Undead Industries

Yes, I know this is a few days late.

Unless I’m wrong, the purpose of the Pitchfork Music Festival is to give artists a chance to play a much larger audience than they normally would, and to give midwesterners a chance to see all these bands in one spot. With exception to technical problems during Dizzee Rascal and Spoon, I think they did a pretty good job. A mist tent would have been nice, but that might be asking too much.

If any of you were there, you probably noticed a bright yellow beach ball hitting you in the face. All of these balls were ads for 312unes.com. If you go to their site, you already have to know what it is, to know what it is! For supporters of music, they chose the method of advertisement that would distract you the most from the music! Getting slammed in the face with an ad may drive you to the site, but only to see who you should write your hate mail to. They are really lucky that they have really delicious beer. Wouldn’t a banner be good enough? or branded beer cups? You could even throw the cups at each others faces.

Now to the music. Let’s start with an open letter to the biggest disappointment:

Dear Fleet Fox,

Did you practice your set at all before this show? It almost seemed like you forgot you were on stage. Your album sounds great. It’s really well produced. Did you have to sit the whole show? I mean, do you have some sort of disease that doesn’t allow you to stand for long periods of time? Is this the same disease that requires you to wait, awkwardly, minutes between songs? I was really looking forward to see you. ‘nough said.

better luck next time,

-Rob

Now on to Vampire Weekend. I wasn’t really into them live, but they played their hearts out and they were tight. The crowd really seemed to enjoy them.

I was sincerely rocked [as expected] by The Hold Steady and Dinosaur Jr. I haven’t seen Dinosaur Jr. since the mid 90’s. Holy crap! Is it me or is Jay Mascis a wizard? Jay The Grey! I was expecting an owl to land on his shoulder in mid-guitar solo.

The Hold Steady are totally the new Guided By Voices. By new, I mean years old.

Dizzee Rascal was so entertaining. I really never thought I’d get to see him live. (Thanks Pitchfork.) Anyways, even though he was laughing at us, he managed to get the crowd moving.

And The Dodos. Flawless. Even when his chair broke, they survived the song. The set was tight, entertaining, and even if you didn’t know a lot of the songs, it still moved like a story. I couldn’t have been more impressed.

What do you think of music fests? Do you enjoy going to them? Do they make you feel part of a community? Do you find them too draining? If anyone reads this, let me know.

If anyone reads this blog, you have probably notice a lack of updates recently. There are 2 reasons. First off, there isn’t much new happening in the music industry right now. Yes there are a ton of great summer shows, and a few good albums. But that is not what this site is about. Any current posts about simply be beating a dead horse.

The second reason is that I am going to be moving this site to www.robshelby.name. It’s currently being designed. It will have this blog, my personal blog, as well and my social links like twitter, plurk, and last.fm.

Go out and do something interesting.

Many of you may have noticed other blogs [rolled on this site] claiming that the art of the album is dead. Financially they may be counterproductive. But the art of the album will be more difficult to kill than all of these bloggers are claiming. Think about how friends work. Think about how you catalog your memories. The human brain is written in language(s). Lexicon changes with friends, experiences and cultural events. These are not short time spands, usually around a year or more. This is what an album is. The album isn’t for you. It is for the artist.

Putting together an album is like putting together a book. It represents what is happening at that point. A single is to a photograph as an album is to a chapter. Albums also create the effect of generationism between artists and fans. It defines eras. As an artist, if i put together an album, I only sell it as an album. If you want to listen to a paticular song, you may stream it for free.

***What if Pink Floyd released Brain Damage and a few other songs from Dark Side of The Moon, not explaining that it was simply a part of a whole. It wouldn’t make sense. If Neutral Milk Hotel released Aeroplane Over The Sea as a series of singles, it would not have the staying power that it does.