How's My Living? » metric

Scheduling for Lollapalooza is so hard.

Sarah — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 15:50:48 +0000

I am having a love/hate relationship with this year’s Lollapalooza schedule. It’s not like last year, where I was able to fill every inch of my day with bands. But maybe that’s a good thing — more time for aimlessly wandering from stage to stage, more opportunities to discover something new.

Here’s where you’re most likely to find me this year:

Friday
B.o.B, 11:30-12:15, adidas MEGA stage. Not gonna lie, I really like that song “Airplanes”.
Los Amigos Invisibles, Playstation stage, or The Walkmen, adidas MEGA stage, 1:00-2:00. I’m torn on this one. I’m dragging my husband with me to Lolla this year, and he, like Los Amigos Invisibles, is Venezuelan, so we kind of want to see them. But boy, would I like to see the Walkmen.
Mavis Staples, 2:00-3:00, Budweiser stage. She’s a legend, and her new album is full of fellow Chicagoans like Jeff Tweedy, Kelly Hogan, and Nora O’Connor.
Drive-By Truckers, 3:00-4:00, Playstation stage. I missed them earlier this year because of my dislike of the Vic. Not going to miss out on them this time.
The New Pornographers, 4:00-5:00, Budweiser stage. Last time I saw them, Neko Case had just dropped out of the tour because she broke her foot. TNP with Neko >>>> TNP without Neko.
Lady Gaga, 8:00-10:00, Parkways stage. Shut up, I am totally excited to see Gaga. Don’t you judge me.

Saturday
Who’s got two thumbs and might be sleeping in on Saturday? This girl. I’m going to spend some time over the next couple of days getting to know the morning acts to see if there’s anything that really interests me. Otherwise, I may just be wandering aimlessly until the afternoon. And then, of course, from the afternoon on, my day turns into a mess of needing to clone myself to see everything I want to see.
Blues Traveler, 1:45-2:45, Parkways stage. I love me some harmonica.
Stars, 2:15-3:15, Budweiser stage.
Dan Black, 3:00-3;45, BMI stage.
Gogol Bordello, 3:45-4:45, Parkways stage. I didn’t make it to their show at the Congress earlier this year. I will not be thwarted this time.
Deer Tick, 5:00-6:00, Sony bloggie stage.
Metric, 5:15-6:15, Playstation stage.
Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros, 6:30-7:30, Sony bloggie stage.
Green Day, 7:45-10:00, Parkways stage.
Phoenix, 8:30-10:00, Budweiser stage. The good thing about the headliners not starting at the same time is that I’ll be able to see a little bit of Green Day’s set before wandering back to Phoenix.

Sunday
The Antlers, 12:15-1:00, Budweiser stage, or Nneka, Parkways stage. I’m so torn! I love both of them, I’ve seen them both live before, so I’ve got no idea where to go.
Blitzen Trapper, 2:00-3:00, Budweiser stage.
Mumford & Sons, 3:00-4:00, Playstation stage. After Lady Gaga, they may just be the band I’m most excited to see, even though I just saw them a few months ago. I love these guys. I’m just sad they’re not going to hang out at the autograph tent, although this may be for the best, because I may have a hard time containing my excitement otherwise. (I did manage to have the self control to not pounce Andrew Bird last year, but my restraint is not infinite.)
Erykah Badu, 5:00-6:00, adidas MEGA stage. Let’s see what kind of crazy shit she comes up with.
The National, 7:15-8:30, Playstation stage. To be honest, I’ve never really loved their live music, from the bootlegs I’ve heard. Maybe this will change my mind.
Arcade Fire, 8:30-10:00, Budweiser stage. I’m also not a huge Arcade Fire fan, but I’m really not interested in seeing Soundgarden, so indie-hipster-whatever central it is.

This Week in Great Music: 5/17 – 5/23

Sarah — Mon, 17 May 2010 14:54:28 +0000

Why hello there, quiet week.

No concert activity going on for me, unless I wind up feeling adventurous later in the week. Wednesday and Thursday, Conan O’Brien stops by the Chicago Theater for some futimes. Maybe if you sell a kidney on Craigslist, you can get a ticket.

Monday, May 17
Robbie Fulks, Jim DeWan; Hideout. 7 pm, $10 suggested donation
Patrick Watson, McKensie Toma; Schubas. 8 pm, $15

Tuesday, May 18
Them Crooked Vultures; the Aragon. 7 pm, sold out

Wednesday, May 19
Alexisonfire; Lincoln Hall. 6:30 pm, $15
Alberta Cross, 22-20s; Schubas. 7 pm, $14
Mike Mangione and the Union; Todd Kessler and the New Folk; SPACE. 8 pm, $12-18

Thursday, May 20
Metric, Bear in Heaven; the Vic. 7:30 pm, $24
Suzy Bogguss, Heather Lynne Horton; SPACE. 8 pm, $20-32.50
Dan Bern, Musikanto; Martyrs. 8 pm, $20
Jessica Lea Mayfield, Dexateens, Futurebirds; Schubas. 8 pm, $12

Friday, May 21
Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, The Heavy; the Vic. 8 pm, $23-25
Willy Porter, Justin Roth; SPACE. 8 pm, $22-35
JC Brooks and the Uptown Sound, Blah Blah Blah, Hollows, Lasers and Fast and Shit; Metro. 9 pm, $10
Helen Money, Susan Voelz, Peg Simone; Hideout. 9:30 pm, $8
Voxtrot; Lincoln Hall. 10 pm, $14

Saturday, May 22
Diane Birch; Park West. 8 pm, $20
Paul Van Dyk, Paul Oakenfold; Congress Theater. 8 pm, $32.50
Chicago Clarinet Conglomerate; the Velvet Lounge (67 E Cermak). 9:30 pm, cover varies
Mono, the Twilight Sad; Lincoln Hall. 10 pm, $14

Sunday, May 23
Five for Fighting; SPACE. 2 pm, sold out
Imogen Heap, Geese; the Riviera. 7:30 pm, $25

Lollapalooza 2010 Lineup

Sarah — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 16:14:40 +0000

In case you took an internet hiatus overnight, here’s some “news” for you: Lollapalooza’s lineup for the 2010 festival has been released in full, including all the letters and &s and *’s, because god forbid they write out Fuck Buttons on their website. The lineup had, of course, already been guessed to about 90% completion by the internet, thanks to leaks about the headliners and all those handy letters that Lolla put out for their Wheel of Fortune-esque teasers.

Aside from the fact that I’m always conflicted about Lollapalooza (I’ve lived here since 2006 and finally got around to dragging myself to the festival last year for the first time), the lineup seems a bit “…meh” to me. The headliners overall aren’t as huge as I’d come to expect from the festival, and the supporting tiers seem a bit thin. There aren’t a whole lot of acts who I’m dying to see, and a lot of the acts I’m excited about are actually ones who I’ve already seen (or will have seen by the time Lolla arrives). And I’m sure someone else can analyze this more in-depth, but there’s a huge lack of local music on the line-up. Lolla’s never made any pretense about being a local music festival — it’s a huge (inter)national festival which just happened to find its home in Chicago — but it would be nice to see some more nods towards its host city in its programming.

But, I’ll admit it, even though half of the internet is all OMG LOLLA SOLD OUT, I’m pretty excited that Lady Gaga is one of the headliners. Go ahead, take away any music street cred I had left, but I am absolutely going to be at her set. There, yeah, I said it. (Also, it will be interesting to see how she adapts her notoriously over-the-top stage show to fit the throw-and-go nature of Lollapalooza.)

So now, of course, we just have to wait (and wait, and wait) for the set schedules to come out. (Consequence of Sound has an unconfirmed day-by-day break-down.) Because, knowing my luck, all of the bands I want to see will be playing at the same time.

The lineup is under the jump for your perusal, in case you still haven’t seen it.

Soundgarden, Green Day, Lady Gaga, Arcade Fire, the Strokes, Phoenix, Social Distortion, MGMT, Jimmy Cliff, Hot Chip, the Black Keys, the National, Spoon, Devo, Cypress Hill, Cut Copy, the New Pornographers, Erykah Badu, Slightly Stoopid, Grizzly Bear, Gogol Bordello, Chromeo, Wolfmother, Yeasayer, X Japan, MUTEMATH, Metric, Dirty Projectors, AFI, Mavis Staples, Matt & Kim, the xx, Drive-By Truckers, Blues Traveler.

Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros, the Temper Trap, Jamie Lidell, Frightened Rabbit, F Buttons, Deer Tick, Blitzen Trapper, Stars, Raphael Saadiq, the Cribs, Minus the Bear, Switchfoot, the Walkmen, Mumford & Sons, Wild Beasts, Rogue Wave, Los Amigos Invisibles, the Big Pink, the Dodos, Hockey, Cymbals Eat Guitars, B.o.B, Dawes, Warpaint, the Antlers, the Soft Pack, Rebelution, Balkan Beat Box.

Wavves, American Bang, the Ike Reilly Assassination, Company of Thieves, Nneka, Harlem, the Constellations, Miniature Tigers, Mimicking Birds, the Kissaway Trail, HEALTH, Javelin, the Morning Benders, Foxy Shazam, Violent Soho, Royal Bangs, NEON TREES, Freelance Whales, Semi Precious Weapons, Dan Black, The Band of Heathens, Dragonette, My Dear Disco, Shawn Fisher, Neon Hitch, Skybox, The Ettes, Jukebox the Ghost, These United States, MyNameIsJohnMichael.

2009 Favorites: Part One

Sarah — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 17:14:54 +0000

So between now and the end of the year, I’ll be bringing you my 20 favorite albums of 2009. These 20 albums aren’t in any particular order, aside from the fact that I put them into four groupings of five albums each. There’s nothing scientific or measured about this, it’s mostly just an order based on which albums popped into my head first. The posts themselves are in alphabetical order. Because I hate ranking things, so there.

Without further ado, I bring you the first five albums.

Lady Gaga, The Fame Monster.

I guess this spot on the list really is more for Lady Gaga in general, not entirely for The Fame Monster, but whatever. It’s my blog, I do what I want. There is no good reason for me to love her music as much as I do. It’s not particularly original or deep or ground-breaking, but it is just some damn fun music. Time will tell as to whether or not she’s a flash in the pan or if she’ll be sticking around for a while, but I’m going to enjoy it while it lasts. With its inventive and catchy songs, The Fame Monster showed that hopefully it’s going to be the latter. She’s definitely a talented woman, that’s for sure. Even if I am bitter that she’s younger than me.

The Fame Monster was released November 18 by Interscope.
Official Website | MySpace | Twitter
Purchase the album here.

Loudon Wainwright, High Wide & Handsome: The Charlie Poole Project.

If you don’t like folk/Americana/banjos/bluegrass, this probably isn’t the album for you. This release takes a look at the catalog of Charlie Poole, a banjo player and singer in the 1920s who drank himself to death. Listening to it, you feel as though Wainwright gets the material, both the original source material (Poole didn’t write any original songs) and Poole’s interpretations. In addition to the covers of old material, Wainwright and friends threw in a handful of fabulous original songs, which fit in so well that it would be difficult to guess which they were. This album would rate higher on my list if there simply wasn’t so much material – there are 30 tracks over 2 CDs, and it’s hard to get in-depth with something that lengthy. High Wide & Handsome was a great cap on the decade for Wainwright, who’s received a Grammy nomination for the project, which would be a well-deserved win.

High Wide & Handsome was released August 17 by 2nd Story Sound.
Official Website | MySpace
Purchase the album here.

Metric, Fantasies.

Honestly, I sort of forgot about this album for a little while, despite the fact that I listened to it a whole lot after I first got it. I saw it pop up on a lot of other best-of lists and decided to give it another chance. I’m listening to it right now and am having a moment where I’m all, wow, how did I not listen to this all year? It would have been a great album to listen to on days where everything else is crappy. This is a really strong collection of pop-rock songs. They may not be the most memorable (see: the fact that I forgot about the release for a while) but it shows that Emily Haines and Metric still have it, four years after their last release.

Fantasies was released April 7 by Arts & Crafts
Official Website | MySpace | Twitter
Purchase the album here.

Sarah Jarosz, Song Up in Her Head.

This album is almost too precious for me. Everything about it is cute and adorable and I just want to squish it. She even makes “Shankhill Butchers”, a cover of a Decemberists song, sound cute. But seriously, this is a fantastic debut album from Sarah Jarosz, a bluegrass musician/singer-songwriter from Texas who is just eighteen. Please hold while I have one of those moments where I wonder just what in the world I’m doing with my life. Listening to this, you would never know that this is a girl who has just graduated high school. Her music is much older than her age would suggest.

Song Up in Her Head was released June 16 by Sugar Hill Records
Official Website | MySpace
Purchase the album here.

Zee Avi, Zee Avi.

This is another album that’s just absolutely adorable. I have to be in the right frame of mind to handle adorable, though, which is probably why both this album and Sarah Jarosz’s don’t rank higher on my not-really-ranked list. With her ukulele and sweet-sounding vocals, Zee Avi’s created a great summertime record. Don’t let the cuteness fool you, though; this is a very grown-up record. Behind the upbeat vocals and instrumentation are terribly serious songs like “Poppy” (“My baby, he don’t act like himself no more … he spent his nights slapping his veins”) and a cover of Morrisey’s “First of the Gang to Die” (“You have never been in love until you’ve seen the sunlight thrown over smashed human bones”).

Zee Avi was released May 19 by Brushfire Records
Official Website | MySpace | Twitter
Purchase the album here.

This Week in Great Music: 12/14 – 12-20

Sarah — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 16:10:54 +0000

My musical week can be pretty easily summed up in two words: Andrew Bird. For everyone else who isn’t as enthralled as I am at the prospect of watching Mr. Bird do his thing in a church, or who couldn’t get tickets, here’s the rest of what I find interesting this week in Chicago. But I’ve got to admit, it looks like anyone I would find even vaguely interesting has chosen to steer clear of Chicago for the beginning part of the week. No complaints here; with the exception of missing out on the Metric show (which, being at the Cubby Bear, I would have just complained about the entire time), I’m not seeing anything that I’m too heartbroken to miss.

Also: Our Lady Peace? Sister Hazel? No, seriously, what’s up with the 90s band resurgence here? I’m starting to get a little concerned.

I am a bit sad about missing out on the greatness that is Second City’s 24-Hour benefit show, which I’m missing out on more because of not being able to leave the day job just to go to concerts. But it should be a great time, and the money goes to provide presents for needy children in Chicago.

Monday, December 14
Andrew Bird, Fourth Presbyterian Church (126 E Chestnut). 8 pm, $15 (audio only; all other seats sold out)

Tuesday, December 15
Jeff Tweedy, Second City (1608 N Wells). $15 for 24-hour admission, 7 pm
The Bravery, Manchester Orchestra, and As Tall As Lions, House of Blues. 7:30 pm, $23-26
Andrew Bird, Fourth Presbyterian Church (126 E Chestnut). 8 pm, $15 (audio only; all other seats sold out)

Wednesday, December 16
Bonnie Prince Billy, Second City (1608 N Wells). $15 for 24-hour admission, 6 am
Nina Nastasia, Second City (1608 N Wells). $15 for 24-hour admission, 12 pm
The Mountain Goats, Second City (1608 N Wells). $15 for 24-hour admission, 2 pm
Andrew Bird, Fourth Presbyterian Church (126 E Chestnut). 8 pm, $15 (audio only; all other seats sold out)
Chicago Clarinet Conglomerate, The Velvet Lounge (67 E Cermak). 8:30 pm, cover varies
Metric, Cubby Bear (1059 W Addison). 9 pm, $10

Thursday, December 17
Andrew Bird, Fourth Presbyterian Church (126 E Chestnut). 8 pm, $35-40
Our Lady Peace, Cubby Bear (1059 W Addison). 9 pm, $10

Friday, December 18
Kathleen Battle and the Chicago Children’s Choir, Harris Theater (205 E Randolph). 7:30 pm, $45-95
Sister Hazel and Tony Lucca, House of Blues. 9 pm, $25-26.50

Saturday, December 19
The Klezmatics, Centre East (9501 Skokie Blvd., Skokie). 8 pm, $48
Sister Hazel and Tony Lucca, House of Blues. 9 pm, $25-26.50

Sunday, December 20
Apollo Chorus of Chicago presents Handel’s Messiah. Harris Theater (205 E. Randolph). 3 pm, $35-50
Dasboton, Hideout. 9 pm, $8

Lilith Fair announces 2010 lineup

Sarah — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 19:54:00 +0000

In even more awesome festival news, Lilith Fair has announced its lineup for the 2010 revival of the tour, and it’s nothing short of amazing. Named acts so far span all different genres, age groups, and demographics.

The lineup as it currently stands includes Brandi Carlile, Indigo Girls, Mary J. Blige, Metric, Sheryl Crow, Tegan and Sara, A Fine Frenzy, Butterfly Boucher, Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, Ingrid Michaelson, Janelle Monae, Tara MacLean, The Weepies, Vedera, and Zee Avi, and, of course, tour founder Sarah McLachlan. There are, of course, many more listed on the website, and it seems like more artists are yet to be announced.

All I can say is wow. Heck with the tough decision-making of Lollapalooza; I’m pretty sure that I’m going to have no idea how to choose between competing sets at this show.

No tour dates have been set yet, and no news on tickets, but I’m hoping that will be coming soon.