Crickets
Monday, February 8, 2010
Crickets, Music When Golden Earring Were Good
Posted by Miles Raymer on Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 5:06 PM
Most people probably only know two Golden Earring songs, tops: the 1973 slab of guitar boogie "Radar Love" and the schlocky 1982 synth-rock hit "Twilight Zone." These Dutch boys actually started out in the early 60s as Golden Earrings (named after a pop standard that the band Gandalf would later reimagine as an amazing hippie-soul number) and spent that decade exploring garage and psychedelic music. During those years they were way weirder and cooler than you'd guess from listening to "Twilight Zone"—according to the band's Wikipedia page their cover of the Byrds' "Eight Miles High" could last as long as 45 minutes.
Their big hit in the Netherlands during that time was "Dong Dong Diki Diki Dong," an enjoyably ditzy piece of psych pop with one of the most embarrassing titles in rock history. My personal jam of the moment, though, is a few years older and comes from a time when the group had a darker garage sound. "Daddy Buy Me a Girl" is a pretty song, filled out with Autoharp and 12-string guitar, but it's got a bite of menace in its aftertaste that I find addictive. Given that it's a song about a broken-hearted rich kid who's been burned by a gold digger, it only makes sense that the band filmed a video where they take a hot chick to the circus:
Friday, February 5, 2010
Crickets, Music, Visual Art Today in "Finally"
Posted by Miles Raymer on Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 6:21 PM
That article ran in early 2004. And only today did I get a press release saying that a band had finally hired Mingering Mike to produce art for one of its records. How did that not happen sooner? Seriously, everybody, the next time someone discovers an absolutely brilliant artist making obsessive, mind-blowing fake LPs, let's try to get a record cover out of him in less than six years.
Crickets, Music Derek Erdman's Music Fest Anthropology
Posted by Miles Raymer on Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 3:55 PM
When he's not providing the Reader with controversial covers, local artist Derek Erdman paints things like portraits of Prince or fictional scenes of, say, all the former members of the Fall showing up to Mark E. Smith's annual disbursement of royalty checks.* He's also one of the only people to have attended both the Pitchfork Music Festival and the Gathering of the Juggalos. Now he's contributed a post to the MTV blog in which he compares the crowds at both festivals. Spoiler alert: He digs the juggalos a little more.
Crickets, Music Pitchfork Starts Its Lineup Tease
Posted by Kevin Warwick on Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 11:14 AM
The Pitchfork Music Festival, July 16-18 in Union Park, announced its first batch of performers today. Big names include Modest Mouse on Friday, LCD Soundsytem and Raekwon on Saturday, and Pavement and St. Vincent on Sunday.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Crickets, Music Miles and Jessica Work the Odds: Who's Playing Pitchfork This Year?
Posted by Jessica Hopper on Thu, Feb 4, 2010 at 4:52 PM
Tomorrow the first artists confirmed to play this year's Pitchfork fest will be announced, but it'll be months before the whole lineup is made public. Miles and I talked on IM about who we figured would end up booked for 2010, and our bets and wishful thoughts are after the jump.
Crickets, Music Mountain Dew Gets Into Vinyl
Posted by Miles Raymer on Thu, Feb 4, 2010 at 2:12 PM
Though Green Label Sound has until now dealt solely in MP3s, it's just issued the first four songs it released—by the Cool Kids, Flosstradamus with Caroline Polachek from Chairlift, Holy Ghost, and Matt & Kim—on vinyl. They're giving away five sets in a Twitter-based contest that ends tomorrow at 3 PM EST. Details are here. Videos from the Chicagoans represented are after the jump.
Crickets, Music Early Warnings Roundup
Posted by Kevin Warwick on Thu, Feb 4, 2010 at 10:00 AM
- Florence Welch of Florence & the Machine
For those of you who don't share my fascination with evil-looking dudes into blastbeats, growling, brutal riffs, and Satan, there are still plenty of choices for your show-going calendar, including Apples in Stereo, the Drive-By Truckers, Florence & the Machine, Frightened Rabbit, and Joanna Newsom. Check out my full list of notables after the jump:
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Crickets, Music This Year's Pitchfork Fest Starts Powering Up on Friday
Posted by Miles Raymer on Wed, Feb 3, 2010 at 5:38 PM
Tickets for this year's Pitchfork Music Festival (going down July 16 through 18 in Union Park) go on sale Friday. This includes three-day passes, which are the first to sell out every year. Two-day passes are being phased out this time around, so three-day ($90) and single-day tickets ($40) are the only ways to go.
The first batch of performers appearing at the fest will also be announced Friday. The Friday of the festival will get under way earlier than in past years, in order to "present fans with a longer first day of music," according to a press release. So far no artists have been confirmed, but I wouldn't be surprised at all to see Vampire Weekend coming back to headline.
Crickets, Music I Guess the Question Is "Do You Like Performance Art?"
Posted by Miles Raymer on Wed, Feb 3, 2010 at 3:26 PM
Gabe at Videogum has some bad news for people who like genuinely terrible rap music: Die Antwoord are not, in fact, a bunch of meth-fueled South African insanity-rap savants but rather a bunch of performance artists pretending to be such.
I agree with Gabe that this need not be a letdown. Knowing the truth about Die Antwoord doesn't make their videos any less hilarious and fun, so what's the big deal. I vote we do what Gabe says and give them whatever they want.
Crickets, Music, You Shoot You Shoot: Psychfest at the Hideout
Posted by Miles Raymer on Wed, Feb 3, 2010 at 1:20 PM
From what I've heard the Chicago Metaphysical Circus' first Psychfest at the Hideout a couple weekends back was a blast. It certainly looks pretty good in these killer shots by Flickr user (((christopher))), featuring the Great Society Mind Destroyers (the first four pics), Vee Dee (the crowd shot), and Sadhu Sadhu (the bass closeup):
