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Fun Fun Fun Fest
December 16, 2011
Fun Fun Fun early bird pass at a holiday discount on sale right this second
Here is the link for a three-day pass for $120.
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September 28, 2011
Fun Fun Fun Fest scavenger hunts this weekend
(John Pesina FOR AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
- Photos: FFF Fest Scavenger Hunt 2010
Looking for a way to get into Fun Fun Fun Fest on the cheap?
Feeling a little low on shame?
The Fun Fun Fun Fest scavenger hunts go down this Saturday. Hunts will take place in Austin, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio. Registration for the Austin hunt for teams of up to five members takes place from 3-3:45 p.m. at Red 7. Lists will be handed out at 4 p.m. sharp. Teams are awarded extra points for showing up in costume and photo and video proof are required for some high point items. More info.
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August 29, 2011
Fun Fun Fun Fest offers free passes with Water Olympics, Scavenger Hunt
Not that anyone really needs to be enticed to take a dip these days - not at all, in fact - but Fun Fun Fun Fest organizers Transmission Entertainment are making it worth your while with its inaugural FFF Water Olympics, 12-6 p.m. Sept. 11 at Fiesta Gardens.
Winners of contests such as a tug of war across the lake (a revival of sorts of the long-gone City Wide Jerk Off that pitted Austin’s north and south siders against each other), paddleboard jousting, paddleboard high kick (your guess is as good as mine) and canoe jousting will win passes to the three-day punk/indie/metal bonanza, which goes down Nov. 4-6 at Auditorium Shores.
Organizers have even hooked up a deal on watersports training with The Expedition School to get in shape for the day that’s sure to rival at least the Winter Olympics in terms of pageantry and athleticism.
Anyone who wants to score some free passes without water hazards can jump on the annual Fun Fun Fun Fest Scavenger Hunt, which goes down Oct. 1 and now has satellite competitions in Dallas, Houston and San Antonio for out of towners looking for a use for that oversized spyglass they’ve got sitting around.
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August 1, 2011
Fun Fun Fun Fest announces full lineup
Fun Fun Fun Fest solidified its growing reputation as a top alternative to the Austin City Limits Festival on Monday when event organizers rolled out the full lineup for the Nov. 4-6 event at Auditorium Shores. Electro-pop group Passion Pit, Public Enemy, Lykke Li, Black Joe Lewis and the Honey Bears and Blonde Redhead are among the performers that will join already announced acts Slayer, Seattle punk outfit the Murder City Devils, controversial rap group Odd Future and Austin’s Okkervil River.
This year’s lineup is the biggest in terms of top names in music for Fun Fun Fun, now in its sixth year. The expansion coincides with a venue change from Waterloo Park, the festival’s location for the past five years. It also represents a continued effort to cater to a broad group of music fans by offering acts from a variety of genres, including indie rock and pop, heavy metal, punk and hip hop.
“We want everyone to feel welcome at Fun Fun Fun Fest,” said festival organizer James Moody. “Our throwback shows are a way to connect with an older demographic. We started really doing that in 2007 when we first brought Murder City Devils back together.”
See the full lineup after the jump.
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July 28, 2011
Slayer to play Fun Fun Fun Fest 2011
In the latest, greatest ‘leak’ from team Transmission comes this bombshell, metal giants Slayer to shred at Auditorium Shores.
Previously announced artists include Odd Future, Brian Posehn, Okkervil River, M83, X and Murder City Devils.
Also appearing at the fest are Tune-Yards, Reggie Watts, Ra Ra Riot, Flying Lotus and Kid Dynamite
Fun Fun Fun Fest runs Nov. 4-6, 2011.
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July 21, 2011
Fun Fun Fun Fest announces second round of performers
Tune-Yards, Reggie Watts, Ra Ra Riot, Flying Lotus and Kid Dynamite will join Okkervil River, M83, Odd Future, X and Brian Posehn when Fun Fun Fun Fest comes to Auditorium Shoes Nov. 4-6.
San Francisco Afro-pop group Tune-Yards, who announced their appearance at the fest earlier this week, and DJ/Thom Yorke buddy Flying Lotus aren’t surprising additions, considering the amount of attention both acts get in indie music blog world. Philadelphia hardcore band Kid Dynamite have only played a couple shows in recent years.
Another round of tickets go on sale at 6 p.m. today at the Fun Fun Fun website.
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July 14, 2011
Odd Future, Brian Posehn, Okkervil River, M83, X to play FFF Fest
(Jay Janner AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
Transmission Entertainment leaked five Fun Fun Fun Fest artists via Nautical Flag code this morning. Artists include comedian Brian Posehn, rebel (rape-happy?) rap crew Odd Future, local indie rockers Okkervil River, French dream pop artists M83 and legendary punk band X.
Fun Fun Fun Fest goes down, at its new larger venue at Auditorium Shores, November 4-6. Craziness will, no doubt, ensue. More information.
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June 23, 2011
City council approves third day of Fun Fun Fun Fest
The Austin City Council voted Thursday to allow Fun Fun Fun Fest to have a third day at its new home at Auditorium Shores.
The vote lets Transmission Entertainment promoters get back to work booking the popular music festival after a several-month delay caused by a limit on event days allowed at the park adjacent to the Long Center and Lady Bird Lake.
While Thursday’s vote gave the approval needed to end the impasse, Transmission owner James Moody was set to meet with parks department staff on Friday to go over final traffic and site remediation plans for three days vs. the two days that had standing approval while city officials worked out the scheduling issue.
Since getting the support of the Austin Music Commission earlier this month, Moody and Transmission representatives have worked with city officials to adjust the policy while also getting the support of the nearby Bouldin Creek neighborhood and agreeing to a program to repair and reseed the park after the three day fest that draws bands and fans of punk, indie, heavy metal and more from all over the nation.
“(Today) was the biggest hurdle and by the time of the vote everyone there was in support,” Moody said after the vote. “We’ve been kind of working on things mentally as far as how we’ll put the festival together with a third day, but we couldn’t move forward. Now that we have it, I think we’ll really get back to work on Monday making calls.”
The festival can now run from Nov. 4-6, though it’s unclear whether the new addition of Friday would be an evening-only schedule of performers - as happened last year while the fest was still located at Waterloo Park - or if it will further expand to a full day of music, comedy and more.
“It could be three full days because of the bigger facility we have available to us, but it’s all about the talent,” Moody said. “That will dictate how deep we go on a third day, but I’d like to pull off a full day.”
Plans for this year’s fest as a three-day event were well underway until this spring when Moody learned of a 13-year-old city policy that allows a maximum of 25 event days per year at Auditorium Shores. The fest’s move from Waterloo Park because of construction for the Waller Creek Tunnel Project caused it to run into the cap, which would’ve only allowed it two days.
The approval and three-day schedule means festival organizers will reach out to those who purchased 1,000 early discount tickets last month to offer them a greatly reduced rate for a third day add-on to their pass. The next release of tickets is scheduled for July. Started in 2006, Fun Fun Fun Fest has grown over the years into one of Austin’s most popular mid-sized festivals.
The council’s resolution asks City Manager Marc Ott to create a policy that opens up more days at Auditorium Shores so it can become a relocation option for other festivals displaced from Waterloo Park. No other city parks have event day limits, but festivals must get plans approved by the parks department.
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June 1, 2011
Fun Fun Fun Fest sells first thousand tickets in 45 min.
Well, that was fast.
One thousand discounted tickets to the Fun Fun Fun music festival went on sale at 6 p.m. this evening.
By 6:45 p.m., they were all gone.
Tickets, normally $89, were down to $75 with fees included (which meant a $62 base ticket price).
Last year, it took 90 minutes to sell 500 early tickets.
Perhaps that move to Auditorium Shores, much larger than the festival’s traditional Waterloo Park home, will be easier than everyone thought.
Or not. You never know. But this is certainly a good sign for the fall shindig.
Fun Fun Fun takes place Nov. 5 and 6.
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Fun Fun Fun Fest tickets on sale at 6 p.m. today
The first round of tickets for Fun Fun Fun Fest, which will take place Nov. 5-6 at Auditorium Shores, go on sale tonight at 6 p.m. at www.funfunfunfest.com. The price for this set of tickets is $62 for a two-day pass and will be the cheapest purchase option for the fest. Registration is required for purchase.
While the lineup hasn’t been released yet, festival promoter James Moody promised a bigger festival when he talked about the move from Waterloo Park to Auditorium Shores in April.
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November 8, 2010
Fun Fun Fun review: Toro y Moi/Washed Out
This year’s Fun Fun Fun Fest was witness to a gathering of sorts of chill wave (or chillwave or whatever you want to call it) artists, with Ariel Pink appearing in the same place as Toro y Moi and Washed Out (missing was former Austinite and FFF alums Neon Indian/Vega). Having all of these bands together was a good opportunity to see how each approached translating the music, which is often defined more by production than the actual songs, though each differ in what elements they choose to emphasize. Ariel Pink took what was perhaps the most aggressive route, loading the stage with musicians playing horns and guitars in addition to keyboards and other effects machines. That band was also the most in-your-face of the three, and judging by the crowd, it was a success.
Toro y Moi, the South Carolina based music project led by Chaz Bundick and appearing as a trio at Fun Fun Fun on Sunday, weren’t quite as raucous as Mr. Pink, but were well-received nonetheless. Part of this is owed to the fact that the music isn’t as ambitious—a lot of Bundick’s material involves layers of vocals atop hip-hop inspired beats, all of which is sort of blanketed in a surreal haze. The most recent (and accessible) of this, which Bundick noted owed more to funk, was the most successful during the set. It allowed his bass player and drummer room to breathe, making the music seem more human. The weaker parts of the set, on the other hand, tended to sound too fuzzy and lacking in direction.
Washed Out, which, like Toro y Moi started as the one-person project of Ernest Greene, appeared later in the day, and had their set cut short after a lengthy delay in getting set-up on the blue stage. The band, who were unfortunately in competition with Deerhunter’s set across the way, struggled to find momentum and lost a lot of the crowd quickly. This might have been due to the fact that the music leans heavily toward the ambient, more fit for a lazy summer afternoon than a night set at Fun Fun Fun as the November chill set in. Greene sang somber-sounding verses over different mixtures of sound, ranging from reggae to more 80’s sounding, Talking Heads-influenced pop, and while there were a few interesting moments, nothing really seemed to stick.
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Fun Fun Fun review: Best Coast
Sometimes at festivals, especially during daytime sets, it’s easy for high-profile (or even somewhat anticipated) acts to get lost in the mix. Los Angeles-based Best Coast, the pop-rock outfit fronted by Bethany Cosentino, avoided this fate Sunday at Fun Fun Fun by offering up an energized, mostly flawless set of music. Cosentino and bandmates Bobb Bruno (bass) and ex-Vivian Girl Ali Koehler (drums) have been on tour more or less for the entire year (which included a stop here during SXSW), and that experience seems to have paid off. The music was energized and polished as they drew from their limited set of material (Best Coast has only released one full-length album) including “Summer Moon,” “Boyfriend” and “When the Sun Don’t Shine.”
Unlike many of her peers, Cosentino takes care with her vocals, managing to be both edgy and sweet. “Maybe I’m just crazy, crazy for you baby” she sang on “Crazy For You,” with equal amounts of sincerity and sarcasm. Most of her lyrics strike a similar tone, which is bolstered by absurd stage banter: “I’m stoked on the Descendants…this song is about my cat,” she said before one song. At other points she chanted “whiskey! whiskey!” or requested that fans bring her something “cat or drug related.” She also made note at a couple poitns of how much time remained in the set, as if eager for it to end. The fact that her disinterest didn’t diminish the quality of the rest of the songs, including a rocking version of “I Hate Sleeping Alone,” speaks to how good this band has become.
Photo by Tammy Perez FOR AMERICAN-STATESMAN
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Fun Fun Fun review: Kaki King
Brooklyn’s Kaki King has built a career on her textured, finger-picked guitar stylings. So it was a shame that you couldn’t hear her guitar at her Sunday set.
King kicked off her set with “Falling Day” from this year’s “Junior.” Her fingers danced over the body of her slightly distorted three-fourths sized guitar for the opening riff, and the urgent, punk-tinged rhythm soon kicked in behind her. Suddenly, the guitar was very hard to hear. But the real problem mostly seemed to stem from third member Dan Brantigan’s instrument, the EVI. As Brantigan blew into the electronic instrument, which looked like a cross between a flute and a saxophone, it emitted booming bass notes and wavering whistles. But most of the time, these notes barely seemed to blend with King’s playing. In fact, it often just sounded like moaning feedback from a microphone, which surely gave some members of the audience a headache.
Nonetheless, the EVI played a crucial role on “Junior,” and the band didn’t seem to notice that the mix was off. The members barreled through the rest of the set, and occasionally you’d get a taste of King’s playing, such as on the metal-tinged “Death Head.” But the quieter numbers suffered the most. “Doing the Wrong Thing,” from 2004’s “Legs to Make Us Longer,” is one of King’s most textured, enrapturing instrumentals. The rapid fire of the Western-tinged progression floats over strings and soft, rolling drums. But with the EVI in the mix, you were lucky to catch five consecutive seconds of guitar.
Experimental instrumentation can often yield great results. But in a case like King’s, a bass guitar probably would have been much more flattering to her sound.
Photo by Tammy Perez FOR AMERICAN-STATESMAN
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Fun Fun Fun review: Magic Kids
Fresh-faced and bouncy, the Magic Kids gave a charming wake-up call to the first batch of Fun Fest goers early Sunday afternoon. Still riding on the momentum from their debut album “Memphis,” named after their home city, the members skipped through pop with heavy Beach Boys influence.
For as young as they looked, the six members formed a tight-knit group of musicians. The lineup included a keyboardist and a violinist, who added an elegant chamber element to the group’s sunny sound. Between twinkly piano rolls and chiming chord progressions, the members would swoon together in three and four part harmony. And although they looked younger than most members of the audience, between songs, they stole gulps from cans of Heineken Light.
One of the most surprising moments of the set came during “Summertime,” the centerpiece of the band’s debut. After a brief baroque intro, the band rolled into a swinging beat, and singer Bennet Foster broke from his adolescent tenor to sing in a suave lounge voice. As the band swayed into the chorus of the song, Foster sat down on the stage and propped himself up on his elbow, giving a boost to the lounge feel of the song.
“Memphis” is an album of innocence. From songs like “Hey Boy,” which gives a playful twist to the tale of summer love infidelity, to “Superball,” which swims in nostalgic childhood memories, the record brims with youthful optimism. And as the band’s Fun Fest performance showed, they embody that spirit perfectly.
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Fun Fun Fun review: Deerhunter
But beginning with “Wash Off” from 2007’s “Fluorescent Gray” EP, the members of Deerhunter proved themselves adept at taking their album cuts and expanding them to fill spaces as big as the Fun Fest grounds. The punk drive of the song, paired with fuzzed out bass lines, cut through swirls of feedback and delayed guitar. Near the end of the song, Cox looped his vocal croons, creating a waterfall choir of heavenly vocal filler. This set opener clocked in at nearly 10 minutes, but the audience didn’t seem to mind. Aside from the usual head-nodders, some attendees were dancing furiously.
The rest of the set consisted mostly of cuts from this year’s “Halcyon Digest.” With sludgy distortion and slurring vocals, Deerhunter took songs with slightly sunny melodies and obscured them with a haze of misty rain. The resulting wall of staticky sound surrounded the audience, and when Cox broke through the noise to solo, attendees cheered.
The highlight, however, was the set closer, “Helicopter.” The downtempo song trudged through heavy bursts of bass and guitar. Near the end, everything cut out but the stumbling beat and Cox’s haunting lyricism. It was a hypnotic moment, and one that Cox and the rest of the band can surely take confidence in.
Photo by Rodolfo Gonzalez AMERICAN-STATESMAN
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Fun Fun Fun Fest review: The Descendents
Bullet: dodged.
Let’s be honest. Descendents singer Milo Aukerman could’ve walked on stage, grabbed a microphone, yelled the single word lyric of “All” (“our magnum opus” as he later referred to it) and walked off to collect a handsome paycheck after the pretty much inactive band stepped in as Fun Fun Fun Fest headliners last month following a last-second injury cancellation by art rock vets Devo.
As cult punk legends who spawned possibly thousands of snotty, wise-mouthed pop punk bands since forming more than 30 years ago, The Descendents’ first U.S. show since the early part of last decade was the kind of headline maker (in indie and punk circles, anyhow) that the not quite fledgling festival needed to stay on course for the third day of its fifth year. The Descendents just showing up and phoning it in would’ve been enough.
That wasn’t the approach Aukerman and his bandmates had in mind, though, as the frenetic and self-referential opener “Descendents” sent the singer leaping about the stage that was flagged on both sides by throngs of friends and close fans who as of two weeks ago had no idea what they were soon to see. The rarity of the occasion made the band’s 45 minutes joyous and loose from start to finish, moving from bouncy, hook-laden anthems (“I’m The One,” “I Don’t Want To Grow Up,” “Bikeage”) to double-timed, hardcore-tinged blasts that saw Aukerman crouched at stage front with microphone in hand, neck veins popping while the crowd below him surged.
If there was any quibble with the band’s showing Sunday, it’s that the gray-haired frontman who’s sneaking up on 50 along with the rest of the band seemed out of place singing about young adult angst and adolescent romantic confusion - I lost count of how many songs contained the open-ended “you” in the title or chorus. Musically the tunes have aged fine - Green Day and Blink-182 have covered their walls in platinum using the same component parts, so this stuff ain’t going away - but buying into these songs thematically takes only slightly less suspension of disbelief than does Roger Daltrey still singing “I hope I die before I get old.”
Still, as a possibly one-off celebration that felt like the world’s biggest all-ages basement hardcore show, it was pretty hard to beat even before an encore that started with the aforementioned “All,” moved to a punked-up cover of the absent Devo’s “Uncontrollable Urge” and ended with “Bikeage”. Their job as festival saviors done, the foursome departed with a brief but heartfelt “Thanks” as a field of spent fans cheered an approval most had no idea they’d ever get the chance to deliver.
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Fun Fun Fun Fest review: The Hold Steady
What to say about a band that may very well be at the peak of its creative and performing potential?
First of all, that being able to say that comes as a relief. Reports from friends taking in Hold Steady shows in Detroit and Dallas over the spring and early summer held that something was missing this time around, that a listlessness hung over songs that used to crackle, and that maybe the acrimonious departure of multi-instrumentalist Franz Nicolai had robbed the Brooklyn-via-Minneapolis rockers of a gear or two.
All of that may be true - I’m not one to cavalierly call my friends liars - but if there were glitches earlier this year as the band started out in support of its newest full length “Heaven Is Whenever,” it sounded and looked like they’d all been addressed by the time lead singer/guitarist Craig Finn excitedly paced out on the orange stage Sunday night.
From the start of set opener “Constructive Summer” all the pieces the band has hammered to knife points over the last half decade were on display; guitarist Tad Kubler surfing from riff to solo to riff, Finn looking and sounding like an English major turned accountant on way too much caffeine and the whole combo charging through giant rock songs at a terrific pace.
Finn especially was a sight on Sunday, stealing seconds between verses to yell who knows what at the crowd assembled in front of him before swigging some Budweiser and returning to telling hopped-up tales of boys and girls who can never get right and the world that doesn’t want them to.
If there has been one curious development as the band has grown - it’s touring as a six piece with three guitarists, one of them seeming to spell Finn’s lapses into crowd engagement - it’s that the Hold Steady is growing pretty comfortable stretching its riffs and overall sound to enormous proportions and then riding them right into the ground, as the one-two paunch of “Southtown Girls” and “Your Little Hoodrat Friends” showed around the half-hour mark.
Of course, that was followed by a lean, revamped run through “Stay Positive” that drew a throughline to Finn’s hardcore punk beginnings inasmuch as his nerdy but endearing testimonial to Fun Fun Fun Fest headliners The Descendents (playing mere yards away immediately afterward) before the song.
After 40 minutes they were off. A little lacking from a clock punching perspective, but when a guy’s that excited to see Milo and company after 20-something years, it’s a forgivable offense.
Photo by Rodolfo Gonzalez AMERICAN-STATESMAN
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Fun Fun Fun review(?): Mastodon
The late start for this headlining band was bad enough — the Descendents were probably on their tenth song by the time Mastodon go going — but once they got going, the sound was just jaw-droppingly bad.
Drummer Brann Dailor, known for extremely complicated rhythms even in the clearest of rooms, sounded as if someone was simply rolling his drum kit down a hill. Some hits were there, many were not. Brent Hinds and Bill Kelliher’s guitars were a wall of mud, while Troy Sanders’ scream and bass riffs, long the band’s most underrated feature, were completely lost in the muck.
Pieces of songs asserted themselves here and there, while things seemed to improve slowly as the set went on, but all in all, Mastodon was, for me, the biggest aural disappointment of an often-outstanding festival.
Photo by Rodolfo Gonzalez AMERICAN-STATESMAN
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November 7, 2010
Fun Fun Fun Fest review: Yelle
I have no idea what Yelle sings about. I get the impression that doesn’t much matter.
Not to shortchange the French dance trio — led by the almost insufferably adorable Yelle herself, born Julie Budet — but lyrical understanding doesn’t seem like it’s terribly central to enjoying what the band does: bubbly beats, lovable electronic hooks and Yelle’s own giddy girlish vocals.
The very sizable crowd at the blue stage Sunday night seemed to agree — from the moment Yelle took the stage, Budet clad in a large, frayed coat that she shed piece by piece over the course of the show, the audience was a bouncing sea of hands illuminated by the pulsating stage lights. Budet brought the necessary disarming sense of whimsy to “Ce Jou” and “A Cause Des Garcons,” two highlights from debut album “Pop Up.”
In fact, “disarming” might be the key word for Yelle’s set — sure, there was all the clapping and bouncing and fevered dancing you’d expect and want from this breed of pop. But Budet’s beaming smile and cheerful disposition made the entire affair even friendlier and more positive than it might have been otherwise — it takes a frontwoman of serious charisma to convince an entire audience to howl like a monkey, as Budet somehow managed. Taken together with GrandMarnier’s solid drumming and Tepr’s synth-jockey antics, Yelle was a perfect penultimate performer for the blue stage — the tiny little oasis on the northern edge of Waterloo Park that, for the last two days, was consistently the place to go if you wanted to A) dance, and B) see a performance with a truly stupefying amount of energy.
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Fun Fun Fun Fest review: Cults
Cults are the kind of band that’s perfect for Fun Fun Fun: one of those acts that emerged suddenly and mysteriously from the ether of the Internet, with little more than a Bandcamp page and three songs to their name, and still very much in the act of … well, getting their act together. There’s still no official bio of the band to be found online, and no album or even an EP to buy — the best you can do is a 7-inch with two songs, both of which you can download for free off said Bandcamp page.
So given Cults’ quick, Internet-enabled rise, it would have been a bit much to expect a revelation of from the band, which began as the collaboration between New York film students and couple Brian Oblivion and Madeline Follin, expanded to a quintet (all of whom disturbingly have the same haircut) for live shows. And indeed Cults — a late add to the festival — had the feel of a band still finding its way Sunday afternoon on the orange stage. But their were signs that they’ve got the makings of something genuinely interesting — sure, Follin and Oblivion sing the same breed of reverb-saturated, 60s-inspired pop that’s very much in vogue right now, with alternating boy/girl vocals and songs about youth, love and the combination thereof. They overlap substantially with Best Coast — and borrowed Bethany Consentino’s guitar for their set, with Consentino making a cameo to wish Follin a happy birthday.
But their sonic palette is a bit broader than many of their peers. Follin particularly shone on “The Curse,” a lovelorn number that starts off with a bluesy sulk and featured a psychedelic guitar freakout live that was one of the highlights of the set. Signature song “Go Outside” — the one that’s attracted all that blog buzz — has a nice infusion of dance pop energy, giddy glockenspiel cutting through what might otherwise be a bog-standard strummer. It’s clear the band is still finding its footing, but if what we’ve seen so far is any indication, expect a pretty killer full-length debut.
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Fun Fun Fun review: Floor
The Brooks, Vialon and drummer-Henry-Wilson interation of the band reunited to play some shows in support of the box set. This was a good call. Floor are a sludge band — the songs are slow-moving, often lumbering things with large riffs and extremely hard-hitting, very deliberate drumming.
But they are not just a sluge band. Brooks has a way with hooks, a talent he turned up to 11 in Torche, but was just starting to experiment with here. Sunday afternoon on the Black stage, the songs would lumber along and then, out of seemingly nowhere, a monster riff or a clear-eyed melody would emerge out of the muck. Brooks would bust out a huge grin (he may be the cheeriest man in metal) and play out the riff while Wilson would pound and crash specific arrangements, with cymbals muted at key moments and rhythms rolling along no faster than absolutely necessary. For some, this was a gig as thrilling as the Descendents. But much, much heavier. Sort of.
Photo by Tammy Perez FOR AMERICAN-STATESMAN
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Fun Fun Fun Fest review: Mother Falcon
Watching Mother Falcon lay its eggs Sunday afternoon at Waterloo Park, vocalist and band leader Nick Gregg shepherding the baroque classically influenced pop ensemble — around 20 musicians strong — it became painfully clear that the Austin City Limits Music Festival really missed out on this band. It defies both logic and taste that C3 Presents didn’t poach Mother Falcon’s talent; their lush, gorgeous breed of rock music is perfectly suited for outdoor festivals.
But the ACL Festival’s loss is Fun Fun Fun Fest’s gain, and Mother Falcon put on the kind of astonishing, densely layered show that’s become their stock in trade — bassoon, trumpet, accordion and more strings than the mind could easily process all blending together for a sweeping, harmonious brand of music that somehow manages to rock without incorporating many traditional rock instruments. It’s a rocketing sound that could get lost in the stratosphere if not for Gregg’s voice — tender yet exuberant, a perfect front man’s croon that booms when it needs to and quivers just as often. And like the Arcade Fire or Beirut before them, Mother Falcon are masters of the explosive crescendo.
At one memorable point near set’s end, Gregg apologized for his charmingly awkward stage banter. But he needn’t have worried — to judge by the many slack-jawed gawkers in the audience throughout Mother Falcon’s show, the ensemble won itself quite a few converts Sunday, and deservedly so.
Correction: Band leader Nick Gregg’s last name was misspelled earlier.
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Fun Fun Fun review: Kylesa
I’ve seen Kylesa virtually every time they’ve played Austin since their first time here in 2003 at the long-defunct Sacred Cup. I walked in curious and walked out a huge fan of their recombinant metal, equal parts basement punk, psychedelic rock and Southern sludge.
I have seen them play good shows (that first one, the time at Emo’s they busted out “Set the Controls For the Heart of the Sun,” their first time back with returning bassist Corey Barhorst) and less good shows (that Mohawk gig, oy).
But I was never prepared for them to become such a consistent band. Starting with last year’s “Static Tensions” and continuing on this year’s critical breakout “Spiral Shadows,” Barhorst, guitarists, singers and founders Phillip Cope and Laura Pleasants, and dual drummers Carl McGinely and Tyler Newberry sound as focused as they’ve ever been, even at 2:30 in the Sunday afternoon. As Pleasants noted, “It is really daytime right now.” Indeed. Metal is not usually awake at this hour.
McGinely and Newberry worked in galloping lockstep, with polyrhythmic flourishes here and there. Sometimes Cope joins in on a stand-up tom-tom. Barhorst, whose thrashing is a crucial part of their live energy, will sometimes drop the bass to add spacy keyboard flourishes that recall spilled bongwater on Pink Floyd records. Pleasants remains their most public weapon, her guitar shredding and banshee wail a genuine shock to those who have never experienced it before.
Well played, guys. See you next time.
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Fun Fun Fun review: Slick Rick
Tammy Perez
FOR AMERICAN-STATESMAN
When Slick Rick “the Ruler” strode onto the blue stage almost 15 minutes late he wasn’t rocking a crown. His neck, however, was strung with a good 20 pounds of gold (gold-like?) chains, lest anyone forget his roots as one of hip-hop’s originators, from the early days in the Bronx. The show was billed as Slick Rick performing “The Great Adventures Of” and as such he rattled off a string of his greatest hits. His rhyming was fine. He leaned back and with a slight bounce of his head, spit the familiar material with solid diction and clarity. But he moved maybe five steps throughout the entire performance. He wasn’t quite low key enough to make you wonder if he was mentally rearranging his sock drawer, but he definitely wasn’t expending a lot of extra energy on the crowd.
Interestingly despite playing some of his most explicit hits (“Davy Crockett”, “The Moment I Feared”. Etc.) the notoriously nasty rapper seemed to downplay his raw side. After an abbreviated version of “Treat Her Like a Prostitute” he sheepishly murmured “Sorry ‘bout that one ladies” under his breath.
Predictably, he closed out his set with his biggest hit “A Children’s Story”, arguably the greatest story rap of all time, a strikingly nuanced tale of bad choices and inner city tragedy that’s as relevant today as it was 20 years ago. A true hip-hop classic, as soon as the beat dropped a roar went through the crowd. And feeding off the energy, for a moment Slick Rick got hype, he danced around a bit and hopped on one leg, and then it was over and, peace out, the Ruler was gone.
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Fun Fun Fun scene report: Bouncing with Big Freedia
Tammy Perez
FOR AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Big Freedia, a breakout success from the city’s “Sissy” bounce scene sashayed onto the f3 stage chanting Beyonce’s mantra, “a diva is a female version of a hustler.” Moments later he (she?) was surrounded by the “shake team” a crew of female back up dancers in scandalously short shorts performing insane and borderline obscene gyrations. And the crowd went wild.
Rapping in bounce music is less about clever wordplay or busting a coherent flow and more about presiding over the party. And Freedia certainly was large and in charge. His set included a booty shaking contest among his dancers that had female audience members climbing on the side of the stage to get a better look, a role call solo section featuring said dancers that included a booty shaking headstand and an audience participation section in which indie rockers and crusty pinks crowded the stage to let loose and get their shake on.
In short, under Big Freedia’s watch Fun Fun Fun Fest got buck wild. Turns out when a sissy bounce rapper’s signature song is called “Azz Everywhere” she means it. Literally.
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Fun Fun Fun scene report: Fun fun fun with marketing
Juicebox owner matt shook (right) with a member of Gwar.
Vendors and businesses marketing themselves at the festival also like to get in on the fun.
Juicebox owner Matt Shook walked around the fest grounds Saturday afternoon with a box on his head that read, “If you like Gwar, you’ll love our cherry limeade.” If the guerrilla (grockrilla?) marketing worked, once over at the Juicebox booth, fest-goers may have noticed a goofy old painting of a man on an island staring out to sea. Juicebox was taking written suggestions for what the guy in the painting might be thinking. The funniest and most original idea submitted will win the originating customer a $50 gift card.
Across the path from Juicebox was a booth that looked like something you would see at the state fair midway. A wall lined with balloons offered the chance for participants to win one of several silly prizes by piercing the inflated targets with a dart. But unlike carnival games, this one was free.
The whimsical marketing was that of Jakprints, a company with a not-brief history of providing customers with the opportunity to print all manner of materials (hats, shirts, stickers, etc.). While I am sure the coupons handed out with the Jakprints website printed on them will lead potential customers to more information, the company reps on hand Saturday were thankfully engaging with a refreshingly soft sell. They seemed a little less interested in generic corporate sloganeering and a little more interested in Fun.
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Fun Fun Fun scene report: The convenience of Fun
Although there are four stages at Fun Fun Fun Fest, one never gets the feeling that the massive party at Waterloo Park is unmanageable.
Saturday night was a testament to the ease of being able to take in such musical diversity in short order.
During the 8 o’clock hour Saturday evening I bounced back and forth from the smooth, funky sounds of Dam-Funk to the cartoonishly frightening metal of Gwar, with a palate cleansing stop off at Dirty Projectors, whose music reminded me of an odd blend of Beck, Al Green and Seals and Crofts (though I am probably wrong).
I can’t think of another outdoor fest where one can easily travel such a short distance to hear such disparate sounds. For that reason alone, I will miss the Waterloo Park venue (though I imagine Transmission Entertainment will make every effort to maintain convenience in the future). I won’t, however, miss all the dirt and dust.
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Fun Fun Fun scene report: Weird Al is no joke
Having missed Weird Al’s show Friday night, I was certain I would see a flood of social media posts and reviews about how great the show was, and that these love letters would be born of irony and a desire to seem hip by digging the square. As it turns out, people did go wild, but they were seemingly earnest as hell.
Saturday I ran into friend Paul Ahern, former lead singer of great Austin ’90s-era rock band the Adults. He told me that the Weird Al show was “the best synthesis of comedy and music” he had ever seen. He also said that the show was not just the best show he ad seen in a long time, but one of the best he had ever seen in his life. We’re talking a couple hundred live concerts.
Ahern and I got split up but I sent him a message and asked him for more thoughts on the show. Below are some of his thoughts, edited for space”
“He knows how to work a crowd — even a gigantic one like he had Friday night — and not make it feel pat.
“At one point between songs Weird Al screeched, pro wrestler-style, ‘Are you ready to rock and rooooolllll??!!!!!!’ The crowd went insane for a moment, he waited a beat, sighed and said, ‘I was afraid of that. I mean, we’re about to play a ballad next.’ And then they started playing a song akin in feel to Extreme’s ‘More Than Words,’ whose lyrics had me crying with laughter, as he wondered aloud whether his significant other were beginning to fall out of love with him, on account of her poisoning his breakfast and putting a cobra in his sock drawer, among many other dryly-delivered violent crimes.
“I can’t remember ever having laughed that hard for that long, ever before in my life. Worth every cent of the FFFFest wristbands, without even having seen a single other act.”
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Fun Fun Fun review: Appleseed Cast
Tammy Perez
FOR AMERICAN-STATESMAN
When the Appleseed Cast announced earlier this year that they were embarking on a tour to play both “Low Level Owl” albums in their entirety on each night, you might have been wary of buying a ticket. Granted, these releases are post-rock masterpieces: They weave in and out of soothing, repetitive guitar phrases that swirl through seas of feedback, and each grandiose, symphonic instrumental bleeds into the next. But much like the rest of the Appleseed Cast’s catalog, these songs mostly form an ideal soundtrack for gazing at your ceiling on a stormy night. Standing and soaking them in over a two-hour period just sounds tiresome.
The Kansas-based band initially dodged this perception when they took the Orange Stage on Saturday afternoon. They kicked off with “Doors Lead to Questions,” a meditative instrumental from the first volume of “Low Level Owl,” but mercifully cut it well before the three-minute album mark. They then immediately dove into “Steps and Numbers,” the melody-driven centerpiece from the same record. Frontman Chris Crisci raised his black and grey bearded face to the sky for each verse, belting out his melodies an octave above those on the album cut, effectively replacing the song’s brooding crawl with a driving punch.
But for much of the rest of the set, the band members just seemed lethargic. They played the more concise, vocal-driven cuts from their recent albums, including “The Summer Before” and “Mountain Halo,” but they rarely looked up from their instruments. Even their between-song banter felt flat. Before trudging through “As the Little Things Go,” the looping eight-minute instrumental from last year’s “Sagarmatha,” guitarist Aaron Pillar looked up to mumble some encouragement for the rest of the festival. “Have fun and enjoy yourselves. I will.” It was hard to believe him.
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Fun Fun Fun review: Antlers
Peter Silberman, the frontman for the Brooklyn-based Antlers, is a twig. But man, does that guy have a voice.
When he first took the Orange Stage on Saturday afternoon, Silberman’s fragile falsetto matched his stature. The band eased into “Kettering,” the first proper song on last year’s “Hospice,” but soon broke from the flow of the song’s lamenting piano chords to burst into “Sylvia.” Silberman’s voice wailed wildly in an impossibly high register, soaring above the anthemic build of feedback and synthesizers. When it was time for a guitar solo, he stumbled back and forth between the drum set and the mike, aggressively punching out a few atmospheric notes way up the neck of the guitar.
To a much greater degree than on “Hospice,” Darby Cicci’s synth lines created an ear-tickling, spacey atmosphere. Armed with Moog and Korg synthesizers, as well as a Rhodes piano, Cicci brought the buzzes, swooshes and gargles to the foreground of each song, rather than letting them hang in the background as they generally do on the album. And coupled with Michael Lerner’s syncopated, fill-laden drum work, the thundering low-end of the synths created a rib-rattling dynamic.
If anything didn’t fit the festival’s sunny backdrop, it was the painfully self-eviscerating nature of the songs. The repeated mentions of doctors, hospitals and bedsides on “Hospice” certainly develop the theme of the album. But when songwriters underline their pain so many times with such a thick line, it can weigh you down. So it was nice when Silberman broke from his desperate cries to give the audience a sugary taste of upbeat melody with “Two” before closing out the set.
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Fun Fun Fun review: Cap'n Jazz
Tammy Perez
FOR AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Since Cap’n Jazz broke up in 1995, the members have taken a lot of nasty hits from critics for their subsequent bands. If nothing else, it’s telling that many publications have taken little more than a passing interest in the musicians prior to the slew of coverage that accompanied last summer’s reunion of Cap’n Jazz — the spastic, scrappy punk outfit the members formed before many of them even had licenses.
But perhaps none of the members have been attacked as viciously as Tim Kinsella, who’s been repeatedly labeled as pretentious at best and personally attacked for his work with band Joan of Arc. So it was ironic to see hoards of photographers crowding between the audience barrier and the stage before Cap’n Jazz’s Sunday set, and Kinsella almost seemed to recognize it as such. As guitarist Davey von Bohlen strummed out the opening chord of “Basil’s Kite,” Kinsella backed away from the edge of the stage to squat and stretch. Then, as the drums kicked in and Kinsella howled the song’s opening line, he grabbed the mic stand and rested its base on the head of a photographer. Later, the photographers became Kinsella’s crowd-surfing bridge to the audience. They soon left in search of safer ground.
If you’ve heard any of the dozens of records that members of Cap’n Jazz have released in the 15 years since the band’s breakup, you know that this is a bunch of guys with eyes for detail. From emo-pop to folk to angular math rock, their songs are meticulously crafted. So it was probably surprising to fans and newcomers alike that the band sounded so incredibly rough-edged. Drummer Mike Kinsella dropped the beat at least once. Tim Kinsella’s vocals were still out of key and grating, and his tuba solos faltered goofily. Victor Villareal’s lead guitar lines were melodically fluid and complex but still loose. Sam Zurick’s bass was covered in duct tape.
But these shortcomings were refreshing and even necessary. Cap’n Jazz was not a band formed out of sophisticated ambition or elegant musicianship. It was a discordant effort driven by incomprehensible teenage need. That the band was able to sprint through the punk bursts of songs like “Little League,” and Tim Kinsella was able to unabashedly babble his spoken-word lyrics on “Tokyo”—albeit with a copy of the lyrics in hand—showed that these guys really were just trying to give dedicated fans a taste of something they loved but never had a chance to experience. And that they did.
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Fun Fun Fun Fest review: Devin The Dude
Tammy Perez
FOR AMERICAN-STATESMAN
“This ain’t no Cheech and Chong movie.”
It’s true. Devin The Dude wasn’t lying when he drawled that line about 20 minutes into his feel-good, celebratory set Saturday at Fun Fun Fun Fest, as msrs. Marin and Chong were nowhere to be found. But the marijuana comics were there in spirit as the Houston MC and a contingent of assisting mic spitters cut through a haze of the green stuff wafting off the stage and spent close to an hour recounting the ups and downs of both ‘hood life and the good life.
Say this about Devin; cast him as a weed rapper at your own peril. Sure, every song in the set Saturday was either about getting high or had sidelong references to pot, but it was always part of a narrative picture he was painting with words, whether that image depicted him trying to get around in a broke-down car, trying to make his way home after too many Patron shots or doing his best to make a lesbian appreciate what he has going on downstairs.
It wasn’t refined and was way crude, but for party rapping this was great, funk and soul-heavy stuff that actually told a series of vivid, funny stories without relying on empty braggadocio or the easy and boring indie/backpacker tropes of rapping about rapping. And while Devin could’ve carried the show on his own, the presence of members from Houston crews Coughee Brothaz and 14K on other microphones helped to bring nice changes of pace, with flows that ranged from humorously loose to staccato to Twista-esque speed rapping.
In summation: a step or two below Snoop, miles beyond Afroman and recommended any time he makes one of his many treks to the ATX
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Fun Fun Fun fest scene report/history lesson: The persistence of Richmond, Virginia
As Municipal Waste singer Tony Foresta pointed out yesterday while folks started a circle pit in front of his band, the underground rock of Richmond, Virginia, made a strong showing at Fun Fun Fun Saturday. His band, Gwar and Strike Anywhere all hail from Virginia’s capital.
Plenty of Austin band feature Richmond expats, including the Sword, Ratking, Magic Jewels, and Shanghai River. Dead Oceans records head cheese Phil Waldorf spent time there, as did Iron and Wine singer/songwriter Sam Beam.
When this was mentioned to a young Fun Fun Fun volunteer, his reaction wasn’t unexpected: “I don’t think of Richmond as having a big music scene.”
Nobody ever does, but in the late 80s and 1990s, I would put Richmond’s punk and underground rock scene up against any in the country. Indie rock and punk fans, do yourself a favor and Google any of the following: Breadwinner, Hose Got Cable, Kepone, Hell Mach Four, Damn Near Red, Honor Roll, Ladyfinger, Loincloth, Sliang Laos, Lamb of God, Born Against and the list goes on. (Also, band for band, I submit that Richmond generated more good band names per capita than anywhere else in the world.)
I confess I’m not as familiar with the city’s output now, but Richmond is one of those places I always expect to regenerate itself — there will always be something there that catches my ear.
Why?
Richmond features a number of colleges, including a well-regarded art school at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Rents have stayed cheap and it is within a nine hour drive to most cities on the East Coast or the South. Good art (well, good music) cannot exist long-term in cities with chronically high rents and in an emergency, you can get in the van and play a show anywhere from New York to Atlanta with a day’s notice.
People often claim to hate living there, including current residents. Expats often say they are thrilled to be gone, and one believes them, but there is no way their aesthetic could have been formed anywhere else.
Long may it rock.
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Fun Fun Fun Fest scene report: backstage with Gwar
Funny things happen when you’re trying to grab a word with Mick Collins.
Hanging out behind the Fun Fun Fun Fest black stage on Saturday as The Gories were finishing up their set, your intrepid correspondent found himself within peeking-in distance of Gwar’s costume/prop area. Spiked helmets and shoulder pads, oversized phalluses, fake weapons of every description; it was enough to make Beavis and Butthead have a seizure.
Camera in hand, I started snapping a couple detail shots of the gear for personal posterity, when a fellow with an impossibly gruff voice and remnants of years of stage blood on his skin wanders up asking, “Hey, are you my interviewer?”
“Umm, no. Are you…?”
“I’m Oderus from Gwar.”
Sweet holy hell. Informing the faux 43-billion-year-old overlord of the universe that I was not in fact there to interview him, my “You’ll never see this again, so why the hell not?” instinct kicked in and I asked master Urungus to pose while I held one of the band’s battle axes. After pondering for a minute, he agreed, and the result is the sweet sweet photo magic above that’s now easily the best Facebook profile picture the universe has ever seen.
That is, until I get a chance to grin while holding the giant prop blood-covered plunger they used on a costumed toilet (don’t ask) a couple hours later on stage. A guy can dream, right?
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Fun Fun Fun review: Delorean
With pysch-rockers MGMT headlining Saturday night at Fun Fun Fun Fest, and Passion Pit and Cut Copy, other bands in the same world, selling out Stubb’s when they’ve been through Austin, it’s clear that there is plenty of room for bands like Delorean, who dole out synth-heavy psychedelic dance pop atop with a rock sensibility. Unlike the above mentioned bands, Delorean doesn’t have, or is perhaps less concerned with, hook-heavy hits like “Kids” or “Sleepyhead.” Instead, the quartet, who hail from Spain, employ something more of a club music (or maybe even jam band) technique, laying down a foundation of beats and raising the temperature in the room as they add layers of sound.
Their set Saturday at Fun Fun Fun got off to a slow start, as it was delayed by the crowd-killing Big Freedia. While drummer Igor Escudeo held things down with inspired disco beats, and a strobe-tastic psychedelic light show gave people in the back something to look at (or stare at as they danced with glow sticks), it took lead singer/bassist Ekhi Lopetegi a few songs to really find his footing as he bumped into the mic stand on the small stage and lacked any sense of power as he sang. Once he did, though, the band demonstrated that like their Spanish club roots, their strength lies in an ability to get the audience moving by increasing the tension. In doing so, the vocals aren’t necessarily the focal point of the songs. Instead, there is a balance between everything going on, with Lopetegi’s singing, which kind of recalls late 70’s arena rock, blending with the music almost as if it were nothing more than one more effect rising from the synthesizer.
That and cool lights.
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Fun Fun Fun Fest review: Bad Religion
Mark Nov. 6, 2010 down as the day costumed shock rockers Gwar managed to make a bigger political statement than Bad Religion. Sure, the “statement” involved impaling a stand-in of Sarah Palin and assuring the mass of fake-blood covered fans in front of the black stage that there would now be no chance of Palin ever becoming president, but it made more of an impression than the by-the-numbers hour or so the L.A. punk vets rolled out immediately afterward.
With Gwar’s smoke still lingering in the air from the adjacent stage, lead singer Greg Graffin and company meandered out and uncorked a heaping helping of the indignant, anthemic songs they’ve produced like clockwork for 30 years. If you’re a Bad Religion true believer - grew up with a skateboard welded to your foot, once owned three different Ronald Reagan-as-Bozo The Clown Tshirts, may or may not still have blue hair dye in a drawer somewhere - then this was the elixir of life, delivered with as much potency as a kinda-muddy sound mix would allow. Graffin’s still in great yelling voice, guitarist Greg Hetson is a human spark plug-pogo stick hybrid who draws eyeballs to him and the tunes new and old are an appropriate grab bag of warning of today’s dangers and lamenting lots of blown yesterdays.
Thing is, that’s a lot to take if the entire band isn’t hard-wired into the night and lots of times Graffin seemed to be putting in an appearance, and that the show was an add-on to his book signing earlier in the day for his new tome “Anarchy Evolution.” So while straight-up shout-out classics like “American Jesus,” “Infected,” and “Suffer,” can get by at three-quarters intensity, a newer song like “Only Rain” or “New Dark Ages” seemed listless, especially with MGMT apparently borrowing Pink Floyd’s effects show for the undeniable hit “Kids” within eyes and ears distance over on the orange stage.
The end result of all this? Probably the most consistently strident political band of a generation staying mum and pretty much going through the motions less than a week after Republicans and Tea Party candidates ravaged the political landscape, while an extreme metal band wearing giant costume genitals stoked loud outrage over the state of the nation. I’d have never expected such a thing going in, and if I weren’t there in person to witness it I’d have called you a liar after the fact.
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Fun Fun Fun reveiw: Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti
Take a look at Twitter and you’ll see that one of Saturday’s big draws at Fun Fun Fun was Big Freedia, whose gender-blurring bounce act had the most unlikely bearded dudes shaking their money-makers on the cozy blue stage. Freedia wasn’t the only freaky presence of the day, however. Over on the orange stage, Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti gave Freedia a run for her money, though for Pink, who was wearing a black floral-print blouse, a much less-color coordinated one next to Freedia’s red leather entourage.
Haunted Graffiti began as a fairly underground solo recording project, and the band that appeared Saturday at Fun Fun Fun is a relatively new one, with Pink holding court over an assembly of musicians, including a couple synth player/guitarists, a bassist, a drummer wearing a creepy bear hat and a saxophonist and trumpet player. It’s a bold effort at translating Ariel Pink’s music, which, even at its most poppy and accessible, is produced with as if taking place in a haze, a purgatory between today and lost radio schlock of yesteryear (he’s also considered a sort of godfather to acts such as Neon Indian and Washed Out). Rather than attempt to recreate that in a live setting, the band threw everything they had straight into the audience, and the result was 40 minutes of funky chaos, with Pink running around the stage singing offering random commentary, dropping his mic into the saxophone and shouting orders at the band.
The band, which was in on the joke, nailed the set, variously delivering jarring tempo changes, head-spinning noise and infectious groove. On one level, Pink situates himself somewhere between “Thriller” and “Ghostbusters,” and the saxophone appropriately added something of a Ray Parker, Jr. feel to a set that included songs from the new album including “Beverly Kills” and “Fright Night.” On “Round and Round,” which ranks among the catchiest of the new material, the band huddled together at the front of the stage for the “na na naaa na” chorus. Compared to a lot of the other acts playing this weekend, they were an unlikely mix of performers, lacking any sort of hipster indie fashion sensibility, and flaunting it for the crowd.
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Fun Fun Fun Fest review: MGMT
Tammy Perez FOR AMERICAN-STATESMANThree years ago, Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser unspooled their dance-oriented psychedelic pop to a tiny Fun Fun Fun Fest crowd in the prime time slot of 1 p.m. Like a lot of other people, I was not there. But I was there less than a year later, after “Kids” blew up, “Oracular Spectacular” dropped and became the favorite of college and high school … well, kids nationwide, and the band played what surely has to go down as one of the Austin City Limits Music Festival’s most overgrown shows. Their 2008 set at the ACL Festival attracted a dense, jam-packed crowd that made getting within 500 yards of the stage difficult.
Much of the band’s two years since seems like it’s been spent trying to adjust to and make sense of that rapid onset of fame, from the singles-spurning progressive rock direction of “Congratulations” to their reluctance to play “Kids” — they skipped it at Coachella in April, and their performance of it at June’s sold-out show at Stubb’s was little more than glorified karaoke.
But if the band’s headlining set at the orange stage Saturday night was any indication, MGMT may be finding its footing. Admittedly, it wasn’t a stunner of a set — “Congratulations” single “Flash Delirium” felt a bit blase, only coming to life in its closing jam. Even the sound at the show seemed a bit quiet. But MGMT has evolved into a proficient, technically sound touring outfit, a bit lacking in enthusiasm, perhaps, but they can always fall back on the strength of some very solid songs.
The largest crowd response was reserved for the radio jams off “Oracular Spectacular,” of course, and to the band’s credit they didn’t seem entirely phoned-in — “Time to Pretend” and “Electric Feel” in particular erupted nicely, and the band marshaled more excitement for “Kids” than they managed back in June. But their fervor has clearly moved on from the singles they recorded early in the band’s life — they were a lot more animated on the goofy new wave pop of “Brian Eno” or the shuffle of “It’s Working.”
One thing you could get a sense of from Saturday night’s show — MGMT has gotten to be pretty sharply divisive. Sure, the band may be into “Congratulations,” but as I heard one (former?) fan grumble on her way out, “This song is not awesome.” And indeed the crowd had thinned a fair amount by the time the set drew to a close, with no encore. But there were still plenty of folks there, and plenty who had disagreed, holding their lighters aloft during “Congratulations” and looking quite pleased. If anything, MGMT may just be finding its level — both in its music and in its popularity.
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Fun Fun Fun Fest scene report: Dam-Funk
Dam-Funk commenced his set of danceable, crowd-moving, booty-shaking modern funk 45 minutes late on Saturday night, and from glancing at the blue stage it was easy to see why. Sure, preceding act Delorean had run long, with an anthemic show of catchy synthpop, but the big issue was setup: you don’t often see a solo artist with that much equipment to hook up on stage. From my perch halfway back or so I could see at least four turntables, a laptop, a synthesizer and a handful of other odds and ends.
But Dam-Funk, born Damon G. Roddick, made use of every last instrument at his disposal, pumping out towering jams that thoroughly engaged the (criminally small) crowd. “Let me show you what the funk is all about Austin,” said Dam-Funk, puffing on a cigarette as he launched into “Mirrors,” a highlight off last year’s debut “Toeachizown.” “Ain’t gonna play no games with you.”
All the material that I caught came from “Toeachizown,” but that’s no surprise — it was an album composed of five LPs, so there’s a lot of work to draw from there. “Hood Pass Intact” boiled with early-80s funk grooves, while Dam-Funk busted out a keytar (or a “portable synthesizer,” as he called it in an interview last week, clearly not happy with the keytar’s status as a kitsch instrument) for a memorable solo in a long instrumental.
At this point I had to split to catch MGMT on the orange stage — the two acts were not originally scheduled to overlap but the late-running blue stage led to them doing so — but I was sad to go. The pulsing crowd had the vague feel of a religious revival — where the religion is D-Train, Slave and Prince. You could do worse.
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Fun Fun Fun fest review: The Dirty Projectors
Tammy Perez AMERICAN-STATESMAN
No matter what angle you look at them, the Dirty Projectors are a very strange band.
Guitarist and Yale graduate Dave Longstreth is their only constant member; the band has had more than 15 members in eight years. His melodies are arrays of notes, some times sparing, sometimes cascading, carefully calibrated to sound alternately random and enormously complex in timing and structure. The vocal frontline consists of three women - guitarist Amber Coffman, keyboardist Angel Deradoorian and singer Haley Dekle - who vocies sometimes scream and sometimes croon. I don’t recall anyone by Longstreth addressing the crowd during their Fun Fun Fun set Saturday evening. The rhythm section drove and parried as the songs required.
The band’s 2007 album “Rise Above” (Dead Oceans) was a crafty, track by track remainging of Black Flag’s hardcore punk classic “Damaged” - the two don’t sound a thing alike. 2009’s “Bitte Orca” (Domino) was a huge critical breakthrough and its eye-popping compositions and careening vocals found purchase on all sorts of year-end best-of lists.
In festival setting, this music translated oddly. The vocals seemed overly harsh and mood-puncturing, and it was difficult to tell if this was intentional, sketchy mixing or questionable microphone technique. Longstreth’s compositions, ideal for a small club, seemed to lose detail in front of a big crowd. (But the band drew a huge crowd and my hat goes off to the fans who were singing along to these musical Calculus derivatives.)
It perhaps didn’t help the more primitive among us that Gwar — dressed in rubber costumes that looked liked giant lead figures that escaped from a role playing game - was playing down the park apiece, their goofy atavism a stark contrast to what was happening on the Orange Stage. “I can’t believe we’re missing Gwar,” Longstreth said. Dude, why did you have to remind us?
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Fun Fun Fun review: Monotonix
Tammy Perez FOR AMERICAN-STATESMANIf you’ve ever wandered over to the Pfluger Pedestrian Bridge at 3 a.m. in the morning during South by Southwest or Chaos in Tejas, for one of the bridge’s storied early-morning punk rock freakouts, you’d have felt right at home at the yellow stage on Saturday afternoon. Tel Aviv punk rock trio Monotonix cranked out their loose, fast, frenetic sounds not from the stage but from the ground. And with amplification minimal and the crowd blocking the view of the performers, the rules for spectators were much the same as they are on those pedestrian bridge shows — if you had any desire to see what was going on, you essentially needed to be 20 feet from the band.
But if you were 20 feet from the band, you were treated to one of the most insane sets of a festival defined by its insanity. It’d be inaccurate to say that Monotonix play sterling, particularly memorable songs — it’s sloppy rock, fun but perfectly ordinary — but what they lack in mind-blowing musicianship they make up for in raw, sweaty spectacle. Shortly after blasting through the incredibly appropriate “Fun Fun Fun” — a 7-inch single released earlier this year and drawn from an upcoming full-length produced by Steve Albini — shirtless, sweaty frontman Ami Shalev climbed to the top of nearby boulder for an enthused take on “Body Language.” Perched on the top — and elevated a good six feet above the heads of the audience below him — Shalev motioned that he was going to jump.
“There’s a fifty-fifty chance I may die,” he beamed before taking the plunge. Fortunately, he didn’t, and after that it was easy to imagine that the enraptured Fun Fun Fun crowd would have followed him to the ends of the Earth. Or at least to the nearby Eurobounce, the bungee jump contraption where Monotonix finished its set, shortly after Shalev had played a drum while seated in a chair held up by the audience, as though he was in some sort of punk rock Bar Mitzvah circle dance.
Completely and utterly ridiculous? Indeed. A whole lot of fun? Obviously.
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November 6, 2010
Fun Fun Fun review: Wavves
During the last couple years in the world of indie music there has been a sort of push-back against more composed, complicated pop-rock by a slate of bands embracing a much more stripped down style. Wavves, with their brand of somewhat jangly, surf-inspired pop rock falls into the latter category. The band, which was started in San Diego by lead singer/guitarist Nathan Williams, has released three well-received albums, but as probably been the subject of more attention then Williams has wanted for public infighting, canceled shows and a strange spat with the one of the guys from the Black Lips.
It seems that Williams has put that element of the band’s rise behind him, though. During their set Saturday at Fun Fun Fun, he was uncontroversial, taking sound problems in stride. Aside from asking for a few beers, Williams mostly stuck to music with a set or slightly noisy, irreverent songs including “Wavves,” “Take On the World” and “Beach Demons.” The music isn’t very demanding, but that’s not a bad thing. Instead, with his detached vocal style and quick songs that have enough in the way of catchy licks and other flourishes to sound thoughtful but not overdone, it was fun.
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Fun Fun Fun scene: Graffiti mural
Adding some bright splashes of color to the festival this year is Ramon Alvarez, 36, and his crew of about a half-dozen spray paint artists. This is the second year at the fest for Alvarez, originally from Basque territory in Northern Spain.
They set up their wall on Thursday and will spend the weekend completing the mural, of which each artist gets a segment for painting. The background was done in latex, but spray paint is being used to compose the artwork that is taking on a “Fear and loathing …” theme.
Having spent all day Saturday listening to the sounds of rock music waft toward his area on the west end of Waterloo Park, Alvarez said he is ready to take in some hip-hop on Sunday.
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Fun Fun Fun Fest review: "Weird Al" Yankovic
Funny thing about “Weird Al” Yankovic — after 30 years, more than 100 parody songs and 12 million albums sold, he’s outlasted a sizable number of the artists he’s lampooned. Coolio only wishes he had a career that long or relevant — and it’s still too early to call on James Blunt, but things aren’t looking good.
But if Yankovic had used comedy as a crutch or jokes as a smokescreen to hide a lack of musicianship, he’d have never made it this far. Friday night’s multimedia extravaganza — and “extravaganza” is the technical term for a show that lasts two hours and fifteen minutes, with over a dozen costume changes and two projection screens — demonstrated that Yankovic’s held on through countless shifts in the pop music climate on the back of both his genial wit and his tremendous musical ability. He kicked off the fifth Fun Fun Fun Fest in fine form, with a massively entertaining, perfectly executed run-through of his best parodies and originals that packed Waterloo Park with kids and adults who, if only briefly, were able to be kids again.
Yankovic took the stage at 7:45 clad in his iconic Hawaiian shirt, accordion in hand, to kick things off with a covers medley of pop songs so ridiculous that they defy parody — really, “Poker Face” and “I Kissed A Girl” are ludicrous enough to be Weird Al songs already, so there’s little use in repurposing them. He briefly stepped off stage and the night’s general pace established itself — a song followed by a costume change, during which the functioning projection screens (one of three was out, a “33 and one-third percent reduction in fun,” said Yankovic) played clips both from the late, lamented “Al TV” specials and appearances of Yankovic throughout pop culture, ranging from Carson to “The Cleveland Show.”
It was a show that was military in its precision, with Yankovic the general holding court as he toggled between parodies and original songs — highlights among which included the deeply funny acoustic ballad “You Don’t Love Me Anymore” (“You slammed my face down on the barbecue grill/Now my scars are healing, but my heart never will”). The night’s earliest belly-laugh may have come from Yankovic brutally smashing the guitar at its conclusion. And the band was impressively tight — it takes an outfit that has its stuff together to pull off the shredding of “Smells Like Nirvana” or the rapid-fire shifts in style demanded by Yankovic’s medleys.
Some parodies work better on record than live — “White and Nerdy,” for instance, has such lightning-quick lyricism that it’s hard to process live. But the best moments — the White Stripes-aping, Charles Nelson Reilly torch song “CNR,” the appropriately Devo-homaging “Dare to be Stupid” (the most Devo we’ll have all weekend, sadly) and encore song “Yoda,” with a full batallion of stromtroopers on-stage — were enough to keep a cold audience singing along.
The rest of the night was a solid warm-up to the fest, Todd Barry’s adorably surly breed of comedy more focused on ruminating on the difficulty of delivering a set while the Apples in Stereo soundchecked than telling jokes. The opening act, Austin Queen tribute band Magnifico, had the balls it takes to ape one of the flashiest rock bands of all time — kind of literally, actually, with muttonchopped front man Zach Hall’s purple leotard leaving little to the imagination. The perfect pop of the Apples in Stereo was a nice lead-in, as well — but they drew a far smaller crowd than the instrumental Tesla Coil-aided explosion of noise manufactured by Austin’s own Arc Attack. Sure, certifiably catchy pop is all well and good, but sometimes you just want to see a guy get struck by lightning.
All in all, with Waterloo Park still in embryonic form — but, awesomely, already hooked up with a handful of arcade games set to free play, as well as the customary half-pipe — and crowds thin until Yankovic went on, the night had the air of a relaxed, good-vibes-all-around primer for the madness to come. But it was a solid, memorable kickoff — with a Weird Al Yankvoic show that was perfectly, well, Weird Al Yankovic. Nobody else rocks a fat suit like that.
Set list
Medley (including “Poker Face,” “Womanizer,” “So What,” “’Baby Baby Baby” and “I Kissed A Girl” and “Blame It”, among others)
Frank’s 2000-Inch TV
You Don’t Love Me Anymore
Smells Like Nirvana
Skipper Dan
You’re Pitiful
Dare To Be Stupid
CNR
Let Me Be Your Hog
Canadian Idiot
Wanna B Ur Lovr
Beverly Hillbillies
Medley (Featuring “Whatever You Like,” “Confessions Part III,” “Bedrock Anthem,” “Another One Rides the Bus,” “Ode to a Superhero,” “Trapped in the Drive Thru” and “Gump”)
Eat It
Craigslist
Amish Paradise
White and Nerdy
Fat
Encore
We All Have Cellphones
The Saga Begins
Yoda
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November 4, 2010
Autograph signings at Fun Fun Fun Fest
Waterloo Records has released the lineup of artists who will be in their tent — at Waterloo Park — this weekend during the fifth Fun Fun Fun Fest. And here it is:
Saturday
3:30 p.m. - Valient Thorr
3:45 p.m. - GWAR
4:30 p.m. - Wavves
5 p.m. - MGMT
6:10 p.m. - Os Mutantes
8:15 p.m. - Man Man
Sunday
4 p.m. - Nortec Collective
6 p.m. - Best Coast
7 p.m. - P.O.S.
8 p.m. - High on Fire
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November 3, 2010
Fun Fun Fun Fest: A brief breakdown of the schedule
If you like Green Day or Blink-182, then you need to check out:
1. The Descendents: Probably the first and most influential American punk band to blend pop hooks with hardcore’s speed. (8:45 p.m. Sunday, orange)
2. Bad Religion: Like the Descendents, a top flight punk rock outfit fronted by a giant nerd. (8:45 p.m. Saturday, black)
3. The Vandals: Pretty much owe their entire sound to the Descendents. (7 p.m. Saturday, black)
If heavier punk and noise is your thing, take a look at:
1. Floor: The precursor to the brilliant sludge rockers Torche, this band recently started play shows again and released a ridiculously deluxe box set. (4:30 p.m. Saturday, black)
2. Black Congress: Houston’s noise rock elite. (12:15 p.m. Saturday, black)
3. Ringworm: Faintly terrifying mix of metal and hardcore straight outta Ohio. (3:40 p.m. Saturday, black)
If you went to college in the 1990s, then you might remember:
1. Cap’n Jazz:A.k.a the punk band the guys in the Promise Ring and Joan of Arc were in when they were kids. (6 p.m. Saturday, orange)
2. Polvo:Intricate guitar riffs interlocking and falling apart, these guys reunited last year for the excellent ‘In Prism.’ (6 p.m. Sunday, orange)
3. The Apples in Stereo: Psychedelic music from the friendly confines of Athens, Ga.; these guys were the gooey center of the Elephant Six collective. (6:30 p.m. Friday, orange)
If you want to see women artists, check out:
1. Jean Grae: One of the most perennially underrated rappers in the game. (4 p.m. Sunday, blue)
2. Kaki King: An intriguing guitarist and composer known for her genre-hopping style, her new ‘Junior’ might be a career high. (3:40 p.m. Sunday, orange)
3. Dominique Young Unique: Part electro, part hip-hop, all Florida sass and power. (4:50 p.m. Saturday, blue)
If metal is your thing, bang your head to:
1. Mastodon: One of the best metal bands of the decade, period, even if their most recent record turns down the sludge and turns up the psychedelic hard rock. (8:45 p.m. Sunday, black)
2. Hatred Surge: Austin’s grindcore kings deliver short, sharp shocks. (12:45 p.m. Saturday, black)
3. Kylesa: A personal favorite, mixing thick guitars, two galloping drummers, viscous metal and guitarist Laura Pleasants’ scream. (2:50 p.m. Sunday, black)
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Fun Fun Fun Fest preview: Polvo
Is there a better rock ‘n’ roll name than Ash Bowie? I think not. It is a tree, it is the remnants of fire, it is a knife, it is three syllables of awesome. Well, maybe not the knife, if you lived in Ash’s house growing up.
“The rest of my family pronounced it Boo-ee, my dad said Bow-ee,” Bowie says over the phone. The cell signal is terrible, so his voice wows and flutters, sometimes cutting out, sometimes roaring to life, a bit like his band Polvo’s complicated riff-logic. On excellent, underrated albums such as “Today’s Active Lifestyles” and “Exploded Drawing,” Polvo’s songs felt like classic rock as played by Martians who knew how it was supposed to sound, but had too many fingers for simple chords.
The last time Polvo was an active, touring rock band, Bill Clinton was in office, and the Monica Lewinsky scandal had just broken. The band’s 1997 album, “Shapes” was a controversial one among fans of the band’s knotty rock. The sound of Bowie and guitarist Dave Brylawski locking up and spinning out while bassist Steve Popson holds down the fort is, for some 30- and 40-something rock nerds, as crucial to the notion of 1990s Southern underground as Superchunk’s catchy punk and the fuzzy psychedelia of Neutral Milk Hotel.
“Shapes” was more openly progressive than this already somewhat obtuse act’s earlier records. Some people loved it, some hated it, but after a brief tour it was time to hang it up.
“‘Shapes’ was pretty piecemeal,” Bowie says. “Our drummer (Polvo’s original stickman Eddie Watkins) had quit the band. His replacement (Carolina punk lifer Brian Walsby) did a really good job and I played drums on a few, which wasn’t a great idea. We just didn’t really know what we were going to come out with.” The band called in a day in February 1998 and everyone went on with his life. Bowie became an electrician and still played now and then.
“I really never got around to finishing anything,” Bowie says. “I didn’t really miss putting out product and stuff like that.”
(The cell connection is so bad I swear he says “I became an obstetrician,” an idea he cracks up at: “No, electrician,” he laughs. “I work in attics and crawlspaces” — the reader may make his own joke here.)
In 2008, Polvo reformed with new drummer Brian Quast, after being invited to appear at All Tomorrow’s Parties by Texas epic rockers Explosions in the Sky.
“We started by trying to figure out what old songs we like enough to play, then changing them a bit,” Bowie says. “We had some new material and making a record was a pretty logical progression.”
Released in September 2009, “In Prism” fared far better, aesthetically, than “Shapes.” The songs are livelier, but still complicated. It’s the sort of album that has even casual fans reaching for the back catalog seeing what they missed the first time around.
“We practiced a lot and worked on the material more than we ever had before,” Bowie says (which makes sense as they weren’t out testing new songs live). “The focus became how to make the material stronger.”
These days, the reformed band is getting to play places they never reached the first time around. “It’s been a blast,” Bowie says, “and we try to make the most of it. Just getting to place places like Poland and Italy and Spain and Finland is fantastic.”
No, Austin is not as cool as any of those places. But there are a lot of us who are thrilled to hear those weird chords again.
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Fun Fun Fun Fest preview: Peelander-Z
1:40 p.m. Sunday, Black stage
Interviewing a member of Peelander-Z is a little like talking to a living, breathing “Mr. Sparkle” commercial. The experience is a jumble of Dadaist metaphors, clipped, broken English, misunderstood questions and overflowing enthusiasm. It’s also deeply entertaining.
First, a little background: Peelander-Z are a giddy, kid-friendly pop-punk quartet. The songs are short, the licks are simple, the lyrics goofy and the titles eccentric. “Let’s Go! Karaoke Party!” and “Ninja High School” are particularly representative samples. And while the band was formed by three Japanese musicians who met in art school in New York City, they’ll never tell you as much. They maintain they’re aliens from the “Z area” of the planet Peelander, sent to Earth to plant happiness wherever they roam. Like Man or Astro-man in its late-’90s heyday, the band has a story, and they’re sticking to it.
When I ask lead guitarist and vocalist Kengo Hioki about his costume — the four members of Peelander-Z appear wearing color-coordinated costumes inspired in equal parts by anime, superhero comics and professional wrestling — the man who generally goes by Peelander Yellow laughs at my foolish attempt to penetrate his defenses.
“They are not costumes!” replies Hioki. “They are our skin!”
Peelander-Z’s sense of whimsy extends to their live shows. The hard-touring band welcomes audience participation, occasionally mimes hitting each other with chairs in the style of wrestling, and are always sure to showcase a little “human bowling” — where members dive head-first into bowling pins.
Naturally, kids love them, which is where Mike Dickinson, owner of Austin’s Chicken Ranch Records, comes in. When Dickinson played a promo DVD featuring the band for his children, they were enchanted, and Dickinson saw the opportunity to make a record that could serve as an antidote to his parental blues.
“Being a parent, I’ve heard a bunch of really (bad) kids records,” laughs Dickinson. “There are exceptions, of course. They Might Be Giants records are pretty awesome. But usually it’s pretty mind-numbingly bad to listen to.”
So Dickinson tapped the band to record a children’s record, “P-TV-Z,” with a who’s who of local musicians. They recorded it in Austin in nine days shortly after the South by Southwest Music Festival. Members of the Octopus Project, Atash, Foot Patrol, Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears and the Riverboat Gamblers all lent their talents to the album, which mixes up children’s classics like “E-I-E-I-O” with Peelander-Z originals.
And Dickinson, who has the rare pleasure of interacting with the band when their guard is down, says Peelander-Z aren’t necessarily the space cases you might expect.
“They’re a fantastic band to work with. They’re very very professional, very nice, good people and they pretty much are how they are. They’re very funny and very silly about life, but they’ve also really got it together,” says Dickinson. “They’re unparalleled when it comes to punctuality. It’s almost like a military operation. They’re on time every time.”
Pearls of wisdom from Peelander Yellow:
We spoke briefly by phone with Kengo Hioki, also known as Peelander Yellow, from the band’s tour bus somewhere between Portland, Ore., and Seattle. What follows are a few highlights from a rambling, sometimes nonsensical but always friendly discussion.
On how the band keeps its energy up when touring: “We no human beings, we come from Peelander Planet, everybody in my planet have high energy. We need no Red Bull, there is no Red Bull on Peelander Planet. We drink Yellow Bull. That is my sweat. Yellow Bull tastes more sweet, not so crazy it does not grow wings you cannot fly. But you feel super happy. If you’ve got Yellow Bull you can beat your weak point.”
On a famed gig in New Mexico where Peelander Yellow broke his foot after jumping from a balcony: “I had play three more songs after. I couldn’t feel my foot pain because I’m super-high on the gig. And after gig I feel very bad pain and couldn’t go hospital after two weeks because we had to play two more weeks after I broke my bone. So that was super-crazy.”
On choosing between Austin, New York City and his home planet: “Right now I want to say Austin is best. So many good friends. Breakfast tacos my favorite. In New York City they have no breakfast tacos. They no good over there. When we recording last spring we ate every morning breakfast tacos. So I want to say my first planet is Peelander Planet, my first best country is Japan, and now my favorite city is Austin.”
On why the band chose punk rock as its style: “I mean we really love Ramones-style, very easy and everything is super-simple, one-chord, two-chord, three-chord, because we couldn’t play any music. Music is like a 10 percent for our performance, so I choose very easy one which is punk rock for us. Ninety percent we do the human bowling, limbo, crazy dance. But we try to do more different type of music right now this new album. ‘E-I-E-I-O’ we tried to do the ska, it’s the first time we’ve tried.”
On Peelander-Z’s mission statement for Fun Fun Fun Fest: “Tell them forget about music! We love music but this time we can say forget about music and just join us! We want to say be like let’s go back to kindergarten and dance with us. Bring your kids, your daughter, your family, your grandmother, your grandfather, your energy, your happy smile. We are not genius for music but we know how to have fun people so I’m kind of a teacher to have a happy time. This is our mission in Fun Fun Fun Fun Fest.”
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Fun Fun Fun Fest preview: Dam-Funk
Ben Sklar FOR AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Dam-Funk — pronounced Dame-Funk and born Damon Riddick — got his musical start behind the scenes. After laboring through the ’90s as a session keyboardist for a succession of West Coast hip-hop darlings — Westside Connection, Master P and MC Eiht and Compton’s Most Wanted — Dam-Funk turned his attention to the spiraling, groove-saturated funk of the late ’70s and early ’80s. He began throwing an acclaimed series of ‘Funkmosphere’ DJ parties in Los Angeles, vinyl-only affairs concentrated on gems from Parliament-Funkadelic, early Prince, Slave and Zapp.
Dam-Funk, 38, made his solo debut with 2009’s five-LP, two-CD ‘toeachhizown,’ which collected praise and blog buzz for its full-bodied, mid-tempo grooves, insistent drum machine beats and flowing synthesizers. He ingratiated himself to the indie crowd with a widely circulated remix of Animal Collective’s ‘Summertime Clothes.’
He makes a digression on this year’s ‘Adolescent Funk,’ turning back the clock with a collection of funk jams he crafted while still in high school. Recorded between 1988 and 1992, it shows that even at the tender age of 16, making music with an inexpensive Casio keyboard and a Radio Shack microphone, Dam-Funk was well on his way to honing the modern funk style that’s become his trademark. The multitalented keyboardist, DJ and composer talked to us from his Los Angeles home.
American-Statesman:You’re trying to evoke and keep alive the legacy of funk from the late ’70s and early ’80s, but you’ve also spoken of not wanting to be a throwback artist. So what, to you, makes for modern funk?
Dam-Funk:The big difference is the electric stance that I’m applying to it. It’s less of the wokka-wokka-wokka guitar thing. It’s more electronic-based but still with a human feel. But really, when I use these terms I’m trying to avoid getting lumped into a lot of these types of soul collectives that are paying tribute to that James Brown and Sly Stone and Motown era. I don’t begrudge them that because a lot of people didn’t grow up under that kind of Minneapolis funk sound that I did and a lot of people are cool with revisiting the past, and that’s fine. But I’m looking to take that early ’80s style and continue it, progress it, take it in some different directions without getting pigeonholed. I wanted to get this style people’s respect as opposed to having funk be relegated to rap samples and New jack swing, which it was for a long time. I wanted to bring this style to a place where people can realistically talk about it around a coffee table.
There’s been a big resurgence in vintage soul and R&B in the style of the ’60s and ’70s — Sharon Jones, Raphael Saadiq, that kind of thing. Do you think the potential is there for funk to undergo a similar resurgence?
I think there’s a potential. But I don’t think it will ever be as big as those two genres you just mentioned. Those styles were more accepted pop-wise. The style I’m doing never really took off pop-wise. In Motown and Stax the chords are friendlier, the songs are catchier and more accessible. And I’m not mocking it. Motown is great, but if you talk to real cats, Motown, it was pop. The hood didn’t really love Motown. It was cool, it was there, don’t get me wrong. Even Rick James was on Motown, although we all know that wasn’t traditional Motown. But I’d consider funk the black sheep of soul. It’s related but a lot weirder. It was like the person who lives in the back room of the house or the uncle that lived in the attic where you never really knew what was going on up there. That’s why I don’t think this style will ever explode. It’s a more urban, blacker sound.
You released ‘toeachhizown’ on five LPs and two CDs — and as a long album with a bit of a concept attached, it evokes some of the lengthier, more involved albums from Prince and Parliament-Funkadelic. Was that an intentional homage?
No, I just finished it and was like, ‘Damn, that’s a lot of songs.’ So the idea came up to release it that way. But definitely when I stepped back I was like ‘I actually did this subconsciously.’ And it’s not just funk; I used to grow up listening to long Rush albums. I’m just influenced by an era where people had greater attention spans. But I didn’t do it on purpose. Everything I do is like the Force in ‘Star Wars.’ When I record a track I try not to think about it too much. When you approach music like a mad scientist in a lab, trying to get all of your chemicals just right and scientifically accurate, you miss the point.
‘Adolescent Funk’ is all material you wrote and recorded between 1988 and 1992. Were you at all nervous about putting out material that you made in high school?
Yeah. And I listen to it and I’m like ‘Man, I’m making some crazy sounds! I don’t know if I should be letting people hear this!’ But that’s OK. I always like it when things hiss or sound distorted or kind of dirty. And we’re releasing it just as this lo-fi explosion is happening. So I don’t regret it if there’s little messed-up notes or bits on it. These songs were basically therapy for myself at the time. Back then, I didn’t think more than five or 10 people would hear that stuff at the most. But I’m willing to put myself on the table, because I don’t really believe in the concept of image. I want people to see that it’s OK to be proud of the stuff you did years ago, because you’re evolving.
When ‘Adolescent Funk’ picks up with you in 1988, at the age of 16, where were you at in your life?
Dealing with girls and hanging with friends, getting my first car, trying to figure out what I was going to do with my life, thinking about college. And just living in Pasadena, dealing with whether I should be close with gangs, or if I should sell dope. Because I grew up around a lot of cats that made a lot of money at an early age from selling drugs. It’s a misconception when you see these stories about people in the hood where it’s supposedly cool to smoke crack. It was never cool to smoke crack, but it was cool to sell it, to make money to get clothes and cars. But I always had the music to keep me away from the (expletive). A lot of the people I know went to jail or got shot or just didn’t make it. But the music and my parents kept me away from the traps.
7:35 p.m. Saturday, Blue stage
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Fun Fun Fun Fest preview: Cap'n Jazz
6 p.m. Saturday, Orange stage
When influential Chicago emo rock band Cap’n Jazz — and that’s Pixies influential, mind you, short-hand for “influential and popular largely after the band could have actually used it” — ended its run for the second time, after a 1995 show in Little Rock, Ark., it did not end well.
Guitarist and vocalist Victor Villareal, battling a drug habit that would continue to dog him into the next decade, had taken a dangerous combination of pills. He was soon unresponsive, and the other four members of Cap’n Jazz rushed him to the emergency room. Ten hours later, Villareal was discharged, and Cap’n Jazz emerged a broken band.
“I wanted to keep it going on some level. But at the same time it was really obvious that it needed to end right there and be done. There was no question that it was going to happen eventually,” sighs Cap’n Jazz guitarist and sometimes-vocalist Davey von Bohlen, 35, from his home in Milwaukee, where today he works as accountant and fronts the band Maritime. “It was a really long drive back from Arkansas. Nobody was happy. There was no conversation. It was pretty silent, and pretty sad. As an ending, it was pretty emblematic of who we were then.”
But 15 years later — “a nice round number,” quips von Bohlen — Cap’n Jazz, the band of adolescent upstarts with a heart-on-their-sleeve sensibility who rocked basements and VFW halls all over suburban Chicago, have returned for a small run of reunion dates that will end with Saturday at Fun Fun Fun Fest. And it looks like that will be the end for Cap’n Jazz.
“This is it, and there’s no ‘for now’ there. We didn’t plan to do more than one date, which turned into 13 or so, and if we kept going at some point we’d all just be in this band again and I don’t think, as much fun as it has been, any of us are really looking to do that,” says von Bohlen. “Every one of us is in other bands, and being in one band for a lot of us is just about all we can do at this point.”
The world looked very different when von Bohlen first joined Cap’n Jazz. Brothers Tim (vocals) and Mike Kinsella (drums and vocals) started the band in 1989 — at the ages of 15 and 12 — with Villareal and Sam Zurick (bass). As befits a group of adolescents, they played punk rock, but with a skewed sensibility — just as fast and emotive and intense, but more melodic, with a healthy amount of vulnerability on display. It was a style with origins in the Washington, D.C., punk scene — one often dubbed “emo” or “emo-core,” a term resented by nearly everyone involved.
Cap’n Jazz built a loyal regional following on their energetic live reputation and a series of 7-inches. But by 1993, the band had disbanded for the first time after Villareal made an unexpected move to California. Shortly thereafter, the Kinsella brothers began playing with von Bohlen, who found himself, initially reluctantly, incorporated into Cap’n Jazz as the band’s second guitarist after Villareal returned.
“I was in a band at the time called Ten Boy Summer, and Tim is as far as I can tell the only person that enjoyed it at all. He was at a few of our shows and we got to know him and we got to talking about how we should start a band, which is a totally teenage thing to do,” says von Bohlen. “So we started a new band up, which quickly became Cap’n Jazz again, and then I felt maybe a bit hoodwinked because I wanted to be in the other band.”
The band’s members went their separate ways one year after Von Bohlen joined, releasing only one album, a cumbersomely titled debut record that fans refer to as “Shmap’n Shmazz.” Tim Kinsella started the experimental rock project Joan of Arc while von Bohlen took center stage in cult-favorite emo band the Promise Ring.
But word on Cap’n Jazz kept spreading. A two-CD anthology of most of the band’s material, “Analphabetpolothology” found a steady audience that kept royalty checks flowing. And the band proved influential in Chicago and within the emo subgenre.
Even with Cap’n Jazz’s cult following — and the brief emergence of the Owls, a von Bohlen-less reunion of the band that produced one album in 2001 — von Bohlen’s hope for a reunion was dim. When Villareal cleaned up and von Bohlen got the call last year — the last member informed — he was surprised.
“I would have given it a zero percent chance of occurring,” says von Bohlen. “But it had been 15 years and by this point any lingering emotional antagonism was gone. And for the first time, really ever, everybody both had the time and was at a good point in their lives.”
And though the size and fervor of the reunion shows — several sold-out gigs in Chicago and large outdoor festival concerts — didn’t come as a huge surprise to von Bohlen, the return of Cap’n Jazz has at last put the band’s fans and its members on the same page.
“People have talked to us about Cap’n Jazz everywhere we’ve gone in music for the last 15 years, so it’s not like it’s a shock to see people interested in these shows,” says von Bohlen.
“But it’s been nice to play for big crowds, with a lot of young people in them, and to be able to touch and experience that legacy and have it driven home. We were so attached to Cap’n Jazz when nobody cared and so not attached to it when everybody cared, so it’s been nice to resolve that disconnect.”
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Fun Fest preview: Hold Steady ready to rock your face off
7:45 p.m. Sunday, Orange stage
I’m pretty sure I heard of the Hold Steady before I heard them, around the time “Separation Sunday,” their second album, came out in 2005. I thought: Tortured Catholic Midwesterners, literate, ginormous guitars, anthemic songs, singer can’t really sing and wears glasses? Dude, I could be IN that band.
Turns out I’m not the only one to feel that way.
“A lot of our appeal might be our fans feel the same way,” vocalist-guitarist-songwriter and transplanted Minneapolitan Craig Finn said from his Brooklyn home. “We’re believable.”
They’re also one of the two or three best bands going these days, especially live. If you’ve ever been in a club and heard a few hundred people shout, “Here’s a toast to St. Joe Strummer” or “Subpoenaed in Texas/sequestered in Memphis,” well, that’s as close to seeing Springsteen at the Stone Pony as most of us will get.
“Heaven Is Whenever,” which dropped earlier this year, is a little anthemic, a little less inviting of audience participation, which was partly by design.
“We were hyper-aware we were making a fifth record,” said Finn, 39. “When you start writing the songs, it was like, ‘We’ve done this before.’ You never want to lapse into self-parody. Every time we want to do something a little more musical. My singing is a little more polished. I wanted to do something other than me shouting over the band.”
Lyrically, however, Finn is going to the same well, expanding on the same narrative he’s been working out from the beginning, telling stories about kids in the Twin Cities torn between spirituality and chemical entertainment. Working with a stable of characters, the band’s body of work is not unlike “Doonesbury,” and it’s as dense as “The Wire.” Finn — perhaps the world’s most unconventionally charismatic frontman — is as likely to reference Yeats or Nabokov as Joe Strummer, and he has a habit of referring to past songs in the story, stitching together a tale that comes into sharper focus with each record. This lyrical conceit is not something you expect from a roaring rock and roll band.
“It’s a big artificial Christmas tree I keep hanging ornaments on,” he said. “Maybe the beginning and the end have been stated, but I’m giving more detail with every record. I’m not writing a soap opera. Nobody’s coming back from the dead.”
Fans, for their part, are known for obsessively annotating Finn’s lyrics as if he were another Minnesota native of note, Bob Dylan. Check out http://holdsteady.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Literary_References for a wee taste. Finn is a little taken aback by all the hubbub, saying, “That’s a healthy part of the dialogue between artist and audience,” but “you can’t be combing the Internet saying, ‘No, no, you’re wrong.’ ”
You can get a taste of that artist-audience relationship by watching their tour documentary, “A Positive Rage,” which happened to cover the period in which the band broke big. But Finn had a different reaction.
“I think we all watched ‘A Positive Rage’ once and were like, ‘Oh, wow. That was really unhealthy,” he said with a laugh. “That was a specific time. It looks like we were all drinking too much. At that time I believe there was a sense that this was all going to get taken away from us. That meant partying to the utmost every night because we’re never going to be in Oklahoma City again. Now I don’t plan to just be on this tour but to be touring most of the next year.”
They do have a work ethic, that’s for sure. Finn likens a band slowing down or taking any extended break to your daughter saying she’s taking a semester off from college — you know it’s over. So far they’ve played 48 states (South Dakota and Wyoming: You never call, you never write) and have “a variety of experiences,” Finn said. “We can play for 100 people in Lexington, Ky., and a week later sell out the Beacon Theater in New York City.”
The crowds certainly aren’t going anywhere. After keyboardist Franz Nicolay moved on at the beginning of this year, the band responded by adding not one but two people — third guitarist Steve Selvidge and keyboardist Dan Neustadt — to the lineup. Finn says it’s like taking the stage with a small gang.
To wrap things up, one more question: How come you rarely play guitar when you’re singing? Too busy gesticulating or what?
“If you look at our stage volume, it’s optional whether I play at all,” Finn said. “Now we’re playing with a six-piece band, so there’s even more volume. Someone suggested I play guitar like someone wears a necklace — it gives me something to do with my hands. If my amp broke, I don’t think you’d be any the wiser.”
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November 2, 2010
Fun Fun Fun Fest preview: Best Coast
5 p.m. Sunday, Orange stage
Sometimes less is better, at least for Bethany Consentino. The singer-songwriter behind the Los Angeles based rock group Best Coast, which she started in 2008 with Bobb Bruno (and now also includes former Vivian Girl Ali Koehler on drums), has won over music fans and critics with her stripped-down brand of California pop rock. The praise was rolling in even before the release of the band’s debut full length, “Crazy For You,” over the summer, and the buzz continues to grow as she scores high-profile collaborations with The Go! Team and Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo. We caught up with Consentino last week over the phone as she prepared to embark on the fall leg of her never-ending tour, which includes a stop next week at Fun Fun Fun Fest.
American-Statesman: Have you been surprised at how quickly Best Coast has risen?
Bethany Consentino:Yeah, I definitely don’t think that I was ever really prepared for the amount of attention that Best Coast gained in the beginning and after the record. I started this band really as a way to fill my time and cure my boredom. I had just dropped out of college and moved back to California and I knew that I wanted to start playing music again, but I wrote most of the early Best Coast songs in the guest bedroom at my mom’s house before I even found a place to live. Then a year later I’m touring almost nine months out the year and doing all this crazy (expletive). It’s definitely surprising, but I’m really excited about it and I’m trying to enjoy it as much as I can, because you always have to kind of realize that it could be over any minute, and if it is over any minute, I had an amazing time doing it.
What’s next for the band?
It’s hard to say … our touring schedule is so hectic and we are kind of like on tour and then home for a week, and it’s hard to figure out what are we gonna do on that off time. I’m writing as much I can, trying to use my time wisely as far as writing goes. I definitely want to do another record, I just don’t know when we’ll necessarily have time to do another one. I think March of next year is the next time we’ll have time off. I’m really happy in this band, doing what I’m doing, and I want to do it as long as I can. I’m also trying to just take care of myself. When you’re traveling as much as I am you’re constantly getting sick and complaining. A little bit of self improvement is something I’m working on.
When you played SXSW, Best Coast’s live sound had less of a pop feel than the album. Is that something you did on purpose?
It’s definitely difficult when the recordings are just Bobb and I, and Bobb is playing drums, he’s playing bass, he’s playing lead guitar, I’m playing my rhythm guitar, and I’m doing like five or six kind of vocal things all in one song. It’s hard to hard to take that and transfer it to the stage almost the exact way it sounds on record. We knew that would be kind of a struggle and we knew that the live show would definitely sound different than our record, but I think it’s cool when you go see a band and they sound different than they do on record, because oftentimes when you go see a band and they sound exactly like the record you’re like OK, this is cool but you’re also kind of bored and feel like, I could have just stayed home and listened to the record.
The other thing is were still a very new band and though we do tour all the time and played so many shows in the last year we’re still sort learning to play shows, we’re still sort of figuring out what can we do to improve things and how many times do we have to practice to get it completely right.
It seems like the world of indie rock is pretty male-dominated. Any idea why that is?
I don’t really know. There are definitely lots of men in music, and they’re always have been, not even just in bands, but male producers dominate the production world, as do engineers and a lot of songwriters even. I always think about how tons of girl group songs were written by men, and it’s a weird thing to think that a lot of songs that were written about guys were written by guys, you know? I think that there are definitely bands out there that are female-fronted or have women in them that are doing awesome stuff. I think it’s a weird thing, a lot of girls are doing really awesome stuff and I think they deserve to get more recognition for that. As a woman who has kind of taken on this front woman role … I try really hard to represent for girls. Touring is like a sausage fest. The opening bands are always dudes. It’s very rare that we come across bands on tour that are all girls or have girls in them. When I hear about a band that has a woman in it I get excited, as opposed to hearing about another band that has four dudes with beards and flannels.
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October 29, 2010
Milo Saves Fun Fun Fun: Descendents added to FFF lineup.
Pop-punk pioneers The Descendents have been added to the Fun Fun Fun lineup.
The band was added to replace headliners Devo, who were forced to cancel their fall tour when guitarist Bob Mothersbaugh injured his hand.
It is the first show in about 9 years for the Descendents. The last show was April 2002. The lineup include original members vocalist Milo Aukerman and drummer Bill Stevenson and mid-80s fixtures guitarist Stephen Egerton and bassist Karl Alvarez.
It is not an exaggeration to say that the Descendents are ‘80s punk legends. The band’s 1982 debut “Milo Goes to College” is one of the most influential the American scene produced. Its formula — funny songs with catchy hooks about love, everyday life and being a dork, played either as fast as possobile or as seems appropriate — has been aped by countless bands. There is a direct line between the Descendents and acts such as Green Day, Fall Out Boy and Blink-182. (Blink drummer Travis Barker has a tattoo of the famous cover of “Milo Goes to College”).
Perhaps needless to say, if you like those bands, a Descendents viewing is mandatory.
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October 28, 2010
Fun Fun Fun Fest 2010 preview: Gories
When talking to Mick Collins about his reunion of long-lost Detroit garage rockers The Gories, the word that keeps coming to mind is “lark.” Asked how the train finally pulled out of the station after more than a decade of pleading from fans, Collins reveals it was only because fellow former Crypt Record labelmates The Oblivians lobbied them to play an anniversary party for the German imprint. A date they ended up not playing, by the way.
On the topic of a new record; “Nah, we broke up in 1992 because we didn’t have anything more to say, and we still don’t.” And when talk turns to the trio’s visit to Austin for Fun Fun Fun Fest, Collins’ nonchalance becomes extraordinary, asking, “Hey, can you tell me exactly where it is that thing’s taking place? I haven’t really checked the whole thing out.” Alright then.
This devil-may-care approach shouldn’t come as much surprise when considered against the ramshackle garage rock The Gories produced for three albums, and as many breakups, spread over seven years. There’s no way anyone the least bit uptight or detail oriented could have had a hand in simple stompers like “Goin’ To The River” or “Nitroglycerine.”
Collins admits as much when talking about the current state of the band, saying the songs are sharper and better executed now that he, guitarist Dan Kroha and drummer Peggy O’Neill have spent years in bands such as The Dirtbombs (for Collins) and Demolition Doll Rods (Kroha).
“We’ve been playing them extremely well, and some of these songs we’re finally playing them exactly as I imagined they’d sound when we first wrote them,” Collins said by phone from his home in Brooklyn. “The songs themselves haven’t changed, just how we’re performing at playing them because that stuff is really as easy as it gets from a musical standpoint. With most of them all we had to do was call it and count off and we were right back to playing them like we were before we broke up.” While The Gories’ members went their separate ways with no expectation of a legacy or cries for a reunion, Collins said it wasn’t long before just about everyone who had ever seen the band in clubs around Detroit and the midwest began clamoring for the group to get back together.
“It started around 1996 or 1997 and the questions just never stopped only now there are questions about our legacy, and I honestly have no idea how to answer those,” he said. “It got to be kind of annoying after a while because all people would talk to us about was The Gories, when we had new bands we were doing that no one wanted to talk much about. Still, it is kind of neat now to have someone saying they’ve been listening to you since they were in high school and they’re so glad they can finally see the band live.” Even though Collins seems stumped about The Gories’ place in rock history, it’s hard to deny their influence on the wave of garage-influenced bands such as The White Stripes, The VonBondies, The Electric Six, Collins’ most recent band The Dirtbombs and more that had the music world flocking to Detroit - record contracts in hand - at the turn of the millenium.
“It was a madhouse around there. (The Dirtbombs) had been on tour and when we came back suddenly all the clubs were packed with record executives, and we even got to play a showcase for Sire Records, if you can believe that,” Collins said. “Suddenly everyone was looking at all these opportunities and it kinda went to some people’s heads. I mean, for a while people in bands were moving to Detroit specifically for that reason. It was nuts.”
Normalcy eventually returned and Collins and his cohorts returned to their lives as getting-by touring musicians. The Gories will continue to tour as the members’ moods allow - O’Neill dislikes the grind of the road - and The Dirtbombs are getting ready to release a series of three 12-inch records.
What’s the new Dirtbombs stuff sound like, you wonder?
“It’s not new, we’re doing garage covers of Detroit techno songs,” Collins says before a healthy cackle.
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October 27, 2010
Devo forced to cancel tour, FFF promoters have offers out to big-name headliners
Due to a hand injury suffered by guitarist Bob Mothersbaugh, Devo has been forced to cancel its entire fall tour, including its appearance at the Fun Fun Fun music festival Nov. 7.
“A glass shard sliced Mothersbaugh’s right thumb to the bone, severing a tendon,” a Warner Brothers Records press release said. “He underwent immediate emergency surgery and is expected to make a full recovery after proper care and therapy.”
Warner Bros. says dates will be made up in spring 2011, but that doesn’t help Fun Fun Fun.
Festival organizers have offers out to replacement headliners of comparable stature.
“You can’t really replace a band like Devo,” Fun Fun Fun promoter James Moody said, “But we are definitely going to spend all the money we had earmarked for Devo. We’re going to try our hardest to get someone big.”
Fun Fun Fun takes place Nov. 5 to 7 at Waterloo Park.
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October 25, 2010
Dum Dum Girls and Crocodiles cancel tours, including Fun Fun Fun dates
That’s the word from the Los Angeles-based lo-fi indie pop quartet’s official Facebook feed — and tour manager Matthew Koshak, who confirmed the news via phone. Bekah Keitz, spokesperson for the band’s label, Sub Pop, said the cancellation was due to a family emergency. Songwriter and frontwoman Dee Dee (Kristin Gundred) will be flying home to be with her family.
The band was in the middle of a series of dates with the Vaselines and were to play the Fun Fun Fun Fest Sunday, November 7.
Update: Noise rock duo the Crocodiles have also canceled their current tour and planned Fun Fun Fun Fest appearance, according to an e-mail from the band’s publicist. Crocodile Brandon Welchez is married to Gundred, so we can assume it’s the same family emergency. The band is hoping to reschedule the dates.
Update: Crocodiles’ and the Dum Dum Girls’ spots have been filled by New York boy-girl pop duo Cults and Indianapolis’ Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s. Hat tip to Austinist for noticing the schedule change.
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October 21, 2010
Fun Fun Fun Fest kick-off and afterparties announced
Via the Austinist, the Fun Fun Fun Fest has released its full slate — a few pesky “TBA”s notwithstanding — of kick-off and aftershows. You can view the full schedule of mouth-watering shows at the link, with many set to be free or heavily discounted with your FFF Fest wristband.
Highlights include the annual Local Music is Sexy kickoff Thursday night (November 4) at the Mohawk with Bill Baird, the Weird Weeds, Sally Crewe and others, explosive Portland rockers the Helio Sequence at Club De Ville, a great night of music curated by influential Dallas tastemakers Gorilla Vs. Bear at the Mohawk with Memory Tapes, and a DJ set from French dance pop sensation Yelle at the Beauty Bar.
Also worth noting: the addition of the Antlers, Washed Out and the Nortec Collective’s Bostich and Fussible to the lineup. Rev your fun engines — events start Thursday November 4 and run through Sunday November 7.
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October 19, 2010
Fun Fun Fun Fest 2010 preview: Joe Sib
At first blush it doesn’t sounds incredibly compelling; the head of a major punk rock label spending 70 minutes on stage waxing rhapsodic about the music’s history and its place in his life.
But let Joe Sib - founder and head of venerated punk label Side One Dummy Records - get going and he magnetically pulls audiences into the comedy and tragedies of his formative years as a teen during the heyday of the southern California punk scene of the early ‘80s.
“Even if you’re not a fan of punk rock, that could totally not be your thing, but everyone has a time in their life when all they cared about was music and that was the single most important thing in their lives,” Sib said by phone from his home in California.
“That’s where the connection is, and I didn’t want this to be me going on and on about how things were great back then and they’re not good now, because that’s not the case. Instead, I’m talking about being 14 and sneaking to shows or meeting up with my friends behind a liquor store and getting drunk while we’re listening to bands like 999, The Buzzcocks and The Clash.”
The sum total of those tales, along with 70-plus photos and audio clips make up “California Calling,” the one-man stage show Sib has been touring around the country after favorable responses to the memories he recalled during his former radio show on Los Angeles’ Indie 103.1 FM, and a compilation CD of the stories titled “True Stories and Bad Ideas”.
Sib will bring a truncated version of the show with him to Austin to perform at next month’s Fun Fun Fun Fest, with a 30 minute daytime slot altering the show to Sib mostly just talking and interacting with the audience while punk and metal bands he’s known for more than 20 years in some cases - Suicidal Tendencies, The Vandals, Bad Religion - bang away on stages nearby.
“I’ve known The Vandals since I was 17 when they would stay at my house and would announce my address as the place where the afterparty was going to be. We’d be driving home and I’d wonder if anyone would show up, then the next 30 cars behind us would turn on their blinkers to turn down my street,” Sib recalled.
“Graham (Williams, of Austin’s Transmission Entertainment) was all about this show when he heard what I was doing, and he said I had to bring it down here if I could figure out how to make it work outside with a shorter set. In the end, if I’ve got a microphone and people I can talk to about this stuff, that’s all I really need.”
Sib said he hopes to bring the full stage show back to Austin next year - a summer performance was nixed because of scheduling conflicts - to regale audiences with life stories that are equal parts “Fast Times At Ridegemont High” and “Almost Famous.”
“It all comes down to that one day - December 27, 1981 - that changed me forever, when my dad took me to a skateboard park for the first time. One because finally there was a sports-type thing that I could be good at and on an equal level with people, and two because I started hearing music outside of what my parents played at the house, and it sounded amazing,” Sib said.
“This isn’t a story that’s going to change your life, but if you’ve ever really cared about music more than anything else, you’ll get it and you’ll enjoy it.”
Joe Sib performs at Fun Fun Fun Fest at 2:05 p.m. Saturday, November 6 on the Yellow Stage.
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October 14, 2010
Fun Fun Fun scavenger hunt on Friday
If you’re aching for that sweet, sweet Gories goodness but can’t afford a ticket to the Fun Fun Fun Fest in this recession year, Transmission Entertainment is giving you a shot with the annual scavenger hunt, which kicks off at 5 p.m. tomorrow at the Mohawk. Participating teams — which need to be composed of two to five members — will aim to complete a 50-item to-do list in four hours in order to win passes to the festival, as well as prizes from the Alamo Drafthouse, Birds Barbershop and others, as well as tickets to several Transmission Entertainment shows.
Entry is free, though each team must bring five canned goods to donate to Caritas Austin. You can sign up over at the Austinist or at the Mohawk starting at 5 p.m. tomorrow; the hunt starts at 6 p.m. and teams have to check back in by 10 p.m. To score extra points, show up in costume.
Happy hunting, people.
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September 2, 2010
Fun Fun Fun Fest announces more bands and attractions
Austinist has the official word from the curators of Austin’s little festival that could — the Fun Fun Fun Fest has added classic indie pop charmers the Apples in Stereo to the lineup, as well as local Queen tribute masters Magnifico. Todd Barry, Chris Hardwick the Nerdist, Andy Ritchie, Shane Mauss, Terp2it, Moshe Kasher and Sean Patton have also been added to the comedy lineup. Perhaps most excitingly, the festival has also added a live Tesla Coil show from the University of Texas’ own Arc Attack.
Like last year, the festival will also host a scavenger hunt for passes, merchandise and other goodies. You can sign up for that here; the hunt will be held in October.
And finally, single day passes and student discount tickets both launched today.
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August 4, 2010
Devo, MGMT, Mastodon, GWAR and Weird Al Yankovic head up the full Fun Fun Fun Fest lineup
After a series of tongue-decidedly-in-cheek lineup announcements that referenced “Caddyshack,” “Airwolf” and “American Gladiators” throughout July, Austin music booking and promotions agency Transmission Entertainment announced the full lineup of the annual Fun Fun Fun Fest today. And those pleased by the festival’s goofy Modus operandi and 80s nostalgia will no doubt appreciate the biggest news: the Fun Fun Fun Fest will celebrate its fifth anniversary with the addition of a third night, a kickoff Friday evening show on November 5 from pop music satirist supreme “Weird Al” Yankovic.
Aside from that bombshell news, the festival’s full lineup also includes new wave pioneers Devo, synthpop sensations MGMT, indie rock darling Wavves, prog metal favorites Mastodon, Southern California punk rock classic Bad Religion, DJ and one-half of Chromeo A-Trak, Deakin of Animal Collective and electronica quartet Cold Cave, among many others. They join previously announced artists Suicidal Tendencies, Best Coast, Slick Rick, Snapcase, the Dirty Projectors, Yelle, the Gories, Cap’n Jazz, RJD2, the Dwarves, High on Fire and the Hold Steady. As usual, a number of local artists fill out the bill, including classically influenced pop collective Mother Falcon, sludge rockers Woven Bones, hip-hop collective League of Extraordinary Gz and Butcher Bear and Charlie.
It’s a strong lineup from the little festival that could, which began as a single-day shindig in 2006 and has quickly grown into a preeminent festival for punk rock, electronica, hip-hop, indie rock and all the other sounds that draw a crowd on Red River Street on any given night. The Fun Fun Fun Fest commandeers Waterloo Park November 5-7. Early-bird tickets are on sale now at the official website. Catch the full lineup after the jump.
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August 3, 2010
Fun Fun Fun Fest sells out first round of early bird tix
The first round of discounted early bird tickets for Triple F Fest, the annual indie shindig in Waterloo Park have sold out. The fest’s twitter feed promises a second round of early birds on sale soon.
Fun Fun Fun Fest goes down November 6-7, 2010. The list of “leaked” FFF 2010 artists includes The Hold Steady, Suicidal Tendencies, Best Coast, Slick Rick, Snapcase, Dirty Projectors, Yelle, the Dwarves and High On Fire.
Fest promoters are holding a press conference about the event tomorrow afternoon and we’re expecting the full lineup to arrive shortly thereafter. Stay tuned.
Update: The press conference will be held Wednesday, August 4 at 3 p.m. at the Wyndham Garden Hotel, 3401 Interstate 35. It’s open to the public, so if you have a burning desire to grab some free fried chicken and find out about the lineup early, have at it.
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July 29, 2010
Latest Fun Fun Fun bands
The next round of Fun Fun Fun acts have been announced and the newest additions are:
DJ RJD2
Veteran punk weirdos the Dwarves
Thunderous hard rockers High on Fire
and Brooklyn’s finest, the Hold Steady
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July 22, 2010
Fun Fun Fun Fest announces another round of performers
We wouldn’t call them “leaks,” but the Fun Fun Fun Fest has announced another round of performers for November’s Waterloo Park-smashing shindig: straight-edge hardcore legends Snapcase, art rockers and indie It band the Dirty Projectors, french electropop trio Yelle, seminal Detroit garage rockers the Gories and Chicago’s own emo pioneers Cap’n Jazz. They join Suicidal Tendencies, Slick Rick and Best Coast on this year’s lineup.
After last week’s Bill Murray-tinged lineup announcement, today’s news comes in the form of a retooled intro to classic 80’s action schlock TV series “Airwolf.” The full lineup and tickets will both be available in August; here’s hoping that the Fun Fun Fun Fest Twitter account’s ongoing obsession with “Airwolf” will carry over into the festival itself. Ernest Borgnine, now 93 years old, is still alive and kicking and making occasional appearances — hint hint, Transmission Entertainment.
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July 16, 2010
First Fun Fun Fun Fest line-up leak!
Bill Murray would like you to know that Suicidal Tendencies, Best Coast and (drum roll) the Ruler, Slick Rick are playing Fun Fun Fun either Nov. 6 or 7.
Now, were they all playing “The Adventures of Slick Rick” on one stage, that would be something else. As it is, we got separate sets going for us. Which is nice.
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May 16, 2010
Fun Fun Fun Fest sets dates, and not much else
We know you’re probably not done mourning the passing of heavy metal demigod Ronnie James Dio, but don’t let that grief keep you from staying hip to the latest news on Transmission Entertainment’s annual Fun Fun Fun Fest extravaganza.
The newest news? According to Facebook, that this year’s fest will run Nov. 6-7, with a Twitter post that suggests another kickoff night on Nov. 5 at The Mohawk is in the offing. No lineup yet - aside from a Twitter tease that it’s nasty “like Airwolf & the Dark Crystal & sweet drugs,” - but tickets will go on sale next month.
With alumnae such as Danzig, Bad Brains, The National, GZA, Kid Sister, Of Montreal and dozens more acts that score 8.5+ on the hip-o-meter, Fun Fun Fun has become a quick Austin institution and kind of a Red River-centric younger cousin to October’s Austin City Limits Festival. However organizers James Moody, Graham Williams and company keep that streak going this year it’ll sadly have to happen sans Dio, which when you think about it would’ve been an awesome, eardrum-piercing fit. The fates, cruel they be.
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November 16, 2009
Fun Fun Fun final tallies....
….are almost final, but not quite.
“I think we are 21 percent above last year,” Fun Fun Fun producer James Moody said Monday. About 8,600 people attended each day, up from 7,900 last year.
While Nov. 7 was gorgeous, Nov. 8 walk-up was nearly destroyed by steady rain. However, Moody said Fun Fun Fun moved more merchandise than ever before: “We sold about four times as much merch as last year.”
Transmission is still waiting on final word from the City of Austin on what their obligation is to restoring Waterloo Park. (Waterloo Park does not have the on-going upkeep of, for example, Zilker Park, but the rain and mud on Nov. 8 was significant, and high traffic areas looked pretty rough.)
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November 9, 2009
File under: Danzig, ashes, extreme fandom gone awry
This communique and photo from Transmission Entertainment honcho Graham Williams, fresh from this weekend’s Fun Fun Fun Fest, gets today’s Needs No Setup or Intro award. Take it away, sir:
Hello my friends…. This was too unreal and kinda hilarious to keep on my computer as wallpaper, so here is the photographic evidence, but last night at the end of Fun Fun Fun Fest in Austin, some girl definitely DID run up to the stage and pour her dead friend’s ashes on the spot where Glen Danzig was standing on stage, as “this was her last dying wish.” No disrespect to any of the awesome bands that played my festival, but I didn’t see anyone do that when Kevin Barnes left the Of Montreal stage. I’m just saying…some people have a special kind of fan. I think I DID see a dreadlock fly by GZA during “Liquid Swords,” but I digress….
Weirder still is that it’s probably an even money bet that this type of thing has happened to Danzig more than once before. Incredible. I don’t know whether I’d high-five the guy if I saw him on the street or make like a Looney Tunes character and bust through a brick wall going the other way.
No matter, the above happened and that’s about 29 kinds of awesome. Though if anyone’s keeping track I’m officially putting Chuck D, Eddie Vedder and John Turturo (during a staged reading of “The Big Lebowski”) as the top three on my Ash Bucket List.
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Fun Fun Fun Fest update: Riverboat Gamblers
Riverboat Gamblers guitarist Ian Mcdougall had to sit out the punk trio’s performance on Sunday after being struck by a car on his bicycle Oct. 17. The band’s Mike Wiebe said they would extend a two-month hiatus to three months, during which Wiebe’s side project Ghost Knife would record an album.
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Fun Fun Fun fest review: (Expletive) Buttons
(Expletive) Buttons are an experimental electronic duo from Bristol, England. Their music alternates between aggressive, hellacious noise and more pastoral passages that suggest the contours of a drug trip. This is not all that surprising, given the famously druggy nature of their city and its scene (See also Massive Attack, Tricky, Flying Saucer Attack and all three seasons of the BBC series “Skins.”)
While both of their albums (“Street Horrrsing,” the new “Tarot Spot”) are excellent, the music works far, far better live than it has any right to. Of course, most of the time Andrew Hung and Benjamin John Power look as if threy are checking their email while standing and vigorously dancing in place, the time-tested visual of electronic acts performing live.
But the music which concentrated on drones rather than abraisive textures, felt anthemic and lovely rather than irritating. (Peace to the often-stellar band Growing, who have a similar format and played earlier in the day, but 12:30 p.m. was a little early for their face-punching digital hiccups.)
These were misty mountain hops played for an appriciative field of flatlanders who were starting to looked bummed out by the weather. And not a lot goes well with steady, increasingly unpleasant rain; this stuff sure did.
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Fun Fun Fun Fest review: Of Montreal
There aren’t a lot of bands that can close their set by thanking their ninjas and Santa Claus, but that’s Of Montreal for you.
The Athens, Ga.-based art rockers are famous for blending a basic respect for the conventions of pop — catchy melodies and memorable choruses — with a smattering of influences ranging from glam rock to vaudeville to afrobeat. But they’re even more famous for the live shows, with bizarre outfits and guest appearances by dancers in black leotards, centaur costumes, elf costumes and a raft of other odd uniforms. Throw in a projection screen with trippy imagery — including multicolored images of Captain America and frequent appearances by flashing cats — and you have a spectacle few contemporary bands can top.
Front man Kevin Barnes took to the stage with a peppy and fun rendition of “Mingusings,” a track off last year’s “Skeletal Lampings” before transitioning into that album’s “Id Engager,” which also brought the first appearance of leotard and gold-mask clad dancers.
Those dancers disappeared for dance anthem “For Our Elegant Case” — after firing a volley of streamers into the crowd — but it wasn’t the last appearance of ludicrous on-stage antics. Dancers in pig costumes, chicken masks, a Santa Claus outfit and a surprisingly elaborate centaur get-up all appeared in later songs.
And while the spectacle of such flights of fancy might be a kick, Of Montreal have the songwriting and chops to make such events a little distracting. Barnes is a skilled guitarist and front man, and each member of the band has the technical savvy to play excellent pop rock tunes, occasionally making you wish they’d dial down the antics and focus more on the music.
When Of Montreal abandons their obligation to silliness, as with a straightforward but energetic take on Bat For Lashes’ “Daniel,” the band truly gets a chance to shine. They wouldn’t be Of Montreal without a touch of the bizarre, but a little bit less insanity might actually go a long way toward affirming the band’s equally accomplished musical compositions and instrumental skills, and not merely their affinity for performers in elf costumes.
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Fun Fun Fun Fest review: Crystal Castles
Frankly, Crystal Castles front woman Alice Glass is a little terrifying.
It isn’t the layers of black eye shadow that give her gaze a naturally sinister gleam that does it. It’s not her goth-influenced black outfits. It isn’t her “Behind the Music”-ready story as a teenage-runaway-turned-indie-princess. It’s not even her madcap stage antics that make her such an intimidating presence.
No, it’s that otherworldly howl — a high-pitched guttural screeching that’s less singing and more vocalizing —that makes Glass so scary. As one-half of dance music duo Crystal Castles — alongside synth player and chief songwriter Ethan Kath — Glass is an electric force to be reckoned with, a consummate performer taken to climbing on gear and performing whilst crowd-surfing.
She was on top form Sunday night, generally performing as close to the edge of the stage as possible, taking advantage of the festival’s nearly non-existent photo pits to bend herself over the audience. A well-timed light show kept to the beat, illuminating the light droplets of rain as the duo tore though songs from their self-titled 2008 debut.
As you’d expect from a band whose name is a reference to girl-power cartoon “She-Ra: Princess of Power,” Crystal Castles take more than a bit of inspiration from the ’80s. Kath’s beats are inspired more by the bleeps and bloops of an 8-bit Nintendo than they are by the conventional electronica or techno of any era. Pair that driving but simple aesthetic with Glass’ furious but frequently indecipherable singing, and you’re left with a band that can get a bit tedious in large bursts.
But when Glass leaps into the crowd and spends an entire song surfing, or climbs onto the drum kit, turning into little more than a writhing silhouette surrounded by ample fog from the stage’s machines, it’s hard not to be impressed. When a show has that much vigor, it’s hard to fault it for being too one-note.
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Fun Fun Fun Fest scene report: Bankrupt and the Borrowers
It’d be easy to walk away from Bankrupt and the Borrowers’ impassioned blast of blues rock on Sunday afternoon with the impression that the band had a host of demons to exorcise. Denis O’Donnel from The Bread, Tyler Hautala of the Bridge Farmers, Pete Brown of Watching the Moon and Blake Van Buren of The Van Buren Boys joined in for what was said to be the band’s last performance in the wake of the Oct. 9 death of multi-instrumentalist band mate Jon “Baggage” Pettis in an East Austin house fire. The assembled group belted out gritty roadhouse blues with the kind of fervor that suggested they were still reeling from a painful loss.
But then, that would have been par for the course for Bankrupt and the Borrowers, even had the band not tragically lost Pettis early last month, another sad casualty in what has turned out to be a sobering year for the Austin music community. The local quartet had built a reputation on rocking out, with furious, animated jams and shouted harmonies. That’s the spirit that dominated Sunday’s show. After starting by piping one of Pettis’ acoustic songs over the PA, Bankrupt and the Borrowers and guests launched into a blistering half-hour set that doubtless would have made their departed band mate proud.
There were signs that it was no ordinary show for the band, though. Tearful hugs abounded, both backstage and in the audience, and as several in the crowd locked arms and sang along, it was clear that the powerful experience marked the passing of a bright light in the Austin music scene.
“It was an extremely emotional experience for the band, friends, family, everybody, but it was something that needed to be done and I’m glad they decided to go ahead and do this show today,” said Gene Griffin, 27, the band’s manager. “He would have wanted us to do this, absolutely. So it was kind of a no-brainer. It wasn’t up to us. We had to do this for Jon.”
The band is still raising money through private donations online to help start a Jon Pettis memorial scholarship in his hometown of Westford, Mass., as well as a crisis fund for other musicians in need. Donations have already helped secure a new home for the fire’s survivors and helped Pettis’ fiancée to get back on her feet. You can visit the band’s home page to donate. A benefit show will take place Dec. 6 at the Hole in the Wall.
Although the performance was announced last week as the band’s last, the future remains ambiguous. The band members have no immediate plans as they put the pieces back together and figure out their next steps.
“It may be a while and it may not be ever, but I can honestly say that I could see these musicians playing together again,” said Griffin. “They have a strong bond. I have a feeling these guys are going to do something again. It might be two weeks from now, it might be a month from now, it might be a year from now but I think they’ll continue to play together one way or another.”
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Fun Fun Fun Fest review: Harlem
Not often will you find a band that can make a better case than Harlem does for making “sloppy” a creative objective.
Who knows if the Austin three piece actively works at futzing up its devil-may-care Kinks/Kingsmen/pick a “Nuggets”-era band brand of rock, but if that’s the case then “Bravo!” on them for carrying it off like they did Sunday at Fun Fun Fun Fest.
From the fearsome start of “Witch Greens” on, Harlemites Michael Coomers and Curtis O’Mara (co-vocalists who switch between guitars and drums at the half-show point) and bassist Jose Boyer carried a loose but measured swing through their distorted almost-punk that suggests there’s a firm foundation underneath it all. Boyer’s recent addition seems to have helped considerably, as evidenced by the fact that they hardly ever have to start a song two or three times anymore before they get it right.
That certainty let the band focus on showcasing its subtler charms, namely Commers’ lax sense of humor that was no doubt helped by an abundance of beer and liquor up on stage and the Valium he claimed to have swallowed earlier in the day. Whatever was at play, it all worked to plan or at least as much as these three can be bothered to put one together.
“What’ll the bloggers say about this?” Coomers sarcastically asked early on, in a nod to Harlem’s indie-as-hell Web-friendly archetype. Well Michael, this one thought it all sounded pretty freakin’ great.
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November 8, 2009
Fun Fun Fun Fest review: The Riverboat Gamblers
No one would’ve held it against the Riverboat Gamblers if the Austin punks’ Sunday set at Fun Fun Fun Fest had come off as uneven or a little reserved. Reeling from the hospitalization of guitarist Ian MacDougall last month in a severe bike/truck accident, the Gamblers had planned on playing with only second guitarist Fadi El-Assad in a move that would have severely restrained the band’s trademark energy and urgency.
Instead of merely putting in appearances, though, the Gamblers enlisted a crew of friends and former members Sunday to turn the rainy, overcast day into a celebration. It was an occasion that featured MacDougall at the side of the stage on crutches (against doctor’s orders) and front man Mike Wiebe calling the show “The Riverboat Gamblers and Friends,” with Justin Hall from Austin’s Krum Bums helping out on guitar and former Gamblers bass player Pat Lillard taking a run through a few older songs.
It’d be crass to say the adversity helped the show, but the feeling of a scrappy band fighting against long odds was palpable from the start of set opener “Dissdissdisskisskisskiss,” its early line “One day, you’re gonna die” taking on added heft given MacDougall’s accident and laundry list of injuries. That vulnerability gave a deeper shade to many of the band’s songs, most notably “Don’t Bury Me (I’m Still Not Dead)” which was delivered with as much energy as ever while Wiebe did the human Superball bouncing-all-over-everywhere thing he’s pretty much famous for at this point.
Older songs like “What’s What” and “Hey! Hey! Hey!” were a little better fit on the day given their ragged nature and the abundance of energy and nerves playing out on stage, but the more measured single “A Choppy Yet Sincere Apology” from the new “Underneath The Owl” album has also found a home in the band’s furious live show and points to more creative growth as the Gamblers mature as a band.
It all culminated poetically and perfectly with a cathartic, set-closing performance of “The Art of Getting (Expletive)ed” as a stage full of friends crowding around microphones welcomed MacDougall as he helped sing the song’s “G-A-M-B-L-E-R” coda like it was an affirmation and statement of purpose for his life as he recovers. Little doubt he’ll make it or that friends and fans won’t be there to greet him witih open arms when he does.
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Fun Fun Fun Fest review: Metallagher
The name pretty much says it all. Metallica covers plus lots of smashed foodstuffs, ala unstoppable prop comic Gallagher.
What the name of Minneapolis troupe Metallagher doesn’t give away is how well those two components go together, as evidenced by the dropped jaws and continual cheers the five piece received Sunday at Fun Fun Fun Fest.
With its instrumentalists donning Nelson-esque metal hair wigs, the band peeled through “Creeping Death,” “Battery,” “Blackened” and closing number “One” while its Gallagher impersonator doubled as a fine James Hetfield when not tossing off purposely lame sexual politics jokes from the ’80s that have aged about as well as salmon left in the sun.
Which was all part of the plan, of course, and helped to amp the ridiculous factor even higher than whatever obliterating a watermelon, bananas, a tub of cottage cheese and jug of fruit juice with a sledgehammer will get you.
It wasn’t high concept, but as an early afternoon breather between acts on the Yellow Stage, it was almost perfect. Someone deserves a medal for this.
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King Khan set canceled at Fun Fun Fun Fest
The man himself says wet equipment from the afternoon’s rain is to blame. He’ll play a free show at 11 tonight at Red 7.
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Live Twitter updates from Fun Fun Fun Fest
We’re covering Fun Fun Fun Fest via Twitter this year. Look for your tweets to appear below. Just make sure “FFF” is somewhere in your message.
Fun Fun Fun updates from music writer Patrick Caldwell:
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Fun Fun Fun Fest review: The Pharcyde
Right now’s a pretty great time to be a late-to-the-party hip hop fan, with the last several years seeing reunions by Golden Era greats like Public Enemy, A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, The Wu-Tang Clan (or at least enough members to consider it a quorum) and west coast heavies The Pharcyde, who closed out the first night of Fun Fun Fun Fest with as energetic and compelling a show as you’re likely to hear from backpackers half their age.
Seriously, as great as the idea of hearing “It Takes A Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back” or “Three Feet High and Rising” played live in their entirety sounds, Pharcyde’s trio of MCs - Imani, Bootie Brown and Slimkid3 - and DJ Ice Water made a case Saturday for being the best bet of the bunch to move forward artistically and make music in the 21st century that can come within swinging distance of classic cuts like “Passin’ Me By,” “Runnin’” and “Soul Flower,” all of which exploded like mortar shells live.
With a late 30s Imani acting as the main conductor and mouthpiece for the night, all three traded verses in perfect sync and carried an easy, humorous rapport with the crowd between songs while musing on topics like fondness for marijuana (prior to “Pack The Pipe,” naturally) and how fans have to connect with the group on Facebook since Imani’s off MySpace now; “Certain things I don’t want my son knowing about, so I’m off the MySpace since everyone can see you on there.”
If the set would’ve just been a (minor) hit parade no one would’ve gone home unhappy, but prior to show closer “Oh (expletive that rhymes with “hit”)” all three MCs walking the crowd through the call-and-response section of the song, with unsatisfactory results at first.
“Look, this up here is like double dutch, you can’t just wait on the side and think about jumping in,” Imani urged the crowd. “You’ve got to just do it. That’s the only way this will work.”
And it did, beautifully, with one of the group’s most kinetic songs transforming the crowd into one hopping mass while Slimkid3 leaned into the frenzy from the stage barrier and the entire group leaving no doubt as to their present-day relevance, regardless of it we ever get anything new from them.
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Fun Fun Fun Fest review: The Jesus Lizard
Two things many thought would never occur happened Saturday: The House passed a comprehensive health care reform bill and the Jesus Lizard played in front of thousands at Waterloo Park in the year of our Lord 2009.
The first is wildly controversial; many are celebrating, many are complaining, many are doing both.
The second was perfect.
As the opening notes of “Puss” thundered off Fun Fun Fun Fest’s black stage and he yelled “Alright, Dallas!,” Lizard singer David Yow, 49 (!!!), hurled himself into the crowd, landing on a small sea of humanity. Suddenly, it might as well have been 1996. This was the homecoming Austin natives Yow and bassist David Sims deserved — Capitol building blazing in behind the crowd, Yow’s sister somewhere in the audience. Near the end of the set, Yow and his extra-long mic cord drifted into the crowd, stopped, then was passed back. “That was one of the coolest moments of my life,” Yow said. “My sister’s back there, and I got to kiss my sister while we were playing that song.” Awww. (Most of the time, he hurled himself around stage, snarling, wheezing and cracking wise — “Which one of you likes to party?)
This was a team effort, but special mention should be made of drummer Mac McNeilly. Five or six of Austin’s best drummers were backstage, staring at Mac’s Bonham-ish punk precision. Sweat poured off the man like he was sprinting for an hour, which he sort of was. It was a tour de force.
Over and over, the Lizard absolutely owned the festival. Sure, there was nostalgia. Everyone knew the words to messy ’90s punk chestnuts such as “Gladiator” and “Seasick” and “Nub” and “The Comes Dudley” (which opens with a long 16 count of Yow, um, polishing invisible grapefruit at chest height — you get the idea).
But when men twice some acts’ ages are rocking far harder and funnier and more precisely and more chaotically than anyone else, it’s not just nostalgia — this is the best live rock band in the world.
Your move, everyone else.
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Fun Fun Fun Fest review: Les Savy Fav
To discuss New York art rock and hardcore five-piece Les Savy Fav’s Saturday night performance, it’s necessary to start at the end. As they wrapped up their blistering half-hour set, reliably ridiculous front man Tim Harrington attempted what can only be called ladder surfing, putting a ladder into the crowd, climbing on board, and then letting thousands of hands be his guide. For those concerned that might not be ostentatious enough, he was sure to straddle a male audience member who had climbed onto the ladder as well.
So it goes for Les Savy Fav and Harrington, who have an outsized reputation for spectacle that they lived up to at Fun Fun Fun Fest. Of course, it’s easy to dismiss the band as something of a joke when they stake their live show on ostentatious antics. No doubt Harrington is having fun when he arrives on stage in a Sleestak mask and a wedding dress — items eventually shed, leaving the vocalist shirtless and in a rather clingy pair of shorts.
But shtick only carries you so far, and fortunately Les Savy Fav had more to offer. Sticking to a set of solely old material, the band was as solid and together as Harrington was showy, driving “Our Coastal Hymn,” off singles compilation “Faces,” with thundering playing and a joyous energy. A highlight off 2007’s “Let’s Stay Friends,” “What the Wolves Do,” showed the band at its best: fusing hardcore and math rock into something that sounded simultaneously angry and enthused.
But the show ultimately comes back to Harrington, a consummate performer who knows how to work an audience. As he climbed from one side of the orange stage to the other, delivering half of “Patty Lee” in the middle of Ratatat’s setup, it was clear that Harrington’s antics had paid off in the form of crowd anticipation. Illuminated by the quasi-strobe light that was hundreds of camera flashes going off at once, Harrington cut an impressive figure on stage — a hard-signing, hard-living rocker not afraid to do what it takes to win an audience’s attention.
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Fun Fun Fun Fest review: Shonen Knife
Shonen Knife are so tremendously Japanese they almost defy parody: a giddy all-female pop-punk trio who sport matching outfits, flash peace signs at every available opportunity and have songs with titles like “Muddy Bubbles Hell,” “Monkey Brand Oolong Tea” and “Broccoli Man.” Their stage banter is, of course, always adorable, delivered with beaming smiles and charm to spare.
“You are the best! We are the best! Austin rock city!,” exclaimed guitarist and lead vocalist Naoko Yamano near the conclusion of their set, a bold proclamation that would have sounded self-serving coming from most bands.
All of which makes it easy to dismiss them as a guilty — or, worse, ironic — pleasure. But all image issues aside, Shonen Knife can also shred, hard, and they proved it Saturday afternoon, with a bouncy and tight performance that demonstrated that the band is more about talent than kitsch.
They opened with “Bang Bang Superhero,” an energetic rocker that nicely set the tone for 45 minutes of unpretentious fun — appropriately so, both for this festival and for the band that released a 2007 album by the name “Fun! Fun! Fun!” Yamano and bassist Etsuko Nakanishi made up for their small statures with near-constant jumping. “Riding on the Rocket” sounded just like a song with that title should: propulsive and loud, with hard-hitting drum work courtesy of Ritsuko Taneda. And while an attempt at an audience sing-a-long on “Big! Big! Cat!” didn’t pan out, the infectious rocker still charmed a dancing audience. “Barbecue Party,” a song about the joys of barbecue, went over about as well as you’d expect from a BBQ-loving Texas audience. On each new lick, Yamano paired all the technical skill of a woman nearing 50 with all the enthusiasm of a girl just discovering rock, making her one of the day’s most entertaining guitar heroes.
Which is a handy summation of the appeal of Shonen Knife: with their tight and precise playing, they have all the bona fides you’d expect from a band that’s been rocking nearly 30 years and won over everyone from Sonic Youth to Nirvana. But the women look decades younger than they are, and their music similarly defies aging — childishly enthusiastic, it sounds like the product of either the late ‘70s Ramones-inspired pop punk scene or a bunch of teenagers who never discovered cynicism. Even when Shonen Knife attempt a heavy metal song, as on the Judas Priest-inspired “Muddy Bubbles Hell,” the result is still fun, silly and delightfully hard-rocking. That marriage of genuine talent, crowd-pleasing ability and total delight in rock music is rare in a band and serves as ample evidence that Shonen Knife are one of the best things going in pop-punk.
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Fun Fun Fun fest review: (Expletive) Up
The close, personal vibe of a basement hardcore show is tough to capture in a festival setting, but Damien Abraham, a mountain of a man and lead singer for (Expletive) Up of Toronto, Canada, sure tried.
His ground-glass bellow is in a specific punk rock tradition (see also Poison Idea, Negative Approach and more) and a key part of the band’s appeal, but he often handed the mic off to fans in classic hardcore style.
The band’s three guitars set up a mighty wall of sound for Abraham — hairy and shirtless and often in the crowd — to push against.
It’s an odd mix. This is a band of six folks who love certain cues of classic hardcore — the mic hand offs, the pace, the endless stream of singles and variant singles and collectible singles and EPs and the occasional album. They also have a name you can’t say on TV or the radio or print in family newspapers.
Yet, this is punk with a self-consciously progressive rock tinge (i.e, a penchant for long song blasts at punk rock pace). They like a whole mess of different kinds of music, all played at “puree” speed.
Then again, hearing Abraham scream and belt into anthems such as “Son the Father” (“It’s hard enough being born in the first place/ WHO WOULD EVER WANT TO BE BORN AGAIN?!?!”) harkens back to classic sing-along punk. He shouted out record collectors, talked about making a baby (“it’s like a receipt for sex”) and mentioned he hadn’t taken his anti-anxiety meds in six days (good luck in the van, guys!).
Did it feel like a dank, sweaty club? Nope. Was it a blast anyway? Oh yes.
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Fun Fun Fun Fest review: Destroyer
Canadian singer-songwriter Dan Bejar is a mystery wrapped inside a riddle encased firmly within an enigma, and all the more so when seen live. Better known under the moniker Destroyer, Bejar has written and performed with power-pop supergroup the New Pornographers and released nine full-length albums of his own. Frequently hard to parse, he blends elements of Bowie and lo-fi-era Pavement with a dash of acoustic troubadour, and he’s given to writing poetic lyrics that pack in everything from attacks on the music industry to historical references — as on this year’s “Bay of Pigs” EP.
With a dense lyric style and a tendency toward genre-hopping — and a head of hair that makes him look as though he’s perpetually just woken up — he might be indie rock’s maddest scientist. And as he took the yellow stage Saturday night, he seemed it. Bejar, a famously inconsistent live performer, rarely opened his eyes as he sped through an hourlong solo set drawn from across his prolific career. The famously quiet Bejar’s modest banter frequently disappeared down back alleys and got lost, and he occasionally disengaged from the crowd, but his keen songwriting and impassioned wail delivered a set that, while hardly transcendent, offered glimpses into why he has such a devoted following. Of course, the cards were stacked against him.
Bejar opened with “Streethawk II,” the wistful, plaintive closer to his 2001 album “Streethawk” and immediately had to contend with some serious sound bleed issues. Though Fun Fun Fun is usually free of sound conflicts, Bejar was directly across Waller Creek from the Jesus Lizard, whose noise rock almost drowned him out (“(Expletive) ruckus,” he quipped afterwards, handling the problem with impressive good humor). Whether it was that or the relatively isolated yellow stage, Bejar played to one of the evening’s smallest crowds, a smattering of die-hard fans and those seeking refuge from the festival’s generally more abrasive sound.
Not that Bejar’s crowd was all circumstance’s fault — he’s a musician who’s difficult to access at best, and without a band to back him his songs often fell flat. Without the accompaniment of a team of musicians, “Foam Hands,” one of the stronger cuts off last year’s “Trouble in Dreams,” felt limp. Swan Lake cover “The Freedom” and “What Road,” two other songs early in the set, exemplified the problem: while Bejar’s voice is loud, powerful and emotive, his guitar-playing is sub par, simple repetitive strumming that lent a sameness to the set’s first half. Destroyer needs to be a band and not a single man with a guitar.
But as Bejar loosened up and spoke more to the audience, the set took on energy. Granting a fan’s request to play “I Want This Cyclops,” Bejar grew animated, whirling about on stage. “The Chosen Few” featured possibly the set’s only proper guitar solo, a driving interlude that lent the tune some needed pep. And a dip into his New Pornographers material with “Streets of Fire” (“I wrote this song 15 years ago. Things were less intense in 1994”) was a welcome break. As befitting a deeply artistic eccentric, Bejar was inconsistent — always strong of voice, but often disengaged and aloof. But when he stepped away from his inaccessibility and began to open up, despite the thunderous rock always threatening to overpower his performance, he proved he could connect with an audience.
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Fun Fun Fun fest review: The Night Marchers
John Reis has been around the block. He played with the San Diego ’80s punk act Pitchfork at 17, he made epic, thunderous post-hardcore rock with Drive Like Jehu, blended that with R&B showband moves in Rocket From the Crypt and got back together with Pitchfork/Jehu partner Rick Froberg in Hot Snakes. Night Marchers is essentially 3/4 of Hot Snakes with a gent named Tommy Kitsos playing bass. (Froberg rocks out with Obits these days - a band, not the stuff about dead people in the newspaper).
Both Obits and Night Marchers wanted to make different kinds of rock than they had previously produced. Both sought to strip away much of the thick distortion that characterized pretty much all of their previous bands in favor of something smaller sounding — cleaner, almost. They both nailed it. Obits is perhaps a little crisper. Night Marchers, on the other hand, will break into “Surfin’ Bird” when the feeling strikes. Which it did.
Drawing on their 2008 debut “See You in Magic,” the Marchers songs locked up over classic rock (rather than Classic Rock) riffs, Reis’s Telecaster taking the trebly rhythm parts, guitarist Gar Wood soloing and moving in and out of the chug with his Les Paul — in this band, guitar tone matters, signifying a break with their alt-rock past. Reis’ banter was too goofy by half; what was funny in the Rocket felt off here. This was an adult rock….that still liked “Surfin’ Bird.”
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Fun Fun Fun Fest review: The Cool Kids
How long can you get by on promise? That’s something you’ve got to start asking about The Cool Kids nearly three years into a career that’s yielded one good E.P. (2008’s “The Bake Sale”), a couple so-so mix tapes and reams of press clippings calling them hip-hop’s “next big thing.”
Which isn’t to say their live show has lost any of the energy or gusto that first earned the Midwesterners accolades, or that “Black Mags” or “A Little Bit Cooler” bang any softer than they did upon their debut back when Republicans still controlled Congress. It’s just that at this point the continued absence of new material from their repeatedly delayed full length “When Fish Ride Bicycles” is starting to affect what they can do on stage in terms of sequencing and pacing.
That was evident Saturday at the duo’s Fun Fun Fun Fest show, even though MCs Mikey Rocks and Chuck Inglish belted out the well-worn chant-alongs like they were still in a Chicago basement club in 2005. While the enthusiasm and crowd adoration was there, the material started to blend together after more than a few songs; a symptom of the electro synth-heavy production that’s characterized most of their work.
The glaring exception to that malady being “Black Mags,” with its syrupy vocal hook and skittering beats making it the most distinct and successful song the group’s ever produced. Since it came at the tail end of The Cool Kids’ set, though, it had a greatly diminished audience since the throngs of punks and indie fans who had bobbed their heads for a song or three early on eventually straggled away for closing sets by The Jesus Lizard, Destroyer or Ratatat on nearby stages.
-Chad Swiatecki
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November 7, 2009
Fun Fun Fun Fest review: Death
Jordon Smothermon AMERICAN-STATESMAN
So, Death. If you want, you can spend a good while pondering whether Detroit’s latest lost musical reclamation project (politico-folkie Sixto Rodriguez filling the bill in 2008) would even be able to fill the inside of Emo’s on a weekend if it weren’t for the trio’s delectable back story.
That being the doings of the Motor City based brothers Hackney (Bobby on bass and vocals, Dannis on drums and David on guitar) who in the early ’70s crafted a raw form of music that would’ve become punk if they’d kept at it instead of breaking up following what was supposed to be a short hiatus and move to Vermont(!) in 1976.
We know all this because indie label Drag City dug up Death’s seven songs and reissued them as “…For The Whole World To See,” a record that’s been embraced as a bygone-era curio and paved the way for Saturday’s set at Fun Fun Fun Fest, for a crowd of several thousand that probably dwarfed anything the African American band saw while toughing it out in Detroit clubs in the years following the 1968 race riots.
So the music, then. As billed, tunes like “Rock-N-Roll Victim” and “Keep On Rocking” do have a distinct proto-punk quality to them with a chugga-chugga bass and scuzzy guitar riffs kinda like what Ohio neighbors Rocket From The Tombs would ride to just a bit more success a few years later. Crack the band - with Bobbie Duncan playing guitar in place of David Hackney, who died in 2000 - and its mythos out of its amber preservative and it’s certainly accomplished but nowhere near revelatory.
But the point of a gig like Death’s on Saturday isn’t really about discovering something new, but instead paying respect to nearly lost pioneers and giving them a chance to enjoy a much delayed moment in the sun. And with a black-and-white almost life-sized photo of David Hackney looking on from stage right the other Hackney brothers did their past proud, earning every bit of the cheers that for a long time seemed improbable if not impossible. -Chad Swiatecki
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Fun Fun Fun review: Yeasayer
Jordon Smothermon AMERICAN-STATESMAN
With the much anticipated Death taking the stage 20 minutes late, Brooklyn-based Yeasayer’s set was pushed back and delayed even further as the band went through a painful set of probably necessary sound adjustments on a stage that didn’t really sound good all day. They eventually started, playing a set heavy in material off their forthcoming followup to 2007’s critically acclaimed “All Hour Cymbals.” The new songs, which included “Tightrope,” the band’s contribution to the “Dark Was the Night” compilation, took a considerably more proggy road than the older songs, which integrated a more organic, world-beat element with darker electronic sounds.
While there was something about the synth work in “All Hour Cymbals” that recalled Genesis and other similar bands of the ’80s, the over-the-top keyboard flourishes in new songs seemed much more focused on that element of the band’s sound. Lead singer Chris Keating, in a black suit jacket, has also become considerably more polished since the band first showed up in Austin a couple years back, and his unique ability to fly his voice in any number of directions remains.
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Fun Fun Fun Fest review: Vega
Alan Palomo leads two bands, Vega and Neon Indian, both of which appeared on the same stage Saturday, about three hours apart. Vega, the more accessible of the two groups, went first, with Palomo wasting no time getting out in front with a microphone. With only an EP’s worth of material to work with, the band isn’t terribly developed. Palomo’s songs aren’t as catchy as some of his synth-happy contemporaries, but he nevertheless kept the crowd engaged with driving dance pop. Perhaps the best surprise of the set was the band’s guitarist (he also played bass on a couple songs). Ripping across Palomo’s disco soundscapes, the guitar work added depth to the songs and helped separate the group from the million other similarly electronically minded wannabes.
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Fun Fun Fun Fest review: Foot Patrol
Austin-based Foot Patrol gets the award for the most vulgar set of the day. The funk band, decked out in sheriff and prison uniforms, ran through a set of songs detailing various acts of podophilia. Dancers and acrobats performed as some in the crowd waved foot-shaped fly swatters. The point of departure for the band’s sound is the synth-heavy funk of Prince and Parliament, and they do it well, with the “shoe horns” complementing bassist Hung Nguyen, TJ Wade’s catchy keys and raw vocals. A lot of what has been written and said about the band touches on the idea that the musicianship is so good that it transcends the content. It’s true to an extent, but no matter how tight the groove, it’s still very difficult not to get distracted when Wade talks about how he’s not going to brush his teeth until his breath stops smelling like feet.
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November 4, 2009
FFF to be final show for Bankrupt and the Borrowers
Grunge blues outfit Bankrupt and the Borrowers have announced that their 1 p.m. Sunday show at Fun Fun Fun Fest will be the band’s last, according to a release from the their publicist. The show will serve as a tribute to their band mate, multi-instrumentalist Jon Pettis, who died Oct. 9 in a fire sparked by a malfunctioning power strip in his East Austin home.
Donations have helped move the fire’s survivors into a new home, replaced all lost musical instruments and assisted Pettis’ fiancée in getting back on her feet. The band is also working on establishing a Jon Pettis Fund to assist other local musicians in times of crisis, as well as a scholarship in Pettis’ name at his high school, Westford Academy in Westford, Mass. Plans are still under way for a benefit show Dec. 6 at the Hole in the Wall, where the band was planning to play a November residency before Pettis’ death.
Denis O’Donnel from The Bread, Tyler Hautala of the Bridge Farmers and Blake Van Buren of The Van Buren Boys will contribute to the performance.
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November 3, 2009
Fun Fun Fun Fest preview: Alan Palomo
Both of Alan Palomo’s bands, Vega and Neon Indian, will perform Saturday during Fun Fun Fun Fest, with about three hours between sets. It’s a tall order for Palomo, 21, who doesn’t have much experience performing with either band, but he’s not overly concerned.
“It’s going to be like one extended set with a break in between,” he says. “I’m more curious than worried. We’re trying to brainstorm a little to make the sets seem as different as possible.”
Though casual listeners might not notice much difference between the groups, both of which rely fairly heavily on electronic effects, there are differences. Vega, which Palomo says is mostly named for the star (and not for Alan Vega of the band Suicide, although he is a fan), is the more danceable of the two, pulling from disco in service of a sound that might appeal to fans of Cut Copy and Passion Pit (he has remixed the Boston band).
Neon Indian, on the other hand, is a more psychedelic affair, which Palomo describes as an “audio documentary,” where fleeting samples of random sounds (car radios, background noise) underscore lyrics that describe moments from his teenage years.
Of the two, Neon Indian is getting more attention at the moment, with a well-reviewed debut full-length, “Psychic Chasms,” out now on Lefse. Palomo also caught a big break during the Austin City Limits Music Festival, when he filled in for Raveonettes after the band was unable to get out of Denmark, although it didn’t quite work out as well as he would have liked. “From what I read, everyone still thought we were the Raveonettes, which kind of sucks, but it was still pretty surreal and amazing to be up there and see such a large audience of people,” he says.
It’s all happened very quickly for the Mexican-born musician (his family moved to Texas when he was 6), who moved to Austin last year after deciding to take time off from film school at the University of North Texas in Denton, where he fronted a third band, Ghosthustler. Though his father, Jorge Palomo, is a musician who enjoyed a stint as a pop star in Mexico during the ’70s, Alan says that he didn’t become interested in making music until high school.
That is not to say that Palomo isn’t influenced by his father; he even sampled him on “Psychic Chasms.” Despite the fact their styles of music don’t have too much in common, the father and son have been able to find some common ground when it comes to the music business. “The more stories I tell him about being on the road the more parallels we seem to find between the experiences he’s had in music and the experiences I’m having in music,” Palomo says.
Vega plays at 3:35 p.m. on the Blue stage. Neon Indian follows three hours later at 6:35 p.m. on the Blue stage.
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Fun Fun Fun Fest preview: Jesus Lizard
It’s this simple: In the 1990s, the Jesus Lizard was one of the best live rock bands on the planet.
They might, in fact, have been the best. They started in 1989 and disbanded in 1999. Until 1997, when original drummer Mac McNeilly quit, they owned the decade. And were simply pretty dang good thereafter.
They reunited this year with their original lineup to play a series of shows, and the band’s Touch and Go studio albums were re-released with improved sound and bonus tracks in October.
Just go to YouTube and check out the evidence of former (and current) glories. There’s singer David Yow, a wee yet terrifying man, launching himself into the crowd or reeling around the stage, drunk and shirtless and screaming.
There’s David Sims, the “Four-String Napoleon” who’s Yow’s old pal from Austin psychedelic punk legend Scratch Acid, grinding away on bass, looking vaguely hacked off.
There’s guitarist Duane Denison, the lanky silver fox, his riffs half-rockabilly shimmer, half-noise rock crunch.
And then there’s McNeilly, the hammer of the gods, one of the hardest-swinging, thunder-slinging-est drummers American punk ever produced.
They were a perfect rock band. And if reports from their reunion shows are to be believed, they are again a perfect band.
Nobody thought this reunion — which continues at Fun Fun Fun Fest this weekend — would ever happen. “A number of people approached us over the years,” Sims says from his New York home. “Mike Patton asked us to do the (All Tomorrow Party) he was curating (in 2008), but by the time he asked us, it wasn’t logistically possible. They said how about next year and we decided to nail it down.”
Sims says the band convened at Denison’s house in Nashville in January to rehearse: “He had the biggest house and an incredibly patient wife and daughter.” While the split in ‘99 wasn’t hostile, it had been a long time since these four guys had been in a room together.
“That first show (at All Tomorrow’s Parties in May) was a very emotional experience,” Sims says, “especially for so many people who had worked with the band over the years. There were a few guys who I won’t name who were backstage crying.” The band jumped to major label Capitol Records in 1996 for the album “Shot,” which caused a certain amount of consternation among the indie faithful. Sims thinks these wounds have healed.
“I’m a little surprised at how much fans are into the ‘Shot’ songs that we play,” Sims says. “There was a lot of backlash about them at the time, but they seem to have been rehabilitated, like an old Soviet premier that used to be airbrushed out of a photo.”
He has little good to say about the indie versus major wars of the 1990s. “It all seemed a little bit arbitrary and contrived to me,” Sims says. “We were very lucky to be on a spectacularly great label (like Touch and Go) but there was no shortage of scumbags running indies back then. When people drew this bright shining line with all of the majors on the dark side, my B.S. detectors went off. It was always a lot more complicated.”
As for future Lizard plans, Sims remains good and vague. “We haven’t really looked beyond this series of shows, but we’re also never say never,” he says. “I’ve been really happy with how the shows have gone, there’s been no down side to it.
“I really, really love playing with those guys and hanging out with them. They are three of my all time favorite people.”
Doesn’t get better than that. Neither does the rock.
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November 2, 2009
Fun Fun Fun Fest Preview: the Laughing
Cory Ryan
When the Laughing played its first shows in 2006, the local quartet were noticed as much for their distinctive on-stage aesthetic as for their synth-filled dance rock. They boasted a mascot — a stuffed tiger named Svan — and a glam sensibility with matching face paint and white denim vests. Some found the look amusing and entertaining. Some didn’t. The Austin Chronicle slammed the group’s debut EP, 2007’s buzzed, energetic “Tiger Cry,” as an exercise in gimmickry.
“It was sort of a unique experience to get publicly ridiculed for what was, at the time, a hobby,” says Logan Middleton, singer, guitarist and occasional glockenspiel player. “But every time you put something out there you have to accept the fact that some people are going to hate it. If I really had a problem with that I wouldn’t go out and do anything in public.”
Two and a half years later, the group has shed its visual shtick and released its first full-length album, the groove-filled and mildly psychedelic “Fever.” It’s the result of a full year of recording and studio experimentation, with production assists from Erik Wofford — the acclaimed producer and mixer who’s worked with everyone from Voxtrot to Explosions in the Sky — and Danny Reisch, of the Lemurs.
Of course, shedding the costumes — which the band first adopted as an homage to 1979 cult favorite “The Warriors” — was partially a decision based on “impracticality and laziness,” says Middleton. Getting into and out of wardrobe over the course a half-dozen South By Southwest day parties while chasing a hangover would make any band question its stylistic choices. But it’s also a reflection of the band’s increased level of musical seriousness since spring 2007.
“It’s always been really about the music for us, and as it’s progressed we’ve moved more towards that and stripped down things that were sort of gimmicky,” Middleton says. “I honestly think the novelty wore off for us.”
Although the Laughing remain committed to their original goal of being a fun live band, they’ve diversified their sound, and it shows on “Fever.” The album has all the spazzy hooks the band is known for, but influences ranging from Harry Nilsson to Phil Collins have found their way in as well. Waves of sound and a slightly hallucinatory feel recall the 13th Floor Elevators, while ample instrumentation — flute, clarinet, glockenspiel, saxophone — helps keep things varied.
Holding together the disparate elements on display is the drumming of Grant Van Amburgh, whose rhythmic flourishes are placed front and center.
“I kind of get to do what I want. I think of the drums almost as another guitar part,” says Van Amburgh. “I’m not just playing a beat or holding it down like in some bands.”
The end result is an album that plays to the group’s strengths — an energetic rocker that audiences can dance to that still maintains just a bit of an edge, a slight tinge of weirdness that recalls, in spirit if not visuals, the fun oddness that once characterized their live performance. And if there are any bad reviews in the pipeline, Middleton is mentally prepared.
“Oh, now we’re ready. We’re releasing a record that we have a lot invested in and I’m ready for people to say it’s terrible,” says Middleton. “I don’t think it is, but if it comes down to it I feel better prepared.”
The Laughing will play at 12:35 p.m. Saturday on the Orange Stage.
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October 30, 2009
Fun Fun Fun Fest Preview: Car Stereo (Wars)
Chris Rose, better known under the moniker Car Stereo (Wars), began his life as a DJ inauspiciously enough, with a regular Sunday night slot at Red River dance club Plush. But his musical direction changed when a close friend recommended he combine Ghostface Killah and Ghostland Observatory for a laugh. Rose took a shot at it, and it became his first experiment with mashup — the DJ’s art of slicing and dicing different elements from several songs and reconfiguring them into something new. Rose was fascinated by the contexts created by assembling disparate elements of disparate songs, and quickly became one of Austin’s most popular DJs.
A UT alumnus who studied screenwriting in college, Rose packed up his bags in June to move to Brooklyn and pursue television and comedy writing. But he hasn’t given up his musical ambitions, and is returning to town for Fun Fun Fun Fest. The American-Statesman caught up with Rose, 25, to discuss his move to Brooklyn, the appeal of mashup and his plans for the festival.
American-Statesman: The last show you played in Austin was a farewell show at the Beauty Bar back in June, right before you jetted off to Brooklyn. How has living in New York treated you so far?
Chris Rose: Well, it’s been good and bad. From a music standpoint it’s been pretty fun. I’ve been able to play some really cool shows up here. I was able to be a part of the Jelly Pool Parties free concert series in Brooklyn. Those used to be in McCarren Park Pool but now they’re in the East River State Park. It overlooks the East River and that was really fun. It’s such an Austin type of event. It was free and a beautiful day and had a wonderful view of the city. That was really cool and unusual. It’s been fun to play in New York and it surrounding areas. And it’s been fun to see actual seasons for once in my life. But I haven’t found work yet, so in that sense, not as good.
How has living in Brooklyn been different from living in Austin?
I’ve started getting interested in biking, which is something I never did in Austin. I love being able to walk and bike around the city instead of having to drive. But it’s definitely a lot more expensive up here, and there’s no good Mexican food. But surprisingly there is amazing barbecue in Brooklyn, which would rival any place in Austin. There’s a place in my neighborhood with this gourmet hot dog that they throw a lot of barbecue on and it’s amazing. And I don’t even like hot dogs.
How is the music scene different there? From a distance there certainly seems to be a lot going on, but what’s it like in the thick of it?
Music-wise I miss being able to go to shows in a way that you can’t do up here. I’ve seen almost no shows, because in Austin, at all the regular places like Emo’s and stuff, you can go for seven or eight bucks and drinks are $3. Even the smaller shows here are like $25. And if something’s free and cheap it’s overrun with people. That kind of lifestyle of being able to go to places like Red River and just see music is totally absent here.
Have any of the shows you’ve played in New York, aside from the Jelly Pool Party, really stuck out?
I got to open up for John Oliver from “The Daily Show.” Which was kind of cool and didn’t make any sense but it was fun. (Daily Show correspondent) Wyatt Cenac was hosting a night of comedy and music, and I’ve known him for a little while from working with him for South By Southwest. So it was his idea.
You also played Lollapalooza this year. How was that experience?
It was amazing. The whole time I was just thrilled to be there and spent every second I could at the festival seeing as much music as I could. It was really fun. I had a really early spot so it wasn’t crazy or anything but the people who were there had a really good time. I had stage dancers and was able to get a bunch of people from the crowd up on stage. That makes it more fun and less awkward for me, standing up on a giant stage on my own.
Do you have any particular tricks up your sleeve for your homecoming show at the Fun Fun Fun Festival?
I do. I’m working right now on trying to figure out how to be a mobile DJ, where I’m not attached to a mixer and table but will actually be walking around and in the crowd. I mean, I do everything on my laptop, so I don’t need turntables and I don’t have to be on stage. I’m experimenting on a few ways to do that and hopefully I’ll have that ready for the fest. As far as I know, I don’t think anyone does it. And I’m working on a lot of new music.
You switched from being a traditional DJ to a mashup artist fairly early on. Why does mashup appeal to you so much more?
What I like about it is that it’s way more personal. I’m not just playing the same songs everyone else is playing. And I’ve never been interested in scratching, which I’ve always thought was kind of annoying. Mashup is a way to make something unique out of something that already exists, and that’s good for me, because I’m a terrible musician. I’d be awful playing guitar or drums in a band. This is a way to make another something cool from people that actually have talent.
With the advent of popular mashup artists like Girl Talk, do you find the public profile of the genre has changed since you’ve started?
I definitely think people are way more aware of it. And beyond that, I remember when, early on when I started doing it, I would get hassled a lot by drunk people at bars for DJing from my laptop. But now that doesn’t ever happen. It probably hasn’t happened in two years. You see almost every DJ with a laptop these days. When I started, which wasn’t even very long ago — like five years ago — that was rarely the case. I guess people realized they didn’t want to lug around 40 records.
Car Stereo (Wars) will play at 4 p.m. Sunday on the blue stage.
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October 21, 2009
Early bird gets the Fun (Fun Fun)
Next Friday the Bird’s Barbershop Lamar location (only) is giving away a pair of two-day passes to Fun Fun Fun Fest to the third person to drop the word “fun” during check in. No call-ins allowed for this one; you have to be there in person and actually get a haircut to be in the running. As these passes are worth $150, I’d plan on washing the gunk out of your hair and getting down there early. If you aren’t the early bird this week, the Lamar store is also running the same contest next Friday.
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October 20, 2009
Smooch your granny and scavenge your way into Fun Fun Fun Fest
On the fence about shelling out for FFF tickets? Looking for a wacky way to spend your Saturday evening? Want to help feed hungry folks in Austin?
You say, yes, yes and yes?
Then grab a couple friends and drop by Red 7 Saturday to take part in the Fun Fun Fun Fest Scavenger Hunt. Here’s how it works:
- Show up at Red 7 with your team of two to five people and a digital camera (cell phone camera is fine). Sign up starts at 6 p.m., hunting begins at 7.
- Your team must have a name and is encouraged (with a 25-point incentive) to be costumed accordingly. Think favorite band, movie characters, childhood idols, etc.
- The scavenger hunt will include 50 items each assigned a certain number of points.
- Collect the goods. Examples of items collected at the FYF Fest L.A. Scavenger hunt that helped inspire this event include: Jodeci or Boyz to Men cassette, photo of team member kissing a senior citizen (extra points with tongue), one teammate wearing adult diapers to event.You know, the usual stuff.
- Reconvene at Waterloo Park parking lot with your bounty in hand at 10 p.m. sharp
- Collect your prizes, woo hoo!
This is an all ages event and there is no cost to participate, although hunt organizers recommend a donation of five canned goods per person as a donation to Caritas of Austin (various items found on the hunt will also be donated to Caritas). The winning team will take home a prize package including FFF Fest weekend passes or VIP upgrade if the team already has tickets, gift certificates from FFF Fest sponsors, free tickets to 10 upcoming Transmission Entertainment shows, accolades, glory and more.
Happy hunting!
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October 16, 2009
Tonight! See Vivian Girls, get free Fun Fun Fun Fest passes
If you were on the fence about heading out to tonight’s Vivian Girls show at Red 7, consider this a push over the edge; Fun Fun Fun Fest will give away a pair of weekend passes to the Nov. 7-8 blowout to some lucky show-goers this evening.
Doors open at 9 p.m. but get there early if you want in on the freebies, since sign-up for the drawing cuts off at 10 p.m.
UPDATE: If Vivian Girls aren’t your speed, you need a trim and you’ve got the afternoon free, get thee down to Bird’s Barbershop on S. Lamar, where the 15th customer - which we’d take to mean not a random walk in - to mention FFF Fest will also score a pair of weekend passes.
Whew! For more in what’s sure to be a stream of offerings, keep an eye on the fest’s Twitter page.
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October 15, 2009
Fun Fun Fun Fest - Now with more The Sword goodness
Austin’s outre metallers The Sword have been added to what was already a chock-full-o’-awesome lineup for this year’s Fun Fun Fun Fest, which runs Nov. 7-8.
A post on the fest’s Twitter page from Thursday afternoon hinted at the addition with a posting of video for the band’s “Winter Wolves” and they’re also on the official list of artists on the FFF Fest Web site, with a 4:25 p.m. start time on Nov. 7 on the Black Stage.
That’ll make for a hella-raucous late afternoon at Waterloo Park, no?
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August 25, 2009
Fun Fun Fun Fest 2009 lineup
The lineup for Fun Fun Fun fest is out now and the biggest surprise might be the inclusion of the pride of former Misfits frontman, notorious toy collector, Wolverine look-alike and the pride of Lodi, New Jersey, Mr. Glenn Danzig. (And his band, Danzig, of course.)
The fest takes place Nov. 7 and 8 at Waterloo Park. Tickets go on sale today.
Other fan faves include hardcore gods Gorilla Biscuits and 7 Seconds, underground metal stars Torche, Austin faves Riverboat Gamblers, metalcore titans Coalese, post-punk vets Mission of Burma, hip-hop legends Pharcyde, sketch comics Whitest Kids You Know, Austin’s own Shearwater and many more. Check out the full line-up below.
- Photos: Fun Fun Fun Fest 2009 lineup
- 2008 videos: Day 1 scene report | Brownout interview
Orange Stage
- Ratatat
- of Montreal
- Crystal Castles
- Les Savy Fav
- Yeasayer
- Mission of Burma
- Lucero
- Why?
- Broadcast
- Atlas Sound
- Death (Detroit)
- No Age
- Red Sparowes
- Shonen Knife
- (Expletive) Buttons
- Times New Viking
- This Will Destroy You
- Crystal Antlers
- Growing
- Black and White Years
- Royal Bangs
- The Laughing
The Black Stage
- Jesus Lizard
- Danzig
- Gorilla Biscuits
- Face to Face
- (Expletive) Up
- 7 seconds
- D.R.I.
- Torche
- Melt Banana
- Flipper
- Coalesce
- Riverboat Gamblers
- Street Dogs
- Russian Circles
- Night Marchers
- Metallagher
- - Youth Brigade
- Mika Miko
- All Leather
- Young Widows
- Coliseum
- Underground Railroad to Candyland
- Off With Their Heads
- Reign Supreme
- Rat King
- Pack of Wolves
- Roller
The Blue Stage
- The Cool Kids
- Pharcyde
- GZA/Genius (performing Liquid Swords with special guests)
- Kid Sister
- Baruka Som Sistema
- DJ Numark (Jurassic 5)
- Health
- Neon Indian
- MC Chris
- Ssion
- Alaska in Winter
- Vega
- Foot Patrol
- Astronautalis
- Car Stereo (Wars)
- the DJ Melee
- Sugar & Gold
- LAX
- Peligrosa DJs
- Beta Player
The Yellow Stage
- Destroyer
- Whitest Kids You Know sketch comedy troupe
- Brian Posehn
- King Khan Bbq
- Shearwater
- Todd Barry
- Dead Confederate
- Nick Thune
- Harlem
- Josh Fadem
- Strange Boys
- Hannibal Burress
- James Husband (of Montreal)
- Brendon Walsh
- Cedric Burnside & Lightning Malcolm
- Chelsea Peretti
- Bankrupt and the Borrowers
- Altercation Comedy Hour
- Moonlight Towers
- Low Line Caller
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August 6, 2009
Les Savy Fav prepares to have Fun Fun Fun
Say this for Transmission Entertainment: They have mastered the fine art of the festival performer leak.
Following Sunday’s announcement that much-beloved and long-absent Detroit power trio Death will be appearing at November’s Fun Fun Fun Fest, the festival revealed via Twitter earlier today that the New York post-hardcore quintet Les Savy Fav will also be making an appearance.
The festival’s official Twitter account promised that “These guys are gonna rock your family’s face off in November,” and that sounds about right — Les Savy Fav, and particularly front man Tim Harrington, are famous for their stage antics.
By way of preparation for the Waterloo Park freak out that’s sure to come, take a look at this video, linked to by the festival’s Twitter, of the band performing at one of Brooklyn’s famous (and now relocated) McCarren Park Pool shows in July 2006.
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March 16, 2009
The Jesus Lizard confirms for Fun Fun Fun '09
Transmission Entertainment principal Graham Williams says that the Jesus Lizard have confirmed for an appearance at Fun Fun Fun 2009, the dates for which are Nov. 7 and 8.
The 90s underground rock yes-let’s-call-them-legends (including former Scratch Acid members/Austinites David Yow and David Sims) announced some 2009 reunion dates for later this year in conjunction with Touch and Go Records reissuing the band’s catalog on remastered LP and CD, including the albums “Head” (1990), “Goat” (1991), “Liar” (1992) and “Down” (1994). Expect them in late summer. Touch and Go is also reissuing their seven singles in a box set called “Inch.” It is due out April 18 as an exclusive to stores participating Record Store Day.
For some time, Williams has been courting the band to play FFF. It is apparently a lock. And yes, Austin Music Source got a little verklempt.
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November 10, 2008
Fun Fun Fun Fest review: Tim and Eric Awesome Show
The crowd for Fun Fun Fun Fest comedy headliners Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim of the Tim and Eric Awesome Show was pretty firmly divided into two camps: fans who reveled in every absurd second of the performance, and curious newcomers who gradually came to understand less and less why the tiny stage had drawn such a large crowd.
To kick off the show, the Cartoon Network Adult Swim heroes burst onstage wearing gray spandex and singing “Diarrhea!” to carnival music for a good five minutes before a booming voice came over the speakers, proclaiming, “Tim and Eric are the winners of the Fun Fun Fun Fest’s ‘Best Comedy Sketch’ award for ‘Diarrhea’!”
A mock award ceremony ensued, and as the duo left the stage to prepare for the next skit, the elusive but hilarious punch line dawned on some audience members—the comedians weren’t asking whether their antics were funny, but rather how funny it would be if a diarrhea dance were actually the best comedy bit of the festival. Some attendees left in search of music.
Other sketches were universally well received. The final act, in which Heidecker played a red belt karate “master” giving a spiritual self-help seminar with the silver spandex-clad Wareheim as his sidekick, elicited plenty of laughs throughout, and the audience’s reaction to their friendship-affirming kiss at the end of the bit was palpable.
If you’re not well versed in their comedic style, it can be hard to feel grounded during a Tim and Eric performance, but if you can tap into their rhythm, the payoff is hilarious.
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Fun Fun Fun Fest review: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
Some of those who braved the almost unbearable dust and made it to the end of the day Sunday got to see Philadelphia- and Brooklyn-based Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, an indie-psych-dance outfit anchored by lead singer and guitarist Alec Ounsworth’s engaging songwriting.
On stage, Ounsworth came across as a sort of mad scientist Bob Dylan, leading the band as they whipped the crowd into arm-flailing frenzy on “Let the Cool Goddess Rust Away” and David Byrne-esque “In This Home on Ice.” There wasn’t much to complain about from the set—the sound was a little muddy on some of the faster dance tunes such as “Satan Said Dance,” and Ounsworth occasionally seemed a little too detached, but for the most part CYHSY delivered.
The band worked in some new songs, a treat for those waiting for the follow-up to last year’s “Some Loud Thunder.” It’s going to be difficult for them to top songs off their first, self-titled album, evidenced by the excitement from the crowd when they broke into “The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth,” but we’ll see.
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Fun Fun Fun Fest review: Minus the Bear
The cool exteriors of Seattle-based Minus the Bear’s angularly constructed guitar anthems betray just the right amount of adrenaline bubbling beneath the surface. They’re perfect for smooth highway drives through brightly lit cities or, as was the case on Sunday, the dark and windy setting that was the main stage at Fun Fun Fun Fest.
Though it was less prominent in the newer songs, guitarist Dave Knudson’s two-handed tapping technique created a visual and auditory spectacle that surely boggled the minds of experienced and inexperienced guitarists alike. While his left hand floated over rhythmic riffs on the low end of the fret board, his right punched perfectly timed phrases higher up, transforming his lead work into a mesmerizing dance.
“Houston We Have Uh Oh” and “Absinthe Party at the Fly Honey Warehouse,” two fan favorites from the Bear back catalogue, used this technique the most, but they also showed how much tighter and more comfortable Minus the Bear has become since their earliest days.
Two-thirds through the set, Knudson and singer/guitarist Jake Snider grabbed acoustic guitars to perform “Pachuca Sunrise” and the new “Guns and Ammo” from their recent acoustic EP. Many listeners began to file out of the crowd, and one even proclaimed, “You’ve got to be kidding me. I’m walking away.”
But as the band showed earlier in the set with songs like “When We Escape,” they are masters of emphasizing the rises and falls in their music, so it was only natural that their set would work the same way. After the brief mellow interlude, frantic closers like “Drilling” hit all the harder.
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Fun Fun Fun Fest scene report: Favorites from the crowd
As the second day of Fun Fun Fun Fest was coming to a close, a few attendees took a couple minutes to weigh in on their favorite acts of the weekend.
Though Bad Brains hadn’t yet played, it seemed that the punk legends were going to win out.
“We’re definitely excited for Bad Brains,” said Jessie Ledi, who drove from Houston for the festival with friend Jonathan Racine.
“We liked DOA, Municipal Waste, and Leftover Crack,” Racine said.
Anthony Bollato of Houston and Aaron Drake of College Station, who stayed around the punk stage for the majority of the festival, were also getting ready for Bad Brains, but they had some other favorites as well.
“I’d already heard most of these bands, but Integrity was pretty cool,” Drake said.
“I liked Black Angels,” Bollato said. “They just got done.”
Eric Lemm of Madison, Wis., flew into Austin to check out the city and distribute demos of his music, and ended up checking out the festival as well.
“I’m definitely going to check out Bad Brains,” he said.
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November 9, 2008
Fun Fun Fun Fest review: Islands
It seems like Montreal-based Islands is in Austin every other week, and the city is lucky to have them. Singer Nick Thornburn was without the white mime makeup of the band’s 2008 SXSW appearance, and the new material isn’t as eclectic and indulgently operatic as 2006’s “Return to the Sea,” but these guys rock.
Songs off the latest album included “The Arm” and the polka-infused “Pieces of You.” There were plenty of tunes off “Return to the Sea,” including “Rough Gem” and “Swans,” which closed their set.
Part of the fun in watching Islands is trying to identify what musical genre the band is evoking at any given moment. Rock, country, hip-hop, and Latin music all make appearances. On “Don’t Call Me Whitney, Bobby,” Graceland-era Paul Simon does, too. Can’t wait to see them again in a month or two.
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Fun Fun Fun Fest review: Frightened Rabbit
On day two of Fun Fun Fun, it was still hot and still dusty for Frightened Rabbit’s 2:45 p.m. set on stage one. It would be an understatement to say this Scotland-based band likes their guitars; most of the time they play three, with no bass to be found. Not surprisingly, the songs are mainly guitar-driven rock tunes, often with folksy undertones.
Stomping tunes such as “Old Old Fashioned” kept the crowd bouncing along for the set, and it was interesting that the band had a much more powerful presence than their most recent album, “The Midnight Organ Fight,” would suggest. With so much guitar threatening to drown out the subtly of the songs, singer Scott Hutchinson made sure that didn’t happen, with wailing vocals that matched the umph of the rest of the band.
The band looked pretty tired from being on the road, and they announced this was their last show on the tour (which seems to happen at a lot of Austin shows). They closed with the amusingly vulgar “Keep Yourself Warm,” a lament about the difficulties of finding a meaningful relationship.
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Fun Fun Fun Fest: the punk stage
Time for a confession that’ll likely get my already expired punk rock clubhouse membership card revoked altogether: Going into Saturday’s Day 1 of the Fun Fun Fun Fest I was pretty much a newcomer to the throwback punk vets on the fest’s third stage. Had never heard ALL, only knew a couple Dead Milkmen songs and my knowledge about the Adolescents could fit in a beer bottle cap.
“Sacrilege!” the tattooed masses say. Probably right.
I mean, I like punk. A lot. The Clash are a top-three band for me, and Rancid, Operation Ivy, the Stooges, New Bomb Turks, NoFX, Rocket From the Crypt and Austin’s Riverboat Gamblers all pull extra heavy duty on my iPod.
But I was never a completist and so missed a lot of the heavies even while loving local mid-level Michigan punk and hardcore bands who likely aped every riff from the big boys. So I barely knew Fugazi for a long time and only got into Sunday FFF Fest headliners Bad Brains because the Beastie Boys were such vocal champions of the hardcore legends.
Given that, I approached Saturday uneasily. Don’t get me wrong - as I neared the crowd around Stage 3 and the massive hardcore roar of Integrity became clearer I felt in a way transported. The mohawks, safety pins, Casualties and Exploited patches and decades-old tattoos scattered in the crowd brought back memories that made me feel half my 30 years.
And the loud/hard/fast fury of punk will always connect with me way deeper than the heartfelt, pained creations of the indie masses on the fest’s other three stages, a point Adolescents singer Tony Cadena alluded by thanking the crowd for “coming to see the bands who don’t have publicists.” Nice.
So it was catchup time on Saturday - punk rock Crib Notes if you wanna spin it like that - and here’s what I learned:
You can’t go back. As much as the riffs, shouted/yelped vocals and tales of societal and personal torment fit the template of lots of stuff I’ve loved through the years, you can’t force yourself to like something, even if it’s considered genre canon.
Because the thing about punk - the thing that’s always made it the soundtrack for the discontented and marginalized - is its of-the-moment urgency and its knack for scratching that anti-whatever itch lots of us develop around ages 12-15. Post-college and 10 years into a professional carer it’s harder to muster the angst that provides the fertile ground and lets the right band with the right two chords take root.
That brilliance and release can pop back up later in life, of course, but it’s a completely unpredictable blessing that hits you in the head like an anvil.
Given that, I couldn’t have gone into Saturday and planned to be blown away by those bands any more than I could plan to go to a club tomorrow and fall head-over-feet in love. It just don’t work that way, which is part of what makes those elusive moments so extraordinary.
Not that Saturday was a lost night - I mean I’ll always hold to my belief that Stage 1 headliners the National have only one really good song — and that’s it.
While I didn’t connect with ALL one bit, the Adolescents deserve further investigation and there will definitely be some Dead Milkmen added to the iPod soon.
For lots of the thousands gathered Saturday night the throwback/reunion lineup provided welcome cruises down Memory Lanes most never thought they’d get to see again. For me, it was more of a sightseeing journey.
Not exactly what I had in mind, but to be able to take that trip was worthwhile enough.
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Fun Fun Fun Fest review: The National
A good chunk of people that braved the dust and the chilly temperatures for the final sets of the evening Saturday did so to see the reunited Dead Milkmen; the rest made their way over to the center stage to see Brooklyn-based band the National. Still energized by the success of their 2007 release “Boxer,” the band doesn’t shy away from all things big — many of their songs start as quiet laments and crescendo into epic rockers a la U2, made even bigger in a live setting with eight people on stage, including a horn section.
On the opener “Brainy,” frontman Matt Berninger affected a bit of a Morrissey-style British accent. His vocals on stage had a much more gritty feel to them compared to their smoothly produced studio counterparts, which is not a bad thing, especially when he let loose, dancing and falling into his bandmates.
Like Centro-matic earlier in the day, the band’s set had a joyousness about it that betrayed some of the cynicism of their studio work. “Fake Empire” came across as a celebratory romp, a strange contrast to the song’s sarcastic escapism.
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Fun Fun Fun Fest review and scene report: Deerhoof
As the day went on Saturday, the amount of dust in the air increased dramatically as the number of people did. Seeing San Diego-based Black Heart Procession take the stage after cute indie newcomers Bishop Allen was amusing, as the look (and age) of the two groups couldn’t be any more different.
A cool non-musical element of the festival was artists Dominique Vyborny’s giant metal sculptures, Cranky and Plucky. Check out www.extraurbanelephant.com for pics.
Two local acts that shined on Saturday were Octopus Project and Golden Arm Trio, the latter playing on stage two, a pleasant addition to the festival with its tucked-away feel.
As the sun went down and the festival got cold cold cold, proggy San Fransisco outfit Deerhoof got going on the main stage. Singer and bassist Satomi Matsuzaki set a playful tone as she appeared on stage with a giant furry tiger mask.
A lot of Deerhoof’s charm lies in their ability to take familiar-sounding classic rock guitar riffs and process them into slightly schizophrenic bundles of musical joy. It’s even more fun live, especially on songs like “The Perfect Me” off the 2007 album “Friend Opportunity.”
Deerhoof is an exercise in musical democracy. Drummer Greg Saunier, who was just phenomenal, is positioned up front rather than behind the rest of his bandmates. His drum work is as central to the songs as the guitars and Matsuzaki’s voice, which made wild leaps in chorus with the guitars. Let’s hope they’ll be back in Austin soon.
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Fun Fun Fun Fest review and scene report: Centro-matic
Maybe it was the UT football game in progress up the street, or maybe because it was 2 p.m., but Waterloo Park was empty in the initial hours of day one at the Fun Fun Fun Festival. The early draw was Dengue Fever on stage four, where a hundred or so people (compared to maybe 50 over at the punk stage) crowded in the small shaded area by the main entrance to hear the Los Angeles band’s bouncy psych-rock.
At first glance, the festival appeared toned down from last year, with a modest T-shirt sales area on the deck and some merchants selling typical music festival schwag — glass bongs and posters.
By the time Denton-based Centro-matic went on at 2:45 p.m., the crowd was steadily growing. Frontman Will Johnson declared an era of good feelings because of the election and the foursome did seem a bit sunnier than usual. The band, who play Austin quite a bit, didn’t offer up anything radical, but they are good at what they do — rock with a slight country tinge.
The set, which included crowd-pleasers such as “Flashes and Cables,” seemed too short to give the band time to really flex their muscles. On “Fidgeting Wildly,” Johnson and Co. demonstrated that they’re also good at being loud and somewhat cacophonous, but not so much so that it doesn’t sound great. I wouldn’t be surprised if Okkervil River’s Will Sheff isn’t a fan, as there are definitely similarities between the songs and the emotional presence of the two groups.
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November 8, 2008
Fun Fun Fun Fest review: YACHT
Though this year’s Fun Fun Fun Fest is a paradise for fans of punk from decades past, one of Saturday’s most energetic performances came from YACHT, the young electronic duo that played the tiny stage by the festival’s entrance as the sun began to set.
The performance began with the blast of spliced drumbeats and computerized blips characteristic of so many electronic acts. But atop the music were the youthful voices of Jona Bechtolt and Claire L. Evans chanting lines like “You can live any way you want” and “Be careful with the downloading and protect your eyes.”
The duo was barely still for the 45-minute set. Sometimes they danced in sync, other times they danced in free-flowing movements. In one song, they sang, “Will we go to heaven? ‘Cause it’s not understanding,” while Bechtolt kneeled down and Evans placed her hand on his head to push him back, as if to rid him of some plaguing illness in a swift, miraculous act.
At first, the audience moved awkwardly to the music, and most listeners seemed reluctant to dance. But in the third song, when Bechtolt took off his gray-collared overshirt to reveal a white T-shirt boasting an extraterrestrial-eyed Sarah Palin with the word “Palien” written underneath, all inhibition was gone. Listeners began jumping, dancing and waving their hands in the air.
Acts on the electronic stage might not be the main appeal of Fun Fun Fun Fest for many listeners, but as YACHT proved, they certainly have a lot to offer.
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Fun Fun Fun Fest review: Bishop Allen
Larry Kolvoord AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Just like Vampire Weekend, the indie-pop playing Ivy League alums in Bishop Allen don’t look much like rockers. The clean cut five-piece took Fun Fun Fun Fest’s main stage on Saturday dressed in polos, flannel and a white dress shirt tucked into dark jeans.
The music was mild-tempered as well. The hook-centered pop songs were primarily driven by an acoustic rhythm guitar and an electric lead.
But they were nothing less than spectacular. Tightly held together by forward-driving drumbeats, Bishop Allen moved in a controlled yet energetic manner through a set of pop perfection that drew cues from new wave melodies and, in some instances, the guitar lines on Paul Simon’s “Graceland.”
For the most part, the band gave the crowd a preview of cuts from their forthcoming album, due in February. Beneath tales of heartache and plenty of harmonized “ba ba’s” and “doo doo’s,” the drums galloped while the band danced along.
The only downside to playing so many new songs was that the audience wasn’t familiar with them. Still, Bishop Allen played some older, more familiar numbers, and the performance as a whole was a nice preview of the album to come.
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Fun Fun Fun Fest review: Black Heart Procession
Larry Kolvoord AMERICAN-STATESMAN
For a pair of darkly dressed songwriters with shoulder length hair, Pall Jenkins and Tobias Nathaniel of Black Heart Procession play some surprisingly delicate songs. And on gloomy afternoons or in dimly lit bars, they work perfectly.
But against Fun Fun Fun Fest’s sunny, mild-weathered backdrop, the five-piece’s dreary piano and guitar-driven numbers nearly fell flat. A violin accompanied songs about tears filling oceans and letters being carried through winter, and on the fringes of the dedicated cluster of fans that crowded the stage, many listeners began striking up conversations. Farther back, others napped on blankets.
The band’s stage presence didn’t help much. The members barely spoke more than two sentences between songs, and they stayed firmly planted in their respective spots on the stage.
When the Procession hit its stride, however, ears noticeably perked up. On “Tropics of Love,” syncopated Latin drumbeats backed lively piano rolls, injecting a necessary jolt of energy into the set. “Tangled,” on the other hand, the opener from 2006’s “Spell,” waltzed slowly around haunting piano and string lines, but the song’s dynamic power carried it nonetheless.
The set as a whole was a showcase of tight musicianship. The moments when the violin and guitar lines followed each other were particularly engaging. But sometimes there’s just something to be said for playing the right songs in the right place.
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October 4, 2008
Acts added to FFFFest
Psych rockers Black Angels, instrumental dance/pop band Octopus Project and jazzbos Golden Arm Trio are among the additions to the Fun Fun Fun Fest lineup at Waterloo Park Nov. 8 & 9.
Also new to the bill, which is headlined by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, the National, Dead Milkmen and Bad Brains, are the Black Heart Procession, Municipal Waste, Neil Hamburger, Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears, James Petralli of White Denim, Spot & Albert, Grampall Jookabox, Ume, Camp X-ray, J Davey, Terp2it, Zeal & Phranchyze and comic rapper Dragonboy Suede.
Tix are available at Frontgate Tickets.
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August 20, 2008
Fun Fun Fun Fest 2008 lineup
- Interactive: Rate the Fun Fun Fun Fest 2008 bands
Stage 1
- Clap Your Hands Say Yeah Web site
- The National Web site
- Atmosphere Web site
- Minus the Bear Web site
- St. Vincent Web site
- And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead Web site
- Deerhoof Web site
- Rival Schools Web site
- Islands Web site
- The Annuals Web site
- Bishop Allen Web site
- Centromatic Web site
- Sleepercar Web site
- Frightened Rabbit Web site
- Spinto Band Web site
- Parts and Labor Web site
- Colourmusic Web site
- Experimental Dental School Web site
- 27 Web site
- Til We’re Blue or Destroy Web site
Stage 2
- Shearwater Web site
- Tim Fite Web site
- Magnetic Morning Web site
- Kevin Seconds Web site
- The Cynics Web site
- Ugly Beats Web site
- Walter Schreifels Web site
- Pepi Ginsberg Web site
- The Revival Tour with Chuck Ragan (Hot Water Music), Tom Gabel (Against Me!), Ben Nichols (Lucero), Tim Barry (Avail) Web site
- Tim and Eric Awesome Show Web site
- Coldtowne Comedy Hour Web site
- Altercation Punk Rock Comedy Hour Web site
- Matt Bearden Web site
- Chris Fairbanks Web site
Stage 3
- Bad Brains Web site
- ALL Web site
- Dead Milkmen (reunion, only show) Web site
- Flipper Web site
- The Adolescents Web site
- Integrity Web site
- Bouncing Souls Web site
- Swingin Utters Web site
- Swingin Utters Web site
- Killdozer Web site
- Cromags Web site
- Scared of Chaka Web site
- Young Widows Web site
- Leftover Crack Web site
- Trash Talk Web site
- World Burns To Death Web site
- Krum Bums Web site
- Mammoth Grinder Web site
- Cute Lepers Web site
- Bitter End Web site
- High Tension Wires Web site
- Born To Lose Web site
Stage 4
- Clipse Web site
- Z-Trip Web site
- Dan Deacon Web site
- Grupo Fantasma Web site
- Kool Keith/Dr. Octogon Web site
- Dengue Fever Web site
- Brownout! Web site
- Franki Chan Web site
- Toxic Avenger Web site
- Hawnay Troof Web site
- Starlynx/BigFace Web site
- Richard Henry Web site
- Richard Henry Web site
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July 15, 2008
Dead Milkmen to headline a day of Fun Fun Fun 2008
Update: The blog titans at Gorilla vs. Bear, also tipped us off, and Transmission Entertianment confirmed, that Deerhoof and Dan Deacon are also locked in for the fest.
The comedic punk band Dead Milkmen will play a special reunion show to headline one day of the the 2008 Fun Fun Fun fest, organizer Graham Williams said Sunday.
Known for such humorous songs as “Bitchin’ Camaro” and “Punk Rock Girl,” the Philadelphia-based Milkmen were active from 1983 to 1995.
The original line-up of guitarist/singer Joe Genaro, drummer Dean Sabatino and keyboard player Rodney Linderman is slated to perform with bassist Dandrew Stevens, who replaces original bassist Dave Schulthise, who took his own life in 2004.
Williams said the full-line up for Fun Fun Fun, which will take place Nov. 8 and 9 at Waterloo Park, would be announced in August.
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November 5, 2007
Fun Fun Fun Festival: Cat Power & Dirty Delta Blues
As the grass in Waterloo Park gave way to dust, no doubt reminding some in the audience of the 2005 ACL dirt debacle, the crowd that was on hand for the well-received Battles dispersed to recharge before the final acts of the evening took the stage. It seemed that many chose the highly anticipated Murder City Devils or going home over Cat Power, but there was still a good deal of excitement as she and her band came on. Dirty Delta Blues laid down a groove as Chan Marshall excitedly danced around and introduced everyone, after which they launched into a cover-laden set that might have turned off many in the crowd who didn’t know what to expect.
Chan and Co. ran into trouble early when, after a couple of songs— including a slow soul version of “New York, New York” — Marshall began walking to the side of the stage, presumably to discuss sound. When it became apparent there was a problem, she anxiously explained to the audience that she was dealing with a blown eardrum, so she couldn’t hear anything, and also that she was on steroids, which made her feel angry. She attempted a few more songs, hanging close to the monitors, trying to hear what was going on. The band’s solution to the problem was to play quieter songs like James Brown’s “Lost Someone,” which will appear on her upcoming covers album along with another of the evening’s covers, Billie Holiday’s “Don’t Explain.”
The crowd continued to thin as Marshall persevered, with the people who remained offering their support. At one point a member of the audience passed out, prompting Marshall to request medics mid-song, after which organist Gregg Foreman did his best Rolling Stones impression from “Gimme Shelter.” Later in the show, when the band had regained some momentum, they referenced the Stones again with a cover of “Satisfaction.” It was a fitting selection toward the end of a difficult experience that Marshall would probably like to forget.
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Highlights for Fun Fun Fun fest, Day Two
Second verse, same as the first: a little warm in the early afternoon, breathtakingly perfect at night.
Obligatory ‘Friday Night Lights’ sighting: Connie Britton. (Insert Homer Simpsons-style “Whoo-hoo!”)
You have to hand it to the Cave Singers. They were stuck with a thankless slot - 2 p.m., the day after all the after-parties (word has it the Murder City Devils show was a jam for the ages) and the time change that everyone seemed to have forgotten about. A bare handful of fans showed up, but they were in for one of the day’s best sets. Pete Quirk’s reedy vocals sang gorgeously low-key, folkish songs while newly-minted guitarist Derek Fudesco and drummer/guitarist Marty Lund sketched in spare, compelling melodies. Can’t wait to spin their debut, “Invitation Songs,” a couple dozen times or so.
Lowlight that eventually became so weak it turned into a highlight: The punk stage hosted a few more reunions in the early evening, the next less compelling than the last. The Saints ’77 punk sounded pro forma at best, while Youth Brigade’s trio thrash filled in the blanks but little more.
But the afternoon’s most bonkers pile-up belonged to Poison Idea, which consisted of singer Jerry A. - he of a much-imitated punk bellow and world-historical beer gut - and whomever he’s calling Poison Idea this time around. A., never the thinnest guy in the room, looked mighty unwell as he took the stage - it seemed to take him a few instrumentals to get up the nerve to sing (or were those introductions?) and once he started, his voice sounded junky and pale. He seemed to have fun, but much of the audience looked a little uncomfortable. The punks didn’t even really bother to slam - the pit consisted of a few tween girls at one point, a perfect objective correlative for how dangerous this once menacing band had become. A. even made a joke about getting a dodgeball for four-square. But those kids weren’t the ones embarrassing themselves.
The most surprising crowd had to be the masses gathered for Don Caballero. The band’s sole original member is drummer Damon Che, yet the two gents he’s currently playing with sound for all the world exactly like the band’s earliest trio lineup. Don Cab still specialize in proggy guitar rock, still taking the parts of King Crimson albums that sound like a sheet metal plant and tossing out the hippie stuff, like hummable melodies. Still, pretty impressive stuff for a band that, by all logic, should have sounded like warmed-up leftovers from the Clinton administration.
Over on the dance stage, Ocelot’s techno struggled against the sun, while the Ocote Sound System reminded everyone that yes, the flute is considered a funk instrument, especially when driven along by a drummer, percussionist, two guitars and two basses.
The festival closed with a few of the strongest, most explosive performances (physically and emotionally) I’ve seen in years. Not completely sure why Ted Leo and the Pharmacists aren’t being hailed as one of America’s best live bands, but I guess as long as Fall Out Boy are still touring, the kids will have their say. Pile-driving through some of their most high-octane songs (“Sons of Cain,” “Me and Mia,” “Little Things”), Leo and the Pharmacists seemed possessed at times. Between compulsively anthemic songwriting, political savvy, the explosive James Canty (ex-Make-Up, Nation of Ulysses) on second guitar and new bass player Marty “Violence” Key (Young Pioneers), the band seems edging ever closer to becoming the most logical heir to the indefinitely hiatus-ed Fugazi. The final song, a cover of Chumbawamba’s “”Rappaport’s Testament: I Never Gave Up” was dedicated to the late Lance Hahn. A highlight of my year, that set was.
While Cat Power turned “New York, New York” into something that sounded an awful lot like “Bullet the Blue Sky,” the Murder City Devils seemed determined to leave the audience in tiny, black-clad, pompadoured pieces on the Waterloo Park ground. Tearing through noirish, fan favorite garage burners such as “Press Gang” and “I Drink the Wine,” MCD reminded everyone that yes, they were one of the better bands of a fairly dull era for underground rock (‘96 to ‘01). Singer Spencer Moody, sporting a few more pounds and a beard for the ages, still sounds like David Sedaris when he talks, but like Satan himself when he breaks out his iconic, throaty bellow. Hypnotic, frankly.
All in all, very easily the best time I had at a festival this year, including Coachella, Bonnaroo, ACL and Lollapalooza. It wasn’t as big, not as swanky and not nearly as profitable as any of those, but this was festival music on a human scale. The backstage was open and relaxed, the vendors local and pleasant, the food reasonable. It did everything a rock festival should do - made you excited about the endless possibilities of vernacular music.
So, um, let’s talk about next year.
(Pictured: The Murder City Devils. Photo by Benjamin Sklar FOR AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
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November 4, 2007
Fun Fun Fun Fest review: The New Pornographers
The New Pornographers took the stage around 7:30, full band in tow, a treat for many as this meant that frontman Carl Newman shared the spotlight with tambourine-toting vocalist Neko Case. Songwriter Dan Bejar, who had earlier joined violin loop-master Final Fantasy for a Broadway-style sing-along, also graced the stage when the band played his songs, his vocals at times reminiscent of pre-Bringing-It-All-Back-Home Dylan.
The Pornographers have been on the road for awhile, playing almost every night since August, and while such a schedule can take its toll on some bands, it only seems to have made them stronger. Newman and Case have also had plenty of time to perfect their stage banter, which included sharing a Rice Krispie treat (and Case throwing a couple to adoring fans below, who will probably enshrine said treats).
The hour-long set consisted mostly of songs off the bands new album, “Challengers,” as well as plenty of crowd-pleasers off 2005’s “Twin Cinema.” When “Challengers” was released earlier this year, the critical response seemed to be that Newman and Co. had offered up a sort of lite version of the band, a not-so-inspired showcase of different solo artists taking turns singing their own songs. Whether or not there is any truth to that sentiment, the band showed that they are plenty capable of bringing it just as hard on tunes like “Myriad Harbour” and “All the Old Showstoppers” as they can on Twin Cinema’s “Jackie, Dressed in Cobras” and “Sing Me Spanish Techno.” They closed with an epic version of “The Bleeding Hearts Show,” with synth/laptop/video-director Blaine Thurier firing up the crowd with a melodica.
The one low point of the set was the sound, which was fuzzy and only got worse as the volume increased. The crowd, dancing and singing along with every song, didn’t seem to mind.
(Photo by Jay Janner AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
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Fun Fun Fun Fest review: Okkervil River
On a sweltering Friday afternoon in September 2006, Austin’s Okkervil River played for a small, overheated audience on a side stage at the ACL Festival, still riding high on the success of 2005’s “Black Sheep Boy,” which was re-released in April 2006 after the band signed to Virgin/EMI in Europe. It was a good show, but a far cry from Saturday’s 5:25 p.m. set at Fun Fun Fun Fest, which drew the largest crowd up to that point as the festival-goers who chose to sit out the early sets began to funnel into the entrance to see the big guns scheduled for that evening.
Frontman Will Sheff and the boys started out on a fairly reserved note with “The President’s Dead,” but wasted no time after that with an energetic sampling of tunes, mostly from “Black Sheep Boy” and 2007’s “The Stage Names.” Keyboardist Jonathan Meiburg and drummer Travis Nelsen held it down as the band made their way through the set, with much of the crowd singing along to every word on songs like “Black” and “John Allyn Smith Sails,” the coda of which includes a rousing rendition of “Sloop John B” (a traditional song popularized by the Beach Boys). They closed the set with “Westfall,” off 2002’s “Don’t Fall in Love With Everyone You See,” complete with a bit of the Rolling Stones’ “Paint it Black” thrown in for good measure.
Sheff got sentimental with some talk of how good it was to be back in town, and even gave a playful shout-out to his pre-rockstar job as Web designer for the Texas State Senate (this being Austin, probably inspiring many in the crowd who are longing to quit their jobs as Web designers to pursue a career in music). He also noted that this was the band’s last stateside gig before they head to Europe to tour. It was a fitting sendoff for a band that has helped define a new generation of Austin music.
Update: As some people have pointed out in the comments section, Jonathan Meiburg was not with the band on Saturday. We are working to find out the name of the person who filled in.
(Photo by Jay Janner AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
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Fun Fun Fun Fest review: Final Fantasy
There’s something puzzling about one-person acts who name themselves as if they were a band, but singer/songwriter/violinst/keyboardist/sample-master Owen Pallett, aka Final Fantasy, is his own band. It was tiring just watching the Canadian — who has admitted that he doesn’t have the patience to play the game after which he has named himself — moving back and forth on stage, searching for the appropriate violin sample (he created some of the layers on stage during the songs, others appeared to be pre-arranged) and shuffling between the keys and the violin, singing all the while. At one point he admitted that taking the keyboard on tour was a pain and asked the crowd whether they thought it was worth having on stage.
The crowd was attentive as Pallett made his way through songs from 2005’s “Has a Good Home” and 2006’s “He Poos Clouds.” Pallett’s violin work is both haunting and playful, a good match for lyrics that juxtapose intense feelings of loneliness and isolation with amusing verses like “But - what if they like it/And lock us in a cannery with your accordian/Until we canned our love?” The sound was at times piercing, and some audience members were seen walking away from the stage holding their ears, although Pallett commented that he couldn’t hear anything on stage.
The closing song was a cover of Destroyer’s (aka New Pornographer Dan Bejar) “An Actor’s Revenge,” which he played twice, the second time with Bejar and rapper Cadence Weapon joining him on stage for a version that would have been at home at a Broadway after-party.
(Photo by David Weaver FOR AUSTIN360.)
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Fun Etc. Etc. Fest
And then there were three.
The first sign that Fun Fun Fun Fest is quite different from its older brothers South By Southwest and Austin City Limits Music Festival was the sight of chief Funster Graham Williams peddling around the perimeter of Waterloo Park on a bicycle Saturday afternoon. Could you imagine “the three Charlies” who put on ACL riding around on anything besides their executive golf carts or seeing SXSW co-founders at all during the non-conversational times of their event?
Fun Fun Fun Fest was more than just a gathering of hip bands with bad names, it was a festival with a face, a local face.
Although the Austin music scene is defined by its behemoths of March and September, Fun Fun Fun, which takes its name from a song by 1980s local punk band the Big Boys, felt more like the way Austin really is. It was like the Spider House in a big field, for ten hours of live music each day on a weekend, with no one on their laptops.
There wasn’t any tension about finding a good spot to watch the bands or wondering if you’ll even get to see your favorites at all. Even for the New Pornographers and Explosions in the Sky, the two last bands to play Stage One (of three) Saturday, it was possible to walk up to within 50 feet of the stage if you came at it from the side. The attendance was almost as perfect as weather which made clear that November is to September what Alec Balwin is to Danny.
The louder, heavier Stage Two, where the Sword’s seamless metallic wallop made up for a punchless set by the reunited Angry Samoans (who were never very good to begin with) was a little harder to manuever around, but anyone could still get close enough to see and hear just fine. Now this is the way a music festival should be, I remember thinking almost out loud.
In only its second year, Fun Fun Fun Fest has been compared to Chicago’s Pitchfork Festival, where just being booked is like getting a four-star review. A big difference, however, is that the 4F Club is centered around the taste of one person- Graham Williams, who has been booking shows in Austin since junior high.
Williams no doubt has a collection of perfect memories from the weekend, but I have three, well, four really, if you count the Longhorns come-from-behind victory against Oklahoma State, which I caught at nearby Scholz’ Garten.
With the game-winning field goal fresh in my mind, I walked into Waterloo Park with Okkervil River flailing away on “Evil Doesn’t Look Like Anything” and it was great to see that this Austin band, whose latest LP “The Stage Names” has become a mild obsession for me, could pull it off so magnificently live. I had them pegged for studio tinkerers, but they flat-out rocked.
Moment no. 2 came at the midpoint of the New Pornographers set, which seemed a tad off early on. Neko Case and Carl Newman finally clicked on “Sing Me Spanish Techno” and I felt the blood rush to my head. Perfect pop on a perfect evening,
The third thing I’ll remember most from the concert’s first day was when Explosions in the Sky (who won’t be getting checks from the badly slumping “Friday Night Lights” after this year) were doing their shimmering guitar thing and I felt compelled to lay down. To hear the sensitive bombast that way. At first I was thinking that someone might trip over me or that security would think I’d passed out. But after a few seconds the vulnerability dissipated and I felt safe. The music filled the air like fireworks and I remember thinking now this is the way a music festival should be.
All that and an extra hour of sleep.
(Photos: 1. Fun Fun Fun Fest crowd by David Weaver FOR AUSTIN360, 2. The Sword by Bret Gerbe FOR AMERICAN-STATESMAN, 3. The New Pornographers by Jay Janner AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
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Fun x 4
Fun Fun Fun Fest is an organic party with a unique Austin vibe that well represents several of the key music scenes for which the city has become legend in this part of the country. In its second year, the fest is basically an amalgam of everything wonderful about the Red River music scene. You have the indie rock of places like the Mohawk, the hard-core and punk scenes so familiar at places like Room 710 and Beerland, and the DJ acts seen everywhere from Beauty Bar to Emo’s. With local vendors, a manageable crowd of 6,500 or so that allowed for easy and unobstructed viewing of almost every band, and familiar faces at every turn, Waterloo Park seems like it’s playing home this weekend to one big Red River block party; add the complement of perfect weather to the mix, and you have a recipe for one of the most enjoyable music events in this or any town.
The highlight for me Saturday had to be Okkervil River, a band about which I have heard plenty but never had the chance to enjoy live. The homegrown talents rocked a set composed primarily of tunes from ‘Black Sheep Boy’ and their latest, ‘The Stage Names,’ an album about which music critic Michael Corcoran has a borderline obsession. Following Okkervill, I managed to enjoy a few songs of Of Montreal before being bored with their over-the-top synth-pop, which in small doses can be entertaining, but after a few songs grates on my nerves. The androgynous Kevin Barnes knows how to get a crowd, and his band, going, but the hyper-bouncy rythms of the glam pop outfit lost my interest after a few songs, before recapturing my attention with a ’70s-era funk tune that seemed culled from the Beck catalog.
Indie rock stalwarts the New Pornographers were crippled by some bad sound throughout but played through a complication of which they may have been unaware, to a crowd which seemed to know every lyric belted out by Carl Newman and the tambourine-rattling Neko Case. I wrapped the night up by taking in the much ballyhooed Girl Talk over at the DJ stage. DJ Greg Gillis began his set by telling fans that he played part dance music and part chill out music, but it was evident that the dance portion would be highlighted on this cool November evening — within seconds the small stage was filled with tweens bopping up and down, hands swaying with the beats, almost engulfing the Pittsburgh DJ known as Girl Talk. Unfortunately, the park setting and rather weak amplification made it hard for Gillis’ set to permeate the entire audience. Gillis had made a name for himslef, and rightly so, by taking 10 second snippets of blasts from the past and mashing them into a musical collage that keeps audiences dancing along as the music seamlessly transitions from the Jackson 5 to Earth, Wind and Fire, and Steve Winwood. Steve Winwood, you say? Yep, pretty kitschy, eh? The set kept people on and near the stage bumping for the length of the set, but I left feeling the musical experience would have been a little more at home at Emo’s or even Spiros.
Random sighting: In addition to seeing about 75 percent of the people I know in Austin, I was also alerted to the presence of Matt Bonner of the San Antonio Spurs taking in some bands at Stage 1.
(Pictured: Diplo performs on the DJ stage on day 2 of Fun Fun Fun Fest. Photo by Benjamin Sklar FOR AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
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Word to CarterB
I did stop by the DJ tent on and off, but I never stayed for long enough to get more than a fleeting impression of Small Sins (who I wish I’d seen more of), Jester (who seemed fine) and Cadence Weapon (who seemed Canadian).
Missed Girl Talk entirely, sadly, but I heard great things.
Really bummed I missed Busdriver, frankly.
(Photo by Bret Gerbe FOR AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
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HIghlights of Fun Fun Fun Fest, Day One
The weather? Perfect. Low 80s during the day, high 60s at night. Seriously, this might have been the nicest Austin music festival weather of the 21st century. Total bullseye. Clearly the folks at Transmission sacrificed a goat or a virgin or something. But can you even find a virgin on Sixth or Red River? (“Ba-dump-ching”) Thanks, I’ll be here all week.
Love the “Return to Forever” T-shirt on the bass player for hipster metal titans Saviours. The band played a monster set, yet not jazz fusion. Discuss.
Swedish hard rockers Witchcraft were their own retro-metal miracle - melodic, swinging, denim clad.
The Evangelicals hail from Norman, Okla. So they can be forgiven for sounding an awful lot like early Flaming Lips, who hail from Oklahoma City. This isn’t a knock: the younger band’s set blended complicated pop song craft with simple, trippy keyboard melodies and overdriven guitar burn. Their smoldering hunks of psychedelic riff-style blended brilliantly with the cloudless sky. And hey, it’s a heck of a lot better than sounding like later Flaming Lips.
White Denim, perhaps Austin’s buzziest buzz band, lived up the exhausting amount of blog hype. They’re still kind of fuzzy on the whole song-band vs. groove-band thing, but it didn’t stop the trio from putting a frantic, sweaty set of soulful drum breaks, geeky funk and layers of serrated guitar.
And I do mean layers. It was a great day for guitar and violin loops. Owen Pallett, doing business as Final Fantasy, turned his lone violin into an orchestra (“It’s not as much a band as a magic show,” one megafan was overheard to note). The audience got a bonus when Pallett played a cover of Destroyer’s “An Actor’s Revenge.” The Destroyer himself, also doing business as Dan Bejar, was spotted backstage and brought up (Bejar is one of the songwriters in New Pornographers, but rarely plays live with them). The song was started again with Bejar’s glammy, Bowie-esque voice joining in, along with an entirely too excited Cadence Weapon. It truly was Pallett’s fans’ final fantasy. (Sorry.)
Speaking of Bejar, the New Pornographers set was strong, in spite of harsh sound (hello, midrange!). Bejar, however, only wandered out to sing his songs. They’re wonderful songs, eccentric and melodic in ways that work in solid contrast to lead tunesmith Carl Newman. But the effect was almost surreally prima-donna-ish.
As someone with absolutely no interest in ‘80s and especially ‘90s New York hardcore, it’s vaguely painful to admit Madball put in a ripping set, noting the lack of barriers between the stage and the audience. And it was cute to see the pit entirely comprised of guys in their early thirties pretending they were 18 again. The Angry Samoans, on the other hand, spent an awful lot of time talking about how old they were and how young the crowd was. The music could not have sounded more 1979, which is entirely appropriate. Corpus Christi O.P. (original punk) Tim Stegall made an appearance. OK, OK, you guys are old. (But they do get more points than you can imagine for $5 T-shirts, which were essentially random thrift store shirts with the Samoans logo silk-screened on them, which was perfect for one of the great junk culture punk bands.)
Speaking of, let’s hear it as well for Explosions in the Sky’s merch table. Ten dollars per LP (including the double from this year) = classy. I bought two. The Sword’s set was excellent - heavy, hair-swinging, sludgy, loud metal for brainy heshers alike. They had plenty of new, thunderous songs, including a tribute to science-fiction author George R.R. Martin’s novel “A Game of Thrones” called “Take the Black.” Heavy nerds united! (And I mean heavy both in the physical and metal senses.)
Though the audience for their set was dwarfed by the crowd for Explosions in the Sky, Neurosis’s epic art-metal was magnificent, equal parts ambient doom, crushing thrash and enigmatic, black and white visual projections. (The split audience thing was a shame. Each band could have easily picked up 500 new fans had they played at different times.) Opening with the title track from this year’s excellent “Given to the Rising,” it was impossible to know that this band barely plays live anymore and indeed lives in entirely different parts of the country. Guitarist (and fourth grade teacher) Steve Von Till’s “Hidden Faces” felt like an anthem of focus and power (“Through the weathering vine/ I WILL SEE YOU COMING/ The feral now feeds you/ Instinct is pure/ All actions are sane. “To the Wind” (gotta love that 45 second howl from Scott Kelly), “At the End of the Road” and “Water is Not Enough” emphasized the band’s ability to move from drift to pound at the drop of a drumstick. “Distill (Watching the Swarm)” probably should have been seen by any kid going to the upcoming Tool show to see how it’s done. (It’s pretty much impossible to imagine Tool without Neurosis.) Set closers “Burn” and “The Doorway” crashed into massive feedback walls and stopped on a dime. Sometime, 22 years of experience pays off.
(Pictured: 1. Sick Of It All. Photo by Jay Janner AMERICAN-STATESMAN, 2. Final Fantasy. Photo by David Weaver FOR AUSTIN360, 3. Neurosis. Photo by Bret Gerbe FOR AMERICAN-STATESMAN.)
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