The Voodoo Experience - Alternative Music Festival

• The Voodoo Experience
• City Park
• New Orleans, LA.
• (October 29^th – 31^st, 2010)

     Back in June my wife and I had the distinct pleasure of attending the very first Verge Alternative Music Festival held at the SummerFest Grounds in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We had the opportunity on that Saturday to attend concerts performed by Weezer, Geri X, Cold War Kids, Locksley, The Ravonettes, AFI, Invade Rome, and Rogue Wave. We had a great time and decided to branch out. This month we’re taking our concert-going adventures to new levels. We will be attending the Voodoo Experience in New Orleans, LA. the weekend of October 29^th, 2010. Four days and nights of music, southern food, and sightseeing will do for me what the peace movement did for Woodstock. I’m really looking forward to this vacation and, since we’ve never been to “Nawlins,” hope to take pleasure in a unique and new experience. Below is a listing of our anticipated agenda (schedule to change at any time) as delivered by the Voodoo Experience iPhone app. Group details are from the Voodoo site. Click on a band name to visit their website.

Friday, October 29^th, 2010

• Johnny Sketch & the Dirty Notes -- Sony Make.Believe Stage at 1:30 PM

• AM -- Voodoo Stage (LOA Lounge)at 2:30 PM

• Eli “Paperboy” Reed & The True Loves -- Sony Make.Believe Stage at 3:30 PM

• Dead Confederate -- Voodoo Stage (LOA Lounge) at 4:30 PM

     Dead Confederate is an alternative rock band which formed in Athens, Georgia, United States in 2006. The band consists of Hardy Morris (vocals, guitars), Walker Howle (guitar), John Watkins (keyboards), Brantley Senn (bass) and Jason Scarboro (drums). The band released their debut album, "Wrecking Ball" on September 16, 2008 on Razor & Tie and The Artists Organization. The album includes the single "The Rat". Though the band is pinned as producing the same kind of indie rock aesthetic à la My Morning Jacket and Band of Horses, Dead Confederate dabbles in darker shades than their compared predecessors. From the raspy, unrestrained shrieks of "The Rat" and the psychedelic guitar wail on the vivid "Tortured Artist Saint" to the intimate acoustic layers of "Memorial Day Night," Dead Confederate echo the Drive-By Truckers' bittersweet southern rock angst with the smoke-heavy swagger of the Black Angels. Although southern Civil War soldiers may remain six feet under, Dead Confederate's sincere versatility drives home that Rock'n'roll is damn well alive and kicking.

• Metric -- Voodoo Stage (LOA Lounge) at 6:30 PM

• Weezer -- Sony Make.Believe Stage at 7:45 PM

     Weezer was founded in Los Angeles on February 14, 1992 by Rivers Cuomo, Jason Cropper, Matt Sharp, and Pat Wilson. The band began writing music and playing local clubs. Despite not having much success at first, the band pressed forward. After 16 months together, playing shows and recording demos in Los Angeles, DGC records (Geffen) signed Weezer. The band moved to New York to record at the famed electric lady studios under producer Ric Ocasek (of Cars fame). During the recording of Weezer, Jason left the band to take care of his future wife, who was pregnant with their first child. Jason was replaced by Brian Bell, a then bassist from a band called Carnival Art.

• Muse -- Voodoo Stage (LOA Lounge) at 9:00 PM

• Raphael Saadiq -- Bingo! Stage at 9:15 PM

Saturday, October 30^th, 2010

• Michael Tolcher -- Sony Make.Believe Stage at 12:00 PM

• Mia Borders -- Voodoo Stage (LOA Lounge) at 1:00 PM

     Mia Borders is one of those rare young talents that can sing about life, love, and loss and make listeners feel it. With lyrics so personal, so mature, and so direct, she has recently captured both local and national audiences with her energetic blend of funk, soul, and contemporary songwriting. As Offbeat Magazine's Alex Rawls writes, "Note to self: Pay more attention to Mia Borders." USA today named Mia one of the 2010 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival's “hidden surprises,” and Where Y'at Magazine named Mia "New Orleans' hottest buzz band." The April 2010 release of "Magnolia Blue” garnered her a nomination for “Best Emerging Artist” at the Big Easy Music Awards and a nationally broadcast performance at N.O. Jazz Fest '10 by WWOZ. Mia Borders hit the road in support of "Magnolia Blue" with notable performances at the Mount Helena Music Festival, Taos Mountain Music Festival, San Jose Jazz Festival, and Bonnaroo (VIP pre-party with Big Sam's Funky Nation.) When Borders recently opened for Corinne Bailey Rae at the House of Blues, NewOrleans.com noted that "Borders drew the crowd in and had them cheering for more by the time she announced the last song of her 30-minute set." Mia Borders has secured her role as one of the fastest rising artists in the city and has established herself as an artist to watch.

• The Whigs -- Sony Make.Believe Stage at 4:00 PM

• Cage the Elephant -- Voodoo Stage (LOA Lounge) at 5:00 PM

     Music critics who have witnessed the eye-popping spectacle that is Cage the Elephant live performance have likened the band’s singer to many things, among them “a demented Bible Belt preacher,” “a Tasmanian devil whooping and jumping up and down like a frenzied gibbon.” And that’s just frontman Matt Shultz. The verdict? “Exhilarating, 100 mph stuff,” raved British indie music live show — which made this red-hot Kentucky-bred band the talk of this year’s South-by-Southwest music festival, and led USA Today to single them out as a band not to miss at 2009’s Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival — is the perfect showcase for their buzzed-about self-titled debut album for Jive Records. Recorded over 10 days with Grammy Award-winning producer Jay Joyce, and a Top 40 hit when it was released on British indie label Relentless the U.K. last June, the album is a genre-defying blend of rock n roll and raw youthful punk energy all propelled by Matt’s taunting, Dylan-esque rhythmic vocal delivery, Brad Shultz and Lincoln Parish’s furious twin guitar assault, and bassist Daniel Tichenor and drummer Jared Champion’s rock-funk groves. “The music comes from a pure place,” Matt says. We really like the energy of music that feels passionate, raw, unplanned emotion. That’s what we were really trying to capture.

• Florence And The Machine Florance And The Machine -- Sony Make.Believe Stage at 6:00 PM

     Let’s talk about magic. Because music, at its best, is a kind of magic that lifts you up and take's you somewhere else. “I want my music to sound like throwing yourself out of a tree, or off a tall building, or as if you’re being sucked down into the ocean and you can’t breathe,” says Florence Welch. “It’s something overwhelming and all-encompassing that fills you up, and you’re either going to explode with it, or you’re just going to disappear.” Florence writes her best songs when she’s drunk or has a hangover, because that’s when the freedom, the feral music comes, creating itself wildly from the fragments gathered in her notebooks and in her head. “You’re lucid,” she explains, “but you’re not really there. You’re floating through your own thoughts, and you can pick out what you need. I like those weird connections in the universe. I feel that life’s like a consistent acid trip, those times when things keep coming back.” Florence herself is a mass of contradictions: she’s tough yet she’s terrified, a bundle of nerves and passion, of darkness and pure joy. “I feel things quite intensely, which is why the music has to be so intense. I’m either really sad or really happy; I’m tired or completely manic. That’s when I’m at my most creative, but it’s also dangerous for me. I feel I could write some good songs, or break some hearts, or tables, or glasses.” As a performer she can seem fearless, but she’s also far too quick to pass judgment on herself. This is the woman, after all who got into Camberwell Art College by making a huge floral sign telling herself ‘You are a twat.’ She says she’s a geek, who loses all control when in love. She’s also something increasingly rare and precious in a time of karaoke pop: an artist who has found her own, authentic voice.

• Buckwheat Zydeco -- Soco/WWOZ Stage at 6:45 PM

• Jakob Dylan and Three Legs -- Soco/WWOZ Stage at 8:30 PM

 

Sunday, October 31^st, 2010

• Jonathan Tyler and the Northern Lights -- Sony Make.Believe Stage at 11:15 AM

• White Rabbits -- Voodoo Stage (LOA Lounge) at 12:15 PM

• Minus the Bear -- Voodoo (LOA Lounge) at 2:15 PM

• The Airborne Toxic Event -- Sony Make.Believe Stage at 3:15 PM

     Literary allusions are hardly new territory in rock and roll. The Fall named their sixth record Bend Sinister after Nabokov's infamously dark novel. The Velvet Underground got its name from a certain cult book on sex and bondage given to Lou Reed at a party one night. "Killing an Arab" by the Cure is a reference to the Stranger by Camus -- Robert Smith's favorite book, in fact. The Airborne Toxic Event borrows its name from the novel White Noise by Don Delillo. Published in 1984, the book foresaw a world consumed by media -- radio waves, billboards, television, advertisements -- all crowding waking hours, finding their way into dreams, subconscious thoughts, incoherent bits of static about Toyotas, Pepsi, manic depression, and the president. The Airborne Toxic Event is an enormous dark cloud, created by an explosion at a nearby chemical plant. In addition to the crowded airwaves, the cloud portends death, lingering at the edges of life, giving it meaning, urgency, something to fear. The music press has compared them to the Cure, Modest Mouse, the Smiths, Franz Ferdinand, the Clash and the Arcade Fire. Rolling Stone named them one of the top 25 bands on MySpace. Their live show, in addition to viola, organ, guitars and trumpet, includes the hood of a 1969 Alfa Romeo found at a junkyard one afternoon. It's been a heady few months. And what began with a literary allusion, with a couple of boys alone in a warehouse, has become a kind of sweeping plea - to dance, to sing, to cry, to live - to find something alive and kicking among all the static, death, and white noise.

• Paul Oakenfold -- Le Plur Stage presented by Billboard.com at 4:15 PM

• JP. Chrissie and The Fairground Boys -- Bingo! Stage at 5:45 PM

• Macy Gray -- Soco/WWOZ Stage at 5:45 PM

• My Morning Jacket -- Voodoo Stage (LOA Lounge) at 7:00 PM

     There’s a theme of moral confusion that runs through the whole record,” says Jim James, frontman of My Morning Jacket, explaining the title of the band’s new album, Evil Urges. “The world today is such a confused place. Things that people think are good values are obviously twisted, but there are other things considered evil that obviously aren’t. There is real evil out there, but Evil Urges is about how all of these things that you’ve been told are evil really aren’t, unless they’re actually hurting something or somebody.”

     It’s ambitious territory for the group’s fifth full-length studio album, and it’s matched by the most far-ranging, surprising, and satisfying sounds of their career. From the freak-funk electro-slam of “Highly Suspicious” to the contemplative “Sec Walkin’,” which could almost be a Nashville standard, on Evil Urges, My Morning Jacket display the scope and fearlessness that demonstrates their growth into one of the world’s great rock & roll bands.

 

Voodoo Experience Agenda

My agenda was emailed from the official iPhone app of the Voodoo Experience 2010, available here: (Voodoo Experience 2010 iPhone app)

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The Alternative

Southeast Wisconsin

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