I’ve returned to Atlanta after five amazing days in Texas for the Austin City Limits Music Festival - broke, exhausted, dehydrated, sunburned and with some music recommendations for you all! Enjoy:
ACL 2009
STATE RADIO
http://www.stateradio.com/
genre: alternative rock
When Can I See Them in Atlanta? - They won’t be in town anytime soon, but you can catch them opening for 311 in Miami, Orlando, Gainesville and New Orleans.
Prior to forming State Radio, singer-songwriter/guitarist Chad Stokes Urmston was a founding member of the phenomenally successful indie-roots band Dispatch. That Vermont-formed trio had a remarkable six-year run, culminating in a 2004 farewell gig in Boston that drew 110,000 fans. Three years later, a reunited Dispatch sold out three nights at Madison Square Garden for a Zimbabwe benefit concert. By then, though, Urmston was already off and running with State Radio, which since 2002 has distinguished itself as one of the most politically outspoken American music acts since Rage Against the Machine — if not Woody Guthrie. The trio (rounded out by bassist Chuck Fay and drummer Mike Najarian) plays an engaging mix of rock, folk, punk and reggae, but the main agenda here is a pronounced emphasis on social and political activism. If ’60s protest singer Phil Ochs were alive today, it’s a good bet he’d be tuned in to State Radio’s frequency. (www.aclfestival.com)
State Radio
BON IVER
http://www.boniver.org/
genre: folk/ indie rock
When Can I See Him in Atlanta? – sorry, he’s not currently touring…
You may or may not find Bon Iver in the “I” section at your local record store. Wisconsinite Justin Vernon manipulated the French phrase for “good winter” for the one-man-band name. And a fitting name it is. For Emma, Forever Ago is the result of Vernon’s three-month solitary stay in a cabin in a remote part of his home state, where he turned frustration and heartbreak into a haunting set of songs featuring bare-bones instrumentation and his ghostly voice whispering, creaking and moaning through it all. Initially self-released in 2007, the album found a label last year, which has kept its winter going for months and months on end, no doubt helped by some of its songs appearing on Grey’s Anatomy. But the TV support shouldn’t undercut a beautifully cohesive statement made by a guy bummed out in a cabin in the cold. Alone. (www.aclfestival.com)
Bon Iver
PHOENIX
http://www.wearephoenix.com/
genre: alternative/ indie rock
When Can I See Them in Atlanta? - sometime next year…
The French band, Phoenix, didn’t exactly arise from ashes, but it did ascend through Air. The synth-pop-rockers — Laurent Brancowitz, Christian Mazzalai, Thomas Mars and Deck d’Arcy — started out as a garage band, released a single on their own Ghettoblaster label, signed to Source Records and began backing labelmates Air, with whom they did a remix on that famed French outfit’s “Kelly Watch the Stars.” Phoenix’s first single, “Heatwave,” preceded the 2000 release of United. Their latest, this May’s Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, features the songs “1901” and “Lisztomania,” both of which the band performed on Saturday Night Live in April. Phoenix tracks have appeared in a couple of films directed by Sofia Coppola; silky-voiced lead singer Mars is the father of her child. (www.aclfestival.com)
Phoenix
BRETT DENNEN
http://brettdennen.net/
genre: folk
When Can I See Him in Atlanta? – 11/14/09 @ Tabernacle
His freckled face, red hair and high tenor make singer-songwriter Brett Dennen seem far more boyish than 30, which he’ll turn on Oct. 28. But the Oakland, Calif., native is certainly in tune with his inner child. Dennen, who broke out with his 2006 sophomore album, So Much More, is heavily involved with the Mosaic Project, a San Francisco Bay organization dedicated to teaching children to live peacefully in a diverse world. He wrote a music curriculum for the program, which was released in 2003 as the award-winning album Children’s Songs for Peace and a Better World. He’s also teamed up with the clothing label Life is good to help needy kids, and has a page on his Web site called “Love Speaks,” which is dedicated to recognizing deserving non-profits. Dennen’s latest album, Hope for the Hopeless, was released a year ago. It reached No. 4 on the Billboard Hot Independent Albums chart, and the lilting single, “Make You Crazy,” made it onto the mag’s Hot Adult Top 40 Tracks. (www.aclfestival.com)
Brett Dennen
GHOSTLAND OBSERVATORY
http://www.ghostlandobservatory.net/
genres: electro/ rock/ funk
When Can I See Them in Atlanta? – 12/11/09 @ Masquerade
Already legends in their hometown of Austin, the duo of Aaron Behrens and Thomas Ross Turner melds guitars, sequencers and programmed beats into a white-hot mix of punk rock, digitized funk and techno. Taking cues from disparate influences ranging from Daft Punk to Jerry Lee Lewis to Queen, Ghostland Observatory delivers with sweat and screams. Studio albums include 2005’s delete.delete.i.eat.meat, 2006’s Paparazzi Lightning and last year’s Robotique Majestique, but Ghostland’s calling card remains its high-energy live shows — a cathartic experience for the duo and their devotional crowds alike. And don’t be fooled by the act’s reputation for incorporating over-the-top light shows into their festival showcases; far from being a smoke and mirrors distraction, all those lasers are merely techno-gravy ladled onto the duo’s already explosive dynamic. Singer/guitarist Behrens may well be one of the most electrifying frontmen in rock working today, and the deceptively reserved-looking Turner is a veritable mad scientist behind his bank of keyboards, cooking up one sky-rattling jam after another. (www.aclfestival.com)
NOTE: Ghostland is one of my FAVORITE bands and was incredible at ACL. I strongly recommend seeing them in Atlanta!
Ghostland Observatory
Happy downloading!!
ACL 2009
xx, L
