In the face of a slow sales week and the absence of a major new debut, Jack Johnson’s latest disc held on to the top spot on the charts. “Sleep Through the Static” moved another 105,000 discs, making it three consecutive weeks at number one. Alicia Keys continues to be a chart force with “As I Am,” which has been in stores for nearly three months yet still managed to sell 53,000 copies and claim the number two spot. Keys’ sales have been helped by two hit singles and a strong performance on the Grammys early in the month. Multiple Grammy winner and needle-drug enthusiast Amy Winehouse is also experiencing a bump from her performance on the award show, as “Back to Black” falls just shy of the number two spot with 52,000 copies.

The 13th edition of the “Kidz Bop” series, which features the kids from the “more Ovaltine, please!” commercials covering popular songs, debuts at number four with 49,000 copies. Experts believe that the use of the letter “z” in the word “kidz” may, in fact, be the driving force behind the series’ successful chart run. The fifth spot goes to the “Step Up 2: The Streets” soundtrack, which pushed 43,000 units. Right behind in sixth place was the soundtrack to “Juno,” which sold another 38,000 copies.

Buoyed by a hit single, Sara Bareilles’ “Little Voices” jumped up 9% to the seventh spot with 37,000 copies, a new high for Bareilles. Chris Cagle’s “My Life’s Been a Country Song” debuts at number eight with just under 37,000, while Mary J. Blige grabbed the ninth spot with 35,000 copies of her hit “Growing Pains.” Taylor Swift’s self-titled album rounds out the top ten selling 33,000 discs.

I’m probably late to this party, but I heard today that Rolling Stone’s guitarist Kieth Richards was just paid an advance of $7 million to write his autobiography for New York-publishers Little, Brown, & Co.. That’s a hell of a paycheck for someone who barely speaks English as it is.

Anyway, as a budding writer, here’s my best guess as to the chapter titles for Richards’ forthcoming tome:

1: How to free-base herion while living in the public eye.

2: 1-2-3-Taiwanese hooker

3: Nasa computes the number of women I’ve slept with.

4: Why I’m no longer required to speak English.

5: Slightly fem and fancy free.

6: Aerosmith: bottom-feeding pansies

7: A list of animals that I have eaten live.

8: Why were were so bad in the ’80s and ’90s.

9: My age - the youngest groupie I slept with + pi = A single unifying theory for all universal constants.

10: Tu Wong Foo: Thanks for Everything Julie Numar!

Tag: Rolling Stones

So, after much debate about Lolla’s three-day madness, the consensus seems to be that Muse absolutely rocked everyone’s balls off, and Daft Punk put on a light show that made God sit up.

 It got me thinking…

“Hey, self!”

“Yes, subconscious?”

“What’s the best live music experience we’ve ever been to?”

Damn good question. I’ve thought about this before, and I’m always fluctuating about my choices. But, in general, I always stop on two shows that really left a crator on an impression.

1) The Mars Volta, Riveria Theatre, October 2003 : I know, I know, for some reason it’s both in fashion to hate on the Mars Volta, and out of fashion to recognize that they’ve put out three amazing, albiet pretentious, jazz-fusion-latin-rock-prog-punk-art-noise-masterpeices.

The show, if anything, was a microcosim of what makes people love and hate the band. First, everything was done to excess. The mics were turned up so that the vocals fought with the guitars. The lights were frenetic, to the point of utter confusion. There was a ten-minute feedback intro for nearly every song. And who could forget that 23-minute drum solo? The centerpeice, though, was lead singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala. He yelled at nearly everyone working at the Riv. He slammed the microphone down twice when he didn’t like how fans were reacting. More to the point, he swore at people in the audience who jeered. In short, he was a complete and utter dick.

And I loved it all. It was too racuous and angry and live-wire not to love. It reminded me of old videos of Mc5, smashing their instruments to shit and fighting with the audience. The current musical zeitgeist seems to value a certain lo-fi sentiment. That’s fine and all, but it was a thrill to see a band make everything bigger, louder, and ballsy-er.

2) Our Lady Peace, October 2000, The Vic : OLP is criminally underappreciated outside of Canada. If all you know of this band is the crap which makes radio, then go out and buy their 1999 album “Happiness is not a fish that you can catch” and see why lyrically it is the strongest album ever released in the 90s (my opinion, yes, but then again it is the only one that matters).

I won’t even bother trying to explain the balls-out bombast of the show, I’ll just relate one moment: Two-thirds through the show, in the middle of the song “One Man Army,” lead singer Raine Maida climbed up the speakers on the side of stage, climbed into the side balcony, hung a 10-foot Canadian flag from the wall, and stage-dove 12-feet into the crowd on the floor below. The crowd caught him, and surfed him back to the stage.

I was 16 years old at the time, and that scene is forever burned into my subconscious rock-iconography. 

What about you, Heave reader? Let’s get a long list of memories going here!   

Tag: live shows

This time that’s actually the name. Kidapalooza. No bull. That’s what the section of Lollapalooza dedicated to kidZ is called. The more you think about it, the more awesome it gets. Because let’s face it, it can be easy to get lost in the salty hedonism of rock ‘n’ roll, hip-hop, and (to some extent) Snow Patrol.

That’s where kidapalooza comes in—providing you with an outlet to regain the starry-eyed wonder you started off with, or a good place to dump the kids while you hit the beer tent and finish off a pack of Newports. I mean, you’ve only got two hands, right!!?  

In all honesty, a concert is never an easy place to be with a child, but here are a few of the services and activities offered at Lolla that just might be worth your time and attention. 

1) Tag-a-kid: Yes, that means exactly what it sounds like it means. When you visit the Information Tent, you can tag your offspring with individualized wrist bands. That way, if your kidz are stupid enough to walk away from you in crowd, but smart enough to turn themselves in to park officials, you can be contacted right away. I’m also hoping that for an extra $20 they’ll let me tag and hunt any kid not claimed at the end of the day. 

2) Hip-Hop workshop: My kidz already know how hard it is out here for a pimp trying to make the money for the rent, but they don’t know how to scratch records! But, thankfully, they can learn at 12:15 pm on Sunday, August 5^th. (Seriously, it sounds cool and I want in.) 

3) Playstation interactive area: So that they will be able to completely ignore the fact that they are outside. 

4) Tattooz by Small Paul: Your kidz can get all sorts of body art, rub-on tattoos, and face painting. They will look cooler than you do, despite the fact that you are 20 years older and can see R-rated movies. 

5) Gibson g-pad: Reportedly, anyone can come to this tent and rock out on Gibson stuff. How can you resist a free chance to look cooler than you ever will again in the future?

Tag: Lollapalooza

So we’ve been having a debate for nearly a week now at HEAVE over the best song written about drugs or drug use. Is it purely subjective? Of course. Still, we haven’t been shy about our opinions, and we wouldn’t want you to be either. So here’s the big three that we’ve been tossing around — what have we missed?

Ryanp: “Running to Stand Still,” by U2, from “The Joshua Tree”

So many musicians attempt to relate the experience of intoxication by embodying the voice of the user. In “Heroin,” (see below) Lou Reed is all about power, climax, depression and release. The more junk that rushes through his veins, the more the song’s tempo quickens. The sounds and the words are an attempt to capture something of the rush and the crash of the needle as it happens.

In “Running to Stand Still,” Bono and U2 take a step outside, and instead describe the squalor of a heroin-addled woman. And to that end, the scene they paint is one of perpetual relapse and frustration. The song is all about connection and dichotomy, and the relationship between desire and the fear of self-destruction is represented as a series of impossibilities:

Sweet the sin /
But the bitter taste in my mouth /
I see seven towers /
But I only see one way out /
You got to cry without weeping /
Talk without speaking /
Scream without raising your voice /

While the scenery Bono evokes is real — the seven towers refer to the Ballymun neighborhoods of Dublin, a slum area notorious for its poverty and drug problems — the only viable option for the woman is the destruction of reality. That “one way out,” to my mind, can only refer to either suicide or a trip from the needle. Ultimately, the song concludes in a note of powerlessness:

She runs through the streets /
With her eyes painted red /
Under black belly of cloud in the rain /
In through a doorway she brings me /
White gold and pearls stolen from the sea /
She is raging /
She is raging and the storm blows up in her eyes /
She will suffer the needle chill /
She is running to stand still

The song seems made for a grand climax — the music builds to a crescendo that never comes. Instead, it drops off, unsatisfied, like someone suddenly etherized. For all her rage, the woman is left with puffy eyes, burst veins, and the numbing sting of the needle. The force of her anger is redirected inward, and becomes one more moment in a series of oblivions.

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Greg: “Heroin” by The Velvet Underground, from “The Velvet Underground and Nico”

“I had not taken a bath in a year nor changed my clothes or removed them except to stick a needle every hour in the fibrous grey wooden flesh of heroin addiction. I did absolutely nothing.”-William S. Burroughs



Jimi Hendrix, Janice Joplin, Tim Buckley, Gram Parsons, Brad Nowell and Shannon Hoon were just a few of the casualties of heroin in music. Kurt Cobain, David Bowie, Miles Davis, James Taylor and Arthur Lee (singer of Love) all are surrounded by dramatic and interesting stories of heroin use and addiction. “Trainspotting” and “Requiem for a Dream” are two semi-recent movies that paint a repulsive and upsetting account of the dangers of heroin dependency. In spite of all this I have to admit that heroin use is still intriguing to me. I am in no way trying to glorify drug use, but there is a certain rock ‘n roll charm to substance abuse that I can not shake.



The Velvet Underground song “Heroin” completely embodies what my perception of heroin use is. From Moe Tucker’s rhythmic beating of the toms pulsating like a jacked-up heart to Lou Reed’s lyrics about not caring about anything after taking a hit. To me, this is the best simulation of drug use in music form. But hey, what do I know, I’ve never done the stuff.

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Evan: “Beetlebum” by Blur, from “Blur”

Unlike Greg, a cast of drugs have come and gone in the short (and likely now shorter) years I’ve been alive to consume; it makes it easier when I imagine them as tidy, upstanding families of cocaine, the two-and-a-half kid (gram?) kind that secures luggage atop red-cell station wagons, highwaying their way down veins. I can only say the substances know these routes well, and I’d imagine consider regions of my brain as summer lake houses of sorts.



Through saturated highs and subterranean lows, I’ve come to envision the influences as analogized best (beyond a ’50s era road-tripping family, apparently) by an awful, inconsiderate girlfriend that, while granting the occasional comfort, is more adept at and prone to eroding your vital organs. Blur’s “Beetlebum” off their under-appreciated 1997 self-titled captures each of these painful concepts, conveying the numbing apathy that drugs (and likewise awful girlfriends) induce. Like other of the band’s songs, Damon Albarn is said to have written the tune after his ex-girlfriend Justine, and particularly her own issues with heroin: frontman’s girlfriend drug-of-choice since 1972.



A dizzying verse lullingly mirrors the muddyness that drug abuse brings about; Graham Coxon’s two-chord slide sounds like an engine struggling to start, alongside lines like “Get nothing done / Just get numb,” the verse may represent Albarn’s own difficulty with substances and serve as criticism toward his former gal pal. The chorus’ descending falsetto enters:



“And when she lets me slip away /
She turns me on and all my violence gone /
Nothing is wrong, I just slip away and I am gone”

and Albarn’s tall melodies here offer a contrast to the duller sections, letting the listener observe the high and low moments of addiction equally. “Beetlebum” accurately represents the daze and quiet danger that drug use brings about, but succeeds because it doubles nicely as a wavy, sexy song that depresses and impresses.

Tag: Best of lists

In his last column, Wes pointed out that Lollapalooza is going to be all about hard decisions: Do I take the train or try to drive? If I split up with my friends will I ever find them again? Should I really be making out with this girl? Tricky, for sure.  

But don’t look so tense, not every decision is going to be arduous and hard-fought. In fact, when it comes to picking which performances to see, the simplest way to reduce the stress of devising your Lollapalooza schedule is to eliminate the bands we can describe as less-than-must-see. It’s like the SAT’s, but instead of antonyms and synonyms it’s Iggy Pop cutting up his chest with shards of glass.  

To that end, I’ve made a small list of artists and bands—three for each day of Lolla—that you can comfortably skip with the knowledge that I will look on and nod approvingly.  

Friday, August 3^rd:

The Polyphonic Spree 2:30-3:30 on the Bud Light stage – Part of me wants to recommend these guys, even if only for the fact that it’s a marvel they can fit all 25 members onstage, but I can’t ignore the fact that their bombast feels forced. Yes, I get it. You all sing and dance together and you all wear white robes simulating a cult. Great shtick…sort of.  

Sparklehorse 3:30-4:30 on the Adidas stage -  Mark Linkous is a wonderful lyricist. The litany of musician friends that contribute to his albums always produce wonderful results. And yet Linkous’s vocals are always a giant “if.” If he has his voice in check, Sparklehorse is something special. If he doesn’t, the band is something to skip.  

M.I.A 4:30-5:30 on the Bud Light Stage – I won’t lie: I love Maya Arulpragasam. Who couldn’t? She is tough as nails, blisteringly smart, and she doesn’t give a shit what you think of her. On top of that, “Angular” is an amazing album that probably should have won the Shortlist Music Prize and the Mercury Music Prize. Still, her music is all about movement, chaos, and groove, and I think that it is heard better indoors where it can echo against itself. I just don’t see it translating very well to a venue like Lollapalooza. I’ll bite the bullet if I’m wrong on this one, though.  

Saturday, August 4^th: 

Stephen Marley 2:30-3:30 on the Bud Light stage – Is it unfair to compare him with his father? Of course. But that doesn’t change the fact that it inevitably happens. And lord knows that Marley is trying to live up to his good name, but the music never really rises above vaguely likeable.  

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah 4:30-5:30 on the AT&T stage – They have their moments, but on the whole they are just vastly overrated. Go check them out and you’ll see what I mean.  

Interpol 8:30-10:00 on the Bud Light Stage – I have nothing against Interpol, it’s just that they happen to be playing at the same time as Muse, who bring down the house every time they get on stage. Literally. Watch out for falling pieces of badassness. 

Sunday, August 5^th: 

Rodrigo y Gabriela 1:15-2:15 on the Adidas Stage – The novelty of this duo wear off for me after about ten minutes. I would rather just listen to some good thrash metal than hear a folk rock team cover it. 

Amy Winehouse 2:30-3:30 on the Bud Light Stage - Everything will be going swimmingly, until Winehouse whips a bottle of Jack Daniels at a fan and throws up in her beehive while forgetting the words to her own songs. It’s a shame too, because the album is a masterstroke.

 

Iggy and the Stooges 4:15-5:15 on the Bud Light stage – Wow, I’ve literally suggested that you skip 75% of the Bud Light stage shows. I swear that it wasn’t intentional. And really, I would like to give Iggy and the boys the thumbs up, but the moment has basically passed. Being a punk idol in your heyday only gets you so far.

Tag: Lollapalooza

Shhhhhhhhhhh. Wait a minute—do you hear that? That’s the ticking clock of glorious musical inevitability, counting down the final dozen days until Lollapalooza descends upon Grant Park. With a little under two weeks left before performers hit the stage, it is time to start planning your trip. Now, maybe you’re asking yourself whether you really need to “plan” out your Lolla experience. Perhaps you’re just planning to drop a couple hundred dollars on a three-day pass and then wing it for the weekend.  

Well purge the thought, because you need to map out what you’ll be doing—you need to chart it like fucking Magellan. The people who show up at festivals without a clue as to what to wear, what to bring, and how to behave are consistently the ones who make it more difficult for everyone else to enjoy the show and the Lollapalooza culture as a whole. You can avoid long lines, dehydration, strip searches, and a bad acid trip with just a little bit of forethought.  

As we’ve said, Heave will not only be blogging from Lollapalooza, but we will also spend the next week on a how-to guide encompassing everything you need to know. Consider today Kindergarten, because we’re starting with the basics: what to bring and how to get to Grant Park. 

WHAT TO BRING:  

Water: Despite the fact that water is essential to the survival of all known forms of life and covers more than 70% of the Earth’s surface, there is a group of people who always somehow manage to convince themselves that they won’t really need to drink any while they stand, walk, and dance in the beating sun for ten hours. Please, if there’s one thing I can convince you of, other than Alan Thicke’s heterosexuality, it’s that you are going to want to bring water with you to Lollapalooza.  

Festival organizers will allow every ticket-holder to bring in two plastic, factory-sealed water bottles for each day of the show. Did you catch the two most important words there? Plastic and factory sealed. Glass bottles simply don’t work because the risks are too high that someone will drop one and send shards flying in every direction in a five-foot radius, or that some crazy Regina Spektor fan is going to bash someone over the head with one. And factory sealed is the only way to guarantee that you are not trying to sneak into the park with gasoline, Agent Orange, or half a bottle of god-awful Skol Vodka. Now, be sure to find the biggest possible bottles that you can carry comfortably, because buying water at the festival is always a long and expensive experience. Soft coolers are allowed (assuming you don’t fill them with Skol, because then I will personally ban you), so it should be relatively easy to keep everything cool. 

A blanket/sweatshirt: People from out of state and even the suburbs sometimes forget how chilly Chicago can be at night, especially so close to the lake. Your best bet is to dress for extremes: assume that it will be very hot during the day and very cold when the sun goes down. When the temperature starts to drop, it’s a real lifesaver to have a blanket or sweater to keep yourself warm and focused on the music. 

A map of Grant Park: Park workers are supposed to have maps of the park and the stage areas, but it’s not uncommon for them to run out. Lord knows you don’t want to spend two hours wandering around Millennium Park wondering when the hell Pearl Jam is taking the stage. Lollapalooza’s official site has a nifty little map that you can find right here http://www.lollapalooza.com/themap.asp , while the Chicago Park district also has a helpful map, minus the listings of festival attractions at http://www.chicagoparkdistrict.com/docs/4fbe599a-f2fe-439c-92ec-9f83dccbc923_document.pdf (heads up, it’s a PDF). 

Comfortable Shoes: Again, this is something that people often overlook, but when you’re standing, jumping and walking all day, it’s really important to support your feet. That small pain in the back of your heel at 2 p.m. is going to be a gaping, all-consuming black vortex of a blister by 11 p.m. unless you plan ahead. The best bet is to leave the high heels at home. Sure, it looks hot, but then again so does Pat Benatar. And it’s not any more intelligent for you to wear heels than it would be for me to try and sleep with Pat Benatar (even though I absolutely would). 

A list of who you’re seeing:  Trust me, it’s easier to do this at home. You can print out a planner right here http://www.lollapalooza.com/schedule2007/day1.asp.  

I.D.: You’ll need it to buy booze, and the cops are probably going to want to see it when they ask where your pants went to. 

Cash: There will always be some expense that you didn’t foresee, so be proactive and take an extra $20-30 with you each day. 

A FEW THINGS TO LEAVE AT HOME: 

Guns/knives/steel pipes:  If Stallone’s film “Over the Top” has taught us anything, it’s that real men settle important problems like child custody disputes by arm wrestling.  

Skol Vodka:  I’m serious, it sucks. Drink Grey Goose or something. 

iPod: This one is really up to you. I always end up bringing my IPod, but unless you have a safe place to keep it, it’s easy to lose. And there’s always the possibility that you’ll break it during one of those Amy Winehouse mosh pits.  

A giant backpack: There is always some guy that shows up looking like he’s ready to spend a week in the jungle. Word to the wise: Don’t take a bag that is bigger than you really need, because festival workers will turn you away if you come with an over-sized bag.  

Food: Outside food isn’t allowed, and the people at Lollapalooza are better about checking for that sort of thing than the pubescent kid at the movie theaters. You can sample food from all over Chicago at the festival, and if there’s one thing that this city does well it’s food. Try one of the ethnic vendors—I guarantee you will be pleasantly surprised.  

TRANSPORTATION:

Let’s start out with a simple maxim: cars and Chicago just don’t mix. I spent nearly forty minutes looking for a parking spot off of Dearborn this weekend. Add 150,000 or so concert-goers to the mix, and you’ll start to understand why driving to Lollapalooza is a terrible idea. You will be stuck in traffic, burn gasoline (which is over $3.40 a gallon in the city), and end up wasting half the day looking for parking.  

If you can avoid it at all, then it’s much smarter to get to the city a different way. If you absolutely must drive, then be prepared to fight for distant spots on the street or bring a lot of cash for public lots. Here’s a good site if you plan on being one the lucky few to park at Grant Park or even Millennium Park, which isn’t too far away http://www.grantparkparking.com/Source/Home.aspx 

If you are living in the city but are too far away to walk, then my first suggestion would be to try riding your bike. Chicago is absolutely one of the best cities in the world for biking, and Grant Park offers a free bike check (You need your own lock, though). Even if you are out of town and staying at a hotel, it might be worth it to see if they offer a cheap bike rental. It will end up being the most economical, enjoyable, and environmentally sound way to get to Lollapalooza. If biking just is not a possibility, then try taking a bus. They run every 15-20 minutes from every corner of the city, and despite its debt, the Chicago Transit Authority keeps everything running surprisingly smoothly. You can pick your CTA routes right here: http://www.transitchicago.com/maps/bus/bus.html  

If you’re one of the many thousands traveling to the city from the ‘burbs, then its time to get to know the trains in and out of Chicago, and the ones that traverse the city itself. Metra will take you into Union Station http://www.metrarail.com/System_map/index.html , and the CTA lines will take you all around the city. Here’s a map that includes an inset of the downtown circuit: (Remember that Grant Park is located between Randolph Street and McFetridge Drive)http://www.transitchicago.com/maps/rail/rail.html. Prices are more than fair, and the trains are going to be the best option for getting your drunk ass home at night. 

There it is, Heave faithful! Get to planning, and check back tomorrow for a brand new Lollapalooza update. 

Tag: Lollapalooza