This post is from Out the Other's 2009 Bonnaroo Artist Previews, where I will be posting previews of all the musical acts playing the 2009 Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival. Please check out and subscribe to the full site to learn more about all of this year's performers.
Editor's note: This is a guest preview from Caleb Palma, the local Nashville blogger behind It's Hard to Find a Friend. Caleb can be reached through his website or via email at calebpalma@gmail.com.
Sometimes you have to do hard things if you want to have fun - your mother makes you clean your plate to eat your dessert, you have to fill out scantrons for 15 hours a week before you can attend that kegger, and so on and so forth. Maybe you've heard of Aaron Ralston, the climber who became famous for amputating his own arm with a pocket knife in order to free his body from the grip of two boulders, thus saving his own life. Live to die another day, and all that.
Well, I suppose Michael Nau is well versed in the art of sacrificing pieces of himself in order to have a different kind of fun - in late 2007/early 2008, Nau put an end to his rather popular jangly, acoustic Indie-Popping, whimsical, masterpiece-of-a-band called Page France. Page France was an innocent child plucking away at a small-scale acoustic guitar, singing his lungs out about animals, Jesus, flowers, and love. Cotton Jones, on the other hand, is a burly, world-worn, twenty-something, spiraling deep into a psych-rock coccoon, not caring much who comes along. The songs are dark, certainly far darker than anything Page France ever did, and with titles like "Blood Red Sentimental Blues," that's probably a conscious effort.
But take heart: the x-factor that made you love Page France has not dissapeared - boy/girl vocal trade-offs still abound, the recordings are still charmingly bedroom in nature, and the songs have all kept their otherwordly quality, just in a slightly different way. That is, where Page France focused on the place that they taught you good people go to when they die, Cotton Jones tends to focus on where the bad people go.
"Gotta Cheer Up"
"Blood Red Sentimental Blues"
Cotton Jones will play twice at Bonnaroo - on Friday in Cafe Where from 8-9 p.m. and on Saturday on the Solar Stage from 8-9 p.m. Check out the Full Bonnaroo schedule on the official Bonnaroo website.
