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Eli & Jimmy

Lollapalooza 2009 I just got back to San Francisco from a crazy weekend in Chicago. This year was my third year at Lollapalooza and the best yet. The lineup could not have been better primarily because it paralelled my taste in music perfectly. Perry Farell and the whole Lollapalooza crew know me far too well. Day 1: The first day of the festival really got going around 3 in the afternoon with Bon Iver. During their performance the sky was grey and rain was falling fairly heavily. The combination of the "sad" weather and Bon Iver's heartbroken songs legitimately evoked emotions out of me. It was pretty strange; I've never been so emotionally affected by live music. Bon Iver put on a truly amazing performance, playing their songs quite differently live than on the album without compromising the original integrety of their music. After Bon Iver I hit Perry's Stage (the DJ stage.) The sound system at Perry's was unbelievable. The speakers were EQed perfectly, featuring cutting high frequencies and spleen rupturing low frequencies. Also, I was pleased to find that sound was not too loud. Much too often sound guys at venues just try to knock the crowd of its feet with volume, disregarding the sound quality. Crookers stood out to me as the best act at the DJ stage on Friday. Ironically, as DJs I think they're terrible. Their mixing is about as good or even worse than any bedroom DJ's. The tracks they play, however, are too massive to not make people go nuts. Whether they play Day n Nite or some heavy dubstep from DZ, they truly "get the crowd hype." After Crookers, I went to an after-party/after-show of sorts at the Congress Theater. The Congress theater was pretty strange. Imagine an opera house with no seats...that's what it was like. This party had Crookers and Major Lazer headlining. Major Lazer ended just being Diplo and Skerrit Bwoy. I don't know where Switch was. Anyways, Diplo tore it up but Skerrit Bwoy's MCing was pretty irritating. I have know problem with MCs unless they're aimlessly yelling drowns out the music. Crookers ended the night with a heavy set. It was similar to their Lollapalooza set, but they dropped some heavier dubstep and more of it. And that just about doest it for day one of Lollapalooza. Day 2: I woke up on Saturday morning in the most fatigued state I have ever been in. The after-party and the rain really wore me out. I was determined, however, to get my ass to Lollapalooza for day two. No Age was the first band I really saw on Saturday. As they put it, their set at Lolla was "insane." There was just so much energy flowing not only between Dean and Randy, but in the crowd. People in crowd were goin' nuts, moshing, throwing a few punches and elbows...it was truly insane. Randy had dislocated his shoulder the night before but he still managed to bring it. The chemistry between Randy and Dean made the show energetic and fun. After No Age I went over two the Perry's (the DJ stage) to see Diplo. I saw Diplo at HARD 13 in LA. He brought the hype then, but this time he really, really brought it. Diplo has changed his style quite a bit. In his Essential Mix on BBC Radio 1 about a year or two ago he played a lot more electro, rock, and b-more. But his time, as in LA, he played some real bassie stuff (Trouble & Bass type things) as well as some dubstep and dutch house. Diplo always get the crowd excited and dancing. I think the speed of his mixing makes him awesome. I mean with Diplo it's just track after track after track; he keeps the crowd on its toes, waiting to hear what will be dropped next. The one thing that annoyed me during his set was how physically into it the fans got. Kids were moshing and throwing each other around which is cool when you're seeing No Age or someone, but with Diplo, it's house music for crying out loud. CHILL OUT AND STOP TRYING TO INJURE ME. Day 3: On Sunday I was extremely tired. Once again I had serious trouble getting out of bed and to Grant Park (where Lolla was going down.) All the walking around in Chicago, along with moshing, the rain, the heat, and everything else had taken its toll on me. I bounced around from stage to stage trying to hear some good music, but I just didn't have the energy. Later in the day I tried going to Boys Noize to get hyped up. Boy Noize was killing it and I was right up in front. For some reason I just wasn't feeling it though. I was too worn out. So I ended up just posting at the DJ stage listening critically to Boys Noize's set, then MSTRKRFT's. They turned out to be alright, but by the end of the festival I was so sick of being in a big-ass crowd dancing to electronic music. I need a break! Back to guitars, bass, and drums!

LATELY,

we have been soo gosh damn busy! Recording EPs by the ton, playing park shows, it can get tricky to do things on the internet like updating one's blog. Doing so much stuff "IRL" it can be sort of hard to face the facts and admit that the internet is an important way of keeping your cutties updated, but now I'm glad to say that I've spent all day (inside) putting videos of last Saturday's saturnalia onto our youtube and vimeo for all to see!

And what footage we have! TSA smashed some hits like "Frustrated" and "Junkyard Riders" along with newer tunes like "Dionysian" and "DP Defender" (look out for the latter three on their upcoming EP, ROCKANALIA). Slow Loris made their live debut to such fanfare that the EGADS' Benji Dossetter actually used a can of PBR as a slide for my guitar! Great! and don't get me started on St. Mawr, who are just too god damned good for me to come up with funny things to say. See for yourself, with a nice live arrangement of "Turning into Nothing" and the classic "March 11th".

I'll have more videos up tomorrow: look forward to some TINKTURE, EGADS, MRCY HOT SPRINGS, HI HO SILVER, ST. MAWR doing some covers, and more!

Until then I'll let you know what some main cutties have been up to:

TSA stepped into the Dossetter studio on Wednesday and Thursday, July 29-30 to finish tracking five songs for a 7" that should be coming out when 2009 turns into 2010. Again, it's called ROCKANALIA: a call to arms for faded maenids and belligerent bacchae tryina thrash around to some punk musically inspired by the mid-90s early 2000s mission records scene and lyrically animated with gurpy philosophy and hellish visions of demonic infanticidal biker gangs. Cut Division is currently working with City Records (associated with tha boyz of FACE THE RAIL, TANKCRIMES, and SHANGHAI SURPRISE) to co-release the record, with artwork by the infamous Lord Wierd Frey-Fuck, a.k.a Josh Freydkis. If all comes together as planned, leave your calendar between 12/09 and 01/10 for a two month orgiastic celebration of this new EP.

yee then,
SLOW LORIS has also finished recording for its EP of impending release, MANEY DISTORTIONS. After it has been mixed and mastered to perfection and met a visually artistic counterpart that's maney enough, look forward to a release on this blog and music stores such iTunes and amazon: followed by a HELLA LIMITED edition release with a high-quality compact disks, personalized SLOW LORIS T-shirts, one-of-a-kind demo tapes, and more.

We'll have more-much-more for you tomorrow. Smell you then, friend.

Park show in review!

For those of you who don't know, Cut Division held a pretty massive (relatively speaking) park show in Dolores Park last Friday afternoon. Overall the show turned out to be a huge success and I can say everyone involved had a ton of fun.

Before Cut Division was formed, people within our large circle of friends had held several park shows in both Dolores Park and in Golden Gate Park, all in San Francisco. They were always a blast but they tended to get shut down quickly because we used outlets on a bus stop to power the PA and the amps, the authorities did not like us "stealing" MUNI's power. Most of the park show's leading up to this one featured two, three, or at most four bands. We usually drew crowds of 20-30 people. This time, however, was much different. We had many more bands, being TSA, St. Mawr, Slow Loris, The Egads, Blood Orgy, Hi Ho Silver!, and Tinkture. Thanks to our heavy promotion of the show this time, we had a good 60 people in attendance. Maybe even more. Of Montreal's Bryan Poole was even there! This time, we also chose to use a generator so there would be a very minimal chance of our shindig getting shut down. We'll be sure to have another, even bigger park show soon. And we want to see YOU out there!

Here are some photos from the afternoon from Jeremy Dosetter and Jenny Howell, thanks guys! I must say in these pictures it doesn't look like there were many people there, but there were. They were just sitting further back from the music.

Slow Loris

St. Mawr

TSA

Luke Robbins of The Egads

Drunk Dudes - Slow Loris

You're Stuk Up - The Egads

Willful - St. Mawr

Chamomile - St. Mawr

Mr. Blow

So recently, August 1st as a matter of fact, I read an editorial in the New York Times by Charles M. Blow. I think that's his name...Anyways he the current state of the music industry, also claiming that the industry would not exist in a few years, which is total B.S. I was so outraged by his editorial that I responded to it and email letters@nytimes.comHere's what I had to say. What are your guys thoughts?

Dear Mr. Blow,I recently read your editorial regarding the current state of themusic industry. I have to say, despite the fact that you're aneducated person with your work published in the New York Times, youare terribly misinformed; the claims you make regarding the musicindustry are simply illogical. You claim the music industry's vigilwill soon be over, suggesting it's only a matter of years or perhapsmonths until the music industry's life comes to a end. Yes, the musicindustry has suffered immensely since 1999, but to claim the that itwill soon die is absolutely ridiculous. Without the music industry,music would not exist. Do you truly believe music will just disappear?No one will have any desire to listen to music? People have alwaysloved music and they will continue to; there will always be a demandfor music and therefore a need for the music industry. Both free legaland illegal downloads have certainly damaged the industry, forcingcountless record labels to lay off mass numbers of employees. Thisfile sharing, however, regardless of its legality, is truly ablessing. Thanks to file sharing, artists, record labels, and bookingagencies are able to distribute their music worldwide for free.Through giving away music for free, artists, record labels, andbooking agencies are able to make names for themselves and attractpotential fans to their music and ultimately create morefan-followings. These fans will pay to see the artists' liveperformances, and at the moment, live music is a booming industry.Lollapalooza in Chicago, for example, had a quarter-million people inattendance on the last night of the festival last year. With crowdslike that, the music industry cannot possibly die. The music industryhas simply encountered an obstacle. I can assure you through use ofeffective and smart business, the industry will prevail.

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