the xx [Live at Chicago Theater, 09/28/10]

This show marks the xx's sixth show in Chicago this year. SIXTH. I can only think of three of the other times they were here. I remember they came to play a show with jj back in April, but I'm not crazy about those guys (maybe if I was drugged out on a party boat floating on pristine lakes tucked between some lush Bavarian mountain ranges... yes, I know they're Swedish but Bavaria small towns is where I've been to). Furthermore, AR over at Market Snodsbury saw them first and told me they were pretty boring live, so I passed on that opportunity. They were oddly paired with Hot Chip for their next show which was only a couple weeks later, and I again passed on this. I even got a ticket as soon as they went on sale, but because the show ended up being the day after Coachella where both bands were to play, I sold the only tickets I can remember selling in recent history. I did end up unexpectedly catching a bit of their set at Indio, actually, and enjoyed the handful of songs I stayed for. The third time they were in Chicago was at Lolla, and once again I had no intention of seeing them in the clusterfuck that is the north side of Grant Park. If I recall, I was even over there for a bit while they were playing but it was such a loud, crowded, horrible environment I didn't even try listening to them.

Which brings us to the latest show, which I was well aware of, but had no intention of going to given all the other shows this fall that are much higher on my priority list. There was no conflict with the show, but I have been just seemingly throwing money away lately. That night was also to be my one night in this week. Yet my friend who won two tickets via XRT bailed as well as the friend she was going to go with, leaving me with two tickets at 6:00pm on the day of the show.

After texting at least ten people and getting at least four negative responses, I got a positive response from my old roommate who was a big fan of the LP and to my knowledge, hadn't seen them before. We missed the first opener, Zola Jesus, in order to get a late dinner, but we caught most of the second opener, Warpaint, who for whatever reason I enjoyed a lot more at Lolla actually (I think it was my first/hangover act of Day Three... somehow it ended up fitting that situation better).

As for xx, I thought I knew what to expect. I expected no special effects. I expected no fullness of sound or energy. I expected no one to even stand. Yet they started their set behind a giant curtain which dropped to expose their trinity of guitar on the right, bass on the left, and producer on a raised platform with a table bearing a bright luminescent xx logo. They opened with the Intro, which sounded like a dark ship of death rolling out to the open night sea. It wasn't an especially thick or overpowering sound, but it had a dense and resilient enough quality to it that it spread like a plague and penetrated every soul in the theater. There was immediately a palpable excitement, and within the first thirty seconds of the Intro the entire theater was on its feet, myself being up within about the first five.

The initial excitement naturally quiesced into a steady absorption of the dark and empty notes, the music which acts as sort of a macabre skeleton which can be dressed with flesh, but is most often left rather hollow and bare with minimal sound textures and melodies from the musicians. The vocals however, imbue the bag o' bones with a different fundamental piece of humanity, the soul. The lyrics of the xx are highly sentimental to say the least, but they are of a depth and complexity of human relationship that weighs equally on the warmth of a tender lover as much as the coldness of a love lost or even unrequited. Even the tender moments seem cold somehow, and the tragic dischord of incompatible feelings familiar in its honesty.

What I did expect was to shed quite a few tears. And this expectation was fulfilled.

I almost forgot to mention that we saw the xx leave their bus and walk into the venue right before the show. We walked right behind them for only a handful or so of paces before they got into the Theater's side door. Something about their music is so sacred that I don't think I could ever approach them to talk. I feel like I can only show them appreciation indirectly through supporting their music financially (bought the cd last spring), and in that way showing them a love that is ghostly but yet still heartfelt, much like their music.

the xx - Crystalized (video)

the xx - Islands (video)

the xx - Shelter

Das Racist - Shut Up, Dude [mixtape]

Day Two of North Coast Music Festival: we are rockin' and rollin' all night to the killer back-to-back combo of Boys Noize and Moby, a 1-2 punch so smooth that no one even noticed when they transitioned DJs. Our energy carries us to a nearby bar for a while before we head up north to Wicker Park where we find solace in the soulful vinyl mixed beats at Danny's.

To rest our busy heads we finally retire to my place where Samson awaited us. After a bit of Aqua Teen Hunger Force and my sidekick passing out, I decided I needed something more mind-warping so I turned to Pitchfork.tv who rarely disappoints in this department. Sure enough I discover a smorgasbord of trippy and mind-boggling videos (my new dream job: get paid to find crazy videos). One that surely stood out was a goofy hip hop song with a video that resembled an 8-bit video game. Turns out to be a story of two guys who are trying to find their third member so they can go perform a show in NYC: "Jay-Z and Justin Bieber's shared stretch Hummer got hit by a meteor on the way to their show. The promoter wants us to sub for them... in 3 hours." They hunt all over the city, all the while traversing through modded levels of various classic 8-bit video games, from Elevator Action to Double Dragon. Honestly I was so entertained by the NES-inspired video and the hilarious dialogue on the screen that I barely heard any words to the song, except of course the eponymous chorus, "Who's That? Brooown!"

Since then I had to rewatch it several times, each time subsequently ingraining the catchy tune more and more in my head until I finally discovered the source, Das Racist's "Shut Up, Dude" mixtape. Released in March, I am far behind in discovering it, let alone blogging about it. Yet in the past couple weeks I have listened to it incessantly, impressed with its catchy beats and funny yet slick rhymes.

First off, if you're not familiar with these guys, they are basically three multi-racial slackers from Brooklyn. Das Racist is mainly comprised of Himanshu Suri from Queens and Victor Vazquez from San Francisco, and are complemented by a third guy, Ashok Kondabolu, who apparently performs with them (referred to as their "Hype Man", he's the one they had to find in the music video). They're first song to get attention wasn't even "Who's That? Brooown?" but the rather mind-bogglingly simplistic, seemingly Harold & Kumar-inspired, "Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell". The song was some sort of internet sensation when it caught on, and although I find very little interesting about it, it serves as sort of a microcosm for the rest of the mixtape and what Das Racist is apparently all about: plain, simple 21st century-oversaturated-with-entertainment-thanks-to-technology fun.

Want to make a song about getting high and getting really confused about Taco Bell/Pizza Hut? Let's do it. Want to speed up Billy Joel's "You Oughta Know" and half sing/half mumble the original words before rhyming over it about getting high? Let's do it. Want to not rap over Ghostface's "Nutmeg" beat, not about getting high (they did start off rhyming about eating pizza...) but referncing everyone from Kanye to Jesus to Parappa da Rappa to TLC? Let's do it.

From Rainbow in the Dark:

We make a sound even if nobody's around
Like a tree or the tears of a clown
Yo, I'm afraid of clowns, I'm afraid of small towns
Positive energy is something like I'm afraid of all frowns
Catch me at the crib getting light to Jeff Mangum
It's fun to do bad things like rhyme about handguns
If any problem pop off
I'll Joe Pesci any fool while drinking that Popov
That's cause I'm a Goodfella
Stay up out the hood hella much now
But punch clowns if they touch down
While I'm eating lunch now
While I'm eating a burger
Metaphysical spiritual lyrical murder


Simplicity is only at the core of their style. The sampled beats, the loose delivery, the subject of the rhymes, and even the content of the rhymes often are effortless and in theory elementary. Yet somehow with the execution, many tracks reach that level of complexity where you are focusing as hard as you can, and you are still struggling to keep up with what's being said and what it means (and this is when I'm sober!). Unlike the music video, there are no stories to any of the songs, but rather the most common approach to the songs are a free association that drop pop culture references into a big melting pot. They're not systematically arranged like in a mosaic, but rather spilled in smooth and raw in a way that I would expect from Brooklynites. The ethnically diverse roots of the artists juxtaposed with their NYC burrough upbringing may be the farthest thing from authentic an old sense of the word, but with so much progress towards multiculturalism in our urban landscape, Das Racist ironically stands out as an authentic voice from the melting pot of America.

From Don Dada:

Is it parody, comedy, novelty, or scholarly
A little bit of column A, a little bit ocolumn B
A little common projects, a little bit of wallabies
Probably, you can always find me where the challah be

With 17 tracks clocking in at over an hour, and styles ranging from piano pop to gangster rap to reggae to skewery electronic hodgepodge, there is a diversity echoed by the skin colors of the artists as much as by the colors in their logo on the mixtape cover.

Let's hope the most recent mixtape, "Sit Down, Dude", is just as compelling, but more importantly, fun.



Links:

"Shut Up, Dude" mixtape

"Who's That? Brooown!" video

Caribou [Live at the Metro, 09/29/10]

I have been listening to Caribou since 2004 when I had my biggest exposure to a new world of underground music through a fellow classmate during my study abroad program in London. Back then known as Manitoba, Dan Snaith was a veritable challenge to my ears. The challenge wasn't in enjoying the music, as I found it with other bands I was simultaneously exposed to who scared me with screaming vocals or strong country/blues influences. But there was definitely a challenge in categorizing it for one, as back then to me music had only few and vast categories (it's funny how now I almost ascribe each artist their own category). Along with that was a challenge to truly appreciate it as much as other music that I could categorize. See back then the appreciation and/or love of music for me was just as dependent on the categorization, whether that be the genre itself, or the culture behind it (top 40 music with non-serious fans or rock music that had a nice following of douchebags automatically became unsavory). It was easier to judge music when there was more well-defined and less variety of categories. Back then almost everyone who I started discovering seemed an outlier to traditional categories, and it took a long time to break a lot of those barriers down.

Thankfully, Caribou has been one of the artists who helped push me to swim out of the swimming pool of narrow music options, nicely categorized by swimming lanes, out into the wide boundless ocean where there is no limit to what can be created. Since my exposure, I had revisited Manitoba time and again, each time expanding my mind with what the Mathematics PhD holder Dan Snaith was creating. The juxtaposition of folk sounding 'samples' (pretty sure he created everything from scratch) aligned with very forward-sounding technical grooves entranced me, and only continued to do so with the first Caribou-monikered LP, The Milk of Human Kindness in 2005. Andorra followed in 2007 (which won the Polaris Prize that year), by which point I definitely considered myself a fan, and was playing Caribou's music for everyone I knew in Pittsburgh.

In 2008 I was preparing to relocate to Chicago, and in doing so I took a trip to the Windy City with a friend to get a taste for my future. April 11th we were in Chicago and I wanted to see Caribou at Empty Bottle. I persuaded my friend, even though I knew he would undoubtedly not appreciate the opener of the night, Fuck Buttons. Partially playing off his distaste, I couldn't get into the squall electronoise droners much myself, but when Caribou took the stage and started performing, I was blown away.

It has been two years since then but I was lucky enough to see them for a second time this summer at a free show at Millenium Park. Of the heels of newest LP Swim, I was again treated to a new cornucopia of electronic, folk, and jam rock all rolled up into one psychedelic ball of dance-inducing joy.

I had been anticipating this recent show at Metro, but with a trip planned to South Bend for an ND game for the weekend, I wasn't sure how up for a show I would be on that Sunday night. Yet last week I got an email from Metro offering the chance to get into the Caribou show for free. Apparently they were pretty stoked that they sold out both Godspeed You Black Emperor shows scheduled in March 2011 within a week so they rewarded all of their patrons with free passes.

So come Sunday night I am pretty beat but I have free tickets and it's motherfucking Caribou, so I pounded my Red Bull, printed out extra copies for two buddies, and drove up to the Wrigleyville, the heart of darkness, for one more chance to be impressed.

And impressed I was. I've seen them twice before and every time I've been impressed. A plain white backdrop played canvas to kaleidoscopic video patterns, while multi-instrumentalist Dan and his three brethren labored lovingly on their instruments to create a mind-warping dance party.

Of course, it is the Metro. Meaning drinks are not cheap, water is not free, and a credit card is worth as much as toilet paper, but worst of all, NOBODY DANCES. Now things don't need to get out of control like they did at Crystal Castles (my only experienced exception to the rule), but people need to loosen up a little. It's not like we're at the xx...

On a positive venue note, though, the sound was great. I could hear each electronic tinge, each vocal warble, and each guitar pluck, not to mention of course the steady controlled cacophony coming from the two drum sets. The only complaint I had was regarding the backup singing. The guy's voice just needs some work, or he needs to be replaced IMO. But other than that, you have the most unabashedly happy, white t-shirt sporting, aging hipster (did he copy James Murphy or did Murphy copy him), completely transfixed in creating his own mathematically structured psychedelic blossomings.

I would have longed to have heard more old material, but I am falling in love with the new stuff faster than I can even keep track. Tracks already have this classic, ageless quality to them, which leads me again to reference how broad of range of styles his sounds can be, in terms of instrumentation, genre-sourcing, and fidelity.

My buddies and I all agreed it was a hell of a show. My only regret was missing Emeralds, a new act with more of a focus on flowing electronic textures than rigorous rhythms, but really, how often can an opener beat a headliner, especially this one?

Until next time Dan, I'll be thinking of you as the season becomes like the cover of Andorra, and I more and more miss the sun, sun, sun, sun, sun, sun, sun......

Life Update

It has been a long time since my last post. Every post up until now I did while bored at work at the Walgreens Data Center in Mt. Prospect. The day after the last post on June 29th, I quit the gig at Walgreens and took a week off before starting a new position at Navteq in downtown Chicago.

Not with ten days off nor all the more regular free time I've had since then did I decided to work on this blog. At work I honestly try to work. When I don't have much to do, I'm happily entertained by a large pool of potential distractions-- not only is nothing blocked (Gchat, Facebook, Youtube, Craigslist, MySpace, etc. all blocked at Walgreens) but we also have a pool table in our kitchen (about 50 feet from my cube) and a private gym in our building (four floors below me).

As for the rest of my free time, well let's just say I've been taking full advantage of the normal schedule, the raise in pay, the single lifestyle, and of course, the smorgasbord of entertainment that is Chicago in the summertime. From indoor shows to Millenium Park shows to music festivals, from beach volleyball to midnight bike rides to fall softball, to drinking outside to drinking on bikes to drinking at campsites to drinking at ND football tailgates, I've never had a busier summer, but I've probably never done so much damage to my body, seeing as by my count I haven't taken more than a day off from partying since I quit my old job on June 30th.

In addition to the change of job and an even more active lifestyle, I have on top of it all relocated to boot. I am still in Chicago, but in very different neighborhood, especially given the fact that I only moved about two miles from my old place in Lincoln Park. Wicker Park is on the whole cheaper, more diverse, more artistic, and simply put more interesting. I pay less and get more in my three-bedroom coach house, where I live with two new friends who are as big of media nuts as I am. Instead of bastardized IBM-compatible wares they are pure devotees to Apple, and instead of music junkies they are TV addicts. We all like movies though as well as drinking and talking to Samson, so I think it's going to be a pretty decent situation. Unlike my old roommate who was never home, they're around a lot, which means I don't get to walk around naked, but then again I don't need to be doing that anyway. It's more worth it to have other people around (I can still walk around naked in my room).

Since I've spent considerably less time indoors and therefore not at my computer, working on anything music-related has been minimal. I barely have time to read about, download, and listen to new music, let alone build my new music library, experiment with mixing, or last but not least, write in this blog. Only the first and last of these can I do at work, and I am at least keeping up with the former. Downloading has become easier thanks to getting into Waffles, but listening to music has become more difficult since my MP3 player got rained on while camping. The move slowed down my music activity at home, but I am hoping to get completely set up with integrating my collection in our house's hardware setup, and I also soon hope to get my friend's old controller he is selling so I can finally dabble with some more sophisticated mixing.

And so last but not least now I am hoping now to revive the blog, since I do find myself bored a bit too often at work. Today is the slowest Monday I can remember, and all find myself thinking about right now is all the new music I have managed to fall in love and great shows I've had the fortune of attending as of late.

But this isn't my attempt to break into the music blogosphere in any way to at all compete with other writers. I don't make it work to listen to something new as soon as it comes out, and listen to it so as to overanalyze completley it before you even hear the first beat drop. Nor am I anywhere near as good of a writer or as knowledgeable about music/history as many people who spend every day doing this without pay. Yet I do keep my ear to the ground for new artists, new releases, and new shows, and I spend a good amount of time listening to a wide variety of music and going to shows in Chicago, so I feel like I want to share at least a little of my appreciation for what is my personal rock in life. If I only help a few friends discover new music and a new appreciation for music through my incessant consumption and enjoyment then I believe Omnaural to be worth the effort.

That said, I'm hoping to get into a regular routine of reviews. Again, I don't make it my job to listen to new music, but rather listen to things as they come or as I find myself ready for them. In an ideal world I'd have time to listen to everything, and listen to it enough to feel somewhat confident assessing it formally for the world to see. But I don't want to turn music listening into that much of a chore for myself, not just because of the time but more importantly because I don't want it to become a less enjoyable or wondrous experience for me. So you will probably be hearing mostly about what I'm into at the moment, or at least what I might have found interesting or compelling as of late. Or I may just post BS just to get a post up...

Well that was far more long-winded than I anticipated. The funny thing is that after all this, I ran out of time at work to post an actual review. So unless my plans to watch the Bears tonight totally fall through, we'll just have to wait until tomorrow.

Until then, keep that beat goin'...

Moby - Old-School Rave Mix

If you've only heard Moby's radio singles, try your best to pretend you've forgotten them. Moby's roots are in old classic big beat music that fills rave parties, and he can KILL IT at the decks, which I can testify from the New Year's party at Brooklyn's Studio B in '08. This week's XLR8R podcast is to remind (or teach) you just that. Whether you need something to kickstart you at work (I have been treading in nap mode since my four-taco binge at lunch), get you to survive the drive home (though beats this blazing often make me more impatient in Chicago highway traffic), dancing in your living room while trying to cook or do chores (guilty as charged...), or actually entertain friends who like to rave during the week (if so, please invite me over soon), hop over to XLR8R and stream or download this. I know I'll be listening to this mix more than once to get me pumped for Deadmau5 at Soldier Field this Friday night.

If you're new at XLR8R, they feature weekly podcasts. Each podcast is originally and exclusively mixed for XLR8R usually by a premiere DJ/team, and long enough to fill a CD. I love grabbing one of these when I need a new background for running, working, anything where I want a fresh consistent beat.

If you know me, you know I listen to bands, specifically LPs more than anything else. Ever since my senior year college I have followed the indie music scene closely (mainly through Pitchfork like most everyone else), and have since maintained an incessant habit of following every band and LP that garners attention in those circles. But in my last year in grad school I finally got turned on to live DJ music after getting to know an experienced DJ in Pittsburgh and going to some killer shows (in NY and Detroit, not so much Pittsburgh ;). I discovered XLR8R when I came to Chicago in 2008. I was unemployed and didn't know a whole lot of people, especially anyone really into music, and so I'd spend time at record stores and magazine stands, and I think I randomly saw a print issue of XLR8R before I found their website. I was attracted by the fact that they focus on electronic music. They follow some bands and emcees, but it is primarily DJs and producers as their culture is that of the dance party scene. Although I was turned onto many new artists, simply reading about music only gets you so far, and I was finding it much harder to find material from many of their featured artists. So discovering the weekly podcast as well as daily MP3s (~three every day) turned out to be an exciting thing for me. It was a way for me to get in tune to the DJ world as well as keep my interest in shows alive at a time when I wasn't going to many live shows since I was new to the city and was trying to focus on getting a job before going out and partying hard.

Even though now I am still mainly a band/LP consumer, XLR8R is still my primary source for electronic music and DJ news. Hell, if it wasn't for them, I wouldn't have been the first of everyone I know to discover Major Lazer. So if you're looking for a source of electronic/hip-hop focused music, with a penchant for the dance party scene and an ear to styles from around the globe, check out the XLR8R website from time to time. You just might start dancing in your cube.

2010 Pitchfork Music Festival - My Schedule

Some really tough squeezes on the festival schedule for me. I was already annoyed at the sheer number of 'chillwave' artists on the lineup (We know where the scene is: can't we just call it 'beachwave'?), but now they are all pretty much lumped onto Sunday. As if a hangover wasn't reason enough to go the festival late on Sunday, but now I have even more reason to be going late since the only band I like of the early batch of sandcore-ers, Girls, I have already seen play a completely fulfilling show at Empty Bottle last November. Both days I'm disappointed I'm going to have to split time for so many of the bands late in the day, but I guess this is what I get for following so many Pitchfork-favored bands. One surprise is that Sleigh Bells is headlining the small stage. I was really hoping for Major Lazer. I did fall in love with Sleigh Bells at Coachella however, and am pretty sure I'll still be ending my night at the Balance stage after all, as much as I'm curious to check out a bit of Big Boi. I also think it's bull shit that Panda Bear gets such a great spot. I mean, I really like a lot of AC album material, the AC show at Pfork two years ago blew my mind, and I think Person Pitch is a work of art. But I was disappointed with AC at Coachella last year and I feel they're more likely to put on a fest-friendly set than just PB. Don't get me wrong, I find so much of AC/PB compelling that I'm curious enough to check out some of his set, but I can't help but wonder if I'm the only fan of theirs that doesn't think everything each of them shits is gold. Then again, looking again I can't really rearrange the schedule too much better. Maybe I'm just pissed I can't see all of Wolf Parade, Bear in Heaven and Panda Bear. Or maybe I'm just trying to push the AC anti-hype ;)

Anyway, without further ado, my 2010 Pitchfork Music Festival schedule (full schedule here):

a = Aluminum Stage, b = Balance Stage, c = Connector Stage

Friday July 16 (gates at 3 p.m.):

5:30 Liars (c)
6:25 Robyn (a)
7:20 Broken Social Scene (c)
8:30 Modest Mouse (a)

Saturday July 17 (gates at 12 p.m.):

1:45 Real Estate (c)
2:30 Delorean (a)
3:20 Titus Andronicus (c)
4:15 Raekwon (a)
4:45 Smith Westerns (b)
5:45 WHY? (b)
6:15 Wolf Parade (a)
6:45 Bear in Heaven (b)
7:25 Panda Bear (c)
8:30 LCD Soundsystem (a)

Sunday July 18 (gates at 12 p.m.):

2:30 Girls (a)
3:45 Local Natives (b)
4:15 Lightning Bolt (a)
4:45 Surfer Blood (b)
5:45 Here We Go Magic (b)
6:15 Major Lazer (a)
6:45 Neon Indian (b)
7:25 Big Boi (c)
7:40 Sleigh Bells (b)

Kanye West - Power [single]

You probably already heard about this a couple weeks ago, but this is the first link I found that worked, and thus the first time I'm listening to it. All Kanye antics aside, I've always liked his music (music > real life?), so I'm definitely looking forward to a new album of material.

Stream the new track "Power" over at That Grape Juice.