WTF's-ville!

So there was Coachella, and that was fun. It's documented here in pictures, so feel free to take a look at 'em! Day one! Day two! Day three!

Then I spent a day in Los Angeles, driving around solo in a white minivan. Life couldn't be better. Well, it could've been, but whatever. That day was also captured in pictures. It was OK, except for the traffic, smog, and getting lost for a while there after the Dodgers game.

Then I came back to Atlanta and saw the Arcade Fire from the fifth row (really eighth row because the first three were in the pit, but whatevs). Once again, they continued to blow me away in the live setting and I walked outta there with a nice smile. Oh my gosh, more pictures of that, too!

And then news started trickling in from the Smashing Pumpkins front. In case you don't know, the Pumpkins are my main band. When I got word a few years ago that Billy Corgan had something up his sleeve, I really got excited.

And then things started coming together, Tour dates were announced, Zeitgeist was mentioned to the masses.

And then things started falling apart. With all of the speculation about who else is in the band, it was brought to our attention that James Iha (founding member, specialist with a lazer gun, etc.) was not going to be a part of the new incarnation of the Smashing Pumpkins. And then rumors came out about who the missing pieces were.

When a tracklist was announced for Zeitgeist, I started to cringe a little. The cringing was getting worse and worse when some leaked video stills featured some, uh, weird images. And then there was the album cover, note here:



Needless to say, this "reunion" wasn't panning out as I had planned. Or most people, that is. No James and no D'arcy - this wasn't negotiable. The four of those people together created a certain dynamic that couldn't be touched. And to imagine who would fill their roles in the band, to think that some no-name musicians would work out just as well was ludicrous.

And forget about all of this weird imagery Billy & Co. were putting out there with the song titles, the stolen images, etc.

While all of this chaos was going on, ridiculous tour dates were put up for San Francisco and, of all places, Asheville, NC. These weren't one-off dates, either. We're talking nine-date or 11-date residencies at these venues.

WTF was going on?! Last nite, the truth was revealed as the "Smashing Pumpkins" returned to the stage for the first time in nearly seven years as the "band" played a 28-song set in Paris. As was expected, the set was filled with new material that will be on Zeitgeist, but the band didn't waste any time, throwing in some of their well-known hits along with some more obscure material that hasn't been heard in even longer than seven years.

And there's also "Tarantula", the lead single from Zeitgeist. Yeah, I've listened to it, and, yeah, I've talked about it, and, yeah, I've read about it. Honestly, I'm still out to lunch about it. Really, it's the first rock-related release from Billy Corgan and Jimmy Chamberlin in far too long, so I'm instantly excited by the reality of it. But just how good is the song and is it really that good of a comeback tune? We'll see. Some people seem to think that the song does a good job of altering the masses that Billy Corgan's riffs and JC's drumming have returned. Hopefully the album will pan out the same way. Things are looking good right now.

Pumpkins-aside, there's also the Lost season finale tonite.

Can you see why there's been an almost month-long gap in posts here?! Hopefully I can get things back on track and be a little more regular about updating.

Coachella 2007 -> TAMED!

After spending a week in the desert of southern California, chilling out in Los Angeles, and getting pwned by the Arcade Fire last nite, it's time to document nearly everything that was my version of this year's Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival. There's no way to include everything in one entry, because that would alienate and exhaust many readers (if there even are that many people who read this thing!), but I'll do what I can to best summarize last weekend.

It just seems that after doing this thing for three years, it would somehow become "boring", "repetitive", and even "lame". Yeah, because sights like this are soooo dull:



I'm assuming that after the previous years' successes, promoters Goldenvoice decided to try a three-day festival, the first in Coachella history. Last year's version of the fest featured it's first repeat headliner (Tool) and this year followed suit and invited back '02 headliner Bjork and '03 festival closer Red Hot Chili Peppers. However, the biggest draw for the weekend had to be what was scheduled for Sunday, the last day of the festival, that featured a freshly-reunited Rage Against the Machine. While the did achieve a considerable amount of acclaim for the music they put out, the three "surviving" members of Rage had success with Chris Cornell and Audioslave, but you could just tell that something was amiss in their music. And there was the hibernation of Rage frontman Zack de la Rocha. He was supposed to put out a solo album that was going to blow the world to bits, with there even including talk of teaming up with ?uestlove from The Roots. It just goes to show you that certain essential pieces of the band certainly do not come close to topping what they did together.

Bjork brought Friday's crowd to their knees with material old and new. I wanted no part in what the Chilis had to offer for Saturday, so I caught the tail end of Girl Talk's set and made my way over to the Sahara where James Murphy's LCD Soundsystem was tearing the place apart through dance.

And then there was Sunday. Rage Against the Machine. We'll go more into this later.

With all of the bottles of water consumed, pictures of the dueling tesla coils taken, and every discussion of "meeting at the hot dog", this year's Coachella came to it's end earlier this week. Expect updates in the next couple of days about how it all went down in the desert.