fuck you, motherfucker.

aaargh! i am sitting here, doing some long-overdue balancing of the checkbook, and watching jimmy kimmel, which was mainly amusing. and then the musical guest came on. pat green or tim green, or something, some douchebag with a soul patch. i'm open-minded, but he lost me about 0.000001 seconds in, when he TOTALLY LIFTED THE HOOK from "passionate kisses" by mary chapin-carpenter, with nary a syncopation or a chord or ANYTHING to make it distinguishable from the original. man, the sheer unoriginality alone might well have killed it for me, but the audacity of taking so brazenly from what is indisputably an awesome song* sealed the deal. i won't go into the details of why it's an awesome song (hopefully you already know), but, suffice to say, it galls me. and towards the end, just when i was kind of starting to calm down, he totes stole the riff from "summer of '69" for the coda. what a dick.


*(as well as one from his advertised genre of "country," i.e. he should have known better.)

nyc redux

gaaah. my trip to new york was amazing. amazing weather, amazing food, amazing shopping, and even more amazing friends and family. just the booster shot of amazingness that i needed before school, and its attendant responsibilities, start up again in earnest. the quality time with jess, lauren, loren, tar-bear, wayne, mimi, thomas, and my little cousin ellis was invaluable. that said, i think i went home at the right time. not only did i pick a seriously bad time to leave work (which makes me that much more badass), but i think i was starting to miss the atmosphere of chicago. the streets of new york are always teeming with people--it's like rush hour every hour--which can be either energizing or enervating depending on how it hits you. after four straight days, i found it was starting to tend towards the latter. that said, from soho to long island, from economy candy to the chinatown ice cream factory, good times abounded. big thanks to LZP and chrissy the wonder dog for hosting me!

here are my photos from the trip; hopefully my uncle will send cute cousin-pics posthaste.

this is the short version.

man, it's just my dumb luck that this terrorism threat/toothpaste ban would coincide with the one week in which i have to travel from one of the nation's largest airports to one of the nation's other largest airports. i really hope that i don't have to deal with any major delays. i'm still not entirely convinced that this isn't all just some covert plot by proctor and gamble to increase sales. that's a crass joke, i know, but seriously: rebuying all of my toiletries at duane reade would NOT be a good look this weekend.

argh. i just spent the last several hours doing last-minute clerkship app/lawyer's commitee/pilc/work stuff/correspondence all the while plowing my way, mouthbreathing and saucer-eyed, through the random, sneaky sinus attack that has befallen me over the last couple of days. however, i feel that last weekend needs to be encapsulated better than my last post allowed for.

so, i give you lollapallooza lists:

best stage banter

1. new pornographers. carl newman is always good for it, and you know how i love a sarcastic nerd: (after a spontaneous audience clap-along at the close of "the bleeding heart show") "we've got more fucked-up time signatures than, like, coheed and cambria. little known fact. so if you're going to try and clap, good luck to you." (and subsequently) "this one is a crowd-pleaser. so i can talk shit beforehand." "we're the new pornographers. from denmark."
2. the hold steady. specifically, craig finn's erudite youth-slang retelling of the history of saint barbara: "see, being a christian then wasn't like being a christian now. being a christian 300 years after christ's death was like...having a face tattoo." "so when he got back, the king was like, "let's execute barbara." and her dad was like, 'yeah, sounds awesome.'" seriously, the kids were rapt. as was i.
3. feist. well, duh. even if you don't like her album (which i can understand, even though i think it's mostly awesome), you've got to love her performances. she picks up the intensity of her songs accordingly, and she's engaged with the audience the whole time. i love how she is so warm, and open, and playful--goofy, even--yet still conveys that she is a woman and not some girl-child naif.

spooky-good musical moments

1. broken social scene. all of it. hands down, the best set of the festival, and that's saying something. so the basic setup of the event was that there were eight stages of varying sizes, the largest two at either end of the park. the music was scheduled such that no band (theoretically) was ever playing on top of another band at a neighboring stage. most bands played for an hour, a few for 45 minutes; friday and saturday there were two headliners for an hour and a half (8:30-10) at both of the big stages. sunday, there was only one headliner: the red hot chili peppers. who for some reason got an extra 15 minutes, meaning that their set began at 8:15. blues traveler, playing at the opposite end from where the chili peppers would be, got a full hour (and i would argue one hour too many), but broken social only got 45 minutes as they were near the headline stage. so when they took the stage, to a large and appreciative crowd, you could tell they were going to try to really bring it. i wasn't sure who was going to be playing with them, but i was hoping that some of the members who had already appeared with their own bands would show. well, it turned out to be EVERY SINGLE MEMBER, including emily haines. like, 15 or 16 people, counting the violin and horn players. it was spectacularly beautiful. and what happened at the end was unlike anything i've ever experienced at a concert. as they ended with the stomping, screeching "ibi dreams of pavement," kevin drew brought everyone on stage and led the audience in cathartically yelling and cheering along with the band. it was a great moment, and there was a certain electricity in the air. and then they had to stop, the 45-minute mark having arrived. the audience kept clapping and cheering and calling for an encore, and for a minute or two it looked like there might be one. but even as it became apparent that the band was taking its equipment down, the crowd kept on cheering. as much or more out of appreciation for the performance than as a request for an encore. this went on for over 15 minutes. i've never seen anything like it. whenever a band member made it on stage to take down an amp or wave at the crowd, they looked legtimately humbled and sad that they couldn't continue playing. the crowd did not dissipate until the chili peppers came on, the jumbotron displaying flea in some disturbing multicolored bodysuit. at that point, everyone near us booed. which may not have been totally fair to the chili peppers, but was an understandable reaction. the crowd was so galvanized by the performance they had just witnessed. it's hard to explain, but it was special.
2. sleater-kinney. as most of you probably know, lollapalooza marked one of their last concerts for the foreseeable future. i actually hadn't even seen them live in a couple of years, despite the fact that 'one beat' has emerged as a solid favorite of mine, and despite the fact that their weakest moments are still more distinctive than most bands' flashes of genius. i have mixed feelings about "the woods". i think it was, to use the adjective again, a distinctive album, and definitely gritty and intense and real. it's just, some of the guitar jams are too much for my attention span. that's one of the main reasons why i'm sad they're breaking up--"the woods" felt to me like a textbook "transitional album", and i would have liked to have heard what was to follow. being their most recent, and final album, s-k's set leaned heavily on its songs. and there were a couple moments where, dare i say it, i zoned out a bit (mainly during "what's mine is yours." why they dumped such a sprawling coda in the midst of such a hooky song is truly beyond me.). but those moments were obliterated by the intense, intense rendering of "let's call it love" (yes, the longest of the long ones). the guitar solo led into several minutes of free form, i guess you'd HAVE to call it, "jamming", but it never got boring. they kept pushing the sound into different directions, yet it all made perfect sense, effortlessly bleeding into an especially cathartic version of "entertain" which was jaw-dropping. there will definitely be a void in sleater-kinney's absence. not just in terms of gender, but in terms of power.
3. the hold steady. specifically when the sun parted the heavy clouds hovering over the park at the EXACT moment when holly gets born again in "multitude of casualties." it was uncanny to say the least. the whole set was great. i fear that their new songs may be borrowing less selectively from classic rock, may be pushing the conceit too far. it's hard to tell. regardless, their set was so much fucking fun. they are so reverent of their fans, and rock and roll. and given that i listen to "banging camp" about twice a day on average, it was nice to hear it live again for a change.
4. catfish haven. unfortunately i missed their first few songs, but their set was one of the gems of the festival. i will admit that i am a little late to the catfish party. i distinctly remember their lead singer approaching me at a pig roast in pilsen 3 or 4 years ago, coming off like a VERY drunk, cherubic hell's angel, so i got a weird first impression before i ever heard their music. i saw them at schuba's not long after, and while his voice impressed me, stunned me even, their songs at the time did not. but they've clearly tightened their shit up. i love their recent e.p. so much, it's like gbv meets van morrison at his peak. but, on sunday, i was still surprised to see that they've turned into a full-on soul machine, complete with horns and keyboards and backup singers. (black women! on stage! at lollapalooza! not in the go! team!) oh man. while there was one new song that seemed to veer a little too perilously into white-boy funk, the rest was next-level. this is the real deal.

best non-musical aspects

1. sweet leaf iced tea, especially mint-honey. simply put, it's liquid crack.
2. andrew bird on the jumbotron
3. the skyline of downtown chicago

anyway, i have some half-assed photos of the whole thing on flickr.

ok, i seriously need to sleep. see you tomorrow, new york city!

post-palooza

things i don't have after this weekend:
--money
--my voice
--my tolerance for stupid people
--my tolerance for text messaging

things i do have:
--my tan (i'm totally not joking!)
--my hearing (surprisingly)
--the afterglow resulting from having a blast for three solid days

and in three more days, i'm going to have an even better time in new york. it's almost scary.