NMScene

in all its mp3 glory.

bad ass. via

Normally i detest marching bands, but this one was nerdy enough to quiet the rage inside me when i hear annoying trumpets playing crap in unison. skip to 3:10 to get the best bits.

I gotta say, The Stove continually puts it down properly when it does shows here in ABQ. Saturday may 3rd’s show was no exception. The night was the CD release for local ambient/noise master Alan George Ledergerber, and it went off. I arrived a bit late, missing one band, and stepping in in the middle of Alchemical Burn’s set, the one man wall of noise known as Ken Cornell. Ken dropped a unique mix of ambience and heavy noise and percussion that dragged you back and forth between the calm and the storm. Raven Chacon ripped ears off with his barely audible to BLASTING in your face power noise backed up with strobe lights linked to the outcoming sounds, even running into the audience at one point to hand an amplifier to one bewildered attendee. Good times.

I unfortunately don’t know who the next band was - all I do know is they were awesome, comprised of a female organist and two guys on guitar and backing her up on organ, with a drum machine providing rhythms. The whole set had that sort of epic, half saddening, half incredibly energizing sound. They blasted their sounds thru a stack of Peavey amplifiers, building from one rhythm to ten, with organ, two guitars and drums blasting out in harmony. Truly enjoyable.

Finally, AGL took the stage. Alan is known for being a bit raucous on stage; throwing his shoes into the crowd, breaking things; but as he goes along, his sound is always growing, and he’s not just the crazy guy with a broken guitar and some noise. This was Alan’s best set I’ve ever seen; he looped an electric guitar thru a multitude of feedback looped guitar effect pedals, playing notes here and there and then setting the guitar down to tweak knobs - and making sounds you never thought could happen with all of this. Everything from bells reminiscent of Pink Floyd intros to pounding bass drums were coming out of one guitar and it’s stomp-box friends. I am always blown away at what Alan does with such minimal gear - and this wasn’t just noise. There was a certain calm here, blown into smithereens every once in awhile by a pop of noise or Alan ripping a pedal out of the signal chain and tossing it down on the floor. By the end he was down to only a few, and in the middle of an ambient interlude, simply yanked a cable and was done. All we could do was clap - there’s nothing more you can do when you hear something this phenomenal.

As always, the Stove was packed to the gills, with people of all walks of life straining to see what was going on in the many corners of this awesome art space cum music venue. Be on the lookout for music from all of these acts, and for the Stove. This is the music you need to hear, especially if you’re tired of the same old same old that’s infiltrating our ears every day.

Pendulum playing Voodoo People and Blood Sugar live

Aphex Twin

The Verve

Spank Rock

Midnight Juggernauts

The coachella valley which includes neighboring Indio, and Palm Springs lies just east of Los Angeles on the edge of the Mojave Desert. It’s about 800 miles or so from Albuquerque, and takes one good long ten hour drive through Arizona and the southern Mojave desert. It’s long, its boring, and the highlight is getting to eat a breakfast samich in Kingman AZ.

Once you get to Indio you have to drive through town around five miles to make it to the venue, which is held on a massive series of polo fields about a mile square. Although the overall attendance was lower than it has been in the past, the 80-90,000 people who did show up isnt something to scoff at. Luckily the crowds were moved through quickly.

The camping situation kind of pissed me off just a bit. the website said you would get 8 square feet per person, which is small, and barely fit the smallest 3 man tent i could find at wal mart for 30 bucks for the trip. the people in charge of the camping ground decided to downsize the area to 7 square feet per person, then invoked the scary fire marshal as the nameless authority who would come and kick us out if we didn’t squish together as tight as possible. my tent was literally up against another camps tent. it was pretty lame, but i do confess that i liked being on the grounds a hell of a lot more than driving in and out every day.

Entry into the fields is through a very long entry way that first checks you for booze and weapons and then hustles you by a massive line of lockers and merchants selling trendy crap. finally you go through a big gate that is situated in a way that obscures the rest of the venue.

One thing that i did appreciate was the fact that some decent art was brought into the venue that most people just wouldn’t see otherwise. Being a burner, i’ve seen most of the pieces here before. The main swirly shade structure is, to me at least, a massive rip off of the “Belgian waffle” from burning man 06. It was cool enough, though, and people seemed to like it, so i wont rip it too much.

Of course the Steampunk Treehouse, a big hit at last years burning man was in attendance, and it was really good to see it assembled, especially after seeing it in parts during the BoingBoing interview with its builders a few months back in San Fransisco.

The first thing i was attracted to was The Do Lab’s venue, which to me was the heart of Coachella this year, and where i spent the majority of my time either cooling off or dancing. While Portishead and Pendulum were bad ass to hear live, the real cutting edge music was coming out of this area.

A modern day vaudeville/circus style performance act, Lucent Dosier was one of the big draws for me to come back. Having just sucked me in during the 2006 Coachella, they definitely upgraded the experience incorporating a water theme that went perfectly with the event.

I’m not sure who this is who was dancing but she rocked the shit out of this costume she was wearing. Both beautiful and a great dancer, she was the best of the water goddesses.

After hosing down the crowd they performed a live dance act.

Wanting to check out some of the acts i knew nothing about I wandered over to one of the three covered stages, the Gobi, where Cut Copy was performing. Unfortunately i didn’t realize they were a *very* whiny emo act. I skipped out after two songs. they had a large crowd but they were defiantly not my thing.

Some more interactive art

At this point i wandered in between several of the stages. I caught some of the Breeders, who were good but it was obvious to me that they were off their prime. Although the lead singer and band were doing well, and rocked, they lacked that youthful enthusiasm i remember they had about ten years back. I also was able to catch some of Vampire Weekend and Tegan and Sara. I didn’t like vampire weekend all that much, and was disappointed in Tegan and Sara- the two songs i heard from them rocked, but they spent more time talking and discussing things than actually playing. I eventually got bored and went back to the Do Lab venue to dance.

The sun started to set and I was pretty tired at this point. I had worked 8 hours, and slept 4 hours and somehow was in my car for 25 hours, then managed to set up camp and wander coachella all day. I hit it pretty hard but had a lot more to do.

The big rig jig is another piece that was born at burning man, just this last year. it was good to see it out again.

All of the acts i wanted to see were playing at the Sahara tent, which was at the far end of the field, was the largest of the covered stages and had most if not all of the electronic acts for the weekend in it. Diplo was spinning, and even though i didn’t really feel like it he played a really good set and i ended up dancing for most of it.

Nest up was Aphex Twin, who was announced late. I was expecting some hard, crazy set from him, but was *extremely* blown away by his set. To say it was amazing was understating it. I’ve heard a hell of a lot of drum n bass in the last few years, and straight up this was one of, if not the best, I’ve ever heard. It started out slow, which confused me at first.. was this really aphex twin? did i fuck up, was this diplo? The momentum kept building. He just sat there behind his equipment, building the momentum, the beat, the tension. At some point people dressed as a cow, a monkey, a donkey, and i think a rabbit got on stage and begun to dance. It went from downtempo to hard, insane drum n bass, and finished with one of his crazed, mind altering tracks. Its been a hell of a long time since a dj has fucked with me like that. I cant say enough how much i enjoyed it. And the crowd did to. The tent went nuts for it.

Taking abreak i wandered outside to cool off. I was exhausted at this point, barley maintaining. The view back towards the rest of the madness was a sight.

For me the peak of the night was Pendulum, and i was wondering, how in the hell do you follow up the perfect drum n bass set if your a group that does drum n bass? You pull out a full band, and play your shit live. I was blown away when i saw them come up there and play everything with a keyboard, drums, and bass guitar. It was madness at this point. I was near done. i wandered towards the back to try to stay through the entire set. I felt bad for the lead singer, although he pumped the crowd in an insane way, it cost him his voice, which went out as he sang “hold your color.” Good thing for him, though, that was about it for their set, and for me, also. Although it would have been cool to stay for Fatboy Slim, whom everyone said played a really good set, i had had enough I was just too tired at this point to continue on, ten hours of partying in the sun and another 20 of driving was my limit. I wandered back to my sad little camp and passed the fuck out. More about day 2 tomorrow.

I’ve got a ton of pics and short videos i was able to take from the concert. It was, im happy to say, probably the best time i’ve had at an event like this. there were few problems and most of the acts i saw were either better than i expected or did some damn awesome unexpected shit.

First things first; a mp3 of Portishead’s complete set, probably taken from the live webcast. the only disapointing thing was that Portishead was forced to cut five songs from their set due to prince being added to the lineup.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/l9eqdb

MP3s:
Portishead - Silence (Live @ Coachella 2008)
Portishead - Mysterons (Live @ Coachella 2008)
Portishead - The Rip (Live @ Coachella 2008)
Portishead - Glory Box (Live @ Coachella 2008)
Portishead - Wandering Star (Live @ Coachella 2008)
Portishead - Machine Gun (Live @ Coachella 2008)
Portishead - Over (Live @ Coachella 2008)
Portishead - Sour Times (Live @ Coachella 2008)
Portishead - Cowboys (Live @ Coachella 2008)
Portishead - Threads (Live @ Coachella 2008)
Portishead - Roads (Live @ Coachella 2008)
Portishead - We Carry On (Live @ Coachella 2008)