Taking Coachella
Rebecca Aranda | Jan 25, 2010 | Comments 26
In roughly 80 days, thousands of young people will make an exodus to the desert town of Indio, filling the dusty, flat landscape with tents and blankets. Their appearance will seem sudden, their visit brief, but many of them have planned for months (even years) to get to this spot. To the uninformed observer, this gathering on the weekend of Apr. 17, 2010 may seem perplexing; just as a similar one must have seemed on the weekend of Aug. 17, 1969 in the small farm-town of Bethel, New York.
The latter is Woodstock ’69, of course,the most infamous of all music festivals, providing the spirit and inspiration for the former event: Coachella ’10.
Although there have been subversive music festivals for decades, this special kind of event has seen a renewed fervor in recent years. With every new announcement of a line-up, conversations flare amongst young folk (and hip older folk): who’s the cream of the crop? Who should have been cut from the list? Who’s great live, and which acts are only “studio bands”? What about that stage presence, man? The past few years have seen a surprisingly steady interest in music festivals, from the big daddies like Coachella and SXSW to energetic new fests like FYF and the Pitchfork Music Festival.
Why has the “alternative” scene vacillated at all, though? One would think that there would always be a strong underground culture, the yin to mainstream music’s yang, but indie music festivals have not always been a huge draw. Every few years, the core audience falls apart, unsatisfied with the offerings of the biggest music festivals and most trumpeted indie releases. Sometimes the best line-ups that can be mustered simply cannot cut the mustard. (Ed. note — I apologize.)
Take, for instance, the gradual decline of Lollapalooza. Started in 1993 as a farewell concert for the lead singer of Jane’s Addiction, Lollapalooza turned into a bastion of Generation X’s alt-rock scene. The Simpsons captured the mood beautifully in “Homerpalooza”: bored 20-somethings shuffling back and forth in the mud, burdened with torn jeans and world-weary cynicism.
It was that same cynicism that dissembled the festival from the inside. The “alternative” genre became both sprawling and predictable; it branched out from bands like Nirvana into bland copy-cats like Bush and Soundgarden. Grunge kids grew up and grew out of Lollapalooza, which, with its crass commercialization, became just as much a parody of itself as the version presented by The Simpsons.
Lollapalooza was mercifully killed in 1998, and its revivals since 2003 have been only so-so. 2009 featured Ben Harper, Tool and Ke$ha – and although those are the most mediocre of a solid list, one can’t help but go, “…really?”
Coachella 2010’s line-up, only recently announced, has been met with the same degree of indifference. Deservedly so: the headliners (and a good deal of the supporting acts) make up an undistinguishable paste of average indie rock. This isn’t because the indie scene is floundering like the alt-rock scene was in the late ‘90s. If anything, music on the fringe of 2010 is more fresh and exciting than ever. Acoustic strumming melds with electronic beats; blues crooning peeks out from walls of distortion; mandolin plucking intertwines with afro-beat horns.
Thankfully, a lot of the smaller acts for this year’s Coachella reflect that mélange. There are plenty of bands that infuse the indie-rock model with weird outside influences, like Grizzly Bear, Passion Pit, and King Khan and The Shrines. There’s a small dose of one-man orchestral outfits, like Owen Pallet and Yann Tiersen. We get more than our fair share of ethereal indie dreamgirls, like Little Dragon, Corinne Bailey Rae, and Fever Ray.
Older (“vintage”) acts return to the stage as well, which is the main selling point for Coachella this time around. Indie legends like Pavement, Echo and the Bunnymen, Sunny Day Real Estate and Spoon will all be playing live for the first time in years. The flashback machine goes back even further than that: the line-up also boasts appearances of soul heroes Gil Scott-Heron and Sly and the Family Stone alongside ‘80s weirdoes Grace Jones and Gary Numan.
Even though Coachella has managed an impressive, if uneven, line-up this year, the renewed enthusiasm for music festivals in general may be contributing to the line-up’s lackluster response. After all, when you have a wide selection of festivals from which you could choose, why would you limit yourself to this $300 test of endurance? (Another reason for reticence: Coachella seems to have removed the option to purchase one-day tickets, meaning that you have to brave it the whole weekend or not at all.)
If the indie scene is wide and varying at the moment, the festival scene certainly offers plenty of its own variety. South by Southwest (SXSW), for example, throws independent film premieres and discussion panels into its mix of bands. Instead of being concentrated in one stretch of land, SXSW events spread across Austin, TX for one overflowing weekend in March.
Other festivals that follow that “everything happening everywhere!” spirit include the Noise Pop Music Festival in San Francisco, Pygmalion Music Festival in Illinois, and the UK’s All Tomorrow’s Parties. That last one is particularly notable because they ask different pop culture figures to “curate” each festival weekend; if you visit England this May, you could see programs put together by Pavement and Matt Groening (who is, surprisingly, still quite hip).
The general attitude of angst and distrust from 15 years ago has faded into a much more quirky and friendly atmosphere in this decade’s alternative scene. This is best evidenced by Tennessee’s Bonnaroo Festival, the center of which (“Centeroo”) provides the foundation for This Tent, That Tent, and The Other Tent. Also, What Stage and Which Stage. How delightful! The fun is extended with a comedy tent, workshops, arts and crafts, and other sorts of summer-camp-for-adults activities.
Even if the current theme of whimsy can get too precious, we can thank our lucky stars (maybe even cute cardboard and glitter stars made by Sufjan Stevens and Michel Gondry on a playdate!) that we’re not stuck in the alt-rock rut of the ‘90s. After all, the cynicism that gave birth to Sonic Youth and Nine Inch Nails became a sort of ouroboros, destroying the very acts it created.
No matter how dissatisfied we are with bland indie rock, at least we’re not still saddled with the crapulence that Woodstock ’94 and ’99 offered. Like a one-two punch, these disastrous revivals nearly killed the music festival.
Where Woodstock ’94 was just goofy – the dude from Blind Melon wore his girlfriend’s dress while tripping on acid; Aphex Twin was kicked off the stage mid-song for forging their own signatures – Woodstock ’99 was a violent mess. Starting with mud-flinging, the crowd got more and more restless, eventually lighting bonfires, ripping apart fences, and breaking into the ATM machines. The festival ended in riots and more than a few rapes, while the apathetic headliners Limp Bizkit and Red Hot Chili Peppers played on.
“It was dangerous to be around,” said Kurt Loder, an MTV VJ who was hosting the live feed of Woodstock ‘99. “The whole scene was scary. There were just waves of hatred bouncing around the place…there was a palpable mood of anger.” The bands raged against the machine, and the vendors sold the attendees the pieces of the machine: vastly overpriced water and fast food.
Although today’s music festivals are still overstuffed with vendors and product placement, we’re no longer caught in the awkward position of having to feign apathy, or even angst. Cynicism, as Conan O’Brien said in his last address to his audience of “The Tonight Show,” “doesn’t lead anywhere.”
So yes, Coachella tickets are ridiculously overpriced. And yes, it’s ridiculous to camp out in the alternately very-hot-and-very-cold desert; and it’s extra ridiculous when you have to resort to onsite dining options. But what are you gonna do? Coachella is an expensive experience, but an undoubtedly unforgettable one, a sort of coming-of-age ritual for the wide-eyed indie kid.
Popularity: unranked [?]
Filed Under: Entertainment
one spelling error, great rebuttal! i retract everything i said.
did you even bother considering the other genres that coachella has to offer when you wrote this article? you didn’t even mention the edm acts but i guess its not like the sahara tent is the next biggest attraction after the mainstage or anything. if you didn’t want such a negative response maybe you shouldn’t have called coachella a wide eyed indie kids coming of age ritual since…well..its not. not wasting any more time commenting on this, its not my reputation that needs salvaging after this anyways. later
I guess I should have taken a wider survey of concert-goers? Like I said, I base this “degree of indifference” off of the message boards that I’ve seen, and personal conversations that I’ve had with college radio staff, who are usually pretty “with it.”
And it is, after all, a degree of indifference, not an overwhelming wave of indifference; nor is it necessarily a negative response.
The reaction to this specific line-up is not a particularized thing, dudes. Apathy is seeping into the “indie scene,” as I see it…and I point out all the positives of this year’s Coachella to remove any caution from the cautious optimism that I’ve seen.
Maybe my focus was a bit off, as it was hard to try to siphon my research on music festivals in general into this piece. I’ll allow that much.
As for this being a “space-filler,” I don’t mean that my heart isn’t into it, nor do I mean that I’m half-assing it. I mean that I write these on incredibly short notice, with very little wiggle room with topics.
Lastly, it is slightly disturbing that this article, which I viewed as, at worst, inoffensive, has been thrown back at me as a means of personal attack. That’s just not write, man.
“I was with the author while this piece was being written, and I can guarantee that hours of research went in to this article. If you disagree with the writer’s opinion about a specific band, don’t use that as a reason to insult the writer’s general abilities, level of professionalism, or intelligence.”
its apparent through the *countless* errors and mischaracterizations (literally the amount of effort required to point out all of them would require hours of work) that all of that extensive research was an attempt to compensate for a blatant lack of insight and background on the subject. the whole thing comes off as brutally pretentious, a pseudo-sophisticated commentary on music you clearly know nothing about other than what you found on pitchfork. i love how the newspaper staff comes on to defend this shite article.
i say this as a long time editor/writer for a college newspaper, a regular coachella attendee, avid follower of indie music (among dozens of others musical styles represented at the festival), and a lifelong musician…when the only people on here defending you are your fellow staff members, you may want to take a more critical look at your own work Rebecca. This would be a lot different if it was some controversial news or opinion piece, but its not. It’s A&E, when people rail against your work its probably because you missed the mark.
Perhaps the greatest indicator of your indiscretion is in your baseless remark that this years coachella has had a lackluster response. You have to be kidding right? This year is being regarded as the first since they moved to a 3 day lineup where all 3 headliners are worthy of the spot. Regardless of where you stand on Jay-Z, Muse, and Gorillaz, all 3 of those artists are HUGE in their own regard and there is a TON of buzz about this year on my campus. Compare that to years past where you get acts like Prince, Bjork, Roger Waters, Paul F*kn McCartney, and the Cure billed against trash headliners like the Killers and Jack Johnson. Leave the real music talk for the big kids please. I’m glad the kids of UCI aren’t on board with you on this one.
P.S. Soundgarden blows, at least you’re write about that.
you don’t need to engage the trolls my little kittens… especially this one – he can’t even spell. <3, mama.
I’d just like to point out that the first four belligerent responses were made within 12 hours of this going online – I imagine an alert sounding in the wee hours of the morning indicating a slight to early ’90s music on the computers of those internet vigilantes who defend their bands to their dying breath. Then the miffed commenters lash out with personal criticisms that have nothing to do with the article as a whole, nit-picking details they take issue with to justify their internet RAGE.
Seriously, guys, you take issue with the author’s opinion and yet withhold discussion in favor of cutting down the author to make yourselves feel superior? “Terribly written and poorly researched” are worthless criticisms if you aren’t specific and offer constructive criticism instead of lazy ad hominem pot shots.
I was with the author while this piece was being written, and I can guarantee that hours of research went in to this article. If you disagree with the writer’s opinion about a specific band, don’t use that as a reason to insult the writer’s general abilities, level of professionalism, or intelligence.
I suggest that all of you who have so much to say actually sign up to write for the New U, and do something productive with all the time you spend on these comments. I doubt any of you could write an article that comes close to anything Rebecca has ever slapped together, but prove me wrong. Our section is always looking for new talent…
Mark my words, I will be telling my children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of the great injustice done to Soundgarden in this piece of “college” journalism.
>I apologize, gentlemen. Next week we will run an apology.
Are you being serious here, or is this just another example of your inability to acknowledge a mistake without injecting pointless sarcasm? For the record, I could care less about Soundgarden – I was just amazed by the immaturity of your response to Chris’s post. Most writers who take their work seriously would have thanked him for the correction and moved on.
None of the bands you mentioned are headliners except Muse. And while I actually agree with you that Muse are rather lame, they are not indie rock (neither are Them Crooked Vultures for that matter).
As for the alleged indifference, for what it’s worth, the general reaction over at the Coachella message board has been pretty positive. No, that doesn’t prove anything, but neither do the links you posted. They’re just random comments made by random people. You’re perfectly entitled to pass your own verdict on how good the lineup is, but why don’t we wait until the ticket sales figures are in before we make any definitive statements about its popularity?
please run the apology
entitle it “DEAR SOUNDGARDEN FANS”
Without Soundgarden, virgins everywhere would have to wait for someone to crack a joke about Blind Melon! Because they care about FACTS and PROFESSIONALISM and PROPER REPORTING!
I base the “degree of indifference” on the comments posted here:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/music_blog/2010/01/coachella-2010-jayz-muse-thom-yorke-lead-lineup.html
http://www.avclub.com/articles/coachella-2010-lineup-announced,37248/
http://www.brooklynvegan.com/archives/2010/01/2010_coachella.html
http://stuporfly.blogspot.com/2010/01/initial-coachella-2010-lineup-fails-to.html
…and in other message boards across the internet, not to mention the indifference expressed in discussions with co-workers at KUCI.
Indistinguishable indie rock: Them Crooked Vultures, MGMT, The Dead Weather, Phoenix, Dirty Projectors, She & Him, Matt & Kim, yadda yadda. Muse is lame. DJ Tiesto is lame. Thom Yorke needs to get his act together. This is, of course, just the *personal opinion* of myself (and others).
But then, y’know, there’s the part where I say that despite the lame acts in slightly bolder font, there are a lot of cool acts. And then I list a few.
The link to the Onion article was an acknowledgment of my mistake in a tongue-in-cheek way, as is the comment about “defending the honor of Chris Cornell.”
I apologize, gentlemen. Next week we will run an apology.
>Coachella 2010’s line-up, only recently announced, has been met with the same degree of indifference.
What exactly are you basing this statement on?
>the headliners (and a good deal of the supporting acts) make up an undistinguishable paste of average indie rock.
You might want to take a look at the lineup again. Whether Jay-Z, Muse, and the Gorillaz is average or not is in the eye of the beholder, but I wouldn’t classify any of them as indie rock.
>Sorry dude, I just named the first band I could think of. Soundgarden always reminds me of Cinnabon.
This is an extremely unprofessional and immature way to respond to someone who has pointed out a factual error you made. I’m just saying.
It’s not the honor of Chris Cornell, it’s pointing out your errors.
I’ve stood corrected on that most minor of allusions to Soundgarden since last night. Does anyone else have any other comments not defending the honor of Chris Cornell?
Lollapalooza started in 1991. Soundgarden played Lollapalooza in 1992 and again in 1996. Soundgarden are the only band to play the main stage at 2 different touring Lollapalooza. Without Soundgarden there would be no Nirvana.
You ass. You mention Nine Inch Nails, but what of Third Eye Blind? I see Sonic Youth, but where is Hoobastank? If you want to mention the greats of that period, you might want to do a little more research. And as for that nasty dig at Soundgarden…bad move. I haven’t seen a tackier allusion since one of my friends referred to Chumbawamba with derision.
I will admit that I am not well-versed in grunge music. I don’t listen to Nirvana, let alone their predecessors/imitators. When I want to delve into the early 90s, I stick to relatively “harmless” music like Magnetic Fields and Polaris (or “original emo” like Sunny Day Real Estate and Mineral). But I do think it’s a worthwhile endeavor to investigate what exactly killed the alternative rock scene; what made it shift so drastically from raw angst back to twee.
I don’t have the exact answer, but you have to admit that the state of alt-rock in ’99 (as represented by the Woodstock revival) was reprehensible. Look at the line-up for that show: Creed, Dave Matthews Band, Britney Spears, Brian Setzer Orchestra, Megadeth, Sheryl Crow, Kid Rock, Korn, Jewel, ICP…a veritable cocktail of “wtf???” “Alt-rock” became too wide a term (like “indie” is today). Soon the line between it and the “mainstream” was not only blurred, it was practically nonexistent.
(Which is not to say that Britney Spears could be considered at all “alternative.” That’s just my point — what a weird time for music, when overproduced pop and distorted guitars went hand in hand.)
Woodstock ’94 wasn’t “weird,” necessarily. Just goofy. Shannon Hoon wearing a dress, crooning “No Rain” while tripping on acid? Les Claypool of Primus getting visibly upset at the crowd when they took “My Name Is Mud” as a cue to throw mud at the band? Similar mud-fights throughout the event, reaching a peak during Green Day’s set? Bob Dylan finally taking the Woodstock stage — not amongst the Incredible String Band and Jimi Hendrix, but with the Spin Doctors? Tell me that’s not goofy.
I will contend that Gary Numan is an adorable little weirdo. Look at that awkward pout in the video for “Cars,” or the trippy outlines in the “Complex” promo video.
And of course, ultimately, taste in music is subjective! Which is why I can’t stand Dirty Projectors, but can still love Kevin Barnes, even when he’s stretched his schtick too thin. Some people can’t stand Of Montreal. So…?
i wonder whether you could name three soundgarden albums. or more than two nirvana albums. or more than four nirvana songs and three soundgarden songs. i wonder whether you know the name of the all-star tribute band that chris cornell and stone gossard and jeff ament and mike mccready and matt cameron and that one whiney guy from pearl jam formed before either of nirvana or soundgarden found success. i wonder whether you could tell me why gary numan was weird or how you know that woodstock in ’94 was weird or why tool is mediocre (they are not). but i’m not asking because the cop-out to use wikipedia or some other internet database would fill your response. that’s why there are no question marks.
your indie is my grunge. it will come to pass.
so it goes.
fill space, indeed!
Yeah, I agree with the above. Author is a moron. I didn’t even bother reading most of this, but Soundgarden being pegged copy-cats is just idiotic.
lol, hi guys. that was fast.
what was poorly researched about it? can you give me some construction criticism, maybe? i was going to edit out “soundgarden” and replace it with a more appropriate example, but then chris’s comment would have looked out of place.
i also don’t know what forced hipstery language sounds like. i write how i talk, and if my conversations sound like i’m trying too hard, then i need to fix that.
as for my articles that i’ve written for the new u: i write almost all of my articles at the last minute when we need to fill space.
This article is terribly written and poorly researched.
You are an absolute EFFING idiot suggesting Soundgarden is a copycat of any band, least of all Nirvana. SG was the first Seattle band of the late 80′s/early 90′s to sign a major label deal. Get educated, THEN write. I agree, BTW, that Bush/Rossdale is a Nirvana rip-off, however.
Hip folks writing about underground music. REALLY? The facts aren’t even accurate, the language is forced hipstery and overall it reads like a soccer mom trying to help her highschool kid out on an essay.
Better save it for your articles about musicals and hollywood movies.
I apologize for that — I really could have used a better example. Maybe Silverchair. Thanks to The Onion, Soundgarden always reminds me of Cinnabon…
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/soundgarden_inadvertently_reunites
did you call soundgarden a bland copycat of nirvana? soundgarden was recording music before nirvana existed and have a far more eclectic/out of the box sound.