Fun Fun Fun Fest 2009 Preview

New York’s Evan Mast & Mike Stroud form the electronic duo known as Ratatat.  Most recently out with the simple-and-sweet-named LP3 (QRO review), LP4 is reportedly just around the corner, so look for both at Fun Fun Fun.  Fun will definitely be had, thanks to Ratatat’s energetic, psychedelic live show (QRO live review).

There may not be a band more suited for Fun Fun Fun Fest than the always-entertaining Les Savy Fav.  The Brooklyn band most recently released 2007’s Let’s Stay Friends (QRO review), but are best know for their crazy, wild live shows (QRO live review), with singer Tim Harrington running into the crowd (QRO photo), up against his band members (QRO photo), stripping to his portly frame (QRO photo), and more (QRO photos).

The experimental Yeasayer (QRO live review) combine electronica, rock, and even tribal sounds, making them sound like the music of the cyberpunk future, multi-cultural in ways you’d never foresee (QRO photos).  They’ve been steadily building since 2007’s All Our Cymbals (QRO review) and the futuristic “2080” (QRO video), with a fascinating stage presence (QRO photos outdoors), especially at festivals (QRO photos at a festival).

Has there been a band revived after being as long dormant as Death? The early seventies proto-punk band of (actual) brothers from Detroit broke up in 1976, moved to Vermont, inspired a tribute band among their sons & their sons’ friends (Rough Francis), came to the attention of Drag City this year, and now, over thirty years since their dissolution, the two surviving Hackney brothers, Bobby & Dannis, are playing for a whole new generation & a half.

L.A.’s young guitar & drums duo of Randy Randall and Dean Allen Spunt have been blowing up very quickly since last year’s Nouns (QRO review), including joining Dan Deacon & Deerhunter on the ‘Round Robin’ tour (QRO live review) & a controversial appearance on Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn.  The punk rock of such tracks as “Eraser” (QRO video), “Teen Creeps” (QRO video) and “Ripped Knees” (QRO video) plays fast, but look out for a young weekend daytime crowd to go nuts (QRO live review).

Maybe the first band announced to play Fun Fun Fun, Los Angeles’ Red Sparowes create a post-rock soundscape that somehow includes peddle steel guitar.

There’s a lot of garage-rock around these days, but why not get it from someone who’s anything but new to the game (like most garage-rockers)? Shonen Knife (QRO live review) have been doing it for almost thirty years now, most recently with Super Group (QRO review) – and they’re three Japanese girls (QRO interview), for all you fetishists out there…

Columbus, Ohio’s Times New Viking were on the leading edge of the ‘shitgaze’ genre, along with acts like No Age, and they didn’t clean up their lo-fi sound for last year’s Rip It Off, their debut on Matador.  They’re a bit more melodic, less wild, than other shitgaze acts – which unfortunately make them more boring, live & outdoors (QRO photos outdoors at a festival).

There are few acts that do a live show like of Montreal (QRO live review).  Kevin Barnes’ epic orchestra literally fills the stage (QRO photos at a festival) with a performance more akin to (the actually French Canadian) Cirque du Soleil than indie-rock.  The band emerged out of the Elephant Six Collective to reach serious heights, most recently with 2007’s Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? (QRO review) and last year’s Skeletal Lamping, but they have to be seen live (QRO photos) to be truly believed.

Most electronic acts are restrained on stage, even when their crowd is going nuts, but the duo of Ethan Kath & Alice Glass match their audience’s fervor – which has gotten them booted from more than one stage, especially at festivals.  So even if you fall on the ‘hate’ side of this love-them-or-hate-them act (from Canada, surprisingly…), show up for the spectacle…

This decade/century/millennium has seen a lot of great alt-reunions, but one of the finest has been one of the first, Mission of Burma (QRO live review).  The art-punk act was forced to break up over twenty-five years ago, due to singer/guitarist Roger Miller’s tinnitus, they reunited in 2002, seemingly not missing a beat, including putting out three new records & counting, with The Sound, The Speed, The Light (QRO review) out this month.  Their live shows these days (QRO live review) do naturally tend more towards the post-reunion material, like “1001 Pleasant Dreams” (QRO video) & “Man In Decline” (QRO video), but they still do throw down great ‘oldies’ like “Trem Two” (QRO video) and, yes, “That’s When I Reached For My Revolver” (QRO video).  But protect your ears, as Miller, singer/bassist Clint Conley, and drummer Peter Prescott – along with ‘new’ tape-loop man, Bob Weston (who replaced original looper Martin Swope when the band reunited – but still uses early-eighties electronics to create the band’s signature live looping) turn it up to eleven & beyond, especially outdoors (QRO live review outdoors).

These cowpunkers (QRO photos) arrive at today’s workingman’s punk from the southern, country/punk end of things.  Singer/guitarist Ben Nichols did his own thing with a solo record and ‘Revival Tour’ (QRO photos at last year’s Fun Fun Fun Fest) with Chuck Ragan (Hot Water Music – QRO photos) and Tim Barry (Avail), but the band has since gone big-time, including a four-album major label deal, with 1372 Overtone Park (QRO review) out last month, as well as starring in MTV’s quasi-fictional $5 Cover.  But live & outdoors (QRO photos outdoors at a Waterloo Park), they stay true to their roots.

Birmingham, England’s Broadcast bring the sixties psychedelica sounds into the spookier twenty-first century, and just released their fourth full-length, Broadcast and The Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age.  On tour with Atlas Sound (see below), hope that it’s dark enough for their projection screen (QRO live review on this tour).

Jonathan ‘Yoni’ Wolf and his band, WHY? (QRO live review), combine indie, hip-hop, rock, pop, folk & more, most recently with this year’s (somewhat underwhelming) Eskimo Snow (QRO review).

Bradford Cox of Deerhunter (QRO live review) was one of the busiest people in indie-rock last year, putting out not only two Deerhunter records, Microcastle (QRO review) & Weird Era Cont. (QRO review), but also his first solo record as Atlas Sound, Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel (QRO review), with tracks like “River Card” (QRO video) & “Winter Vacation” (QRO video).  On tour with Broadcast (see above), expect some new material like “Logos” (QRO video), but live as Atlas Sound (QRO photos on this tour), his expansive ambient rock can “take it to the fields” (QRO live review) – even outdoors (QRO live review outdoors).

The eleclectic, expansive electronica of U.K.’s Fuck Buttons (QRO live review) comes into the wide outdoors of Texas (QRO photos outdoors), as the duo of Andrew Hung & Benjamin Power tour Tarot Sport, their follow-up to last year’s Street Horrrsing (QRO album review).

Austin (with some Chicago thrown in) natives The Jesus Lizard were acclaimed punk-noise forebears who broke up in 2000.  But recently, singer David Yow (QRO coverage) and the entire original line-up have reunited for a series of festivals.  They are also re-releasing their strong back catalog, perfect to peruse through while you make your picks.

While Holy Fuck (QRO album review) lost the Polaris Music Prize last year, that kind of a name didn’t stop Fucked Up from winning it this year, with Chemistry of Common Life (though it almost derailed The Pool Parties at Williamsburg Waterfront in Brooklyn – QRO photos).  But what everyone should really be wary of is how nuts the crowd goes for this act out of Toronto (QRO photos outdoors), with singer/frontman Damian Abraham trying to out-shirtless fat man-wild Tim Harrington of Les Savy Fav (see above).

Reno, Nevada’s 7 Seconds helped start the straight edge scene in the eighties.  Their shift to more complex music wasn’t well received, and they’ve since moved back to their bread & butter punk rock.

While Shonen Knife (see above) brings Japanese garage-rock to Fun Fun Fun Fest, Melt Banana brings Japan’s noise-rock.  Pretty much spells out the difference between Orange Stage & Black Stage…

At the last minute, Fun Fun Fun Fest added local favorite The Sword (QRO live review).  The heavy metal band has previously opened for the likes of Metallica (QRO photos on tour with The Sword) earlier this year, but can more than hold their own.  They’ve got a new record in the works for 2010, following last year’s Gods of Earth, and plan to debut the material at home at FFF.

The metal-horror-rock of Danzig is legendary, now into its third decade.   Emerging out of the horror-punk of The Misfits, singer/frontman Glenn Danzig is returning to that a bit, by headlining Fun Fun Fun’s punk rock Black Stage – and, all due respects to Spinal Tap, there is ‘none more black’ than Danzig.

Even after its New Wave & punk heyday, New York’s iconic CBGB’s was birthing hardcore acts in the late eighties like Gorilla Biscuits.   After breaking up in 1991, they reunited later that decade for a few benefit shows at CBGB’s (the last of which was for the now-defunct venue itself), reissued their seminal Start Today, and have even done a few tours.

The crossover thrash of D.R.I. (Dirty Rotten Imbeciles) have been going since 1982, their presence more known in influencing other acts (‘crossover thrash’ was defined by their 1987 Crossover record) than commercial success.  It’s a been a long time since they’ve put out anything new, but that was due to guitarist Spike Cassidy’s cancer diagnosis in 2006.  But Cassidy’s got a clean bill of health & the band’s got new material for Fun Fun Fun.

Miami’s Torche have toured hard with likes of The Sword (see above) and last year’s Meanderthal was rated #1 on Decibel Magazine’s “Most Extreme Albums of the Year”.   And the metal act is continuing on, even after the departure of guitarist Juan Montoya over “creative differences”…

Out of Los Angeles’ South Central came alternative hip-hop act Pharcyde.  Coming up on twenty years now of existence, Pharcyde have lost a few members & flirted with dissolution, but have been going strong on the festival circuit since fully reuniting at last year’s Rock the Bells.

The hip-hop duo of Antoine ‘Mikey Rocks’ Reed & Evan ‘Chuck Inglish’ Ingersol (QRO photos) hail from right around the Great Lakes, and have played with numerous non-hip-hop acts, so are a good fit to bring the beats to Fun Fun Fun Fest’s Blue Stage.

Chicago’s Melissa Young – a.k.a. Kid Sister – blew up last year thanks to “Pro Nails” (featuring a not-yet-disgraced – mostly – Kanye West), and has followed that up this year with her debut full-length, Ultraviolet.

Fun Fun Fun Fest has spread beyond its origins by drawing in hip-hop to widen the range of music – and picked a strong seller in The GZA.  The Brooklyn native was a founding member of the famed Wu-Tang Clan with his cousin Ol’ Dirty Bastard.  He’s subsequently gone on to do acclaimed work both with Wu-Tang and on his own, most recently with last year’s Pro Tools.

The Lusophone (Portuguese-speaking) world community is maybe the most diverse & integrated, from the melting pot of Brazil all the way over to Asian outposts like Goa, Timor Leste, and Macao.  Lisbon’s Buraka Som Sistema take the kuduro sounds of ex-colony Angola, marrying it to European electronica, for something truly new & original.

Los Angeles’ HEALTH not only bring the noise-rock to Fun Fun Fun Fest, but are also known for their mash-ups, most notably with electronic dance duo Crystal Castles (see above), though outdoors (QRO photos outdoors), they’re more ‘noise’ than ‘rock’…

In the western Canadian super-group The New Pornographers (QRO live review), Dan Bejar has been called ‘the George Harrison’, thanks to his stripped, skilled alt-folk work in his own outfit, Destroyer, most recently in last year’s Trouble with Dreams.

Shearwater began as a side project by Jonathan Meiburg & Will Sheff (QRO photos) of Okkervil River (QRO live review), but Sheff has since departed for the River full-time, while Meiburg is now fully in the -water, most recently with last year’s Rook (QRO review).  After having to pull out of last year’s Fun Fun Fun Fest (QRO recap), the Austin outfit is hitting FFF hard this year.

In the New York alternative music scene, there’s no more ubiquitous stand-up comic than Todd Barry.  The laid-back comedian has opened for Tapes n’ Tapes (QRO album review), been seen at CMJ (QRO recap), SXSW (QRO recap) & McCarren Park Pool Parties (QRO venue review), and is friends with/stand-up mentor to The Rosebuds’ (QRO spotlight on) Kelly Crisp (QRO interview).  He also guest-starred in the season one finale of Flight of the Conchords (QRO live review).  So he’ll fit right in at FFF…

Not the character from Beverly Hills, 90210 (the original – can you believe one has to say that?…), this Philly native moved to Austin and won the 19th annual “Funniest Person in Austin” contest in 2004.

Athens, Georgia’s Dead Confederate have moved up from playing the pre-party last year (QRO 2008 preview) to getting to main event this year.  Too bad the southern hard rock on last year’s debut, Wrecking Ball (QRO review), isn’t anything special.

Before headlining the Orange Stage on Day Two (see above), of Montreal drummer James Husband (QRO photos) goes solo, playing his debut, A Parallax I.

Sketch comedy’s had its ups & downs, but The Whitest Kids U’ Know have survived the move from FUSE to IFC (lateral maybe in terms of reach, but certainly raised in terms of quality) and just aired their third season.  But if you run into Zack Cregger, ask him about seeing trying to crowd surf at Radiohead – QRO interview…

Your favorite ‘Comedian of Comedy’ and ‘gaybor’ on The Sarah Silverman Program (he was also on Just Shoot Me, but let’s put that aside…), the gargantuan Brian Posehn is one of the most reliable stand-up comics out there today.  At Fun Fun Fun, even if not on the Black Stage (see above), expect many metal jokes…