Posts Tagged ‘Chairlift’
Final Thoughts on MidPoint 2009
September 27th, 2009
Posted in MidPoint Music Festival
Aside from the falling out brought on by the Cadillac Ranch, MidPoint 2009 appeared to be a huge success that was enjoyed by all. Each year the festival brings in a new class of bands and venues, so I’m anxious to see what changes next year will bring. The addition of the Lite Brite Test and the Topic Design Tent at Grammer’s certainly seemed to be a few steps up for the festival, although if they’re bringing Lite Brite back next year there may be a few changes they can make that may help it run a little bit smoother. The Southgate House in Newport, Kentucky returned for a second consecutive year as the only venue this side of the river. While they featured some of the larger acts on the bill, it tends to make me feel like they’re not really a part of MidPoint, but rather, just another show at the Southgate House.
Best of the Fest…Top Five Performances
1. Chairlift
Nothing to be surprised about here; they were everything I was expecting and more. Favorite performance in the history of MidPoint. Their synth-soaked, indie-pop songs served as a perfect soundtrack to the monsoon that fell outside of the large outdoor tent taking me back to their performance at Bonnaroo this past summer.
2. The Dynamites featuring Charles Walker
Spirits were alive in the Southgate House ballroom, and I’m not talking about the ghosts that haunt this historic mansion-turned music venue. The legendary Charles Walker and his backing band, The Dynamites, converted me into a fan of old-school Funk, Soul and R&B, in a near two-hour, fiery set that had the entire floor shaking and grooving, as well as the nearly 70-year old Walker.
4. The Dø
I enjoyed this Nashville band so much that I caught them twice on the first day of the festival. They had a really nice mix of blues, country and indie-folk that you really don’t see a whole lot. Rumor has it that they’ll be performing at the Southgate House with the Seedy Seeds on the day before Thanksgiving.
MidPoint Day Three Review
September 27th, 2009
Posted in MidPoint Music Festival
Third and Final Day of MidPoint 2009
The third and final day of the 2009 MidPoint Music Festival came much too quickly, while the first two days remain just a fuzzy memory of the past. For me personally, I was looking forward to the final night the most because it featured most of the bands I was looking forward to on any one day.
They Can’t Drive, But They Can Rock
I wasn’t planning on going down to Fountain Square for the teen boy rock band, The Trouble With Boys, but I figured that it would be an interesting sight to see. I’m honestly really glad that I caught their set, which featured original pop punk songs and covers of the Beastie Boys “(You Gotta) Fight For You Right (To Party)” and Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World.” The four members of the band are all in the twelve, thirteen and fourteen year old range, and would barely be taller than their guitars if you stood the two next to each other. They met four years ago, if you can believe that, at an Indiana Rockschool, which is a program much like what you see in the movie “School of Rock” that encourages young musicians. In this day and age of Guitar Hero, Rock Band and American Idol, it’s really nice to see that the parents of these youngsters are clearly raising their boys the right way, introducing them to bands of their generation like Neil Young and Joe Strummer.
Story of the Day
Perhaps the one thing that everyone was talking about early Saturday evening was the fiasco that took place at the Cadillac Ranch. Around 9 pm, owners of the bar decided to pull the remaining acts, which included three bands from New York (In Cadeo, Hugo and Finding Fiction) and the Mean Tambourines from Nashville. The first band, The Lighthouse and The Whaler, went on at 8 pm but were able to get through their entire set, before bar owners cited a 71% drop in sales and a dislike for the styles of bands slated to perform. They replaced the acts with a DJ at 9 pm. This was clearly a poor decision, so I can only hope that the festival will choose not to include this tasteless bar in the future and that these bands will want to return to the city in the future. Read the full disappointing story here.
Weird Is Good
The most interesting sets of the entire weekend came from London’s Micachu and the Shapes and French/Finnish trio, The Dø. Even after studying up on these bands by reading numerous articles and interviews on the internet and seeing their strange, amazing performances, I still can’t figure out what styles of music they play. Both bands were highly experimental; Micachu switched between a homemade acoustic guitar called a “chu” and the normal electric strat, while her two bandmates were armed with everything from cowbells, glass bottles and metal garbage can-like lids attached to the drumkit, to even more digital and high-tech instruments like synthesizers and laptops. Perhaps Micachu doesn’t fit perfectly into any one genre, they list themselves as experimental, electronic, indie and digital funk, but perhaps labels aren’t really that important. I guess as long as it’s good music, nothing else matters.
As for The Dø, and like most bands who played at the Contemporary Arts Center, the visual element of their show proved to be vital, with their black and white animated short films that may have been stories behind the songs. Much of Olivia Merilahti’s Bjork-like vocals appeared to be in English, although I couldn’t always digest what exactly she was saying. This band lists themselves as French indie folk pop, but then again they’re just another band you can’t really grasp until you experience them live.
For the most part, European music has always been quite different than American music; maybe it has something to do with the cultural differences, but even the crowds across the pond seem to be much larger than they are here in the states. It’s easy to see why the English and French get bands like Micachu and The Dø and it takes a little bit longer to reach fans here in the U.S., but thanks to festivals like MidPoint, they’re bringing interesting music from around the world to Cincinnati. Just because some music may seem weird to us Americans, doesn’t mean it’s at all bad. In fact, it can be quite good.
The Calm Before the Storm
I wasn’t about to leave my front row/stage left spot after Micachu and the Shapes finished their set, because the band I had been anxiously awaiting to see for months, Chairlift, would be taking the stage at 9:30 pm. I enjoy watching a band’s crew set up equipment in between sets, just to get a feel for some of the equipment that bands use. I’m not really sure what all of it is or exactly how it works, but it just feels pretty cool to be that close to see the things that make the sounds I’ve come to know and love. I was so close to the stage, that I could read Chairlift’s setlist when it was taped to the stage, but luckily, I knew the moment they started playing that they weren’t going by the setlist.
The band was joined by renouned composer, performer and producer, John Maus, who has worked with everyone from Animal Collective, Panda Bear, Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti, to his own band The Janitors. Maus didn’t bring as much variety to the band as I had hoped, but it still served to be a nice addition, having an extra set of hands on the keys and synths, which certainly helped out lead frontwoman, Caroline Polachek, who often left her gear to dance around in circles onstage and play the tambourine.
It was my third time seeing Chairlift this year, and although it was certainly my most favorite show of MidPoint 2009, I went in already knowing exactly what to expect, so there wasn’t a whole lot that could surprise me.
I often reminisced of being back at Bonnaroo, the last place I saw them, as both venues were inside large, crowded white tents. Even the pouring rains that fell outside the tent brought a little bit of that Bonnaroo spirit. Fortunately, the only notecable difference between this show and their Bonnaroo performance, was that the putrid, nasty stench of thousands of showerless Bonnaroovians was missing. I wouldn’t wish that smell upon the noses of anyone at MidPoint.
The Lodge Bar
I wandered into a packed Lodge Bar shortly before 11 pm, to catch a couple of bands who have a classic indie rock sound but are able to make it sound original. While the Cadillac Ranch was obviously number one on everyone’s most-hated venue list, I have to say that I’d have to add the Lodge Bar to that list at number two. Clearly the management aren’t flat-out pricks like at the Cadillac Ranch, but the overall vibe and scene of this place leaves me feeling uncomfortable and out of place.
Walk into the Lodge Bar during MidPoint and you’ll immediately notice that the majority of the hipsters aren’t there for music, rather they’re there to mingle and watch the game. I’m not saying you can’t do that, but I feel both the Rosewood Thieves and Yourself and the Air were shorthanded by playing a not-so great bar turned music venue. Sure the place was packed and a decent crowd filled the area in front of the stage, but I just felt like the majority of the people in this bar had no idea about MidPoint and what was going on.
I guess that can be good on some levels for some people; go into a bar not expecting to see live, original music and maybe walk away with something you’re interested in, but as far as a weekend hangout, the Cadillac Ranch and Lodge Bar rank among my top two most-hated hipster spots.
30 Bands I Want to See at MidPoint 2009
September 20th, 2009
Posted in MidPoint Music Festival
Out-of-Town Picks
Like a lot of people, my first taste of Chairlift came about because of their hit song “Bruises” that was featured in an iPod commercial. But when they opened for Peter, Bjorn and John this past April at the Southgate House, I saw a band that was about more than writing catchy songs that could become radio-friendly hits. In the beginning they were inspired to create music for haunted houses, but perhaps it would be more appropriate to say that the synth playing and vocals of Caroline Polachek has a somewhat haunting, mystical feel.
Some several years ago, I discovered Jason Isbell when he was playing guitar in the Drive-By Truckers during Widespread Panic’s summer tour. As one of three key songwriter’s in the Truckers, it was easy to see that he was destined to succeed with his own name. Following his divorce of the Truckers bassist, Shonna Tucker, Isbell left the band in 2007 and has since put out two albums. The first album came just months after his departure, but it was the self-titled, follow-up album that really seemed to reach fans and critic’s with the formation of his backing band, the 400 Unit.
I decided to put the Heartless Bastards on the out-of-town list because they are now technically not a local band, even though I’ll always think of them as locals. This year has probably been the best in the band’s career which has seen a reincarnated lineup, the release of the highly, critically-acclaimed album The Mountain, tours with Wilco, The Decemberists and Jenny Lewis, as well as appearances at nearly every major music festival. Welcome Erika and company back home when they perform Friday night at Grammer’s.
Scotland Yard Gospel Choir
The Dynamites featuring Charles Walker
Extra Golden
The Young Republic
The Baltic Sea
The Lighthouse and The Whaler
Bowery Boy Blue
The Dø
Micachu and the Shapes
The Bloodsugars
The Wildbirds
God Made Me Funky
Local Picks
There’s a lot going on with nearly every band I’ve decided to put on my local list. Most of them have either released new albums within the past year or are currently working on projects that will soon be released. A couple of them, you could even say, are somewhat newly formed bands. Cincinnati is stacked with amazing talent, and coming up with these fifteen picks was not easy. I’ve seen all of these bands perform live, some more than others and it even feels like I’ve seen some of them about thirty or forty times. I’ve been a long supporter of the local music and arts scenes, and I can tell you that if I had to choose the best bands in the area, I could have easily added at least fifty or so more bands to this list. So I present to you fifteen local picks for MidPoint 2009.
Travis Talbert has been gracing the local music scene for years as one of the finer lead electric and slide guitar players in the area, formerly with Norust and now with Frontier Folk Nebraska. The band has seen its share of lineup changes over the years, but it appears they have found the right combination of people, which you can certainly feel on their latest album, Pearls. Frontman Michael Hensley seems to fall somewhere between a Neil Young or Ryan Adams, but this is a band that even fans of My Morning Jacket and Band of Horses could get into. Look for Pearls to earn some nominations at the CEA’s later this year.
The formation of indie-popsters, Pomegranates, couldn’t have come at a better time. The four guys of the band (Joey Cook, Isaac Karns, Jacob Merritt and Josh Kufeldt – even their names make them sound like indie pop stars) formed the band in late 2006 when indie pop seemed to be at its highest peak ever. Signed to the highly respectable Lujo Records within a week of the release of their first EP, the Poms have since shared the stage with Jimmy Eat World, Peter, Bjorn and John and Islands, to name a few, as well as marking their first performance at Austin’s South by Southwest Festival this past March. Though there appears to be an overflow in the indie-pop world, the Poms stand out as one of the best in the midwest, with a sound that at times is reminiscent of both Modest Mouse and The Shins, although there’s enough there that they sound completely original. They’ve got the look and the sound, so nothing should stop them from being indie pop’s next big thing. I look forward to following the careers of these young gents.
Buffalo Killers
The Lions Rampant
The Seedy Seeds
The Sundresses
Ellery
Three of my favorite discoveries of the year in the local music scene include State Song, The Harlequins and mallory.
Featuring former members of local punk bands like The Invitational, The Dopamines and Black Tie Bombers, State Song is more post-punk-like, with their sometimes dark and heavy, ultra-dynamic brand of melodic pop-rock. They’ve been working hard all year long on their debut full-length album, which is looking like will be released very late this year or very early next year, at the earliest.
The address that The Harlequins use for their MySpace page includes the phrase “remember that band”, as in www.myspace.com/rememberthatband, which shouldn’t come off as presumptuous because after one listen of their recent, debut album, Baron von Headless, you will indeed remember this band and their mix of experimental, psychedelic pop rock. Michael Olivia and company were able to chalk up a nomination for “Best New Artist” at last year’s CEA’s even without a full-length under their belts.
mallory has been a staple in the local music scene for several years now, although it wasn’t until this past summer when I finally made it out to see them. They put a lot of focus on visuals aspects and instrumentation, which reminds me of bands like Mogwai and Explosions in the Sky and even Ampline. There’s huge, noisy walls of sound in their music, but they’re pretty damn good at hiding beautiful, intricate melodies in there as well. Mark your calenders for their CD Release Party on October 23 at the Southgate House.
Eat Sugar
The Minor Leagues
Matthew Shelton’s Picnic
Stick Figure Drawings
I’ve been listening to Ryan Adcock longer than any other local musician, so I always get excited about anything he’s involved in. Lately he’s been up to a new project called Flaregun with The Vinyltones Craig Dockery. The songs for their debut album, Ten Sundays, actually date back several years, where Ryan was writing music inspired by the ideas of various sermons at a local church. There’s always been a spiritual aspect to the songs Ryan writes, but Flaregun wouldn’t exactly consider themselves Christian rock. By using spirituality and God as the subject matter in music, one can often overcome hard times through faith and love, which has certainly helped me at times.
MidPoint 2009 Artist: Chairlift
August 19th, 2009
Posted in MidPoint Music Festival
Updated Thursday, September 3:
Chairlift will be touring as a quartet this fall, with the addition of Animal Collective composer and collaborator, John Maus. They play Cincinnati’s MidPoint Music Festival on Saturday, September 26 and will be going on the road with The Killers and Phoenix. Maus, a Hawaii native, was a member of Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti and also played keys with Animal Collective’s Panda Bear. Here’s a quote I found about John from Upset the Rhythm:
“John Maus is a maniac on a bloody crusade – a tortured evangelist on a mercenary quest to rid our world of villainous defilers of The Gospel of True Love. By turns shockingly infectious and disarmingly unpredictable, his music conflates a perplexing marriage of Moroder’s ‘Never Ending Story’ and classical 12-tone renegades of 20th century past, harking the new path which resurrects romance from its post-modern shackles, and reignites the promise of a better world.”
Chairlift (Brooklyn, New York)
Electronica/Indie/Pop
What started out with a couple of college students who wanted to make music for haunted houses, has grown into one of the hottest, up-and-coming electronic, indie bands of the present day. Aaron Pfenning and Caroline Polachek met in an Economics class at the University of Colorado in 2005, where they would swap demos from the back row. They later brought in bass player Kyle McCabe, to work on what would become the Daylight Savings EP. The collection of songs were recorded at the late-Elliot Smith’s studio in Los Angeles, with the band handing out demos at their shows.
Soon after, they relocated to New York, where Caroline was a transfer student at NYU, focusing on art and philosophy. In the summer of 2006, Aaron and Caroline created the Lady Ava Pop Festival, featuring some of their favorite experimental, pop bands. When they decided to settle in Brooklyn, they found themselves sharing a small, underground practice space with the local indie-folk band Grizzly Bear. Chairlift continued to hand out demos of the EP, and should be noted that there are dozens of versions in circulation, as different tracks were added and taken off of the EP.
Back in Colorado you have Patrick Wimberly, a DJ for a jazz radio station who had previously played in a jazz-rock band with Caroline. Wimberly made the move to New York City to start a career in music production, however, was asked to join the band. Although the band was in search for a replacement bassist, it was Wimberly who would first add the drums to their music, with each band member rotating on the bass.
Chairlift kept busy for the first two years while in New York, first releasing the single “Evident Utensil” (later remixed by fellow Brooklyn-ers MGMT) and writing the debut album, Does You Inspire You
Check out Chairlift at MidPoint on Saturday, September 26, when they play the Topic Design Tent at Grammer’s, located at Walnut and East Liberty Streets.
Check ‘em out if you’re into: Passion Pit, MGMT, Ra Ra Riot, The Bird and the Bee, Matt & Kim, Au Revoir Simone, School of Seven Bells or Black Kids
Listen to Chairlift on MySpace
The Final Bonnaroo Post
June 28th, 2009
Posted in Bonnaroo 2009, Local Music
When you first saw this post you probably thought to yourself, “Oh God…another Bonnaroo post. Just get over it man!” But the truth is that Bonnaroo becomes an obsession for many…could be hundreds, maybe even thousands. Just pay a visit to Inforoo anytime of the year, the unofficial Bonnaroo messageboard, and you’ll see that I’m not the only addict of the festival who constantly has it on their mind.
Although the festival has been over for nearly two weeks now, I don’t think I made a post yet where I really got some things I wanted to say off my chest. Basically what I wanted to write about was how when you leave Bonnaroo, or any festival for that matter, you leave either as a new fan of some bands or a bigger fan of one’s you already knew about. Festivals are really the best music experience, because when you have a ton of bands, in this case over a hundred-and-twenty, you’re gonna find types of music that you may not typically have given a chance. In the three times I’ve attended Bonnaroo combined, I’ve walked away knowing about hundreds of new bands. Some are my favorites today, some were my favorites for a little while, and some may even be among my favorites a year or two from now.
I’ve also noticed that I’m often a little late on picking up on some bands. For instance, at this year’s festival I’d have to say that I became a big fan of both Passion Pit and Chairlift. While Passion Pit has been growing over the past year or so, even just a year can mean all the difference. A year isn’t really long when you think about it, but in music it feels even shorter. Passion Pit had played at Northside Tavern sometime last year, sorry I don’t know the exact date, could’ve been early in the year, could’ve been late. But I remember hearing the buzz grow about that show even before it happened, and I’d like to think that they’ve become much bigger since then and probably don’t stand a chance playing in a tiny venue like that again, although they played the Mad Hatter just days after I saw them at Bonnaroo. One of the biggest shows of their careers, they reached an audience of somewhere around 5,000 people at Bonnaroo, in what served as the best dance party on opening night.
When I left the Peter, Bjorn and John concert at the end of April, they played at the Southgate House, I actually left feeling more interested in what I saw with the opening band, Chairlift. I guess it mostly had to do with hearing new sounds to my ears, as I had been listening to PB & J for at least the past couple years. Not that I had become bored with PB & J, but I’m always in search for new music, or new to me music. I’ve got over 5,600 hundred songs on my iPod and I have to tell you that sometimes I feel like that’s not enough music to satisfy me.
Another band who really impressed me on that first day of Bonnaroo was Hockey. I’d never heard of them, not sure I had even read about them on one of the twenty or so music blogs I check out on a weekly basis. I went in thinking they’d be alright, but left thinking wow, they’re really fucking good!
I love females that can rock, especially those who do it acoustically. The four ladies of Katzenjammer, who hail from Norway, are versatile, multi-instrumentalists who mix everything from folk and bluegrass to pop and punk, along with each’s vocal harmonies.
As a big Neil Young fan, it’s no surprise that I left Bonnaroo as a fan of Everest. Opening for Neil on his last tour, and then with My Morning Jacket on theirs, you can certainly hear a Young-inspiration there, as they’re full of both fuzzy and acoustic Americana rock.
Although I first heard Nickel Creek only some three or four years ago, which doesn’t say much considering they had been around for nearly twenty years, I’m becoming much more impressed and intrigued with the playing of both Sean and Sara Watkins. They both joined Switchfoot frontman, Jon Foreman, for a newer project called Fiction Family. Not much of a stretch of what I was expecting, it’s amazing to see a brother-sister relationship so closely knited while having played music together for so long. I’m a sucker for the violin (or if you want to call it a fiddle) and Sara, along with her angelic voice, will just make your heart melt.
I even came away from the festival as a bigger fan of the Heartless Bastards. Maybe that sounds bad because I’ve lived in Cincinnati my entire life, but I hadn’t seen them in a couple years and I think The Mountain is their best material yet.
Dancing in the Mud at Bonnaroo 2009
June 25th, 2009
Posted in Bonnaroo 2009
The weather on the first day of Bonnaroo 2009 was absolutely terrible. That morning, Thursday, June 11 to be exact, myself and almost a hundred or so others had been waiting outside of the Fantasy 101.5 radio station for hours when the black clouds rolled in around 10 am. I looked up to the sky and said to myself, “Oh God…not now. Please don’t do this. Not here, not at Bonnaroo, not this year.”
It wasn’t that I was concerned about getting wet at that moment…it’s not like I would melt or mulitply like a mogwai. My main concern was what condition would the farm be in when I arrived. Would I be stuck setting up my tent in a giant ass mud puddle?
Over the course of the entire day, the storms were quick and hard, as it rained more times than I could count on all of my fingers and toes. But a little rain won’t hurt you, and it certainly would not put a halt to a music festival. In fact, it seemed like most welcomed the rain and mud.
For the most part, my first day of music at Bonnaroo 2009 consisted of a shit load of indie rock bands.
I spent most of my time at This Tent, where I saw bands like White Rabbits, Hockey, Chairlift, Passion Pit and Delta Spirit. A couple times during the night, I managed to check out some other music going on at some other tents, like a little bit of Portugal. the Man in That Tent and Those Darlins at the newly designed Troo Music Lounge. But because of the lineup and the kind of music I like, I kept getting drawn back to This Tent. I think one of the things that kept me coming back to This Tent was the fact that most of these bands had a sound dominated by keyboards and synthesizers.
I had never heard of the band, Hockey, but I have to say that I was quite impressed. The Portland, Oregon band mixes dance, new wave and punk for a sound that has drawn comparisons to the Strokes and LCD Soundsystem. They’re currently signed with Capitol Records here in the U.S. and will release their debut album, Mind Chaos, on August 24. Look for their two singles online, entitled “Too Fake” and “Learn to Lose.”
I had really wanted to check out this band I’ve been hearing a lot of buzz about, called the Low Anthem. However, I chose to stick with Chairlift because I had seen them a couple months back when they opened for Peter, Bjorn & John at the Southgate House, and I have to say that I enjoyed them much more than PB&J. Chairlift will be coming back to Cincinnati in September, when they play the 2009 MidPoint Music Festival.
Indie, folk-rock band, Delta Spirit, almost didn’t make the festival. They were stuck in a Dallas airport earlier in the day, but managed to pull off a stellar, energetic set despite having jet-lag.
But the best show of the day belonged to the electronica Boston act, Passion Pit. With only one full-length album out, Manners, which was released not even a month before their show at Bonnaroo, Passion Pit first hit their breakthrough with the six-song EP, Chunk of Change. With three of the band’s five members playing keyboards and synthesizers, Passion Pit provided for a great soundtrack for those who wanted to dance in the rain and mud at Bonnaroo 2009.
