I viewed a very interesting speech on TED.com by famous American conductor, Michael Tilson Thomas. The speech is entitled "Music and Emotion Through Time" and discusses how emotion in music has changed over time and also how music can affect people during different scenarios over their lifetime.
Thomas' deep love for music shines through during his speech and he admits that has a strong desire to continue to spread the musical word to others. He describes his father as his biggest teacher despite overcoming the adversity of needing a hearing aid and being a completely self-taught musician. Throughout his career Thomas's fascination has grown with how particular pieces of music enter people's lives and what meaning it carries from that point forward. He describes several instances during which he witnessed individuals recalling music that so clearly impacted them the first time they heard it. With this notion he explains that the tradition of music has made it something that is carried down through generations since the beginning of time. Thomas states that music has virtually become its own language through which we as human beings can express who we are. He says it is a language that consistently evolves.
Thomas moves on to discuss man's need to notate or "encode" music throughout time and how that has changed music's priority. He describes how classical music has changed through different centuries and how distinct genres of music have come to exist due to these changes. He also explains how the individual chords in music express different emotions and how their placement together can conjure evident changes in human emotion. He goes on to recognize how much technology played a part in these changes in music due to more expectations from composers and music. He questions, "Now that we have unlimited access to music, what does stick with us?"
For me, Thomas' speech was very inspiring and informative. I was aware of who Thomas was before viewing this speech, but I was not all that familiar with his research of music so listening to some of his findings was very insightful. I was interested in this speech in particular because I understand how much emotion is involved in music and how easily emotion can be provoked in individuals while they are listening to certain types of music. Thinking of how music is in present day while being reminded by Thomas of the highly important changes of classical music centuries ago, really made me ponder how much of a driving force emotion is in this art form.
Comedy Central invaded Austin this week to host four live tapings for their television channel and DVD release. The four well-known comedians included Owen Benjamin, Pete Holmes, Kumail Nanjiani and Al Madrigal. All tapings were free shows with only a RSVP to The Black List needed in order to attend. The Moody Theater is also one of the most outstanding venues in Austin, the famous home of ACL Live. I chose to go to the Monday and Wednesday tapings of Owen Benjamin and Kumail Nanjiani.
Monday night we arrived and had floor seating just a little left to the center, last row. The opener was none other than Austin's own Chris Cubas who has performed at the likes of SXSW, Fun Fun Fun Fest and Moontower Comedy and Oddity Festival. The headlining comedian, Owen Benjamin, was once an actor and coordinator on MTV's Punk'd and is also known for his time on The Jay Leno Show. He was absolutely hilarious, touching on topics including driving signs, dog owners and pop music. Here's a skit he also performed during his Monday night taping, poking fun at hip-hop star, Eminem.
Owen Benjamin "What's Wrong with Pop Music?"
Wednesday night we sat in the third row back from the stage. Bryan Guttman who is also known from Comedy Central, as well as the Montreal Comedy Festival, opened the show. Pakistani comedian Kumail Nanjiani headlined who is known best for his regular appearances on late night talk shows such as Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and Conan. He has also made appearances on the IFC show, Portlandia with Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein. He announced at the taping that he will be reappearing in Portlandia season three. This funny-man covered birthday parties with dancing monkeys, new popular drugs and hobos in the attic. Check out the link below for Kumail's take on video games.
Kumail Nanjiani "Video Games"
I absolutely love stand-up comedy but this was my first time attending live tapings. Just a few words to the wise:
1) Use the bathroom beforehand - they will not let you up to go in the middle of the taping!
2) Get ready for a camera to sit four inches from your face while the camera man awkwardly films you laughing for what feel like long periods of time.
3) Prepare yourself to laugh and cheer like a psychopath for television aesthetic purposes.
4) Don't attend with someone you don't want to be seen with.
5) Cross your fingers you're not the poor sucker the comedian uses for his own jokes throughout the entire taping.
The Austin City Limits Music Festival is a three day annual festival held in Austin, Texas at Zilker Park. This year was the festival's ten year anniversary and it most certainly lived up to its years past. ACL Fest is put on by the Austin-based entertainment group, C3 Presents, who also curate Lollapalooza in Grant Park, Chicago. Over 70,000 attendees fly in from all over the world to enjoy this weekend of music, food and arts. There are eight different sponsored stages by well-known companies such as Bud Light, Honda, and the performing rights organization, BMI. ACL Fest was just recently approved to add a second weekend for 2013.
Austin City Council Approves Second Weekend for ACL
Prior to ACL the city of Austin is overtaken by those wanting to participate in all that the festival has to offer leading up to the fun-filled weekend. Clothing companies, magazines, non-profit organizations, etc. pour into town to host weekday shows and parties, building hype around the main event. Many official ACL acts choose to perform at these pre-events in order to create anticipation for their set during the festival.
This was my first time experiencing ACL and it was quite the busy week. The first event I attended was Gary Clark Jr.'s performance at Stubb's to benefit the Waller Creek Conservancy on Wednesday, October 10th. This environmental organization preserves and maintains Waller Creek and its surrounding parks. Gary Clark Jr. is an Austin native and was the perfect candidate to perform in order to bring attention to this important local cause. This was the second time I had seen GCJ in concert, and once again, he did not disappoint. He is one of the few true musicians of our time; an amazing songwriter, guitar player and singer... A modern day Jimi Hendrix if you will.
Gary Clark Inaugural Benefit Concert
The following night I attended my second event which was the TOMS Shoes World Sight Day Awareness Party at Symphony Square featuring Kishi Bashi, Vacationer and Tennis. This event was to benefit those suffering from a cataract. The artist who created the cover of The Beatles Yellow Submarine created the promotional poster for the event and was there signing; of course with my luck I had two people in front of me in line when they ran out of posters. But the event was very nicely done and all three performances were stellar with a completely amazing light show on the building behind them as they sang. I had never been inside Symphony Square before and it is by far one of my new most favorite spaces in Austin. Hopefully we will get it as an official venue for SXSW this year!
Following this event I went straight to the longtime established blues venue Antone's to catch Atlanta based psych punk band, The Black Lips. I moved to Austin from Atlanta a little over a year ago so it was great to get a taste of home. The Black Lips always put on a highly energetic show, but watch yourself or you're sure to get an elbow to the face!
Friday rolled around and the festival had finally begun with the first performance at 11:15am. People filled the streets making their way to Zilker Park from all over the city. My office at SXSW shut its doors at 3pm so that employees could enjoy the festival. Unfortunately I encountered several issues getting to the festival, so I was only able to catch a few songs from French electronic duo M83 and about half of The Black Keys show before I bailed to get food. Half of the Keys duo, Patrick Carney, was actually at the TOMS event I'd been at the night before. You can imagine my shock when I turned around and he was standing right behind me sipping on a drink! For all that you (and I) missed, here's a recap:
ACL Friday Highlights
As disappointed as I was at missing most of Friday, I attended an ACL Night Show at Emo's featuring the electro-inspired band Polica and indie alternative group Metric. I had seen Polica once before at the Belmont for their performance at the Dell party during Interactive Week at SXSW 2012. Lead singer Channy Leaneagh has one of the most haunting voices I have ever heard. I became obsessed with their self-titled debut album but previously questioned as to whether or not she would sound live as she does on the record. She has officially proved to me twice that answer is an absolute yes. They are by far one of the best new bands out there right now. I was equally excited to finally see Metric, a band that very rarely tours. They mainly focused on performing songs from their most recent release, Synthetica, but also performed tracks off their past albums such as "Gold Guns Girls" and "Dead Disco." Their energy was palpable and it was one of the best combo shows I have seen in quite some time.
I was down at Zilker Park Saturday by 1pm to catch goth rocker Zola Jesus and English indie alters Bombay Bicycle Club. I kept the UK fever alive by catching half of Dry the River's performance then I moved on to the synth-pop group, Gardens & Villa. One of my favorite performances of the day by far was Father John Misty, better known as Joshua Tillman, the previous drummer of Fleet Foxes. If you do not yet have his latest album, Fear Fun, download it immediately. I looped around to catch a few Metric songs for the second time, then got caught in the rain at Michael Kiwanuka, putting me under a tent that was right next to the Big Gigantic performance. The rain prevented me from catching much of Band of Skulls, which was a disappointment, but I did get there in time to hear their growly single, "The Devil Takes Care Of His Own." The rain finally cleared at this point and I traveled over to the Bud Light stage to catch The Roots. Much to my surprise, just when I thought I wasn't going to see this instrument twice in one month, they were showcasing a sousaphone player! I have to say all and all that this show was one of my top three performances of the weekend. They absolutely killed it. I am happy to say that I can now cross this band off my list of must-sees. Anyone who doubted this late 80s hip-hop fusion group, I'm here to tell you that they've still got it! I then moved on to Bassnectar, something I was reluctant to attend in the first place. And my opinion still stands; I really don't understand this dubstep DJ phenomenon. I respect it, but I don't understand it. Thankfully it wasn't long till the wildly talented Jack White took the stage, ripping it up with songs from his new solo album, Blunderbuss, as well as tunes from his White Stripes days. Here's a recap of Saturday night:
ACL Saturday Highlights
Post festival I ventured to the American Legion House for the Maxim after party featuring Bombay Bicycle Club and white girl rapper, Dev. BBC was great, again, but Dev... Hmmm... Have I mentioned that I HATE white rappers? She was awful. I'll leave it at that.
Sunday was actually the lineup I was looking most forward to, but unfortunately homework and errands did not allow me to enjoy as much of it as I would have liked. I arrived at Zilker around 2:30pm and headed straight to see three-piece folk rock band The Devil Makes Three. I grew up playing the standup bass so Lucia Turino is a little bit of a musical hero to me. After their performance I went to see Polica again and was pleasantly surprised to hear new material during their ACL set, as they only played songs from their debut album Friday night. I left Polica early to get a front row spot for indie alternative supergroup, Bad Books, which is comprised of Brooklyn based solo artist Kevin Devine and members from Manchester Orchestra. They had just released their second album, II, days earlier so I was totally stoked to hear the new material live. Almost tied with The Roots, that was one of my top shows of the weekend. I traveled over to see Irish indie pop-rockers Two Door Cinema Club then caught a few songs off of The Lumineers set before calling it a day. Recapping of Sunday:
ACL Sunday Highlights
I have to say there were several acts that I was very sad to have missed this weekend including Wild Belle, Florence + The Machine, Neil Young & Crazy Horse, The Boxer Rebellion, alt-J, Crystal Castles and most of all, Iggy & the Stooges. There's just not enough hours in the day! But overall my first ACL was definitely something to be remembered and I look forward to attending next year as an experienced veteran.
Annie Clark, better known by her stage name St. Vincent, is one of my all-time favorite modern musicians. Her three full-length albums Marry Me, Actor and Strange Mercy are haunting journeys through a multi-instrumental, multi-dimensional voiced world. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Talking Heads are unarguably one of the raddest bands of their generation thanks to Byrne's avant-garde lead. When I first heard Clark and Byrne's single "Who" off their collaboration album Love This Giant, I immediately fell in head over heels. Their heavy use of horn instruments throughout this album is refreshing and highly appealing to the ear. Despite harsh criticism of the ever-pretentious Pitchfork (they rated it a 5.9), this album brought two progressive artists from two different generations together to create something exciting and different.
Pitchfork Love This Giant Album Review
It was my first time to Bass Concert Hall which was an experience in itself. It is a nearly 3,000 capacity theater-style venue on University of Texas campus; I had a bird's-eye-view from one of the balcony wings. It didn't seem like there was a bad seat and the house and the sound was impeccable. Byrne and St. Vincent opened with their single "Who," then progressed through several more of their shared tracks including my personal favorite, "I Am An Ape," which toe-tappingly tells the story of evolution.
While the roughly two hour show covered Love This Giant in its entirety, songs from the two artists' own musical endeavors were also showcased. Most notable were Talking Heads "This Must Be The Place" and St. Vincent's "Marrow".
Although Clark and Byrne were entertaining in their own right, their family of horn and woodwind instruments backing them put on a performance all their own. Boasting a saxophone, French horn, tenor sax, sousaphone, in addition to two trumpets and two trombones, the band itself stole part of the show. They and the two vocalists shared synchronized dances that were both witty and impressive.
New York Times Recap of Love This Giant's Horn Arrangers/Performers
The show truly ended on a high note, surprising the audience with not one but two encores. First wrapping up with St. Vincent's single "Cheerleader" off Strange Mercy then going out with a bang by Talking Heads "Burning Down the House." All attendees were in full swing dance mode for the closing number; it truly was an amazing musical moment. If only they'd added, "Once In A Lifetime" to that set list....
David Byrne & St. Vincent - "Burning Down the House"
