south of the loop

How many bad puns can I make with the word “limit”? This will be my last ACL-related post. Promise. But I’ve gotten a few questions about ACL I feel obligated to answer. I’m even going to be a dork and set this up FAQ-style.

What about Kathleen Edwards and Gomez?

Kathleen Edwards was solid, although by the time I got to her, I had really had my fill of singer-songwriters. I wasn’t blown away, but I’d see her again. She’s very comfortable on stage and cracked a joke about having been mistaken for Aimee Mann earlier in the weekend. I’m glad I missed her story about how her dad once shot one of her cats.

Gomez was one of my favorite sets, even though I only caught half of it (I split that hour between Gomez and the weird, breathy grooves of Cat Power & The Memphis Rhythm Band). Tight band, great sound.

What was your favorite set? Besides Calexico, that is.

My friends will make fun of me for being a schoolgirl (I did NOT squeal, I swear it), but Calexico really does put on a great live show. I have actually listened to them for several years, but it wasn’t until I saw them at Lollapalooza that they stole my heart. They started off their ACL set with just Joey Burns and John Convertino doing “Convict Pool”; the two of them produce a surprisingly full sound. They changed some of the melodies to their standard concert fare (“Convict Pool” and “Cruel”). It’s fun to see musicians who are still playing around with their songs and trying new things out, and they clearly enjoyed themselves. They also brought out sultry Barcelona singer Amparo Sanchez for “Roka” and “Guero Canelo”; they used him to their advantage to create a set that was both familiar and surprising.

So, other than Calexico: Stars were (was?) great (although www.austin360.com/acl insists on calling them The Stars). A little too much chit-chat for a festival show, but the music was spot-on. I was curious about them; I’m most familiar with their first album, which is all dreamy and lush and trippy. Their set fell somewhere between dreaminess and rock, with Amy Millan’s vocals mellowing Torquil Campbell’s rock n’ roll energy. I also enjoyed What Made Milwaukee Famous, Lou Ann Barton, Ted Leo & The Pharmacists, Son Volt, Gomez, and The Stills. And I was very happy that The New Pornographers had Neko Case with them. And two different people told me I made a terrible mistake by missing out on Los Amigos Invisibles.

What was your favorite music festival this summer?

Pitchfork was best in terms of value, size, food, layout, and, of course, t-shirts. It’s not that the music there wasn’t good, but I was only familiar with a handful of bands beforehand, so it falls short of Best Overall, if only because of the high I get from singing along to a well-known and well-loved band.

The Hideout Block Party hardly counts; I was only there on Sunday, and although I liked both CocoRosie and Black Heart Procession, I was really just there for Calexico. It wins for most interesting setting–I traded in the lush green parks of Chicago for an industrial parking lot.

ACL was comparable to Lollapalooza, so much so that it’s impossible to say whether one was better than another. Grant Park in Chicago spreads a lot further, which has both pros and cons: at Lolla, you had to factor in a healthy 15-minute walk if you wanted to catch sets on opposite sides of the park, but there was no sound bleed between the major stages. None. Although the sound overall was better (and louder) at ACL, there were some sad, sad sound bleed problems. The New Pornographers paused between songs and asked, “Can somebody ask Son Volt to please keep it to a dull roar?”, and The Greencards quipped, “Hey, Ben Harper doesn’t know this one. Let’s play!”

A photo from Monday’s Austin American-Statesman. It doesn’t say which show this is from; based on the stage and time of day, I’d guess the Flaming Lips. (On my flight back home, I spotted a guy wearing a cowboy hat and a Flaming Lips t-shirt. Only in Austin.)

* * *

current book: Blood Meridian. Now that I’m further into it, I’m loving the revivalist language: “In the morning a urinecolored sun rose blearily through panes of dust on a dim world and without feature.” But I’m still having a hard time keeping my finger on the plot.

current music: Laura took me to Waterloo Records in Austin, where I spent money like I had it and filled out my Calexico collection. I discovered that one of my favorite songs from their live set at The Hideout is “Stray” off the album The Black Light. Damn! I also purchased What Made Milwaukee Famous’ Trying To Never Catch Up, although I haven’t listened to it yet.

current socks: White with armadillos! The armadillos are wearing different colored handkerchiefs around their little armadillo necks. Truly a thing of wonder. THANKS, Laura & Mark! Y’all rock.

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Kathleen Edwards/Gomez/etc. details to follow …

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I am too stuffed full of Bluebell and queso to think, much less write, coherently. So for now, a list of how I spent my weekend at Austin City Limits:

• Paolo Nutini (a Scotsman, strangely enough)
• Ted Leo & The Pharmacists
• Stars (best set of Friday)
• Nickel Creek (they covered “Toxic”!!!!)
• Cat Power & The Memphis Rhythm Band
• Gomez
• Ray Lamontagne (zzzzzz)
• Ben Kweller (only half a set; a bloody nose left him unable to play, even after stuffing a tampon up his nose. I have to say, I use tampons on a regular basis, and it would NEVER OCCUR TO ME to stuff one up my nose, even to stop a blood flow.)
• Nada Surf (for their last song, they brought out the two Calexico trumpeters)
• TV on the Radio (bad sound, unfortunately, so I couldn’t really enjoy them)
• CALEXICO (front row center. Martin Wenk, one of the trumpeters, caught my eye and laughed at me during their last song. I’m not sure if it was because I knew all the words to Guero Canelo–basically a list of drugs, not an easy song to learn the lyrics to–or because, by that point, I was covered in dirt and no doubt resembled a farm animal more than a woman)
• What Made Milwaukee Famous
• Iron & Wine
• Willie Nelson (another show with bad sound–made worse by the gargantuan crowd, since I couldn’t get any closer than a half mile away–so I only saw a song or two before heading over to Massive Attack)
• Massive Attack
• The Stills
• Kathleen Edwards
• Sam Roberts
• Lou Ann Barton (one of the best sets of Sunday)
• KT Tunstall
• Jose Gonzalez
• Matisyahu
• Son Volt
• The New Pornographers (they had NEKO with them, who is the only person who could rival my Calexico crush. I met her years ago on my birthday at a tiny, now-defunct venue called the Volcano Room, and I’ve been smitten ever since.)
• The Greencards (great bluegrass, but badly drowned out by Ben Harper)

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I was running late one sleepy morning last week. Intelligentsia (supplier of my daily latte addiction, running late or not) was playing Calexico’s Garden Ruin, and I had maybe four minutes of sweet, sweet relief from my otherwise grimy morning. Unsurprising; music frequently determines or reflects moods. See: any number of music reviews making references to “rainy day music” or “perfect summer pop songs.” Or try listening to The Smiths’ “Last Night I Dreamt Somebody Loved Me” when you’re feeling on top of the world. You’ll either shut it off one bar in or fall a very, very long way down.

I went to McBookstore during lunch today to get some new reading material (Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy and A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments by David Foster Wallace). Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 (second movement) was playing: a song both triumphant and devastating, exultant and crushing. Its eight minutes are an epic crescendo, plateauing mid-song in a joyful little dance, then falling prey to a deepening sorrow punctuated by the brass section. But for most of the movement, the cellos carry the emotion–appropriate, since a cello’s range is similar to a person’s–and, although I’m not well-educated in classical music, I believe it is somewhat unusual for a symphony to rely so heavily on cellos (Joel, do you still read my blog? You want to jump in here?). Beethoven’s Seventh moved me to take cello lessons, and hearing it today made me wish my cello wasn’t temporarily hibernating at my parents’ house. Probably my regret was exacerbated by the haunting A-minor key and the gray skies. And yet…

It got me thinking about more things than I can write about now, on the verge of bedtime and another early morning. In John C.’s entry about Britney Spears’ “Toxic,” he described it as something he turned to for a “sugar rush.” It’s definitely a song I’d listen to before, say, a night on the town (along with Madonna and Prince, natch). Funny how we turn to music: for solace, or to wallow ever deeper in self-pity, or to lift our spirits. And funny how music becomes a vortex of nostalgia. Beethoven’s Seventh caught me by surprise and took me back to the moment, and even to the emotion, of first wanting to play the cello.

And with all of these loose ends and half-thoughts, I’m off to Austin in one more day for yet another music festival. It will still be warm enough there to discover the perfect summer pop song. I might have to indulge my inner groupie and try to snag another front-row spot for Calexico.

* * *

current book: finished Michael K on the Metra home; cracked open Blood Meridian.

current music: re-living Sunday night with plenty of Calexico, with a break to listen to Symphony No. 7 three times in a row.

current socks: black with bumblebees. It was pouring rain when I came into work this morning, so I’ve been walking around unshod while my shoes dry out.

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My ears are still ringing from the Hideout’s Block Party. I was front row for Calexico; in fact, after the set and before the encore, Joey Burns jumped off the stage to talk to the people sitting in front of the barrier. I was one foot away from him. TWELVE INCHES, Y’ALL. Apparently I have an inner giddy teenager because I was suddenly–embarrassingly–star struck. And I could think of nothing pithy to say.

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This has been a week of excess, in a way. Despite being shortened by Labor Day, the work week was too long and I was too tired, both of which conspired to make me too cranky. I just got back from Blind Faith Cafe, an all-vegetarian restaurant in Evanston, and now I’m too full.

I’ve been trying all week to write a mini-review of the DaVinci exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry, but I’ve been a bit unfocused, so the full review will come later this weekend. The nutshell version is that it was pretty good: a little too kid-focused for my tastes, but generally well-designed and well-executed. (Unable to stop copy editing even on a holiday weekend, I found exactly two errors in the label copy.) My biggest problem was that it lacked real meat, something that would have elicited gasps and oohs and aahs. The closest it came was with two actual sheets from Leonardo’s notebooks, but even these were displayed somewhat casually amidst computer-generated models of the notebooks. When I saw the stellar Einstein exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History in New York a few years ago, this moment–can I call it the aha! moment?–was the split second in which I understood the theory of relativity. For those of you who have ever taken a math or science class with me, you will know that this is a VERY BIG DEAL. If you have not had the pleasure of witnessing my scientific and mathematical ineptitude, you should know that I fulfilled my college science requirement with a course known as “Rocks for Jocks” and that I still count on my fingers.

Museum exhibit review is forthcoming; however, in my mail today was a package containing 220 country songs plus seven pages of very detailed track listings, so I’ve definitely got my weekend cut out for me. I’d like to try to narrow the mix CDs into two discs, but I’m honestly not sure how to decide between, say, Garth Brooks’ “Papa Loved Mama” and “Ain’t Goin’ Down Til’ the Sun Comes Up.” Stay tuned for liner notes.

* * *

current book: nearly half-way through Life & Times of Michael K. The plot moves steadily, never hurrying, and Coetzee’s spare and distant prose requires some patience. It’s never boring, but it seems to be unfolding with more of a desperate whimper than with a bang.

current music: I finally pulled myself away from Calexico today in favor of some old mixes I’d made as well as the Dallas band The Deathray Davies (I asked John C. if he’d heard of them; he said, “Are they like the Kinks, but with detonation powers?” You know, they kind of are…). And anyway, I’ll see Calexico this Sunday at the Hideout’s Block Party. I have a three-day pass, so I could see another few shows I’m interested in Friday and Saturday (!!!, Sally Timms), but I have a suspicion that laziness will rule and that I’ll just end up going on Sunday. (And I’ll need all my festival energy for Austin City Limits the following weekend.) And I just found out that Billy Lombardo will be reading at the Bad Dog Tavern on Sunday evening. He wrote the lovely The Logic of a Rose, a collection of gritty and sweet coming-of-age stories that take place in Bridgeport, and which I read earlier this summer. I’m going to try to be front and center for Calexico (9pm) and still make the earlier reading at Bad Dog, traffic and CTA willing. I think I’m still young enough to try to be in two places (almost) at once …

current socks: Today I wore black socks with multi-colored bathing suits on them. But the question is, do I act the total dork and wear my new “Rock On” knee highs to the Hideout music festival? Austin will undoubtedly be too hot for socks, so now’s my chance.

Filed under: chicago, life in general, museums, music by admin2
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Labor Day always seems to be a mini-New Year of sorts, a time when people take stock of the summer and wonder where it went. A few things I wish I’d done this summer:

- Go to the beach more often. I think I only went twice, and neither of those were even at The Point (the strip of beach near Hyde Park). Really, there are no excuses. It is walking distance from my house.

- Play more badminton. I only played once. Not nearly enough.

- Wear more white. I know the fashion rules are a’changin, and I’ve never been much of a fashionista anyway, but as far as my Texan roots are concerned, Labor Day is still the day to bid adieu to white skirts and pants.

- I only just found out about the Soul of Chicago Express, but wow, what a great idea! A little bit factory tour, a little bit architectural tour. That is to say, right up my alley.

- See more live music.

- Organize my closet. I mean, what better way to take advantage of central air? Alas, my room has not yet fully recovered from the closet collapse it suffered several months ago.

- Eat at new restaurants. Granted, my ability to eat out is largely determined by economics, but I can still wish, can’t I?

- Go on at least one of the Chicago architectural tours. Of course, I can do this anytime, but it just seems like a great way to spend a perfect summer afternoon.

- Explore new neighborhoods. I had so much fun getting to know the street murals in Pilsen last fall that I’m now thinking about moving to Pilsen next year. I wish I’d seen the murals by summer’s light, and I wish I’d explored other murals and other neighborhoods.

- See one of the free Tuesday night movies in Grant Park. In my defense, I did try to see the final movie (Ferris Bueller!), but the weather was horrid and cold and rainy.

- Try to shop some of my essays around. That was totally supposed to be my summer project. Yeah, yeah, I’ll get on it …

One thing that very nearly made the list was going to the Da Vinci exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry. My roommate and I walked over today, but they were sold out; fortunately, they still had tickets left for tomorrow, so we’ll head back over at 1:15pm. Hopefully the timed tickets will ensure some crowd-control for the last day of the exhibit.

* * *

current book: I’m trying to finish up The Wright 3 before I get back on the Metra on Tuesday morning (when I’ll return to Coetzee). I love how Blue Baillett takes seemingly adult concepts and delivers them to kids. She doesn’t dumb them down; it’s more like she simply doesn’t acknowledge a distinction between what is “supposed” to be for adults and what is “supposed” to be for kids. Like her discussion of Hitchcock’s Rear Window, for example, or likening the destruction of an historic home to murder.

current music: I told my dad about this country music project I’m working on for John C. Papa Bear is very, very excited about it and immediately offered to burn whatever music I wanted (all my country CDs are at my parents’ house). He sent me a spreadsheet of all the country music the two of us own (yes, he has a detailed database of every song in his music collection, and yes, I perhaps inherited some of the OCD genes, but at least I don’t catalog things like Christmas tree ornaments). It numbers a whopping 1,723 country music songs. John, really, how am I supposed to narrow this down into one mix CD? You might have a deluxe edition boxed set coming to you.

My dad asked me to highlight on the spreadsheet all the songs I wanted burned. When I sent him back the list, the following conversation ensued over a Marty Robbins song that was PUMMELED into my head for the duration of my childhood:

Dad: Interesting that you and I think similarly. Many of these are the ones I [already] recorded.

Me: well, if there’s any theme at all, it’s “stuff i listened to growing up.” i can’t wait to write the liner notes for “cool water.” i expect it will be very therapeutic.

Dad: even I wouldn’t have had the guts to put in cool water.

current socks: still sandal weather, but wait till you see the knee highs I just bought … they picture guitars and say “Rock On” in a tattoo-style banner.

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I had hoped never to become the kind of blogger who linked willy-nilly to YouTube, but with recent discussions of Hee Haw, my judgment was hijacked by nostalgia. Sadly, I couldn’t find a clip of the “pfft you were gawwwwne” girl, but for those of you who did not have the pleasure of growing up with freebasing Hee Haw, here’s a sample hit of the Hee Haw Honeys:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nVnWsFtbCY]

And for those of you who foolishly believe that Whitney Houston’s cover is better:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YS2gkvptsXk]

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I wore my new “Reading is Sexy” t-shirt today in order to exude just the right amount of youth and hipness requested by Company. (I won’t go into the details here, but Company was visited today by a small crew from a Sunday morning news show, and Company wanted a certain image to be conveyed.) It’s only the third time I’ve worn the t-shirt; I’ve noticed a few more eyes lingering over my chest, but most of the comments I’ve gotten have been along the lines of, “Ohmigod! I love your shirt! Where’d you get it?”

Today after work, I ran an errand and then hopped on the El to head back to the Metra. I got off at an unfamiliar stop because I was promised by the generic male voice over the PA system that I could transfer to the Metra. Note to Chicago Transit Authority: the word “transfer” DOES NOT imply three blocks of walking, and for the love of God, HANG SOME FUCKING SIGNS.

Thirty minutes of wandering the streets–saved only by utilizing my recent, life-changing revelation that the street numbers get smaller as you head east, toward the lake–and I had to stop in a Walgreen’s to get a bottle of water. I’m not the friendliest person even on my best day, and by this point, I was too cranky to muster anything beyond gruff politeness. The male clerk looks at me and says, “you think I’m sexy if I’m reading?”. I laughed uncomfortably–more like grunted, really–and paid for my water. As I left, he told me “You keep on readin’, you hear?”

* * *

current book: nearly done with The Antelope Wife, although I didn’t get any further into it this evening. I took the 6 bus home, which was standing room only and stank of b.o. and cheap beer.

current music: I meant to write a follow-up post to the beginnings of my justification for downloading Britney Spears’ “Toxic,” but the energy I might have used was instead expended here and here. My next musical project will be to make John C. a mix CD of country music. I’ve been song-bombing myself all day as I think of all the possibilities: George Strait, of course, probably my old favorite, “Ocean Front Property,” but also some really cheesy mid-80s stuff like the Mandrell Forester Sisters’ “I Fell in Love Again Last Night,” the Dan Seals/Marie Osmond duet “Meet Me in Montana,” and Kathy Mattea’s “Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses.” And there’ll be plenty of mid-90s classics from Garth Brooks, Trisha Yearwood, Reba McEntire, and Patty Loveless. Just blame it on your lyin’, cheatin’, cold, dead-beatin’, two-timin’, double-dealin’, mean, mistreatin’, lovin’ heart.

current socks: a flattened map with storm clouds and weather patterns, with the words “wet and windy” across the ankle. I got these years ago from the Sock Shop in London and guard them carefully, only wearing them on days that are indeed wet and windy. I don’t know what I’ll do if I ever wear a hole in them.

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How could I have forgotten to relay the following phone conversation from yesterday afternoon?

me: Guess what? I’m going to Soul Veg tonight!

friend: Is that another fucking music festival?

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