Yaktoberfest: Ever bought a water buffalo? (Part 1 of 2)

About seven or eight years ago, Rachel and I had been feeling like we were following a boring and repetitive routine and mentioned that a new hobby might not be a bad thing. Around then I started making wine at home. I had been doing it for a few years when we moved to Austin. After we arrived, I was researching the area and saw mention of a highly regarded homebrewing store near where we moved. I knew that brewing beer was a similar process, so I thought I'd give it a try.

I've now been making beer since last Spring. It turns out a friend of mine from work, Steve, also started brewing around the same time. He knew a few other people who brewed. Most live in his neighborhood, just a mile or so from our place. It got Steve thinking, and he came up with the idea to get a bunch of the local homebrewers together to brew several batches of beer and throw a small Octoberfest-like event. Steve's house is in a perfect location, at the corner of a short road that abruptly dead-ends. After canvassing his fellow brewers, we decided to brew in September and have the party in early October.

To launch stage one, Steve had several of us over to his house to brew batches in his backyard. I followed that up the next week with what became my Baltic Porter. Making this beer involved a highly-concentrated fermentable liquid (wort), resulting in a rich, dark, high alcohol sipper.

You start out bringing 2 1/2 gallons of water to 160 degrees.


Next, toss in a mesh bag filled with with about 6 lbs of grain. Let it steep for 45 minutes or so, then pull out the bag, rinse it over the pot, and bring the liquid to a boil

Once the liquid is boiling, take it off the heat temporarily and add 8 lbs of malt extract (basically high-sugar syrups extracted from malted grains). Get it boiling again.

Most beers are triple-hopped. Your wort will boil for an hour. Start by adding hops at the start of the hour for bittering. 45 minutes in, add a second dose for flavor. Finally, five minutes before the end, add a final dose for aroma. In this case, we only added hops up front for bittering and at the second stop for flavor.

Hop pellets and the packets they come in. Nugget hops for bittering, Saaz for flavor.

Once the hour is over, put your pot in a big tub of ice and bring the temperature down, then add some water to bring it to a total of 5 1/4 gallons, throw your yeast in, and stop up the top with a fermentation lock that lets gas out but not in. A week or two later, you're ready to bottle.

Check back in later for a wrap-up of the party. Find out why it involves yaks and water buffalo. Doesn't that provide sufficient temptation?

ACL 2009: Day Three Review

So the rains stopped for the most part some time early Sunday morning. It rained pretty hard at times throughout Saturday and into Saturday night. When we left for the festival on Sunday, though, it was a bit cloudy but not raining. Couldn't be worse than Saturday, right? Except that when the rains and feet came and trampled upon the virgin lawn that was so alluring the day before, the result was that atop the grass there had settled a fresh, wet layer of mud comprised of yard trimmings mixed with treated sewage sludge. The whole place was wet, large portions were covered in stinky mud that was deep in bits, especially in front of the stages where the most energized fans are likely to wind up. So how does it compare with 107 degrees, no sun and a ton of dust like we got on day three of our first trip to ACL? It doesn't sound as bad, but we were able to hang in there a lot longer back on "Crazy-Hot ACL Sunday."


Hunkered down


Popular at ACL 2009: Rubber boots with funky graphics

We thought about trying to get there in time for the Alela Diane set that started before noon. Instead, we settled for arriving in time for the 12:30 set by Austin soul shouter Black Joe Lewis and his band, the Honeybears. Being early, getting close to the front was less about the thickness of the crowd than about the severity of the mud around the stage. After scoping things out and weighing the benefit of being close against the detriment of a dirty body, we picked a good "compromise" spot where the sound quality was high and we could see the band well.

We'd seen Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears before, but only in little bits. Last year at ACL, they played a lively set on the small Austin Ventures stage, where the music tends to get drowned out by the nearest big stages and the relatively narrow stretch of park becomes a choke point for the waves of people migrating from one end of Zilker to the other. We also caught the tail end of an opening set during Spoon's three-day residency at Stubb's several months ago. The little bits we saw and heard, though, were enticing. BJL has some of that front-man charisma, and the band is on-the-one without trying too hard to sound like they're a Stax house band from 1970. And how many bands out there really get funky nowadays? Let's not forget -- I was co-host of the funky funky "Loose Booty Show" on WMFO in the early 90s. While I'm not as obsessed with all things phunck to the degree that I was back then, hearing a band that really gets funky down-and-nasty always hits me in a sweet spot.

So back to ACL. BJL and his band tore into their set with a blistering rendition of "Sugarfoot," which it just played on its first big TV performance. The whole band sounded much more raw at last ACL. From the start and throughout the set, the band demonstrated that they had developed a good amount of polish over the last year. Not that polish is a necessary ingredient to being funky or soulful, but in this case -- trust me -- the shine was a good thang.


Black Joe Lewis & some Honeybears


The horns provide the spark to the group's engine

Showing off the tighter, more toned band, Joe sounded more confident. He and the crew pushed hard through a barrage of JB-centric hot tunes. Often when he shouts and screams, your mind tells you "James Brown," but at times Lewis sounded more like, say, Wilson Pickett. Toward the end, showing off his front-man star potential, the man definitely was Black Joe Lewis. He really owned the crowed during the humorous, build up-settle down R&B number "Get Yo Shit." Somehow, Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears manage to make you want to dance or at least shuffle your feet despite the stank mud, dreary skies and unfortunate time slot.


Credit: www.austin360.com
Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears performing "I'm Broke" at ACL 2009

After that, we thought about heading over to see Rodriguez toward the other end of the park. Problem was that the only paths involved walking through some pretty thick mud. Plus, who knew how bad things were on the other end of the park, where the ground is lower? Thinking we might want to see the B-52s coming up the next hour on the same stage that Black Joe Lewis had just played, we decided to stay close to home base and catch Here We Go Magic just over yonder. They were okay, not memorable.

The B-52s now tour with the four living original members who made up the band during their second wave of popularity at the end of the 80s and early 90s plus a few backing musicians. Sure, the foursome looked a bit more weathered than they did 15-20 years ago, but don't we all (and shouldn't we do so without shame)? Actually, drummer-turned-lead guitarist Keith Strickland looked fit and dapper. The vocalists sounded best when they weren't pushed, particularly Cindy and Fred. Kate's voice sounded better than I anticipated and her range is very well preserved. Early in the set, they mixed in a few things from 2008's Funplex album. I thought the group sounded pretty good on these numbers. The songs sounded to a degree like they had been crafted with the group's limits in mind. The crowd definitely got more into it as the band moved into more familiar territory, like early favorite "Private Idaho" and "Roam" from 1989 "comeback" album Cosmic Thing.

With the crap weather and mud, the audience was into it but still hesitant to get close or move too much. As the B-52s moved into the predictable closing numbers, the group sounded like it was going through the motions a bit. Fred said something about learning "Love Shack" at karaoke. I imagine that the poor guy's performed the song a few times too many.

(Okay, time for an admission. My siblings and I decided it would be fun to throw a 25th anniversary party for our parents back in 2003 at our house. One sibling wanted to get karaoke gear. I was not interested myself but decided to go with whatever the group decided. So they got it. And yes, my sister and I did "Love Shack." I did Fred natch.)

The band closed out its set with another number they've probably played a time or two, "Rock Lobster." Sure, it was predictable, and they did sound like they could sleepwalk their way through it. Still, watching the B-52s play such an iconic song live brought a smile to my face.

After the B-52s set, we caught a bit of White Lies. Like Here We Go Magic, they too weren't that interesting. Having seen Arctic Monkeys twice already, we looked further down the rest of the schedule, measured the stank and filth, and decided to bail. A festival that started with a bang was cut short of its full potential glory due to the weather and the ground conditions. Still had enough fun to make it likely, at least for now, that I'll be there in 2010. By the way, block October 8-10 off on your 2010 calendar.


ACL 2009 - by Jon

ACL 2009: Day Two Review

Rain at ACL? I don't know if it was the date - this year's festival fell later in the year than any prior festival we've been to. Whatever it was, we'd never had more than a sprinkle or two, except one day when rain came late and washed away Tom Petty. Saturday, though, was the first time we'd had to deal with a day of steady rain.

The weather called for careful planning. Fearing that we might not be able to last for as long as we usually do, we had to decide who we really wanted to see. With The Raveonettes cancelling, it made things a bit easier. In the end, we decided we'd head over in time to catch !!! at 2:00 and stay as long as we could. Could we make it until the 6:00 slot with Levon Helm and Mos Def? 6:40 for John Vanderslice?

We got to Zilker just a bit after !!! (Chk Chk Chk) had started its set. I admittedly was a bit pessimistic about "dance-punk" translating well to a daytime, outdoor live setting, but !!! proved that you can move a crowd's feet despite the time of day or the reading on the barometer. Frontman Nic Offer -- dancing like nobody was watching -- lead the band through a set of high-energy, butt-shaking grooves. The beat kept on throughout the set. Highlights? "Must Be the Moon" from Myth Takes (2006) sounded great, like a modern KC & the Sunshine Band - impossible to keep your feet still. I don't think many people would have left early, but the fact that Grizzly Bear was about to play across the park did create a minor exodus just a bit before the set wrapped up.


Credit: http://www.austin360.com/music/content/music/acl_fest/acl_2009/index.html
!!! performing at ACL 2009

Few artists came into this year's festival riding as big a wave of momentum as Grizzly Bear. The Brooklyn foursome drew a thick crowd, proving that the festival organizers could have easily justified putting them on one of the two major stages. While I really like their latest album, Veckatemist, would their textured, highly-produced songs hold up in concert?

Despite the small stage and inclement weather, Grizzly Bear met the challenge. Honestly, the misty gray backdrop was the perfect backdrop for the band's somewhat gloomy, neo-baroque stylings. These guys can sing. Their multi-part harmonizing was well executed throughout the show. And though lots of their recorded songs have the bleeps and bloops and effects and funny instruments that make live performances challenging, the band has obviously spent a lot of time figuring out how to make it work on stage. Watching bass player/multi-instrumentalist Chris Taylor hit those high notes in person made you wonder whether they were running his vocals through some sort of filter, but I don't think they were. The tunes from Veckatemist, including highlight "Two Weeks," sounded great, if not just a bit too much like the recorded version. "Knife," off sophomore effort Yellow House (2006), also sounded pretty amazing. So the crowd didn't shake so much like the throng at !!! did -- in fact it barely moved. Was it that the music just isn't really crowd-shaking? Maybe the audience was in a trance? Too much rain? I'm still not sure, but Grizzly Bear was definitely a Saturday highlight for me.

You could argue that we whiffed on the next slot. I hear that Flogging Molly put on a really fun show. Not really knowing what to go see, we decided to head to the tent to catch Henry Butler, a classic New Orleans R&B pianist. We managed to squeeze ourselves under the roof of the tent all the way in the back, but had a great view since everyone in front of us was sitting down. Maybe he's not as well known as Fats Domino, Professor Longhair or Allen Toussaint, but this guy's got some serious ivory-ticking skills and a strong, soulful voice that has aged well. I thought the tone he chose for his electric piano was a bit too synthetic and clean sounding at times. The set itself, though, was a blast. The crowd got into it during his bubbly performance of New Orleans standard "Iko Iko." As the show progressed, more people stood up and stayed up, clapping and dancing. Covers were the strength of the set, including a great upbeat take on Billy Preston’s “Will It Go Round In Circles” and a nice version of “Hello, Josephine” (by the Fatman himself). This style of musical performance feels like a bit of an endangered species, so I felt lucky to be there.

Mood can be important factor in a band's performance. Weather-wise, sunshine's an easy one. A little rain too can be a great backdrop for some bands, as Grizzly Bear showed. But if you get too deep into the gloom, things start to seem a bit tiring. For the next slot, fearing that Bon Iver might be a bit too dour, we went to watch ... And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead. Besides, we'd missed a chance to see them when they pulled out of their opening slot for the SpoonX3 festival this past Spring. Trail of Dead brought it and sounded solid, but I think we were a bit too far back to get into it. We were a bit spent, too. So we had just a nip of the Baby Blue Texas Corn Whiskey that someone (not me) smuggled in *wink* *wink* and headed home to clean up and refuel, catching a bit of The Levon Helm Band's performance as we crossed back over Barton Creek behind the main stage.

Want to know some of the rewards of arriving early and hitting some of the smaller stages, here's a rundown with many of the bands people missed.


Credit: http://www.austin360.com/music/content/music/acl_fest/acl_2009/index.html
ACL Day Two: some smaller bands, sights and sounds


Heading back over the Lamar Footbridge (Credit: Rachel and Jon)

ACL 2009: Funky in More than One Way (Day One Review)

Despite being seasoned ACL festival veterans (this was our fifth festival) we still got thrown some pitches we hadn't seen before. Hard sliders. Start off looking like grooved fastballs then tail off and dive at the last split second, making you look silly while you swing and miss. Friday was as nice a day we'd ever had at the festival. Sunshine with a few clouds overhead, heat very manageable, and a lovely if vulnerable-looking field of green grass. We took in a lot of the festival on day one, and the crowds were as big as we'd ever seen on a Friday. On Saturday, though things got wet. Steady rain that started as we headed in had us kicked only about four hours later. Sunday the rains held off for the most part. Day started funky too, with Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears killing on the AMD stage. But the steady rains the night before left the briefly glorious grounds a field of stanky mud (well, Dillo Dirt actually, "a compost made by the City of Austin from yard trimmings collected curbside as well as some treated sewage sludge" according to Austin360). So unfortunatly, the funk stayed with us long after BJL's set ended, and we faded during White Lies' set, never making it to the good nugget of music left toward the end of the day leading up to Pearl Jam's close.


So no 107-degree record setting days like we had the Sunday of our first festival in 2005, no brief but severe rains like we had during Tom Petty's close in 2006, and none of those dry, dusty days leading many to don masks we've encountered a few times before. But we did get some wet, funky earth. Enough to entice some people, probably not aware of the seemingly biotoxically-shady nature of the mud, to jump in it, dance in it, or roll around and cover themselves in it, as did some small shaved-headed feller that Rachel and I agreed was "rocking it Smeagol-style." So we got a little less music in during this festial, although not that much given our Thursday night pre-festival show. Still, there were plenty of highlights.

Oh, by the way, this year's reviews are probably going to be a bit light on the photos. On account of the rain I only took our good camera on Friday. My battery was low, so I didn't take that many pictures. We also took few pix on Saturday and Sunday due to the bad weather.


Friday - Day One


Gloriously cool weather greeted us on Friday morning. Very un-ACLish, but that's more than fine with us. We ended up heading down to the festival at almost noon and killed a few precious minutes finding parking. We got there and saw the bulk of the 12:30 set by School of Seven Bells, and hung in there for a good chunk of the closing set by Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Ate a decent shrimp po' boy from Aquarelle and a good trailer park taco from Torchy's - a delicious mess of fried chicken, green chilies, lettuce, pico de gallo, and cheese. Got some t-shirts. Friday was up there with just about any festival day we've had.

School of Seven Bells had just started their set on the festival's main stage when we arrived. As a trio with just a couple of guitar players and a keyboardist (no drums), playing on the big stage might seem like trouble. What you do get if you're booked in such a slot, though, is the kick-butt sound system, and SVIIB took full advantage of the great audio at the "Livestrong" stage. While their textured musich and dreamy, atmospheric vocals probably sound better in a dark club late at night, the trio -- former Secret Machine Benjamin Curtis on guitar and the Deheza twins on vocals and guitar (Claudia) and keys (Alejandra) -- filled up the big open space with swirling, pretty, shoegazey electronic pop. The sisters might not be the greatest voices, but their voices fit together perfectly, like a couple of -- well -- twins. The Cocteau Twins comparisons seem apt, but grouping them together with a harder group like My Bloody Valentine doesn't seem that far-fetched.






School of Seven Bells

After one set, we made our first of the day's many lawn crossings to catch New Orleans' The Knux (well, they are originally from New Orleans but relocated to LA after Katrina) a rap duo made up of brothers Krispy Kream and Rah Almillio. The Knux put together a crowd-pleasing set of classic bass-thumping hip-hop, showed some musical chops by picking up instruments on a few songs, and finished with a party tune that they invited a few dozen crowd members on stage to dance to. Very fun, only gripe being that they cut their set short by a good fifteen minutes.

Krispy Kream (The Knux)

Rah Almillio (The Knux)

We grabbed some eats -- lines were already long for chicken cones -- and walked back to the main stage to catch a little Medeski, Martin & Wood. These guys played just like pros that have been together for a long time. Not the most exciting music, and another performance that might have been better suited for an evening at a club, but still enjoyable in its funkiness and complexity. When you remind yourself that there are only three people up there on stage making those sounds, it hits you just how impressively tight they are.

Next, we drifted a bit. We caught a very small amount of Dr. Dog, which I later heard was a great performance, and then drifted off toward the other end of the festival to catch some of The Walkmen's set while setting up at the next stage for Phoenix. The crowd for Phoenix was solid. I'd call it the first really big crowd of the day. The group sounded on, playing lots of material from their latest acclaimed album, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, closing with a great "1901," probably the album's most well-known tune. They even tossed in a cover of cover of Air’s "Playground Love" (another French group). Phoenix was one of the day's (and whole weekend's) musical highlights.

For the next spot, we weren't sure whether to go see Somalian rapper K'Naan or retro-soul singer Raphael Saddiq. Since the latter was playing at the next stage over from where Phoenix had just finished, we opted for that. Saddiq gave the crowd an enthusiastic greeting and launched into his set. His singing immediately made me think of Marvin Gaye crossed with Smokey Robinson -- not exactly bad comparisons. He really turned on the Smokey at times. His band was good but his voice was great as was his stage presence. Man's got pipes. Just to put some icing on the cake, he threw in an Iggy Pop cover. I love ACL!

Raphael Saddiq looking smooth

After snack number two, we put ourselves in a good position for Andrew Bird's performance and caught the last half of Thievery Corporation's gig on the main stage. The group's worldly grooves got the crowd moving. At least the ones who weren't sheltered within a self-inflicated cloud of thick smoke.

By the time Andrew Bird started his set at 7:30, we were definitely starting to fade. Good thing, because while sitting make it difficult to see, his music is definitely the sort that doesn't suffer from sitting down while taking it in. Bird's set list pulled frequently from his latest album, Noble Beast. He also did a lot of whistling. Maybe too much, although the man sure can whistle! Still, I thought the graceful, subdued set was a perfect compliment to the rest of Friday's typically harder and faster sounds.

To close out our day, we had little difficulty chosing the Yeah Yeah Yeahs over the other late option, Kings of Leon. Good choice. YYYs delivered a punchy set of their mix of loud guitar-based rock and stripped down electronic music. Karen O set the tone by emerging in some sort of garish poncho thing as the band kicked their set off right with the relatively calm "Runaway" from this year's It's Blitz! LP. Both Karen O and the band then launched into high-energy mode, as the band ran through harder, faster numbers, mostly from It's Blitz! "Zero" was a definite highlight. They also slipped in a few older numbers, including a frenetic version of "Pin" from 2003's Fever to Tell. Karen O's stage antics (holding the mic in her teeth, lots of spitting water straight up into the air like a geyser) might come off as posturing -- it does seem a bit clichéd at times -- but it mixes well with the Yeah Yeah Yeah's music: playful and energetic.

But while Karen O's energy seemed endless, she hadn't been out in the sun for 9 hours, standing up for most of that time. We tried our best not to tip over, but ultimately had to cut out a few songs early. After one day of the festival, if you throw in Thursday night, we'd already seen 11 hours of music by nine bands. Not a bad start!

ACL 2009: Summary

This festival was unusual. Cooler, wetter, stinkier. On Friday, the weather was amazing. Probably as nice as its been at any of our five Austin City Limits Music Festivals. We made a long day of it, staying from School of Seven Bells great early set to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs closing things out. The beautiful new lawn was evident from the many barefooted festival goers, a novelty to anybody who's been to any of the recent ACL festival dustbowls.

Then on Saturday, the weather took a turn for the worse. Steady rains for pretty much the whole day made it difficult to endure. We ended up making it an abbreviated visit. Same on Sunday, when the weather was better but the festival grounds had turned into a smelly mess of bud and rotting grass. What was the likelihood? Since we've been here for almost two years, we've had no more than a handful of periods of steady rain. Then Austin had to get hit with one the first year that an expensive new lawn and irrigation system was installed. Hopefully the grounds didn't take too much of a hit and things are patched up for next year's fest. Meanwhile, I need to go get some rest. Catch my breath. Come back and we'll fill you in on the music and the rest of the festivities.

ACL 2009: Thursday Pre-Festival Double Shot at Emo's

Emo's was one of a few clubs in Austin holding pre-festival shows featuring ACL acts. The bill inside included School of Seven Bells, which was tempting, but we decided to buy tickets for the outside stage and see Blitzen Trapper and The Walkmen. The place was pretty packed. Long lines at the bar, but the beer selection was okay and the bottles were reasonably priced.

We got a good spot up in the center rear of the area right in front of the stage. Visibility was good, sound was okay. Blitzen Trapper appears to have attracted a pretty good following. The crowd was pretty dense and gave the band an enthusiastic welcome.

Musically Blitzen Trapper sticks to a tried-and-true country-rock formula, but they do it well. Just be prepared to hear a bit of things that might not be covers of Flying Burrito Brothers, the Allmans or Buffalo Springfield, but sound like they could be. The band kept the energy high at the beginning of the show. Black River Killer evoked Harry Chapin and Neil Young. Other songs sounded a bit like CSN(&Y) and even the less-experimental side of the Grateful Dead. Wild Mountain Nation showcased the lead guitar work of Erik Menteer. Later in the set, they slowed things down a bit. Probably the night's highlight was right in the middle of their hour-long set, when they launched into Furr, which has done well on Austin radio stations and ME television, and it turned into an impromptu sing-along.

The crowd was even more cranked up for The Walkmen. Big contrast from a prior gig of theirs we went to at Pearl Street in Northampton, where the sparse and lethargic crowd brought down the performance. Here's a band that grew out of the collapse of a band might have been on the verge of making it big, at least in the world of indie rock, Jonathan Fire*Eater. But it wasn't to happen, so a trio of Fire*Eaters and two members of The Recoys formed The Walkmen. Their debut album as The Walkmen, 2002's Everyone Who Pretended to Like Me is Gone, was one of my favorite albums that year. Since then the output's included a couple of other great albums, 2004's Bows + Arrows and the last year's You & Me. They have loads of great songs now and have been playing together for a long time. This is a band right in its prime. I had a feeling Thursday night's gig would be better than our previous Walkmen concerts.

Emo's erupted when the band came out. The big fans pushed toward the front and sang along and flailed heads and arms to the anthemic tunes like In the New Year, Little House of Savages and of course crowd favorite and genuinely kick-ass song The Rat. The powerful beat-keeping of Matt Barrick propels those big songs. Barrick also serves as a key weapon in their many tunes, including several from latest album You & Me, that slowly build momentum. Lead singer Hamilton Leithauser showed his range and power on the punchier numbers as well as the more delicate or more nuanced songs like Red Moon (with the three-trumpet horn section that they featured in a few other songs), Canadian Girl, and I Lost You. After a two-song encore, the crowd eagerly called for a second, but the band called it a night.

Now the bar had been set high, and ACL hadn't even begun. Will Friday top the pre-show twofer? Day one has some great prospects, so I'd hesitate to bet against it.

ACL 2009 Preview: Sunday (Day Three)

Forgive me if this preview's brief. Okay, so I'm writing this one up after two pretty long days of music. My ears are a bit jingly and my knees ache. Rachel has gotten a wee bit of the sunburn. This after a long week that started with my car engine dying on the way to work on Monday. The sacrifices we make. We still think it's worth it.

I do need to move on to the business of writing up some reviews and thoughts and uploading photographs. But this one might be a bit abbreviated.

Day Two Update: Raveonette's forced to cancel due to being stranded in Copenhagen and apparently it's Oprah's fault. Figures.

Day Three

Apparently there's a pretty good chance that the weather will get dicey today.


Source: http://www.weather.com/.
Today's forecast

So we'll bring along some rain gear and see what happens.

12:30-1:15

Locals Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears put on a raucous set of raw funk at last year's festival. He's spent some time working on honing his band's southern funk chops. They've been slowly on the rise since, grabbing an opening slot on opening night of the SpoonX3 festival, which we largely missed due to a planning glitch. They just did their first performance on national TV on the 9/21 episode of Late Night with Craig Ferguson, where they apparently killed on "Sugarfoot." I'm hoping we can make it.


Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears - Sugarfoot (live on Late Night with Craig Ferguson)

1:15-2:00

Here We Go Magic is basically the musical brainchild of Salem, Massachusetts-born Luke Temple. His songs have a rootsy feel that evokes Simon & Garfunkle while still sounding fresh. You never feel like things are gonna get too baroque.

Download an MP3 of Here We Go Magic's tunnelvision Tunnelvision

They're up against Rodriguez, one of these great musical survivors who's been around for years but has been able to develop little more than a cult audience in the States, despite finding mainstream success in other parts of the world. Rodriguez, born in Detroit to Mexican parents in 1942, has always been a voice for the the inner city poor. His 1970 album tCold Fact was described by Pitchfork's Joe Tangari as "one of those rare lost albums that turns out to be a genuine classic." Tangeri describes the album as "a patchwork of folk, psychedelic rock, and pop production, built around a workman-like voice and simple melodies." At this point, I'm leaning toward this, but we'll be going with a group today, so we'll see how the day shakes out.


Here We Go Magic - Tunnelvision


Rodriguez - Sugar Man (live)

2:00-3:00

Speaking of musical survivors, the B-52s are here this year. They're appearing much earlier in the day than they might have if this festival was taking place in the early 80s or early 90s, when they could have grabbed a top slot at this sort of event. Their last album, 2008's Funplex, pulled in mixed but mostly decent reviews. Now with that album having been out for a while and eight albums in their catalog, they'll probably play a set of their best songs from their long career. I imagine that their bouncy sound would benefit from a sunny backdrop, so let's the skies clear a bit by early afternoon.

4:00-5:00

We've seen Arctic Monkeys twice now, including at an earlier ACL appearance. While we're not familiar with their latest songs, it's safe to expect some fast punkish rock and some slower, more mod-styled tunes.

5:00-6:00

Dirty Projectors has been getting lots of buzz lately. The latest album Bitte Orca got much love from Pitchfork, going into rare 9+ territory. How often do you hear a guitarist's style described as "King Sunny Ade-meets-Jimmy Page guitar acrobatics?" I hear that stylistically they cover a broad range, which I tend to find intriguing. Right now they're a more likely destination than Cambridge, MA electronic group Passion Pit. They also overlap with Rebirth Brass Band (5:30-6:30), who I've loved since I was in college. They play an updated twist on classic New Orleans brass band music. Perfectly suited for the tent.


Dirty Projectors - Stillness Is The Move


Rebirth Brass Band - Do Watcha Wanna (in the French Quarter)

6:00-7:00

Jack White is a busy man. When he's not busy fronting The iconic White Stripes or getting his classic power-pop/rock thing on as co-leader of The Raconteurs, when he's not producing other acts or showing up in Jim Jarmusch short films playing with a Tesla coil, Jack White can also now be found behind the skins of new project The Dead Weather. The band also features Alison Mosshart of The Kills. This one should draw a big crowd.


The Dead Weather - Treat Me Like Your Mother

7:00-8:00

Michael Franti's style of hip-hop reflects his own diverse background. The man is of African, Native American, Irish, French, and German descent. His music is similarly a smorgasbord of hip-hop, reggae, jazz and folk. He got his start over 20 years ago with industrial punk act The Beatnigs and late 80s alt-hip-hop act Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, perhaps best known for social statement Famous and Dandy (Like Amos and Andy)." He and Spearhead, his long-time backers, should deliver an energetic set. Other options for this slot include venerable Preservation Hall Jazz Band under the tent (could be tempting if the rain is heavy) and Black Keys' guitarist/vocalist Dan Auerbach. The latter's first solo effort, Keep it Hid, has been well-received.


Michael Franti & Spearhead - Ganja Babe (live)

That should do it for Sunday. Pearl Jam closes out from 8:00-10:00. I suspect after a long day standing up in crappy weather, we'll be done with this year's festival before that.

That's it for the previews. Come back from some reviews and pictures. Find out how wet we got!

ACL 2009 Preview: Saturday (Day Two)

As good as day one is, day two is arguably right up there with it. Thankfully there isn't anything early in the day that we really feel like we can't miss, so we'll be able to sleep a bit and have a relaxing and rejuvenating morning.

1:15-2:00

Early this decade, The Raveonettes were quite the buzzy band, perhaps not quite up there with the Strokes and the White Stripes, but not that far behind. Apparently, well-known Rolling Stone editor David Fricke saw them at the SPOT festival, gave them a rave review, and the hype started building. Well, they never really broke out, but they have put out good rock/pop that has consistently received decent or better reviews from the usual suspects. Their last album, 2007's Lust Lust Lust, was perhaps their best regarded. Another album drops next week, so they'll be playing plenty of new music at the festival on Saturday. Those who like the hallmark indie sound of sweet classic pop with a modern delivery (the name "Raveonettes" is a play on the famous girl group The Ronettes and the Buddy Holly song Rave On!) should go check them out.


The Raveonettes - Love in a Trashcan

2:00-3:00

Rock has been around for a good 50 years, and there have been lots of oddly-named bands. One artist famously named himself after a symbol that you can't even pronounce. Similarly, another band just threw together a bunch of punctuation marks and instructed listeners to pronounce it however they see fit. That band, !!! (often referred to as "chk chk chk"), plays a blend of electronic and rock that's often been labeled as "dance punk." Whatever you call it, its energetic, hooky and lots of fun. Personally, I think their sound would be better suited to an after-dark slot, but it should still be a good show. They go up against Irish new-wavey rockers Bell X1, which is where we'll be heading if the exclamation points disappoint.


!!! (Chk Chk Chk) - Heart of Hearts

3:00-4:00

Brooklyn's Grizzly Bear put out one of my favorite tunes of the year, Two Weeks off their latest album, Veckatimest. Sure, the video's creepy and the vocals are a bit haunting, but it's one of those songs that you can't get out of your head after a few listens. Perhaps no artist comes into ACL with as much hype and momentum. Even unlikely celebs like Jay-Z and Beyoncé have been spotted rocking out at their shows. Plus, they just collaborated with Michael McDonald! How cool is that? It'll be interesting to see whether their moody, operatic multi-part harmonies translate to a live setting. If not, there's always The Airborne Toxic Event.


Grizzly Bear - Two Weeks

4:00-5:00

Not the most exciting hour. I've heard a bit of Citizen Cope and it doesn't really do much for me. Henry Butler is an old-school New Orleans pianist, so that might be fun. The other option is Flogging Molly, who play "Pogues-y" Celtic rock. I've only heard a little of them, but that one might be a fun show as well.

5:00-6:00

This hour features one of many toss-ups. Bon Iver gets much love from picky indie-friendly tabloids like Pitchfork, but I only know a few of their songs and wonder a bit whether they'll be any good live. On the other side of the coin is Austin's ... And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead. We were supposed to go catch "Trail of Dead" at the SpoonX3 mini-festival this past Spring, but they had to cancel. And while I don't know much of their music, Allmusic names lots of my favorites among their influences (Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr., Television and Mission of Burma), and their albums have consistently been well-received, especially 2002's Source Tags & Codes. Plus their name is so long that their box on the ACL schedule actually goes over the 6:00 line! That's something, right? If Trail of Dead wasn't from Austin and therefore likely to play here on a somewhat regular basis, I'd go see them for sure. This one's a classic game-time decision.


Bon Iver - Skinny Love


... And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead

6:00-7:00

Another tough decision between two totally different artists: Mos Def and The Levon Helm Band. Alternative hip-hop or roots rock icon? Sets by old-school reggae toaster Eek-A-Mouse and sensitive singer-songwriter John Vanderslice also overlap into this hour. We'll probably want to see some of John Vanderslice, who starts at 6:40, but the rest of the hour is up in the air.

7:00-8:00

And for the final dilemma of the evening, both DeVotchKa and The Decemberists play at dusk. The former plays an ecclectic blend of punk and folk with a hint of Romani, Greek, Slavic, Bolero, Mariachi, cayenne and allspice. We were supposed to see them once, but I got sick and we skipped the show. I suspect their live act is entertaining. The latter play folky baroque-pop, and just put on a good show in New Jersey for my sister. They've been at ACL in the past, but we've missed them. If you have any idea of what we should do, please help!


DeVotchKa - How it Ends


The Decemberists - Sixteen Military Wives

So that should just about wrap up our day. The final slots on Saturday are filled by Dave Matthews Band and the overrated Ghostland Observatory, neither of which hold all that much interest for me, although GO frontman Aaron Behrens looks like he could be the president of the Thomas-Builds-the-Fire fanclub. Plus, after Thursday and Friday, I'll probably be pretty exhausted by 8. Gotta rest up for Sunday, right?

Happy 15th Birthday Lester

So the Big L has made it to 15 years old. Quite an accomplishment for a medium-size dog. According to the dog age chart, he's now about 93 years old in human years. One more year and he'll be eligible for a driver's license.

To celebrate, Rachel and I thought we'd cook him up a hamburger and mix it into his normal diet of special dog food. Judging by the speed at which he ate his meal and the thorough job he did of licking the bowl, it's safe to say it was the best burger he's eaten since the White Castle slider he had in Tennessee.

A dog enjoying some beef