Lake Trout - "2" (mp3)
This weekend was Artscape, Baltimore's big annual street festival. I'd only ever gone once or twice before, with my dad way back in the 90's, whichever year Chaka Khan was one of the headliners. And I always mean to get out there but usually there's no must-see musical act for me so it's hard to get motivated. But on Saturday, I decided to get out of the house and go check it out for a few hours, even though J.G. opted to stay home and the clouds and the wind were promising some rain. And of course, it started pouring about 20 minutes after I got there, but at that point, I'd already parked my car and everything, so I decided to stick it out. And really, once you're soaking wet, you just get used to it. And anyway I'd rather that it rain and cool things down, considering how hot it'd been all week.
I stopped fpr a couple minutes to watch Ultra Naté, who's a big international dance music diva from Baltimore. She was doing her cover of The Pretenders' "Brass In Pocket," and to my surprise she rocked it over a straight up Baltimore club beat, although as far as I know she's always performed more traditional house music, so that was cool. I tried to get to the stage were Lake Trout were playing before they started, but they turned out to be all the way on the opposite side from where I entered, so that took a while. I think I still caught about half of their set, though, and they played a good mix of older and newer stuff, and I ran into a couple members of Private Eleanor.
After Lake Trout finished, the rain had stopped and I walked around for a while and looked for something to eat, and ended up going to a Greek vendor and getting a spanakopita, I love that stuff. While I was eating I wandered over to the DJ culture stage. Generally, I avoid anything Hollertronix-related like the plague, but out of curiosity I went and checked out a few minutes of Low Budget's DJ set. There's been a little bit of controversy in the Baltimore club scene over the fact that Artscape didn't book any hometown club music DJ's, but booked a guy from Philly who's built a lot of his reputation on 'discovering' Bmore club. I expected his set to be nothing but snap music and Spank Rock and bullshit like that, but the few minutes I heard were pretty typical crate digger DJ nerd stuff, play a popular rap song (if Jay-Z's "Sunshine" counts as popular), and then play the song it sampled, and it was all really low energy and awkward transitions from song to song. Probably not that different from the sets Peanut Butter Wolf and Cut Chemist played before and after him, and let's face it, pretty much the same fanbase anyway.
I went back to the stage were Lake Trout had played to check out the Secret Machines, who I'd never really heard before but vaguely knew of from all the press they've gotten. They sounded pretty much like I expected, woozy nu-shoegaze, like a less druggy Spiritualized, which works pretty well at an outdoor show. The vocals were terrible and I doubt I'd buy an album, but it was really enjoyable music to stand around and listen to in the pouring rain. About halfway through their set, the rain stopped for a while, and this huge rainbow appeared across from the stage, and there was this nice "A RAINBOW, YOU GUYS!" hippie moment, which was kind of fun. But it started raining again, and they almost cut their set short for fear of lightening, but the audience was really receptive, so they played one last song, which was one of their more upbeat songs and had lyrics about rain and it was a kind of awesome moment. By that point, I was completely soaked, and decided that I didn't feel like hanging around another hour to see some of Common's set, so I went on my way home. Fun day, though.
This weekend was Artscape, Baltimore's big annual street festival. I'd only ever gone once or twice before, with my dad way back in the 90's, whichever year Chaka Khan was one of the headliners. And I always mean to get out there but usually there's no must-see musical act for me so it's hard to get motivated. But on Saturday, I decided to get out of the house and go check it out for a few hours, even though J.G. opted to stay home and the clouds and the wind were promising some rain. And of course, it started pouring about 20 minutes after I got there, but at that point, I'd already parked my car and everything, so I decided to stick it out. And really, once you're soaking wet, you just get used to it. And anyway I'd rather that it rain and cool things down, considering how hot it'd been all week.
I stopped fpr a couple minutes to watch Ultra Naté, who's a big international dance music diva from Baltimore. She was doing her cover of The Pretenders' "Brass In Pocket," and to my surprise she rocked it over a straight up Baltimore club beat, although as far as I know she's always performed more traditional house music, so that was cool. I tried to get to the stage were Lake Trout were playing before they started, but they turned out to be all the way on the opposite side from where I entered, so that took a while. I think I still caught about half of their set, though, and they played a good mix of older and newer stuff, and I ran into a couple members of Private Eleanor.
After Lake Trout finished, the rain had stopped and I walked around for a while and looked for something to eat, and ended up going to a Greek vendor and getting a spanakopita, I love that stuff. While I was eating I wandered over to the DJ culture stage. Generally, I avoid anything Hollertronix-related like the plague, but out of curiosity I went and checked out a few minutes of Low Budget's DJ set. There's been a little bit of controversy in the Baltimore club scene over the fact that Artscape didn't book any hometown club music DJ's, but booked a guy from Philly who's built a lot of his reputation on 'discovering' Bmore club. I expected his set to be nothing but snap music and Spank Rock and bullshit like that, but the few minutes I heard were pretty typical crate digger DJ nerd stuff, play a popular rap song (if Jay-Z's "Sunshine" counts as popular), and then play the song it sampled, and it was all really low energy and awkward transitions from song to song. Probably not that different from the sets Peanut Butter Wolf and Cut Chemist played before and after him, and let's face it, pretty much the same fanbase anyway.
I went back to the stage were Lake Trout had played to check out the Secret Machines, who I'd never really heard before but vaguely knew of from all the press they've gotten. They sounded pretty much like I expected, woozy nu-shoegaze, like a less druggy Spiritualized, which works pretty well at an outdoor show. The vocals were terrible and I doubt I'd buy an album, but it was really enjoyable music to stand around and listen to in the pouring rain. About halfway through their set, the rain stopped for a while, and this huge rainbow appeared across from the stage, and there was this nice "A RAINBOW, YOU GUYS!" hippie moment, which was kind of fun. But it started raining again, and they almost cut their set short for fear of lightening, but the audience was really receptive, so they played one last song, which was one of their more upbeat songs and had lyrics about rain and it was a kind of awesome moment. By that point, I was completely soaked, and decided that I didn't feel like hanging around another hour to see some of Common's set, so I went on my way home. Fun day, though.
This entry was posted
on Sunday, July 23, 2006 at 9:35 PM.
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Oooo... I HATE that. What, am I supposed to be impressed by the fact that the DJ "discovered" the original sample source material? And why would anyone want to hear them back-to-back anyway?
Good post - I would have probably stuck around for Common's set, but with the rain, I understand...
Hey, let's take a spare, booming mid-tempo drumbeat, add crunchy, hazy distorted chords with no discernable melody or changes in chord structure, and then top it off with unintelligible lyrics. Oh, and have every song last eight minutes.
Boring. And no, I'm not bitching just because I was drenched and my balls were chafing. (Too much?)
-Chris