Atop the dark stage in the large ballroom of Nashville’s The Basement East sit six vintage television sets, arranged in a cultish semicircle. I’m here to see Joywave, the glitchy indie-pop group from Rochester, New York. They’re 10 minutes late. I begin to look at my watch when I hear a dull murmur emerge around the room. As I lift my gaze, I see a single man emerge from the darkness. A dim light illuminates his body from below. I can’t make out his face, but I can see his shirt strikingly clear. On it reads one succinct sentence: “I don’t like corn dogs, but I do like Korn, dawg.”
Simply put: the Snarky Puppy show was very sold out. With a packed venue, I thought I was facing a rowdy night, and every trip to the bathroom would be like a salmon swimming upstream. But instead of parting the waves, walking around was like crossing a pond—the fans were so enthralled with the musicians on stage that they didn’t move. Normally there are a good number of people walking back and forth in the pass-through to several of the bars surrounding the periphery of the floor, but the bars were nearly empty. Every patron was squeezed as close to the front as possible, eyes glued to the stage.
Lana Del Rey is brilliant. She is the queen of rootless melancholy, an emotion many people seem unable to access fully — except through her. She’s a master of her own persona, and she’s constructed it with such consistency across all platforms that it’s baffling. She remains accessible enough to still convince us of her humanity, but remains removed enough that it’s still a question asked: is she real?
Today we’ve got the spotlight on Youtube series COLORS- a series of live performances recorded at a Berlin studio with new videos uploaded weekly. COLORS first grabbed my attention during my semester abroad last spring in Chile. Inspired to understand the novel beats and lyrics of Spanish speaking artists, I found myself in different nooks and crannies of Youtube than ever before. Already a lover of music videos produced by the likes of Young Thug or the US Soundcloud rap scene, I enjoyed getting to know the rappers and trappers out of Spain who credit these US artists as their inspiration. Two brothers from Barcelona, Pimp Flaco and Kinder Malo, performed their song “Chemtrails” in the first COLORS video I ever saw, bopping Spanish verses back and forth over an antagonistic and droning chorus. This is currently the most viewed session on the COLORS channel, sitting at about 21 and a half million views.
This past Saturday, Andrew Bird gave Nashville a taste of Dutch culture by performing a concert at the Downtown Presbyterian Church in the spirit of gezelligheid. For those who have studied abroad in Copenhagen, you are probably familiar with the Danish sentiment of “hygge.” While the term has no truly accurate English translation, it is defined by feelings of warmth and coziness. Hygge is different for everyone, but it can be experienced through appreciating life’s simple pleasures, joining in community, and finding contentment. The Dutch term “gezelligheid” is similar and can be used to describe a bright, cozy atmosphere or more specific experiences such as spending time with loved ones (you can read more here). Even during the frigid dark months of winter, the Danish and Dutch continue to meet with friends and find well-being in the name of hygge and gezelligheid respectively.
Last week, I went out on a Tuesday for the first time since freshman year to catch electronic duo Snakehips at Exit/In. The late-night set on November 7th was my second Snakehips show, the first an impulse buy to justify missing their set at Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival 2016. Oliver Lee and James Carter started making music together in 2012, their stage name a reference to Carter’s shimmying dance when he puts on a tight pair of jeans.
This Halloween weekend, I had the pleasure of attending the Suwannee Hulaween music and arts festival in Live Oak, Florida. A “feel-good” festival of sorts, the artists were mostly categorized as either jam bands or electronic acts/DJs, with a fair number of hip-hop artists interspersed throughout. Besides the expertly cultivated lineup/musical experience, the three main stages are situated around the ‘Spirit Lake’- a forested area full of art installations, live performances, workshops, and hammock spots with a beautiful Florida lake centerpiece. The inspiration I was able to reap from the weekend was unreal, as festival-goers were decidedly there to kick back, connect with like-minded humans, and express themselves at their fullest.
Not many moments in my life have caused me to shake with excitement. In fact, the most recent I can think of is when I got into Vanderbilt with the…
On October 18th, Turnover, the hallmark of Indie-Emo bands, played Exit/In, celebrating the release of their most recent album, Good Nature. Iconic for their sophomore album, Peripheral Vision, they drastically altered their sound in Good Nature, shifting away from emo-esque influences and focusing solely on optimistic dream rock indie vibes. Since this is their first tour with the new album, the anticipation to see how they would sound was insurmountably high.
LCD Soundsystem’s show at Nashville Municipal Auditorium on October 20th for their american dream tour was one for the books. They’ve played the festival circuit last year and several shows in Webster Hall and Brooklyn Steel in New York, but haven’t had a formal tour to themselves since their 2016 reunion. The band announced their breakup in 2011 and proceeded to play a legendary string of shows in Madison Square Garden documented by the film “Shut Up and Play the Hits”. Their triumphant return last year was fully brought to full realization with the release of the album american dream on September 1st, put out by DFA Records, the label of LCD’s frontman James Murphy.
Festival season is coming to a close, a sentiment expressed by both Jay Z and Damon Albarn (Gorillaz frontman) during their headlining sets. Bye to wristbands, flower crowns, and drugged-up…
On October 14th, Cigarettes After Sex, a self-described “ambient pop collective,” played their second of two Chicago shows at Lincoln Hall. I brought my mom along for the show, hoping she…
Chicago-based Whitney kicked off their fall tour with a show in Nashville on September 29. The band, built upon the core singer/drummer and guitarist duo, Julien Ehrlich and Max Kakacek, blew up in the independent rock world after their 2016 freshman album, Light Upon the Lake. Combining mellow indie pop with modern jazz undertones for a unique, chill, and groovy blend, Whitney has become a favorite in the indie rock scene.
On Tuesday, September 25th, independent singer-songwriter and ironic demigod Joshua Tilman descended upon Nashville in the form of Father John Misty to give two amazing performances in one day: a solo acoustic show at Third Man Records and a full show at the Ryman.
Bleachers, a project of Jack Antonoff’s (guitarist of the notable group FUN. made popular by the hit “We Are Young”), has made an huge splash in the indie pop world in the 3 years they’ve been active. WRVU Nashville had the pleasure of sending two lucky concert-goers free of charge to see Bleachers at their September 13th show at Marathon Music Works.
Pitchfork Fest was a remarkably relaxed and fun festival. The only difficult part was—as cheesy as it sounds—choosing which sets from the vast and diverse array of options to watch. Luckily, Pitchfork happens to be the rare festival that allows you to bounce from set to set with relative ease: the stages are close together which means you don’t have to walk far; the Chicago weather made for an almost too-good-to-be-true forecast to move between outdoor stages; despite the overlapping sets, the times were strategically planned such that you could catch at least a little bit of all your favorites. It seemed, in short, designed to facilitate your having your best time.
After an eventful day one, Pitchfork Fest day two promised an even more saturated schedule. And it certainly delivered on that promise: first of all, with A Tribe Called Quest headlining, all the other bands could have tanked and this day still would have been certifiably historical. Fortunately, however, we were lucky enough that not a single one of the other acts disappointed.
Friday’s lineup promised an electric start to an action-packed festival weekend. Nashville’s own William Tyler played at 4 PM on Friday, followed immediately by Frankie Cosmos and Thurston Moore. The three of these provided a perfectly well-rounded, balanced trio of acts to precede the contrastingly high-energy Danny Brown, who flawlessly delivered intensity and famously rapid rap. Dirty Projectors’ intimidating, otherworldly sounds set a new kind of mood, one that held the audience rapt for a night that culminated in an impossibly fantastic performance by LCD Soundsystem.
A while back, WRVU had the opportunity to interview Wet, the effervescent indie pop sensation that had eager Nashvillians lining up out the door to Exit/In in hopes of a ticket to the sold-out show. We talked before their Exit/In show about touring, new music, their writing process, being on the road and in the South, pre-concert rituals…to read it all, and watch for the first time/relive their show, check out the interview and concert footage below. (We also photographed the band backstage before the show, which you can check out below as well.)
We the Kings kicked off the 10 year anniversary tour of their debut album on February 17th at the Exit/In, and aside from a brief altercation between some audience members regarding what counts as appropriate concert behavior it could not have gone better!
To say the situation was “uncomfortably wet” Tuesday night as we pushed through clouds of cigarette smoke into the dark confines of The End would be a bit of an understatement, but for some reason the trudge through the cold rain that plagued most of Valentine’s Day was almost a welcome warmup for the experience that lie ahead.