BonnaReview pt. 3


Saturday 6/14

Saturday I woke up with a a major bounce in my step. After Friday's bunk-goodies situation I took it upon myself to do some major Shakedown shopping. I situated myself outside Centeroo and patrolled Shakedown Street and meet all sorts of interesting characters. I bought an assortment of gifts and sampled an assortment of other goodies from the nicest entrepreneurs I have ever meet. I wound up with about three different types of everything just make sure I was in prime condition to enjoy the late nights.

As a result of my little adventure I missed out on some of the day acts but I did manage to catch a bit of Little Feet at The Other Tent. They were a jammy type band which I actually enjoyed. I wasn't familiar with any of their original material but it didn't matter much to me. They definitely catered to an older type audience so the Other Tent wasn't particularly poppin' or anything like that but it was nice daytime show. We rolled around Centeroo taking in sounds from metal madmen Mastadon and then Cat Power before settling on Zappa Plays Zappa.


That Tent was packed but we managed to get our usual right-in-front-of-the-soundboard-spots. I read somewhere Dweezil Zappa spent hundreds of hours building a new guitar or something to sound even more like his daddy. Whatever he did worked because it sounded dead on. Big J and I agreed that Zappa's band was the tightest band we saw all weekend. They must have rehearsed day and night to become so goddamn nasty. Time signature changes and key modulations were dealt with such ease and precision it made them difficult to detect. We basically rocked out for a while in total amazement before we rolled over to Jack Johnson.


While Jack johnson played The What Stage, they projected surf videos and beech scenes from the giant screens. I wouldn't say the show was boring, the party favors ensured that boring never reared its ugly head. Jack was more charasmatic and fun loving than anything else. Eddie Vedder joined jack in a heart warming rendition of something I can't remember. The show was all around inoffensive and had a clear beginning middle and end.


Pearl Jam came onstage and rocked faces. Eddie Vedder, who normally despises festival shows seemed happy totally shit-faced as per usual. I wish I could say Pearl Jam owned their headlining spot but I unfortunately cannot. I thought what I saw of Metallica was better but then again I did not get to see the whole PJ set. We had to leave around 11:30 to ensure prime viewing for Sigur Ros, which was well worth the wait.


Sigur Ros was absolutely brilliant at That Tent. We arrived That Tent WAY early and secured ourselves the same right-in-front-of-the-soundboard-spots as usual. They played the same little piano/bass melody all through the set up process. It made the whole wait almost unbearable. I was writhing with anticipation, or rolling with the waves of Red Buddhas, one of the two. When they opened with Sven-G-Englar which was the absolute highlight of the show for me, I felt like I was floating on clods of joy. They masterfully crafted a classical sonic experience despite exploding the left side speakers. They sorted out the sound issues promptly and rolled through some new material. They had an interchangeable string/horn/drumline situation that accompanied the band and completely took us by surprise. Frontman Jón “Jónsi” Þór Birgisson's ethereal voice filled That Tent with otherworldly reverb. His vocals washed over the crowd as his bowed Les Paul produced the most beautiful bass that has ever hit my ribcage. I wish I had words to describe the emotion, and amazement I felt during this spectacle. Every person on that stage has more talent in their little pinky than I can ever hope to obtain in a million lifetimes. The entire band came out and bowed for us, That Tent clapped so hard and long that we made them come back out and bow again.


We hurried on back to catch the end of Ghostland Observatory at This Tent, whose fog machines and lasers were working over-time. Seriously, they had an assload of lasers. We stayed for about an hour and argued about whether the frontman was actually a man or woman. I took the middle-road and said he was a flamboyantly effeminate man. Turns out I was right and his name is Aaron Behrens. I must say that motherfucker can dance. This was probably the most intense laser light show I have ever seen. It definitely topped the intensity of Tool's, Chemical Brothers', or The Flaming Lips' laser shows. The music was tight electro, dance-rock, soul funk, whatever; but the vocals, like many other bands, I could take or leave. There is no doubt in my mind that we will see Ghostland Obervatory doing even greater things in the future.

Now we moved on Kanye West's highly anticipated B+ Glow In The Dark Tour. After reading Entertainment Weekly's take on the show, which is favorable overall, Kanye threw a diva-fit and responded with a poorly written blog post of his own. Read about the whole B+ fiasco by clicking on the link above.


I will forgo writing a lengthy review of Kanye's show, especially since I didn't stay for the whole thing, because many others have reviewed it ad nauseam. I will however comment on Kanye's performance as it pertains to Bonnaroo. Festival goers are typically a smarter type of music fan. They listen to a wide range of artists from all different genres and go way out of their way to end up in no-where Tennessee for four days of killer live bands. They expect artists who are featured at Bonnaroo to put on a show that is a cut-above their average tour date. Actually it is advantageous for these artists to play just a bit harder at a festival setting since they're in front of a crowd who is there not necessarily there to see them. These artists should be trying their hardest to win over an audience who would not normally buy their ticket. The Thursday night bands like MGMT and Lez Zeppelin probably have never played to a larger crowd than one at Bonnaroo, so they know this performance will be blogged about and reviewed by thousands and this could make or break their touring career. When when a major artist gets a prime time latenight spot at Bonnaroo they are expected to deliver the performance of their lifetime.

As a Bonnaroo vet of 4 years now, the latenight shows I have seen at Bonnaroo have always been better than just any old show. The Flaming Lips, when they played Bonnaroo latenight 06, went all out with their stage setup because they knew that their fans have been camping out for days in the Tennessee heat for them. The Flaming Lips love their fans so much Wayne ensured everyone who waited to get front spots for the Flips, some of whom completely skipped The Police to get their spots, that they were in for the the very best Flips experience possible. My Morning Jacket also destroyed their latenight sets in 06 and 08 respectively. Sasha and Digweed, who I mentioned last post, pwned their latelight spots. Every single artist who I have seen at Bonnaroo really brought their A-game with the exception of Tiesto, who I ranted about last time, and Mr. West. From now on I shall refer to Kanye West as AssGoblin.

AssGoblin was originally slated to play up against Jack Johnson at around 8:15 on the Which Stage. About a week before the festy they pulled the old switcheroo and put him on the What Stage after Pearl Jam at 2:45 AM. There are two reasons I have come up with for this change.

1) AssGoblin felt that his stage show and ego could not fit on the smaller stage or the time slot of 8:15 was not sufficiently late enough to fully realize the Glow In The Dark Show.

2) AssGoblin and his gigantic ego could not deal with playing on a smaller stage, up against another major artist. He then demanded to be put on after the headliner at the main stage. As it turns out this seems to be the case.

As I later found out, post festival, AssGoblin had overbooked himself that night and played another show earlier that evening in Georgia. I can't find a link to my source but I read it somewhere trust me. It doesn't matter anyway. AssGoblin had been rescheduled to 2:45 am, thus displacing one of the other artists who was slated to play the What Stage onto the Which Stage and pushing everyone's time slot forward by 30 minutes. No big right? At this point I couldn't care less where AssGoblin chooses to prance around all glowlike n' shit, hopefully I'll be so hopped-up it won't matter whats going on onstage as long as there are a shitload of lights.

After Sigur Ros' mind bending performance, on our way to the What Stage to see AssGoblin glow, we received word from other 'rooers that AssGoblin's show was delayed. We decided to hurry back and continue watching Ghostland Observatory. Once that ended at about 4:15 we rolled back to the What Stage to see what all the fuss was about. When we got there the vibe was pretty shitty. I have never ever seen a more pissed off Bonnaroo crowd in my entire life. Kids were booing, and throwing shit on the stage. Apparently some dude threw a glowstick and fucked up one of AssGoblin's screens and left a nice permanent pink spot on it. In any event, AssGoblin finally hit the What Stage somewhere after 4:30 am, nearly two hours after his already rescheduled 2:45 AM slot. If I were a Kanye fan I would be furious, two hours is more than enough time for the drugs to wear off...

I can't claim to be an AssGoblin fan, but I do agree that his productions are immensely popular and by all standards not the worst pop music ever. I had seen AssGoblin a few years earlier headlining Lollapalooza. That show didn't exactly do it for me but it didn't exactly chap my ass either. I was basically impartial to AssGoblin prior to Bonnaroo but this Glow In The Dark thing was so unbearably cheesy I felt compelled to leave after only 30 minutes. The show opened with a intro/teaser of Stronger, a perversion of a Daft Punk classic. We were then introduced to AssGoblin's onboard bitch-computer Jane. Jane is basically a cock-whore. She warns AssGoblin that he has crash landed on an uncharted planet, and then offers him her services after he complains about not having gotten any poon since he left Earth. ''We need the brightest star in the universe — you, Kanye! Only you can bring us home. You can glow in the dark!''

The show's theme was AssGoblin goes on an interplanetary voyage to bring shitty music to other star systems. He gets lost, crash lands somewhere, and is marooned on a desert planet. The space-opera is complete with a light up backdrop, light-up landscaping, light-up ramp whit extra lights underneath, light-up globes, and a light-up platform for AssGoblin to prance on. AssGoblin cut his set short and played for less than one hour. He did not bother to apologize for his tardiness or even acknowledge the Bonnaroo crowd once. Most of the fallout from this incident could have been avoided had AssGoblin even screamed a nice loud BONNAROOOOOO! But he didn't. the Sun rose fully by 5 AM, a mere 30 minutes after the show began. The Sun was the ultimate slap in the face; AssGoblin's Glow In The Dawn spectacular looked more like a big light-brite than a million dollar production. Had AssGoblin kept his original 8:15 time-slot, more 'rooers would have attended the show, (I estimate only about 15-20 thousand actually stayed up), and a lot more of the show would have been glowing the the dark. Retard!

More than enough has been written about AssGoblins pathetic attempt at a show at Bonnaroo, you can knock yourself out reading all that here. AssGoblin even responded to criticisms by posting his interpretation of the events on his blog. Do yourself and favor and read his response to the Bonnaroo shenanigans here. It is a fantastically entertaining read. I would copy and past that shit here but it would literally infect my blog with caps-lock-itus. ISN'T THAT SHIT REALLY FUCKING ANNOYING!!!!

I also read on Inforoo that Phil Lesh, who is Bonna-Royalty, was asked to cut his set an hour early to accommodate AssGoblin's ego, which further affirms that AssGoblin and his ego cannot handle playing up against a major artist. I wonder if AssGoblin will ask Trent Reznor to stop at Lollzapalooza so that he can start. I hope AssGoblin dies by drowning in a dumpster filled with a fuckton of splooge.

BonnaReview pt. 2


Friday 6/13
I actually managed to stay asleep well past 10 o'clock, which is quite impressive considering its Bonnaroo and all. We were roused by the noon time heat and moved very slowly and deliberately to the pizza near Minus The Bear at That Tent.

Minus the bear, from what I can recall, was cool-ish but not in a particularly memorable way, but that could be because I'm not familiar with their tunes. They basically rocked out appropriately for a while and were able to hold my attention despite that ADD nonsense. After that ish we hit our first major festival schism, our very first "Bonflict."

The Raconteurs vs. !!!. People say that !!! is pronounced chk chk chk. But according to our resident Brit Matt and Asian Alien Toonz. !!! was more like blah blah blah. Apparently their set was fine except as soon as our boys started getting into the groove a crowd surfer killed the vibe via shoe to the dome or something. Oh well for them, I was digging the Raconteurs on the What Stage like an archaeologist.


Don't get me wrong, The White Stripes are awesome and all, but the Raconteurs are straight up titties. The Raconteurs play my kind of in your face guitar rock that world is so brutally lacking. Jack White and Brendan Benson work so well together its hard to believe this is a side-project, but with Meg White going totally bananas lately we may not see the White Stripes together again for a while. Shitty for the White Stripes but phenomenal for The Raconteurs. Benson and Jack White guitar battled, head-butted each others shoulders, destroyed all kinds of shit on stage, took blistering guitar solos, and performed all sorts of awesome rock-roll maneuvers. They killed it when they played Level, Carolina Drama, Steady As She Goes, and a personal favorite, the Zane Lowe rendition of Store Bought Bones. The set was truly masterful, complete with some sort of filtered can/microphone doodad attached to a delay/stutter effect shitter; it was gimmicky as hell but I ate that shit up like late night arepas.

On a side note... We watched The Raconteurs with this 40 something dude and his lovely wife. This couple camped in the VIP lot, and they claimed a killer spot on the barrier of What Stage for Metallica. His wife brought him beer, made him sandwiches, he wore fresh socks, sat on in comfy chair, and she even had clean feet! WTF man, I'm springing for VIP tickets next year, and we'll get wives or slaves or a harem of bitches to get us beer and sandwiches as well.


Now I really could have gone to see the legendary Willie Nelson, the super hyped MIA, or even stuck around in our primo-spots for Metallica. But I'm straight up in love with Jenny Lewis, so we rolled to This Tent for Rilo Kiley. I got my fix of watching Jenny Lewis be all hot and indy so we strolled about Centeroo to take care of our necessities; re-filling our shitty nalgenes, eating shitty slices, and dropping shitty deuces. Eventually we made it to the tail end of MIA which looked like it was a bit of fun in the tent but we simply had no time for those kind of shenanigans.

We gathered ourselves at the Silent Disco, reunited with Toonz and Matt, and moved on to Chris Rock at the What Stage. Holy shit was the black man funny. He touched on popular topics like racism, faggetry, and bitchhood. Rock ended his bit and came back to introduce the "baddest band on the planet" Metallica.


Metallica definitely delivered at Bonnaroo. They opened with my personal favorite Creeping Death and tried to get the crowd to sing the chorus. Since Bonnaroo really isn't Metallica country the vast majority were unfamiliar with the lyrics. They wandered through a couple of other songs and made it a point to interact with the crowd which was nice. James smiled a bunch, thanked the audience numerous times, proclaimed his support for killer live music, and had an overall positive attitude, which weirded me out a bit considering Metallica is certainly not known for their pleasantries. Kirk Hammet shredded all his solos as if he'd been touring for 20 years or something. From all indications Metallica "won over" a largely skeptical hippy crowd. We didn't see the whole shebang since we headed over to My Morning Jacket rather early to situate ourselves near the stage; but I bet the pyrotechnics were hot shit.


My Morning Jacket was transcendent on the notoriously overcrowded Which Stage. A nasty shower hit us while waiting there but that didn't matter once MMJ hit the stage, which they did promptly at midnight. What really impressed me was how professional the entire production was. Not one sound glitch, no feedback, no serious downtime between songs, even when Jim James looked over to ask for a monitor boost mid song it went down without him missing a single note. The entire show was painfully epic. They rocked out so perfectly on every single moment of every single song. There was definitely a horn section at some point, and they fucking covered Kool & The Gang's Get Down On It. Kirk Hammet joined the band for One Big Holiday. They played for about four and a half hours without holding back a shred of energy. At the very end Jim James called for "Orphan Annie" but instead Zach Galifianakis' weird ass took the stage and joined in on a heart warming rendition of Mötley Crüe's Home Sweet Home. I swear this happened and it wasn't just the drugs.


After MMJ's monster set we were all drenched by unrelenting summer rain, so we wandered over to This Tent to for Tiesto. I needed an energy boost so I figured some high bpms would entice me to bounce around and dry me out. Now, I really don't want to hate on the Euro-Trance genre more than I already have but in this case I must rant. Tiesto was pathetic, he no longer deserves the superstar status he has attained. His productions are unbearably cheesy, his light show was utter garbage, he played diva track, after diva track, after diva track, while standing in the classic Jesus pose, laughing at the retards who willingly chugg his dick flavored cock. Maybe, MAYBE! ten years ago Tiesto was working for his exorbitant DJ fee, but now he is clearly just fucking with us. When I go see top DJs I expect there to be some euphoric hands in the air freak out type shit especially towards the end of the set when I get to blow my outrageous load. Tiesto's finale was the exact opposite, the absolute slowest of jerks. Tiesto should talk to Sasha, who unequivocally slayed The Other Tent when he played in 06 and again in 07 with Digweed. Sasha proclaimed Bonnaroo was his favorite show of 2006 and he played the shit out The Other Tent until the sun was uncomfortably high in the air. In Search of Sunrise my ass, fuck you Tiesto, other DJS would kill small children to play Bonnaroo and they would have played until their carpal tunnel syndrome got carpal tunnel syndrome.

I was so baffled at the Tiesto situation that I actually wandered over to That Tent to see the Disco Biscuits. After poking around for a couple of minutes I made the classic "whack'n it" motion with my right had and let my invisible jism fly off into the night and trudged back to my uninflatable inflatable mattress.

Music to come soon...

BonnaReview pt. 1


As some may know the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival kicked off exactly one week ago with a killer Thursday night followed by 3 more days, nights, and dawns of drug fueled festivities. This review is dedicated to those who couldn't bother to attend the most amazing experience of their lifetime.

Thursday 6/12
Holy fucking shit... Waiting on the I-24 queue sucked major balls. The traffic was so backed up and we waited for so goddamn long we nearly ran out of fuel. I asked a nearby Statey where the nearest gas station was. He told us to hit up exit 114. We ducked out of line blew past 10 miles of other schmucks who are probably still waiting in line. We gassed ourselves up and went off to get back in line but the on-ramp was blocked off by cops who told us to take some rt. 50 business. We did and wound up only waiting another hour or so until we were finally admitted onto the farm. So remember future Bonnaroo'ers... take exit 114, turn left and then turn right onto rt. 50. You may even get free bottled water from some Christian group that will apologize for Jehovah's Witnesses, Evangelicals, Televangelists, The Crusades, as well as the last 2000 years of lies.

Our "ez-up" shade canopy turned out to be a "hard as fuck-up" shade canopy. We finally finagled that shit up and marched down to Centeroo where we awaited the first act of the festy. What Made Milwaukee Famous hit This Tent and left no lasting impression... Fuck Millwaukee! More of the same came from Superdrag... Fuck them too.
We decided to roll over to the silent disco where DJ Equal cheesed it up real nice with some very fun disco-house. Be-Tee-Dubs... disco is still the titts. At about this time half of our crew pieced out to look for some nugs n' stuff and I rolled over to That Tent to check out Back Door Slam.
Now this band band is going places. The frontman/guitarist is the whole show. He can rip up blues solo's like Jimi and sing like Howlin Wolf. He strutted through original material as well as a few covers including Jimi's Red House, CSNY's I Almost Cut My Hair, and Robert Cray's Back Door Slam from which the band gets its name. After that surprise hit we rolled back to This Tent for MGMT.
This Brooklyn based electronic, indie, rock, opera, noise band put on such a refreshingly original show I didn't even need to brush my teeth that night. Electric Feel came on towards the end of their set and This Tent went absolutely bananas. Fantastic show, highly recommended. We waited there for Battles which took the This tent early but made a bunch of noise instead of playing music for the first 15 minutes. Nothing really went right during the Battles set and that dumbass ride-cymbol gimmick the drummer uses did not impress me one bit. We moved onto That Tent for the Sword.
We were pretty beat so I stayed back outside That Tent for most of the show. The Sword was a heavier kind of act that somehow still bring through positive emotion with every riff. After The Sword we sat around enjoyed the sites and the food and eventually made our way back to This Tent for Lez Zeppelin.
Now I can't exactly recall why people would listen to Lez Zeppelin but their covers are pretty right on. The front woman also looked very sexy from a distance. I stayed through classics like Dazed and Confused, and The Ocean. They rocked pretty hard but could not keep my interest so I took the long long walk back to the campsite and slept like a toddler.

French Feel


The insanely hyped Brooklyn band, formerly called The Management, got the "French Touch" from electro juggernauts Justice recently. It sounds basically like what you'd expect from a Justice remix nowadays. Personally I think its tits but then again all of Justice's tracks give me a major broner, but I digress. Anyway, we'll have to see if MGMT are the equally as titties at bonnaroo this Thursday. And here's a Klaxons remix just for shits.

MGMT - Electric Feel

MGMT - Electric Feel (Justice Remix)

Klaxons - As Above So Below (Justice Remix)

I'm thinking of making a nasty mix that features tracks (or remixes) by Bonnaroo this years artists. We'll see how the weekend goes.

CouchMix5.2


After a few listens I concluded that the second half of the last mix seemed to wander off a bit. So I re-did the back half. Its much better this way and seems less forced and progresses more naturally. Also I dabbled with a 3rd deck and threw in Eric Morillo's famous acapella about dancing pills... Fuckin-A.

This mix runs a couple of seconds overtime so if you decide to burn it to a CD it will only cut out the last 5 seconds or so.... no big...

I kind of wanted to keep the tracklist a secret, just to keep things interesting around here, but its also located in the detail section of the ID3 tags so fuck me right...

CouchFire! - The Designer High (5.2)
1hr20mins / 114.3 MB / 199kbps (VBR)

TBG - Intro (CouchFire! Lock Stock Edit)
DMX - Up In Here (Mightyfools Remix)
Crookers - Love to Edit
Loose Cannons - WHYD4ML? (Heavyfeet's Get Stupid Remix)
Buy Now - For Sale
Stanton Warriors - Who Are The Warriors (Bass Kleph Remix)
Snoop Dogg - Sexual Eruption (Dirty South Remix)
RATM - Bulls on Parade (DJ Kue Remix)
Plastic Operator - Home 0207 (Hermanos Inglesos Remix Pt. 2)
ZZT - Lower State of Consciousness (Original Munich Mix)
Autobots, Screwface - Flesh Eater (General MIDI Remix)
Midfield General - Disco Sirens (Boy 8-bit Vocal Remix)
Soulwax - NY Lipps (Kawazaki Dub)
Justice - D.A.N.C.E. (Charlie Fanclub Remix)
Stupid Fresh - Get the F**k Up
P. Diddy - Bad Boy For Life (La Mode's Bad Mother Fuckers...)
Altern-8 - Frequency (Hostage Remix)
Metallica - Master of Puppets (The Phantom's Golden Axe Remix)
QOTSA- Better Living Through Chemistry (Streetlife DJ's Remix)
Eric Morillo - Dancin' (acapella)
Alex Metric - Deadly On A Mission (Dub Mix)
Boys Noize - Oh! (A-Trak Remix)
Scissor Sisters - I Don't Feel Like Dancing (Teenage Bad Girl Remix)
Daft Punk vs. TBG - Cocottic (Boyz Noize Remix Soda&Suds Mashup)
Tepr - En Directe De La Cote (Alavi ReroX)
Cazals - Somebody, Somewhere (Blamma! Blamma! Somebody Stop Me Remix)
Danger - 14h54
Radiohead - The Bends (CouchFire's Outro Edition)

CouchMix5



The latest designer high has been a long time in the making. The tracks speak for themselves.

CouchFire - The Designer High (5)
1hr18mins / 111.6 MB / 199kbps (VBR)

TBG vs CouchFire! Lock Stock Intro
DMX - Up In Here (Mightyfools Remix)
Crookers - Love to Edit
Loose Cannons - WHYDFML? (Heavyfeet's Get Stupid Remix)
Buy Now - For Sale
Stanton Warriors - Who Are The Warriors (Bass Kleph Remix)
Snoop Dogg - Sexual Eruption (Dirty South Remix)
RATM - Bulls on Parade (DJ Kue Remix)
Plastic Operator - Home 0207 (Hermanos Inglesos Remix Pt. 2)
ZZT - Lower State of Consciousness (Original Munich Mix)
Autobots, Screwface - Flesh Eater (General MIDI Remix)
Midfield General - Disco Sirens (Mr. GASPAR Remix)
Kavinsky - Testarossa Nightdrive (DreDay Remix)
Alex Metric - Deadly On A Mission (Dub Mix)
Justice - Let There Be Light (Breakbot Remix)
AC Slater - BanGer
QOTSA - Better Living Through Chemistry (Streetlife DJs Remix)
Q45, Amy B - Naughty (Kissy Sellout Remix)
Boyz Noize - Ne.Oh!.Pen (Danger Remix)
Daft Punk vs. TBG - Cocottic (Boyz Noize Remix Soda&Suds Mashup)
Boyz Noize - Let's Buy Happiness (Proxy Remix)
Surkin - Ghetto Obsession
Para One - Midnight Swim (Riton Re-Rub)
Electro Freakz - Discool (Final Remix)
Cedric Gervais - Pills (Dean Coleman Remix)
The Yardbirds - For Your Love (Ursula 1000 Re-Think)

On a side note I'm psyched as shit about Bonnaroo and Miles should totally roll with us since he ain't got shit to do.