"Woodwork"

Loving this. Straight out of Asheville. Always happy to see interesting beat makers coming out of the south, and after years of packing out electronic shows in Asheville (the Orange Peel all year, with the erstwhile-Moogfest-turned-Electronic-Summit a must in the fall), it's nice to see a local head start to push beyond city limits.

MGMT's Daytrotter session

I can't say enough good things about the awesomeness that was MoogFest over Halloween weekend in Asheville. During the aforementioned last week of October '10, MGMT stopped to record a Daytrotter Session that has just been posted. Check out four songs here, including the chance to download them for free. The Brooklyn-based group offers up something stripped down and significantly less electro-psych-dance-skinnyjeans-pop than anything you might expect if you only heard the first record. The write up by Daytrotter is pretty funny too. I was apparently one of the few who also enjoyed the musical merits of their last album, which I thought had a lot more to offer than most critics who were looking for a reprise of Oracular Spectacular. Having caught their live set, I can also say that, despite rumors of their not being able to put on a show, they can play. Not the best act I saw that weekend, but nothing to cry about either. 

MoogFest Day 2

After Day 1 of MoogFest, I was pretty sure there was no way Day 2 would stack up. Afterall, can you get away with having Massive Attack and Thievery Corporation, both of whom I've liked but more in a laidback way, follow the throbbing madness of Dan Deacon, Girl Talk, et al.?

  The answer is yes. Massive Attack puts on an incredible show. If they come to your town, city or college campus, go to see them, regardless of what the ticket costs (unless you know the sound guy is going to be incompetent*). Walls of sound, that most of the show leaned toward some psychedelic industrial feel, blasted out against a backdrop of LED panels that flashed everything from transcript tidbits of the WikiLeaks "Collateral Murder" video to stats on global access to drinking water and other factoids.

*On an aside, with the exception of a little technical delay about two songs into Dan Deacon's set, the sound engineering at every show I saw in the Asheville Civic Center was spot-on, and under some difficult circumstances (going from sub-bass-heavy dubstep sets to multi-piece bands blending electric and acoustic instruments). Props due to the folks running boards.

 Also, managed to be in the right place at the right time for a secret DJ set by Four Tet and Caribou. They spun some crazy experimental house to a small, but appreciative dance floor. A few hours earlier, Caribou played a sweet set that focused heavily on the newest album, but with some extended hard dancing parts. The guy playing drums was incredible. I think there were two songs off Andorra that were both excellent, and it kind of made both Carrie and I wish that they snuck in a track off Milk of Human Kindness, because it probably would've awesome.

One of the best things about the evening was the array of costumed folks littering the streets.

And now we're back...

Saturday night inside the Moogaplex during a secret DJ set by Caribou and Four Tet.

Whoah. Sorry for the delay between posts. It's taken me several days to recover from the weekend in Asheville and to catch up on everything else going on - like my Geekend talk this Friday (11/4) with Drew from Paragon Design called "The War on Stupid Needs You."

The talk is about information translation - taking the important issues covered by long form journalism (which relatively few people can tolerate because of our society's collective media-induced A.D.D.) and distilling them into pill-sized caplets of information that are readily digestible quickly but are able to impart relatively complex discussions on policy, politics, etc. It lays out some guidelines for creating a new system, which is already starting to develop in small clusters, where journalists and creatives of all kinds (designers, animators, recording engineers, etc) join forces to create effective bursts of information that will help explain the issues of the day.

MoogFest Day 1

There is no doubt that MoogFest is going well so far. Day 1 included a short performance by Devo (Bob Mothersbaugh hurt his thumb, so Mark and Jerry were backed by Octopus Project, who btw put on an incredible show and I would highly recommend checking out. They're like the stylistic love child of Tortoise and Of Montreal.). There was a killer DJ set by Bonobo, and massive performances by Big Boi, MGMT, Dan Deacon (I hadn't been a huge fan of his recorded material, but his live show is something special - like clearing a giant circle in a crowd of a thousand+ and having his friend GSP lead a group interpretative dance). All that closed out with an epic Halloween themed set by Girl Talk that officially ranks in the top 5 live shows of my life.

Here are a couple of pics from last night:

Octopus Project opened up the evening with a lively set. 

Devo accepts a MoogFest Innovation Award after jamming "She's The One You Want" and "It's a Beautiful World" with Octopus Project.

Even though it's only Friday, there's no shortage of costumed folks. This wasn't one of the most elaborate, but got serious points for sass. The photo doesn't do justice to the attitude level.

MGMT puts on a solid show, but does not deviate far from their album presentation. "Weekend Wars" live was still epic.

GSP's interpretative dance during Dan Deacon's set was special.

Maurice's BBQ

 If you're driving along interstate 26 in the general vicinity of Columbia, SC you're almost guaranteed to see billboards for Maurice's BBQ aka Maurice's Piggie Palace. Good BBQ and plenty of Confederate memorabilia (although actually less than I remembered). All the mustard based sauce you can handle.

Carrie and I just arrived in Asheville for MoogFest. 

MoogFest

Big Boi, Devo, Girl Talk, El-P, MGMT, Cee Lo, Caribou, Hot Chip...

It could be a list of some of my favorite artists who really changed how I listened to music...and it is just a few of the amazing shows that will be going on during MoogFest in Asheville, NC at the end of the month. It's going to be completely chainless.

The whole schedule is crazy. 

Girl Talk NYE

Girl Talk built a house inside a theater in Chicago for a huge NYE house party to kick off the year. There's a short film (3 parts on YouTube) documenting what looks to have been a kickass show. He'll be closing Friday night at MoogFest over Halloween weekend this year in Asheville and this video just got me even more amped to see his live show.