This past weekend a couple of us northeastern vagabonds were getting our folk on at the Newport Folk Festival (more to come on that soon). Meanwhile, my favourite Aussie music fest Splendour in the Grass, was taking place some 15989 km away.

Click the link above for the Splendour Bender lowdown. Then check out Angus and Julia Stones’ beauty addition to our GOTCHA COVERED sectionwith their Travolta/Olivia Newton-John throwback, “You’re The One That I Want”:

Splendour to your ears. From my ears across the pacific. With Love -k

Festy Fun 2010 // Pitchfork Music Festival // Chicago, IL // July 16-18

If you are looking for a much larger festy experience this weekend and not looking to head to Iowa, Pitchfork Music Festival is taking place in Chicago and it promises to be a hipster’s dream. While it’s been sold out for weeks, extra tickets have just been released at the box office ONLY. Sway your decision? Here are MV’s picks for bands to check out:

L.Sizzle says…

Big Boi- The second half of Outkast, Big Boi is one of the most well-known must sees at the fest. Get to the stage early on Sunday!

Sleigh Bells- Here at MV, we looooove Sleigh Bells, and you should too. Check out this Brooklyn duo on Sunday for a guitar shredding, ear piercing set. It’s kinda like nails on a chalkboard but in an awesome, awesome way. I’m actually listening to them right now!

JP says…

LCD Soundsystem- DUH! ‘Nuff said.

The Tallest Man on Earth- This Swedish Folk group is perfect for the 4pm Friday set with a mellow, soulful yet gritty sound. 

Titus Andronicus- Check out why MV writer Jay says these guys rock and see them Saturday afternoon.

Delorean- Barcelona based dance music, Delorean has a refreshing style all their own. See them Saturday afternoon.

Matt says…

Local Natives- We’ve told you about the Local Natives only about a million times. If you haven’t gotten hip to our advice, see them live and stop making excuses.

Kurt Vile- Philly based Kurt Vile has an electronic folk sound that is a welcome change on the crowded indie scene. Read Matt’s synopsis in a previous post.

Check out the full line up here: http://www.pitchforkmusicfestival.com/index.php?d=all

Music to your ears - from ours - with love

<3 MusicVagabond

Festy Fun 2010 - Best of Bonnaroo: Re-living the Dream Part 3.

Welcome to the third and final post-roo installment. Yes, it’s been over a week later, and I’m still riding the high – figuratively speaking.

Highlights from Saturday, June 12:

Dead Weather - 10 mins of sheer neo-blues, rock, glory and sin:           Will There Be Enough Water…            watch and salivate.

Shortly before this number, White declared “I want you to remember which band on stage brought the rain   to Bonnaroo, all right?” Oh yes. The rains are here.

‘Roo Sideshow Alert- In other news regarding the Jack White + Conan O’Brien + Tennessee combo, the two entertainment giants collaborated at  White’s Third Man Records home on June 10. A simple jam session ensued, followed closely an LP.

Stevie Wonder – Two words: Stevie Wonder.

Photo credit: Samuel M. Simpkins

Who needs to see, when you have vision. This legend banged out decades of funk and dance tunes. What a soul. What a smile. What a man.

Jay-Z – He was allotted a 2hr performance. He played for 45 mins. Personally, I think the audience was kind of jibbed. Albeit, it was an amazingly intense 45 minutes ending with a “forever young” encore.

Yes, that photo just happened.

GWAR - This one goes out to fellow vag Jeff who recommended you all go see this “troupe of sadomasochistic chaos warriors” from 2.30 – 3.45 am. For those of you who made it out that long, I salute you!

Sunday, June 13. Day 4. 

John Butler Trio – Listen to the whole LIVE show here  (thanks to NPR). Keep your ears peeled for the ‘pots-and-pans’ style percussion breakdown amidst the 15-minute ‘Funky Tonight’ closing jam – The song starts at 01:04:50 in the live recording above, drum jam starts at about 01:09:40 – definitely worth a listen.

Blues traveller aided my Sunday afternoon recovery session covering radiohead’s creep ..check out this fan footage.

John Fogerty is a highlight for multiple reasons. Check out this pre-gig interview by Fader. Watch him talk covers. Then watch the legend himself cover..Pretty Woman.

DMB - I must be honest, I’ve never been a huge fan of Dave Matthews Band. Not for any particular reason, I’ve just always felt somewhat indifferent toward them. That said, their electrifying performance managed to give me an umpteenth wind after 96 hours of physically demanding rocking out – and that’s got to count for something. They closed out the festival with a cover of Bob Dylan’s  “All Along the Watchtower” – a climactic choice but not original – Pearl Jam finished up the same way in 2008. Never the less, with the couple of extra horns that Mr. Matthews employed “to make the sound “a little bit fatter,” and the galaxy of sky lanterns balloons floating off into the infinite Tennessee atmosphere, all in all,

Until next year. Happy Roo! From my ears. To yours. With Love -k

Festy Fun 2010 - Best of Bonnaroo: Re-living the Dream Part 2.

‘Roo Life Lesson Number 3:  There is something about a music festival that is conducive to unthought-of covers and surprise collaborations. You put enough creative spirits under one tent, and the on-stage possibilities are infinite.

Jay Sweet from Paste Magazine said it best: “The festival is the kind of thing you can’t program; you just curate it and see what happens.”

Here are a couple of those non-programmable moments. Stay tuned for more in Part 3.

Friday June 11. (continued from Part 1)

Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zereos - triple-digit temps couldn’t stop our jangling souls from bouncing around like a cult of gypsies. See them on and off the ‘roo stage in this interview with Jeremiah Weed.

Damian Marely and Nas - had upwards of 50,000 ‘rooers grooving down the “Road to Zion.” Listen to the full LIVE hour and a half audio (including intro by Conan), from NPR.

NPR is also giving away this free 11-song Bonnaroo 2010 sampler. Sample that.

Speaking of scoring FREE Bonnaroo loot from larger music industry corporations…Since we MV’s don’t have the means to give away our own sweet swag, I’m going to give away there’s also. So, here, take it… SPIN’s Bonnaroo Mixtape 2010 – Free Album Download!  You can thank me later!

She and Him - The doe-eyed tambourine-tapping goddess PUT A SPELL ON ME, that’s for sure. I couldn’t find any live footage of the duo’s closing tune, but if you close your eyes and pretend that portabella sandwich you had for lunch today was magical in every which way, you will soon find yourself melting back to ‘This Tent’ with this audio capture courtesy of the Hype Machine .

Tenacious D – Conan couldn’t have introduced them better, “Are you ready to rock? Are you ready to laugh? Are you ready to rock and laugh?” Jack Black and Kyle Gass played all their laugh out loud classics, and some mid-set “Pick of Destiny 2” banter resulted in an on-stage band break-up theatrical…and this awesome make-up tune .

KOL - Played a bunch of their older, rawer, grittier stuff. Big thumbs up. Lead vocal/guitarist/tight-jean-wearing-hottie, Caleb Followill, persevered through his throat infection issues that sparked rumors of cancellation last week. I haven’t been able to find any decent footage of their Pixies cover, “Where is my mind,” but it rocked. It was one of those cliche postcard “Wish you were here” moments.

Daryl Hall and Chromeo  (Above: photo credits - Pete Moshay) - Ok, so it meant having to leave the Black Keys set halfway through “Tighten Up”, but catching “Private Eyes” (a personal favorite) made it totally worthwhile. The 80’s king and 80’s-inspired Canadian duo finished off with a Hall and Oates classic, “You Make My Dreams Come True.” This little fan footage alllllmost does the encore dance party justice: watch it here.

Kid Cudi - Watch this surprise intro by Aziz Ansari doubling as security for this man on the moon phenomenon… Just remember, “Rule number 2, nobody look at Cudi’s shoes. The shoes are really shy, okay.”

LCD Soundsystem’s killer late night set. Including their staple Jay-Z/Alicia Keys breakdown of “New York I Love You, But You’re Bringing Me Down”.

And then all of a sudden, I realized it was 5am. Pow pow pow pow pow…Watch the Pow Pow.

Another winner: “All My Friends.” Anyone whose been lost in a sea of thousands of sweaty, ecstatic, dancing fanatics can relate to their “buddy-system” pre-amble here. From my own experience, glow-stick weaponry works wonders.

‘Roo Life Lesson Number 4: Bloody Mary’s are the ultimate cure the morning after an LCD Soundsystem late night set.

‘Roo part 2 from my ears. To yours. With love -k

Festy Fun 2010 - Best of Bonnaroo: Re-living the Dream Part 1.

Warning: This blog posting may quickly turn into a nonsensical stream of consciousness. Four days of mind-altering musical performances has a tendency to create a blur of great lucid memories. Or perhaps that had something to do with those cookies that had the funny parsley bits in them. Anywho…

Thursday June 10.

It’s 10am. We picked up the RV from New York at 3pm yesterday. Drove straight through the night (thank you concerta and Ben’s ipod). Already put $200 of petrol in the beast, but it’s totally worth it.

Above: Setting up camp. Anyone who didn’t bring a futon… well, you lose. Our castle on wheels, the “Chateau” was renamed and coated with a dirty French accent “Lè Chateau”. Then 10 minutes later, stemming from a miscommunication combined with my tainted aussie accent, our vehicle was further transformed into “The Lush Toe”.

Above: Local Natives started my ‘roo off right (listen to their full set courtesy of NPR here). Followed directly by Miike Snow (below). Those Swedes really know how to get things rolling.  When they fired up Animal, no mud could stop me from jumping up and down like a 7-year old on a bouncy castle who just drank their body weight in red cordial (Yankee translation: Kool Aid).

Day 1 in Manchester, Tennessee finished strong with sets from Neon Indian, The Temper Trap and The xx – ‘That Tent’ was this vags home that night!

The xx opened with Intro – no surprises there, no disappointments either. Rolling Stone posted a little snippet of “Shelter” with Romy breaking away into a hypnotic solo (watch it here), but I’m loving this fan vid of “Crystallized.”   

‘Roo Life Lesson Number 1: After a certain number of adult beverages, navigating through the 75,000 tent maze back to “The Lush Toe” can prove difficult without a cellular device. My friend, lets call him Morris, learned this the hard way.  He left his phone in NYC and left the rest of us in ‘The Other Tent’.  He did, however, manage to find the futon at 3am.  Props.

‘Roo Life Lesson Number 2: A festy futon is the best investment you’ll ever make.

- ‘Roo from my ears. To yours. With love. -k

Festy Fun 2010 - Bonnaroo- Manchester, TN

Recommendations from your trusty Vags on must-see bands at this summer’s hottest festivals.

In the first of our summer Festy Fun posts, we highlight MusicVagabond’s faves for this year’s Bonnaroo line-up. Over the year’s Bonnaroo has evolved to feature vastly different genres, varying just as much as our tastes here at MV.

L.Sizzle says… check out Thievery Corporation for some Dub Reggae goodness. No matter what your state of mind, you can groove. Grab some of your favorite mind altering treats and check out Lotus, you will NOT stop dancing. The Carolina Chocolate Drops will give you that southern experience- get your Bluegrass fix! 

Matt says… Here We Go Magic - Brooklyn-based band Here We Go Magic evoke a modern-day CSNY so they should fit right into the modern-day Woodstock. Listen to their song “Fangela” for a taste of what you can expect. Aziz Ansari - Though strictly falling on the comedy side of the Bonnaroo line-up, Aziz Ansari is currently working on a mixtape, so you never know what he could bust out. I’m just hoping that he continues to rip on BP.

Jay says… The Entrance Band - This three piece rock and roll outfit will get you going with a blast of sonic dominance. Look out as their highly ironic, 120 lbs frontman dominates the crowd with his growling voice and shredding guitar riffs. Miike Snow - Grab your favorite pharmaceuticals and get over to see Miike Snow if you want to dance your face off. This three piece quasi electronic band has all the right stuff to keep your glowsticks and imaginary balls moving throughout the night.

Jeff says… GWAR - what’s a summer music festival without a troupe of sadomasochistic chaos warriors screaming about their hatred of all things alive. go see it and be drunk. The XX - has this South London trio survived its tidal 2k9 hypewave? we think so. maybe Jamie (on the e-drums) will pull out some of his mix skills to beat up that big crowd.

Also, our very own Kylie will be rockin out at the festival so get in touch with her via @shallowleak on Twitter!

Music to your ears - from ours - with love

<3 MusicVagabonds