Usounds writers Scott Roots and SnuggleBot (Jared Fiechtner) head to George, Washington for the 6th annual Sasquatch Music Festival. They wanted to keep a journal to document the weekend…what they end up with is more important than all of the world’s newborn infants.
DAY 1, SATURDAY
9:30 am, SR: Sasquatch 07. It begins. Our anxiousness is palpable. Snuggle Bot is running slow on sleep, but the needle points to F as far as his excitement is concerned. Sasquatch is jamming a car with people and stuff and driving two or three hours to a big field to drink with ten thousand people that all could be your new friends, more or less. Sasquatch is sitting, standing, and not much in between. Sasquatch is weed brownies. For me, last year’s ‘Quatch was tarnished by a bad back that translated into a bad attitude. That’s why now, as I sit left nut in Holly’s ‘92 Cavalier, I am so ready to turn this year’s festival on its head. Jared asks, “Are those cows tiny or are they just far away? They look like little dogs.” As the urban jungle of Seattle gives way to the rolling hills and “little cows” of rural Washington, I let the pre ‘Quatch energy run over me. Picture it like I’m walking through a car wash and it’s set to “pre-’Quatch with wax”.
Neumo’s
Seattle WA
February 1, 2007
w/ Black and Black
and Leti Angel
What’s up with opening bands? I mean seriously: where do they find these people? Here I am, Thursday night, minding my own business, hanging out and waiting for Deerhoof to play. I had already endured the opener’s thirty minutes when these two girls who might be in high school and this guy who might be (and is) in the band Phantom Planet come out onto the stage. And the way they’re angular and attractive and solemn, well it’s evident that something strange is brewin’. I knew it – the crowd knew – we all knew it like animals know it when a forest is gonna burn down; we knew it but we really didn’t know what it meant. There was a VIP space on the balcony at Neumo’s this night, and there were people eating sushi, and you couldn’t go into this area unless you knew something. Something was up, oh yeah. And then I heard the people behind me mention it and the pieces fell together and it all made perfect sense: Black Black was from LA!
This guy on youtube has been re-dubbing all of these great old Joy Division live concert footage, check this one out and then see the rest here, as well as classic vids of Television, Smog, and more.
As USOUNDS’ archivist it is my job to find things from our back issues and relay them to you. Well, our entire 1974 archive was destroyed in a fire of suspicious origin at our storage facility outside Paris, but I did come up with a sentence from a review of the very show this video is from. So while I can’t share the review, with the magic of youtube, I can show you a video, plus the sentence. Enjoy:
…at the exact moment it kicked in, Lou launched into “Sweet Jane” and it was as if I was transported beyond time and space, to a place where the underground sounds battle with hammers like the Norse Gods of old.
In the LA area? The Prix (pronounced “pree” not like a band of assholes) have two shows left for the year, and we are giving away tickets to each show. Here are the dates:
11/23 – The Prospector, Long Beach, CA
11/25 – The Key Club, West Hollywood, CA (KRQQ Party)
We have one pair of tix for each show, so first come/first serve and please specify show date. Also, check out “It’s All The Way That You Trip” on The Prix MySpace page.
Upon entering the Seattle venue Neumos, I really thought it would be the Thermals night. With all the obscenely positive press The body, the blood, the machine has been receiving, (even from yours truly) I figured the kids would be primed to just eat it up. As it turns out however, it wasn’t so. Although for this, the Thermals can’t be blamed.
Hutch Harris was rocking and singing about the lord smiting the innocent to the point of looking ghoulish, and the rest of the band was supremely tight. They even played as a four piece just to add that little bit of extra rock. (Although I’m not sure how much more rock unison power chords add.) But all the same, it was nice, the effort was there. Continue Reading »
Stage left, there is a slightly overweight man holding a guitar, chest-hair creeping from his worn V-neck. He has an afro that’s at least a foot high and a voice that may be two octaves higher than my personal falsetto range. Stage right – often stepping back to the amp to hit some more feedback into his guitar – is a fellow with shortly cropped yellow hair, yellow Bono-ish glasses and a very form-fitting black shirt made out of something like Spandex. He doesn’t just “play” guitar; he strums it with methodical insanity, as if the fate of the world depends on it. The bassist/keyboardist is strangely cut-off from the stage, hanging out at the far back left, glancing off every so often in the direction of the drummer. I’m not so sure the band even knows he’s there. Continue Reading »
If you’re in LA this Friday, come on down to Tangier where Fonogenic will be throwing an awesome party. Live bands include Pink and Noseworthy, Hour of the Shipwreck, and Portland Orgeon’s Horsefeathers. Horsefeathers is making their first SoCal appearance… they have been getting a ton of the old blog-o-buzz so be the first on your block to check em out. Also, DJ robot Mark (Music For Robots) will be behind the decks and that guy is a funky freaky machine, so you won’t want to miss it.
2 FREE TICKETS to the first people in LA to email usounds AT gmail DOT com !! Do it now!
Phoenix have a new album out on May 23rd, called It’s Never Been Like That, you can listen to some of it on MySpace, and the band will support it with the following world tour, including a mini-tour in the States: Continue Reading »
