You didn't know?: A one-upsmanship primer for Pitchfork Music Fest attendees
Lorena Cupcake/Flickr
While the folks behind Pitchfork, the ever-popular music site, pride themselves on a deep knowledge of music, they also have a bit of a nasty snob-utation. Pitchfork writers—and devotees, for that matter—are always hip to the scene before it becomes a scene, full of useless factoids about Laurie Anderson, and they, like, totally knew about that popular band way, way before everyone else did, man.
Fortunately, The A.V. Club’s put together a handy guide to the deep, dark secrets and closet passions of a bunch of bands playing this weekend’s Pitchfork Music Festival, from Animal Collective to TV On The Radio. Everyone going to the fest knows what those bands sound like, so to really achieve proper hipster one-upsmanship, savvy concertgoers are going to need to know more. Just remember, with great indie power comes great indie responsibility.
Performer: Animal Collective’s Josh Dibb, a.k.a. Deakin
When to see them: Friday at 8:30 p.m., Green Stage.
You didn’t know?: The on-again, off-again AnCo member performed improv comedy in college. As a student of Brandeis University, Dibb spent time in a celebrated troupe called False Advertising. In a review of a False Ad performance in the school’s student newspaper, The Justice, writer Steve Silver praised Deakin’s performance: “The set began with ‘Radio Game,’ which was highlighted by Josh Dibb’s ’01 portrayal of a Canadian televangelist.”
A way to use it: Animal Collective sometimes gets compared to jam bands for its lengthy live musical improvisations. If a nearby gig-goer gets bored by a 20-minute rendition of “The Purple Bottle,” this little tidbit about Deakin’s experience jamming in comedy (so to speak) might fill the endless looping.
Performer: Guided by Voices’ Robert Pollard
When to see them: Friday at 6:25 p.m., Green Stage.
You didn’t know?: Pollard cut his teeth playing metal: He and Guided by Voices guitarist Mitch Mitchell played in a heavy metal cover band called Anacrusis back when Pollard was a freshman in college. In a 2006 interview with Spin, Pollard described drawing the band’s symbol and writing a catchphrase, “power in the ultimate form”: “Yeah, ‘power in the ultimate form’—that’s how fuckin’ stupid it was,” he said.
A way to use it: If you meet someone who is only at the festival to see Kylesa or one of the few loud, abrasive rock acts, this could be a good way to sway someone to check out something a little different.
Performer: Das Racist’s Ashok Kondabolu, a.k.a. Dap
When to see them: Friday at 6:30 p.m., Blue Stage.
You didn’t know?: The Das Racist hypeman’s older brother, Hari Kondabolu, is an accomplished stand-up comedian who recently had a Comedy Central Presents special. In 2008, the brothers teamed up to start a live, non-scripted quasi-comedy variety show they called “Untitled Kondabolu Brothers Experiment.” “We did a bunch of those shows and they were terrible,” Dap says. “Anywhere from 15 to 30 people would come.” They’ve since changed the name to the “Untitled Kondabolu Brothers Project,” and the event’s popularity has grown: Last month they performed two sold-out UKBP shows in Seattle. Das Racist also appeared in a YouTube promo for Hari’s Comedy Central special, and Hari will be appearing in a video for the group’s next single, “Michael Jackson.”
A way to use it: If a neighboring crowd member questions the group’s hold on humor because of “Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell,” this is an excellent way to show that at least one part of Das Racist understands irony as well as you might.
Performer: tUnE-YarDs
When to see them: Friday at 4:30 p.m., Blue Stage.
You didn’t know?: Frontwoman Merrill Garbus stylized the name of her group as a direct response to the weirdo typing of random MySpace users.
A way to use it: Hear someone make a quip about how MySpace is dead? Well, here’s a good way to interject without flogging the dead horse about the social networking site’s future while bringing something entirely new to the conversation: The artistic impact of MySpace.
Performer: Twin Shadow’s George Lewis Jr.
When to see them: Saturday at 6:45 p.m., Blue Stage. Also a Saturday night DJ set at Beauty Bar.
You didn’t know?: The Boston Phoenix nominated Lewis and his solo project, Twin Shadow, for an odd category in their 2011 “Best Music Poll” issue: “Best Asshole Who Moved To New York.” Passion Pit ended up “winning” that category, but Twin Shadow came in fourth place behind Eli “Paperboy” Reed and Hooray For Earth.
A way to use it: Quip away about any potential concertgoers making asses out of themselves during Twin Shadow’s set by comparing them to the performer.
Performer: OFF!’s Steven McDonald
When to see them: Saturday at 4:45 p.m., Blue Stage. Also Sunday night at Reggie’s Rock Club.
You didn’t know?: The punk band’s bassist is an accomplished unicyclist. “It was kind of a trend in the ’70s when I was growing up,” McDonald says. “It became my main mode of transportation in my neighborhood, so I’d ride to the park on my unicycle.” McDonald describes his neighborhood as kind of like Freaks & Geeks, but with unicycles, and says he’s used the same approach he used to master the vehicle as he has in tackling other things in live. “I’ve used it in learning how to produce records, I’ve used it in learning how to play live, I’ve used it in learning how to deal with people.”
A way to use it: Caught someone’s eye in the festival’s bicycle lot, but don’t know a fixed-gear bike from a 10-speed? If you’ve got a one-wheel on-hand by chance, track down McDonald for a demo. “If anyone has a unicycle at Pitchfork Music Festival, bring it on by,” he says. “I’ll do my best.” Now that’s an in.
Performer: TV On The Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe
When to see them: Sunday at 8:30 p.m., Green Stage.
You didn’t know?: Adebimpe worked on the once-popular MTV show Celebrity Deathmatch. The TVOTR singer studied at New York University, where he learned to work on stop-motion animation. He later snagged a job working on the claymation program that once pit Charles Manson against Marilyn Manson.
A way to use it: Hear someone fawning over Adebimpe’s musical prowess? Please. You were into his talents way before the Young Liars EP even made a blip.
Performer: Cut Copy
When to see them: Sunday at 7:25 p.m., Red Stage.
You didn’t know?: In June, 2008, Canadian hardcore band Fucked Up posted what appeared to be a link to their then-new album, The Chemistry Of Common Life. It turned out to be a leak of Cut Copy’s then-new album, In Ghost Colours. This year, a link to download an early version of David Comes To Life from Fucked Up’s blog happened to be a leak of Cut Copy’s latest record, Zonoscope.
A way to use it: Tell everyone around that you like, totally knew those were Cut Copy records from the get-go—plus you totally own them on colored vinyl.
Performer: OFWGKTA’s Thebe Kgositsile, a.k.a. Earl Sweatshirt
When to see them: Sunday at 3:20 p.m., Red Stage.
You didn’t know?: Earl Sweatshirt’s parents met in Chicago. In a lengthy New Yorker profile about the L.A. collective, Kelefa Sanneh dug deep into Earl’s past to discover that his father is a famous poet and political activist in South Africa named Keorapetse Kgositsile. While visiting Chicago in the early ’90s Kgositsile met Earl’s mother, and they wed. Earl’s mother isn’t named in the article for fear of how Odd Future fans might confront her: She sent Earl to a school in the Samoan Islands shortly before the band’s meteoric rise to fame. Earl’s absence—including, presumably, at this fest—has caused fans to get behind a campaign to “Free Earl,” and his current status is so muddied it’s as if he’s become the Che Guevara of Odd Future, an emblem devolved into a slogan few people actually appear to understand.
A way to use it: A lot of people are going to be talking a lot of shit about Odd Future’s rape references and dirty language, but only you know its poetic background, right?
Performer: Shabazz Palaces
When to see them: Sunday at 3:45 p.m., Blue Stage. Saturday night at Lincoln Hall.
You didn’t know?: Shabazz Palaces may be all the rage right now, but more than a year ago beloved rock critic and Twitter scribe Christopher R. Weingarten sang the group’s praises while reporting on SXSW for Rolling Stone. Tweeting for the magazine, Weingarten wrote: “SHABAZZ PALACES: Truly a unique and wonderful mix that deserves to be one of SXSW 2010’s breakout stars. Get Googling!” Weingarten’s joy-filled experience watching Shabazz Palaces got written into a profile on the critic in the Columbia Journalism Review.
A way to use it: Weingarten is an unabashed hip-hop head and one of the critics’ favorite critics, so drop his name to pick up a new uber-nerdy honey.
Performer: Chrissy Murderbot
When to see them: Saturday at 1 p.m., Blue Stage.
You didn’t know?: A young Murderbot, known to his family as Chris Shively, ate a fluffernutter sandwich for lunch every day from kindergarten to graduation. “I definitely had some obsessive-compulsive tendencies as a kid, and I was also a pretty picky eater. As a result, the whole idea of school lunch scared the 5-year-old me senseless, so I was one of those kids with the brown bag lunch,” says Murderbot. “[The first day] I had a fluffernutter in [my bag]. I loved fluffernutters. So I had a fluffernutter the next day. And the next day. And every school day for the next 13 years until I graduated high school. I have no idea why my mother allowed this.”
A way to use it: If someone in the line for Thai noodles is complaining about the lack of festival food options, drop this bit of culinary science on them.
Performer: Superchunk’s Jon Wurster
When to see them: Sunday at 5:15 p.m., Red Stage.
You didn’t know?: Despite living much of his life on the rock ’n’ roll road as a journeyman drummer for acts like Superchunk, The Mountain Goats, and A.C. Newman, Wurster apparently has his party shit under control. In fact, he hasn’t thrown up in 24 years. The last time Wurster had a reversal of fortune, he was 20, living in New Jersey, and drumming in a band that Clive Davis had signed to Arista Records. “While any of those things could certainly cause one to hurl, it was being gently dumped by an older woman that did the trick. That and the five Heinekens I pounded to dull the pain.” says Wurster. “For some reason, I haven’t vomited since, not even when I met the Ramones a couple of years later. I only peed my pants on that occasion.”
A way to use it: If some sad sack in the crowd is partied out, snatch them up and throw them in a cab, but not before encouraging them to hold it in, “Wurster-style.”
Performer: G-Side’s ST and Yung Clova
When to see them: Saturday at 2:50 p.m., Blue Stage.
You didn’t know?: ST makes his living in music now, both making it and making music, but not long ago, he made ends meet by running a Chevron station in his hometown of Huntsville, Alabama. “The store I used to run was also known around town as a 24-hour liquor store. I’d tax people extra to buy liquor after hours or if they didn’t have an ID, and then I’d pocket that. I also sold over 1,500 G-Side CDs out of there at $7 a pop,” says ST. Cohort Yung Clova still makes some scratch on the side by owning a barbershop, which he opened to fulfill a promise he made his grandmother. “She wanted me to do something else besides street hustle,” he says.
A way to use it: Use this entrepreneurial spirit and information bargaining at the CHIRP Record Fair. Seller’s trying to charge too much for that Black Flag 7-inch? Offer to barter a haircut or a contraband backpack beer for a discount.
Performer: The Dismemberment Plan
When to see them: Saturday at 6:15 p.m., Green Stage.
You didn’t know?: Long-time fans and relative newcomers are probably more than familiar with The D-Plan’s angular jams, but only a few hardcore maniacs know about the “D Plan Rap,” a track released only in Japan as part of a greatest-hits bonus disc. The song, which features music by The Promise Ring’s Jason Gnewikow and lyrics by A.V. Club Managing Editor Josh Modell, extols the virtues of nerdy girls with glasses and getting a major label to pay for an indie record.
A way to use it: Though it’s an extremely effective way to embarrass Modell, it could also be a good in to a conversation with Plan singer Travis Morrison, should someone see him out in the crowd. At the very least, it’s better than, “Hey, remember when you got a 0.0?”
