Coachella 2010 : Day One

Well, it’s a been a couple of weeks, so I finally decided to sit down and compile my thoughts about this year’s Coachella Music and Arts Festival, which took place April 16 – 18, 2010 in Indio, CA.  This was the sixth time that I had attended the festival, and it was the fifth year in a row.

From a logistical standpoint, this year’s Coachella was FAR from perfect.  Months before the festival began, people were already upset that there were no single day tickets this year.  If you wanted to attend, you had to purchase a 3-day pass for the whole weekend.  Then, when the first day finally came around, there were problems with parking, ticket/wristband exchange, bands who had to cancel due to the Icelandic volcano, and a huge sold out crowd (75,000 people as opposed to 60,000 or less the last few years).  If you want to read complaints, there are other sites for that, including the official Coachella message board.  While this year WAS a bit unorganized, for me it was one of my favorite years overall, so I’ll focus on the (mostly) positive instead.

This year there was a ferris wheel!

I Hate That Commercial! – Six Flags

Okay, let’s just face the hard truth here… the commercials for Six Flags’ theme parks have been pretty bad for years. Sure, the old guy dancing to that song (apparently “We Like to Party” by Vengaboys) was maybe mildly entertaining when the advertising campaign started back in 2004. And that was mostly because it was one of those weird commercials you couldn’t really turn away from. It had catchy music, and that crazy bald dancing man (apparently named “Mr. Six”). They got rid of the commercials a few years later, turning instead to a new slogan (“Six Flags. More Flags, More Fun.”) which doesn’t even make any sense in the slightest.

Well, after that didn’t work out, they brought good ol’ Mr. Six back for new advertisements in the last year or so. And now, well, they’ve really topped themselves again, by bringing out one of the most disturbing commercials ever.

Music Video Of The Week: Hot Chip – “I Feel Better”

I’m not going to lie, I’m a bit biased here, as Hot Chip are already one of my favorite bands.  I’ve seen them in concert twice, including earlier this month at Coachella.  They’ve also just recently released a video for “I Feel Better,” the second single off of their fourth studio album, One Life Stand.   We featured the video for the CD’s title track awhile back, but even though it is a great song, the video just seemed to be lacking in the creativity department.

On the other hand, their new video for “I Feel Better” is simply amazing, thanks in part to the video being directed by British actor/comic Peter Serafinowicz (Shaun Of The Dead, Spaced, Look Around You).  I’m a big fan of Peter’s.  In fact, he is easily one of the funniest people on the planet (just check out his twitter account if you don’t believe me).  So when I heard that he was directing the video for this song, I knew it just had to be good.

The song relies heavily on auto-tune, which is a first for the band.  I know some people don’t like auto-tune as a whole, but I’m fine with it if it’s used for effect.  The video features a fake boy band, who are the type of singers who might NORMALLY use auto-tune on their recordings.  The guys from Hot Chip appear in the crowd scenes, in this amazingly funny, insane video.  Check it out…  It’s also the free iTunes video of the week right now, so make sure to grab it for your digital device!

Top 100 Songs of the Decade: “Folk Singer” – Brendan Benson

“Folk Singer”
by Brendan Benson (2002)

These days, if you know who Brendan Benson is, you probably know him from his work in the Jack White band The Raconteurs.  But back in 2002, he had just released his second solo album called Lapalco.  I first discovered Brendan, and this song, when it appeared on one of the CD compilations for International Pop Overthrow, a concert festival I attend each summer in Los Angeles.

Music Video of the Week: jj – “Let Go”

Well, we took most of last week off due to internet connectivity issues at home, but it’s finally working again, so here is the music video I was going to post last Friday.

The band jj is set to release their brand new CD, entitled jj n° 3 , in the U.S. next Tuesday (March 9th). I’ve already heard the album online and it’s great, especially if you’re in a mellow mood. Their music is proably best described as Electronica, and the first single “Let Go” has been getting a lot of airplay on Sirius XMU.

Hopefully you enjoy this as much as I do. Check out the video for the dreamy “Let Go”…

Nerd Alert!!! It’s Time To Muscle March (Wii)!!!

The Nintendo Wii is a great video game system for casual gamers.  Sure it has some shortcomings (the fact that it’s not in HD is one that bothers me), but one of my favorite things about the system is the ability to purchase games, both old and new, and download them to the system via Virtual Console and WiiWare.  I’m a big fan of puzzle games, and my wife and I have downloaded several games in that genre (Wario’s Woods, Tetris Party, Dr. Mario).  It’s fun to play against each other, and against opponents over the internet.

But last month I was browsing the internet, and came across a game called Muscle March.  I guess the game originally became a viral sensation when it was released in Japan and the trailer for it showed up on Youtube.

Music Video Of The Week: Spoon – “Written In Reverse”

I’ve been a fan of the band Spoon for awhile now.  They definitely have a unique style all their own.  They’re one of a few of my favorite bands that I’ve never seen in concert.  Well, hopefully that will change in April, because they are playing Coachella this year, and I’ll be there.

The one thing I didn’t know about Spoon until recently was that they’ve actually been around since 1993.  They just recently released their seventh studio album, Transference, and our music video of the week is the first official video from it.  It’s not my favorite song on the new CD, that would be “Mystery Zone,” but it’s still a great one.