Can I Borrow Your Fire?: coachella

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Is your favorite indie band selling out?

Edward Droste, Daniel Rossen, Chris Taylor and Christopher Bear of Grizzly Bear

It's come to my attention as of late that one of my favorite so-called "indie" bands, Grizzly Bear, has been seen and heard frequently in several different un-Grizzly Bear-esque places which smell a lot like selling out. To name a few of said places... they recently composed a song just for a (somewhat trippy) Washington State lottery ad; "Two Weeks" played during the opening scene of last week's episode of Gossip Girl, and "Slow Life" was originally written for the soundtrack of Twilight: New Moon. It's always a bittersweet feeling when a somewhat lesser-known band you enjoy suddenly becomes widely known and begins selling their music to car commercials, angsty teen dramas and the like (cough cough.. Phoenix... Passion Pit... Vampire Weekend... cough..). Not sure whether to be proud of Grizzly Bear for "making it" or scorn them for giving in to The Man. I still dig their music though, and must add that they killed it at Coachella.

A link to the aforementioned lottery ad, just for kicks:

http://music-mix.ew.com/2010/04/26/grizzly-bear-lottery-ad/

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Coachella 2010 in pictures

I was lucky enough to attend the Coachella music festival in Indio, CA this year for the first time ever-- yes, I know, as a born-and-raised Angeleno, I'm a late bloomer. Though having been on the east coast for the past 4 years has put a bit of a damper on the springtime music festival front. Needless to say, it somehow worked out this year, and while I had an incredible time there; rather than give you a summary of the three glorious (actually, make that one stressful and ridiculous, two glorious...) days I spent in the desert listening to amazing music with even more amazing friends and no cell service, I thought I'd share a few of the photos I took, mainly of the sensational art objects and decorations at the festival(the ones I took of the bands are mostly blurry and unrecognizable). If you're really interested in a (rather harsh, in my opinion!) critique of each band, read this Pitchfork article:

http://pitchfork.com/features/articles/7795-coachella-2010/

Pavement's epic reunion was one of the most talked-about acts at Coachella, and they arguably had some of the best visual effects... I loved the string lighting, reminded me of the album artwork on Terror Twilight

the giant paper crane, which changed colors at night.. on Sunday it was rainbow!

the crowd in the Sahara tent on Saturday night, I believe during David Guetta's set

a seemingly never-ending trail of balloons in the sky...

..and the balloons at night (you can't see it here, or maybe they hadn't turned on yet, but each one had a tiny blue LED light attached to it, creating a glowing effect)