photos by Tim Griffin

Arcade Fire / The Walkmen

The 10th annual Austin City Limits festival came to a close on Sunday with a headlining set by Arcade Fire (who also taped an edition of Austin City Limits the TV show one day earlier). It was a rough year for some attendees. I'm talking about smokers. Austin Statesman posted the following before the weekend:

We welcome all the people and music artists attending this year's Austin City Limits Music Festival. It's a special year for the music festival, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary. The talent this year is incredible, with headliners Kanye West, Stevie Wonder and Arcade Fire, as well as local favorites such as Asleep at the Wheel.

Before we get this party started, we must advise attendees that the Austin Parks Department has banned smoking at all Austin parks, greenbelts, trails and golf courses. That includes Zilker Park, site of the festival.

We realize that a smoking ban might be an inconvenience for some. But it is necessary to keep everyone safe. So please have fun at the events, which run today through Sunday, but leave the cigarettes, cigars, pipes -- or whatever else one might be smoking -- behind. (The ban also prohibits wood or charcoal grilling in Zilker and other parks.)

Smoking was allowed at previous ACL festivals, but this year is different. This year, Central Texas is dealing with wildfires that have killed two people, destroyed about 1,500 homes and burned tens of thousands of acres in Bastrop County, Steiner Ranch, Pflugerville and other Central Texas communities. In Austin, city firefighters responded to 469 brush fires from January through July. Cigarettes caused about a fourth of those fires, officials said. [Austin Statesman]

Continue reading "Austin City Limits 2011 -- Day 3 in pics (Arcade Fire, Walkmen, DFA1979, Manu Chao & more)"

Manu Chao at ACL 2009 (more by Kyle Dean Reinford)

Golbal icon Manu Chao is going on a short North American tour at the end of the summer leading up to his appearance at Austin City Limits. The tour hits NYC for dates at Terminal 5 on September 4 and 5. Tickets for both shows go on sale today (6/17) at noon.

All tour dates below...

Continue reading "Manu Chao returning to the USA, playing Terminal 5 (dates)"

photos by Kyle Dean Reinford

a member of What Made Milwaukee Famous pouring What Made San Antonio Famous over his head

It was just announced that the dates of the 2009 Austin City Limits festival will be October 2-4. More pictures from day one (September 26) of this year's festival, below...

Continue reading "ACL - the 2009 dates, more pictures from 2008 (day one)"

DOWNLOAD: Manu Chao - Politik Kills w/ LKJ (Dennis Bovell Dub Vocal Remix) (MP3)

Fans can now visit the new website, www.PolitiKills.com, to preview tracks from the remix EP and watch the new ³Politik Kills² music video. The site also features online-exclusive remixes from Bostich + Fussible of Nortec Collective and DJ Mexican Dubweiser with the band, Kinky. Fans and DJs can also access PolitiKills.com to download the different parts of the song and create their own remix.

Manu Chao will be performing several high-profile U.S. tour dates in late August.

Continue reading "Manu Chao & LKJ remixed (MP3), EP, Tour Dates"

This week's music release list is a bit short due to the long Labor Day weekend, but plenty of discs are worth picking up. I can strongly recommend Manu Chao's La Radiolina, Ferraby Lionheart's Catch the Brass Ring, Greg Brown's Yellow Dog, and Marla Hansen's Wedding Day (and those are just the albums by singer-songwriters).

Notable reissues this week include two albums by Townes Van Zandt, Be Here to Love Me and For the Sake of the Song, and the 40th anniversary edition of Pink Floyd's Pipers at the Gates Of Dawn.

Have I left anything noteworthy off the list? What new music releases can you recommend this week? What should I avoid?

Continue reading "Largehearted Boy's Interesting CD Releases This Week"

More new Manu Chao, sort of...

Continue reading "VIDEO: Roy Paci w/ Manu Chao - 'Toda Joia Toda Beleza'"

This is too perfect...

Continue reading "VIDEO: Manu Chao - "Rainin' In Paradize""

Continue reading "the photos of MANU CHAO & the rain in Prospect Park"

For the second year in a row, and the second night in a row, Manu Chao performed to a sold-out crowd in Brooklyn's Prospect Park (June 27, 2007). The rest of the photos are HERE.

Manu Chao @ Bonnaroo 2007

Manu Chao is back in Brooklyn Tuesday & Wednesday...

Continue reading "VIDEO: Manu Chao - 'Blood & Fire' + Brooklyn Tomorrow!"

The following review of Day 1 (May 26, 2007) of the 2007 Sasquatch! Festival in George, Washington is brought to you by Jerry Yeti exclusively for BrooklynVegan.com

For the second consecutive year, strange natural phenomena have marred Sasquatch Festival. This year's mysterious force - Wind - cut short the Polyphonic Spree on Sunday, and silenced the music at the main stage for nearly three and a half hours. As the other stages continued onward, the remaining bands condensed their sets - Interpol so much so that they finished 10 minutes before scheduled. We didn't see all the bands we wanted to - probably the most saddened by the early start times of the Hold Steady and the Blow, but we took in a wider variety than expected.

Saturday was looking like it would be a Day of Duos kicking off with the Blow, but the Two Gallants immediately shattered that dream by becoming the Two-and-a-Half Gallants. That is, with the addition of a partial? third member. We had better luck with Portland's own Viva Voce, who stayed true to the coupling idea and brought some serious rock to the Yeti stage. Percussive, tight, and [as my scribbled handwriting noted] "They Rocked." Anita Robinson has some serious skills on the frets, as her husband does with the sticks. I had forgotten how catchy their album "Get Yr Blood Sucked Out" is. They stuck to most of its material as they finally finished the tour. Over at the main stage, Neko Case, lingerie model extraordinaire, was similarly focusing on songs off the her latest not-so-recent album and included her cover of Bob Dylan's "Buckets of Rain." Sporting some shades in a gesture that spited the clouds that would not, could not hail nor storm, her voice resonated strong enough to the sunstroke folks below.

We weren't the only ones fashionably late to the first day of the festival. Comedian and MC Aziz Ansari missed his flight the night before, but arrived at the Wookie stage right in time for Ghostland Observatory. Battling house music, Aziz got a few jokes off successfully before the crowd began to turn restless. Seattle crowds are pretty rough I guess. Sarah Silverman had even less luck at the main stage. Yikes.

As it turns out, Ghostland Observatory are a big deal in Seattle. Thanks to KEXP, the duo -a true one at that- became a mandatory experience and the attendance at the Wookie Stage showed. Always fashionable Aaron Behrens led us through an energy injected performance highlighted with "Sad Sad City," eventually blowing the power out on the entire stage. Of course they did. With that, things were starting to really get going. After all, Aziz had arrived....

Continue reading "Sasquatch! 2007 | Saturday review in words & pics"