Pitchfork 2009

July 17 to July 19
Tortoise takes the stage during an off and on again drizzle and announces that it is dedicating its set to a friend who died this morning. This is the worse start I've ever heard to a concert or a festival promising three days of music.

Things improve. All in all the best Pitchfork I've been to, although the weather remains weird. Instead of the usual steambath, the days are sweatshirt cool and threaten rain the entire weekend.

Most repeated line from band.

Some variation on "This is the largest crowd we've played for." Cymbals Eat Guitars, The Antlers, Beirut, and at least one other band that I can't remember now.

Best t-shirt:
Die Emo Die

Most interesting photos of people on top of other people:
















I watched this kid lick his Dad's head for a good half of Cymbals eat guitars.


Highlights include:
The National, who seem to be getting better live. Songs that sound introspective on the album become fully fleshed out rockers in concert. At the end of the show, we're all screaming the lyrics to the final song: "I won't fuck us over; I'm Mr. November! Very cathartic.


The Walkmen
I was curious to see how "You & Me" would translate live. Sometimes I fell into the album and it was like a suite of songs; other times I found myself impatient--not enough variety. I was delighted to see that the album, which made up about half the set, was even more compelling live. The cords on Hamilton Leithauser's neck looked about ready to pop during songs like "in the New Year" and "The Rat."


The Yeasayers had the moment of the concert when the drizzle stopped and the sun came out for "Sunrise."

Santa Fe

There’s a reason Georgia O’Keefe, who spent the most important years of her artistic life in the Santa Fe area, painted still lives of flowers and skulls.

You spend months looking over at the mountains in the distance, months regarding the miles of dry mesas in between, and it works on you—like those nights away from the city when all the hidden stars come out to stun you and, after the first shock of beauty is gone, put you in your place. Your small, transient, inconsequential place.

Who needs a beach...or summer

Scout can sunbathe on a blanket of snow on a sunny 30-degree day. She's happy as a clam for a good half hour. When she comes back into the house, the fur on her back is warm.

The Temporal Horse Latitudes

The horse latitudes are a stretch in the ocean where currents and winds dwindled to nothing and sailing ships would be mired for days. They were called the horse latitudes because sailors in the horse trade had to travel through these waters. When they got stuck, they had to lighten the boat by throwing the horses into the sea. The screams of the drowning horses were terrible to hear.

On Friday afternoons, around 2 or 3PM, the temporal version of horse latitudes occurs. Time doesn't stir.

The screams of the cubicled are more muted but still terrible to hear.

Funeral

We are heading to the funeral of my wife's aunt, down Highway 63 in Indiana when we pass a hearse that appears to have driven out of a Flannery O'Connor story. On the back is the quote from scripture: The wages of sin are death.the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord. A sign across the roof of the hearse reads Prepare to Meet Your Maker.

Why do the Bible Belters have to be so Old Testament? Instead of “Jesus is love” or “Jesus Loves You,” the message is you sinners will suffer. I never get the feeling messages like those adorning the Brimstone-mobile are really trying to get people to reform. Just putting the message out and then waiting for a sublime afterlife watching the sinners roast.

Fuck Winter

Ignore it and maybe it'll go away.

Today I hit 37 straight months of grilling out at least once a month, fixing up a tasty mixed grill of brats and Greek sausage. Scout joined me in the backyard, just soaking up the pale winter sun.

Only two months before spring training.

Best Music of 2008

Best of 2008

10) Fleet Foxes—Fleet Foxes
I resisted this one for a while. All these pretty harmonies by bearded guys in flannel. Suddenly it was 1971 and everywhere I go CSN&Y’s Four Way Street is on the turntable. Not only is the album popular but it becomes a totem to girls like Lisa, a girl who drew horses all through grade school and whose preternaturally large eyes seemed always ready to get teary. “You can just hear the love in their voices,” she’d say. Asking to put on the Stones seemed like pissing in the sacristy. I just didn’t know if I wanted to revisit all that sensitivity. But Foxes wore me down. I’m not sure I hear the love in their voices, but the songs are gorgeous in a warm flannel kind of way.
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9) Don’t Do Anything—Sam Phillips
Sam Phillips’ voice gets better with age: more mystery, more nuance, more economy of expression. Don’t Do Anything continues with the spare instrumentation that worked so well on 2004’s A Boot and a Shoe. Except here it she has a fuzz-drenched guitar and Jay Bellerose’s amazing percussion, which seems to include anything that can be tapped, rapped, pounded, shook or rattled.

8) At Mount Zoomer—Wolf Parade
What’s a year-end best of list without a Canadian band? Lots of synths bolstered by great crunchy guitar lines. Compelling.
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7) For Emma, Forever Ago—Bon Iver
More flannel and tenderness. You don’t listen to this album so much as eavesdrop.
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6) Real Animal—Alejandro Escovedo
Alejandro looks back at a long, varied career and records a brilliant album that captures the sweetness and the pain of those years. This is the comeback album I was hoping for when The Boxing Mirror came out.
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Live with Springsteen

5) Dear Science—TV on the Radio
Listening to Cookie Mountain was a like descending into an airless cave. Many great songs but not a trip I wanted to make that often. On Dear Science TVotR opens it up and lets the melodies out, adding touches of 70s soul and all kinds of good stuff.
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4) Microcastle/Weird Era Cont.—Deerhunter
Trippy, trancey on the outside; tart and poppy on the inside.
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3) Fair Ain’t Fair—Tim Fite
This guy’s an original. Just as likely to yodel as rap, Fite composes songs with the quirky catchiness and irresistibility of foul-mouthed jump rope rhymes. Friend Katie caught him live and described him as a cross between Pee Wee Herman and Tom Waits. I can see that. His site is chock full of great free tunes.
“Big Mistake” video

2) Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!—Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
Barbed, literate music that still rocks.


1) The Odd Couple—Gnarls Barkley
A finer album than St. Elsewhere, but no “Crazy” blockbuster, so a lot of people overlooked it. “Who’s Gonna Save My Soul” is the song of the year.
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Many Happy Listens:

Santogold—Santogold
Flight of the Conchords—Flight of the Conchords
Fire Songs—The Watson Twins
New Amerykah: Part One—Erykah Badu
Modern Guilt—Beck

Not terrible but I expected more:

Asking for Flowers—Kathleen Edwards
Stay Positive—Hold Steady