Reviews

The last day of Bumbershoot was the most interesting of the three, primarily because, other than the Black Eyed Peas, I had never seen most of the featured artists.

After BEP, kicked off my day, I tried, and unsuccessfully, to catch Aziz Ansari one last time. However, I did notice someone who looked very familiar, but didn't want to awkwardly stare for too long. Luckily, he spotted me and said "WHATTUP!" first. It was the homie Mr. Lif, who just moved to Seattle over the weekend. Check the pics from the last time I ran into him and how he's livin' now and you'll understand why I didn't recognize him right off the bat:

Before:



After:



After 14 years, he finally decided to let go of the dreads. Lif's a great dude and a real dope emcee. My biggest surprise of the trip by far.

After catching up with Lif, I stumbled upon a dope funk band out of England called The New Mastersounds. I should be up on groups like this, but I've definitely been sleeping on them. Very similar vibe to Breakestra and Poets of Rhythm.





Up next was another intimate show in the KEXP Music Lounge, this time with Metric. Fortunately, I got in line a bit early and got in, because the press pass did not work for those who tried to sneak in last minute.

Lead singer Emily Haines and guitarist James Shaw came out for a short, stripped down "unplugged" set.



http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/500/34948165/Metric+IMG_3314.jpg

I enjoyed Janelle Monae's performance. Very eccentric, possibly some Andre 3000 influence in there somewhere, given her work with OutKast, and possibly some Tina Turner. She's not an artist that can easily be described because her music has no boundaries:







Stay tuned for more to come from the final day of Bumbershoot, including headling artists Franz Ferdinand, Modest Mouse and Sly & Robbie.

I figured I'd give the Black Eyed Peas their own Bumbershoot journal entry solely based on the magnitude of their popularity today. I remember back in 1998 like it was yesterday when a homie of mine at Interscope sent me an advance cassette (don't laugh) of their first album Behind The Front and needed some help finding a venue for them to perform their first ever show in San Francisco. They freestyled on the college show I was dj'ing for and packed the venue of my weekly party with cuts like "Joints & Jam" and "Fallin' Up." I was an immediate fan.

Fast forward to 2009 and a lot has changed with this group since 1998. They've since added a fourth member, Fergie, and instead of filling up 300 capacity venues, they're now selling out arenas around the world. I'm not mad personally, because at the end of the day, it's business. They could have kept it "real" and struggled to sell albums and deal with the possibility of getting dropped, or tweak their sound a bit to sell more records. I can't say I'm a fan of their music now, but I can respect how far they've come to achieve the level of success they're at today.

With that said, let me move on. I'm tempted to hold a contest of sorts for the best Fergie caption below:



I caught will.i.am staring at me for a minute. I'm pretty sure he was thinking, "Yo Mike, remember when I used to mash down Hollywood Blvd. in that red Dodge Neon? Well I still have that Dodge Neon sucka, but now I accessorize with fuzzy felt hats and dress like an evil elf with purple trim now."



I'm not mad at Apl.de.ap at all. He's a positive brotha and he's opened some doors for other Asian-American artists.



I don't think Taboo gets his props. Heads see him as the fifth Beatle, but he's probably the illest dancer out of the group and he's a decent hype man with some lyrics to go:



"Yo, but did you really tell Fergie that fit looked cool? You cold blooded man!"



"Yeah man, I hid her wardrobe son! She gonna kill us backstage, lookin' like Fran from Dodgeball! "You are the one that stares at me. Why is this?"



And here's Fergie grabbing her...err...ehh...uhh...forget it:



Fergie in action, either bustin' one of her classic fierce raps, possibly "Fergalicious" or maybe one of her soulful tunes that makes all dogs howl like "Big Girls Don't Cry."



The Peas gettin' "retarded." No pun intended, they kept it real and performed the original version of the song, not that soft, sissyfied, sell-out "Let's Get It Started" arena jock jam crap.



In all honesty, the Peas put on a good show for the kids. I saw babies dancin' and teenagers going crazy for them. There was even an adult at a comedy show later that said he was in attendance because of the BEP. Of course, that person was then clowned on for the next five minutes for admitting that, but I digress.

More to come from Day #3 soon...

After partaking in the incredible festivities Saturday at Bumbershoot, Sunday's acts had to follow up big, and disappointed I was not. It's possible I could be a bit biased because I got a chance to check out one of my favorite artists, Raphael Saadiq, not once, but twice in one day, but more on him later.

Back in my college radio days at KZSU Stanford, one group I had in heavy rotation was the Swollen Members. I figured I'd peep their show since it's been a minute since I've seen them and I bugged out to see the line for their show, which was inside one of the indoor venues, was wrapped around the building! It dawned on me that they were from nearby Vancouver, but regardless, much props to them for drawing huge crowd.




Now, I meant to check out Seattle's own Common Market, but local radio station KEXP put together these live on-air performances with Bumbershoot artists in this small intimate theater and Raphael Saadiq just happened to be the scheduled artist the same time as Common Market set. I'll definitely catch up with Common Market another time, but I wasn't going to miss this show. I mean, an opportunity to catch him in a venue like this isn't going to come around too often, right?

For a 30-minute set, Ray Ray and band wooed and wowed the crowd with selections from his latest retro-soul album "The Way I See It," even coming back out for an encore performance with a special treat from his classic Instant Vintage album, "Skyy, Can You Feel Me." I left amazed, but this was just a teaser for more to come later.






I had to make a tough decision between checkin' out David Cross, Patton Oswalt or Roy Ayers. Of course I went with my first instinct and had to see the legendary Roy Ayers.

I knew I was missing his show in San Francisco so his show was definitely a priority on my list and dude was easily the coolest cat out in Seattle. After talking to the crowd for a minute, he jokingly told the crowd to "take their clothes off," then busted out some Dizzy Gillespie. Feel me?





But he was just warmin' up. His saxophonist kicked off the solos with "These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things," prompting the crowd to sing along.



The bassist got his ill licks in, so much so that he had to be cooled off by his fellow band members, a la James Brown:



The biggest surprise and easily the most entertaining solo was the drummer's. After started off with some casual rolls, dude seriously freaked his set by flipping a towel over his head, seamlessly continuing his solo, then adding body tricks similar to a turntablist. He ended his solo drumming all around the stage, tappin' anything and everything he could get near. This dude was ill!






From there, it was back to business, and the band started hittin' the crowd with gems like "Everybody Loves The Sunshine" and "We Live In Brooklyn, Baby" even replacing Brooklyn with Seattle for the second verse, nice.

Next up to bat was MSTRKRFT. I wasn't familiar with them at all, but I wanted to know what all the hype was about. I can't front, their DJ set was pretty dope, but I knew i was at the wrong show when I saw my co-worker Anngie in the photo pit. I kid, I kid. In all honesty, they had the room fool of teenagers going bonkers, but I had to make the trip from one teenage infested venue to another and check out what Jason Mraz' deal was all about.




Aight, I get it. Girls dig this dude, primarily girls who still need to get picked up after the show by their parents, who they may call their roommates to sound older, but that's another story. As for his music, it's catchy, it's poppy, no hate here, just not my type of music:



And no disrespect to your band, but they're the oddest collection of musicians I've seen. I mean if you took a look, you wouldn't think any of these dudes kicked it at each other's crib for the next UFC fight or Monday Night Football or keg party:




I think Jason lost a bet to the dude below in a bar. It probably went something like, "If you lose, then I get to play guitar in your band," or maybe it's that one crazy uncle in your family that you just had to put on otherwise he'd just be talkin' about what his band back in his high school days could have been if they would have written "Hard Day's Night" first:



From there it was back to check out Raphael Saadiq one mo time to cap off Sunday's festivities and if y'all thought we were just going to see the same show he gave the select few earlier in the day, you were sadly mistaken. Yes, he opened with several tracks from his new album, but quickly jumped into some classic Lucy Pearl joints like "Dance tonight" and "La La La" and eventually went into "Don't Mess With My Man," and I must say his backup singer seamlessly filled Dawn Robinson's vocals just as, if not, more impressively.




Saadiq gave the crowd about all they could handle, ending his first encore with a surprising cover of "let the sunshine in" from Hair, which was a bit disappointing only because I hadn't heard a few of my favorites yet. But he had yet to disappoint me at a show, and before I could walk 100 feet, he was back for a second encore. He had left out a ton of hits, but the two I really wanted to hear were "Still Ray" and "Get Involved," and that's exactly how he ended his show.



To quote the immortal words of Ice Cube, "Today was a Good Day." Indeed, it was.

I had high expectations for Bumbershoot, with the vast array of talent and all of the positive things I've heard from friends, and I'll be the first to tell you that if you're going to go to one music festival in any given year, Bumbershoot should be that festival.

First of all, the organization was on point! The press lobby was great, stocked with food and drinks, wi-fi, comfy couches and best of all, because the lobby was indoors, NO portable toilets! Actually, I don't think I saw a single "porta-potty" at the festival, but I'll stop there.

But back to the festival. I missed Katy Perry because she was the only artists from the main stage not to allow pictures. But did I really miss out? I think not. Instead, I went to support Stones Throw's latest artist Mayer Hawthorne, a throwback to 60's soul and he absolutely set it off. Not only was the crowd feelin' the tracks he performed off his album, but Mayer and his band, The County, absolutely nailed down a few covers, including Electric Light Orchestra's "Mr. Blue Sky" and The Isley Brothers' "Work To Do." Very impressive indeed. His album just dropped this week and it's a great listen from beginning to end, so once you're finished reading this, please support the brotha and cop that.






LA-based U-N-I followed up with a very impressive performance as well, tons of energy, dope beats and rhymes, similar to a Slum Village/Pharcyde vibe, and entertained the crowd with a lil' Michael Jackson tribute to Billie Jean, as well as standouts like "Fat Girl" and "K.R.E.A.M." This group is definitely on my list of artists to look out for in the near future.



Time to switch gears and check out some comedy. One of my favorite comedians, Nick Swardson, was originally scheduled to perform, but had to cancel due to scheduling conflicts with a new movie he's currently shooting. Props to the Bumbershoot folks, who did not play with a second-hand replacement. Instead, Aziz Ansarifrom Human Giant fame filled Swardson's shoes and killed it! I left the amphitheater still crackin' up over dude's jokes, specifically the Craigslist bit. HILARIOUS! I'd get more detailed, but most of it is not kid-friendly so you'll just have to google him for more.



Caught the very last song of Os Mutantes' set. Very interesting, I just wish I could have caught more.




The headliner for the first night was my favorite hip-hop group of all-time, De La Soul. Think of how many artists from 1989 are still on top of their game like De La is and you'll struggle to compile a list. Anyway, with this year being the 20-year anniversary of their seminal 3 Feet High and Rising album, they've been touring with the incredible Rhythm Roots All-Stars as their backing band, and out of the countless number of times I've seen them, this anniversary show could be the dopest De La show I've ever seen. Classic after classic, the band nailed down the instrumentals while members Posdnuos, Trugoy and DJ Maseo traded wordplay, roaming the stage and laughing like it was their first time on stage together. Artists today could definitely learn a lot from De La, and it's refreshing to see a group 20 years in the game still have the amount of energy and chemistry like De La does.





Yeah, they're tired of playing the one song everyone knows from them, "Me, Myself and I," and they even mock it, switching up a few lines like: "Can it be my De La clothes or is it just because we hate this song?" Classic.



Some of the other tracks that stood out include: "Much More, "Pass the Plugs" with the band playing "Pass The Peas" and "Ring Ring Ring (Ha Ha Hey)" with the band flawlessly switching up the track during the second verse to George Benson's "Give Me the Night." WOW!





It truly was a great way to cap off the first day of festivities! Stay tuned for more reviews and wrap-ups from Bumbershoot.

Last.fm interviewed America's most adorable and friendliest power-pop duo known as Matt & Kim at Bumbershoot in Seattle. In this video the duo chatted about District 9, Matt's theory about Steve Jobs' ending the human species with the iPhone, rap music, and getting naked in the infamous music video for "Lessons Learned."

My third day of Bumbershoot-ing was made up of discovering new bands, taking random pics of arts, food, festivalgoers and most importantly getting myself to the airport before 7PM on Labor Day. I wish I could’ve stayed longer to check out Sunday’s headliners; Modest Mouse and Franz Ferdinand, but to tell you the truth, there were absolutely no flights out of Seattle to Oakland available on Monday—bummer, right? Did anyone see them? How was it? Please share your stories with us!





I kick-started my Monday afternoon with some tasty $4 corn smothered with butter, cheese, paprika, salt, pepper and tons of garlic. At first I was hesitant to spend $4, but it looked just so damn good.




Once I got my corn fix, I headed out to the new mastersounds, a four-piece vintage jazz-funk band from Leeds who had some great energy on stage making folks of all shades of hipster get their funk on!



Once I was done with snapping some pics of this funky act, I headed to the BroadStreet Stage for some lo-fi indie-pop sounds from Mirah. I didn’t stick around for too long, but during the first 20 minutes I found her performance very soothing to the ears.




From Mirah, I checked out the Bumbershoot art exhibit made up hand-screen printed poster art from the likes of Seattle designers Jesse LeDoux, Robynne Raye of Modern Dog, Coby Schultz and Barry Ament of the Ames Bros and many more.






The last show I saw before I headed home was the Seattle hip-hop act, Champagne Champagne. They’re a hybrid of backpack rap, new-wave, experimental-pop reminiscent to the sounds of kid cudi, acylaone, madlib, j dilla and the cool kids. I’ve never heard of these guys before, but was instantly hooked by their heavily synth-driven catchy beats, intelligent and comedic lyricism style in songs like “Molly Ringwald, “Cover Girls,” and “Tropical Trina.” Unfortunately I didn’t get to hear more than just a couple songs, but once I got home I bought their album online. Man…I haven’t done that in a long, long, time. :/





Overall, I had a great time at Bumbershoot and got introduced to a lot of great bands I’d never probably would’ve checked out at other festivals mainly because I don’t hear much about them. Did anyone discover any cool bands?

The Bumbershoot afternoon lineup for day two didn't look too exciting to me. Instead I spent most of my afternoon indoors producing yesterday's interview with Matt and Kim (stay tune!). Though I have to admit, I am a little bummed I didn't catch any comedy as well as the Cold War Kids and the Vivian Girls. So, if you saw any good comedy or bands we haven't mentioned here, please share your experiences with us--we would love to hear and see what you saw!

I did, however, make it out to the Yeah Yeah Yeah's. I believe this is my fourth time seeing them and if you haven't checked them out by now, I strongly encourage you to do so--seriously! Put these guys on your "Must See Band Before I Die" list.

My favorite pics of the show;









Next up, on my list of bands to check out were Holy F*ck. And, Holy S*it, I haven't been this excited about a band since I last heard "Mirrors" from the Battles. In comparison though, both bands are equally awesome and very similar in a lot ways, but Holy F*ck's sound makes for a challenging and borderline overwhelming listen. They blend complex mathy song structures, intricate guitars with non-instruments including a 35 mm film synchronizer and toy keyboards to produce electronic-sounding effects without the use of laptops. Curious? Give these guys a spin!





Fans of HF


After Holy F*ck, I flocked over to the Exhibition Hall for some good ol' rave fun with Toronto's snazzy nu-rave, techno duo known as MSTRFKT. I've never seen them DJ before and was impressed on the amount of people who attended the show losing their s*it when the two drop club hits from other big named electro artists like Boyz Noise, Justice, Digitalism and many, many other bangin' songs. Here are some pics i took of these two DJ stalwarts!







And, what better way to end the evening than to chill out to DJ Spooky's multimedia performance piece made up of Stax and Trojan classics synced up with historical visuals at the Experience Music Project’s super-tech Electric Skychurch stage. I wish i can tell you what songs he dropped that evening, but my knowledge in the r&b, soul and reggae dept. needs some work. But, all in all, I think Spooky's art should be savored and studied. If you haven't heard any of his stuff, I suggest you start by picking up the highly praised mix CD called, "Under the Influence."

What exactly is a bumbershoot, you ask? I sure didn't know and according to the Wikipidea the name comes from an old word for umbrella, a clever metaphor describing the variety of music, film, comedy, spoken word, dance, performance, and visual arts the 39th annual festival encompasses. And funny enough, if you were in Seattle this Labor Day weekend, you probably didn’t think of bringing that umbrella to the 74 acres of Bumbershoot. But heck, who said you can’t have fun in the rain?

After my interview with Brooklynites Matt & Kim, I checked out Low Vs Diamond, an indie-rock band fronted by Seattle native Lucas Field. With very little knowledge of the band before I headed out to see them, I couldn’t help but think--carbon-copy of the Killers, Strokes, and maybe even a less melancholy Interpool. Rolling Stone listed the band as an artist to watch out for and I can see why; catchy harmonies, intelligent lyrics , joyful up-tempo beats, intimate and classic; it's music for all seasons, all situations, and all times of day. Definitely check them out—you won’t be sorry.





Next on my list of bands to see on Saturday night were Akimbo, a post-hardcore metal band from Seattle with an abrasive sound reminiscent to Black Flag, Melvins, Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. Unfortunately I only saw about 20 minutes of this band but it was the good amount of time to conclude that these guys absolutely rock!





With the harsh sounds of Akimbo still ringing through my ears, I continued to fuel my metal curiosity with the abrasive sounds from this Los Angeles thrash band called Otep. Fronted by a blonde gal resembling Joan Jett, I found this woman's devilish roars and morbid nursery rhymes absolutely inhuman. Fans of all things death metal and manic should immediately immerse their virgin ears in this OTEP treatment. I dare you..



These kids are down with the OTEP!







Other bands I thought were absolutely awesome LIVE were Gang Gang Dance from New York. I’ve never seen these guys live and have heard nothing but great things about them. They have a really unique sound, or sounds rather. Watching the lead singer Lizzi Bougatsos play percussion was mesmerizing and a pleasure to listen to. I thought the show started a bit slow, but once the crowd adjusted to the electronic ritual rhythms coming off the stage, everyone was gang, gang dancing. If you like TV on the Radio, Sigur Ros, Animal Collective M.I.A., Siouxsie Sioux etc., you'll love these guys.




Another band I checked out was the emo-ish, alt-pop-electronic rock band from L.A. known as, Uh Huh Her. Despite the minor technical difficulties the bassist/keyboardist/vocalist Camila Grey was having during her set, I thought their performance was eh, okay. Nothing too spectacular to report about these two gals. I'm also not a big fan of their band name, I think it's quite silly if you ask me. Here are some pics;