Intonation Music Festival....Was it any good?

I really enjoyed the Wrens. They seemed to get off on the big crowd (15,000, say some estimates) more than any of the other acts, save perhaps Go! Team. Also, nice to see so many people paying attention to Andrew Bird.

Fave sight on day 2: the pick-up wiffleball game! And, man, everybody has a tattoo. Has this trend played out yet? In 20 years, when everyone's grandma has some scribble over their asscrack and every grandpa a tribal band, will young'n's think it the weirdest thing they've ever seen?

broken social scene seemed like for the most part they were goofing around, trying out new material (one song was a pavement reference, which was quite interesting) and going on about how much new york cops suck. it was ok, but nothing spectacular like when i saw them before.

i was really dissapointed by prefuse 73. part of what i like about them is the craziness in the beats and it was just scott and another drummer playing boom-boom-bap beats most of the time. dfa79 was energetic and fun, but too much of their music gives me a headache.

tortoise=great great great great

second day: the hold steady was quite great, i really enjoyed their set. it was energetic and they all got into it.

deerhoof actually bored me. not much else to say besides that. luckily, instead of going over to check out the wrens i sped up to the front of the stage to get a prime spot for les savy fav, and i was rewarded. tim herrington came out and was messing around with the crowd before the show. he took people's cameras up to the stage and took pictures of the crowd with them and talked to everyone and was just the coolest guy ever. their set was spectacular and energetic as hell. he walked right past me through the crowd shirtless and covered in soap just to have the whole crowd sit in a circle and make sex noises. quite amazing actually. he also brought a slip n slide into the audience during a guitar solo. the pit was intense; i left with a bloody big toe. that was by far the peak of the whole festival.

the decemberists were good, and played extremely well. i was very impressed, if a bit worn out from les savy fav. the mariner's revenge was great as an ender, as was chimbley sweep.

so thats my take, if anyone cares.

Poet = Thax Douglas. Yeah, he's an all right dude. I always say you know you've made it when Thax reads a poem for you. He's read for my band three times now.

And what's up with Bettina?

cant wait for next year!

seriously though, very well done.

you know what would have been awesome? if the crowd brought little cards that they could hold up and rate the bands. perhaps that could have given the day one acts the boost they needed.

best show of day one were the constantines at the empty bottle. seriously one of the best shows ive ever seen them do.

out hud really blew me away. "only one thing to do when you're this hot: get hotter." i looked like a wet t-shirt contestant afterwards.

http://www.villagevoice.com/blogs/riffraff/archives/2005/07/pitchfork_indie.php

sanneh on intonation.

Haha, what review is this from?

Four Tet, a k a "laptronica" artist Kieran Hebden, created sensual, psychedelic waves of sound but was a snooze to watch. A guy pecking at a computer is just a guy pecking at a computer; I could play the CD, you could watch me type this review, and it would be just about as exciting.

that made me spit my tamale out all over my desk. way to go, dero! god forbid you should make me laugh! the rest can be read here:

http://www.suntimes.com/output/derogatis/cst-ftr-pitch18.html

ugh, this just reads as someone who's jealous this didnt happen in new york city.

x-post

x-post pained facial expressions, ripping at one's shirt, crying.

boy im tired.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/theoreticalgirl/tags/intonation/show/

I don't get why people hate this line so much - -he's clearly just saying that these bands are unambitious, and would be more interesting if they didn't all just settle for their safe comfortable little cult. You can disagree, or say it doesn't matter, but I'm not sure why the point would be dismissable by definition. (Or wait, are people arguing not with the poiint per se', but saying that he made it in a corny manner? Maybe that makes more sense, though I still don't think I agree. Anybody who takes the "take over the world" part literally is being pretty goofy. Personally I thought the review was great, and the line above fit right in.)

Prefuse was playing drums?

I don't get why people hate this line so much

Doesn't it relate to the implication that the world/country can only be "taken over" in a populist, hyper-pop way (ie, the ambition to make popular-but-arty-art isn't "swagger" or "hunger")? Which isn't true. (coltrane vs yanni, marquez vs rowling, picasso vs kinkade)

Granted, the idea that you can tour and sell records through independent means and make a living is quite noble. But this is also one of the reasons why mostly bad rock music is what sells enough to make an impact on the charts and played on radio/MTV. The truly great indie artists shun the major labels/potential for mass popularity (or is it fear of their "base" shunning them?), thus letting the lowest form of rock infect everyone on a mass level.

How can you tell if a band is unambitious? Because they're playing an indie rock festival? And what would have made a band at Intonation seem more ambitious? Sucking less? Being on a major? More pop songs? Not being at Intonation?

I'll also note I find it a little ironic to complain that indie rockers don't have the evangelical spirit these days AND don't show a real appreciation for other genres.

Seems weird to complain that appreciating others is tangential AND that the bands should be out pillaging other markets or something.

C'mon get down with it

argh. that's an aggravating quote. people don't attend music festivals as an exercise in diversity education. and organizers who don't focus on their market generally lose money.

also, Biz3 curated the dance tent not PFM. That info is all over every press release, wesbite, and news story about Intonation. In particular, the atypical combo dj events (el-p/mcnew; oldham/grae) are an extension of Biz3's monthly party at Sonotheque in Chicago. Other sets were added when artists playing the two stages expressed interest in doing so. Diplo was the one actual DJ at the event - and was PFM's first choice from among names tossed around over lunch one day. (FWIW, of the four acts who were booked or had verbal agreements to play and then fell through, three were hip-hop artists.)

But I was mostly disappointed that this (in part erroneous) assumption-- that this event was proof of our inability or unwilligness to engage with hip-hop/dance -- was used as another swipe at our coverage of this music on the site. scanning out front page today, m.a.n.d.y., diplo, rwd mixtape, röyksopp, missy, optimo, cam'ron, one of our weekly dance/grime/dancehall columns, slim thug, ppp, tony yayo, cam'ron, rupture, in flagranti, clipse, big boi, grandmster flash, juan maclean, r, kelly, róisín murphy. danger mouse, mf doom, prefuse, jean grae are all mentioned as recent content (billie holiday and a motown comp too if this is a list of non-indie rock). and on our staff are numerous writers who primarily write hip-hop/dance for us and other publications. Complaints about the content or quality of our non-rock coverage are one thing; but claims that we have "trouble figuring out how to incorporate genres beyond indie-rock" or that it is "tangential" (or, worse, and K doesn't suggest this at all, some sort of pose or tokenism), really get my back up.

Isn't he saying that he wishes those influences were NOT tangential, and that if some of the bands (or, really, the Pitchfork fest itself) reached out to other audiences more, that they would be braving those markets by definition? He compliments Oldham for spinning a Brad Paisley song, too. I think he wishes there was more of that, that more of this music acnowledged that indie isn't all that matters.

>How can you tell if a band is unambitious? Because they're playing an indie rock festival? And what would have made a band at Intonation seem more ambitious? Sucking less? Being on a major? More pop songs? Not being at Intonation<

More hunger and swagger in their music, Anthony. He says that.

also, tune in tomorrow for a kano headliner and friday for alan braxe comp as a headliner.

yes, I'm being defensive.

Scott, you need to develop thicker skin or stay away from message boards. You can't change public opinion on one of these things.

haha I SAID he should check out Louis XIV!

Swagger seems demonstrable to me, although I'm not sure you can say that the festival was completely devoid of it. Hunger I have no idea how to actually ascertain.

xposts galore:
"Fucking Teddy Grahams, were these on Xiu Xiu's rider or something?!"

Now that was funny.

I kinda wish someone would review a Hot 97 concert like this.

That's fair and sadly accurate: Insularity, lack of ambition, safe careerism, etc., are things that indie rock is quite often guilty of, esp. these days. There were conversations about that backstage among our staffers! (And K's quoting of PFM reviews quite fairly highlights the indie press' sometimes culpability in that insularity -- even if Xgau did that trick first in his excellent bss/wrens VV piece, as you know)

Sorta along those lines, my one other quibble with K's piece is the idea that this event was a typical day in quaint ol' Indieville (read: Chicago? the Midwest? Flyover country?) rather an unusual (and rewarding) exception for many of these bands. K seems to suggest that this is as big as these artists will get because they're in a holding pattern/time warp-- but in many cases this was a much bigger and welcoming audience than most of them play to. They were surprised to see how big a draw they actually could be, and the joy/shock of the turnout was evident on some artist's faces when they took the stage and stepped off of it (that goes for both the more ambitious Craig Finn, a relative newcomer like Gustav Dungen who was visibly moved backstage by his whirlwind Siren/Intonation weekend and the response his band received at each stop, and artists who could be characterized as indie lifers, such as the Wrens, who are possibly pleased to count things like this among their career peaks). (Hell, with luck, maybe these sorts of events and the realization that these artists are communicating with more ppl than they may have thought will push them to be more ambitious. It would be nice.)

But where were the accoustic guitars and songs about puppy love? Hot 97's inability to challenge its audience was the invisible black eye on the festival.

from talking to friends in up-and-up indie bands, i think for a lot of them there's the (justified) fear that in order to make it big outside of the indie subculture, they would need to sacrifice their artistic vision. ie, a major will only sign them if they water things down, radio-play only if they cater to what radio stations think people want, etc.

I guess I've spent too much time in ILM-ville since I thought indie bands had started moving away from this philosophy. But I should remember the whole flap that recurs every time any vaguely indie band starts acting commercial and the degree to which this terrifies indie partisans rather than frustrates them.

It's great that Intonation brought some of these bands to the wider audience they apparently had (although, er, Coachella? Well whatever) but we all know there's a difference between music that will appeal to a small group of people and music that will appeal to a large group of people, that will cut across demographic borders in a significant way etc. etc. You can hear it in the music itself, in the choices they make, in the lyrics, in their presentation. Sometimes you're wrong, and that's fantastic if you've underestimated, but from what Sean said it sounds like indie bands are taking this philosophy and deliberately keeping their music small so they don't have to deal with the contradictions and struggles of commerciality. And that would all be fine if the music itself wasn't so often so boring.

p.s. DFA 1979 could so be commercial - hear "Blue Orchid."

I don't blame LSF for shit. They're great! They're not more commercial cuz they're on a smaller label and Tim likes to write little stories more often than big hooks. Nothing wrong with that.

These days, mentioning "selling out" on an indie-rock board results in a smack-down, so to a great extent I think indie bands have. The Albini-essay feeling that Majors Will Fuck You definitely persists, though.

Back when they were starting out, W1n But13r of the Arc4d3 F1r3 was totally 100% all about getting onto a major. He didn't give a fuck about indie-rock traditions - he wanted to be on the radio, like New Order or The Cure. This resulted in a fair bit of contempt from his peers. (I def think he'd have signed to a major if they had offered a few years ago; investigating ppl like Absolutely Kosher/Secretly Canada/Merge was [INITIALLY] a v grudging process.) After a few years, though, I think he's gotten really disillusioned about the majors - both from talking to people in the (very indie) Montreal scene, and from seeing how few of the rock bands that make it to the radio are what he'd call exciting.

All this to say that I think some bands (like the AF) want mainstream success, but now don't see it as having to come via the normal top40 route. There's a new path that's opening up, the kinda O.C. - festival s - alt.radio thing. It's worked great for Death Cab and Wilco. (NB: Yeah, both are on majors now. :) )

This doesn't, of course, have any relevance to whether a given band sounds "hungry" or not.

;-)

Adam Schleschinger got a Grammy nomination and a Fountains of Wayne song in a Diet Dr. Pepper commercial: What does this mainstream "hunger" mean at all?

The fact that Sanneh is frustratingly unclear about what exactly he means?

All bands are "doing what they want to do" in some way or another, but that in no way precludes making decisions with the goal of more people hearing your music.

And, I should point out, Sanneh's not talking about intentionality, he's talking about the actual sound of the music.

A metal festival would sate him then. All those cookie monsters - rife with hunger!

Bands, meanwhile, should accept the responsibility of instrumental skill, of ambition, of grandeur; thinking band and audience equal was punk’s fallacy. In real life, perhaps, but not in music.

(He's totally unclear, I know, John, that's what I'm finding funny -- that the only thing we can really do is interpret the "swagger" part as meaning uptempo excitement, despite the fact that Norah Jones sells a hell of a lot more records than M.I.A.)