Results tagged “Big Ears” from Live Like This

There was a lot of talk at Big Ears in March about the festival as a kind of cultural outreach program for Knoxville--like, let's show these big-city cool kids what we've got. Well, whether Sufjan Stevens' appearance at Big Ears with the all-star indie chamber-pop ensemble Clogs had anything to do with it, or whether he would have come to Knoxville anyway, he'll be performing at the Bijou Theatre again on Nov. 5 as part of his just-announced North American tour this fall. 

Remember when Christian Fennesz, David Daniell (of San Agustin) and Tony Buck (of Australian improv supergroup the Necks) played together at Big Ears in 2009? I don't either--it was one of many shows I missed. But Thrill Jockey is releasing a recording of the set, titled Knoxville, in August.

Ben Ratliff writes about Big Ears in The New York Times. Some choice bits:

• "The producers displayed no pretension or hand-wringing -- no stated rubric of avant-gardism and no rhetoric about how it's our responsibility to support experimental composers as a cause. Instead the experience was more like a string of mind-blowing midnight movies."

• "Since last year I'd been looking forward to revisiting the Bijou, a perfectly configured 700-seat historic theater with balconies. ... But the 1,500-seat Tennessee Theater, a Moorish Revival movie house a few blocks from the Bijou and also recently renovated, was dreamier still: a palace as big as an ocean liner, where sound reveals itself naturally and precisely, in what Wallace Stevens called its "spontaneous particulars.""

• And a shot-out for locals Argentinum Astrum: "Minimalism, which is Mr. Riley's ballpark, can be expressed through many musical languages. After getting a headful of Ms. Newsom, I went to the Pilot Light, a tiny bar, to hear Argentinum Astrum, a fantastic doom-metal band from Knoxville. Repeated riffs so fat, loud, slow and heavy that the individual notes are nearly disconnected: what's more minimal than that? Nothing. Consider yourself informed."

Pitchfork delivered its report yesterday afternoon, describing the weekend as "a long weekend of paradise-- and again a still must-attend, if very different than before, music festival."

Over the weekend I went out armed with a digital recorder to talk to fans of Big Ears 2010. Here are a few thoughts from some of those concert-goers on what shows they saw, which they enjoyed most, and how they felt about this year's festival and its host city of Knoxville. 

SPIN magazine has a new photo gallery of its staffers picks for the Nine Best Moments of the Big Ears Festival.

Some good lines in the accompanying text: "A roomful of Tennessee teens singing along to a New York band's song about vacationing on effing Cape Cod bordered on the surreal," about Vampire Weekend. They stick to the Bijou and Tennessee theaters for each one except the last, which I can't possibly argue with. 

I'd been in pretty high gear for the majority of Friday and Saturday so it shouldn't have been too surprising I hit a wall early Sunday afternoon, but somehow the Big Ears folks even seemed to factor festival fatigue into the schedule: I heard more than a few people talk about how the third day of the festival was kind of an anticlimax (to be fair they said this before having seen The National, which I didn't see the end of but can only imagine that "climactic" would be fairly applied) but to me it seemed much more of a welcome cool-down. 

(Photos by Shawn Poynter)
Jens Hannemann, which I missed, was apparently funny. (Psst! it's really Fred Armisen from SNL!)

(Photos by Shawn Poynter)
Jens Hannemann, which I missed, was apparently funny. (Psst! it's really Fred Armisen from SNL!)

There's a weekend recap coming, but for now here's a round-up of what other people are saying about Big Ears:

• Brooklyn Vegan's reports

• The L.A. Times' Ann Powers on the xx

• The Wigsphere

• The News Sentinel's Randall Brown

• Knox Blab

• The Milk Carton

There should be more to come this week from the New York Times, Pitchfork, and Tiny Mix Tapes.

There's an emotional hangover that goes with the end of something as intense as Big Ears. I was exhausted yesterday, which was a mixed bag--most of the music, from Adrian Belew sitting in with George Middlebrooks and Jim Rivers' Ampient Cafe set at Old City Java a little after noon to the Books and Bang on a Can, was sedate stuff, made for settling into a cozy spot, but I also had a hard time staying awake through much of it.

In fact, I only saw about three hours of music yesterday--part of the Ampient set, half of the Books' show, the first movement of Music for Airports by Bang on a Can, part of the Shaking Ray Levis set with Shelley Hirsch, Ben Frost and Tim Hecker, and half of the Calder Quartet's set at the Bijou.

I just didn't have it in me--Saturday was such a long and energetic day, almost nonstop from noon to 4 a.m., with most of the weekend's highlights. And there were a lot--I made some tough decisions, and there are shows I wish I had seen, but I don't regret seeing anything I did catch.

I was glad to have a slower day after that, but I was also glad to be on my couch watching Celebrity Apprentice while the National were playing. They certainly didn't miss me, anyway, judging by the crowd lined up outside the Tennessee Theatre two hours before they started.

Saturday took it's toll on me, walking back and forth from venue to venue, sitting in crowded theatres all day long. But still - worth it.
Here are some noteworthy shots by photographer extraordinaire Shawn Poynter.

DJ /rupture at the TN Theatre. He later tweeted he was kicked out of the Joanna Newsom show for TALKING.

My somewhat frenzied sampling of Saturday night's offerings turned up some interesting contrasts on the rhythmic side of things:

Day Two highlighted what I'd put forth as the only relevant problem with Big Ears booking such high-profile indie rock acts: the stretch of the day from the Dirty Projectors' show up through Clogs, Vampire Weekend and Joanna Newsom -- each of them at either the Tennessee or Bijou theatres -- left the Old City's Big Ears Annex borderline empty despite the venue having already hosted a few of the festival's sleeper hits. I'm still kicking myself for missing Iva Bittova & Liturgy in the early afternoon (though I caught up with Liturgy later at the Pilot Light, and was pretty blown away by their brooootality, and the only black metal shrieker whose voice I'll ever call "lilting") but I was part of undeservedly anemic audiences for Asheville spazz-mathers Ahleuchatistas, DJ /rupture's collaboration with The Ex's Andy Moor, local post-hardcore stalwarts New Brutalism, and, in what may have been the day's highlight, the three nutzoid codgers from Konk Pack, who dicked around agitatedly with an ancient synthesizer, a drum kit and an effects-drenched lap steel guitar in what seemed at first to be just indulgent noise but turned sneakily into an intense post-rock clamor. (Konk Pack will be playing again Sunday evening at the Annex starting at 8pm.)

The rain actually seems appropriate this morning, even if it is coming down way harder than it needs to to set a somber, elegiac mood. Yesterday just kept ratcheting up to the buzzsaw blur of Liturgy and Gang Gang Dance's slinky, ritualistic dance party, and today feels like it should be spent with some quieter music.

I took a short break after Dirty Projectors, then headed back to the Old City for Konk Pack. The improv trio--a Frankenstein monster keyboard, drums, and a weird inside-out elctric guitar, laid out on a tabletop like a lap steel--started slow, and the group's free playing takes some orientation, but a third of the way in it started to click. By the end it was a beautiful swirl of noise, playful, just this side of chaotic, and a thrilling example of what Big Ears still offers besides marquee indie rock.

At this point I'd decided that the Big Ears Annex had been fruitful enough that I was just going to stay in the Old City. I skipped some potentially rewarding, even lifetime-enriching-type shows--Terry Riley's pipe organ concert, William Basinski and Ben Frost, Bang on a Can and Riley at the Tennessee, throw in Joanna Newsom if you want to--for Pilot Light's metal lineup. Warband's retro thrash sounded tighter than it did the last time I saw them (and it's fun to pick out the band's obvious influences--I spotted riffs straight from Metallica's "Whiplash," "Seek and Destroy," and "For Whom the Bell Tolls," as well as a double-time coda copped from Iron Maiden's "Hallowed Be Thy Name"). Argentinum Astrum has added substantial black metal influence to their doom/sludge, presumably since the arrival of new bassist Emily Robinson, formerly of Tenderhooks. An interesting departure, but I think I preferred the old Burning Witch style more. Something to watch.

Warband and A.A. brought in lots of people for Liturgy's second show of the day. The band just kills--great songs, tight as a drum, and the sight of cherubic-looking singer/guitarist Hunter Hunt-Hendrix shrieking his lungs out is something else. I really do appreciate that Big Ears recognizes the genuine artistic merit of metal.

 

Some photos from Andrew WK's motivational speech, which was essentially, and I quote from him directly, "Trick yourself into being happy!"
Photos by Shawn Poynter.

Not sure how to start so here it is: it's all about the Ex. I'm a touch embarrassed to admit they're one of those bands I've always known by reputation alone, but that's because no one apparently thought to tell me that they're nearly everything I love from the last 35 years of underground music (from Gang Of Four to Unwound) all rolled up into one band. I knew my shins would be hurting from walking after Big Ears' first night (and whoooooboy do they ever) but I didn't expect that my collarbone would be hurting from uncontrollable headbanging. Kudos to Ex openers Buke & Gass too, who come across with an alarmingly full post-punk sound for a duo consisting only of a baritone ukelele and "gass" (part guitar, part bass, all cop) plus a kick drum and a tambourine boot.

The night was marred by an equally unexpected disappointment, though: Swedish Quaalude-calypso duo jj's set at the Bijou captivated some but seemed to leave many more cold, as the "mysterious" group's singer stood center stage sipping on a beer and singing karaoke to full backing tracks while largely anonymous video footage played above her. (Her partner in crime hung back in the shadows for the most part; I am going to be charitable and assume he was at least the one pressing Play before each track. At one point he came out and seemed to be playing guitar along with one track, but the guitar coming over the speakers didn't seem to mind when he took the occasional breather from bothering to mime strumming.) The advantage, of course, is that the breezy, foggy pop itself came across just like it does on the record, and no one will deny the singer is tremendously talented. But after watching opener Nosaj Thing tear the room apart as just one dude standing at a bank of electronics -- think an ultra-crunk Four Tet -- the undeniable laziness of jj's show was hard to swallow. And it didn't help that headliners the xx (in a faithful, if slightly bloodless, runthrough of their stellar self-titled LP) put on what should pretty easily be the "spectacle" show of the entire fest, treating a packed-to-the-gills Bijou to one of the most impressive light shows I've ever seen.

One other minor disappointment: the Big Ears folks seem to have gone out of their way to program serious party music late at night, and I had hoped to see a lot of people shaking that ass @ DJ /rupture's set in the wee hours of the morning; though he certainly had the crowd captivated, the mood was much more head-bobbing than rug-cutting. (OK, there were a few dudes awkwardly dancing their little hearts out.) Hopefully Saturday's Javelin / Gang Gang Dance show will fare better...if people can figure out how to pace themselves all day. (Myself very much included.)

(sorry this is posting so late, been having trouble with el blog)

Today's been great so far--Bang on a Can All-Stars, followed by Iva Bittova and Liturgy at the Annex and Dirty Projectors at the Tennessee Theatre.

Iva Bittova's a stunning performer--not entirely pleasant, but you dn't really want her to stop, either. She mixes classical violin training with Eastern European and Romani folk music and has a voice of unbelievable range. It's dramatic, virtuosic, unexpected, utterly brilliant.

The Brooklyn black metal band Liturgy somehow made perfect sense right after--they played most of their 2009 album Renihilation and one new song, totally loud as shit. They play an arty take on traditional BM, incorporating the foundational elements--blast beats, tremolo riffing, and shrieked vocals--with none of the theatrical stuff. Smart (they have a manifesto on "transcendental black metal" for sale), efficient (especially drummer Greg Fox--even his blast beats were all in the wrist and feet; he barely moved his arms above the elbow), imaginative. Black metal may seem an odd fit for Big Ears, but if you think that it's only because you haven't heard them. (They played at the Birdhouse last fall to about 30 people, and there were only about half that at the Annex. Liturgy plays again tonight at Pilot Light,supported by local thrasher Warband and local doom metal trudgers Argentinum Astrum.)

Dirty Projectors sounded great. Dave Longstreth is a weird guitarist, but everything worked great--the Tennessee was full, but it might have been just a bit big for the band. A mix of new and old songs, a quiet rendition of "Two Doves," and (okay, I left early) probably "Stillness Is the Move" at the end. A great band, idiosyncratic and smart with weird chops, but a little distant in the big room. A good argument that the best of Big Ears is in the small venues.

I must tear myself away from the Dirty Projectors at the Tennessee Theatre to post some of the shots we've received from Shawn Poynter before it's too late:

Potentate of Big Ears this year is Terry Riley.

Day two got off to a nice start with Bang on a Can All-Stars at the Square Room--the five-piece set-up includes cello, bass violin, clarinet, electric guitar, and Ches Smith on drums and percussion. They're an expertly paced, tightly controlled ensemble, and closed with a few pieces by Dirty Projectors' Dave Longstreth. One was melancholy chamber music, the other energetic pop--the variety showed off BOAC's range. A good turnout, too--similar acts at the same venue last year drew much smaller audiences.

It's a beautiful day outside, and lots of good music ahead.

I took a lot of notes during the Terry Riley Quartet's concert at the Bijou. It was a weird set--a couple of original Riley compositions, a rearrangement of an Indian raga, and a composition by Riley's son Gyan. Ches Smith, drummer to the avant-stars, is indeed a fabulous percussionist, and he kept some interesting rhythms up the whole time. Mostly, though, I felt like there were a lot of really complicated musical ideas at work that were beyond me.

From there, the Ex at the Big Ears Annex. Anybody else has a hard act to follow--the Dutch post-punk four-piece was loud and ferocious, three guitars (one tuned to almost a bass) and drums, relatively simple songs, just riffs building and building, just a monstrous rock show.

I've just about decided to skip the rock shows at the Bijou and Tennessee in favor of smaller shows, so no xx for me. (I did have dinner at the Nite Owl at a table next to the National.) Andrew W.K.'s set with the Calder Quartet tried my patience--I gave up after an hour, even though the AWK hits were coming soon. His anti-comedy act was pretty unentertaining, and as good as the Calder Quartet is, they were drowned out by the crowd, which was made up largely of teenagers there to see AWK.

So, some disappointments of varying degrees bookended one nearly perfect set.

Andrew W.K.'s set with the