Panda Bear at Variety Playhouse, Atlanta - May 10, 2018

No Animal Collective tour this summer - at least not of the full, four-piece band - but the next best thing is Avey Tare and Panda Bear will be on the road performing the seminal LP Sung Tongs in its entirety over the next couple of months.  First, though, Panda Bear has to wrap up his current solo tour with Animal Collective's Geologist, and Thursday night in Atlanta was the last night of that tour.

As one would expect, Geologist's set was all instrumental - no vocals - and consisted of some very abstract electronic jams.  Here's a pretty representative example.

In addition to being a member of Animal Collective, Geologist (Brian Weitz) holds a masters degree in Environmental Policy and briefly worked on ocean and climate change policy in Washington.  He reportedly scuba dives regularly with fellow Animal Collective member Deakin (Josh Dibb), and the music and video were inspired by their dive trips.  He brought this vibe with him to Variety Playhouse, and the audience ate it up.

Panda Bear (Noah Lennox) performs what is probably the most accessible of Animal Collective's music.  While electronic, it has clear ties to pop music and while listening one can choose to either just enjoy the melodies and sing-song vocals, or dive deeper beneath the surface (another scuba analogy) and appreciate the layered electronics.

We last saw Panda Bear with Animal Collective at the Buckhead Theater almost exactly two years ago.  We  last saw Panda solo during the 2015 edition of Shaky Knees (this year's edition was last weekend, and we're just now recovering after the three-day festival followed by a week of work).  Here's an outstanding video of a 2015 performance by Panda Bear which was quite similar to what we saw at Shaky Knees.

We're fans, but to be honest, Panda's released a lot of new music since 2015 and we didn't recognize but one or two of the songs that he played this year.  If anything, his vocals sounded even better and more assured than in the past, and the electronics were generally a little harsher, but in a good way.  We may not have been able to name the songs, but our friends at Setlists FM identified the following from the set:

1. Dolphin
2. Flight
3. Calling In Sick
4. I Know I Don't
5. Sabbath
6. Shepard Tone
7. Crosswords
8. Untying the Knot (instrumental)
9. Buoys
10. Sunset
11. Drone

The encore consisted of You Can Count on Me, Woken, and Nod the the Folks.

Speaking of encores, we left our usual forward-right platform spot at Variety Playhouse and slipped back up to the balcony for the encore, just to compare the view and acoustics, both of which, it turns out, were excellent.

A great set and a great night, made even better by the fact that it all kicked off at 8:00 p.m. and we even managed to make it home before 11:30 - a nice bonus on a working weeknight.

Dreaming of the Masters

How, I wonder, could I have gone so long through this Friday-night series without posting Monk?  Time to correct that oversight.

A YouTube commenter (sydysydy) captured it perfectly: "Almost hitting the note. Playing around the expected note. Implying the note through discord. Creating a new version of the note with atonal harmonics. Textural splashes. The melody never repeats exactly the same way. Monk is the definition of avant-garde. Half pianist, half painter."

No time to post anything more - tonight, we're off to see this band at Variety Playhouse.

On Crowd Surfing (Part Two)

Okay, I know we covered a lot of ground yesterday, but please allow me to repeat myself more simply and in more of my own words.

Scientists tell us that the human mind has an affinity for group behavior, and sometimes, in that group, we can lose our sense of individual self identity and transcend to something larger.

Physical effort and repetitive motions can help trigger that "hive mentality."

I think a rock audience qualifies as a "group," and the shared communal experience of enjoying the music bonds the listener with the rest of the audience.  Repetitive motions of dancing, slamming into those around you, and surging with the flow of the crowd all heighten the sensation of hive mentality.

With crowd surfing, a person or persons is physically lifted and passed hand over hand over the heads of the rest of the audience.  More than just a metaphor for transcending the mundane, everyday life, the action I believe can literally transport the surfer, as well as those lifting the surfer, temporarily into a realm which can be called "divine."

On Crowd Surfing (Part One)

As noted the other day, I've been reading The Righteous Mind by social psychologist Jonathan Haidt. In the book, Haidt challenges us to consider two separate visions of society.  

First, imagine society as a social contract developed for the mutual benefit of all within.  Each individual in that society is equal, and all are left as free as possible to move, develop talents, and form relationships as they please.  The only purpose to which power is ever exercised against the will of an individual is to prevent harm to others.

At its best, such a society would be a peaceful, open, and creative place where diverse individuals respect each other's rights and voluntarily band together when needed to help those in need or to change laws for the common good.  This is basically an idealized version of the liberal-progressive vision of society.

By contrast, Haidt then asks us to imagine another society created not as an agreement among individuals but as something that emerges organically over time as people find ways of living together and binding themselves to each other.  This other society would suppress selfishness and punish those deviants and freeloaders who threaten to undermine cooperative groups.  The basic social unit in such a society is not the individual but the hierarchically structured family.  

At its best, such a society would be a stable network composed of many nested and overlapping groups that socialize, reshape, and care for individuals who, left to their own devices, would otherwise pursue shallow, carnal, and selfish pleasures.  Such a society would value self-control over self-expression, duty over rights, and loyalty to one's groups over concern for out-groups.  This is basically the conservative ideal of an America that prioritizes family, church, and country over individual whims.

According to Haidt, the failure of the American left is they cannot see the latter society in terms other than hierarchical, punitive, and religious.  To a liberal, since the latter vision places limits of people's autonomy and endorses traditions, often including traditional gender roles, it must be combatted, not respected.

However, the patron saint of the latter vision of society is the late 19th century sociologist Emile Durkheim.  Durkheim acknowledges that the first vision of society, the liberal-progressive vision, leaves autonomy and personality intact and takes very little independence away from the individual. However, in the second vision, one can transcend the limits of the individual and becomes part of a larger whole, whose actions one follows and whose influence one is subject to.

And here (finally!) is my point - in the latter vision, Haidt notes that the dropping away of the individual ego to participate as a part of something larger can be liberating in its own way.  As Durkheim observed, "The very act of congregating is an exceptionally powerful stimulant.  Once the individuals are gathered together, a sort of electricity is generated from their closeness and quickly launches them to an extraordinary height of exaltation."

In other words, Haidt maintains that liberals fail to realize the emotional experience of identification with a larger whole.  That experience can allow one to fully but temporarily transcend from the realm of the mundane, the ordinary day-to-day world where we live most of our lives, concerned about health, wealth, and reputation, into the higher realm of the sacred, where the self disappears and collective interests predominate.

  

As Haidt puts it, humans seem to be neurologically wired to respond positively to forming groups and acting in the interests of well-defined social units, be they families, churches, and nations, or less-well-defined units like clubs, gangs, bands, flash mobs, and audiences. Haidt calls this the human hive mentality and notes that psychologically, we're 90% chimpanzee and 10% bee.  We not only seek identification with larger social groups, but in that involvement we can experience a transformation from the mundane to the divine.

In a future post, we'll talk about how this relates to crowd surfing. 

Shaky Knees - Day Three

After Saturday's clouds and brief rain, Sunday could not have been a more pleasant day - it was all sunshine and low humidity and fresh air.  A nice day for an outdoor indie-rock music festival.  Here's who we saw:

Tedo Stone

Tedo is a soulful, Atlanta-based singer-songwriter who opened the day for us at the Criminal Records Stage (we got to Shaky Knees some 90 minutes after the gates had opened and missed the first few acts of the day). In any event, it was a more-than-pleasant, gentle intro to a more-than-pleasant, gentle day.

Alice Merton

After Tedo Stone, we went into the tented Ponce de Leon Stage where it wasn't nearly as hot as on Friday.  Alice Merton is an English-Canadian indie pop singer who continued the pleasant groove of the day.

Alvvays

It was too nice a day to spend much time in a tent, so after Alice Merton we headed out into the sunshine of the big Peachtree Stage for the sunny indie rock of Molly Rankin's band Alvvays.  Alert readers may recall that we saw Alvvays at Terminal West back in October, and the set and song list were not dissimilar.  That's a good thing, as the folksy girl-pop of Alvvays were in perfect synchronicity with the weather and the day, and sometimes you just want to hear Archie, Marry Me followed by Dreams Tonight.  Video coming soon!

The joke here is that by 3:00 p.m., the drugs had kicked in, but that's just a joke - no illicit substances were ingested or inhaled by your humble narrator.  We didn't even smell much of that familiar cannabis aroma that usually lingers over rock-festival audiences - say what you want about kids these days and their vaping, but it all smelled much less illicit and more wholesome.  No illicit substances were injected or inhaled, but your humble narrator did have some fun with his iPhone photo-filter tools.

 Lord Huron

Lord Huron is one of our favorites and part of the whole reason we went to Shaky Knees this year.  It was our third or fourth time seeing him, as he also performed at Shaky Knees 2014 (the Atlantic Station year) and we saw him open for Andrew Bird at The Tabernacle a year or so before that. Sunday, the Cinemascope sound of his wide-open-west brand of folk rock went perfectly with the laid back vibe of the whole day.

Vance Joy

People thought we were joking or being ironic when we referred to him as "some guy named Vance Joy" on Instagram but seriously, we had never heard of him.  Nor are we likely to want to hear him again after his bland, pandering performance at Shaky Knees.  Granted, the whole solo-acoustic thing went well with the laid-back vibe the day had going for it, but with all the great musicians and bands who graced the stages this weekend, how was he selected as the penultimate festival closer?  

He got the biggest crowd reaction of his set by his faithful rendition of Lionel Ritchie's All Night Long, but the whole point of indie-rock is to not have to hear All Night Long, at least not covered unironically. Mayb a punk-rock version, sure, but not a faithful rendition like Vance Joy delivered. Lionel Ritchie is the epitome of commercial music, and indie is the opposite - some would say the antidote - to commercial music.  We tried not to be all stuffy and tried to get into the mood along with the couples dancing in the audience, but it just wasn't working for us.  Somebody needs to play Vance Joy a Clash album and wake him up.   

No illicit substances were ingested or inhaled by your humble narrator, but the beers were free in the VIP area, and when beer is the same price as water, which is to say free, well, let's just say some beers were consumed. The free beer helped us get through the Vance Joy set.  

The National  

That was more like it!  About the only band who could have rescued the day from the Vance Joy set was indie-rock royalty The National.  Like Lord Huron earlier, The National also played in 2014 at Shaky Knees (Atlantic Station edition).  Their set on Sunday night was great, and a great antidote to what went down before and a great closer to a great festival weekend, which is to say, that was it, folks!  Nothing more after The National.

The National played a 90-minute set with all the songs you'd want to hear from them (our favorite is Bloodbuzz, Ohio), after which we managed to track down an Uber and got home by 11:00.  Monday morning was a bit rough - no hangover, but sore feet and tired legs, a minimum of sleep, and a little too much sun.  But we survived and are already looking forward to Shaky Knees 2019! 

Shaky Knees, Day Two

Okay, we'll admit up front that on Friday we had overestimated the protection from the sun the visor of a backwards baseball cap would have on the human neck, and we wound up sunburned there.  A little too much color on the face too (arms were properly sunscreened).  The sun was pretty intense Friday and we're the sorer for it, but that's better than it raining outside.

It took a couple years to overcome, but this festival had a reputation for rain.  The inaugural year, 2013, it rained the entire first day, non-stop, and pretty steadily on Days Two and Three as well.  By Year Two, when it also rained as well, people were wearing Shaky Knees t-shirts that proudly said, "100% Chance of Rain."  

Rain-soaked field at first Shaky Knees festival, 2013

We finally broke the curse by Year Three, and it hasn't rained on the festival again until yesterday. Yesterday was overcast and there was little chance of getting additional sunburn, but by late in the day, the rain finally arrived.  It only rained a few minutes (and fortunately we were in the tented Ponce de Leon Stage at the time), but the streak of good weather finally ended after four good years.

But enough about the weather.  Here's who we saw on Saturday.

Sun Seeker

Nope, never heard of them before, but they were a pleasant psychedelic rock band that seemed more surprised to find themselves playing at Shaky Knees than did the audience.  Their name was also very fitting for the day.

Torres

We've seen Macon, Georgia's Mackenzie Scott, who performs under the name Torres, play before, including at this festival (Shaky Knees) at this same location (Central Park) on this same stage (Piedmont).  We've enjoyed every show of hers so far, including yesterday's, and we're still expecting her to break through as a bigger star someday soon.

Bully

We've also seen Bully several times before, including last December at Terminal West.  Yesterday's set was just as good as the Terminal West show, and possibly even a little more amped up by Alicia Bognanno's obvious excitement at playing to such a large audience (a security guard told me that they estimate about 30,000 people attended yesterday) and at playing on the same stage where David Byrne played the day before - there was still tape on the stage floor indicating where Mr. Byrne should be stand during the set, Bognanno told us.

 BRONCHO

We hadn't seen or heard from Oklahoma's BRONCHO since the Bumbershoot festival in Seattle back in 2013, but, my, they've changed since then.  What was once a loud scruffy garage-punk band has transformed into a loud shoegaze band with goth overtones - nearly unrecognizable, even when they closed their set with their signature song Class Historian. They also got a new bass player, exchanging former member Jonathan Ford for Penny Pitchlynn (below).

We don't mind bands changing their sound or exploring new approaches to music, and we don't resent BRONCHO for branching out and trying something new.  All we're saying is we were surprised, and found the new band totally unrecognizable from their former selves.

Cute security guard

 Parquet Courts

We stuck around the Piedmont Stage for a while after BRONCHO's set to see Parquet Courts on the same stage.  Following the apparent theme of the day, we'd seen Parquet Courts several times before, including at Shaky Knees during one of the years (2016) it was held at Centennial Olympic Park.  It was another great set by another great band on an overall great day. Also, speaking of Parquet Courts, the Boston Celtics won Game Three against the Philadelphia 76ers yesterday in overtime, taking a 3-0 lead in the seven-game series.  We were following that game on our iPhone during the day's musical events.

 Andrew WK

We'll just come right out and say it at the very start - we didn't like Andrew WK.  It was our first time seeing him and we weren't sure exactly what to expect, other than his reputation to "party."  He lived up to that reputation - we probably heard the band chant and use the word "party" at least 50 times before Andrew himself even took the stage.  But the band's performance barely even counted as "music" as much as a constant 4/4 beat and a consistent exhortation to "party," and to "party hard," and to be "a hardcore partier."  His stage antics and histrionics would have made even Meatloaf wince, and there was nothing he did in his 60-minute set that wasn't a repeat of the things he did in the first five minutes of his set.  Bozo Dionysus in extremis.

Do we have to state the obvious and tell you that the audience loved it?  We heard people way it was the best set of the day, the high-water mark of the festival.  

We've been reading social psychologist Johnathan Haidt recently, who writes about how the human mind appears to be hard-wired to bond with groups that share in common ritual, especially rituals involving chanting, choreographed group movement, and pursuit of a common identity.  Haidt uses this observation to explain the effects of morning calisthenics at Japanese industries, tailgating at football games, and religious rites.  It would also explain a lot about political rallies and Andrew WK shows, where the audience chants "party" along with the band and engages in the seemingly pointless ritual of crowd surfing.

In the ritual, individuals "sacrifice" themselves to the experience and are lifted up above the crowd and passed overhead until they inevitably arrive at the front of the stage, where the security guards grab them and lead them out of the venue.  The act makes no sense if viewed from the perspective of the individual crowd surfer - not only are you risking injury and liable to lose sunglasses, shoes and other personal belongings, but once security recovers you, you're tossed out of the very show you were there to see.  But the purpose of crowd-surfing is apparent not in the context of the individual but in the larger context of the crowd.  It's a ritual "sacrifice" with the ultimate goal of group bonding, and the individual surfer transcends their role as just one out of many individuals at the show and becomes part of something larger, part of the whole seething, dancing crowd.  Your identity is no longer that of just another face in the crowd (the mundane), and you become the focus of the collective energy of the audience (the sacred).  And just like with Japanese auto workers, football fans, and religious zealots, the crowd collectively approaches a state of ecstacy and bonds closely as a group, and remembers the event as a fulfilling and emotionally cathartic experience.

Of course, this happens at many concerts, especially punk-rock and hardcore shows, but with the Andrew WK set, the show is solely about audience participation and the crowd ritual alone, with very little musical artistry for support.  It's all "party" and crowd-surfing and "let me hear you say yeah!", with little to no recognizable music that would make any sense in any other context.  So while the set offered an interesting anthropological study for us, there was very little else to enjoy.

But it was during that set that the rain had started.  Fortunately for us, Andrew WK was performing in the tented Ponce de Leon Stage so we didn't notice the rain until the set had ended.  We thought about running over to the covered VIP viewing area at the big Peachtree Stage to see The War On Drugs, who had already started their set, but realized that everyone else with a VIP wristband would be doing the exact same thing too, and the viewing area would be packed to the point where we might not even get in.  We thought about waiting around in the rain, maybe getting a bite to eat, until Matt & Kim or Cake took their stages, but if you think we're going to wait around for an hour to see Matt & Kim or Cake, much less in the rain, then you don't know very much about us or our taste in music.  

The headliner after Matt & Kim/Cake was Queens of the Stone Age, who we don't even like (another big draw for the normies and the box office, just like Jack White the night before), so we took an Uber home for the day.

Even before we got in the car and left, the rain had stopped and the sun came out, but because of the unfortunate scheduling of the festival (so many great acts on Friday), there was really nothing left that we really wanted to see on Saturday.  We enjoyed what we did see, especially the 1, 2, 3 triple-header of Torres, Bully, and Parquet Courts. Andrew WK was if nothing else an interesting socio-psychological field study, and we discovered one new band, Sun Seeker.  So all in all, not a bad day, and we still have one more day of Shaky Knees left for today. 

Shaky Knees 2018 - Day One

It's time for the sixth edition of the Shaky Knees Music Festival.  It's an annual Atlanta event, but yesterday we met people all the way from London, England, Thunder Bay, Canada, and Detroit Motor City who travelled all the way to Georgia just to attend this festival.    

The festival was held this year at Central Park, the same location as the 2015 event.  In 2016 and 2017, it was held downtown at Centennial Olympic Park, and prior to 2015, the inaugural festival was held at the Old Fourth Ward Skate Park and the second year in the Atlantic Station parking lot. 

For the third year in a row, we splurged on VIP tickets for the free beer and food, as well as the so-called "preferred" viewing areas, which were generally over-crowded and at odd angles to the stage - we viewed a lot of the bands with the hoi polloi in the General Admittance area.

The festival continues through the weekend, so no time to post much more here today except to share some pictures of Friday's performers with you.  As you'll see, the lineup was stacked, and most of the performers that we wanted to see this weekend were all playing Friday, resulting is some tough scheduling choices.

Amasa Hines

Don't worry - we had never heard of them before either, but they were really quite good and impressed us considerably.

 Welles

Rock 'n' roll music.

Rolling Blackout Coastal Fever

Not the only band from Melbourne, Australia we would see yesterday. It was our first time hearing them and wow, these guys are great!

Ezra Furman

First tough choice of the day - Ezra Furman at the big Peachtree Stage, or The Ghost of Paul Revere at the smaller, and distant, Criminal Records Stage?  We went with the cross-dressing Ezra, and don't regret it.  Great show. 

Waxahatchee

We finally did make the long trek over to the Criminal Records Stage and beyond - to the tented Ponce De Leon Stage to see Waxahatchee.  We were out of the sun but there was no air circulation in the tent, and Katie Crutchfield said the on-stage thermometer said it was 86 degrees. In the audience, it felt closer to 100 degrees in the tent.

 Courtney Barnett

The second Melbournian of the day.  It's Courtney Barnett, so it would be redundant to say that it rocked and rocked hard. 

David Byrne

An even tougher decision than Ezra Furman vs. Paul Revere - the promoters put David Byrne (Talking Heads) and The Brian Jonestown Massacre on at the same time, and that time was also the scheduled dinner hour for the VIP guests.  We went with Byrne and don't regret it, as he put on one of the best and certainly the most theatrical shows of the year. Video coming soon!

 Fleet Foxes

Fleet Foxes are back together again after a long hiatus, and live sounded even better than they do on their comeback album.  Only criticism - the festival had the volume up way too high for a folk rock band, cranked up to the point of distortion.  I got close to the stage for a few pictures, but had to retreat way back to the rear of the crowd in order to enjoy the sound. 

Jack White

I don't know what to say - a crowd pleaser for the normies and a box-office draw for the promoters?  I'm not a fan, and White's simplistic blues rock sounded out of place at a mostly indie rock festival.  But the big Peachtree Stage was packed and we not only couldn't get close, we could barely find a line of sight to the stage.  But they swear to me that the little figure below actually is Jack White.

So that was Friday.  We're back off to Central Park for Day Two today and then Day Three on Sunday.  Tune in tomorrow for more Shaky Knees coverage!

Dreaming of the Masters

Forty-nine years later, and we still can't decide if this is a jazz song, a rock song, a funk song, or a soul song.  But now - lo these 49 years later - now, we realize that it doesn't matter.  It's a great jam and the most human of expression as articulated by some great musicians.  Les McCann and Eddie Harris.  Swiss Movement.

Lyrics are still surprisingly topical, too.

And for those of you keeping score at home, the whole thing is in 4/4 time (1, 2, 3, 4).

Every ability comes from the mind. If the mind says you cannot, then you cannot. So exercise your mind, rather than your limbs. When you stop believing in obstacles, the mind removes its shackles, and only then your movements can be free. (from the top line of Hexagram 47, Kún, [Enclosed Tree])

We've actually had nice sunny weather the past few days, but prior to that, Georgia's spring has been unusually cool and wet.  It rained almost every day last week.  Here's a snail from last week eating the moss growing on my front porch bannister (at least that's what I think it's doing - there's really no telling with those things).

That snail and I are not that different, in more ways than there's no telling what either one of us are doing at any given moment,  Snails and humans both descended from a common ancestor that lived about 600 million years ago, and humans share about 70% of their DNA with snails and slugs.  To put that another way, it's only 30% of the DNA that distinguishes George Clooney from that snail.  

Chimps share approximately 98% of their DNA with us.  Bananas share 50%.  

Sort of reminds you of how we're all interdependent, doesn't it?

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