Out the Other

I survived my first Bonnaroo

Well... kinda.  As I write this, I'm pausing every thirty seconds or so to cough or blow my nose - because of course the nasty cold that flattened me two weeks prior to the festival made a reappearance after the beatdown I gave my immune system this past weekend.  But I count myself lucky to have made it out with just a cold, a few scratches, one giant blister and a huge and mysterious bruise on my right knee.  I haven't abused myself like this since college (or at least since SXSW - though that isn't quite on par with the endurance challenge that is four days of bands and booze and sunshine and heat and rain and mud plus three nights in a tent), and I think I did admirably well for a Bonnaroo virgin. I even succeeded in taking a shower every day - in general camping, no less. So there, Father Time. 27 isn't too old for Bonnaroo after all.

So here's a rundown of my adventures and misadventures, highlights and lowlights, 'Roo-rocking tips and favorite moments of the fest.  But no regrets - there's no room for regrets in rock and roll.

Day 1

So I'm starting to think that most of the recapping is actually going to happen after I'm safe and dry and in my own house - so far Bonnaroo is awesome but mostly rainy and muddy and ridiculous.  Rain boots = the greatest idea I have ever had in my entire life.

Highlights thus far:  MURS, The Knux, and the Passion Pit I had patience for.  Remind me not to show up to a music festival on about four hours sleep - doesn't make the first day as exciting as you would hope it would be.  Fortunately, I rocked almost eight hours of sleep last night, and despite the fact that I just heard that Phoenix's flight just got cancelled (!!! at least they have ten more hours to get here), I think today is pretty much going to be the best. 

Bonnaroo!

We're out the door!  Follow us for updates:

@outtheother

@misstrashley

Bonnaroo Preview: Santigold

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 Sean Maloney (aka Bawston Sean), a frequent contributor to both the Nashville Scene and Nashville Cream. Sean can be reached via email at sean@grandpalace.us.

Generally speaking, I'm against the use of pop music in advertising. I know it's great for the writers and artist involved, financially speaking, but I also think that the licensing orgy over the last decade plus has cheapened music and contributed to the general public's disinterest in purchasing music. Call me crazy, but that's what I think. The one exception I'd make would be for Santigold and those damned Bud Lime ads – against all better judgment, I get giddy every time they come on. I can't help it, I just love Santigold, even if the beer tastes like the organic window cleaner my wife buys.

Bonnaroo Preview: Booker T and the DBTs

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 Adam Nicholson, a contributor to the Deli Nashville who will be helping the local web magazine cover this year's festival.  Adam can be reached via the Deli website or at adamoeba@gmail.com.

Booker T. Jones, the legendary organist of Booker T. and the MGs fame, put out an instrumental album earlier this year in April with the Drive By Truckers and Neil Young, called Potato Hole. It is the first solo record he's released in twenty years, having spent time contributing to other artist's albums, including Neil Young's Are You Passionate?, in 2005.

Bonnaroo Preview: Snoop Dogg

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 Ashley Spurgeon, one of my Rock n Roll Team Trivia partners in crime, and a contributor to both the Nashville Cream and Pith in the Wind. Ashley can be reached via email at missseptember84@gmail.com. 

Calvin Broadus was born in 1971. He has been acquitted of murder and appeared on “One Life to Live.” He was one of the biggest hit-makers and instigators of West Coast g-funk, which was, let’s not forget, one of the most popular and culturally relevant music genres of the ‘90s.

Calvin Broadus has directed pornography and done voice-over work in cartoons. He was a gang member. He had an endorsement deal with Orbit gum. Your mom knows who Calvin Broadus is. He is the embodiment of a man raised in the late 20th century and a walking, talking, totally baked lynchpin of postmodernism.

Calvin Broadus is Snoop Dogg and will be at Bonnaroo. He will perform. Songs will be included in that performance, but what you will remember most is that he is Snoop Dogg. Enjoy.

"Who Am I (What's My Name)?"
"Gin and Juice"

Snoop Dogg will play the What Stage on Sunday from 6-7:30 p.m. Check out the full Bonnaroo schedule on the official Bonnaroo website.

Bonnaroo Preview: Phish

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 J. David Wicker - my friend, fellow music aficionado, and occasional Out the Other guest-blogger. Someday when he stops filling his plate with everything under the sun, I hope he starts a music blog of his own.

“Phish is...a cross between East Coast rock-a-suey and rock donkey dunkel.” -Trey Anastasio

“We play authentic Jamaican roots reggae.” -Mike Gordon

After nearly five years of rest, recovery and solo projects, the members of Phish — guitarist Trey Anastasio, bassist Mike Gordon, drummer Jon Fishman and keyboardist Page McConnell — have reunited. This is Phish 3.0.

Bonnaro Preview: Jenny Lewis

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 Jenny Stracener, a Murfreesboro-based writer and photographer who writes the blog Conglomeration Fabrication. Jenny can be reached via her website or at jannephotography@gmail.com.

Guys love her and girls want to be her; it seems Jenny Lewis can do no wrong.  After releasing two solo records and five records with the band Rilo Kiley, the lady is still on fire.  2006 marked the release of Rabbit Fur Coat, the alt country twinged album put together with the Watson Twins, followed by a rockier, folkier record Acid Tounge in 2008.

Bonnaroo Preview: Amadou & Mariam

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 Seth Riddle, who got to play A&R for some cool folks like Rough Trade and has done a bunch of stuff he never thought he'd do but mostly he has been writing about music, photographing it (which besides being ludicrous is an absolutely impossible notion), traveling with it, marrying it, divorcing it, selling it, but most importantly listening to it and always wanting to love it for as long as he can remember or at least since buying his first 45 at the age of five "Another One Bites the Dust" and another one falls and another one falls...  Seth can be reached at http://sundaydinner.tumblr.com.

Hearing them for the first time in the Summer of 2008, I was a late comer to Amadou & Mariam. The music of this blind Malian duo is sublime-- vocals, arrangements, easy grooves, and some of the most interesting guitar tones I have ever heard. It's the kind of music Vampire Weekend would make if they weren't the over-intellectualized, world-music equivalent of Vanilla Ice.

Bonnaroo Preview: Delta Spirit

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.

There are certain concert stories I feel like I tell over and over - like what it was like to brave the Paradise alone my first month in Boston to see Gomez, and how David Byrne was the first show that made me teary, and how I fell in love with Spoon the moment I saw them hit the stage.  The tale behind my introduction to California's Delta Spirit wasn't as life-changing as those moments, but it was absolutely a welcome introduction. Two years ago I saw them open up for Cold War Kids and it was one of those moments where you think to yourself, "wow, why haven't I heard of this band before?"  They sounded phenomenal, they seemed to be having a blast on the stage, and they had this kind of gritty, rootsy intensity running through their songs that absolutely caught and held my interest.