I just flipped through my recent iphone pics, and they're all awful.

August 17 & 18 it was Phish at Robert Moses's (or Moses', per Caro) Jones Beach.  (My computer (likely) and godaddy (possibly) is/are acting up, and eating text.  Ugh.)  Two solid shows, the first more enjoyable for me than the second, but I liked the vibe of the first half of summer tour more.

On August 27, it was off to Mercury Lounge to see Arms.  Or so I thought.  Turns out the person who suggested we head to the venue was interested in the first band, Justin Stens and The Get Real Gang.  We got there during their set; what I heard, I enjoyed.  Next up, another band I'd never heard of: TV Torso.  Fun.  Then finally Arms, for a great night of music.  But it didn't end there.  It was off to meet the Love King at RJD2.  He came on at around 1 a.m. and I'm too old for that sh*t, but I made it for about 90 minutes of very fun music and videos, and a very cool bit involving Donkey Kong.  Someone else captured video from another gig here.  There was also some stripper-esque mayhem going on in the basement, including a great La Roux remix.  Photographic evidence:



Have I mentioned lately how much I hate the formatting here?  Good.

On Monday September 6 it was off to Brooklyn Bowl to see Big Boi.  The new album is great, Outkast is freaking Outkast, but his live act didn't do too much for me.  I had a blast though.  And got to see Alabama's rising star.

Got screwed through the Phish lottery for AC.  All hope is not yet lost, but it's annoying.

Brought home some album recommendations from Rolling Stone's "College Radio Top 10 Albums" list.  How do they compile that?  Anyway, very impressed with a lot of what I heard, including The Books (planning to see them now at Zankel), Menomena, and Best Coast.  Jury's still out on Wavves and Jaill, when the music had less of my attention.

Oh!  Saw this band Ellis Ashbrook at a fun party in Rhody.  The singer wore a Grateful Dead t-shirt, and their playlist was basically every song Phish covers.  So no complaints here.

Bought some concert tickets today, and have a lot lined up.  That makes me happy.

Finally listening to the new Arcade Fire.

On this day, it was my second trip to Governors Island, but my first for music.  And a great crew, too.  That always helps.  And beautiful weather and a view out of a postcard's dream. 

The first band was (The) Dom.  They lied to us and told us it was their last show.  In fact, they'll be touring with Ratatat in about a month.  Fun, but didn't strike me as great though.  Next up was Prefuse 73 .  I've mentioned him here before (though not how he blew me off, basically deservedly, at a gig, but that's for another time).  He's a bit more headphones-at-home music than rock out on a Saturday night music.  I enjoyed, but it's weird vibe music for that setting, or at least felt that way.  Next up was Neon Indian.  Really good.  I was surprised at how good they were.  And the front guy is around 22 years old (it wouldn't surprise me if they all are), so the future looks very bright for what we'll hear from him/them.  Someone from Au Revoir Simone sat in for one song.  I've said too much about that already.

Hopefully these amazing pictures format OK on this dang crummy site.

I'll just say before ending this post that the next day I watched some of My Morning Jacket's webcast set from the Mile High Music Festival, which was great and got me excited for their upcoming show.



Looks like the formatting is messed up?  Godaddy stinks.

A Hendrix Castle Where Musicians Still Kiss the Sky

First some odds and ends.  Cho-y told me about newtownradio.com, which I'm listening to right now (finally).  I've listened to a handful of songs from the kexp Song of the Day podcast.  I've heard some stuff I really like.  I watched a bunch of videos from The Voice Project; worth checking out if you haven't.  I listened to Amanda Palmer's Radiohead covers EP.  The Idioteque cover is good, but my general reaction was: we know Radiohead is amazing already.  I listened to Dark Night of the Soul.  I'm sure I've heard some of these tracks before, but I'm not sure where.  Good, not great.  And I listened to sonny and the sunsets.  It's actually sonny & the sunsets, but crappy godaddy can't handle ampersands.  No East Coast dates, and they're touring with a band called Best Coast?  Harumph.

On July 26, it was back to Central Park Summerstage to see The Flaming Lips.  The last time I saw them was an interesting night.  This time, some pre-show chatter weighed too heavily on my mind, but seeing these guys is such a joyous occasion, it's nearly impossible not to have fun.  Transparent ball crowd surfing, confetti guns, orange-clothed dancers, costumed creatures, positive messages, crazy videos (R rated, at least).  A blast.  This pic should sort of sum it up.



I even watched a bit of the webcast of their Terminal 5 show when it re-aired a few days later.  He put on some giant hands there that we didn't see.

I was alone on Friday night (July 30) and decided to stay in and watch a webcast of the Spiritualized show from Radio City Music Hall.  I was pretty excited, being fairly sure I'd seen them once before at the Field Day festival way back when at Giants Stadium.  Well, it turns out, the band I was thinking of is Underworld.  I actually didn't really know Spiritualized at all.  They were playing their album Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space.  I say, in all seriousness, this was one of the most amazing musical performances I have ever seen.  Absolutely blew me away.  What a show.  Amazing amazing amazing.

The next night I went to see Sonic Youth in Prospect Park.  Another band I'd seen before, but was happy to see again.  Talk Normal and Grass Widow opened.  Here is a pic of the setlist.  Always a pleasure and an honor to see this band.  They still sound great.

Somehow on August 5 I found myself in Berkeley, California with a ticket to the Greek Theatre.  It was the opening night of leg two of Phish's summer tour.  I had an absolute blast.  The setlist was somewhat unremarkable, but the playing and energy were great.  I don't need to write much here about how I like Phish.  This is a known fact.

All for now.

I guess the next entry will be in 8.5 days?

On July 22, it was a [expletive deleted that doesn't begin with a vowel, hence a []] night.  Started at Pier 54 for another show by The Antlers.  Opening was a band I'd never heard of called Dinosaur Feathers (I think) that had to deal with a busted generator.  They seemed to handle it very well, which is a good sign.  Then another set by The Antlers, this time including some new unreleased material we didn't get at BAM.  Talented guy, that Silberman.  Fortunately had some special access at the show, and snapped some photos.



Above, the view after walking in and turning around.  Below, a shot of The Antlers.



Despite a great view to take pictures/video, between my crappy camera phone and this crappy hosting site, you, dear reader, get basically no sense of that.  Sorry about that.  But here's your take home: The Antlers are good.  Hmm.  I thought I sent myself a link to video from the show, but I can't find it.  If you have access to a computer, you shouldn't have any trouble finding some. 

After the show, we decided to keep the party going by sneaking into Radio City Music Hall to see Widespread Panic, who were joined fortunately by guest DJ Logic.  Got there during the start of the second set and stayed through the encore.  Certainly one of the best free sets of music I've ever seen.  Lots of talent on stage, and some fun songs, including a lesser-known Dylan cover.



After the show, we decided to keep it going and went to see Jerry Joseph and the Jackmormons at Sullivan Hall.  It was my first time at the venue, which I really liked.  JJ and the Js sounded good.  They threw in a tease of U2's Mysterious Ways at one point.  I was pretty beat and left before the end.  Somewhat funny that it took me this long to go to the jam band venue that's one of if not the closest live music venues to me period.



This entry is taking way too long, so I'm gonna say one more thing and then post it.  More stuff though.   So on July 25 I arrived way later than I should have to enjoy a short part of the set of Bassekou Kouyate , a musician I'd never heard of until very recently.  I barely familiarized myself with his music beforehand, but it didn't matter.  There was so much joy in the live performance that I was able to enjoy myself immensely without trying in the slightest.  It was just in the air.  Here's a random shot.



OK, more to say, but that's it for now.

34 days since my last message.  Lame.

I've been doing an OK job seeing music, but mostly bands I've seen before.  I've also missed a ton of great shows for a ton of bad reasons.  The streak continued tonight: great concert, but only part of it because of a bad reason.  Let's see how much I can catch up.

(Soundtrack for me while writing this entry: Steel Train's Terrible Thrills, Vol. 1).  And the song for tonight's Mad Men outro, Tobacco Road by The Nashville Teens, sounded great.

June 5 I wanted to see Yeasayer.  I waited too long at the apt like an idiot, and when I got all the way to the southern tip of Manhattan island, I saw someone wandering around a bit holding a hand-written sign.  I got closer, and finally made it out: no more ferries to the concert.  Governors Island is full.  FML.

Made a phone call I don't like to make to get a favor for a sold-out show (hyphen there, yes?) for June 8.  Les Claypool.  Didn't make it.  Reason(s) is/are all terrible.  Lame.

On June 18, I drove with a passenger in a car belonging to neither of us and not rented to Hartford, CT.  I'd never met him before, but we had a good time.  Listened to Graceland start to finish.  Love that.  Talked a lot about Phish.  Which is where we were going, to see Phish's second night at Hartford; I did not go night one.  Met Bruddy, C, some others.  No pics worth uploading.  But Tweezer Reprise squared had me shakin' it.  Halloween is always challenging to compare to a normal Phish show, but compared to all other shows in 2009 I saw, Hartford was probably better.

The week of June 21, I tried to listen to podcasts.  It made me unsubscribe from Morning Becomes Eclectic.  New host is no Nic.  Tough act to follow.  Not a great interviewer.  I'm telling you, review my Rothbury highlight reel for pointers.  I listened to Blitzen Trapper, boring.  Angela McCluskey was bitching about money?!  Listened to Wild Beasts.  Fair.  I wrote some other notes to myself from these podcasts, but I can't read them.

Oh I saw some music journalist at the show tonight.  Anyway.

I watched a video by The Shaky Hands that I thought was great from the Kill Rock Stars podcast.

June 25 it was off to Camden, New Jersey on the party bus.  A real bus, although limited partying.  But good people, and fun.  One of them told me about the performer tonight, with some struggle.  But got it eventually. 

Missed the beginning of the first song of the first set due to stupidity, etc.  And of course it was a hyper rarity I'd never heard before.  Sigh.  Also debut (and probably only ever) of Free Man in Paris and infectious funkiness of the MJ tribute during 2001.  A blast.

Then off to my hometown venue in my younger days.  Ziggy Marley in the late 80s at MPP, anyone?  Jimmy Buffet in 1991?  ANYONE??!!

Saw family, including a young nephew and even younger niece for their first shows.  P--, er, I mean S said she liked Backwards Down the Number Line, a gem debuted at Rothbury in 2008.  I sent her B- video of that performance , and she e-mailed back: "My fav by phish."  Mostly flat first set, despite Neutral Milk Hotel debut.  Second set brought some heat.  I like Phish.

Next day I came back and was by myself.  Now, one of my big music regrets of the summer is missing Gil Scott-Heron on August 5 at a Summerstage event, I think not at Central Park.  I came back June 27, not realizing he was playing another Summerstage show, this one I think at Central Park.  I was here, didn't find out about it until too late, and screwed it up.  Idiotic.  That day I also could have seen Furthur.  Fail.  I also skipped Bang on a Can.  Sad.  I did learn of the Pimps of Joytime's song Bonita that day, but that's hardly enough to save that mess of a failure of a day.

I listened to the new album by Robyn, and found it very fun.  I listened to the new Chemical Brothers.  I wish I could remember how it was.  Sort of.

(That album is over.  Now it's on to Big Boi's new album.)

I spent a few nights on phish #couchtour.  One, really only one, night, there was very good audio.  Usually it was somewhere between just below fair at best to dead air at worst.  Went to a Flashing Lights party.  Wow was it awful.

Wanted to go see She & Him play a free show, but screwed it up.  Fail.

Wanted to see Xiu Xiu et al.  at the Williamsburg Waterfront on July 11, but couldn't.  Fail.  Again a Xiu Xiu fail, plus others.

Wanted to see Caribou play on the 16th, but didn't make it.  Fail.

Watched some of the Pitchfork webcast over the weekend.  Some stuff not so good, but two highlights:  alla (can't get accent) and The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. 

Only a tiny bit more to say, but I'll break there for now.

Live at the Paradise in Boston, 2010.  Wow.

I am listening to the new UNKLE here.  I'm having flashbacks to my younger days.

watching some videos here