Tuesday, April 3, 2012

LouFest 2012 Lineup


The lineup for LouFest 2012 just got released, and it turns out Sleepy Kitty's on it. Which is righteous! Especially because this year's lineup in particular resonates with us.


Some personal notes on some of those bands:


- I used to go see THE FLAMING LIPS way way back with the Harvey Dangers, when they draped the old Moe in millions of Christmas lights and the old guitarist with the crazy dark hair stood next to his seven foot tall wall of effects calmly destroying all the soundwaves in the room. I also saw one of their parking lot experiments which totally changed my life. They have made the world a better place.


- In my last band, Bound Stems, we found out about Park the Van Records, and their bands Teeth and DR. DOG. I was determined to play with Dr. Dog, who were then a mostly Pennsylvania band and just out of our van's driving range. Later I saw them in the corner of a bar at SXSW in the broad daylight, and they were every bit as arresting as I thought they must be.


- It may be that no one I know is familiar with COTTON MATHER, but not for lack of my trying. By pure chance I came across an album of theirs, called "Kon-Tiki," shortly before it was released in the late '90s. It was my roommate's advance copy for review, on a stack of other advance copies for review. The cover was really beautiful, and I put it in... and it's been in my player at least a few times a year ever since. There's something about Robert Harrison's voice that picks up on an angle of John Lennon I've ever seen anyone else explore, while cherrypicking some of the best details of Big Star compositions. Kon-Tiki is one of those under-appreciated classics that I've been proselytizing forever, and I'm going to be working overtime to make sure my musical friends know how important it is to be in the crowd when Cotton Mather gets onstage at LouFest. This is a mighty booking.


- HACIENDA opened for the Greenhornes at the Firebird not too terribly long ago (there's a great poster by Jason Potter from that show), and they have that psych-rock sky-filling reverby guitar that opens the night right up. It sounded like deserts, vultures, peyote, and medicine from the medicine man.


...That's as far as I can write tonight, though there will be more. This LouFest lineup is deep.

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