Wish You Were There: Village Voice Media at the Pitchfork and Siren Festivals Last Weekend

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photo by Nick Lucchesi, Riverfront Times

The Flaming Lips. Who else?

This past weekend, Nick Lucchesi, a correspondent from New Times' St. Louis sister paper, the Riverfront Times, headed to the Pitchfork Festival in Chicago. In a nutshell, here's what he found:

*David Yow of the Jesus Lizard has still got it at 49 years old, even though his stage patter includes some awkward jokes.

*Wavves tried to stem the tide of his encroaching bloggy backlash (fueled, of course, by early bloggy hype) by forbidding a photo pit during his set. Too bad, so sad.

*Matt & Kim are still relentlessly cheerful, and still riding the success of "Yeah, Yeah," while Beirut played to his largest crowd yet.

*And Black Lips are still experimenting with fashionable head gear.

*Batshit Canadian hardcore/punk outfit Fucked Up loooooves the festival circuit -- sure beats sleeping on cockroach-covered floors, says drummer Jonah Falco in this video.

*Vivian Girls did not suddenly disintegrate upon leaving Brooklyn, and actually fare quite well west of the Mississippi.

*Flaming Lips: Oh, really, only a bunch of psychedelic photos do them justice.


In Siren Festival news, of course there was plenty of coverage over at New Times' NYC sister paper, the Village Voice -- the Voice is, of course, one of the festival's sponsors. Plenty of good stuff over at the Voice's music blog, Sound of the City, like....

*This bit on the Raveonettes, which describes their set, awesomely, as having a "Goths in Hot Weather vibe."

*This cute family photo including Frank Black.

*This revelation that Monotonix is STILL AWESOME, and still the only band, I think, that features a crowd-surfing drummer.