For Those About To Rock

New Bon Iver tracks show natural growth, change

Bon Iver performs in Stockholm, Sweden, in 2011. The Wisconsin band returns with 22, A Million, its first album in five years, next month. (Courtesy photo/Daniel Jordahl)

Last weekend marked Bon Iver’s return from hibernation.

Five years after its last album, the Grammy-winning rock and folk group unveiled a new album’s worth of material during its appearance at its own Eaux Claires Music Festival in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Later that night came the announcement of the group’s third album, 22, A Million (cover at right), due at the end of September, as well as the release of two new tracks.

To call the new songs a departure from previous Bon Iver’s earliest material is underselling it, beginning with the tracks’ titles: “22 (Over S∞∞N)” and “10 d E A T h b R E a s T ⚄ ⚄.” Those aren’t outliers in the 22, A Million tracklist, whose titles resemble the naming conventions of Aphex Twin, Grimes or vaporwave artists.

The tracks leave the band’s folksy beginnings in the dirt. “22 (Over S∞∞N)” coasts on a bed of glitchy synthesizers and Justin Vernon’s processed vocals that caution life “might be over soon.” The other song filters Vernon’s vocals even more over a clicking chatter of a beat.

This is a far cry from the Bon Iver that made the likes of “Skinny Love” or “Holocene” and, yet, it feels right for the group. To fly away from guitar-based music somehow feels less like a cop out and more like a natural progression.

There’s something to be said for evolving in a way that stays true to a group or an artist’s direction. One of Bon Iver’s contemporaries, The Tallest Man on Earth, has followed a similar trajectory in that he, too, started with one man playing an acoustic guitar and has grown into a full-band ensemble.

The Tallest Man, the stage name for Kristian Matsson (left), progressed across the past decade at a pace that seemed deliberate and knowing, introducing first electric guitar and then other instruments and percussion until last year he toured with a band backing him.

All artists must continue to evolve their craft and experiment with something new, otherwise they risk becoming stale and losing relevance. Some make the turn toward commercial appeal and many fans cry “sell out.” Such cries were heard during the past decade when Kings of Leon smoothed out its sleazy Southern rock for accessible grandeur.

Was that a sellout move? It’s hard to put that label on anyone. 2008's Only by the Night was a conscious move by the band to enter the mainstream and gain some commercial appeal, but it also felt like the direction the band was headed, much like the way Tallest Man and Bon Iver’s career tracks have felt like the next logical stops for them.

Maybe an even better example is Taylor Swift, who’s moved from country pop to just plain pop during the past decade. That the same person made “Our Song” and “Blank Space” seem unlikely, but that’s how she’s changed to stay relevant and progress her sound.

In Bon Iver’s case, as Robin Hilton for NPR’s “All Songs Considered” pointed out this week, the seeds for Bon Iver’s digital transformation were planted long ago. In a clip of “The Wolves (Act I and II)” from Bon Iver’s 2007 debut album, For Emma, Forever Ago, Hilton noticed a quaver on Vernon’s voice as he sings “lost” in a backing vocal. It shows Vernon has played with vocal processing since Bon Iver was with him cooped up in a Wisconsin cabin to write its first songs.

After “Wolves” came “Woods,” tucked away on 2009’s Blood Bank EP (cover at right), which Kanye West sampled and used as the basis for his 2010 track “Lost in the World.” The continued collaboration between West and Vernon – two men who love production and vocal manipulation – on multiple records makes a song such as “22 (Over S∞∞N)” feel like an obvious destination for Bon Iver.

It would be more difficult to absorb if “22 (Over S∞∞N)” and “10 d E A T h b R E a s T ⚄ ⚄” felt like aberrations, but they seem right in the pocket for Bon Iver. They are remarkably different from where the group started, but they fit with where its creative director, Vernon, has been headed during the past decade.

If the new songs had more in common with Swift’s recent pop material, now that would be a real shock.

 

Outside Lands reveals age divide among millennials

Rapper J. Cole performs Aug. 5 at the Outside Lands Music Festival in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. Cole performed hits such as "Crooked Smile" and "Power Trip" to tens of thousands last weekend at the annual music and food festival. (Courtesy photo/Ché Holts)

When it came to scheduling conflicts at last weekend’s installment of the Outside Lands Music Festival in Golden Gate Park, promoters — knowingly or unknowingly — demonstrated a divide within the millennial generation.

Counterprogramming at festivals is when multiple events take place at the same time. For example, British art rock band Radiohead playing the main stage to end the festival’s second day while electronic dance musician Zedd played on the opposite side of the festival.

When that happened, a parting within the millennial set took place. It’s no stretch to say that the majority of festival attendees fit snugly into the generation ranging, according to some, from 1982 to 2000, making us range in age from 16 to 34.

I’m among that group, although it’s worth noting that if I had been born just three days earlier, in 1981, I would be considered Gen X, so I feel I relate well to both groups. When FX’s “American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson” (right) aired earlier this year, I was the right age to appreciate the modern program but also old enough to remember the events the first time around, including the hoopla about Marcia Clark’s hair.

I’m also old enough to unironically use the word “hoopla.”

So, like any older member of the millennial set who had their minds blown by the British band during the past two decades, the ’Head vs. Zedd conflict wasn’t much of one. I didn’t expect it to be for many other festivalgoers, but I underestimated Zedd’s appeal among the youngest of my generation. A sizable crowd flocked to the Russian-German dance musician’s act because some of them saw Radiohead, as someone recently told my friend, Cara, as a “mom band.”

Admittedly, the bar for enjoyment is easier to clear for uninitiated listeners for Zedd than it is for Radiohead. With a festival that lasts 30 total hours, every minute counts, so picking the EDM artist who virtually guarantees a fun, danceable time even if you don’t know any of his material is a safer bet than a quirky alt-rock band that has made its name by sitting at the plot point on the graph where experimentation meets accessibility.

While it wasn’t much of a choice for me, I don’t fault others. An 18-year window for a generation is pretty large considering I went to elementary school and played Oregon Trail on an Apple II while the youngest millennials had more powerful computers in their pockets as iPhones at the same age.

Radiohead vs. Zedd wasn’t the only place where this intragenerational divide cropped up. The night before, the elder millennials flocked to Friday headliner LCD Soundsystem, a dance-punk mainstay of the 2000s on a reunion tour, while the younger seemed to overwhelmingly chose North Carolina-based rapper J. Cole (left), who’s found success in this decade. I figured I’ll have another chance to see Cole, but “to tell the truth, this could be the last time” for LCD, as one of its songs goes.

Yet one more example came Sunday evening, when electronic group Major Lazer blared away on the main stage and rocker Ryan Adams played the nearby Sutro Stage. Like Cole and Zedd, Major Lazer’s success is more recent, with Adams career now spanning more than two decades.

“Somebody's got their laptop turned up so loud right now, man, it’s crazy,” Adams said to laughter as his crowd felt the bass rumble from Major Lazer’s set in the neighboring meadow.

I didn’t always make what seemed to be the “older millennial” choice, either. I certainly shook my booty and had fun during 22-year-old Jauz’s genre-bending EDM performance Saturday while Big Grams, a collaboration between Phantogram and 1990s/2000s hip-hop great Big Boi from OutKast, played the main stage.

To put the difference down as young millennials like to dance vs. old millennials are sophisticated would be a self-serving viewpoint lacking nuance. I think all of the acts mentioned offer something worthwhile. I was disappointed that LCD played at the same time as J. Cole.

Yet as far as attendance goes, the elder millennials are reaching an age when their music is becoming the classic or legacy acts. Radiohead has been making music longer than even some college-aged millennials have been alive.

A panoramic look at the Polo Field as Radiohead performs "Burn the Witch" to kick off its headlining set Saturday at the Outside Lands Music Festival in Golden Gate Park. (Daily Republic photo/Nick DeCicco)

This year’s Outside Lands showed the widening gulf between myself, a man in his mid-30s, and someone who is about to start their junior year of high school. We might be the same generation on paper, but our life experiences are entirely different.

It’s smart of Outside Lands’ promoters to appeal to both ends of that generational spectrum, but I wonder what it portends for future installments. Given the youthful vibe of the festival, I picture the older end of the millennial range aging out of festival culture as it approaches its 40s.

Then it won’t be long before the cycle continues again. It’s easy to imagine an Outside Lands 10 years from now in 2026 when someone like J. Cole is a headliner carting more than 15 years of hits playing the main stage as someone born after 2000 — Gen Z, the Founders, or whatever 21st century children are called — is the counterprogramming.

Outside Lands 2016: Day three recap

Chance the Rapper performs "Sunday Candy" Sunday for tens of thousands of fans on the main stage at the Outside Lands Music Festival in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park.

SAN FRANCISCO — A massive number of festivalgoers crammed the Polo Field on Sunday for the third and final day of the 2016 Outside Lands Music Festival to see Third Eye Blind and Chance the Rapper.

Tens of thousands of fans swarmed the lawn back to the festival’s iconic windmill an estimated one-quarter of a mile away from the main stage for the veteran San Francisco rock group as well as the Chicago hip-hop artist for two of the best-attended sets of a weekend that saw more than 70 artists play.

While temperatures that climbed into the sunny 70s after the first two chilly, overcast days of the festival, the sun finally emerged to play about 45 minutes before 3EB’s set time. The local band delivered an inspired, energetic set behind the work of lead singer Stephen Jenkins. While 3EB nodded to its 1990s mainstream glory days with hits such as “Jumper,” “Never Let You Go” and “Semi-Charmed Life,” it was an unexpected David Bowie tribute medley with help from the Magik*Magik Orchestra and 15-year-old guitarist Spencer Barnett that made the masses applaud.

Chance, meanwhile, cut his set short by 10 minutes on both ends. He ran through a string of feature verses he performs on other rappers songs — Action Bronson’s “Baby Blue,” Towkio’s “Heaven Only Knows” and Kanye West’s “Ultralight Beam” — before playing a smattering of tracks from this year’s Coloring Book mixtape.

Also drawing a massive crowd and closing the weekend on the Twin Peaks Stage was Lana Del Rey. In an hourlong set, the Los Angeles-based singer delivered hits such as “Video Games,” “Blue Jeans” and “Summertime Sadness.” Despite a staircase leading down into the crowd, Del Rey felt like she kept at a safe remove from the “Lanatics,” her devoted fanbase. While much of her artistry feels like a retro pose, she did strap on a guitar and play a bare bones rendition of “Yayo” from her Lizzy Grant album that felt raw and allowed her voice to lift into falsetto.

Ryan Adams and the Shining closed the weekend on the Sutro Stage with one of the day’s best sets. The North Carolina-born rock and alt-country musician’s band brought muscle to his material to match the might of 2014’s self-titled LP, but also beefed up older songs such as “To Be Young (Is to Be Sad, Is to Be High)” and “Shakedown on 9th Street.” While Jason Isbell appeared to play guitar on “Oh My Sweet Carolina,” the takeaway moment was Adams’ improv song, “Goodbye Two Balloons,” which was a nod to a previous improv performance during his last appearance in Golden Gate Park, when he made up an impromptu song about a person holding “Three F— Balloons” at the back of the park during the 2014 Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival.

Other notes from day three:

• Kamasi Washington — Kicking off the day on the main stage, the jazz saxophonist who played long, layered selections from last year’s triple album The Epic. He also invited his father, Rickey, to join him on stage for “The Rhythm Changes.”

• Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem — The Muppets house band made an appearance, “performing” along to pre-recorded covers of The Mowgli’s “San Francisco,” Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros’ “Home,” The Band’s “Ophelia” and closing with a choir-backed reading of “With a Little Help From My Friends” in Joe Cocker’s style.

Outside Lands 2016: Day two recap

Radiohead performs Saturday at the Outside Lands Music Festival in Golden Gate Park.

SAN FRANCISCO — British art rock quintet Radiohead mixed new material with old favorites in a two-hour set Saturday in Golden Gate Park for the Outside Lands Music Festival.

Six tracks from A Moon Shaped Pool, released in May, were on display Saturday, including three in a row to start the night. The last of them, “Ful Stop,” was where the show kicked in, starting a three-song suite of rockers along with “2+2=5” and “Bodysnatchers.”

The band gave snapshots of its abilities or eras — a pair of two-song glimpses of OK Computer, a turbo-charged coupling of tracks from 2011’s The King of Limbs, a torrid closing trio of “Everything in its Right Place,” “Idioteque” and “There There.” The band closed the show with the second of its two-song Computer snapshots, doubling down with a thunderous “Paranoid Android” as well as “Karma Police.”

The day’s biggest surprise was Julien Baker, who started the day on the Sutro Stage. The 20-year-old singer and guitarist was arresting with her gentle, minimal playing style and versatile voice. Since many of her songs are downers, she joked, “The great thing about starting off your day with all these bummer jams is it can only go up from here.” She built multiple tracks into intense moments, including “Vessels” and “Rejoice.”

New York-based art pop and folk singer Sufjan Stevens brought the downright bizarre, from his evolving costumes to encouraging the crowd to chant the “We’re all gonna die” refrain from “Fourth of July” with glee. He brought his kaleidoscope of colors to bear, beefing up his off-beat brand of sometimes wispy songs with deeper instrumentation or new arrangements to make them fit for festival-sized crowds.

Long Beach rapper Vince Staples and Los Angeles-based electronic dance musician Jauz brought big crowds and lots of fun to the Twin Peaks Stage in the Hellman’s Hollow section of the park. Both packed the field, getting hands waving and bodies dancing.

While Staples relied on hits, including “Norf Norf” and “Señorita,” Jauz showed off his rock chops, working the likes of Drowning Pool’s “Bodies” and Kiss’ “Rock and Roll All Nite” into party sensations.

Other notes from day two:

• The Knocks — The New York synthpop duo kicked off Saturday’s Twin Peaks trend of getting people dancing, including “Brightside” and a guest appearance from St. Lucia on their “Modern Hearts” collaboration.

• Kevin Morby — The Los Angeles-based folk rocker showed off his chops, including several cuts from this year’s standout LP Singing Saw.

• Fantastic Negrito — Oakland’s own and NPR contest Tiny Desk Concert contest winner made up for last year’s day-of show cancellation with a brisk 45-minute set early in the day, mixing in crowd favorites such as “Lost in the Crowd” and “Rant Rushmore” as well as a rendition of Lead Belly’s “In the Pines.”

• Declan McKenna — The 17-year-old British indie rocker showed promise during a stop on the Panhandle Stage, including a stripped down solo reading of his song "Basic" as well as "Paracetamol," which offers a human look on the difficulties transgender teens face.

Outside Lands 2016: Day one recap

Foals performs Friday on the Sutro Stage at Outside Lands to a crowd flooding Lindley Meadow. The group had one of the day's best performances.

SAN FRANCISCO — Reunited New York group LCD Soundsystem headlined day one of the Outside Lands Music Festival, but a good portion of the crowd was seeing rapper J. Cole instead.

James Murphy and company delivered favorites from LCD's three LPs, boosted by a lighting and video setup that enhanced their dance punk.

While Murphy isn’t the most engaging frontman, he did bring his crate of swirling, hypnotic beats and throbbing grooves. He rants (“Losing My Edge”) and yells (“Yeah”), but it worked to sell the urgency of the band’s songs. The band closed with a version of "All My Friends" that felt somehow celebratory.

One of the day’s biggest highlights was Foals, which is aging like wine. The last time the group played the festival, now in its ninth year, the British post-punkers helmed the main stage. Relegated to a smaller platform this time, the band showed some of the best fire of the day, delivering a set of confident rockers with driving blasts of guitar. The sun also made its only extended appearance during the band’s set on a day when temperatures routinely hovered in the 50s.

Later, on the same stage, Denver’s Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats strode in with a point to make. It’s difficult to believe the band is nearly one year removed from its breakthrough appearance on “The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon” when a fiery performance showed Rateliff’s chops and the band’s cohesion. His dance moves showed as well as his politics, mentioning Bernie Sanders’ failed presidential run and urging the crowd to keep his message alive.

Beach House closed the Sutro Stage on Friday. The group was sublime, with its melancholy and moody music matching the overcast, sunset tone. What impresses in the band’s live performance is that their songs retain their fragility from the studio recordings, but manage to project to a crowd of thousands at a festival, too. That helps when the strongest weapon in your arsenal is Victoria Legrand’s voice. The group also used a prop that looked like a see-through curtain that stretched from the stage floor to the lighting rig atop it and, when alight, looked like a constellation of stars. Much like LCD, fans could be seen throughout the set peeling off to go see Cole.

Other notes from day one:

• The Claypool Lennon Delirium — This oddball project brings together the talents of Primus bassist and singer Les Claypool with Sean Lennon, son of the former Beatles singer and Yoko Ono. The combo thrives in reverb-soaked psych rock, including a batch of originals as well as a trippy cover of King Crimson’s “In the Court of the Crimson King.”

• Jidenna — The “Classic Man” singer was smooth, dancing his way through a set of his singles that show an encouraging future.

• Moon Taxi — On the tiny Panhandle Stage, the Tennessee band was one of the day’s early highlights, delivering fan favorites such as “Year Zero” and “All Day All Night.”

Radiohead returns to Outside Lands amid resurgence

Thom Yorke from Radiohead sings at the inaugural Outside Lands Music Festival in 2008. Radiohead returns this weekend for the festival's ninth installment amid a critical revival after May's universally acclaimed "A Moon Shaped Pool." (Courtesy photo/Julio Enriquez)

Radiohead is back in the Bay. Everything is in its right place.

The British art rock quintet returns Saturday to play the Outside Lands Music Festival in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, supporting its ninth album, A Moon Shaped Pool.

The band’s last Bay Area gig came April 2012 in San Jose, but prior to that, it claimed the first-ever headlining spot at the inaugural Outside Lands in August 2008.

That remains as a standout moment in the festival’s history, with fans — both ticketed and not — breaking down fences to pack the Polo Field shoulder to shoulder to watch the innovative British group. Sound problems plagued the set, with the audio cutting out several times.

While much has changed for Outside Land since that time, Radiohead returns triumphant as Moon Shaped Pool represents a critical resurgence after 2011’s uneven The King of Limbs.

It’s an unlikely story that festivalgoers are seeing Radiohead amid a critical revival given how the band’s status seemed just months ago. When the band was announced as a headliner in April, the public only knew whispers that a new album was on the horizon. Limbs was the most recent material and, given its lukewarm reception, there was reason to think we had reached Peak Radiohead in the Aughties.

Heck, even I was skeptical. Maintaining the level of quality, creativity and ambition they have for as long as they have is baffling.

But not so fast, said Radiohead. While Pool represents a safe effort by Radiohead’s impossible standards — not as bold and daring as Kid A, not a generational statement like OK Computer — it’s still on par with some of the British quintet’s best efforts in terms of quality.

That’s rare. Few groups get to be so beloved critically and culturally for two decades.

Even comparing to other “golden” stretches, there’s marked beginnings and endings — Stevie Wonder, The Rolling Stones and Van Morrison in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Bruce Springsteen and Prince in the early 1980s, Pavement in the 1990s, Mastodon in the 2000s, Kendrick Lamar so far in the 2010s.

But Radiohead has no chill when it comes to nearly two straight decades of must-spin LPs: The Bends, OK Computer, Kid A, Amnesiac, Hail to the Thief, In Rainbows and Pool.

Even though Limbs (left) was a failure by Radiohead standards, it was a noble failure. The band was trying to push boundaries and explore new territory, subverting the beauty of In Rainbows with the electronic elements and textures from Kid A.

There’s plenty of smoke blown up the collective backside of Radiohead, brand-making platitudes about how they’re “the band of a generation” or the “saviors of guitar music” or whatever mantle they’ve been assigned this month.

I don’t know what those things mean, but they sound like the sort of declarative statements that look great on a sticker on the album cover, but don’t hold up to scrutiny.

What I am willing to say is that bands that so repeatedly defy expectations are rare.

Radiohead’s at the plot point on the graph where accessibility meets experimentation. They’re both a reflection of ourselves in the digital age as well as a statement about them.

There’s something beautifully funny about a group with themes of isolation and alienation bringing together thousands of people in Golden Gate Park to share an experience together.

I can’t wait for it.