I've got news for you honey; I don't need no booze to get it up in the morning
So I had a fun week. I went to Punt festival which was the usual exhilarating mixture of unsigned bands and sprinting around oxford. I had a nice lunch with Claire and I had yummy cocktails at Andrzej's cocktail bar with people. And then I went to ATP for the weekend, where I shared a chalet with a bunch of lovely people who I didn't know particularly well before the weekend started, and the bands weren't that amazing as a rule but I really enjoyed the novelty of being at a music festival with a bed and a shower and food that didn't look like roadkill. I've learned that if you're an old rock band I haven't heard of, I'm probably not going to like you even if your press release describes you as 'pioneering'. There were a number of bands who I liked that I hadn't heard before, including Pit Er Pat, Holy Fuck, and The Whispertown 2000. Kimya Dawson is the nicest most open person you'll ever meet whose job it is to perform on a stage. Heartless Bastards make for good show even though I'm sure objectively I should find them boring. ATP weekend ended in a random stranger's chalet, watching "Trapped In The Closet"; despite this, it was a good weekend.
But anyway, the main thing I want to say about ATP is that the second-to-last thing I saw was tUnE yArDs and I think I'm in love.
Tune Yards consists of one lady, with a ukelele, and a drum, and one of those looping recording setups that lets you layer a bunch of stuff on the go. And the songs always have beats you can dance to, and she does interesting things with her singing (rather than just singing the words to a tune, if that distinction makes sense), and there's probably a lot of clever rythmic and melodic stuff I can't identify. The songs are really good songs. It was the only time at ATP I got really caught up in the crowd and the music (though this may have had something to do with the rum I had earlier, or the wine, or the beer),
You ever get that feeling when you see a band you've never heard of and they're amazing, and you think "This band is amazing, and no one knows except me! This band could be MINE!". I had that with Holiday In Hawaii, and Frank Turner, and to a lesser extent The World Is Not Flat. There's a feeling, of getting caught up and invested in a band, that becomes a lot more intense when you feel like you're part of only a small group of people who know about them. It's very Indie thing and probably not a great attitude to have, but there you go. Anyway, I think that's the feeling I'm getting with Tune Yards right now. You should listen to her! I get more indie points if I get other people to like her.
In other news, I still haven't sorted out what I'm doing with my life. And I saw Star Trek! It was okay, but probably not as great as the internet says. SLIGHT SPOILERS: I liked it best at the beginning, was underwhelmed by the presence of mr nimoy and didn't really buy the Kirk/Spock friendship arc.
But anyway, the main thing I want to say about ATP is that the second-to-last thing I saw was tUnE yArDs and I think I'm in love.
Tune Yards consists of one lady, with a ukelele, and a drum, and one of those looping recording setups that lets you layer a bunch of stuff on the go. And the songs always have beats you can dance to, and she does interesting things with her singing (rather than just singing the words to a tune, if that distinction makes sense), and there's probably a lot of clever rythmic and melodic stuff I can't identify. The songs are really good songs. It was the only time at ATP I got really caught up in the crowd and the music (though this may have had something to do with the rum I had earlier, or the wine, or the beer),
You ever get that feeling when you see a band you've never heard of and they're amazing, and you think "This band is amazing, and no one knows except me! This band could be MINE!". I had that with Holiday In Hawaii, and Frank Turner, and to a lesser extent The World Is Not Flat. There's a feeling, of getting caught up and invested in a band, that becomes a lot more intense when you feel like you're part of only a small group of people who know about them. It's very Indie thing and probably not a great attitude to have, but there you go. Anyway, I think that's the feeling I'm getting with Tune Yards right now. You should listen to her! I get more indie points if I get other people to like her.
In other news, I still haven't sorted out what I'm doing with my life. And I saw Star Trek! It was okay, but probably not as great as the internet says. SLIGHT SPOILERS: I liked it best at the beginning, was underwhelmed by the presence of mr nimoy and didn't really buy the Kirk/Spock friendship arc.