As the New Year Continues to Reveal...

We are only in the second week of 2010 and the anticipation of what excitement continues to be revealed for the year is shaping up to be a wonderful encore to the wonders of 2009. This week on Wednesday, Tomorrow Never Knows 2010 commences showcasing some the year's up & coming artists who have had many bloggers rattling away with eagerness. Many of the heavy hitter's shows are sold out but check with Schuba's Tavern as tickets are still available for others and many prize giveaways throughout the week. If that wasn't enough tour info continues to make waves as Pavement,Beach House, Passion Pit and Spoon all announce stops in the Windy City. At Npr's First Listen, Spoon's Tranference can be heard, M.I.A will release her third album this Summer and Dirty Projectors give away a free single.

Check out the venues' lineup below and join the week's festivities if you're in town and mark yoour calendars for the what's still to come this year.


Wednesday, January 13
Lincoln Hall: The Dead Trees, Adam Green, The Cribs

Thursday, January 14
Lincoln Hall: Gemini Club,Maps & Atlases, Solid Gold, Voxtrot
Schuba's Tavern: Lasers Fast & Shit, Bear in Heaven, Freelance Whales, Surfer Blood

Friday, January 15
Lincoln Hall: Shapers, Icy Demons, Atlas Sound
Schuba's Tavern: Only Children, Truman Peyote,The Hood Internet, Neon Indian

Saturday, January 16
Lincoln Hall: Julie Doiron, The Rural Alberta Advantage, Bowerbirds
Schuba's Tavern: Peter Wolf Crier, Sharon Van Etten, Owen Pallett

Sunday, January 17
Schuba's Tavern: Netherfriends, Pomegranates, Skybox, Clues



Looking ahead, Pavement is said to be headlining this year's Pitchfork Music Festival, both Passion Pit and Beach House on April 2. The evening prior Spoon will be performing at Aragon.

Passion Pit-Manners

Passion Pit emerged onto the scene late in 2008, with their immediately popular EP, Chunk of Change. A project started as a Valentines present by Michael Angelakos for his girlfriend while in school in Buffalo, NY. After graduating and returning home to Boston, Passion Pit took on life, fleshing out Angelakos’ previous work and quickly gaining acclaim. Their musical styles fuse high-energy pop with psychedelic tinge electronic sounds with a scratchy high-pitched voice, which inspires listeners to dance and celebrate life. The band quickly followed this success with their debut album, Manners on Frenchkiss Records. Manners is a wondrous collection of songs playing soundtrack to the joyous and devilish festivities of imps, elves and whatever fantastical forest creature the imagination can create.

With the ringing bells of the opening track “Make Light” Passion Pit sets the tone of the level of expectation of the records overall tonality. There is a contrasting quality of logical subject matter masked by these lighthearted melodies that hypnotically deter the listener’s attention from the matters of fact in his/her life. “Little Secrets” the second track on the album incorporates a children’s choir handling the song’s chorus. This is one of many facets of this album exhibiting the creative ingenuity of how Passion Pit approach their craft with a fresh voice while retaining nostalgic qualities successful for their POP music predecessors.
Another obvious strength in Manners is the fact each track has the capability to stand alone without the reliance of an album gimmick or the over exposure of countless radio play. The subtle sentiments of Angelakos’ lyrics predominantly in Chunk of Change, are often masked by the fast tempo, high energy synthesizer and danceable beats in Manners; creating an evolved context by the collaborative efforts of the more fleshed out band. The band has made a number of appearances at this summer’s more notable music festivals and has been on an endless tour promoting Manners. The continuous live performances have strengthened a once very disappointing live realization of their synthesized album tracks. Manners has begun a reinvention of the band’s sound and is showing early indications of how this quick success is becoming evidence of the band’s longevity. I am curious to see if these accomplishments will affect the band’s creative approaches on the evolution of their music.

Passion Pit Myspace

Passion Pit

Monolith Festival: Day 2

I arrived at Red Rocks early in the day’s lineup, the skies were clear and there was a light breeze that blew over the venue. I was excited to see the young lads from Glasgow, We Were Promised Jetpacks, who commence their nation wide tour with Scottish pals, Frightened Rabbit and Twilight Sad. Arriving promptly just prior to their set I was not expecting for the WOXY stage to be once again to capacity so early in the day. I had some time on my hands since the majority of the bands on my list to see played later in the afternoon along with my interviews who weren’t anytime near. I had the pleasure of floating around the venue to reflect upon the evening prior’s experience and enjoying the various acts in the background. There was a sort of peacefulness and sense of serenity that falls over you with these natural backdrops and the dissonance of clashing drums and shredding guitars. My curiosity was peaked for certain bands, but again knowing I had the remainder of the Scots and Bad Veins to interview, I wasn’t sure how many acts I was going to get to thoroughly review today. After my conversation with James Graham from The Twilight Sad and Jetpacks overwhelming excited thumbs up, I could not resist getting an early spot at the WOXY stage for The Twilight Sad’s set.

The Twilight Sad- WOXY

Lights dim, the drums pound hard, James Graham begins to dance with the mic as we are slowly led into the music. Looking upward, James begins to sing, slowly unraveling us into their gloomy dim world. As their chorus dictates for people dancing, James continues his Scottish jig while cymbals crash and distortion in the guitar continuously rings. The drum counts down and the tempo rises as the strobe begins to flash throughout the room, James has fallen to his knees belting out lines. Andy Macfarlane slows down his guitar play and the drums ring back in. At this point, rumors have proved true of the band’s deafening quality as they ring in harmony, following James who is heaving himself about the stage wailing his supernatural anxieties into the air. The bassist, Craig Orzel stands stonewall facing the crowd effortlessly thumbing through his strings. James garbles out in his barely understandable dialect an introduction into the next song and thanks everyone for showing up. The drums lead us into his lyrics are softly delivered in a crooning manner, the drums become louder and James is now screaming at the top of his lungs, his eyes rolled back in a possessed manner. They are an orchestrated symphony of sadness. At this point, an issue arises with the bass amp. James attempts to subdue the crowd, “The bass amp is fucked, I wish I was funny right now, I would tell you something, but I’m not”. The crowd chatters as the band awkwardly stand about stage waiting for the issue to be resolved, Sean from Jetpacks notes to me the amp is shared between the three bands and some shopping will have to be done prior to their next show in Salt Lake.

Crisis is diverted and James garbles out the title, “” joking he never really became one. The music returns and James continues to move up and down and all over the stage in a hauntingly crazed manner chanting the chorus in the air with the crashing drums around him. With an expression of agony, James is leaning against his mic stand, dancing and belting lyrics inaudibly upward. The distortion and dissonance rings throughout as James sips from his pint. James’ melodious crooning sound returns his eyes leave the impression his mindset may be elsewhere allowing his words to transport himself through his subconscious. He indistinguishably introduces the next song for the Arse holes from Jetpacks (note: I had to have a Jetpacker translate for me) James resumes his stage dance as the tempo and volume rise beyond the standard decibel of loud. Staring outwards, as the lights flash about in a flailing manner, it feels as though we are amidst a melodic nightmare. Inaudible yells and a slow lead in, softly laid out with a passionate exhale. James resembles the horror flick character, Carrie as though just doused in cow’s blood, staring out into the darkness as the chords ring out the ending of the set.

After a scheduling switch up when MSTRKFT dropped out of the festival, Phoenix moved down to the Esurance stage leaving Passion Pit to take over their slot. Unfortunately with this alteration, I wasn’t able to catch the PP set in its entirety. I had been curious all summer as the buzz surrounding their live performance was that it didn’t match the quality of the sound created on the album. When I finally did make it to the SOCO stage, the crowd was already elbow-to-elbow of drunken festival goers raucously dancing and singing along with the band. I have to say from everything I saw and heard there was no disappointment from my part. Whether others have had unrealistic expectations for a live show or the constant touring has matured the group creatively, I can’t say there was any real low point in their set list. The performance was high energy and excited the crowd, finding authentic ways to recreate what was originally synthesized on the album. I held out as long as I could before retiring to the interview my final band of the evening.

The final band I was truly excited over this weekend’s festival, was Phoenix the indie pop band from France. This summer they have been touring the States supporting their most recent release, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. After a longer period to tune and set up on the Esurance stage, I’m assuming because of the lineup switch and the hassle of moving everything . Phoenix appeared on stage in the midst of a dark cloud of smoke. They begin the set with the new album lead in, “Lisztomania” crouching through minimal light Thomas Mars delivered the lyrics with high tempo and energy. They steadily grooved through their set exciting the large crowd who showed up to dance along to their French Pop sound. Although Laurent Brancowitz, guitarist was having issue with his amp outputting a nasty feedback the band continued on flawlessly. Mars expressed gratitude before proceeding on. With the lights flashing in and out a happy balance is created in sound and atmosphere. I begin my final walk up the stairs having to make my way back to the hotel, prep time for a 5a wake up. In the distance, as I depart I hear Mars playing into the crowd as the drums are pounded and the loud guitars are ringing through the Colorado misty air. Until next year, I depart with a number of great memories and amazing images to reminisce.