Treasure Island Music Festival :: 10.15-16.11 :: Treasure Island :: San Francisco, CA

Photo gallery for Saturday at Treasure Island Music Festival 2011 starts below review, and you can jump right to Sunday’s photos here.

Death Cab For Cutie by Jared Kelly

For five years running, the seminal Treasure Island Music Festival has consistently brought a wholly unique festival experience to the Bay Area, with its stellar venders, a thoughtfully-curated alt/indie/electronic/hip-hop based lineup, and quite possibly the best backdrop one could ever ask for from a festival (the San Francisco skyline never, ever ceases to amaze). Thankfully, this year the weather held out, which brought the weekend to a whole ‘nother level with clear blue skies, gorgeous sunsets, and costumes, costumes, costumes! Nary was there a corner of the grounds where you couldn’t find a ripe assortment of headdresses, feathers, face paint, ironic 80s fashion, and fuzzy bear hats galore. Indeed, the freaks were out in full force, and added to a highly entertaining, though somewhat underwhelming weekend of synth-heavy, forward-thinking bands.

This year, Treasure Island’s organizers took a different approach to its lineup than in years past, choosing many groups whose sound is on the cutting edge of music. There were plenty of great bands that challenged our ears with sonically experimental structures, but one got the sense that much of the music was better suited for a more intimate setting where it could be given the full attention it deserved. Indeed, there were few groups that really knew how bring a festival-size crowd to a climax, nor did their music seem suited to jump out and grab you in that way. For instance, Shabazz Palaces delivered a crazy set of utterly foreign, jagged hip-hop that threw everyone out of their comfort zones. This is sometimes a good thing…but it was practically impossible to engage a crowd with such experimental music at 1:30 pm. The same can be said for the moody, mid-tempo music of indie bands like The Antlers, Wild Beasts, and Warpaint, which would be far better suited for a small club show. And while headliners Empire of the Sun and Death Cab for Cutie were somewhat predictable, the weekend still contained plenty of amazing music.

Saturday Highlights

YACHT by Jared Kelly

1. YACHT – 2:15-2:55 PM Tunnel Stage
The biggest surprise of the weekend turned out to be this dance-party set of shimmering, infectiously funky electro-pop. The brainchild of Jona Bechtolt, YACHT has grown from a solo project into a full-fledged band over the years, and is currently fleshed out by front-woman Claire L. Evans, whose stage presence and vocal delivery channels a young Annie Lennox. It was a joy to watch the gorgeous Evans strut around to the band’s super-catchy futuristic grooves. The robot cowbell funk of Deaf, Dumb and Proud got everyone moving, and after a foray into some thrashy punk riffs, the band busted out an obscure B-52s cover, before getting the crowd chanting to the sing-along Dystopia (The Earth is on Fire). This band had us in the palm of their hand from beginning to end, robot-rocking away like a punky LCD Sounsystem right up until the irresistible nonsense-pop of Psychic City (Voodoo City) closed their set. Some new fans (including myself) were undoubtedly made during this afternoon dance party throw-down.

2. Battles 3:45-4:30 PM Tunnel Stage
This powerful instrumental trio slaughtered it for 45 minutes straight, with a set of continuously engaging, unpredictable synth-rock. Their slightly robotic, jerky compositions hit you upside the head in unexpected ways. The band’s playing fit into and in-between pre-recorded, 8-bit-style backing tracks like pieces of a puzzle. But make no mistake the Battles’ live show is all about the ferocious drumming of John Stanier, who’s insane, mathematical beats weave in and out of the looping music, toying with the rhythm in endlessly creative ways. The experimental nature of the music and its weird, Devo-like jerkiness didn’t stop it from being plenty danceable, however. The set ebbed and flowed, and the band continually surprised us with their perfectly crafted, interlocking guitar and synth lines. Their playing was awe-inspiring…though, tragically, the mid-afternoon festival audience didn’t seem to have the patience for such experimental music. The crowd response was tepid. I was sure screaming my head off, though.

Dizzee Rascal by Jared Kelly

3. Dizzee Rascal 4:35-5:25 PM Bridge Stage
When’s the last time you experienced some great live hip-hop? I mean an act that delivered some real rowdy party music that got everyone up and jumping, but still had the discipline to rap clearly enough that you could understand every word. Such acts are hard to come by, and British chart-topper Dizzee Rascal truly delivered the goods. Equipped with a proper record-scratching DJ who dropped the fat beats on cue, Dizzee knew how to work the crowd. His lightning-fast MC work and supreme, Slick-Rick-like flow was on point, could be heard clearly, and dazzled as a result. Backed by minimal house beats which got dirtier and grungier as the set progressed, Dizzee took us on a diverse hip-hop journey that never got tired. Catchy tracks like Dance Wiv Me, Jus’ A Rascal, and the blazing Stand Up Tall were simply impossible not to bump to. When Dizzee started his set, the crowd was hesitant and unfamiliar with this Brit import, but Dizzee won them over completely by the end, thousands were bouncing and jumping to his smash hit Bonkers. An utterly satisfying experience.

4. Cut Copy 7:55-8:45 PM Bridge Stage
The shimmering, pseudo-New-Wave sound of Cut Copy was a great way to usher in the night. Unlike most bands of the weekend, Cut Copy’s music was well-suited for the festival-size stage. Their expansive, dreamy music filled the space to great effect. The Aussies opened with Take Me Over, a fun pop tune with a chord progression that called to mind the most famous Aussie export of them all, Land Down Under. That aside, the clean disco-indie beats made for a great danceable set, with the synths mixed front and center. And though the band was playing their butts off and jammin’ out nicely, Dan Whitford‘s slightly innocuous vocals on tunes like Need You Now were a bit soft for my tastes. Overall though, Cut Copy played a lot of great songs, and the set turned into a good party. Men At Work would be proud.

Sunday Highlights

St. Vincent by Jared Kelly

1. St. Vincent 2:50-3:35 PM Bridge Stage
From the moment Annie Clark sang her first note, she had the entire crowd transfixed. This girl can sing! Oh snap, she can rip it on guitar, too! The contrast between Clark’s melodic, delicate vocals and her raw, jagged guitar solos stood out the most in her songs, which were all fantastic. It was readily apparent that Clark has an advanced tonal vocabulary songs like Cheerleader are catchy yet take turns into unexpected chords a-la-Dirty-Projectors, and the atonal shards of sound her guitar spat out somehow fit perfectly. The soothing verses of Dilettante led into some crunchy fuzz guitar that rattled our fillings, and my respect for this woman grew with every song. Further defying classification, Clark busted out some straight garage-punk when she primal-screamed, My love was born on a ray of sound, channeling Patti Smith with raw emotions. This led into the crazy freak-out march of the closer Marrow, which buzzed us all good and rocked much, much harder than its studio recording. Annie Clark is a true original her songwriting is great and impossible to pin down, and her live show delivered like no other that day.

2. Beach House 6:00-6:50 Bridge Stage
Watching Beach House perform as the sun set red behind the San Francisco skyline was akin to doing opiates in a warm bath: pure, sedated bliss. The thick, sweeping vibes Beach House perfected on their album Teen Dream are completely unique to them the music’s lush sound and simple melodies contain such concrete feeling that you can practically reach out and touch it its sedation seeps into your consciousness. The band performed almost every song from Teen Dream with that same perfected vibe. With every song drenched in reverb and no tempo played faster than 75 BPM, the set flowed forward in a wash of dreamy feeling. And though the music was void of dynamics in any regard, it didn’t quite matter the escapist quality of Beach House’s sonic realm was enough to keep everyone locked in and transfixed. Victoria Legrand‘s vocals were beautiful in their detached sadness, and we were swept away for a time. The only unfortunate element of the set was the over-use of crowd shots on the giant video screen, which disrupted the set for me, and prompted Legrand to dub it the vanity set of the festival. I can’t complain though – for a while there I did feel like I was floating.

The Head and the Heart by Jared Kelly

3. The Head and the Heart – 5:10-5:55 PM Tunnel Stage
This Seattle-based folk band’s afternoon set was a breath of fresh air after a weekend of icy synths. They were actually the only band of the weekend to sport acoustic instruments of any kind, let alone a fiddle. Their sunny pop tunes were delivered with a heartfelt passion that was hard to come by all weekend, and the audience responded in a big way. Lost in My Mind was a highlight of the set, sporting luscious three-part harmonies and a lift-me-up sing-along that everyone appreciated. At one point, an arm-around-shoulder circle formed in the crowd, and it grew, forming empty space in its center, which soon filled with dancing, joyful people. It felt like a breakthrough, and it was no coincidence that this band was playing the most authentic music of the weekend.

4. Explosions In The Sky 7:40-8:30 PM Bridge Stage
On a day full of experimental, challenging indie music, these four guys broke the festival open with the hardest rocking set of the weekend. There were no synths in this band just three mean guitars, a drummer, and a sprawling, arching sound which peaked out into the stratosphere a number of times over the course of their towering set. The instrumental music that Explosions In The Sky creates is long-winded and epic their trance-inducing guitar jams are like a workout, gradually bringing you up and up into a noisy peak of rock-out catharsis, then back down again into introspection. At times, this felt like music for ghosts ethereal, eerie and atmospheric. It’s no coincidence that this band makes killer movie soundtracks. This was an epic experience, and felt like the true festival closer to me. I left part-way through Death Cab for Cutie’s set, as it couldn’t compete with the grandiose heights that Explosions in The Sky reached. They couldn’t have picked a better name for themselves; ’nuff said.

Photos From Saturday At The 2011 Treasure Island Music Festival

10/15/11 – Treasure Island Music Festival @ Treasure Island (San Francisco, CA) View Photos

Continue reading for photos from Sunday at the 2011 Treasure Island Music Festival…

10/16/11 – Treasure Island Music Festival @ Treasure Island (San Francisco, CA) View Photos

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Tickets are now on sale for Goner Records‘ eighth annual international music festival, which will take place September 22-25, 2011, in Memphis, TN. Goner Fest 8 will include three evening showcases at the Hi-Tone, a Saturday afternoon ten band blowout at Murphy’s, opening and closing shows at the Goner Record Shop, and various daytime shows throughout the weekend.

The festival will bring together 35 bands from all over the world for three days and nights of rock and roll mayhem. Attendance for Goner Fest 8 is anticipated to top 2500 people for the weekend; as many as half of whom will be coming from outside of Memphis. Previous festivals have attracted rock and roll fans from Austria, Japan, Germany, Italy, Spain, Wales, Holland, France, England, Australia, Croatia, Tasmania, and Canada. And Vermont!

In its short life span, Goner Fest has quickly increased the size of its blip on the radar of mainstream independent music. Paste said it tends to fill three days with so much overdriven, yelp-tastic rock ‘n’ roll that, for the slightest moment, the city of Memphis becomes one big parents’ garage. Blurt called Goner Fest a rock n roll mainline that is the perfect antidote for all those other festivals.

GONERFEST 8 OFFICIAL SCHEDULE

Thursday, September 22 – Opening Ceremonies – 5:30 pm – @ Goner Records

Jack Oblivian (Memphis, TN)
Limes (Memphis, TN)

Thursday Night – @ Hi Tone

Ty Segall (SF, CA)
OBN IIIs (Austin, TX)
Royal Headache (Sydney, Australia)
Mikal Cronin (SF, CA)
Hans Condor (Nashville, TN)
Sex Cult (Memphis, TN)
MC NoBunny
DJ Useless Eater & DJ Rick

Friday, September 23 – Afternoon Rock – 2 pm – @ Buccaneer

Straight Arrows (Sydney, Australia)
Ryan Rousseau & His Desert Children (Desert, AZ)
Coasting (Memphis, TN / Brooklyn, NY)
Sharp Balloons (Memphis, TN)
Cyclops (???)

Friday Night – @ Hi Tone

Gories (Detroit, MI)
Icky Boyfriends (SF, CA)
Mean Jeans (Portland, OR)
James Arthur’s Manhunt (Desert, Texas)
Midnight Snaxxx (SF, CA)
Aquafuzz (Memphis, TN)
MC Rob K
DJ Aya Papaya, DJ Robert Dinero, & DJ Billiams

Saturday, September 24 – Afternoon Rock Blowout – 1 pm – @ Murphys

Reverend John Wilkins (Memphis, TN)
Missing Monuments (New Orleans, LA)
Kitchen’s Floor (Brisbane, Australia)
Outdoorsmen (SF, CA)
Manatees (Memphis, TN)
Pity Fucks (Portland, OR)
Football (Chicago, IL)
Shirks! (Washington, DC)
Real Numbers (Minneapolis, MN)
True Sons Of Thunder (Memphis, TN)

Saturday Night – @ Hi Tone

Human Eye (Detroit, MI)
Alarm Clocks (Cleveland, OH)
Shannon & Clams (SF, CA)
Deaf Wish (Melbourne, Australia)
Brides (Chicago, IL)
Black Sunday (Memphis, TN)

MC Dave Dunlap
DJ Seth Sutton & DJ Crenshaw

Sunday, September 25 – Sunday Afternoon – @ Goner

Jam Messengers (Volcano, HI + Sao Paulo, Brazil)
Two Tears (NYC, NY)

Sunday Night – @ Buccaneer

Gonerfest comedown – NO BANDS!

Starting October 6, Calgary’s own Chad VanGaalen will head to the states for a week’s worth of shows touring in support of his new full-length, Diaper Island. As with all of his albums, Chad is single-handedly responsible for all of the artistic efforts that went into Diaper Islandfrom album art to music videos and everything in between. Check out the new video Chad made for the song “Peace on the Rise” below.

In other VanGaalen news, Chad’s 2005 Sub Pop debut, Infiniheart, which has been out of print for the last 5 years, is now being reissued. This is a double LP pressed on Prink vinyl and includes a digital download code to accompany this release. Click here to purchase a copy.

Chad VanGaalen Tour Dates

Aug 03 Paradiso, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Aug 04 King Georg, Cologne, Germany

Aug 05 FESTSAAL, Berlin, Germany

Aug 06 Sommerfest, Biesenthal, Germany

Aug 07 Klub 007 Strahov, Prague, Czech Republic

Aug 08 Thalia Kino, Dresden, Germany

Aug 09 Terraneo Festival, Sibenik, Croatia

Aug 11 Pustervik, Gothenborg, Sweden

Aug 12 Vega, Copenhagen, Denmark

Aug 13 Franzis Kulturzentrum, Wetzlar , Germany

Aug 14 Ekko, Utrecht, Netherlands

Aug 15 Hope (UK), Brighton, United Kingdom

Aug 16 Cargo – London, London, United Kingdom

Aug 17 Brudenell Social, Leeds, United Kingdom

Aug 18 Captain’s Rest, Glasgow, United Kingdom

Aug 19 Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh, United Kingdom

Aug 20 Deaf Institute, Manchester, United Kingdom

Oct 06 Holocene, Portland, OR

Oct 08 Crepe Place, Santa Cruz, CA

Oct 09 Echo, Los Angeles, CA

Oct 10 Soda Bar, San Diego, CA

Oct 11 Cafe du Nord, San Francisco, CA

Oct 13 Sam Bond’s Garage, Eugene, OR

Oct 14 Sunset Tavern, Seattle, WA

Chad VanGaalen
Tour Dates
::
Chad VanGaalen News

new album

Rose Hill Drive make rock exciting. The music and classically tuned live presence of this young Boulder, Colorado band has seemed more mature than their years since they first emerged in the mid-2000s, but not so much a throwback to another time just far more substantive than their peers in most cases. The benchmarks in Rose Hill have always been bigger and grander than whoever is currently on the charts, the guys drawing strength and inspiration from foundational figures like Thin Lizzy, Led Zeppelin and The Yardbirds and transmuting it into their own thing. However, they’ve transcended their influences and firmly carved out their own identity on their third long-player, Americana (released July 12 on the band’s own Slow and Shirley label), which gives Them Crooked Vultures a run for title of Most Ambitious Gutbucket Rockers going today.

Now a healthy quartet, Rose Hill Drive overflows with creative juice on Americana, where each tune leaps out with purpose and walloping force, a whirlwind of hormones, rhythm and swerving, charismatic confidence. Face it, hard rock without balls and convincing strut is a waste, and Rose Hill’s clangers appeared to have dropped in a big way during their three-year studio hiatus. All the root stuff in their earlier work still floats in their sound but the urgency and bold character of Americana mark this as modern music with songs, production and underlying character to properly wrestle with today’s hard-minded world. Added bonus: – A growing facility with Beatles-esque little touches, particularly the album’s untitled Abbey Road ready denouement.

Desire is the strong undertow of every cut, expressed in multiple ways but always totally convincing, rushing at you in a stream of sharply barked syllables or hovering in a series of lascivious guitar notes, an omnipresent ache we all know and maybe never totally satisfy, except temporarily. One can feel the band’s breath on their neck as vaguely possessed monsters like Telepathic and Your Mother’s Jam grope in a most welcome way. Polite won’t do it with rock of this nature, and Rose Hill Drive manhandles things beautifully throughout Americana, whose title neatly snatches back the expression from the alt-country folks and drags it in Ray-Bans into a world of coke-smoking parrots and fat piranha, a place of fractured dreams and abandoned hippie aspirations where whatever connections that can be managed are clutched with fevered intensity. In more prurient terms, Americana will make you hump somebody’s leg while shaking your head wildly and wishing you had more of a mane to whip around. And if the humpee is at all red blooded and open to suggestion, well, just remember to stop for wine and lube on your way to horizontal. (Dennis Cook)

Here’s what Rose Hill Drive had to say to our inquiries.

Rose Hill Drive

Name: Daniel Sproul
Instrument(s) of choice: Guitar

Name: Nate Barnes
Instrument(s) of choice: Drums, hammer dulcimer
Nickname: Nasty Nate

Name: Jimmy Stofer
Instrument(s) of choice: bass
Nickname: Jimmy “The Gopher” Stofer

Name: Jake Sproul
Instrument(s) of choice: guitar and bass and keys and fleas

1. Great music rarely happens without

Daniel: A huge amount of mind altering drugs.
Nate: Sound.
Jimmy: A unique vision and the sounds to pull it off.
Jake: Feeling

2. The first album I bought was

Daniel: Michael Jackson’s Dangerous. So what?
Nate: Soundgarden’s Superunknown
Jimmy: Bon Iver’s Bon Iver
Jake: Aerosmith’s Nine Lives

3. The last song or album to really flip my wig was

Daniel: Spoon’s Transference
Nate: My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless
Jimmy: James Blake’s self-titled LP
Jake: Charlotte Gainsbourg’s Trick Pony

4. When I was a kid I wanted to grow up to be

Daniel: A child trapped in a man’s body. Success.
Nate: A pirate
Jimmy: A professional wrestler
Jake: A pro baseball player

5. My favorite sort of gig is

Daniel: The shows where everybody shares the magic in the room.

Nate: One with people there.
Jimmy: Packed theaters (500-1000 capacity). Something about a room like that with a full house is the my favorite.
Jake: Festivals

6. One thing I wish people knew about me is

Daniel: I lead a triple life, including that of a woman. It’s exhausting.
Nate: Under that hard crunchy exterior is a delicious creamy center.
Jimmy: How hard I can crush Sudoku.
Jake: I pray for world peace.

7. I love the sound of

Daniel: Animal orgasms
Nate: Music. The movie.
Jimmy: The new album
Jake: Sizzling bacon

8. One day I hope to make an album as fantastic as

Daniel: The one we just made.
Nate: Queens of the Stone Age’s Songs For The Deaf
Jimmy: anything The Replacements did. Something that just puts feeling in a mood everytime they hear it.
Jake: The music in my head.

9. The best meal I ever had on tour was at

Daniel: A rest stop next to a cow pasture. We cooked beef.
Nate: Every show of Van Halen tour.
Jimmy: Seattle Fish Market. They have a little sandwich shop that makes the best fish sandwiches I’ve ever had.
Jake: Any Indian food in England.

10. I always find the coolest audiences in

Daniel: Spain. They love rock music.
Nate: Bed
Jimmy: Boulder
Jake: Festivals

11. The worst habit I’ve picked up being on the road all the time is

Daniel: Tobacco. It’s amazing and horrible…terrible….but so good.
Nate: Substituting exercise for whiskey.
Jimmy: Gaining weight
Jake: Nicotine

12. Led Zeppelin or Radiohead, which flips your switch the most and why?

Daniel: Why not Neil Diamond?
Nate: Being a drummer, I gotta go with Zeppelin.
Jimmy: Tough question. I grew up listening to Led Zeppelin a lot, so they’ll always have a special place in my heart. But in the past 10 years Radiohead has really been an important band for me.
Jake: That’s like asking, “Who do you love the most, mom or dad?”

13. The craziest thing I ever saw was

Daniel: A mountain lion while on mushrooms. Seriously, I thought that was the end.
Nate: A naked tripping hippie at a festival running into a barbed wire fence and splitting his sack open.
Jimmy: Bush getting elected to his second term.
Jake: A UFO fly across the sea in Brighton.

Rose Hill Drive Tour Dates :: Rose Hill Drive News

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