The new album by the Red Chord, “Prey For Eyes”, doesn’t hit stores until July 24th, but you can grab it here: The Red Chord - Prey For Eyes (Mirror: Borrowed from Emofreak’s Delight)
I’ll be seeing these guys on August 7th at the Chameleon Club with Between the Buried and Me, and I can’t wait. That’s all for now.
The newest offering from Ween, “The Friends EP”, contains five brand new songs, none of which will be appearing on the upcoming full length album that is scheduled to be released this fall. I haven’t really had a chance to give it a thorough listen, but I’m not sure how I feel about what I’ve heard so far. Anyway, you can download that here: Ween - The Friends EP
My brother’s band, Still Motion, has 4 new songs on their MySpace. Definitely check ‘em out if you have a chance, listen to them a few times, they grow on you. These guys have been together for a while now, and they all just graduated from High School. I know I’ve posted about them several times before, so I won’t bore you with details, just check ‘em out - I’ve only listened to them a few times so far, but I like “Everything” the most so far. If you hate MySpace as much as I do, you’ll probably appreciate this MySpace Music Downloader. Too bad MySpace compresses the shit out of people’s music so that it sounds like it’s being played through a dead sloth’s a-hole.
That’s all I have time for right now. I hope you’re all having a terrible summer full of hornets, heat strokes, warm skunked beer, poison ivy, sunburn, and shark bites.
I’m pretty sure I brought at least an acre of Tennessee home with me in my nose. No, that was not a poor attempt at a drug reference - This year’s Bonnaroo was incredibly dry. With all the cars and human traffic on the dry earth, heavy clouds of dust were ever present throughout the farm. It is obvious that I wasn’t the only one bothered by this, as tons of people donned bandanas that covered the lower half of their faces. I ended up buying a bandana from some dude for a dollar, and it was pretty lame looking - It had a pot-leaf pattern on it, and I felt like a total douche. Normally I would refuse to wear something like that, but the dust really did suck. I wasn’t prepared for it at all (since it wasn’t like that last year) and I actually missed some shows because of it… I think I would have rathered a rainy, muddy Bonnaroo, at least that way I would have been able to breathe. Anyway, that’s pretty much my only gripe with the whole thing, so now that I got the bitching out of the way…
Our little entourage of 5 cars met up in Shippensburg around 11pm Thursday evening, and hit the road soon after. I thought that five cars trying to stay together would be hard, because if one person has to stop to go to the bathroom, all five cars would have to stop, but it actually worked out pretty nicely… Well, four out of five cars arrived there together. I’d say we got to Manchester, TN around 10-ish the next morning, but don’t quote me on that. We were using my GPS duder and I don’t think it gave us the most efficient route, as we were on a lot of backroads, getting stuck behing trucks doing 15 mph and etc. We sat in line for probably 2 and a half hours, which is way longer than it took us to get in last year, but not bad. Since traffic was barely moving, people were laying on top of their cars and walking around outside, so it wasn’t all that bad. We hadn’t even entered the farm yet, and the fun had already started.
Once we finally got in, they checked our tickets and peeked in the car, but didn’t do a thorough search at all - Though it wouldn’t have mattered if they did, we didn’t have anything ‘illegal’, save a few glass bottles that they might have confiscated had they found them at the bottom of our coolers. I was worried that we wouldn’t all get to park together, and therefore our camp sites would be all over the place, but we ended up all parking right next to each other, so we had one big campsite with plenty of room. The car that got seperated ended up being parked about 10 minutes from us which wasn’t bad either. We were about a 15 minute walk from Centeroo, which is where all the bands play - The walk got a little annoying after awhile, since I found myself going to and from Centeroo 2-3 times a day, but it could have been much worse.
It didn’t take us too long to set up our tents and canopy things, and within half an hour or so we were all setup. We had a few beers and headed to Centeroo. The first band we checked out was The Little Ones. They were one of the first bands to be “announced” for this year’s Bonnaroo, so I knew all of the songs pretty well. We were pretty close to the front for this set, which was cool. They weren’t incredible or anything, but they were fun to see live, and it was a pretty good start to the festival. I also didn’t know they were Asian, not that it makes a difference or anything, it’s just not what I pictured.
Next we saw The Black Angels. They were also announced early, before the ‘official’ lineup was released, but I had only listened to them maybe five times. They put on an awesome show though, it was ‘darker’ than I thought it would be, if that makes any sense. Everyone seemed to enjoy it though, and I definitely like them a lot more now that I’ve seen them live.
After that, we checked out Apollo Sunshine. Once again, this band was announced way before the official lineup was released, so I had plenty of time to listen to both of their albums. I know pretty much all of their material, but I didn’t recognize some of the stuff they played, so they must have been playing new material. Anyway, they were awesome live. I wasn’t expecting them to ‘jam’ as much as they did - They’d play a 3 minute song for 10 minutes or so, and it was really cool, I was pleasantly surprised. I’d definitely see these guys again.
Clutch was up next, and I was really excited to see them, I’ve liked these guys since high school, and it’s strange that I hadn’t seen them live before this. Unfortunately, by this point I was exhausted. I saw about half of their show and decided it was time to head back since I could barely stand. What I did see of their set was awesome, and I really do regret leaving early, but I hadn’t gotten much sleep over the past 24 hours. It seemed that they were only playing newer stuff though, which is cool, but I definitely would have liked to hear more of their older material. I have heard bootlegs of other shows that they’ve played recently, and they sort of seem to ignore everything before Pure Rock Fury, which is a shame. Anyway, some of the people I was with saw the whole set and said it was amazing, which I have no trouble believing.
Before my girlfriend and I headed back to the campsite, we swung by Rodrigo y Gabriela. What I heard of that sounded awesome, but sleep was calling my name. Apparently right after we left, they covered Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here”, which I’m sure was amazing.
On Friday morning we were all up by 8 am. It’s impossible to go back to sleep when you wake up drenched in sweat, and after one morning like this, you come to terms with the fact that you will never sleep past 8:30 am, unless you’re in an air conditioned RV or something. The first band we checked out on Friday was Cold War Kids. This is another band that was announced a few months before the official lineup came out, so I had plenty of time to listen to them, and I like them a lot. We were pretty far back for this set, and for whatever reason we didn’t try to get close to the front, so we couldn’t really see them playing, but it sounded pretty good. It’s hard to get into the band when you’re that far back though, so it was a good set, but I’m sure that it would have been much better had we been closer.
We went back to our campsite for a little, and then headed back for Kings of Leon. They put on a great set, I liked these guys prior to seeing them, but I wasn’t expecting them to be this good. Our group got split up (this happened about two hundred times) and my friend Alex and I got pretty close to the front. She had a water bottle of hot vodka with her… Thank god. I almost threw up 2-3 times, but it was a lot of fun, especially because of how close we were. It rained for about 10 minutes during this set, which was a godsend.
After Kings of Leon, some of our group went to see The Nighwatchman. I wasn’t really interested in that though. I’m assuming I must have headed back to the camp at this point, because I didn’t see any more bands play until…
Tool. They are probably one of my top 10 favorite bands, and it’s pretty ridiculous that I had never seen them live up until this point. Tool’s set may very well have been the best thing I saw (musically and visually) at Bonnaroo. I have heard how amazing they are live from people, but I tried not to think about it too much, as I didn’t want to have high expectations and then be disappointed. I was absolutely blown away. They played a good variety of songs, and Maynard was pretty funny. He kept saying “thanks and goodnight”, indicating that the show was over, but then they’d go on to play another song. Hearing “Aenema” live was nothing short of amazing. I had chills going up and down my spine for the majority of the set. Tom Morello came out and did some cool guitar work for Lateralus too, which was pretty cool, but it would have been just as amazing without him. The lights were spectacular - Obviously a good amount of people had taken one psychedelic or another prior to the show, and I had people pointing to the lasers flying all over the sky and asking me, “did that really just happen? Did you see that too?” Walking away from Tool’s set, I knew that it would be next to impossible for any band to top what I had just seen. I feel bad for anyone that missed out on that set.
Aesop Rock was one of the main acts that I wanted to see, but for whatever reason I never made it over to “This Tent” while he was performing. Instead I followed my friends to “Which Stage” to see some of String Cheese Incident, which really didn’t do much for me. Having just seen Tool, I guess I just wasn’t in the right state of mind to listen to that type of music.
Eventually we made our way over to El-P. I was a little bored after seeing String Cheese, but once El-P started his set up with “Mad World” (from Donnie Darko), I got excited again. I have listened to his new album, “I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead” a good bit, so I knew most of the tracks that he performed. And although I was bummed to have missed out on Aesop Rock’s set, he came out to join El-P on the track “Run The Numbers” which was pretty cool. I would have liked him to keep the political ramblings to a minimum, but it’s no big deal.
We stayed at “Which Stage” after El-P finished so that we’d have a good spot for DJ Shadow. I’ve liked him for a long time, I definitely listened to him before I knew who El-P or Aesop Rock were. He took about half an hour to setup, so by the time he came on we were getting a bit antsy, but it was worth the wait. We saw 45 minutes or so of his set, and then decided to go walk around for a while, since there is a lot more to check out in Centeroo than just the music, and we hadn’t really explored much yet.
We ended up heading over towards “That Tent” where Sound Tribe Sector 9 was playing. I was familiar with their music, but not sure if I really liked it or not. We only caught the last 15-20 minutes of their set, and it sounded cool, but I couldn’t really get into it. After STS9 finished, we headed back to catch the end of DJ Shadow, which was a great way to end the night.
We woke up on Saturday morning and did a little boozin’ before heading to check out Old Crow Medicine Show. I like these guys, but I was missing Dr. Dog (who no one else wanted to see). OCMS sounded pretty good, so I stayed there for about 20 minutes before checking out the end of Dr. Dog’s set. They brought out dudes from Apollo Sunshine and Elvis Perkins for the last track, which was pretty cool.
After that, I convinced some of my friends to stick around and see some of Gogol Bordello with me. They put on an awesome show, very energetic, and everyone seemed to like them. I liked the hot gypsy girls that were jumping around… I want one. We saw about 45 minutes of the set, but the people I was with wanted to see Hot Tuna, so we headed over there. I like some of their music, but I just couldn’t get into it, and no one else really seemed to be into it either, so we headed back to our campground to drink some more. I realize I only mentioned drinking a few times in here so far. I did a good amount of drinking there, but the average temperature was about 90 degrees, and if I drank too much I was afraid I’d pass out and rot in the sun. I did have a CamelBak with me, but there were usually between 4-8 people with me, so it would empty pretty quickly.
Anyway, everyone was excited to see Ween. I like these guys a lot, but it sucked to walk by the tent where The Hold Steady was playing and not having any time to stop and listen. Anyway, I saw about half of Ween’s set, and then it got to the point where I almost couldn’t breathe at all. I headed to the medical tent, and after standing around for 15 minutes or so, someone finally decided to come see what I needed. They looked around for an inhaler and when they finally found one, it took me 2 minutes to use. I felt a little better and was all ready to leave, but they told me I needed to fill out paperwork. Unfortunately, they couldn’t find a pen. Part of me wanted to stand up and run out of there, but I figured if I stayed patient, it’d only take a minute. They spent another ten minutes or so looking for a pen, and then finally told me I could leave and not to worry about the paperwork. By the time I got back to the stage where Ween was playing, they had 2 more songs to go. So I missed a good amount of the set, but it’s probably better that I left when I did.
After Ween, we headed over to the main stage where The Police would be playing. We were pretty far back, but everyone seemed kind of exhausted, so it was nice to have a spot to throw a blanket down and be able to sit down on it without being trampled by drunken Sting fans. I have to be honest here, I was pretty disappointed with The Police’s set. Yeah, we were pretty far back, but the sound was awful. We were much further back for Radiohead on that same stage the previous year, and we could hear them just fine. I know it wasn’t just us, no one seemed to be into it. People all around us were having conversations, and a lot of people weren’t even facing the stage. I wanted to like their set a lot, as I’m a pretty big fan of The Police, but it just wasn’t happening.
I actually ended up walking back to the campsite with my girlfriend so she could change into jeans because it was getting chilly out. When we came back they had pretty much finished playing, but I didn’t feel like I had missed anything. I was pretty damn excited for The Flaming Lips anyway, who played next. Unfortunately, by the time we made our way over to the stage they were to play on, it was already ridiculously crowded. I’ve never seen any of the smaller stages that crammed before, there was literally nowhere even remotely close for us to sit or stand. When we did find a spot, it was so far back that we could hear the music from the other stages, so that really sucked. I knew I was missing an amazing show, but we ended up leaving pretty much right away.
We headed over to check out Galactic’s set, which was pretty damn cool. They don’t currently have a vocalist, but their upcoming album features a bunch of hip-hop acts (such as Mr. Lif, Lyrics Born, and Gift of Gab, among others). So they more or less supplied the beats for the rappers, which was pretty cool. I’m sure the album will be awesome when it comes out. I do kind of regret missing Gov’t Mule, but we ended up leaving before Galactic finished their set.
The first band I saw on Sunday was Wolfmother. We didn’t have great seats for this show, and I couldn’t really see the band well, but they sounded pretty good. I’m pretty sure I knew every song they played, so that was cool.
After Wolfmother, we checked out some of Bob Weir & Ratdog. I don’t know much of their music, but when we walked over they were covering “Come Together” by The Beatles which sounded pretty damn cool, and then they played a Dead song that I recognized as well. Would have liked to have stayed for more of that, but we headed back to the tent for a while.
A little later that afternoon we saw The White Stripes. Once again, we didn’t have the best seats for this show, but they were better than the seats we had for Wolfmother at that same stage earlier in the day. They put on a great show, though I wish I would have gone up to the front with some of the other people we were with. Jack White helped someone propose during that show which was pretty cool.
Widespread Panic was the last band of the festival, and I was pretty excited to see them. I didn’t recognize as many songs as I would have liked to, but they played a few that I knew, and they also did some cool covers, including Sabbath’s “Fairies Wear Boots”, which was a nice surprise. They put on an awesome show, and it was a pretty good way to wrap up the weekend. After their set we explored Centeroo a little more, but pretty much everything was closed at that point, so we headed back to our campsite and drank for a while until everyone passed out.
I didn’t see as much as I would have liked to, partly because I was the only person carrying a phone with me most of the time, and once you split up with people it was pretty much impossible to meet up with them again, it was just too confusing. But I had an awesome time, and definitely plan on going next year. If I do go, I’ll definitely be more prepared. We left Manchester around 10 am or so on Monday morning, and didn’t get back to Philadelphia until about 2am Tuesday morning because of some traffic and other minor complications. I am still pretty out of it, and my asthma still really sucks, but hopefully that will clear up over the next few days. If you read this entire post, I’m proud of you, because I sure didn’t.
If you want to check out some of the live sets that are available for download (both audio and video) LargeHeartedBoy’s 2007 Bonnaroo Downloads is a good place to start. Also, try here and here. Tool’s set was available in FLAC, but I converted it to MP3 for you, so you can grab that here: Tool - Live at Bonnaroo 2007 - It’s not amazing quality, but it’s listenable. Enjoy!
Edit: Not only has this coupon expired, but MTV canceled all of the orders that were placed using the coupon. How lame is that? And all this time I thought MTV was great. Didn’t you?
Got back from Bonnaroo at about 2:30 am last night, so I’m too tired to make an actual post right now, but wanted to give a heads up: You can get $10 off your order at MTV.com using the code FREEMONEY. They have a good amount of DVDs there that are under ten bucks, making them 100% free if you use that code. Here’s a few: Jackass: The Movie, Spiderman, Spiderman II, Catch Me If You Can, The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, and Animal House. Look around for yourself, there’s more on there.
Bonnaroo 2007 is almost upon us. We’re leaving on Wednesday the 13th sometime around 11pm, and will be driving through the night. Hopefully we’ll arrive in Manchester around noon on Thursday… As long as no tires explode like last year, we should be okay. I’ll be blogging live from the sobriety tent, so check back here for continuous updates throughout the festival.
I’m a sucker for Last.fm ‘mash-ups’ if you will - I like when people take the music stats and do cool stuff with them. Here’s one called the Last.fm Mainstream-O-Meter. It takes your top 20 most played artists and determines (not sure how) how mainstream they are. I think it’s pretty interesting. My musical tastes are 18.42% mainstream… Obviously it’s not important in any way but it’s interesting nonetheless. I’m also a sucker for corn rows, and I enjoy shaking my tailfeather from time to time.
I’m not even gonna bother with any type of summary or description, this news article is just hilarious.
I’m just curious… What the hell is this? Someone named their mouse ‘Jiglet’ just to spite me… A-hole.
I haven’t heard the new White Stripes album yet… But you can. Download “Icky Thump” here, and while you’re downloading it, imagine how angry Jack White is getting. Don’t you wish you could put him in a glass room with a monitor outside of it and just force him to watch people pirate his music? That would rule. Have a good weekend urrbody.
It never ceases to amaze me what you can find in open directories just by doing a Google search. I know I’ve been guilty of leaving directories unprotected in the past, and it has resulted in bandwidth rape. Well, let’s do that to some other people.
This directory has some damn good music in it… Some albums by Ween, The Mars Volta, System of a Down, Phish (lots), Modest Mouse, Grateful Dead, also some Mitch Hedberg, a decent amount of rap (definitely grab some Atmosphere , Dr. Octagon, Del, and Aesop Rock), some punk - I could probably go on for a while here, but why not just browse the shit yourself while it’s still up?
I do realize that it is possible that some of these people intentionally have this music publicly available… But why share when there’s nothing in it for you? What the hell is kindness? …Where am I?
I believe I’ve posted this on here before, but Papaiti is a great tool for finding more directories like the ones I just posted… It’s just a modified Google search that uses extra search terms to locate directories containing media files, and I use it a lot at work for finding music.
Dell has the 500GB Western Digital MyBook Essential Edition USB2.0 External Hard Drive for $149. The site automatically takes off 35%, bringing the total to $97 (with free shipping). I ordered one this afternoon because I’m an idiot, so now I have four external drives. Get yours here.
Get 20% off your order at DeepDiscount.com (aka DeepDiscountDVD) by using one of the following codes: SUPERSALE, USATODAY, or DVDTALK. These codes will work on DVD, HD-DVD, Blu-Ray, and UMD titles, as well as posters, accessories, board games and puzzles… Pretty much everything on the site, except for preorders, books, CDs, electronics, and video games. These codes probably won’t last for too long, so get to it! I feel this is postworthy because that site tends to have the cheapest prices around on DVDs anyway (the majority of the time) so you can get some great deals if you get on that shiz. And they paid me $900 to post this, too.