Pitchfork 2008 part 1: THE MUSICING

So I've been away for a bit but I have returned from vacation and most of all, pitchfork music festival 2008! So here's a big ass, two part post about pitchfork.

First off, me and Paul made some new sticker designs. Since pitchfork took place in a park with not too many walls or places to post them I handed them out to a few people and a bunch of artist at pitchfork's flatstock 17, a poster illustration show they hosted this year. I ran into some amazing and fun illustrators but I'll cover that in part 2.

Paul posted his design earlier, here's mine:

Take that artist! You all suck!

For the music fest itself, I went saturday and Sunday. I've been to pitchfork music fest for the last 2 years and it's usually a very nice collection of independent musicians and bands from many different types of genres and scenes. For part 1 I'm just going to cover Saturday.

First group I saw was Fleet Foxes, they kind of trot the line of folk and rock and sound like a blend of Fleet wood Mac with My morning jacket. The nice thing was they sounded exactly like they do on their albums, vocal harmonies and all.

Fleet foxes know where it's at; Beards and vest

Next after them I went with two of my friends to see Ruby Suns, a fun little new Zealand band, much like flight of the choncords. Of course they concentrated more on psychedelliac pop than humor but it was all good.

The music was fun but his shirt hurt my eyes :[

We then headed on over to see !!! which danced until they could dance no more. They were probably the loudest band of the weekend but at the same time they definitely used it well. They got everyone moving and/or possibly grooving.

Good sound and great short shorts

The last two musicians/bands I saw might have been my favorite at pitchfork this year. After !!! I saw Atlas Sound, a side project of Bradford Cox whose the lead singer of Deerhunter. I've always been a big fan of his but it was even more amazing to see him live. It was just him on the stage with a guitar and sound set up and he reproduced all the sound perfectly. Hearing "Quarantined" live was hauntingly moving.

Amazing as he is skinny

After that I saw the last group on Saturday which was Animal collect which was fucking amazing. On top of doing a lot of their own songs, Panda Bear did "Comfy in Nautica" off his own album from last year. For the final song of the evening they did a 15 minute version of "Fireworks" which was mindblowingly great.

Look at all those nerds taking pictures.

Not quite full to the brim with music that night, me and a coworker from my job meet up at Schubas for an aftershow headlined by High Places. On top of Schubas being one of my favorite venues in Chicago, High places gave a really great show even though I was already feeling dead on my feet after a long day.

They write songs about banana slugs, how could you not love them?

Also having a few stickers left I made sure to mark their exit doors accordingly:

Dark rooms + flash + shiny exit door = :[
At least they looked good next to each other

Finally finishing up day one around 3 am and my friend Shawn referring to me as a gay cowboy named jim, it was a clear sign to head home and sleep. I'll give the second update soon'esque.