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I am filled with mixed feelings about the line-up announcement for Lollapalooza 2008, which arrived this morning. Since last year’s line-up gave me chills, my lack of excitement is translating into disappointment.

The headliners far surpass any other music festival in the country — except for Roger Waters over at Coachella. The leaders I refer to are Radiohead and Rage Against the Machine. Of course, we’ll have to deal with Nine Inch Nails as well, but at least it’s not Jack Johnson or Pearl Jam. I mean, the approximately $200 weekend pass to Lolla is almost justified with Radiohead and Rage alone.

And they won’t be alone; they’ll be accompanied by about 118 other bands. The Lolla web site says they’re bringing 120 bands this year, even though (if I remember correctly) that’s down from the 160 present in 2007. Let’s start with the ups: Broken Social Scene, Flogging Molly, Bloc Party, Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, The Kills, Gogol Bordello, Girl Talk, CSS, Mates of State, Spank Rock, Grizzly Bear, The Octopus Project…..umm…..that’s about it. WHAT??? THAT’S IT??? Only about a dozen exciting bands out of a line-up of over a hundred?

Well, the end of the list says “many, MANY more.” That would be fine if there weren’t SO MANY DOWNS: Kanye West, The Raconteurs, Gnarls Barkley (possibly the worst act at Lolla 2006…but who cares, as long as they sell records, right?), Wilco, The Go! Team (they’re terrible live, thanks to the female rapper). Below these are a bunch of never-before-heard band names that even hardcore music junkies will have to dig deep to learn about.

Clearly Lollapalooza is trying to establish themselves as a tastemaker festival, bringing in the newest of the newbies and hoping that they succeed. One other observation: Lolla almost never brings a band unless they are releasing an album this year or last. Otherwise the FYE tent would have nothing to pawn on festival-goers! Meanwhile Coachella is more of an excellent representation of the great things that happened in music last year.

What I’m saying is that Lollapalooza has become formulaic and tame compared to what it could (and by all means, should) be. In many regards, traditional indie rock is giving way to more exciting movements in electronica. So where are all those electronica artists that are appearing at Coachella? They snagged Portishead, Cut Copy, Aphex Twin, Justice, Simian Mobile Disco, etc, etc.

Links:
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The AT&T Stage at Lollapalooza 2007 (courtesy of Lollapalooza.com).

Apparently Perry Farrell and the folks at C3 have their plan backwards. According to Lollapalooza.com, Early Bird tickets will go on sale tomorrow, March 25, for an unspecified price. However, the initial artist line-up wont be released until April 7, two weeks from today.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but wouldn’t it be a better business decision to release the line-up before selling tickets? Have their heads ballooned to the point where they think they can manipulate festival-goers into blindly submitting to their domination? Did they forget that a worthy competitor named Rothbury is moving in just three hours north of the Windy City?

With the inflation in weekend pass prices that we’ve seen at various festival across the nation, I wouldn’t be surprised if Early Bird tickets for the three-day Lolla weekend start at $180 or $190 (last year they started at $160).

I mean, this isn’t a difficult equation. At least show us a few headliners! (Radiohead?! please please PLEASE!). I do have a lot of respect for Lolla at this point, but there’s no way I’m forking over that kinda cash with no guaranteed payback.

Links:
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The next in a line of poorly planned RHA concerts, Anathallo will perform at MSU’s Union Ballroom on Thursday, March 20. Just to clarify, the part about RHA booking Anathallo isn’t the downer. The trouble is that the show is next week, and the official announcement came only yesterday morning – in other words, one week before the show! I can presume that RHA will use their standard, yet insufficient method of concert promotion, with a few posters scattered in public areas of campus. But enough of this rot.

Anathallo is coming to MSU, and that is good news! The better news is that the show only costs $5 for students ($8 public). Anathallo has recently taken up residence in Chicago, but they’re originally from Mt. Pleasant, Michigan – yes, just an hour north of East Lansing. They’re actually playing a show at music conference and festival South By Southwest (SXSW) today, so hopefully they’ll be packing slightly larger egos after pleasing all the wannbe-tastemakers down there (…?).

In addition to healthy spirits, they’re bringing back two opening bands who are also strutting their stuff at SXSW. Frontier Ruckus are completely new to me, but they’ve described themselves on MySpace as “indie/folk/bluegrass.” Sounds snazzy! The second opener is a very Britain-in-the-’60s-sounding Maryland band called the Cotton Jones Basket Ride. I’m suspecting that they’ve been influenced by fellow Marylanders Beach House.

All in all, this line-up would be better suited for the annual Sparty Spring Party (I covered the 2007 show for SpartanEdge, with extra videos posted on this blog). But they tend to snag slightly more mainstream groups for that shindig, and it doesn’t happen until mid April.

I’ve seen Anathallo a few times now, and they are truly captivating on stage. Their sometimes-dense music breathes better outdoors (like below, at Lollapalooza 2006), but the Union Ballroom has a dramatic feel that will likely suit their style.

Tickets are now available at Flat, Black and Circular.

Anathallo playing early Friday at Lollapalooza 2006, with beautiful Lake Michigan hidden behind them.

Links:
Anathallo - MySpace - Web site
The Cotton Jones Basket Ride - MySpace
Frontier Ruckus - MySpace

One view of Liberty State Park

Apparently the folks at AEG Live have been busy little music lovers. The company behind Cali’s desert fest Coachella is debuting two new festivals in 2008: Rothbury Festival in Michigan, and All Points West Festival in Liberty State Park, New Jersey. APW is essentially a Lollapalooza for New York. The park is right across the water from Lower Manhattan.

As with all of these giganto-fests, APW has lots of ups and lots of downs. Let’s start with the downs. First, tickets for the 3-day weekend start at $258. That’s $50 more than the Early Bird price for the 4-day Rothbury Festival! Second, there’s no camping anywhere near Liberty State Park. This is a full-out urban festival…which is fine, if you know someone living in the area who isn’t already stuffed in a closet, and who might have some floor space for you to crash on.

Now the ups. RADIOHEAD IS HEADLINING NOT ONE, BUT TWO NIGHTS! The Britons will play Friday and Saturday night in the park. Now the ticket price doesn’t seem quite as outrageous. (However, I still have a gut feeling that Radiohead will be at Lollapalooza 2008, and we can expect an initial line-up from them around mid-March.)

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Second, they haven’t revealed many bands yet, but there are some other good names on there: The Roots, Animal Collective, Metric, CSS, Girl Talk, Mates of State, and Rogue Wave. Well…if you figure you’re paying about $100 per night to see Radiohead, that counts for $200…then all these other bands only cost about $8 each. I guess that’s still pretty steep, but it all depends on your taste anyways, and your willingness to drive or fly to New Jersey.

Links:
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Now Rothbury is affecting how I see all other festivals. But an undeniable factor is that Rothbury is two hours away, while other festivals are much farther. All Good Festival, in Masontown, WV, is about a seven hour drive from here. So when I see their 2008 line-up and there isn’t a single exciting band, they’re already at a disadvantage on two points. I only recognize a few bands: Phil Lesh, Widespread Panic, Tea Leaf Green, MMW, Keller Williams, and Michael Franti.

Their one success is the consistently affordable festival price. This year’s 3-day festival starts at the Early Bird price of $109. But even after prices jump (and after service fees are tagged on), you’re still only looking at about $150 for the whole thing. Maybe in the future, we’ll look back on All Good and thank them for not going berzerk when all the other festival prices started creeping dangerously close to $300 for a weekend of music and camping (Bonnaroo tickets have jumped to $245). But for now, I have higher priorities.

Links:
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I could barely believe my ears today as my brother informed me that Michigan now has a major music and camping festival scheduled for 2008. The first annual Rothbury Festival is set to take place from July 3–6, 2008 in (you guessed it) Rothbury, MI, a small town just north of Muskegon on Michigan’s west coast. This comes as a surprise for many reasons. First, the festival is four days long. This is no willy-nilly two-day fest! The festival organizers must not be worried about possible competition for ticket sales with the nearby (and now immensely important) Lollapalooza in Chicago.

Double JJ Ranch in Rothbury MI, destination of the (first ever) 2008 Rothbury Festival.

Second, they snagged a decent line-up of bands!…even if many names are becoming standard for 2008 festivals (the full line-up has yet to be released). But so far they’ve only listed 64 bands, and since it’s a four-day festival, I think we can expect to see about 100 more band names on the line-up sometime soon.

Here’s the current breakdown: Dave Matthews Band, Widespread Panic and John Mayer will headline. Those aren’t exactly ideal, but CAN WE REALLY COMPLAIN? Indie rock types include Modest Mouse, Of Montreal, Gogol Bordello, Secret Machines, and Dead Confederate. There’s even some electronica acts planned already: Crystal Method DJ Set, Diplo, and Flosstradamus. But the real deal-maker is the list of amazing jam bands on board: STS9, Yonder Mountain String Band, The Disco Biscuits, Phil Lesh (of the Grateful Dead) and Friends, Lotus, Tea Leaf Green, Keller Williams, and Medeski Martin & Wood. Also, the drummer and percussionist from String Cheese Incident will be there under their side project name Eoto, an improvised electronica duo that incorporates live drums into the music!

Sadly, there are some bands I’d rather not see or hear. Mostly I’m just wondering how 311 got a spot on so many festivals this year!? Anyways, the band that I’m perhaps most excited to see listed is Primus. I was lucky enough to watch them at Ozzfest way back in 1999, but Les Claypool has been busy with his solo band and the Frog Brigade in recent years. I can’t wait to witness that legendary trio again.

Third, Rothbury is one of the first music festivals that fully realizes the potential for combining environmental efforts like sustainability with large-scale social action and human cohesion. Their mission statement reads, “We are captivated by the unique experience that a live musical moment offers; when we transcend beyond individuals and into a collective.” That’s exactly what I’m always ranting about! They seem just as determined to make a difference in the world as they are set on creating a great music festival.

The weekend costs $244.75 and includes all music (and other performances) and camping. However, a limited number of Early Bird tickets for $199 go on sale at noon EST on Wednesday, February 27. The locale is called Double JJ Ranch, which reportedly has cabins and a ranch, if you’re not into the whole camping thing…and you use $100 bills for toilet paper.

I knew there was a reason I didn’t jump on the Bonnaroo line-up!!

Links:
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The next blond dominator to rise out of Sweden has a name that defies any easy pronunciation in American English. That pronunciation is made even more difficult by a jaw-droppingly awesome music video for her first single, “Little Bit.” If you haven’t guessed who I’m talking about yet, her name is Lykke Li. Her debut album Youth Novels was unleashed upon Europe last week, but we will apparently have to wait some time to obtain a legal copy in the U.S — that is, unless you want to pay for shipping from Scandinavia. Meanwhile, we can watch all the videos on her MySpace page.

It’s obvious that she was going for a Let It Die-era Feist-ian sound, and that she was influenced or helped by many of her Swedish musical peers (she also sounds a bit like Victoria Bergman, who recorded “Young Folks” with Peter Bjorn & John). But there’s something special going on here. Whether it’s just Li’s tender, airy voice, or the minimal-yet-danceable songs — “Little Bit” has a beat that kicks like a ticking clock — or the dead-sexy, yet mysterious music video, this could be one of the more memorable releases of the year.

Links:
MySpace
Web site

The music video for “Little Bit” by Lykke Li

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Among the variety of festivals that now rock our enormous nation, Bonnaroo has perhaps been the most culturally important. Back around 2003–2004, it survived largely on rumors spread by word-of-mouth, telling strange, twisted tales of musical bliss. But the transition from jam band haven to commercial success (I’ve heard that, when the festival is in session, Manchester becomes the third biggest city in Tennessee) has placed the festival in a weird position. They must remain true to their roots while snagging enough “big names” to draw people from as far as 10 hours away (i.e. - from Michigan).

Well, the big names (a.k.a. the headliners) this year are Pearl Jam, Metallica, and Jack Johnson. The now-standard swath of indie rock stars includes My Morning Jacket, Death Cab For Cutie, Ben Folds, M.I.A., Iron & Wine, etc. It’s no mystery which band sets off my WOWZA-meter — that would be Broken Social Scene. Although, I would expect them to roll with about 8–10 band mates, instead of all 16 of them. In the jam band department, we have a disappointingly short list of Umphrey’s McGee and Yonder Mountain String Band. Comedians like David Cross and Janeane Garofalo are also being given much attention.

Now lets get down to brass tacks. The four-day weekend starts at about $210, including concerts and camping. This price does not include a $23 service fee, or the $10 order fee. So depending on how many people you go with, the festival starts at about $235 per person.

I don’t know about you, but I think I’m holding out for Lollapalooza and All Good Festival. I have a gut feeling that Radiohead will be on the Lolla bill, given that they haven’t scheduled a U.S. tour for the recently released In Rainbows.

On February 10, YouTube stars Leslie and the Ly’s will perform at the Magic Stick in Detroit. If you’re not familiar with the videos (provided below for your convenience), I advise you to watch them. The tackiness of her lyrics and shiny outfits is almost obscene, and yet it’s completely hilarious…especially if you’ve already downed a few intoxicating beverages. Whether or not this will make for an entertaining live show is another question. But if you’re in the Detroit area, it might be worth checking out.

“Gem Sweater”

“How We Go Out, Version 2″

The idea to compile a playlist of the Pump Up The Volume soundtrack came to me too late to accompany this week’s MusicEdge feature on the film. But I managed to find eight of the songs, and I figured someone might be interested in having a listen. Unfortunately, I couldn’t locate the correct tracks by Sonic Youth, Beastie Boys, and some others. Make sure to have a listen to “I’m In Jail” from Detroit’s own weirdo group Was Not Was. Oh yeah, and if you haven’t seen the movie yet, DO IT.