@AndyShore Remember the Flobots? They had as big a year as anybody in 2008 with their massive political hit “Handlebars.” Though it’s been almost a year since their last tour, the Flobots are back on the road. This time, they’ve brought our good friends Kinetix on the road with them. That’s why I had @MattSilver pick me up from the airport in LA on Saturday and we headed straight down to San Diego, despite already sitting on the plane for almost five hours. Read the rest of this entry »

@ZackTeibloom Saturday at Fun Fun Fun wasn’t quite a pantheon day of festivaling like Friday of ACL or Bonnaroo, but it was a hilariousauce day of laughing, more hip hop than I usually get in a festival and a smattering of pleasant surprises.

The pictures are by @chrisinaustin and @supercooleric (who was shooting for @coolinaustin.) Make sure you click through to their sites. Very talented gentleman, those three. This pic is from the night before at Scoot Inn, taken by the lovely Annie Ray. I just wanted an excuse to use it.

Here we go: Read the rest of this entry »

@ZackTeibloom No, I didn’t chalk up crash #25 or #26 this weekend. I didn’t need to. I had a media pass and even won two extra tickets in that supergroup contest to give out to Bryn and @doctorcollins. These are tales of other brave crashers. You know. “Renegades of their time and age. Everyday people like you and me. Renegades of funk.” New crashing anthem. “No matter how hard you try, you can’t stop us now.” Ok, let’s get the the crashes: Read the rest of this entry »

@ZackTeibloom That Third Man Record club membership finally paid off. In a big way. Jack White jumped on the  video chat to hype the new singles from his label, Third Man Records. As he put it, “This is a paid commercial announcement from the president of  Third Man Records to his favorite people, on The Vault.” He even answered some questions and he picked three of mine. Yes, my hands are shaking.

Zack Teibloom: I heard you turned down Slash because he wanted you to sing. Who do you want to play with next? Read the rest of this entry »

@ZackTeibloom Halfway through his rainy afternoon set at Fun Fun Fun Fest, Astronautalis took a break from weaving through the crowd as he rapped to say, “I texted my friend before this show, saying it was either going to be the worst show of my life or the best. This is fucking awesome.” It really was.

The redheaded Andy Bothwell is the sole member of Astronautalis. A wildly talented rapper who made the most of the show in the rain, gaining fans with every rhyme, getting in our faces, only staying on stage long enough to press play on his laptop to cue up his backing tracks.  Read the rest of this entry »

@ZackTeibloom Rarely do two days of festivaling feel like enough, but that was a lot of fun packed into one little weekend. More than three fun’s. It felt like 8 or 9. I’m spent. It’s one of those, “I’m wearing a sweatshirt even though it’s not cold out because it’s comforting” kinds of days after a festival and I even made a good decision last night.*

The layout, amount of stages, crowd, types of bands etc. was eerily similar to Pitchfork. Not a bad thing. The two days were wildly different. The first day was perfect weather and my birthday, the second day was recovery, acceptance of the weather and then diving back in head first. Read the rest of this entry »

@AndyShore When I told people I was going to see Kiss, they had one of three reactions. The first one was, why? The second response was laughter and the third was, “that’s awesome!” My reaction when my dad first asked if I wanted to go was a mix of the latter two. Kiss is never going to be mentioned as one of the greatest rock bands of all time, but they are certainly one of the greatest rock spectacles. Even at 60 years old and with only half of the original members, the band dons their costumes and make-up and puts on one hell of a show. Stuff blows up, people fly around and the fans scream all the while. Read the rest of this entry »

@ZackTeibloom If you go to concerts regularly in Chicago or Austin, you know Thax Douglas. The only rock n’ roll poet around. Strands of hair from his gray beard have shed onto his inside-out 3XL sweatshirt we meet at an IHOP 6 blocks from the art gallery Thax works and lives in. He sleeps on the floor. He likes it that way. He’s slept on the floor for years. He just feels more comfortable there.

Thax had trouble getting comfortable at IHOP, as we moved booths due to a draft and switched sides because the sunlight bouncing off car windshields in the parking lot reflected into his visibly smudged bifocals. He seems comfortable in Austin though. He hasn’t worked in 12 years, he doesn’t own anything and doesn’t travel, but he’s happy to be in Austin reading his poetry before bands take the stage on an almost daily basis.

Just look at his schedule of his readings in a sample week in the first month he’d been here: Oct. 25th: Disco Doom, Built to Spill, Oct. 26th: Underground Railroad to Candyland, Oct. 27th Givers, Dirty Projectors, Oct. 28th: Sea Wolf, Oct. 30th: Rachel Goodrich, Oct. 31st: The Black Angels. The 52 year-old estimates he reads 25 nights a month and has to remind himself to take a night off. Did I mention he doesn’t even get paid for any of these gigs? Read the rest of this entry »

@ZackTeibloom Usually I feel quite confident in my festival previews. I can tell you why The Knux is a better early afternoon pick at ACL than Sarah Watkins after having seen The Knux’s Thursday night Bonnaroo set and knowing how the sound bleed would kill Sara Watkins. As Andy and I like to say, “We’ve done this before.”

At Fun Fun Fun Fest? I’m lost. It feels like SXSW. Tons of bands, I only know a handful, and half the ones I listen to for the first time are painful. That’s good. It’s one of the things I love most about festivals. You can’t judge a band until you’ve seen them.

Well, I’m gonna judge ‘em anyway. I hope to be wrong. I could say Times New Viking is a 2.5/10 (and I’m an easy grader) but that most certainly doesn’t mean they are. @supercooleric tells me they’re a 10. It’s hard to tell from just a few MySpace listens. Here’s my first impressions. I started in order from the first band Saturday morning. Believe me when I tell you I want you to disagree with me. Convince me to make sure to see a band I give a 2 to so I can see they’re really an 8.5 live.

As I type this, I’m scrambling to find which tab of my browser Melt Banana is in so I can make it stop. Good lord. I don’t think I’m going to see them unless they have a Les Savy Fav level performance. That’s another key. Which of these bands just bring it live? If one of these bands has blown you away, please let me know. I’ll deal with the noise for an entertaining show. Thanks for reading and dropping knowledge on me. Read the rest of this entry »

@AndyShore I was lucky enough to win an Umphrey’s McGee Twitter contest last Thursday. My prize was admittance to a guitar clinic Jake Cininger and Brendan Bayliss were putting on at the Musicians Institute. It was a treat to hear them speak (and play!) to an audience of fellow musicians. We even got to hear some of the mash ups they were working on for Halloween. Check out this 90-minute video when you’re checking out at work. Read the rest of this entry »