feist: “The Bad In Each Other” - Who needs “1234” when you've got a small orchestra and big drums backing you up?
5. James: “Sit Down” - “Laid” is the crowd-pleaser, but “Sit Down” featured Tim Booth singing three feet away from me, balanced on a security rail.

HM: “Hold the Line” by Santigold, “Fade Into You” by Mazzy Star, “Tongue Tied” by Grouplove, “I Can See Clearly Now” by Jimmy Cliff (with Tim Armstrong of Rancid), “She Is Beyond Good and Evil” by St. Vincent, “Do You Remember the First Time” by Pulp

Favorite Performance: Pulp

There is no album forthcoming from the Pulp reunion that started in 2011, reportedly. There's no “Best Of...” album to hawk, no motive other than Jarvis Cocker and company cashing some checks and, hopefully, getting a thrill out of performing classic songs together.

So Pulp's 2012 Coachella set made no attempt to win over new fans or to change the act for a younger festival audience. Cocker still talked at length in between songs about anything and nothing, sometimes amusing and sometimes confusing the fans waiting less-than-patiently for the Black Keys. His dance moves were as spastic as ever, and now came off even odder thanks to Cocker growing into the role of “hip literary professor,” decked out in a suit and tie. It was a pure Pulp show, not unlike the ones that fans have watched over and over again on DVD. The kids at the festival weren't entirely sold, but who cares?

Best Performance: Radiohead

Here's where I come clean: I don't get Radiohead. I recognize the genius, I recognize how talented the band members are. But there's nothing about the music or the performance that makes me stand up and take notice.

The Coachella set reaffirmed that for me. “There's something clinical, almost bloodless, about Radiohead performing in concert,” I wrote for MSN Postbox. “There never seems to be a wrong note played, a bad strike of the drum, a missed word in the lyrics.” From a technical standpoint, Radiohead stands above the rest.

But give me the slightly-ratty, heart-on-sleeve performances of Broken Social Scene any day.

Weirdest Moment: Holo-Pac

Enough has been said about this, so let me be brief. At the end of the two-song “set,” the people around me clapped politely, but it felt like they had the energy drained out of them. Live hip-hop relies on the energy exchanged between the crowd and the performer, maybe moreso than any other genre. How can the audience give and receive that energy from what is essentially a fancy pre-recorded performance? 

Best “I'm Old” Exchange:

Guy in Front Row at Main Stage: “Does anyone even know who James is?”

Me: “They're a Brit-pop band that was big in the 90s. They did a song you might have heard called 'Laid.' That came out around 1993.”

GiFRaMS: “Oh. I was four.”

(NOTE: By the end of the set, GiFRaMS was won over. That might have been because he literally held lead singer Tim Booth up as he sang “Sit Down.”)

Worst Feature: Blocked Off Access

Each stage had large amounts of real estate near the front of the stage blocked off for various elites – artists, friends, sponsors, etc. It's a lovely deal for them, I'm sure, but it creates two big problems. First the pushing and shoving to get a good spot in front of the stage is now confined to an even-smaller area, making for a lot of bickering and a decent amount of elbow-throwing. Second, and more important, is that the stage feels even further away.

The Full List of Stuff I Saw:

Friday:

Sheepdogs (one song), Wallpaper (one song), Kendrick Lamar (full set), James (full set), Grouplove (six songs), Jimmy Cliff (two songs), Arctic Monkeys (full set), Pulp (full set), Mazzy Star (two songs), Radiohead (full set)

Saturday:

Grace Potter and the Nocturnals (most of the set), Zeds Dead (full set), Laura Marling (full set), St. Vincent (full set), Feist (full set), Radiohead (full set)

Sunday:

Santigold (full set), Beats Antique (full set), Thundercat (three songs), The Gaslamp Killer (full set), Gotye (full set, including Kimbra cameo), Nero (10 minutes or so), Calvin Harris (full set – including Rihanna cameo), Florence + the Machine (full set), Dr. Dre/Snoop Dogg and Friends (full set)

Grammys, 2012

 

(It's the only free image I have. Shut up.)

Can one create a "moment?" Let's find out.

Here's a quick rundown of the view from my couch:

Prince and the Art of the Tease

 
Burlesque dancers and pick-up artists alike understand the art of the tease, the idea that anticipation is often as enticing as satiation.

At some point, though, a tease is just that. Without a payoff, what are we waiting for?

Good Reading On The Internet(s)

I'm trying to get work done, and instead there is a bunch of articles on the net today calling to me...

Paul Haggis vs. The Church of Scientology - The New Yorker is pure journalist porn. Who gives a writer 28 pages anymore for a story?

For Car Cassette Decks, Play Time Is Over - New York Times is remarkable for the simple idea that, in the year 2010, a car - a luxury car, no less! - still came off an assembly line with a tape player.

Prince Speaks For Kardashian-Weary Nation: "Get Off The Stage!" - Yahoo is a brilliant palate-cleanser (hat-tip to Jen L.).

2010 Album of the Year

(So, it turns out this didn't go live when it was supposed to - which I'm sure is user error, but I'm going to blame Typepad anyway. So there.)

Albums of the Year - Superlatives

Best Comeback: Eminem – Em would have won this just for his guest verses on B.o.B's “Airplanes pt. 2” and the leaked “I Need A Doctor” with Dr. Dre.

Album of the Year: #3 and #2

 

3 – Dessa, A Badly Broken Code

Part singer, part rapper and all poet, Dessa's lyrics are unlike the words of any other artist in hip-hop today, running the gamut from introspective to braggadocio without missing a beat. And unlike some other great hip-hop lyricists, she gets stellar production work from her Doomtree brethren like Paper Tiger and Lazerbeak. A Badly Broken Code might be the most underrated album  of any genre of 2010.

Standout Tracks: Seamstress, Dutch, Dixon's Girl

Broken Social Scene And Collaboration

I am often hard-pressed to explain my devotion to Broken Social Scene to long-time friends. After all, I listened to nothing but hip-hop and Natalie Merchant until college, and even then only added a couple of college radio faves during my WVAU days.

After moving to California and seeing Metric in concert, then being passed a copy of “Anthems For A Seventeen-Year Old Girl” by Scott Rosenberg (my source for all things good in all things), I immediately took a liking to the band. And when I found out more about them, I started to fall head-over-heels.

Why? Professional jealousy.

Why I'm Old, Part 87

Tonight, I worked at the B.o.B mini-concert for AMP Radio. It was hard for me to take photos for the web site, though, because my camera kept getting blocked by everyone else's camera phone. I mean, everyone else's:

(Yes, it's a terrible image. But every speck of light between the camera and B.o.B is a cell phone.)

Would You Like Your Vanilla in Ice Cream or Pudding Form? - American Idol Finale

It’s Meghan’s fault.

You see, every year, I try to watch a little bit of American Idol, just so I can make jokes around the water cooler. Of course, I don’t have a water cooler at work. And it’s a part-time gig anyway. But you get the point.

Last year, I watched the finale. And I wrote about it.

This year, after falling asleep during one episode earlier in the season, I decided I was over it. But my friend Meghan had to start writing about it for the Atlantic. And she had to put up video clips, including these two affronts to music: