The Pitchfork Festival - an overview.

Hi there. I'm posting for Conor tonight, here in Chicago, where it's technically midnight so therefore Monday. I'm on a porch with Conor, Kilian, and our frequent commenter Ignatius. Why am I posting instead of Conor if we're both here at the same time? Good question.

Anyway, I missed Saturday entirely, but of what I saw Friday and Sunday Pitchfork is a well run and worthwhile festival. A couple highlights:

1. Public Enemy - not just for them performing IT TAKES A NATION OF MILLIONS TO HOLD US BACK but also for Flavor Flav's rants, including his repeated references to the album's title as "It Takes A Nation Of A Million To Hold Us Back". And also their ending career-spanning medley, from obvious hits to nice surprises like the title track from "He Got Game" and their recent, unexpectedly awesome single "Harder Than You Think":



2. HEALTH - I've raved about this album before, and they were indeed as awesome live as I hoped.

3. The Dodos - I knew nothing about them, and in a way they remind me of HEALTH's mellow melodic younger brother, still relying on beds of rhythm with precise shift points. It's beautiful.

4. Bon Iver - A bit frustrating because of sound bleed from Spiritualized's set, overcrowding, and some assholes in front of me who I will hate for as long as I can remember them, which hopefully will be not very long. But the entire audience singing along to "The Wolves (Act I + II)" as the band descended into chaos will stick with me.

5. The Numero Group: I discovered this reissue label in the merch tent, and although I have yet to listen to any of the CDs I bought, I was impressed by the diversity, depth, and packaging of their releases.

6. All the random friends that I managed to catch up with during this show. A special shout-out to Henry Mayer, whose band Undertow has recently put out a new CD that provided the driving soundtrack for today and is very good.

There was of course lots of other good stuff. You want to know more? You'll get it Wednesday, as Ignatius brings an all weekend, blow-by-blow account of the weekend. Or so I promise on behalf of him. Now I return to hanging out with these folks on a porch. Pass the tequila.

The Mousy Girl Scream Violence Violence

The pitchfork festival was a scream; it was a marathon of adrenaline fueled feel good music with pit-stops here and there to catch a well deserved acoustic guitar induced trance. Of Montreal isn't Canadian and shouldn't move to Canada but maybe they should move from Athens, Georgia to Athens, Greece, home of the epic. Their epic song, "The past is a grotesque animal", spans 10 exulting minutes and everybody in the audience knew the words! Everybody in the audience knew the words! That is, they all knew the words to the lyrics that were repeated twice, like, "The mousy girl screams Violence, Violence" which must be the greatest most poetic and anthemic sing-a-long lyric in the history of indie dance music. "The mousy girl screams violence violence". And I'm so touched by its simpleness, because I can picture some small girl that has one defense mechanism that she utilizes all the time to stave off emotional and physical damage to herself and her soul. But was this the same girl that doesn't mind discussing "The story of the eye" at a Swedish festival? Because even admitting to knowing of this book signals some level of deprivation from which you can't save yourself. This mousy girl that tries to protect herself through accusations, public or private, of violence really doesn't have a soul worth protecting anymore, she's already slipped below.

This band Of Montreal are meta physicians of evil and the crowd ate it up, and I assume the crowd eats it up everywhere they go. What does this say for our collective soul that we revel in a band that purveys depravity? Or are we just elated to see a truthful reflection of the hidden portion of society? Can the inflamed feelings evoked by this band be soothed by the introspectiveness of Cat Power? Chan Marshall in her opening song of her set at pitchfork declares that she wanted to be the greatest and I feel her. I feel her music immensely, cause its the music I want for myself. I want to play quiet music intensely. I want people to have to lean in to hear; its an aesthetic that I think is underused cause its easy to play louder but really really hard to play quiet. I went to a show once at the empty bottle where they had all these "Please be quiet" signs set out. On the pool table. On the bar. On the ledges. It was for this Norwegian jazz band that wasn't even mic'ed. And I loved it. They made beautiful quiet sounds and it was transfixing. It was mesmerizing. Chan Marshall sings this way and her Dirty Delta Blues band plays this way and if I could play my trumpet with half as much control and beauty then I'd be lucky.

These were my favorite moments of the pitchfork festival. I had one more favorite moment, Deerhunter. They play ambiance for ten minutes and then break into the exact driving rock pop groove you felt like you were waiting for all throughout the ambiance. Then. More Ambiance. The singer Bradford Cox sings through delay pedals and samplers and sings about his life which through interviews and through his lyrics I've gathered is one rougher than most and you feel like its the truth. There is a look and a feel of people that give you the truth that makes you think that truth giving and telling is exhilarating. Deerhunter has it. Deerhunter doesn't give a damn if you like their band or not and don't care if they are the next big thing or not, which they are. They want to make music for people that love the music they make and they want to have fun and express themselves. Thats awesome.

Oh this is awesome too. Its today!