OK, so now that this shit happened twice within one month, it's become clear that the site has outgrown the model I was using. Good news, since now we're like, totally popular, but bad news cause it's gonna be a pain in the ass to restructure the downloads. Anyways.....all that means to you right now is you have to click the zShare link to preview & download songs til my fileden gets unfrozen.
On ANOTHER note, I've got a new job, working as the LA Editor for Green Shoelace, which promises to become a multi-layered online music resource, but currently acts as a collection of the best concerts in the city, week to week. So come here to listen to great new bands, then go there to see them live. Sign up for the newsletter while you're at it, so you don't even have to click the site to get up to date (you lazy fuck). Anyway, in the words of the great Paula Abdul, "I'm just here for the music", so let's move on.....
-----------------Song of the Week--------------------------
Florence & The Machine first hit this site with a beautiful cover of Cold War Kids' "Hospital Beds", and now finally return with the lead track off their/her (I always get confused by these semi-one person bands) new EP. It's a stunning debut, and hopefully a taste of what's to come from the full length album. And with a voice like that, expect to hear a lot more of Florence in the years to come.
So Florence has a fucking awesome voice. This we knew......now onto the surprises. First up comes a completely out-of-left field contender for Album of the Year: The Horror's Primary Colors. I remember seeing the band a few years ago at MisShapes in NY (Don't judge me.....but yes, I spent many a week at the party that can now be identified as Ground Zero for the hipster movement...sorry guys), and they didn't seem anything special to me; just another Loveleigh-approved buzz act with some cabaret elements thrown in for good measure. I'd heard rumblings they'd switched up their style to a more interesting, shoe-gazey style, but considering they were playing against that genre's pioneers at Coachella (My Bloody Valentine....my rant on that is buried below), I missed seeing them. Now that I've finally heard the album, I can safely say I can't wait to get another chance. With the gimmickry toned down to a merely amusing level, not to mention flat-out brilliant song arrangements, this might be the best shock of '09. If you're a fan of MBV, Catharine Wheel, Jesus & Mary Chain, or even Joy Division, you owe it to yourself to check it out. It's the work of devout fans, but make no mistake, it's the real deal. If you have the stamina, check out the epic highlight, "Sea Within A Sea"'s video below. And if you're unconvinced by the 4 min mark, just keep listening.....
And to check out a slightly more compact example of the band's newfound genius (not to mention some great, "how the fuck did they get that sound?" homemade guitars, check out "Scarlet Fields" up above.
And finally, we come to the second surprise. Cobra Starship is no stranger to the guilty pleasure game - hell, they formed as an indie supergroup in a contest to create music for "Snakes On A Plane". But they may have outdone themselves by recruiting the hottest girl on television (and aspiring singer, natch) Leighton Meester. The actress' voice is clearly put through the Katy Perry-o-matic sound filter, but you're still left thinking she might have as good a career as many of the current pop-tarts, partially thanks to the killer hooks Gabe gives her to sing. And if Passion Pit's "Little Secret" will be the song playing at every Echo Park bbq this summer, this little ditty might be equally inescapable at dance floors from h.wood to MyHouse (not to mention my house, literally). Don't even fucking lie: you'll be listening to this way too many times.
Literally overnight, the killer leeches returned, thanks to an outside link of one of the tracks. Say hello to zShare again for the rest of the month.....
Bandwidth is back...for now. I was three days late to resetting it and already a third of it was used. So I deleted songs the leechers likely gravitated to, and have a host of new ones to enjoy for the short time being. Let's get it crackalackin':
Anarchy and the Avant Garde ruled on Sunday, and while it didn't match the innocent fun of the previous days, it might have been my favorite of the whole weekend. If nothing else, it was the most memorable of the three, especially considering that my ears haven't stopped ringing yet.
NO AGE
The day began with a small preview of the sonic madness to come, as No Age put on an early show in the Gobi tent. Non-Angelinos swarmed the tent early to see what all the fuss has been about, and the Downtown LA-bred twosome didn't disappoint. For a rock solid 45 minutes, they brought The Smell to the polo fields, right down to the ever-expanding mosh pit. The crowd seemed to "get it" as the show went on, or if nothing else, seemed amazed that two people could make so much noise, and the band left to a raucous ovation. There's a delicate balance to what these guys do, but they make it look so easy, and perhaps that's the band's most impressive trait. Anyone can make noise, but no other band can make it quite so charming.
LYKKE LI
I caught a portion of Canadian punk band Fucked Up's set, but by this point, the 100 + degree heat was starting to take its toll, even in a tent, and I had to conserve energy for Lykke Li (who was unfortunately scheduled during the hottest portion of the day), in the outdoor secondary stage. Thankfully, I had no problem walking right up to the front, and we weren't kept waiting for long before she took the stage. Once she did, it was clear that despite a generally mellow album, this girl likes it hard and fast in performance. She wasted no time running out and smashing the cymbols for opener "Dance, Dance, Dance", in a set where she used megaphones, drumsticks and a frickin' kazoo to add to the spectacle. The crowd was clearly beat down by the heat, but eventually danced as much as Li commanded. Even Robyn stopped by to check it out (though thankfully, she didn't get in on the action) as the set hurdled toward its conclusion. Oh yeah: she also looked really, really hot. So good for her. If you doubt me, check out the video below, and watch it ALL THE WAY THROUGH (or at least til the halfway point) to see some truly awesome moves:
YEAH YEAH YEAHS
We made our way towards front and center during the final leg of Peter Bjorn and John's set, which was actually far better than I would have anticipated. The band is notoriously hot & cold, as far as live performances go, but they were definitely on point Sunday, ending with a spectacular rendition of "Up Against The Wall", before exiting the stage. As soon as the bue rhinestoned-swirls and giant, inflatable eye were raised onto the stage, the crowd began to close in, in anticipation of the gloruous weirdness to come, and once Yeah Yeah Yeahs finally came out, they didn't dissapoint. The tracks from the new album sounded just as comfortable as the old ones onstage, and the band treated the insanely large main stage as if it was a tiny Brooklyn dive. All of the tracks sounded great as always, but "Skeletons" translated especially well in the environment: as the sun went down, and Karen O looked over the field, the tears that accompanied her voice seemed genuine. In a more bizarre twist for me, once Y Control ended the set, I began jumping up and down like a jackass and pointing at the stage (I may have been slightly drunk(, and I'll swear it was me Karen O saw as she sputtered out laughter and began to do the exact same gesture onstage. Review the tape, people. I was right down the center.....so check her eyeline. I'll devote a special sub-committee to this if need be. Further evidence that I made her crack up & dance: I was dressed in a boy scout's shirt. Don't judge me. It was appropriate for the harsh conditions:
MY BLOODY VALENTINE
And Hell was unleashed upon us. Okay, well maybe not immediately, as I began the set from the comfortable (yet still quite loud) distance of VIP, but as the set went on and I became sick of the scenesters talking and blocking my view, I left and crept closer to the action. My mistake. Turns out they weren't passing out earplugs for nothing that morning, as this was the loudest and most challenging performance I've ever experienced. I have to admit, I was only a casual fan of the band before the set began. I own Loveless, like any good music nerd should, but I've always been a bigger fan of their contemporaries (Jesus and Mary Chain, Catherine Wheel), and predecessors (No Age, Asobi Seksu). Well, after this performance, My Bloody Valentine officially owns my ass, and I now understand why they command such a passionate cult audience.
They certainly aren't for everyone, as many people ran by me, covering their ears, complaining about either the noise or the band's "shit stage presence" (apparently they didn't understand where the term "shoegaze" comes from). But for me, it was like being pulled into a trance, like a lobster slowly being boiled. Then, of course, the grand finale happened: the "Noise Holocaust", as many who were there have now dubbed it, began merely as an ear-splitting finale to the appropriately titled "You Made Me Realize", but then it kept going. And going. And going. At first my patience was tested, then as it got even louder, I just felt pain. But somehow by the end, musical Stockholm Syndrome had taken ahold of me, and I had to give them their due. Many of the people around me reacted to my claps with a cold stare of death, but like an act of nature, love or hate what happened, you had to respect it.
Apparently they end their shows like this on a regular basis, but I doubt any previous iteration can top delivering that noise to a field of 100,000 + people, trapped with nowhere to escape it. If you have the stamina, you can check out 5 min of the affair (though obviosuly 90% of the chaos gets muffled out by the camera's speakers) below. Just imagine it's THREE TIMES AS LONG, and you have a decent idea of what it was like to be there:
THE CURE
I wandered back towards the front of the crowd for The Cure, fairly certain that nothing could top the strangeness we'd just witnessed. I was wrong. Now I've always enjoyed The Cure a lot, but I'm not a hardcore fan, so 90% of what got played was completely new to me. Robert Smith had a mission Sunday night, and that was to entertain his fans first and foremost, and not pander to the band's radio identity, which polarized me at first.
After an hour of pretty but unfamiliar tunes, delivered with a strange ambivalence towards the crowd, I retreated to the fields and met up with friends who were more than ready to go home, having just gone through the ringer at Public Enemy. After more than a half hour of soaking things up from the back, however, I can't really explain what happened. I just had the urge to go back, and it was one of the best decisions I made all weekend. By the time I got back to my old section, it was completely vacated, with only paper plates left behind. I marched past the T-shaped space towards the front and threw myself right into the small crowd still gathered at the stage.
Most of the casual fans were going home, and it seemed the band had decided to play just for us. 3 and a half hours into the set (not an exaggeration), the band came on for its THIRD encore, apparently ordered to only play one more song (Coachella gets fined $1000 every minute the show goes past midnight, and at this point it was nearing 12:40), and of course just kept on going. At the beginning of "Boys Don't Cry", the gigantic speakers went dead, leaving us towards the front as the only folks who could hear a thing. Eventually, the plug got pulled altogether, and the whole thing turned into a sing-a-long, which continued for the band's NEXT song, "Jumping Someone Else's Train". The lights were then cut, when finally, halfway through an attempt to play "Grinding Halt" with virtually no resources, the band called it a night and soaked up the biggest ovation I've ever been a part of. Mr. Smith looked over the crowd, gave a diabolical smile, and soaked it all up. It was a surreal way to end an amazing weekend, and when all was said and done, I became a Cure fan for life. Who could have guessed? Click below to see Le Gran Finale.......by this point, only the crowd you see gathered round the stage and the AT&T sound feed could hear a thing. By the way......cut to just past the 4 minute mark, to see the wicked grin that sums up the whole weekend:
Favorite Moments from Sunday:
3. Yeah Yeah Yeahs Perform "Skeletons" Against The Setting Sun, And Create The Most Beautiful Crescendo of the Weekend:
2. Lykke Li Does the Least Likely Cover Ever, Followed By Her Most Danceable Track:
1. The Ultimate Sing-A-Long Once The Sound Gets Cut:
Saturday was a short day for me, and mindless fun seemed to be the theme. A couple minor disappointments probably made this the weakest of the three days, but a weak day at Coachella is still more fun than you can even conceive. I started out at Dim Mak's pool party, and learned that Palm Springs is actually quite far from Indio. After I got a weekend's worth of free stuff and glorious train-wreck watching in under an hour, it was time to actually see some music.
TV ON THE RADIO
The first act I saw once I hit the polo fields was TV On the Radio, which rocked the main stage in the late afternoon. There were live horns, which sounded great, and Tunde was definitely on point, but overall, the band's songs just seemed to miss the spark they have on the records. It wasn't exactly a disappointment, as they still put on a great show, but the performance taught me that despite some spectacular songwriting, the band's biggest asset might be their studio production. And that's a pretty difficult thing to replicate live. That said, those who were fairly new to the band seemed to really dig it, so hopefully they gained a lot of new fans.
FLEET FOXES
The theme of incredible bands doing simply decent sets continued with Fleet Foxes, whose sunset performance at the side stage, opposite no one of much note, seemed designed to push these guys' star to the next level. While it wasn't the "bomb" that frontman Robin Pecknold said it was afterward (via his Twitter, natch), it wasn't the show-stealing set it was clearly meant to be. The crux of the blame falls on the poor sound-mixing, as well as the very loud bass emanating from Thievery Corporation's show next door, but the band also seemed defeated as soon as the odds became stacked against them, making a bad situation even worse. Like TV On The Radio, it'd be unfair to call the performance a "disappointment", since these guys still sounded great, but when it was over, you couldn't help but feel like it could have been phenomenal.
M.I.A.
Okay......so maybe this was a bit of a disappointment. At first, it appeared M.I.A. had really come to play, between throwing out thousands of horns to the crowd, dazzling with a light show, and commanding a small army of back-up dancers. But the bag of tricks ran out might early, and all that was left was awkward stage banter, with Maya apologizing for not knowing how to "bring it to the main stage", apologizing that her "friend never showed up" (earlier in the Day, she claimed Lil Wayne would be performing "Sunshowers" with her), and finally claiming that next time, she wanted to be "back in the tents". That's one wish I'm sure will be granted, since the whole affair fell a tad flat, and the DJ in particular tested nearly everyone's patience. Still, "20 Dollar Bill" and obviously "Paper Planes" rocked the crowd, and it had to be better than whatever Amy Winehouse would have pulled out.
THE KILLERS
Irony of ironies: after the fest's hipster favorites all fell short of their hyped marks, the band that many said shouldn't have even been headlining not only silenced the critics, but took their game to a whole new level. Towards the end of their set, frontman Brandon Flowers reminded the crowd that 5 years ago, they were opening in one of the tents. Cut to 2009, where one could argue they've become the official Kings of American Alt Rock. If this is true, then Saturday night was their coronation. The band played a near 2 hr set (lean compared to the weekend's other headliners) that focused on the hits and pulled out few surprises, but won over the crowd the old fashioned way: by playing spectacularly and relentlessly. Flowers, in particular, has come along way in a half decade of performing: where once he may have hid behind a keyboard and nervously spat out his lyrics, he now commands the stage with a brazen mixture of rock god charisma and Chaplinesque physicality. The nifty pyro certainly helped as well. Overall, the performance obviously didn't capture the emotion of Friday, or the WTF rollercoaster of Sunday, but that wasn't the intention. This was a horse of a different color. And in a festival which celebrated rock history on its opening and closing night, it was great to see a band emerging in the now, having just realized their true potential, and ready to make history of their own. Initially, it was difficult to judge if the massive crowd felt the same way, considering I was pressed against the barricade in the second row of people (my friends and I used the surge of people jumping the barricade to dance with M.I.A. earlier as a chance to sail straight to the front), but considering I heard only praise for the rest of the weekend (even from the most jaded, American Apparelled festivalgoer), I'd say the set was just as much of a pleasure for the crowd at large as it was for the sea of folks I was intertwined with. But don't take my word for it, check out my favorite moment of Saturday below to see for yourself (cut to around the 4 minute mark to see Flowers morph into a full-blown rock star for possibly the first time):
So by this point, everyone knows that Paul McCartney came and conquered. He played for nearly 3 hours, and gave me an experience I never fully thought through until it actually happened. But we'll get there.....
LOS CAMPESINOS!
The first act I caught was Los Campesinos!, whom, as I predicted, delivered the sleeper set of Friday afternoon. Unlike my prediction, however, they pulled a surprisingly large crowd, especially considering they played the smallest tent. People were pouring out of every exit, and dancing like jackasses to the big British band, who overcame minor technical gaffes to start the weekend in grand fashion.
WHITE LIES
Well hot damn. These guys came to play. Of all the bands I nominated before as future headliners, White Lies' star seemed to shine brightest. It was by no means a perfect set, but these guys showcased that indelible X factor that some bands never attain - the rock star charisma. Frontman Harry McVeigh's voice was spellbinding, and the band somehow managed to take songs that could be considered high school goth poetry in the wrong hands, and delivered them with feverish aplomb. With one solid radio hit, these guys could snowball into a very big deal in the US, much as they've begun to overseas. And if you've written them off as another Joy Division clone, listen again. There's a lot more going on here.
CRYSTAL CASTLES
Well, they brought the crazy all right. But not entirely the good kind, especially after all the backstage gossip got sorted out. In a move that echoed their much-discussed cancelled gig in Texas last week, Crystal Castles pulled some seriously diva-esque behavior, refusing to come onstage until at least half an hour past their scheduled set time, then refusing to leave once they had run way over time (don't get me wrong.....I'm being a partial hypocrite here, if you read my Sunday re-cap, but whatever). That said, the show was pretty nuts, with lots of microphone smashing, strangling and general debauchery to go around. But besides not playing "Vanished", there seemed to be something missing to the overall performance. The energy was there, but it was a drugged out, soulless kind of energy. And overall a great time was had watching these two do their thing, and I seemed to like them a bit more than most of the other folks I spoke with did, but I just couldn't wash the weird aftertaste of it all from my mouth. Maybe it was the news of their backstage antics that got to me, but something just seemed a tad off.
GHOSTLAND OBSERVATORY
After all the raves i'd heard about their live show, it really shouldn't surprise me that this was the best (non-Paul) full show that I saw all Friday, but somehow these guys snuck up on me. First of all: I'm certainly no rave kid, but the 3-D lasers Ghostland Observatory used were enough to make me wanna stare at them all night in a pretend-drug stupor. Honestly, words can't describe how cool these things were. Other than having the festival's best special effects, the Austin, TX duo also had the stage presence of demented Lewis Carrol characters, and had the crowd flat-out dumbfounded. For the uninitiated, they didn't know quite what to make of it all, but they sure liked it. There's no one moment for me to single out as the best of the show, but they all blended together for one hell of a party. Here's a small taste of the madness:
GIRL TALK
After a nice detour back to the Mojave tent for some of Beirut's set (as well as walking by the outdoor theatre just in time to hear Mr. Cohen's glorious "Hallelujah"), it was right back to the Sahara again for the next set, which damn near came close to matching the power of Ghostland, using only the power of two laptops. Seriously, if anyone missed this set just because they thought it'd be lame to watch a DJ at a concert festival, they missed out, because it turns out that the dude is just as skilled at putting together awesome visuals as he is at arranging mash-ups. The show began with Mr. Gillis onstage, surrounded by inflatable cacti and a football style inflatable entrance ramp, shaped like a dark figure with glowing eyes. As soon as the music started, the entrance exploded with what looked to be 100 or so white, rhinestone-covered revelers, who surrounded the DJ for the whole set, dancing their asses off and suitably hyping up the crowd (alas, Ms. Paris Hilton did not make a return appearance, like she did in '07). Gillis even managed to work in a psuedo-encore, and finished off with the best exit I saw all weekend. To catch a quick, Cloverfield-style glimpse into the chaos, click below. And believe me, it was even more fun in there than it looks:
btw.........here's a hilariously well-timed "part two" that I just found, from one of the onstage revelers. Seriously, it picks up almost exactly where the one above leaves off:
PAUL McCARTNEY
There's really not much to say that hasn't been said. I began watching his set fairly deep in the crowd, and once I got over the kick of seeing him out there, I honestly got a tad restless, and decided to check out The Presets' set back in the Sahara. As amazing as that show turned out to be (what I saw of it anyway), I realized it was time to get back. And obviously, it was. Two songs into my return, he delivered the emotional words about Linda, and took his set to the next level. It was fairly easy to move right near the front for the rest of the show, as nostalgia melted away to living, breathing rock glory. Anything slightly off the beaten path that you'd want him to play ("Get Back"), he did. Stuff you'd never dream he'd play ("GIve Peace A Chance"?!) he did. The pyro on "Live and Let Die" was amazing. Hearing "Blackbird" as an acoustic solo was even better. The second encore was so beautiful that it seemed to go by in 30 seconds. Being there, especially alongside fans who were old enough to have seen him in his original band, was the sort of experience that you just can't fully describe. It was a chance to see songs that, 50 years from now, will be as timeless as church hymns, sung by their creator, with all the spirit he had when he first wrote them. It was an emotional night, and one that no one in the crowd will ever forget. Unfortunately, it also set the bar rather high for the weekend, and everyone I talked to was convinced Saturday and Sunday would be anticlimactic affairs. Lucky for us, that wouldn't be true at all, as the weekend had many more memories in store......albeit slightly different kinds of memories than those found on Friday. But we'll get to that.
TOP FIVE MOMENTS FROM FRIDAY:
5. Los Campesinos End Their Set With "Sweet Dreams, Sweetheart".....With A Broken Guitar
After Noah's gutiar fails him, Garreth takes over and goes apeshit, scaling a vast array of surfaces within a very short period of time. Now that's the way to send a crowd home happy. Or just make them happy, since no one was planning to go home at 5:00 on Friday.
4. Girl Talk's Exit
OMFG, to the max.
3. Leonard Cohen - "Hallelujah" (even from the back of the crowd)
Yeah. I walked by the Outdoor Theatre at the right freakin' time.
2. The Presets - "This Boy's In Love"
Like I said, I caught a solid 20 min of Beirut, as well as two Leonard Cohen songs and about ten minutes of whatever the hell kind of party NASA was throwing. But the slice I saw that had me jones-ing most for the full set was the 20 minutes or so I saw of The Presets, which was closing out the Sahara tent as McCartney burned off his newer tracks. Everything I saw was spectacular, but once I'd heard "This Boy's in Love" and "My People", I knew I could walk away somewhat satisfied. If the rest of the set matched what I saw, I totally buy into the rumors that these guys stole the tent scene for the whole weekend. It was that good. Too bad they were opposite a living legend. PS: Sorry the song cuts off right when it's getting good, but videos of this performance have been slow to leak.
1. Paul McCartney's Entire Second Encore
Okay, so this is just the first song. But you get the idea.
And that's it for Friday. Check back soon for Sat/Sun.
......so tired. Full review of the weekend coming up, but here are some quick thoughts:
1. Can it still be considered "stealing the show" when you're a headliner? All three days were great, but Paul McCartney, The Cure, and (surprise!) even The Killers were in a league of their own.
2. How anyone beyond the barricade endured the 14+ minute (not joking) single chord of distortion from My Bloody Valentine is nothing short of a miracle.
3. Do you really need to take so many pictures? Get your camera the fuck out of my view, please.
4. Vick's Vabo-Rub is a versatile product.
5. Oh yeah......and The Cure played for over 3 and a half hours. Then on their THIRD encore, after having their sound cut, then lights, they kept singing. By this point, the crowd was a small joke of what it had been 3 and a half hours earlier, but it was one of the most badass rock moments I've ever been a part of.....thank you, Mr. Smith. You are a new hero to me.
Shark Party is intended to unearth new or rare tracks from known artists, and better yet, to expose you to artists you never knew existed. It's also a place to "rock out", if you're into that sort of thing. But the bottom line is, if you like a song, buy the album or buy a concert ticket! It's not a convenience store. I'm not talking to all of you, I'm just talking to that dude. You know who you are; yeah you. Okay, cool. PS: If you're an artist who's still not comfortable with your mp3 up for sampling, shoot us an e-mail & we'll be happy to remove it. Conversely, if you're an artist and would like to have your music featured, shoot an e-mail as well, to sharkparty83@gmail.com
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