San Francisco's 18th annual Noise Pop festival, featuring indie rock artists, independent films, and special events that will take place at venues throughout the city over a span of seven days, starting this Tuesday, February 23rd.

Artists and bands scheduled to perform include an eclectic line-up, ranging from folk and rock to pop and electronic. Some of the headliners include Rogue Wave, The Magnetic Fields, The Dodos, Zee Avi, !!!, Edward Sharpe and the Zeros, John Vanderslice, Atlas Sound, Memory Tapes, We Were Promised Jetpacks, Thao Nguyen, Mark Kozelek, Foreign Born, Far and The Soundtrack of Our Lives.

Claudia Gonson Of Magnetic Fields will present the keynote speech at the opening ceremonies at the Industry Noise. A number of shows have already sold out, including performances headlined by Rogue Wave, Atlas Sound, Four Tet, Memory Tapes, Edward Sharpe and the Zeros and The Magnetic Fields' Monday night show at the Herbst Theatre. Some film screenings have also sold out (see details below; plus plenty of trailers).

The Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band will perform for the first time in San Francisco in 15 years opening night at the Fox Theatre in Oakland. Performing with Yoko Ono will be her son, Sean Lennon, With Cornelius, Yuka Honda and Deerhoof.

This is the full schedule for Noise Pop organized by music and film, and including information such as artists, venue names and locations, show times, ticket prices, song streams, and video trailers.

Wednesday, Feb. 24th

Music

Rogue Wave with Princeton, Man/Miracle, and Two Sheds at Bottom Of The Hill (website | 1233 17th St. ) - 8 p.m. Tickets: Sold Out. All ages.

"Good Morning" - Rogue Wave
"Sadie and Andy" - Princeton

The Ghost of a Saber Toothed Tiger at The Independent ( website | 628 Divisadero St. ) - 8 p.m. Tickets: $20. Ages 21+.

Harlem, Best Coast, The Sandwiches and Young Prisms at Cafe Du Nord (website | 2170 Market St. ) . Tickets: $12. Ages 21+.

"Friendly Ghosts" - Harlem
"This Is Real" - Best Coast

Foreign Born, The Fresh & Onlys, Free Energy and The Splinters at the Rickshaw Stop (website | 155 Fell St. ) - 8 p.m. Tickets: $15. All ages.

"Vacationing People" - Foreign Born
"Free Energy" - Free Energy


Film


Austin, Texas: Live Music Capital of the World? at the Roxie Theatre (website | 3117 16th St), 7 p.m. Tickets: $10. All ages.

Related: See a three minute, cool promo video mashup of Austin with some great shots of the music scene and other Austin attractions, via AustinTexas.org and set to music by Vallejo.

P Star Rising at the Roxie, 9 p.m. Tickets: $10. All ages.


Thursday, Feb. 25th

Music

Citay, Greg Ashley and Tape Deck Mountain at Cafe Du Nord - 8 p.m. Tickets: $12-$14. Age requirement of 21 years.

"Careful with That Hat" - Citay
"Ghost Colony" - Tape Deck Mountain

Far (Reunion show) with Stomacher, Picture Atlantic, The Trophy Fire at Bottom of the Hill - 8 p.m. Tickets: $14. All ages.

"Pony" - Far

The Dodos with Magik Magik Orchestra Collaborative at the Palace of Fine Arts (website | 3301 Lyon St.) - 8 p.m. Tickets: $25. All ages.

"Jodi" - The Dodos

Zee Avi with The Hot Toddies, Leslie and the Badgers and Tiny Television at Rickshaw Stop - 8:30 p.m. Tickets: $12-$14. All ages.

"First of the Gang to Die" - Zee Avi

Film


Blood Into Wine at Viz Cinema (website | 1746 Post St. ) - 7:30 p.m. Tickets: Sold Out. All ages.


The Heart is a Drum Machine at the Viz Cinema - 9:30 p.m. Tickets: $10. All ages.


Friday, Feb. 26th

Music

John Vanderslice with Nurses, Honeycomb and Conspiracy of Venus at Swedish American Hall (website | 2174 Market St.) - 8 p.m. Tickets: $15. Ages 21+.

"Me and My 424" - John Vanderslice
"Asleep" - Nurses

Atlas Sound with Geographer, Magic Wands and Nice Nice at Great American Music Hall (website | 859 O'Farrell St. ) - 8 p.m. Tickets: Sold Out. All ages.

"Walkabout" (featuring Noah Lennox, aka Panda Bear, of Animal Collective) - Atlas Sound
"Can't You Wait" - Geographer

The Mumlers with The Growlers, Sonny and the Sunsets and The Ferocious Few at Cafe Du Nord - 8 p.m. Tickets: $12-$14. Ages 21+.

"Red River Hustle" - The Mumlers
"Barnacle Beast" - The Growlers

Wallpaper, The Limousines, Butterfly Bones and Battlehooch at Slim's (website | 333 11th St. ) - 8 p.m. Tickets: $14. All ages.

"Pool Party" - Wallpaper
"Dancing at Her Funeral" - The Limousines

Four Tet with Nathan Fake, Rainbow Arabia and New Villager at The Independent - 8 p.m. Tickets: Sold Out. Ages 21+.

"Plastic People" - Four Tet
"Harlem Sunset" - Rainbow Arabia
"Rich Doors" - New Villager

Scissors for Lefty, Judgment Day, Ghosts and the City, and Glaciers at Bottom of the Hill - 8 p.m. Tickets: Sold Out. Ages 21+.

Film


Blood Into Wine at ATA (website | 992 Valencia St. ) - 7 p.m. Tickets: $10. All ages.

Downtown Calling at ATA - 9 p.m. Tickets: $10. All ages.


Saturday, Feb. 27th

Music

Memory Tapes with Loquat, Birds & Batteries, and Letting Up Despite Great Faults at Bottom of the Hill - 9 p.m. Tickets: Sold Out. All ages.

"Plain Material" - Memory Tapes
"Sit" - Loquat

The Magnetic Fields at Fox Theatre in Oakland (website |1807 Telegraph Ave.) - 8 p.m. Tickets: $32.50. All ages.

"I Don't Believe You" - The Magnetic Fields

True Widow, P.E.E., Ovens, and Grass Widow at Cafe Du Nord - 8 p.m. Tickets: $12-$14. Ages 21+.

"Duelist" - True Widow
"Time Could Bend" - Grass Widow

We Were Promised Jetpacks with The Lonely Forest, Bear Hands, Tempo No Tempo at Slim's - 8 p.m. Tickets: $16. All ages.

"Conductor" - We Were Promised Jetpacks
"What a Drag" - Bear Hands

Thao Nguyen with Mirah and Horse Feathers, Dave Smallen, Carletta, and Sue Kay at Swedish American Hall - 8 p.m. Tickets: $15. Ages 21+.

"Beat" - Thao Nguyen
"Curs in the Weeds" - Horse Feathers

The Soundtrack of Our Lives with Nico Vega, Music for Animals, and Imaad Wasif at The Independent - 8 p.m. Tickets: $16. Ages 21+.

"Firmament Vacation" - The Soundtrack of Our Lives
"Beast" - Nico Vega
"Red Cells" - Music For Animals
"Wanderlusting" - Imaad Wasif

Mark Kozelek with Laura Gibson, Paula Frazer, and Fences at The Great American Music Hall - 8 p.m. Tickets: $26/$30. All ages.

"Celebrated Summer" - Mark Kozelek
"Come By Storm" - Laura Gibson

!!! with Maus Haus, Sugar & Gold, and My First Earthquake at Mezzanine (website | 444 Jessie St. ). Tickets: $20. Ages 21+.

"Take Estasy With Me (Magnetic Fields)" - !!!
"Rigid Breakfast" - Maus Haus

Black Prairie (with members of The Decemberists), Trainwreck Riders, Billy & Dolly, and Birds Fled From Me - 8:30 p.m. at Rickshaw Stop. Tickets: $14. All ages.

"Engine Driver" - The Decemberists
"Chug Along" - Trainwreck Riders

Film

Unusual Heroes: John Darnielle and Lou Barlow at ATA - 2 p.m. Tickets: $10. All ages


Woodstock: Now & Then at ATA - 4 p.m. Tickets: $10. All ages.


Sunday, Feb. 28th

Music

Dizzy Balloon with The Houds Below, Visqueen and Laarks at Bottom of the Hill - 1 p.m. Tickets: $12. All ages.
"Raise A Glass" - Dizzy Balloon
"All The Words" - Laarks

Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros with The Watson Twins, AB & The Sea, and The Northern Key at Bimbo's 365 Club (website | 1025 Columbus Ave ) - 7:30 p.m. Tickets: Sold Out.

"Daydream" - Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros
"Sky Open Up" - The Watson Twins

Film

The Secret to a Happy Ending at ATA - 2 p.m. Tickets: Sold Out. All ages.


All My Friends Are Funeral Singers at ATA - 4 p.m. Tickets: $10. All ages.


A Film About Stephin Merritt and The Magnetic Fields at Mezzanine - 8 p.m. Tickets: $15. All ages.


Monday, March 1st - The Finale

The Magnetic Fields with Mark Eitzel at Herbst Theater (website | 401 Van Ness St. ) - 8 p.m. Tickets: Sold Out. All ages.

"All The Umbrellas in London" (Live at KVRX, 1999) - The Magnetic Fields

Tickets for all performances listed above can be purchased on the Noise Pop full schedule page

Note: The official website homepage's top menu links - Artists, Schedule, etc. - do not contain the updated 2010 information, for some strange reason; a bit confusing, but make sure to click here for all of the information for the 2010 event. The Bay Bridged put together a cool feature of free Noise Pop events.

We're gearing up for Noise Pop! Thanks to Tell All Your Friends PR and Noise Pop organizers for helping us out in planning for the festival.

Labels: Festivals, MP3s, Noise Pop Festival, San Francisco

YouTube video of Pearl Jam performing "Black" at Outside Lands Festival, Saturday
The second annual Outside Lands Festival in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park closed last evening with the eccentric acoustic metal band Tenacious D playing to a crowd of thousands of people. Clearly, the chilly temperatures, created by a mix of heavy fog and winds coming off the Pacific Ocean only blocks away, made the closing hours of the fest a challenge for everyone, including festival goers - some with only T-shirts and shorts - performers and festival staff.

Luckily, it was the only foggy, chilly day of the three-day festival. First-timers to San Francisco seemed baffled, and were often under-dressed, for the typical San Francisco summer time weather. On Sunday, a woman from Canada said, "It's warmer in Alaska right now then it is here. So much for sunny and warm California." She missed Saturday and Sunday, which were warm and mostly sunny days.

Promoters and organizers are calling the second annual festival a success, even though attendance appeared to be down over last year, especially on the opening day of the fest. Rolling Stone reported that attendance was 100,000 over the three days. Headliners like Pearl Jam, Dave Matthews, Ween, Modest Mouse, Incubus, Black Eyed Peas and Thievery Corporation helped bring a good chunk of the ticket sales, but it was the diverse mix of dozens of other well-known artists and bands from nearly every popular music genre that helped make the festival an overall success for music lovers.

For many people, the biggest damper for this year's Outside Land's happened before the festival even started, with the sudden cancellation by the iconic hip hop trio Beastie Boys. The band canceled their appearance at the festival (and their concert tour) in June after band member Adam Yaunch learned he had cancer. Yaunch has been recovering at his home following his August 5 surgery.

Headlining artist MIA wanted to back out of her performance after learning that Tenacious D would be replacing the Beastie Boys. The sentiment among many Beastie Boys' fans was similar. In fact, some people left before the Tenacious D set; others who stayed seemed baffled, even annoyed, by the Beastie Boys replacement. In fairness to the organizers, how do you possibly find the right replacement for the Beastie Boys, especially within a few weeks of the festival launch?

Celebrity and Tenacious D. co-founder Jack Black apparently told MTV that he wasn't insulted by MIA's Twitter messages in which she made public her displeasure of performing on the same stage before Tenacious D rather than the scheduled Beastie Boys. MTV reported that MIA was not going to perform, but the threat of a lawsuit forced her hand.

Nevertheless, many festival writers, and her loyal fans, were uninspired and disappointed by her lackluster performance. Thankfully, seeing Ween on the opposing stage in the massive area of Golden Gate Park was an alternative, even though their set was a bit of a let down.

In the end, MIA should have never been a headliner at Outside Lands from the get-go, and hopefully festival organizers will learn, as Coachella organizers learned earlier this year, that more consideration is needed to booking big name acts that have a broader appeal - like Pearl Jam, Radiohead, or even Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers.


Band of Horses at Outside Lands' Sutro stage in Lindley Meadows (photo:IRC)
The bright spots for Sunday came from performances by lesser known indie and alternative rock bands like Cage The Elephant, Band of Horses, Dead Weather, Calexico, Avett Brothers, Morning Benders, Lanka and Heartless Bastards.

Yet for many of the festival goers in the indie and alternative rock/folk/country collective, if you will, it was when the Sunday schedule was revealed a couple of weeks ago that things looked less than ideal. As a music writer of a San Jose metro newspaper wrote, and this writer agrees, fans of bands like Calexico, Modest Mouse, Matt & Kim and Dead Weather had no chance of seeing each band play a full show due to some unfortunate scheduling.

Having to make the decision to skip Jack White's (The Raconteurs and The White Stripes) latest band project, Dead Weather, and Matt & Kim, in order to see part of Calexico, and most of Modest Mouse shows, turned out to be a bad decision in retrospect. Surprisingly, Modest Mouse didn't even sound like the same band that fans grew to love over the past decade and more. Perhaps it was the cold weather - or coming on before MIA - that played a part in a mediocre set from Modest Mouse.


Built To Spill put on one of the best shows at Outside Lands 2009
One of the best shows of the entire festival was clearly Built To Spill's set on Saturday afternoon on the Land's End stage. The band played beyond expectations and the crowd grew and grew during the band's set that included fan favorites like "The Plan" and a couple of new tracks from their forth-coming LP.

[Editor's Note: Oops! The first filing of this story incorrectly identified the songs "The Lazy Eye" and "The Royal We" as Built to Spill songs. They are Silversun Pickup songs. It was a long three days. Thanks to those of you who spotted the error. ]

But BTS also has some work to do to appease die-hard fans - some of whom have been fans since BTS's humble early years - who were uncomfortable at best when BTS signed on to Warner Bros. Records. Still, Built To Spill, next to Pearl Jam, put on one of the festival's best and most memorable rock shows.

On Friday night, despite Eddie Vedder's self-confessed 'tickle in throat,' which was really not that apparent, Pearl Jam rocked a massive crowd into the late hours and delivered one of best shows of the entire festival. The crowd broke out into many remarkable sing-a-longs during Pearl Jam's electrifying two-hour set. The most memorable was when thousands of fans literally sang the lead vocals on "Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town."

Being amongst the packed crowd of Pearl Jam fans in every direction, with the band playing in top form, you couldn't escape the sense of being part of a big moment in rock history. The crowd also took over on major portions of "Daughter," "Alive" and "Even Flow." The band, as a whole, sounded as good as they did a decade ago.


Jenny Lewis with Conor Oberst and The Mystic River Valley Band (Photo: IRC)
Other highlights of Outside Lands' festival for myself and company (it's impossible to see all the shows, and with preference to mostly non-headliners, makes this a biased view) include Conor Oberst and The Mystic River Valley Band, Silversun Pickups, Akron/Family, TV on the Radio, Portugal The Man, Midnite, The Duke Spirit and The Dodos, among others.

Overall, when compared to Outside Lands 2008, this year's festival line-up had a bit less of a rock emphasis. Last year featured a more powerful line up, with phenomenal shows by Radiohead, Beck, Wilco, Andrew Bird, Jack Johnson, Cake, Regina Spektor and Broken Social Scene, as well as fine performances from The Walkmen, Stars, Cold War Kids, Devendra Banhart, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Lupe Fiasco, M. Ward, The Black Keys, Rogue Wave, Primus, Bon Iver, Ben Harper & The Innocent Criminals, Steve Winwood, Rodrigo y Gabriela, Widespread Panic, Galactic and dozens more. Ahhh, now that was a festival!

All in all, Outside Lands 2009 was a good festival and all those involved deserve a thumbs up for pulling off such a huge event as smoothly as they did in the middle of a major city. What organizers might want to consider for the expected 2010 Outside Lands Festival is to have a line up that looks more like 2008 than 2009, and pay more attention to scheduling conflicts and headliners, especially for the closing day. Everyone knows that a festival needs a strong closing day to be considered a success all the way around.

Finally, as all music festivals should be, it would be nice to see ticket prices come down just a bit to allow more people to attend. Festivals are not supposed to be all about making money but they are becoming more like that every year. Yes, they are enormously expensive to put on, but they also bring in huge profits - so it would be nice to see the line move more in the direction of the emphasis on music and community and less on money and commercialization. Still, Outside Lands does a better job already (only it's second year) than many other big music festivals that have been around for many years.

Related Outside Lands' posts:

- First-Ever YouTube Live Streaming of Outside Lands Festival

- Second Annual Outside Lands Festival Starts Friday

Labels: Built to Spill, Outside Lands Festival, Pearl Jam, San Francisco

Tomorrow is the kick-off for this weekend's second annual Outside Lands Music Festival in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. Last year, there were an average of 60,000 people per day at the three-day long festival which was considered a success for the premiere of the new festival. Some music sites have described OL as the Bonnaroo or Lollapalooza of the West. It's a bit early to make that analogy, but clearly OL has become a contender for one of the country's major music festivals.

Although one of the major headliners at this year's Outside Land Festival, the Beastie Boys, had to cancel, organizers mobilized and got Tenacious D as a replacement. Other headliners include Pearl Jam, Dave Matthews, Incubus, Black Peas, Mars Volta, Ween, Modest Mouse and Thievery Corporation. What is not clear is why Band of Horses, Built to Spill and Calexico haven't been promoted as headliners.

In addition to the headliners, there are many top seed indie and alternative rock bands on the schedule, including Built to Spill, Band of Horses, The Dead Weather, TV on the Radio, Silversun Pickups, The National, Conor Oberst and the Mystic River Valley Band, The Dodos, Calexico, Akron/Family, The Duke Spirit, Blind Pilot, Bat For Lashes, Portugal, The Man, Cage The Elephant, The Avett Brothers, John Vanderslice, Heartless Bastards, Matt & Kim and dozens more. View the full line up of artist and bands playing the Outside Lands Festival.

In preparation for the festival, IRC is highlighting some of the top bands in this special festival playlist. Whether you're going to the festival or not, it's a good representation of the bands playing Outside Lands. If you'd like to see the exclusive, live webcast from San Francisco, you can watch Outside Lands on YouTube.

This playlist features songs from just a few of the bands playing this weekend's Outside Lands Festival in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. Fest starts at noon Friday.

"They Will Appear, Behold" (Live) - Akron/Family

"No One's Gonna Love You" - Band of Horses

"Nikorette" - Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band

"Across The Wire" - Calexico

"Panic Switch (Bobby Evans remix)" - Silversun Pickups

"So Far Around The Bend" - The National

"Fables" - The Dodos

"Your Party" - Ween

"Tiny Little Robots" - Cage The Elephant

"Microcastle" -Deerhunter

"People Say" - Portugal. The Man

"Need You Tonight (INXS cover)" - Dirtbombs

"If I Were A Carpenter" - Heartless Bastards

"Pete Evans Pritchard" - The Mars Volta

"Planet of Green Love" - Tea Leaf Green

"Moon And Moon" - Bat For Lashes

Profiles and songs from headliners and other bands playing Outside Lands Festival the weekend.

"The Plan" - Built To Spill

"World Wide Suicide" - Pearl Jam

"Dashboard" - Modest Mouse

"Boom Boom Pow" - Black Eyed Peas
"Wonderboy" - Tenacious D
"Air Batucada" - Thievery Corporation
"Gettin Up" - Q-Tip

The weather for the festival is supposed to be warmer and sunnier (and that's saying a lot for San Francisco in the summer time) than last year, which was predominantly foggy.

On the first night of the new festival in August 2008, the famous San Francisco fog rolled in as Radiohead took the stage and performed one of the most phenomenal and mind-blowing shows I've ever witnessed (and many others said the same) with a spectacular light show that created beams of blue, yellow and white lights that criss-crossed through the fog, illuminate the packed crowd of tens of thousands and was amazingly choreographed with the band's stunning performance.

During the show, which came right on the heels of Beck's impressive set, and looking in awe at the rainbow of beams shooting through the dense fog, I remembered wondering if famed director George Lukas, who lives in the SF Bay area, got the idea for the laser beams in Star Wars movies from this dazzling phenomenon?

Somehow, I can imagine him in the fog-drenched redwood forest with a flash light, being amazed, as so many who experience this phenomenon are, how even a small flash light can create such a magnificent beam of light for as far as the fog mist carries it. There was also a glimpse of this as well in scenes from Steven Spielberg's classic film E.T.

You can follow IRC on Twitter during the Outside Lands Festival this weekend as we send out updates about which bands are playing and whatever else happens.

Labels: MP3s, Outside Lands Festival, San Francisco

After some time away composing, recording and touring, Bay Area musician Jason Roberts Quever has put together another strong collection of dreamy, introspective songs - all taped in analog - for the April release You Can Have What You Want.

Quever carved out his place in the indie music industry with the release of Can't Go Back in February of 2007 on Devendra Banhart's San Francisco indie label, Gnomonsong.

Unlike Can't Go Back, this new release is much more subdued and sluggish whereas Can't Go Back reached out with lighter songs and an emphasis on a mix of electro-pop and folk rock.

In an interview in December 2007 with Salad Days Music, and with the buzz factor on high after the release of Can't Go Back, Quever talked about some of his major influences at the time, stating: "I have been listening to Broadcast a bit. My Bloody Valentine, of course. Leonard Cohen, Beach House, Issac Hayes, [and] Curtis Mayfield. I’m thinking of orchestrated stuff lately…Nuggets, always. Air." All good choices.

The new album is good throughout, but the most notable songs include "Fatal Primitive", "Dictator's Lament" and the title track. If you are a big fan of melancholy, dream-like shoegaze, this album may be worth some of your precious bills. The album's overall sound weighs in heavily on stumbling organ layers with emphasis on vocal reverberations.

After listening to it a few times, You Can Have What You Want is one of those albums that gets better with each subsequent listening, and again, especially if you like retro melancholy indie high on reverb and tracked in analog. You won't be jumping around your apartment so save this one for listening to when you are relaxed or even in a somber mood.

"Future Primitive" - Papercuts from You Can Have Want You Want available April 14th - everywhere or via the band's label, Gnomonsongs.

Other great songs from previous Papercuts' releases:

"John Brown" - Papercuts from Can't Go Back
"Take The 227th Exit" - Papercuts from Can't Go Back

Prefix Magazine compared Papercuts' music to "paisley underground ’60s revival" and repeated the over-done comparison to Beach House with a different spin, which I think is spot on. Here it is: "Comparisons to label mates Beach House wouldn’t be inaccurate, but Quever has an idiosyncratic voice all his own." Indeed and indie.

Listen to more tracks and get more information at Papercuts' MySpace page.

Labels: Gnomonsongs, Indie Album Releases 2009, New Indie 2009, Papercuts, San Francisco

We covered Vampire Weekend quite a bit since they burst onto the indie scene last year at this time. So, in the on-going series, More Best Indie Albums of 2008, here's to Vampire Weekend's wildly, and sometimes over-hyped, debut album.

It is rare for a new band to get so much coverage - from Rolling Stone to New York Times - from a debut album. Vampire Weekend came up with a fresh sound, some call it gimmicky (not I), that caught on. Within a few months they were the buzz band of early 2008. They've even been on Saturday Night Live which just propelled VW into another sphere of musical success.

The band's album debut is full of fun, upbeat songs with an underlying swasi-indie pop sound they are so known for. Songs like "A Punk", "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" and "Oxford Comma" made the album a big hit in 2008.

There is no doubt that we loved this album and the band's sound - even went to one of their shows in San Francisco - but over the year it became mundane. Now the pressure is really on these fellows from Brooklyn to come out with a solid follow-up to their popular break through debut.

"Ottoman" - Vampire Weekend available as a single only while awaiting word on when a new album is set for release. Interesting single and definitely a new sound.

So far as we can tell, there is only one relatively new song called "Ottoman" and is available for streaming on Vampire Weekend's MySpace page.

Listen to Vampire Weekend's DayTrotter Session from as early as October 2007, just a few months before their name and music exploded on the college radio and indie blogs.

Labels: Best Indie Albums 2008, Indie Artist/Group Profiles, San Francisco, Vampire Weekend

Do you ever feel like you're in a tug-of-war with two of your favorite rock groups because one of them disses the other? What about if the "disser" also takes a shot at you and everyone you know in the same breath?

Well, leave it up to Robert Smith, everyone's favorite aging rocker, who had more than just his usually bad hair day today.

In an interview with Music Radar, The Cure's frontman lashed out at Radiohead, saying he "disagreed violently" with their pay-what-you want model for their 2007 blockbuster release, In Rainbows. Smith said allowing fans to determine their own price to download the album was an "idiot plan."

"You can't allow other people to put a price on what you do, " Smith said. "Otherwise you don't consider what you do to have any value at all and that's nonsense. If I put a value on my music and no one's prepared to pay that, then more fool me, but the idea that the value is created by the consumer is an idiot plan, it can't work."

Not only is it just stupid to attack Radiohead fans - many of whom are probably Cure fans as well - but it's also stupid to talk like a diva when you're an aging rocker. Never mind that Smith spit on a growing movement that will only do more to allow the best, and the least greedy, musicians and groups to flourish creativity while expanding their fan base by offering a fair price for music. The old models are gone and they might leave musicians like Smith with them. It's been happening for a decade now.
Listen to High-Quality 2008 Concert of Radiohead

If you are a RadioHead, listen to this transformational two-hour Radiohead concert broadcast recorded by NPR on August 28, 2008 at Santa Barbara Bowl. I was lucky enough to see Radiohead play in San Francisco during the Outside Lands Festival (in photo above, thanks to insdecelebs) two weeks after this featured show.

The SF show was the most amazing concert I've ever been to - well worth the chance I took to have my car towed to see Radiohead play in the fog drenched Golden Gate Park with tens of thousands of people.

Labels: NPR Music, Radiohead, Radiohead in Concert, Robert Smith, San Francisco, The Cure