deadline, shows, and more silverchair

It's been a while … things have been quite busy.

The rest of the week I was talking about in my last post actually went pretty smoothly, except for something that fell through for the fall issue (but it got fixed). I don't know how Amy does it, because so many little things came up in just a week, but I managed to get everything done that needed to be done, and I didn't screw up the whole magazine. Mission accomplished, right?

Today the fall issue goes out to print, which is very exciting. I ended up writing (err, re-writing) the Rilo Kiley story that I did the (horrendous) interview for. I don't feel like it's the best thing I've ever done, but the fact that most of it was written on deadline definitely has something to do with it. So that brings the byline count to five … RK, two CD reviews in the sounds section, one CD review in the penus section, and a blurb in UpFront. M.I.A. is on the cover and it looks awesome. It comes out Sept. 1 so check it out!

From Pitchfork on it's been constant concerts, and I'm not complaining:

Pitchfork (July 13-15) was awesome.
Friday - Sonic Youth was great, even though the only album of theirs I know really well is Daydream Nation … which is what they played …
Saturday - Not the best day of the weekend (which had much to do with all of us being up super late the night before), but I saw Grizzly Bear (a lot better outside than I expected!) and a little bit of Iron & Wine (before almost passing out from heat and/or exhaustion). I slept on the grass during Mastodon, saw a little bit of Girl Talk (worst stage setup ever … he was on the tiny stage, no one could move or see, and the sound was horrible), and ended the night with Yoko Ono. She was crazy and showed this nine-minute documentary before coming on stage.



Please watch it.

Sunday - Definitely the best day of the fest. Saw lots of bands I had never heard before (Junior Boys, Menomena, The Sea and Cake, Jamie Lidell, Stephen Malkmus), watched Of Montreal from really far away because I was on the barricade for the New Pornographers, who were great, as usual. I was bummed that Neko wasn't there (again), but Kathryn Calder is awesome too. They played stuff from the new album, including my least favorite song ("The Spirit of Giving In") and not my favorite song ("Myriad Harbour"). Ohhh well. My friend said he saw me on the big monitor because I was in the front … that's hilarious.

Tuesday I saw Mirah, who was fantastically quirky and adorable.

Wednesday was The Decemberists with the Grant Park Orchestra. My friend and I got there around 2:30 p.m. and roasted in the heat/humidity in Millennium Park so we could get seats in the pavilion. My roommate met us there, they let us in at 5 p.m., we sat down and eventually moved up to seats we weren't supposed to be in. The show was awesome. The band and the orchestra weren't always quite together, but I didn't care. It rained a bit during the performance, and it was funny seeing all of the old people with their umbrellas in the pavilion. After the show it poured … I've never been in such crazy rain before … but my friend, roommate and I walked to a restaurant after the show and by the time we got there it looked like we had jumped in a pool.

Then Friday an adventure because my friend and I took the megabus to St. Louis to see Ani DiFranco. It was amazing. I kind of got to talk to her (as explained in my review of the show). It pretty much made my life. Photos here.

Wednesday was Ben Kweller at Schubas, a really tiny venue … the show was amazing (review should be up today), but I felt horrible because his publicist told me I had a +1 so I was going to take my roommate, and we got there and I didn't have one … it was really shitty. But the show was great nonetheless, I was right in the front, directly in front of his microphone … we're talking close enough that I could have reached out and touched him, and close enough that I pulled his set list off of the stage. Photos here.

And about Silverchair, I interviewed bassist Chris Joannau a few days ago for a story for The State News that will run on Monday. It went well, except that he has an (amazing) Australian accent, so I couldn't understand everything. I recorded the conversation though and was able to pick out almost everything. Like I said in my last post, I love Silverchair, and I'm ridiculously excited to see them next weekend.

I'll probably update before this, but expect a sappy end-of-summer post in a couple of weeks.