Tortoise, while good- has Muppets for fans and sound a bit like when we used to play jazz odyssey during practice. Also one of the drummers was the spawn of Max Weinberg and 90s era Jerry Seinfeld with bad sleeve tattoos. I may sound snotty and cynical here, but despite their immense talent, I feel as though I have been air-dropped into the middle of a Worlds of Warcraft convention. But, I did get to snap a picture, as detailed below.

Thurston Moore was a major disappointment. He needed a lyric sheet and bragged that the album he was performing took a day to write, record, and mix. Sure as hell sounded like it! Lasted 2 songs and 8 minutes of noisy wankerism, no picture for you! That said, I did get a little starstruck when I saw him by the free ice cream truck the next day.

Built to Spill reminded me why I hate festival shows in the first place. The other people who attend them. To wit: fucked up loser or narcoleptic who kept passing out on people before his friends carried him out of the venue presumably to stash him somewhere where he could rest it off and choke to death on his own vomit. Or, the tranny hooker/model and her boyfriend. They were on some combo of coke, meth, and e that rendered them incredibly exuberant, violent, and annoying all at once. Why do these people find me at every fucking show? Anyway b2s were very good when they were playing actual songs. Their near 2 hour set could have been cut in half if they stopped the hippy dippy noodly guitar solo interludes. That said, maybe I have been listening to too much 88 youth crew stuff these days: intro-verse-go!-chorus-go!-moshpart-end. That is all you need. Unfortunately, I was too far back to get any good pics.

DAY 2

Apse: God it's sunny out here today. We initially planned on skipping the early bands and were chilling on

the antiquated/dangerous/superfun playground equipment. Then we went to sit on chairs by the pond. There were a few kids out in rowboats in the pond. Clearly they never had the opportunity to engage in this pasttime before, and I was amused by their poorly coordinated rowing. I was also awaiting someone to stand up and tip their boat. Some fool was stupid enough to stand, but no such luck on the follow through. Then I heard an aggressive dark sound coming from stage 1. We went in to see Apse. I tried out my camera settings. They had a very good sound, dark, aggressive, a bit unlike everything else last night. They did need some serious song editing. And some decent hooks. And some differentiation between songs. I also hate to say it- they needed to settle on a cohesive image- because they were all over the map. Bassist wanted to be a cross btw Nick Rhodes and Carlos Interpol. The keys guy needed to either grow out his Jew fro and be proud of it, or shave it a la Justin Timberlake: he just ended up looking like Carlton from Fresh Prince of Bel Air. The guitarists looked like an AP highschool English teacher and a hippie professional surfer respectively. The singer wanted to be both Ozzy and Perry Farrell. Either, he needed to grow out his hair or he needed to lose weight. Only the drummer had it right. Looking like Brendan Canty's little brother.

Wooden Ships. Great psychadelic surf pop. Looks too much like the spawn of Charlie Manson and Anton La Vey. Made for much cognitive dissonance, sort of like what must have been happening shortly after Altamont. Couldn't get a good pic from where I was standing though. I will be looking to buy their work.

Fuckbuttons. They were really really good. But then got too techno, and literally this guy next to me just said: "A bottle of Jamesons, a bag of mushrooms, and the Fuckbuttons. I haven't been so happy since I saw the Monkees." Hippies. I took that as my cue to leave. Picture below.

Free ice cream. I got a nutty buddy, and thought a moment about how much I missed my birdies.

Note to self, sick of the following: Ironic facial hair. Still people do this. The Charlie Manson look. Kevin's keen on this. Lead singers with part or parts of drumsets... You can tell the bands hate this too.

Edan: Best act of the fest so far, by FAR! Ebin recommended highly, and I always trust him as far as hip hop goes. The set was tight and well organized. Edan and his special guest Dagha were phenomenal, entertaining, fast paced, humorus, and incredibly talented on the mics and decks. They sampled sabbath, the velvets, sugar hill gang, led zeppelin. He also did a few freestyle rhymes with Dagha. The crowd was hyped. Pictured below.

Polvo: I must admit I was getting pretty tired by this point. However, I was wicked excited to see Polvo. They were fantastic. While I admit they did fall victim to some of that noodly shit that was going around, their technical ability actually made it worth listening to. They had some parts that sounded like they were going for a bit of a Boys Life feel. Though they were not nearly as bleak, spare, or dramatic as Boys Life. LOVE the flowered shirt. Pictured below.

Marcy's gonna kill me, I missed Les Savy Fav. I crashed out on a sofa awaiting Shellac.

Ah Shellac, highlight of the day! They got onstage and were building up to the big entrance, when disaster

struck-- Todd Trainer's bass drum pedal broke, and as he was scrambling to find a replacement, Bob Weston opened the floor to q. And a. session. He also announced that the Cubs won the *something* league central playoffs or something or other... if such a thing exists. Blah blah blah blah baseball is so BORING. Pedal problems fixed, they got off to a bang and played a fanstasic set that was frontloaded with all their big hits. I nearly got headbutted by an overweight fratboy during My black ass. I hated him for his heighth, width, and his general douchebaggery.

Having snapped my fill of pics, we went back to one of the balconies for the rest of the set. Shellac showed every single band there how to do it right: musicianship first, followed by professionalism and performance, leaving all the bs gimmicks alone. After wanting to see them for more than 10 years, they didn't let me down.

DAY 3

EPMD! I managed to get right up front for this one, which was great for taking pictures, but not so great for putting my hands in the air and waving them like I just didn't care. Ah, the golden age of hip hop was looked back upon fondly by this duo. Their short set was filled with hits and they paid homage to all their contemporaries, while skewering the current crap that passes for mainstream hip hop these days. Hype way to start the day.

Then the powers that be started kicking people out of the venue before each act. That was pretty cool because then people couldn't camp out by the stage. They also warned us all that slr cameras would be confiscated during the last 3 acts. Rumor has it Kevin Shields was behind that rule. Balls. My point and shoot sucks in comparison, how am I to deal under such conditions?

Mercury Rev was next, and they were my suprise hit of the entire event. It was sort of like watching the

spawn of the Roxy Music and Carol Kane's ghost of Christmas Present in the movie Scrooged. They were so incredibly entertaining and played a fantastic set of orchestral glam rock. I had never really listened to them before, figuring there were a ton of other bands I'd rather check out first. Ok I also probably held the fact that they were from Buffalo against them-thinking they were interchangeable with the Goo Goo Dolls. Who are in fact crap.

Skipped Yo La Tengo. I've tried to like them. But god they are dull. I felt vindicated when one of the pro photogs I was talking to stated he would use their set to get dinner.

Mogwai. I managed to get up front, off to the side, and right under the tower of speakers dangling from the ceiling. Kevin and I wondered whether the structure would hold. Well if quadruple decker speakuhs, smashes into us, to die to Mogwai is such a heavenly way to die.

They were so.loud. It was unbelievable! Their bass stole the air from my lungs at one point. But they were absolutely amazing, best act of the entire weekend. One of their songs hit the resonant frequency of my phone when I took a picture. They are so awesome, the laws of physics get excited! Pictures below.

Dinosaur Jr. again proved the fact they are one of the best livebands ever of all time. They set up in record time, and so I went in during the first song. J Mascis was surrounded on 3 sides by a fort of amps and heads: 2 Marshall full stacks and a Fender Blues Deville perched atop a whole bunch of rack units. He is still God too, even his random little half assed noodlings between each song were fucking brilliant. Thurston Moore. Take note. Lou Barlow was completely unbelivable, so full of energy, and Murph kept the two poles of the band from descending into entropy. They were so much fun to watch.

My Bloody Valentine decided to keep their audience waiting about an hour before they showed up to take the stage. They had already wasted our time earlier in the day by taking too long in their sound check, delaying the start of the entire day. Now they were an hour late. Assholes. Kevin and I were bargaining that if they didn't take the stage by quarter to one (AM), we would leave. Kev had tickets for Tuesday's show in NYC. I sold mine because I was going to hang out w/ my sister who would be visiting for work. Anyway, with only minutes to spare, they take the stage. They were so loud you could not hear the vocals. It was also apparent that some tracks were canned and only Shields and the drummer were playing live. But otherwise they were pretty damn good. Then during the second song, I was overcome by the most intense nausea. I looked at my Kevin and said "oh God I need to leave, I am going to throw up." My mouth started watering intensely and I ran for the exit, not stopping until I made it outside. Fortunately I was able to keep it together... And the nausea subsided as soon as I was outdoors. Out in the night air, with 2 concrete walls between us, they sounded great! We lasted a few more songs, and went home early having reached the point of total exhaustion. Rumor has it though, the last 20 minutes of their set was just a loop of continuous noise wanksterism that managed to be even louder than their songs. Assholes. Kevin Shields is an asshole. Who does this to their fans, and why do their fans take it? Pictures of their amp wall/torture device below.

Well well well, that's it. I saw a few more acts during the course of the weekend, but I was just too exhausted to take proper notes. Hopefully I'll be able to make next year's event. :) More pictures can be seen on my Flicker site, in my ATP Collection.

Dungen's fifth album, confusingly called 4, was our featured album of the week. We've been big fans of Dungen for a while now, since we started playing tracks of Ta Det Lungt a few years back. This new one sounds just as good...

We'll be back next Monday with more fun and games. There may be exclusive Lovvers session tracks, or you may have to wait another week to hear an exclusive URN interview with them, but there'll be another featured album (the new LP from volcano!), a round up of the weeks gigs and happenings in Nottingham and far more indiepop than has made it into the first two weeks shows....

Excitingly, there'll also be a listen again feature, so if you missed the show live on Monday you'll be able to tune in at a time of your convenience. We're just sorting out the hosting and figuring out how to embed the lovely media player into our URN homepage, so keep your eyes peeled there and here....

29th September with Alex, Toby and Tom

featured album: Dungen - 4
Uncle Tupelo - Graveyard Shift
Deerhoof - Offend Maggie
GZA/Genius - Labels
Shellac - Squirrel Song
Mike Ladd - Back At Ya
Dungen - Ingenting Är Sig Likt
Hello Saferide - Anna
The Chinese Stars - Electrodes in Captivity
Sleep Terror - Autoerotic Spy
Goblin - Markos
Islands - Where There's A Will There's A Whalebone
Lonely Ghosts - The Unpopular Future
Leo Kottke - Vaseline Machine Gun
C-Mone - Stan Bac
Love Ends Disaster! - Dinosaur [30 seconds only....]
Dinosaur Pile Up! - Love Is A Boat and We're Sinking
Fleetwood Mac - The Chain
Pigskin Driver - Metopium Browne
The Jackson Five - Hum Along and Dance
Justice - Genesis
Dungen - Samtidigt 1
Dungen - Mina Damer Och Fasaner
Cannibal Ox - Iron Galaxy
Automat - (The) Rise
Oxbow - Curse
Circle - Track 2
Cutting Pink With Knives - Didi Got Fisted At The Smiths Disco
Captain Beefheart - Sweet Sweet Bulbs

The work on the floor of Otloml’s office has continued. He has attempted to clear the century of dust. The shellac border favoured by the earlier occupants of the house will be more difficult. Even in the study which was sanded exhaustively using a hired machine it is still possible to make out a darker edging. It seems to me that this, plus carpet squares is a far more sensible solution. With fitted carpet the doorways always show the most traffic. With so many pets, our choice of oatmeal shades was probably foolish. The firm we bought them from is in Newtyle and sells great quality carpets in an old mill. In order to fit carpet in either of the remaining bedrooms, I think we’d need a long spell of guaranteed dry weather. We just have too much furniture to move stuff into other rooms. I can dream of the house being finished, can’t I?

 While studying the (finished) floor of the study, I was reminded of Horace. The kind. romantic soul who was Otloml has always had a weakness for rescuing animals. When I first lnew him, his parents had a cat which Otloml had rescued as a tiny kitten from the middle of the busy Glasgow Road. For some reason, his father had called it Magnolia. It was a ginger haired pussy! Horace was just such another rescue pet. Late one autumn, about four years ago , he was found by one of the dogs in the middle of the garden. Deemed not large enough to survive the winter ( according to Tony Soper’s book, fortuitously found in a charity shop) Horace stayed with us all winter. He lived in a cardboard box in the study, seemed to relish his diet of dog food and was brought out for exercise in the evenings. Apparently, the babies from a late litter of hedgehogs will not wake up if they fall into a hibernatory sleep. Horace thrived, put on weight and scampered off in the spring with never a backward glance. Otloml felt he would recognise him if he came back to the garden by virtue of his giant willy. This is not the most obvious feature of a hedgehog. I am not even sure of their expected life span and so far we have been unable to confirm that visiting hedgehogs are Horace. The link with the study floor is that his cardboard box was sometimes a bit soggy and there is a square shaped discolouration in the floor to mark his stay.

“The Independent” Guide to Love and Sex sounded promising today. I thought I had experienced heartbreak and that there would be some useful tips inside. It seems I am not sufficiently heartbroken. All I did establish before Otloml left for Elgin and one of the causes of my distress, was that he has a different view on whether he has been scarred by love. In one of the quiz questions at the end of the booklet, he decided that his answer to “Could you forgive a cheating partner?” was d while mine was a. He feels he could understand how a partner could do something like that whereas I, who have been cheated on, felt that I would forgive if he was genuinely remorseful. I am not sure Otloml is and he certainly feels we have done enough of the second part of the answer,  He thinks we have talked sufficiently about his past infidelities, denies they are ongoing and cannot understand my mistrust. He also seems to feel that the problems in our relationship are in the past. I, of course was blissfully unaware of those problems, but have experienced plenty since then. Please let him come to his senses and abandon Her once this exhibition at The Red Shoes is over. My problem is that once again the dates for this event, a stage show and a display of memorabilia connected to the bands which played The Two Red Shoes in the old days, have been put back.

The antibiotic has had some effect already though I still feel exhausted. An early night with a hot water bottle or should I wait for Otloml to bid me goodnight as he walks the dreadlocked dog outside Her house? I do feel she is far too accommodating. Let’s hope all she provides this time is a bed. Without Her and Her giant nipples.

Anyway, here's what I came up with. What would your thirty years of songs look like?

1978: Spacelab -  Kraftwerk
1979: She's Lost Control - Joy Division
1980: Holiday in Cambodia - Dead Kennedys
1981: I Found That Essence Rare - Gang of Four
1982: Release the Bats - The Birthday Party
1983: Kicker Conspiracy - The Fall
1984: Life During Wartime [Live] - Talking Heads
1985: Just Like Honey - The Jesus & Mary Chain
1986: Expressway to Yr. Skull - Sonic Youth
1987: Bad Penny - Big Black
1988: Feed Me With Your Kiss - My Bloody Valentine
1989: Revolution - Spacemen 3
1990: 911 Is a Joke - Public Enemy
1991: We Are Back - LFO
1992: Stomach Worm - Stereolab
1993: Shame on a Nigga - Wu-Tang Clan
1994: My Iron Lung - Radiohead
1995: New Energy - Unwound
1996: Building Steam With a Grain of Salt - DJ Shadow
1997: Moaner - Underworld
1998: East Hastings - Godspeed! You Black Emperor
1999: Mistakes & Regrets - ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead
2000: Prayer to God - Shellac
2001: Full Disclosure - Fugazi
2002: Crack Pipes - Sage Francis
2003: She Moves She - Four Tet
2004: Long Dark (Albini version) - Electrelane
2005: Little Girl - Death From Above 1979
2006: Tot - Einstellung
2007: Flyentology - El-P
2008: We Carry On - Portishead

>>> exposition  Isabelle Champion Méthadier

Two men from Leeds, but a wall of sound. James Islip on the drums and Andy Abbott with a baritone guitar transform into monsters when entering the stage, make more noise than they should be able to. Often improvised, always loud, always hypnotic and enthralling, That Fucking Tank always leave an impression on the audience with their heavily riff-reliant intensity.

Take the slab-heavy mathematics of Shellac and injecting them with an elastic twang reminiscent of the Minutemen, always in the way of a good solid groove, be it fuzzed-out bass note roars or clanking staccato funk, these five songs on "a document of the first set" are guaranteed to have your puny frame forming unimaginable contortions in vain attempts to keep up with their multi-directional racket. You may feel your head bobbing erratically, joints grinding, clicking and locking uncomfortably while each toe tries to sneak your feet in a different direction, but I swear you won’t regret a single aching tendon.

"A document of the first set" is the debut from these two Ex-Kill Yourself members, recorded in a few brief moments in the top of a pub before a William E. Whitmore gig and catched perfectly the best moments to listen to That Fucking Tank: live and loud. The fine people at Jealous Records turned it into a record in May 2004 and the band with this delightful non-radio compatible name is releasing stunning records until today and regularly plays live gigs on the British Isles and Europe. Make sure to check them out, robust and riff driven math noise.

The rain travels all the way from Siberia and this is the first place it breaks.

Das in den letzten Jahren besonders im englischsprachigen Pop-Ausland wieder mehr, aber immer noch im Verhältnis zu vergangenen Absatzzahlen oder aktuellen CD-Verkaufszahlen erschreckend wenig, Leute Platten kaufen, hat sicher auch etwas mit den obsoleten digitalen Speichermedien zu tun. Viele Nutzer lesen mittlerweile die Daten von den kleinen silbernen Scheiben nur aus, um sie dann auf dem MP3-Player oder auf der Computerfestplatte zu verwalten und um Musikdateien platzsparend zu transportieren. Es scheint jedoch, als wäre die CD in Musikliebhaberkreisen bereits nach etwa 20 Jahren schon wieder zu einem Auslaufprodukt geworden.

Dabei sollte man nicht vergessen, dass selbst die Hochphase des Vinyls im Verhältnis zu der dessen Vorgänger der Schellack-Platte zeitlich wesentlich geringer war. Einige Plattensammler - wie der kompetente Joe Bussard - lehnen noch heute den Vinylkonsum konsequent als modernen Wahnsinn ab.

Doch in Zeiten wo viele Plattenhändler eher potenzielle Abzocker anstatt verlässliche Kundenberater sind, ähnelt der Schallplattenkauf nicht selten der Teilnahme an einer Lotterie. Viele gebrauchte und sorgfältig geprüfte Exemplare des immer teurer werdenden schwarzen Musikgoldes knacken, knistern und leiern selbst nach intensiver Reinigung. Die Plattenregale sind gefüllt mit schlechten holländischen Schwarzpressungen und russischen Billig-Neuveröffentlichungen. Und sogar der Klang der Neuausgaben von großen Labels ist nicht selten eher bescheiden, da oftmals das vorliegende CD-Master im ausland auf zu dünnem Vinyl gepresst wurde.

Selbst wenn dem Sammler eine gut erhaltende Originalausgabe oder eine Sundazed 180-Gramm-Neuveröffentlichung den Spaß am Plattenkaufen erhält; der Kunde weiß im Gegensatz zum CD-Kauf selten wirklich genau, was er für sein Geld bekommt. Auch wenn mit digitalen Medien schwer glaubwürdig als DJ aufzulegen und viel gute Musik überhaupt nie digital erschienen ist: Der größte Nachteil der klobigen Schallplatte ist sicherlich, dass man sie schwer brennen, runterladen oder beliebig vervielfältigen kann.

Im Angesicht von mit klirrenden MP3s aus Laptoplautsprechern und iPods zufrieden gestellten Musikrezipienten mag dieser Nachteil für die Zukunft dieses momentan gut funktionierenden Nischenmarktes erschreckend schwerer wiegen als manche glauben. Aber letztendlich kommt es ja auf die Musik an und nicht auf das Medium, oder etwa nicht?

Today's song: Prayer to God, by Shellac, a powerful, personal song of hate, anger, and jealousy. You can listen to it on Youtube below. Strangely, this clip is just the song, with no real video component. But I think that's better if I just want to you listen to the song, damnit.

Why I like this song:

The lyrics. The song is about a man driven to pray to god to kill two people, a current or former lover, and, presumably, her new man. It starts off with a couple of lines about his prayer, veers into murder, talks about how each of the two should die, gets angry and violent with a building and then fading coda of "Fucking kill him, fucking kill him, kill him already, kill him," and ends with an understated line I'll leave as a surprise. All of this in a two and a half minute song that has no chorus, instead realying on one repeating, haunting melody that builds and builds and then suddenly loses its tension without releasing it. In the meantime, the song is far from repetitive, since instruments move in and out in a way that perfectly captures the building and taking down of the song, as the narrator's anger grows and changes before finally wearing itself out.

See, since the song is so powerful lyrically, at first I thought it didn't have anything interesting going on with it structurally, and I was prepared to write about how I didn't usually listen to Shellac for its lyrics, but that this song was ALL about the lyrics. But the interesting thing about this song structurally is how it has no chorus to DISTRACT from the lyrics. Its simple one-melody structure emphasizes the instrumental and vocal changes that go into the shape of the song and its story. With a simple melody, it can essentially riff, though unlike in jazz there is a lock-step plan here, a plan to drive home the song's basic emotional content.

One last note about it before I bore you to death. (After all, if you started listening to the song while reading this, you could've heard it several times over already.) I haven't mentioned Steve Albini's vocal mastery here. I don't think many singers could pull off such a screed of hate-filled wrath. Somehow he doesn't come off as pretentious or overblown, as, say, a hack metal band would've. (I won't name any names. You know who you are.) It's really impressive how authentic he sounds. I can't find anything online to really factually support this, but I saw a couple reader-commenty-type-things that claimed his wife cheated on him during the making of this song's album, "1000 Hurts". Is it true? I'm not sure. But listening to this song, you can certainly believe it.

P.S. This review kinda sucks. I'll have to get better. Multiple whatevs.

Two Days Later Edit:

Just wanted to add that the musing lyric, "No particular woman," strikes me as incredibly quirky and human.  The way that Shellac mixes in a strange lyrical sense of humor along with their generally intense lyrics is a tiny bit of genius.  Okay, off to Burger King I go.

The Auditori stage is imposingly widescreen for the two-piece of Scout and drummer Kristian Goddard, but they proved that they are not daunted by such environs when supporting The Stooges at London's Royal Festival Hall last year (as part of the Jarvis Cocker-curated Meltdown festival). And as soon as Scout unleashes her expressive voice on the traditional couplets that make up the intro to "Do You Want To Be Buried With My People?", it becomes apparent that this is a perfect venue for her - the excellent concert-hall acoustics giving wings to her already soaring voice. She never fails to surprise with her choice of covers and follows "Good To Me" (with its bizarre woodstockhenge hair metal intro) by making TLC's "No Scrubs" her own. Scout is all about the highs and lows of being under love's spell, and in "Hide And Seek" she references the sweetheart fever that seems to afflict her, going from sparse and melancholic love song to attaining Nirvana.

"Kiss" gets the biggest cheer of the set so far, unsurprising as it's the closest thing Scout has had to a 'hit single' (helped by the appearance of the Bonnie Prince William of Oldham on the recorded version).
The past few times I've seen Scout Niblett play I've been left unfulfilled when she fails to take a turn behind the drumkit, but tonight she delivers by temporarily ejecting Goddard and enthusiastically beating out "Your Beat Kicks Back Like Death"... We're all gonna die! We don't know when... We don't know how...
The rest of the songs are all Niblett highlights - some more favourites from "This Fool Can Die Now" sandwiched between two diamonds from her first album. "Wet Road" yearns with love unfulfilled, while "Miss My Lion" is the perfect closer, Scout stomping and wailing to superbly crunching riffs.

Setlist: Scout Niblett @ Primavera Sound 2008, Barcelona (01 June 2008)
Do You Want To Be Buried With My People?
Good To Me
No Scrubs
Kidnapped By Neptune
Hide And Seek
Hot To Death
Kiss
Your Beat Kicks Back Like Death
Wet Road
Nevada
Let Thine Heart Be Warmed
Miss My Lion

Leaving the Auditori I'm happy to see that the rain that had niggled throughout the day has pissed off (only to return with a vengeance at the very end of the festival). There's only enough time to catch Devastations end their set with a menacing, noisy "Rosa", played with that scuzzy louche cool that seems peculiar to Australians-in-Berlin (cf. Nick Cave "The Heroin Years", Angus Andrew of Liars). Their most recent album "Yes, U" blows hot and cold for me but here I find the swamp monster that lurks within their bombastic baroque-goth.

It's then over to the Estrella Damm stage to see Okkervil River, who'd drawn one of the biggest crowds I'd yet experienced at Primavera. The opening salvo of "The President's Dead / Black" sets the tone for the upbeat crowd-pleasing show that is to follow. My first hearing of Okkervil River was "Black Sheep Boy", the melancholy of the Tim Hardin-inspired tracks appealing to me most (and I'm a sucker for the William Schaff artwork too) - so l found last year's "The Stage Names" initially too 'big band' with Sheff's sometimes tortured words incongruous to the upbeat backing, but here under a grey Barcelona sky those songs proved much more infectious. Halfway through, Sheff introduces "It Ends With A Fall" as a tribute to The Wrens guitarist Charles Bissell (playing his last show with the band) - then jokingly fires him on stage. The rest of the performance rocks energetically, hitting a peak with "Our Life Is Not A Movie Or Maybe" flowing straight into "For Real", which really gets the audience jumping. They end with early song "Westfall" sung in Spanish, a fitting finale which the local fans really take to heart.

Setlist: Okkervil River @ Primavera Sound 2008, Barcelona (01 June 2008)
The President's Dead
Black
A Hand To Take A Hold Of The Scene
The Latest Toughs
A Girl In Port
It Ends With A Fall
John Allan Smith Sails
Our Life Is Not A Movie Or Maybe
For Real
Unless It's Kicks
Westfall (Spanish version)

Dirty Projectors have created a lot of buzz over the past year, Dave Longstreth built up as some sort of weird genius. It's not for me - maybe it's too wilfully obscure or just too pop - but they provide some minutes of distraction, if not just for bassist Angel Deradoorian crooning melodies wearing what looked to be denim jogging shorts...

Back to the well-visited ATP stage for Kinski, who sometimes come across as Sonic Youth from an alternate dimension - Chris Martin the floppy-haired guitar virtuoso, Lucy Atkinson the hard rockin' female bassist, guitarist/flautist Matthew Reid-Schwartz in the Lee Ranaldo role, and Barret Wilke providing the Shelley-esque pounding. And sure Kinski are heavily indebted to their East Coast brethren (song titles like "Daydream Intonation" all but give it away), but these Seattle Sub Pop-ers also mix in a healthy dose of psych-kraut-space rock that coalesces into a riff-heavy brew that somehow stands apart from most of the post/psych/kraut/space-rock that abounds in these times.

Inbetween songs it's announced that today is bassist Atkinson's birthday which causes the audience to break into a Spanish-accented "Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear... erm.. Kinski!!" The band clearly enjoys themselves, as do we all.

After catching a few songs by saxophone-fronted rock-'n-sample band Menomena (who appeal on first hearing, despite giving such prominence to that feared symbol of all things j&!z), it's a quickmarch back down to the ATP stage to secure a prime position for being showered in the minimalist-rock-greatness that is Shellac. I'm glad it's not too hard to get a good vantage point upfront early on, because I later turn to see the crowd massed into all the available space, tailing up the path back to the main festival site. They come because Shellac is the best godamn live band I & many others here have ever had the pleasure of sharing a room with. Prior to their performance I'd been quite open to the idea that Shellac would not necessarily produce the highlight of my weekend - there'd certainly been other contenders - but who was I kidding? That perfect blend of mass, velocity and time knocks me over every time.
It's the first time I've seen them rock under the stars (a rare opportunity as Shellac generally have a dislike of festivals, except when the fine folk at ATP are involved) and the experience is just as powerful (even if Steve Albini and Bob Weston are without their custom cabinets, making do instead with more prosaic Marshall and Ampeg stacks).

For all their precision, each show is an improvised performance - no setlists, Albini's vocal adlibbing & caustic wit (in "Prayer To God" he exhorts Baby Jesus to "do your fuckin' job for once"), taking questions from the crowd (this time unsuccessfully handled by Scout Niblett). And we get to hear a new song, sung by Weston and sounding like classic early '90s-vintage Shellac (another new song appears in Paris about a week later - could it be we'll be seeing a new Shellac album before the end of the world?!). It's an amazing set, surely making new acolytes in the crowd of thousands, and (like all Shellac performances I've witnessed) words won't do it justice...

Setlist: Shellac @ Primavera Sound 2008, Barcelona (01 June 2008)
Ghosts
My Black Ass
Copper
Paco
In A Minute
Squirrel Song
(new song with Bob on vocals)
Prayer To God
Killers
Steady As She Goes
Wingwalker
End Of Radio
Watch Song
Spoke

Les Savy Fav are talked up as a crazy live experience (some would go so far as to crown them best live band around - heretics!) and sure enough vocalist Tim Harrington gives the crowd their money's worth - first appearing disguised as a plant before stripping down to a multicoloured leotard and jumping into the audience, running up and down the concrete steps to the right of the ATP stage. The rest of the band rock efficiently behind Harrington's antics, but it seems to me that Les Savy Fav's appeal must be more in their moon-howlin' mad frontman than in their tunes - and in contrast to the masterclass of masa, velocidad & tiempo that went before this only entertains superficially. So it is halfway through their set that I decide to call time on Primavera Sound 2008, heading into the balmy Barcelona night, off to dream my sweet Albini dreams...

In the related videos section, though, came a Shellac video. I haven't listened to Shellac in a long time, but just the other day, I had Squirrel Song stuck in my head ("This isn't some kind of metaphor! God damn! This is real!").

Anyway, here's a video of Shellac doing My Black Ass. At the very beginning, there is a heckler who provokes a your mom joke out of Mr. Albini. How cool, right?

I love Youtube comments, this is a fact! One of my favorite categories of Youtube commenter is (aside from the guy who goes to every video he can find and says, "What the fuck? That's so gay! FAGS!!!") the kind that comment on noise rock videos. Take this one, for example, "This is not music. It's talentless noise. It's people like U who buy rap CDs HAHA." The "this is not music" crowd seems to find its way to these videos, I don't know how, and completely miss the entire point of the music. Inevitably, it's some jock rock Metallica fan, though, so I guess the joke's sort of on them, in its own subtle way. I think a pretty good rule of thumb for life is, in addition to "Don't talk to strangers," is "Never trust anyone who says rap isn't music."

And between these two is about 17 minutes of really high quality concert recordings (especially for a noise rock-y sort of sound!):

Part 2:

Anyway, for those who don't know who he is, Steve Albini is definitely up there as one of the great DIY music producers. He was/is in Shellac, Big Black, and Rapeman. You can see a fairly complete list (I say "fairly complete" because Wikipedia says it is incomplete and Wikipedia is always right) of his efforts here. For those of you Pixies fans, he worked on Surfer Rosa. He's also done stuff for Jesus Lizard, the Breeders, Helmet, PJ Harvey (ick!), Nirvana, Melt-Banana, Screaching Weasel (there's a name I haven't heard in a long time), Veruca Salt, Braniac (whoa, didn't know he did that), Pansy Division, Bedhead (!!!), Low, Jawbreaker, mclusky (<3), and... wait, why am I typing out this list if it's basically what's in that link? Anyway! Shellac is a band worth listening to and Steve Albini is a really awesome dude. He's also living proof that you can come from Missoula, Montana and still do something with your life. I've, uh, been to Missoula, and there's not of "doing things with your life" going on around there.

steve-albini-guitarist-magazine-may-1994

 Whilst rooting around the archive vaults (read: dusty boxes of old magazines) I found a cutting I'd made from Guitarist magazine featuring an excellent Steve Albini interview. The article dates from May 1994 and is great for anyone interested in reading about his guitar sound & the harmonic percolator pedals which seem to be the only kind of distortion he uses. If you're not so bothered about that stuff there are some nice pictures, it's a big file so Save target as...  I have some other Albini related pieces I'm gonna scan but I figured I'd wait and make a full SHELLAC post soon. I'm making headway with my next posting (it's gonna be a good one!) but it's not ready just yet so this should tide you over for now.

 I just found another two Albini clippings, one is an article he wrote about Billiards taken from Thrasher magazine circa 96. And also 'The World According to...' which featured in The Guardian newspaper Guide circa 2000. Check them here:

Shellac - Steady as she goes

Shellac - The end of radio