Coachella 3-Day Mix, Part 3: Black Lips, 120 Days, Cold War Kids, Death Cab For Cutie, Hot Chip, Enter Shikari and YOU

The Breeders are in fine form on the main stage. Kelly and Kim’s twins-y between-song banter is a well honed act. It’s always great to see Kim’s smiley singing grimace and lean back stance at the mic. In a short set they remind us how deep a stockpile of catchy tunes they have in their bag, when they go and rip through about a half dozen great riffs in a row. Even a lesser hit like side-side-project Amps’ “Tipp City” can stand up with best tunes of most bands playing today. The eternal “Cannonball,” of course sets the crowd off, right from the distorted intro “CHECK CHECK AWOO-ooh AWOOH-ooh.” Sadly the seemingly desert-appropriate “Safari” was not played but we did get their “Happiness is a Warm Gun” cover…….Múm is in the middle of a well received late afternoon tent set. Smartly sticking mostly to their up-tempo stuff, the Icelanders’ baroque electronica went over a treat in the desert. It was heartening to see that the kids are into them to the point where they recognize a particular tune straightaway from the first bar or two of a Casio beat intro. Feeding off the crowd response they played freer and looser than I’ve ever seen them, their front ladies dancing it up in tasteful summer dresses. Bonus points for the being the sole melodica spotted at the festival………Tegan and Sara—Great look, great sound, great songs. I’m surprised as you might be to hear myself say that but I can’t find anything about these gals about which to complain. Plus, I have no doubt the two of them alone could kick the collective asses of the lot of Vampire Weekend, who, over at the creatively-named Outdoor Theater, has their crowd won over with minimal effort. I’m still not finding them all that necessary but I’ll grant that they definitely played with more confidence and vigor than their recent Echo show. A loud and strong sound mix beefed up their wonky arrangements. Unsurprisingly “A-Punk” goes over huge with festival types who generally enjoy shouting random syllables out loud…….. »continue reading Coachella 2008 Festival: Notes on Friday

The DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) Urban Challenge was held Saturday at a military training facility (read: spooky post-apocalyptic “peopleless suburb”) near Victorville. A $2 mil purse went to “Boss”, Cargenie Mellon’s robotized 2007 Chevy Tahoe, a completely autonomous aka SKYNET BATTLE ROBOT AUTONOMOUS vehicle that was the first to complete the difficult sixty mile obstacle course of stop signs, turns, intersections and race helmet humans in rollbar-reinforced obstacle cars. The program used to be ARPA before the Defense contractors started upping the ante. (I’m betting the purse was somewhat less than $2 mil in the old ARPA days.)
»continue reading The Robots of Victorville