it's like arunapalooza, except with more gummi bears.

sometimes i write things that i know for certain nobody cares about besides me. indie music bloggers do this all the time, but for some reason, there's kids out there that look at these blogs passively and subconsciously go out and buy self-released cds by mediocre twin cities artists anyway. so in an attempt to garner more readers that look like this...

...i bring to you, a FULL REPORT ON INTONATION MUSIC FESTIVAL 2006!

::the first 24 hours::

NOON: my good chicago-dwelling mate lends me his train pass to travel to the fest and back.


12:30 i reach in my pocket to pull out the train pass. whoops, lost it! that's what you get for trusting me, dave!

1:50 we hear sounds of ERASE ERRATA as we walk toward union park. i don't like or dislike what i hear. this is where the neutrality ends.

2:00 we watch the first complete set by 90 DAY MEN. once again another band that would be awesome ONLY if they were instrumental. part snooze part ouch fest.

2:30 uhhh DEVIN THE DUDE? wow hip-hop sounds terrible in an outdoor venue. boom boom BLUNT boom boom WEED! fun times. we keep our spots at the other stage to wait for...

3:10 thank mother earth for the beautiousness that is JOSE GONZALEZ. seriously. nothing like standing in the sun listening to a soft-as-hell classical guitar cover of kylie minogue and massive attack songs.

3:50 disco + daft punk + dance punk = CHROMEO, quite possibly the least fun thing to listen to that is meant first and foremost to be nothing other than fun. we escape to the VIP tent to eat free gummi bears.


4:35 you all know how much i love metal. so we "banged heads" and "mawshed" to the delightful sounds of HIGH ON FIRE. actually, i sucked my thumb while looking at "concert poster art."

5:20 i've heard nothing but bad things about THE STILLS live in concert. then i saw them. yup...still nothing but bad things.

6:05 apparently this guy ROKY ERICKSON was a really cool acid-folk artist and then did too many drugs and disappeared and became crazy. he looked happy to be on stage again. me no likey old-sounding music.

6:55 my favorite act of the whole festival - BOREDOMS, who are anything but their namesake. 3 drummers surrounding a dude who jumps around, yelps, and plays 3-note riffs on various analogs. two 30-minute songs.

7:50 the man with the plan, GHOSTFACE, swears a lot and brings lots of white women on stage to dance with him. i watch from afar, staked out for...

8:45 the annoying squeaky doll that is LADY SOVEREIGN was quite entertaining, actually. she had a "live painter" painting along to her "songs" about fake tanning, "people that go blah blah blah," and people who love her and hate her. gross and fun at the same time. oh and some girl took a picture of me with a big grin and she asked me to "do the rock sign," so i think i probably did the "i love you" in ASL sign. she said it was going to be in a magazine. and we saw a sign saying "if you enter these premises, you are allowing MTV to use your image and likeness, blah blah." neat.

9:20 when i listen to THE STREETS, all i hear is "bah ah uh bah uh (in british accent)," kinda like charlie brown's parents (yeah that was kind of a dishwalla reference). but it was fun for the first few songs we stayed for. then they played a slow song, and a slow STREETS song is like slowly melting inside a bear's stomach.

::the second 24 hours::

NOON we see the infamous MOLLY for breakfast. man eating out for breakfast was probably my favorite part of the weekend. it's so delicious. and MOLLY decides what you should for you! it's genius!

1:20 we catch the end of TYRADES and they're throwing guitars into the audience as we're staking out spots for the next act, and the security guard says to us, "whoa it must be nice to be a rockstar," even though there's about 100 people at the fest at this point and they're a no-name punk band from chicago with one 7-inch under their belt.

1:30 and here comes my other favorite of the festival - BILL DOLAN. instrumental post-jazz-rock with some surf guitar thrown in for good measure, he also had the drummer from TORTOISE and the bassist from ISOTOPE 217. it was nothing groundbreaking, but they were so freaking upbeat and fast that i could have watched them all day.

2:00 i am going to pretend that PANTHERS don't exist.

2:30 after a lot of guitar straps falling off because they're so wacky, CONSTANTINES put another great performance in the bag. as they announced, it was their 500th show! neat.

3:10 apparently RHYMEFEST co-wrote "jesus walks." it still sounded like outdoor live hip-hop, which is BOOM BOOM i stay away BOOM BOOM. he had a guy who just rode a segway across stage and bop his head. that was awesome.

3:45 i am going to pretend that i never saw ANNIE live. wow not as attractive in person, and she doesn't even dance!!! plus a french guy that just presses play on a CD player and a white jamaican who laughs when he screws up playing a SNARE and a CYMBAL and TWO CHORDS on an awfully distorted electric guitar???

4:20 more BOOM BOOM some new hip-hopper LUPE FIASCO, pushkar and i try to leave to find something interesting around union park, but get scared and re-enter the fest.

4:55 we stay as far away as possible once again as stoner metal heartthrobs THE SWORD takes the stage. once again more free gummi bears. today they had bowls instead of just making the VIPs grab handfuls! finally they understand how important we are.

5:30 once again another old-sounding supposedly-important band BLUE CHEER comes on. sounds old. i'll stake out my spot for...

6:15 of course JON BRION didn't play any of his film score music. because the world hates me. but luckily, the crazy ex-TIL TUESDAY member-cum-kanye west producer is totally insane and played all instruments himself, looping drums and piano and then playing guitar and singing and looping all that and so on. it worked very well for one song, but ultimately, it was quite catastrophic and awkward for everyone.

7:15 fifty-year-old baby ROBERT POLLARD pouts on his stage while BRION cuts into his set because the guy who invented intonation or something asked people if they wanted an encore and people were all like "woo yeah-ya" and so BRION came back out for an encore and pollard cried, then played his set drunkenly as ever with a bunch of 20-somethings and it was akward and hilarious and boring all at the same time.


8:15 finally the awkwardness ends when DEAD PREZ hit the stage and i don't care at all. i watch THE O.C. so i stake out a spot for...

9:20 after twenty minutes of testing bright white lights and blinding me and hearing a drunken conversation between two girls who i am pretty sure one is the sister of the ex-boyfriend of the other one and they kept saying snide comments back and forth to each other, BLOC PARTY finally takes the stage. better than i thought it was going to be. the new songs suck, and they started off shakily, but "this modern love," "helicopter," and "like eating glass" were performed wonderfully, which is good, because those are the 3 bloc party songs i care about.

all in all, the free gummi bears, BOREDOMS, BILL DOLAN, JOSE GONZALEZ, CONSTANTINES, one JON BRION song, and three BLOC PARTY songs are what made this weekend bearable.

oh and dave letting us stay at his place and cook a margherita pizza in his oven and play guitar hero at 1 in the morning. and maria. she's pretty cool too. and molly, thanks for meeting us for b-fast.

will pitchfork be better? hopefully with the addition of one P. ARTY HAYDEN.

This entry was posted by chris, on Thursday, June 29, 2006. You can leave your response.