The Joplin Globe
August 04, 2006 02:19 am
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By Jeremiah Tucker
Globe columnist
The headline for the PitchforkMusic Festival roundup in The Chicago Tribune read "Indie-licious." I immediately recalled a skit I had watched online where a man requested the "Garden State" soundtrack from a couple snobbish indie record-store clerks because he had heard it was "indie-tastic." The record store clerks immediately shot him.
For one weekend, however, when it came to Pitchfork you could drop the cool act. All the bands were introduced by some guy somehow related to the Pitchfork e-zine, and he always brought the enthusiasm and lots of ridiculous hyperbole about the good spirits of the crowds keeping the rain at bay, or this being a powerful show of diversity (if by diversity you mean young, white and middle class) that was straight-up Woodstock cheese.
Furthermore, when it's nearing 100 degrees, it's hard to be cool, in either sense of the word. A few hipsters soldiered on donning long sleeves, blazers and black drainpipe jeans, and I imagine they looked totally rad with their sleeves rolled up as an IV pumped fluids into their arm under the Red Cross tent.
Incredibly, the festival, which featured more than 30 bands for the unbelievable low price of $30, lacked pretension. Brimming with goodwill, cheap goods (bottled water for a buck!) and pale legs seeing sunlight for the first time in years, the festival was a model of efficiency and good times. Here are some of the highlights:
Best Show - Os Mutantes
The show began with Sergio Baptista asking the crowd if they wouldn't mind if he tuned his guitar a bit. Then he joked, "It's been 30 years." But he wasn't really joking. It has been 30 years. While the legendary Brazilian band most responsible for the Tropicalia movement are hugely influential, before this year they hadn't played as a band since 1978 and almost none of the original members were left by then.
Like most bands ahead of their time, the band has only grown more popular since their dissolution. Beck named his album "Mutations" after the band. Kurt Cobain tried to get them to reunite to go on tour with Nirvana. David Byrne is publishing the group's back catalogue. The Soul Jazz compilation "Tropicalia: A Brazilian Revolution in Sound," which features six Os Mutantes songs, currently holds the all-time high score at Metacritic.
I was so looking forward to Os Mutantes I finished watching Spoon's set from afar so I could get a good place in the growing crowd forming in front of the Mutantes' stage. Totally worth it. Original member Rita Lee was replaced by Zelia Duncan, but Duncan was so energetic and spot-on that I didn't really mind. All the LSD the group did hasn't dulled the edge of their music. Os Mutantes' music is a blend of psych-pop and South American percussion infused with brilliant, catchy eclectics. Wholly original, the band appeared overjoyed at playing again and finding such an enthusiastic crowd to welcome them.
The band stuck close to the hits - "Baby," "Panis et Circenses," "A Minha Menina" and "Bat Macumba" - switching the vocals up between English and Portuguese. During "Bat Macumba," a bare-chested Devendra Banhart jumped on stage to dance, blow kisses to the crowd and join in on the harmonies. The whole set looked and sounded like a big celebration and was a perfect cap to the festival.
Biggest Crowd Response - Art Brut
Probably the most fun I had at Pitchfork was watching Art Brut. I knew they would be good, but I hadn't counted on the megawatt charisma of Eddie Argos' stage presence. The dude is literate, witty and energetic. I cracked up every time he began a song with "Ready Art Brut? Go!" "Rusted Guns of Milan" is way better and funnier live, and the band sounded like pure late '70s punk. Art Brut were perhaps the next best thing to seeing The Modern Lovers, and the crowd loved it.
I was pretty bummed about my body requiring water to survive while standing in a long line while Destroyer was playing "Painter in My Pocket," but when I was in line again the next day and I heard the Liars' "A Visit from Drum" in the distance, I felt as angry about water as the aliens from "Signs." Luckily, I was able to catch the noisy and tribal percussive final 15 minutes of the Liars' set.
Most Incoherent - Devendra Banhart
Devendra separated the hippies from the rockers, and I made the unfortunate choice of joining the hippies after catching the first part of the Mission of Burma show, which was pretty rocking. I don't know if Devendra was pandering to his crowd, but after introducing one song as a cover of a popular song in Israel, he rambled on about how he knows the wind blows and carries, and who knows what the positive vibe of this concert might do for the ongoing conflict between Israel and Lebanon.
Actually, I could answer that for query for you Devendra. Absolutely nothing.
I was a bit disappointed. I think Devendra would have sounded better if it had been just him and an acoustic guitar because with a full backing band his songs sounded totally bland. Devendra himself appeared more than a little spacey. Pitchfork interviewed him after his set. Here's an excerpt: "The idea of focusing on a word and focusing on it enough until you reach your center space, your fundamental space, your fundamental essence, is based on the condiment mayonnaise." Right. I'm pretty sure whatever Devendra was using to reach his "fundamental space" backstage wasn't mayonnaise.
Band Who Rocked Me the Hardest From Afar - Mission of Burma
I watched until I heard "Donna Summeria," which was great, but I was by myself because all my friends had went to grab a spot for Devendra. I made the unfortunate decision to go join them, but even from a few hundred feet away, "That's When I Reach for My Revolver" let me reach my inner space of rock, even in the midst of so many hippies.
Best Dressed - Man Man
These guys were the first band I saw at Pitchfork and they set a high bar. Probably the third-best act I saw live. Totally energetic and weird and crazy and Captain Beefheart-ish, but they were also dressed to the nines in all-white tennis outfits with headbands, warpaint, feathers and tats. "Black Mission Goggles" was one of the best live songs I saw all weekend. Later, two of the Man Man dudes joined the Walkmen on stage for "Louisiana" and both had "Man" written on the front of their white polos with precise penmanship and on the back of their shirts one had the word "Rap" and the other "Snacks." I don't know what "Rap Snacks" are but Man Man were freaking awesome.
The Richard Simmons Award - CSS
I watched a little bit of The National but left early because I wanted to catch the Brazilian girl band CSS. I didn't leave early enough. The Biz 3 stage was a tent reserved for more experimental acts, but the place was packed for the dance pop/punk music of CSS. The crowd loved CSS and it's easy to understand why.
Lead punk princess Lovefoxxx (What? That's her name.) was nutz. She totally earned her name and the "z" at the end of "nutz" in that last sentence. She stage dived even though her friend had broken her arm earlier in the day doing the same thing. She ripped her T-shirt off, rocked the coolest spandex pants I've seen in a long time and never stopped dancing. Closer "Let's Make Love and Listen to Death from Above" gave the crowd dance fever and two days later I played the song at a club in Iowa City to a similar response.
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