Pitchfork 2010

Highlight

The most anticipated act paid off big time. LCD Soundsystem, Saturday night's headliner, grabbed the crowd from the first song (a fiery "Us V Them")and held it throughout its hour plus set. The peak of the set (and the whole weekend) came with an amazing "All My Friends." The percussive piano chord keeps repeating and repeating, building the tension released only when the last line comes around, which the whole crowd happily sings along.

The set had some huge omissions: "North American Scum," "Dance Yourself Clean" (which I think would sound amazing live), and "Home." If this is the last tour for this group, they are leaving at the top of their game.

Partial set list: "Drunk Girls," "I Can Change," "Pow Pow," "Someone Great," "Yeah Yeah," "Tribuations," "Losing My Edge," "Daft Punk," and a very curious choice for a closer, "New York, I Love You."

Luck of the Irish

I remember envying the Irish when I was growing up. They had a great holiday that everyone loved and celebrated; a big jolly party. You wore your green sweater, colored shamrocks and hung them all over the classroom.
We Polish-Americans weren’t so lucky; the only public acknowledgement of our heritage was Polack jokes.
Where’s the best place to hide money from a Polack?
Under a bar of soap.
And on and on. Polacks were dumb and dirty. The point was reiterated endlessly. The jokes were too moronic to wound but were frequent enough to blunt any incipient interest in Polish culture I might have, which I’m sure was not much. I was not interested in all that old stuff. And I wasn’t Polish, I was American.
These days, I’m thinking that maybe the Polish-Americans got the better deal. Chicago kids get off on Pulaski Day, but the day is not cause for wild celebrations of non-Polish people.
But the Irish are forced to see their culture, the culture of James Joyce, Oscar Wilde and Samuel Beckett, reduced to green draft beer and “Kiss me I’m Irish” T-shirts.
Of course, this cultural reductionism doesn’t afflict only the Irish but they are unfortunate enough to have a wildly popular holiday that becomes a day-long spectacle of these reductions.

Coyote Sighting

I had just finished parking my car behind the Civic Center, when I see what I think is a stray dog on the other side of the street. Then I realize it is a coyote, smallish, a bit scruffy-looking, but trotting down the sidewalk like he belongs and has an appointment to keep. My camera is in my backpack, which is in the backseat. But before I can move, the coyote takes a sharp right and disappears into the backyards. I try to follow, but he's gone. Nothing left but these prints, which don't look any different than a dog's. I'm staring at the tracks, when an older guy walks by. Did you see that? I ask him. He doesn't stop, but says, That was no dog.

Best of 2009

Best of 2009

2009 was a better years for songs than albums. I had no trouble my year-end mix tape of stellar songs released this year. Coming up with a list of ten albums that held together as albums was a lot tougher. But here’s what I enjoyed in 2009.

1) Middle Cyclone by Neko Case
Neko’s most popular album is also one of her best. Her voice is as divine as ever, She allows herself to write some choruses, and her lyrics have less of the obtuseness of Fox Confessor. It helps that I first heard the best of these songs on a gorgeous September night at the Hideout Block Party in 2008; hearing them again brings back that late summer magic.

2) Face Control by Handsome Furs
Dan Boeckner of Wolf Parade and his wife, Alexei Perry, make an album of lean muscular rock that is more vital and urgent than 90% of the stuff out there.

3) Fortress ‘round My Heart by Ida Maria
Brash, funny pop with a punk edge.

4) Hospice by The Antlers
A gorgeous suite of songs evoking the grief, guilt, helplessness and fear resulting from watching a loved one die. The music whispers then surges into powerful choruses.

5) Welcome to Mali by Amadou & Mariam (2009 US Release)
Maybe the most joyous album of the year comes from the Mali couple of Amadou Bagayoko and Mariam Doumbia. The lead track, “Sabali,” continues to beguile.

6) Merriweather Post Pavilion by Animal Collective
The same multilayered sonic landscapes you’d expect from Animal Collective, but crafted into more structured songs. “My Girls “ is a sunny, giddy delight.


7) Veckatimest by Grizzly Bear
A big step forward from their 2006 release, Yellow House. Still too many formless swaths of pretty sounds, but the strong songs (“Cheerleader,” “Two Weeks,” “While You Wait for the Others”) are some of the best of the year.

8) Wilco by Wilco
I miss the edge of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, but this comfy cardigan of an album is ingratiating.


9) It’s Blitz! by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Great dance rock.


10) Change of Heart by Tim Fite
Mr. Fite’s Valentine’s Day present to music fans is a free download of songs about a break up. Fite’s goofy wit is reined in a little (but, happily, not extinguished) and the songs cut deeper.


Many Happy Listens

Dark Was the Night by Various Artists
This double album compilation is a microcosm of the 2009 indie music universe: talented people recording some terrific songs, but why are so many so introspective and slow.

The XX by The XX
This debut album by a London band features spare arrangements with whispery vocals and carefully parsed guitar lines.

Yonder is the Clock by The Felice Brothers
Great songs. If only this album had the energy of the their live shows.

Art Brut vs. Satan by Art Brut
More droll rockers from this band from the UK. Are they pulling a Mekons and setting up shop in Chicago? They must have played here at least ten times this year, including a five-night stint at Schubas.

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart by The Pains of Being Pure of Heart

PW & The Ghost Gloves Cat Wing Joy Boys (EP) by Paul Westerberg

Blood Bank (EP) by Bon Iver

Manners by Passion Pit

Best of the Decade

I make no claim that these are epoch-defining or the most influential of the decade. My criteria is simple: these are the albums that I’ve come back to again and again these last ten years.

#1 Funeral by Arcade Fire (2004)

#2 In Rainbows by Radiohead (2007)

#3 Yankee Hotel Foxtrot by Wilco (2002)

#4 Twin Cinema by The New Pornographers (2005)

#5 Boxer by The National (2007)

#6 Come On Feel the Illinoise! by Sufjan Stevens (2005)

#7 Middle Cyclone by Neko Case (2009)

#8 Ten New Songs by Leonard Cohen (2001)

#9 Sound of Silver by LCD Sound System (2007)

#10 The Meadowlands by The Wrens (2003)

#11 The Odd Couple by Gnarls Barkley (2008)

#12 Love & Theft by Bob Dylan (2001)

#13 Essence by Lucinda Williams (2001)

#14 3 Rounds and a Sound by Blind Pilot (2008)

#15 Failer by Kathleen Edwards (2003)

#16 Satellite Rides by Old 97s (2001)

#17 All Your Summer Songs by Saturday Looks Good to Me (2003)

#18 Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga by Spoon (2007)

#19 Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea by PJ Harvey (2000)

#20 Alligator by The National (2005)

#21 Fleet Foxes by Fleet Foxes (2008)

#22 Sea Change by Beck (2002)

#23 Dig, Lazarus, Dig by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds (2008)

#24 Challengers by the New Pornographers (2007)

#25 A Boot and a Shoe by Sam Philips (2004)

#26 Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? by Of Montreal (2006)

#27 You & Me by The Walkmen (2008)

#28 When the Telephone Rings by The Silos (2004)

#29 Microcastle by Deerhunter (2008)

#30 69 Love Songs by The Magnetic Fields (2000)

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.