• Heavy Cream by Leigh Metzler

• Odd Future by Suzi Pratt

• Atari Teenage Riot by Mat Hayward

• Bumbershoot by Mat Hayward

• Pentagram by Mat Hayward

• Pentagram by Mat Hayward

• Devo by Leigh Metzler

• Peelander-Z by Shahab Zargari

• Yeasayer by Dave MacIntyre

• Amon Tobin\'s ISAM Live by Heather Schofner

• Monotonix by Chad Elder

• Title Fight by Chad Elder

• Occupy Wall Street by Jammi York

• Lily Verlaine Burlesque by Mat Hayward

• The Kills by Cayte Nobles

• Matt and Kim by Suzi Pratt

• Lemuria by Diana Guay

• Dum Dum Girls by Leigh Metzler

• The Joy Formidable by Cayte Nobles

• Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros by Kevin Rafter

• New York Food Film Fest by Ryan Howell

• Primus by Kris Arnold

• Rage Against the Machine by Suzi Pratt

• The Sounds by Cayte Nobles

• Queens of the Stone Age by Cayte Nobles

• Secret Chiefs 3 by Kris Arnold

• Sick of It All by Peter Borghard

• Tamaryn by Timothy McLaughlin

• The Tubes by Mat Hayward

• Dropkick Murphys by Mat Hayward

• The Devil Wears Prada by Elizabeth McClay

• Mirah by Heather Schofner

• The Jukebox Romantics by Peter Borghard

• Wild Flag by Cayte Nobles

• Yelle by Mat Hayward

Check out some of the amazing photography we’ve featured this year! Impressive, to say the least.

Like fellow electro-nerds Hot Chip, respect is due to Junior Boys for their obsessive production skills and ability to tinker with their own sound to produce something fresh. Problem is, for the first time in their careers, their sound is starting to wear a bit. “You’ll Improve Me” and “Second Chance” are indistinguishable as being from this album and not the last two, and “A Truly Happy Ending” employs the same backing synthesizer roll used in the Gorillaz “Stylo.” It’s little things like that which take away from the wildly original and inventive sound that they have otherwise cultivated and disappoint and detract from an album that is nearly as solid as anything they’ve done. Where they really succeed is on slow jams like “Playtime” and “The Reservoir,” where they are more inventive and poignant, showing us they’ve still got it instead of just telling us.

Despite all that, album closer “Banana Ripple” is the most fun, danceable song they’ve ever made. Coming in at just over nine minutes, the song builds on a steady groove until the end where Greenspan croons, “No you’ll never, no you’ll never see me go,” over and over until a long, quiet fade-out. It’s refreshing to see this band continue to do new things (despite the album being a little unbalanced) and it left me wanting more. If you’re a fan of the genre, definitely give this one a spin.

(Domino Recording Company, PO Box 47029, London UK   SW18 1WD)

• The Kills

• The Kills

• The Kills

• The Kills

• The Kills

• The Kills

• The Kills

• The Kills

• The Kills

• Cold Cave

• Cold Cave

• The Entrance Band

• The Entrance Band

Going into this show, I was prepared to see lots of black t-shirts and amazing hipster hairdos. Not that that is out of the norm at any show in Nashville, but considering the bands we were to behold, you knew the quota would be high.

The Entrance Band warmed us all up with their blues-influenced psych-rock. A perfect package in my mind: a female bass player who could hold a groove, a guitar/vocalist who pulled the audience through a variety of moods, and a drummer who never distracted or showed off. It was right.

Cold Cave was up next. The crowd had started to grow as we were all packing in for a sold-out show. People had driven in from surrounding states, and you could feel the excitement that the road-trippers had brought with them. I couldn’t tell you how many people I met from Atlanta, who, the next night, would be seeing the same performers again, in their hometown.

The stage lights illuminated came on just enough to see the silhouettes of the guys in Cold Cave as they entered the stage. The sound of deep, whirling synths filled the venue, and the band dived right into an energetic set. Everything you loved about New Wave bands of the ’80s has been reincarnated, and it was being projected toward us. As a bit of a music geek, I must admit to being impressed with how well the live drums sounded. There is a reason many bands use electronic drums — making live drums work with synths is freaking hard. Cold Cave nailed it.

Finally, the moment everyone was waiting for had arrived. With sass and huge hair, VV walked on stage, and with the flick of her wrist we were all hers. She and Hotel create raucous noise, deliver it in dramatic fashion. Even if you didn’t like The Kills you’d feel special if one of them made eye contact with you. Music was their gift and they were giving it to you.

As reported by Spinner, the Queens of the Stone Age front man will be appearing on track, “All My Own Stunts,” performing back-up vocals. The album will drop on June 6th via Domino Records with distribution by Warner Bros.

• Queens of the Stone Age

• Queens of the Stone Age

• Queens of the Stone Age

• Queens of the Stone Age

• Queens of the Stone Age

• Queens of the Stone Age

• Queens of the Stone Age

• Queens of the Stone Age

Honestly, this show didn’t grab me with the strength I expected. Not at first. It picked me up a few songs in and gave me a swift kick to the balls thereafter, but when the set started I was underwhelmed. Being less familiar with their early records certainly had something to do with that. Unaware till the day of the show, they would be featuring their self-titled record. I am typically the sort of listener who prefers to know the music I’m watching beforehand. So, for the first six or so songs I was a bit ambivalent. And looking around, it was hard to tell if I was in a crowd of “ambivalents” or if everyone else was just soaking it all in. For all of the tattoos, long hair, ripped clothes, and metal band t-shirts, I was expecting to see devil horn fists and maybe a fight or something. But it actually took the first few notes of “Regular John” just to get the crowd on its feet.

Don’t get me wrong — Queens of the Stone Age came out with a sound as forceful and mean as anything I’ve ever heard. Josh Homme really is as huge as they say, and he reminds me of the original Highlander’s arch nemesis, The Kurgan (nerd alert, I know). Maybe I was expecting some kind of stage glamor or setup or lights or… something. Or, perhaps the Bright Eyes show three days prior had lulled me into a pop showcase mind-frame — one that was expecting video walls, huge production, stage props, and 10 or more players. But… it was just them. Just five musicians, their instruments, some white can lights, and a lot of sound. Thick, heavy, dark sound. The sort of raw sound that eats pop showcase mind-frames like mine for lunch.

But all of this began to grow on me. The simplicity of the staging, the lack of glitzy lighting, the rare instrument changes, and the sheer power of the music. I can’t say I will ever appreciate the bizarre, uncomfortable, swagger-wobble that is standard stage groove for Josh Homme, but everything else grew on me. I’d been alerted a few days before the show to keep my eyes on the drummer, Joey Castillo, not just for his tremendous heavy hitting, skin-abusing style, but also for the intense tightness he offers the group. Even as a longtime guitarist I’ve always had a special place in my heart for good drummers. Especially those who can keep rock n’ roll simple but hard-hitting. Joey delivered on every level. As the show progressed I became more amazed at how he could make so much happen with so little.

Like the rest of the band, Joey’s set-up was fairly straightforward, and he made it sound bigger than the church whose pews we filled. When the Queens settled into some of the songs that feature crazy time and speed changes, I really started to perk up. And as the show came closer to close, and some more familiar songs surfaced, including “No One Knows” and “Go with the Flow,” I couldn’t help but wonder how Joey could be keeping up with this pace. Please pardon my sense of “drummer’s awe” there.

But it was also at this point that I happened to look up and around and see that the crowd really was into this. A little less so on the floor, but up in the balcony there were dudes nearly falling over the railing trying to give the perpetual emphatic finger point that says, “You’re the best, man!”

Return To The Ugly Side is the follow up to last year’s debut Ugly Side Of Love. Whilst maintaining their chopped up sound — a unique combination of ’60s pop-psych and hip-hop with a Bristolian twist – Return To The Ugly Side sees a more cohesive, grown up Malachai in all their fervent duality.

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Click here to download "Rainbows" by Malachai

• Ariel Pink\'s Haunted Graffiti

• Ariel Pink\'s Haunted Graffiti

• Best Coast

• Big Freedia

• Big Freedia

• Deerhunter

• Delorean

• Devin The Dude

• Dirty Projectors

• Os Mutantes

• Slick Rick

• Weird Al Yankovic

Amongst the commercialized Lollapalooza and the inflated Coachella, we need smaller, secluded festivals to keep us all grounded. Fun Fun Fun Fest gives Austin a more intimate, personalized, and risk-taking lineup in counterpart of Austin City Limits, featuring some of pop culture’s most surreal un-conventionalists like Yankovic, Gwar, and Suicidal Tendencies. Even the prime headliners MGMT, Bad Religion, Mastodon and Descendents (filling in for Devo) are not exactly main stage fodder, and beckon to a crowd that might not appreciate seeing a band on a “Budweiser” or “Toyota” stage. Fun Fun Fun is fighting the good fight — more promotors should pay attention to what they’re doing.

Who would’ve thought that in 2010, 27 years after he put out his first record, someone as willingly silly as “Weird Al” Yankovic could both curate and kick off a festival filled with some of the biggest names in indie rock? Al has spent his entire career teetering on the balance of the good graces of the pop culture public, but while Carrot Top and Sinbad fell to laughable (and completely justified) ends, something about Yankovic’s pure, undiluted likability has allowed him to prevail. He’s still touring, he’s a regular guest on “Comedy Death Ray,” and, most importantly, he’s still funny.

His performance was more or less the same basic incarnation I saw back in 2003 (coincidentally, my first ever rock show), but the mechanics have been updated. He opened with a bleeding-edge polka, stuffed full of 2010 chart-crashers: Bieber, Ke$ha and Gaga. But that sat right alongside near-ubiquitous *ahem* “hits” like “Dare to be Stupid” and “Smells Like Nirvana.” Naturally, this was all paired with a constant costume shuffle, de-contextualized apropos-of-nothing video clips, and your brief onstage sketches.

Surprisingly, some of this stuff hasn’t changed since 2003. The Eminem faux-interview he aired was the same exact one I remember my 12-year-old self laughing at, same with the draconian, period-accurate germ PSA. But it was all funny the second time around, and his setlist has been frontloaded with Billboard-identifiable rips. But that’s all semantics really — the crowd would’ve been smitten with whatever Yankovic dished up; his personality occupies such a specific spot in pop-ubiquity that he’s become a sort-of godhead. We live in a world where Weird Al can never risk self-parody, irrelevance, or disdain. That’s a good world to live in.

Devin the Dude: he likes his weed, that’s not a secret to anyone, and it occasionally got a little silly hearing the dressed-down street-rap hero offhandedly mention getting high every chance he could, but if Devin was ever going to escape that typecast and dominate a bill he wasn’t headlining, Fun Fun Fun Fest is certainly that show. The glassy-eyed demeanor and languished beats simply isn’t designed to fill an audience, but when the crowd has utterly immortalized the man’s underground mythos it doesn’t really matter. For at least this one afternoon in Austin, Devin the Dude was an utter star — lyrics were tossed back and forth, call-outs were graciously reciprocated, hands were thrown in the air like they just didn’t care, etc. Fun Fun Fun Fest is a celebration of left field goofballs who never took the world at large, and that’s the perfect spot for someone as prolific and hidden as Devin the Dude.

If there was anything that could’ve stymied, and sucked out all the good-hearted energy an underdog like Devin cued up on blue stage it was Slick Rick: former star, current legend, and a hell of a disappointment on stage. The svelte, well-dressed figure you remember is long gone; today, Slick Rick is a hulking, over-blinged, and overweight shell of his former greatness. Mic to his mouth, feet planted, he exhaustingly plodded through the entirety of The Great Adventures without even a modicum of intensity. It was literally the most disengaged performance of the weekend — blame it on age, or hubris, nothing remedies blatant sluggishness. If you can’t control a stage anymore, that’s fine, that’s what a hypeman is for, but Slick didn’t even the courtesy for that — just an absent-minded DJ and a checked-out disposition, amounting into what was probably the lowest point of the weekend.

Os Mutantes, on the other hand — a band whose very career almost exceeds Slick Rick’s 45 years — have aged very well since their 2006 reunion. Their legacy is well-engraved now: they exploded in their native Brazil, got cursory and cultish time-defying respect in the United States, eventually imploded in the mid-1970s due to acid-frazzled nerves and creative differences…but Sérgio Dias and company are looking happy, healthy, and incredibly excited to be playing for studious hipsters 30 years their junior. The music hasn’t changed, rainbow streaks of tropical glitz, but the Os Mutantes sound still stands solitarily unique in the canon of pop. Bad Religion, The Vandals, and Descendents — they couldn’t help but sound retro, while the oldest group of the weekend came off immediately current. Not many bands could pull that off.

I wasn’t sure who Big Freedia was before Friday — the wiki-proof MC more or less evaded me in the days before the fest, but I did know I liked how her press-bio described her as “New Orleans bounce-rap.” What I saw was a gargantuan, near-Amazonian transgendered titan of a woman who plays hyper-sexualized, semi-sarcastic crunk-attacks that completely bypass the brain and shudder right down to the hips. This was not a work-safe environment; in fact, it was the sweatiest, grossest, but still kinda enthralling moment all weekend. By the time she got to “Azz Everywhere,” the pretenses that were already lowered were cast aside entirely — because losing your shit is a lot more fun than judging others in the process of losing their shit.

How great must it feel to be Delorean? Trading in noisy punk for druggy club-rave is an odd and uneasy transition, but to come out the other end with a nighttime slot and a huge showing of American kids singing along? That must feel amazingly rewarding. They deserve all the love, too — Delorean adopted a nothing-but-bangers policy, churning through the biggest crests in electro-pop from both their 2009 teaser Ayrton Senna EP and this year’s hype-delivered Subzia. Basked in throbbing neon lights, songs like “Seasun,” “Real Love,” and “Stay Close” sound just as good as you can picture them. Delorean owe America a full tour, and judged by how they essentially managed to incite a riot with every song they played, they won’t have too much trouble winning us over more than they already have.

For whatever reason, I’ve managed to miss Dirty Projectors at the gaggle of festivals they’ve toured over the past year. Other acts — Fuck Buttons at Lollapalooza, The xx at Coachella — always stole my attention away. So this was the first time I saw Dave Longstreth perform with a band. Dirty Projectors have certainly evolved since their most avant-garde era (and now resemble a “band” more than ever before) — now all the boys and girls can sing along to Bitte Orca. During the jaw-dropping chorus of “Stillness is the Move,” Angel Deradoorian grabbed her microphone and pointed it at the audience, who shouted the incalculable notes right back at her — not something you’d expect out of the Projectors during The Getty Address days. Their performance was so taut, so chiseled, it’s almost as if the band has something to prove — if you ever doubted they could hit these notes, shape-shift their vocals, and ping-pong their verses on stage, well you ought to see them live. These are the most dedicated musicians playing today, and it’s utterly inspiring to see them together.

Of course, RJD2 is the guy who brings a bag full of vinyl to his show. Unlike pretty much every musical collagist these days, RJ Krohn is all analog — his setup included four turntables and a tuned-up drum machine. That’s it; not a laptop in sight. So that means when he cues up a classic like “Ghostwriter” it’s created from the same samples, and feasibly, the same records, which is a pretty cool thought. It wasn’t the most active or danceable set of the weekend, or even the day (that honor lies with Delorean) but RJ’s smoky, chilled-out psych-hop was a good way to end an active day of music listening.

It was clear that anyone who made it out to the Blue Stage at 4:50 despite stiff competition from Best Coast and The Bronx were going to be pretty big rapheads, especially to see such a scene-hero like Pharoahe Monch. The wayward rapper has put out a scarce two records in his career, a stark difference from the mixtape-monster mentality that every up-and-coming rapper subscribes to these days, but that didn’t really matter – Internal Affairs and Desire are both so dense with bangers, a 45-minute festival set turns into a slash-and-burn, profanity-laced rampage. Even the new songs he tried out from his perpetually-upcoming third album W.A.R. were greeted like old-school favorites. Few rappers have garnered so much love with so few songs.

If it wasn’t already clear on Crazy For You, most Best Coast songs sound pretty much the same. Bethany Cosentino finds her greatness by being easy to root for, and naturally, her sunset-backed performance was primarily highlighted by her bittersweet banter. “Just so you know, Bobb is super excited to see Mastodon tonight…but now he has to play in a fuckin’ girly pop band,” she said with a smile. The songs, well…they don’t exactly show well — Best Coast is something that works best with the sum of its parts all added up. They’d rather win your heart over the course of an album rather than during a set, but based on the amount of people singing along with deep-cuts like “Bratty B” and “Our Deal,” Bethany won’t have to worry about her status for quite some time.

And so, in 2010, Deerhunter are no longer forced to close their set with “Nothing Ever Happened.” That duty now lies with Halcyon Digest’s “Helicopter,” a song that exceeds everything else the band has done in terms of potency, humanism, and direct synapse-tugging impact. Like your average Deerhunter festival set, this was a vaguely passive-aggressive, somewhat indifferent attack of the band’s highlights, but those moments of uncomfortable irritation (Bradford giving some faceless crowd-member a quipping “shut up,” the band abandoning a sound-check with a “Fuck it, let’s just do it”) are all quickly forgettable when you consider just how great these songs are. Even at their most slack-jawed torpidity you can’t help but feel wrapped up in a specific guitar sound, or a lyrical snap. Even when they aren’t playing nice and mechanical, Deerhunter is better than nearly any other band going.

From the first piano clinks of “Constructive Summer,” it was all over. Craig Finn skipped across the stage like an enthused schizo, shouting quick-lipped cracks to the audience sans microphone, all with a huge grin on his face. This was the exact and logical opposite to Deerhunter, who played just one space down the bill. The Hold Steady couldn’t be any happier to be in a rock n’roll band. Say what you like about Heaven is Whenever, it doesn’t really make a qualitative difference when those songs are played with this much vigor. The songs were introduced with hammy couplets. which made it that much more fun. (“This song, well, this song is about a boy, a girl, and a horse,” before “Chips Ahoy.”) Truth is, we could barely hear Craig the entire night, thanks to an overpowered mix on the band’s labyrinth of guitar-amps. It didn’t really matter; we knew all the words anyway. The Hold Steady is exactly the band you want to be closing your festival, because regardless of what happened or who sucked earlier in the week, they’re genetically coded to restore faith in music.

An Introduction to… is intended as an introduction to one of the greatest songwriters of our era, providing providing a pathway for new listeners to delve more deeply into his immensely satisfying catalog.

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Click here to download "Thirteen" by Elliott Smith

So here on An Introduction to Elliott Smith – the first compilation of his work so far — the choices simply appeal on a by-preference basis. I definitely think there are some great songs missing: where are “Baby Britain,” “Southern Belle,” “Say Yes,” “Rose Parade,” “Pitseleh,” or “Independence Day”? If I was tasked with putting this compilation together, those would be the first tracks I placed on here. However, in absence of those, one can still find “Ballad of Big Nothing,” “Waltz #2,” “Angeles,” and “Needle in the Hay.” It’s also nice to see the inclusion of an early version of “Miss Misery,” though it honestly doesn’t seem to differ all that much from the previously released version.

With the album taking an “Introduction” approach — as opposed to “The Best of” — it is granted an interesting opportunity: it is free to include whichever songs it pleases. But, like a friend making you a mixtape, it is clearly one person’s opinion on how best to get into Elliott Smith. If I had started here, I don’t think I would have been as immediately taken with his work. But that’s just because I tend to favor different tracks. Regardless of that, I still love everything on here. The album plays as a beautiful tribute to the songwriting style of one of rock’s greatest musicians. If you’ve never heard Elliott Smith before, or simply know him for his additions to the Good Will Hunting and The Royal Tenenbaums’ soundtracks, this is a very good launching point. You’ll find the tracks you’ve heard and some others to start you on the journey. But I’d probably suggest just listening to XO or Either/Or.

For existing Elliott Smith fans, there’s nothing all the exciting to mine here, just a playlist of songs you already have and know. If nothing else, this compilation reminds us of the genius of Smith, showing that his songs have not lost any edge or punch. His lyrics still craft sadness that is painful and beautifully relatable. But it’s also a sad note, as this represents a conclusion — there aren’t any new albums coming. We now have to work with what we were given, but what we were given was a career of utter strength, where even the low notes were some of the most interesting and exciting bits of songwriting of this generation.

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Verbicide Free Download: Click here to download “Thirteen” by Elliott Smith

Verbicide Free Download: Click here to download “Between The Bars” by Elliott Smith

Verbicide Free Download: Click here to download “Twilight” by Elliott Smith

Verbicide Free Download: Click here to download “Cecilia/Amanda” by Elliott Smith