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As a wrap-up to Pitchfork Music Festival, held July 18-20 in Chicago, we've posted a photo slide show that takes a light-hearted look at the fashion of Pitchfork, a "hipster mecca" as well as one of the top indie music fests of the the summer.
For set reviews and more photos the bands that played, click here.
More after the jump.
(This man is comfortable with his sexuality.)
A friend sent along a link to all of the Craigslist missed connections from Pitchfork. (She found the link here.) Many are quite hilarious, ranging from Onion-esque to downright hipster stereotypes. A selection:
Best Imitation of a Decemberists song: "your friends called you caleb"
"you were pretty close to the front for animal collective. you're tall, attractive, thin, have beautiful eyes, and you were fanning the crowd with your shirt. i like the left side of your collar bone."
Best Caricature of a Hipster, Part I: "owl belt buckle both days"
"you had a big owl belt buckle and a godspeed! tattoo. during a hawk and a hacksaw, i heard you say, "it's raining and we're all going to look like sh-t, so let's just dance"
i didn't dance, but you made me smile."
Here’s what closed Pitchfork Music Festival 2008 in Chicago: Austin indie megastars Spoon.
I can’t write a full review because we had to hightail it back down I-55 in order to make it home before dawn, but Spoon opened with a trio of oldies but goodies: ''Small Stakes,'' ''My Mathematical Mind,'' and ''Stay Don’t Go.''
''My Mathematical Mind,'' was, as it always is, mind-blowing.
Can any STL folks out there who stayed for the whole set to fill me on what I missed?
Photos of Spoon are after the jump.
I caught up with Andrew Rieger, frontman for the Athens, Georgia based art-pop quartet Elf Power after their afternoon set Saturday at Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago, Illinois.
Rieger discussed everything from working with the Flaming Lips producer Dave Fridmann to Georgia's indie rock scene (they were an original part of the Elephant Six arts collective, which also included Of Montreal and Neutral Milk Hotel).
Keegan Hamilton: First things first, why the twelve-string guitar?
Andrew Rieger: I think I started playing the twelve-string in 2005. It's just anytime you pick up a new instrument, there's something slightly different that inspires you to write differently. I'd been playing the same acoustic guitar for so many years, then I bought a twelve-string acoustic and it inspired me to write differently. That's where it all started, that was about three years ago and I've been with it ever since.
From Dinosaur Jr.'s performance on Sunday night at the Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago, Illinois.
J. Mascis.
More photos after the jump.
Before today I had never seen the New York City art punks Les Savy Fav before. I'd only heard stories, crazy, strange stories of a level of hedonism rivaled only by Roman orgies.
They were all true.
Rather than attempt to eloquently describe everything that exhibitionist lead singer (and part time hair stylist and masseuse) Tim Harrington did I'll simply give a bullet point play-by-play. No need to embellish.
Prior to yesterday, the only other time I'd ever seen M Ward was when he was touring in support of the fantastic 2003 album The Transfiguration of Vincent and opening for Bright Eyes. It was just him and an acoustic guitar then and I was blown away by his stripped down cover of Bowie's ''Let's Dance.''
The number of people literally crammed into a corner of Union Park to see Ghostface Killah and Raekwon Sunday afternoon would make a fire marshal shudder. Figuratively, the Wu Tang members were spitting fire.
I literally had no idea what to expect from The Dodos. All I knew going into their Sunday set at Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago was that the band is from San Francisco. That's it. They could have been a stoner death metal band of gypsies and I wouldn't have been the least bit surprised.
Fortunately they were nothing of the sort.
I've always had mixed feelings about Animal Collective. Some of their songs are downright brilliant, mixing complex and bizarre deconstructed structures with the most catchy and basic of pop melodies. Other times I think they sound like the most pretentious band on the planet, taking noise rock to it's unlistenable worst.
Animal Collective's headlining set Saturday night at Pitchfork Music Festival didn't do much to get me off the fence about them.
Yesterday, Tim Harrington of Les Savy Fav was offering up cheap buzz cuts for the hipster heathens at Pitchfork. Today it was massages.
A topless Harrington, which, as always, was a sight to behold, set up a table in the shade just a few hundred feet from the main stage. He then climbed on top of his victim, er, customer, and proceeded to get freaky with his fingers.
"I'll bet that feels good" he purred into her ear, "Have you ever had your toes popped?" Pictures of the, um, action, after the jump.
Most of the time I don't like metal, and I definitely can't tell the difference between its plethora of sub-genres (doom? sludge? death? grind? black?). But Boris, a Japanese trio that played the Pitchfork Music Festival at 2 p.m. Saturday, is for more than metalheads.
Los Angeles noise quartet HEALTH put on a pulsating, sweaty set Sunday afternoon at Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago.
After a soggy day two, we're back for a scorching day three at P4K 2K8. The forecast is calling for a high of 94 and humidity of approximately 168 percent. The weather will do wonders for hangovers of everyone who imbibed too much Sparks drafts last night.
Some Pitchfork bands seem out of place on the mammoth festival stage, better suited for a dingy club. Other bands fit it perfectly on the grand stage. There are very few bands whose songs, attitude, and delivery would suit both a bar, basement, party or festival stage.
The Hold Steady proved they were one of those bands. Four albums into its collective career, the members of the band were right at home Saturday on Pitchfork's Aluminum Stage.
