EXCITEMENT #2: Coachella 2013

There are the bands you know you have to see (Blur, Stone Roses, Local Natives, Johnny Marr, Postal Service, 2 Chainz, OMD, etc), then there are the conflicts (Phoenix (with Daft Punk!?) vs. Sigur Ros vs. New Order vs. Knife Party, etc.), then there are the too-close-to-calls and you ask yourself if you can really run from the Sahara tent (Wolfgang Gartner) and get to the Main stage in time (Blur) or maybe from Main stage (Blur) to Gobi (Foals) and then back (Stone Roses). But maybe you want to get a good spot at the Main stage.

These are the questions that weigh on the mind in anticipation of Coachella 2013. It's the sort of stress that someone of my personality (OCD) has to deal with but in the end it all sorts itself out doesn't it? Sometimes even best laid plans are cast aside as the desert breeze pushes you from one stage or another. Best not to fight it.

See you this weekend!

Friday

Saturday

Sunday

Haven't done your homework? Well, for Weekend 1 kids there's still time today and while you're on the drive out to the desert. Weekend 2 hipsters still have time to get pumped. Subscribe to my Coachella playlists on Spotify!

| Pet Bear Sounds on Spotify | Instagram.com/PetBearSounds |
| @PetBearSounds | facebook.com/PetBearSounds |
| last.fm/PetBearSounds | g+/PetBearSounds |

EXCITEMENT #1: Johnny Marr at Coachella 2013

The first in a series of posts about musical things that excite me.

Johnny Marr at Coachella. How freakin' exciting is that!?

Let's be honest here: Reuniting The Smiths for Coachella isn't going to happen. It just won't. So, the next closest thing is seeing Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr (who is quite possibly the Eric Clapton of our generation). Marr has defined a generation of guitar sound and style in the way Clapton did in his Hey. Marr briefly toured with The Pretenders, recorded and toured with The The, worked as a session musician for the Pet Shop Boys, Billy Bragg, Talking Heads, Beck, Oasis, Modest Mouse, The Cribs. Throw in a couple quality solo albums and there's some reason to be excited.

Marr's set at Coachella should be filled with some classic Smiths tunes (like I said, this is the closest you'll get to The Smiths so enjoy it) and real solid Smiths-y tracks like "New Town Velocity" below.


Boy, you can take the guy out of The Smiths...


Now, here's where it's time to get even more excited.

Johnny Marr worked closely with Bernard Sumner of New Order in a super-group sort of project called Electronic. Guess what? Marr is playing Coachella on Friday while New Order plays on Saturday. You can see where I'm going here. I'm really hoping that Sumner joins Marr on stage for some Electronic tunes like this one:


And let's not forget that Johnny Marr worked with Modest Mouse who are also playing on Friday.

Tons of reasons to get excited about guitar legend Johnny Marr at Coachella.



Be sure to check out my Coachella playlists on Spotify! They're split up by day and I have at least one song from every band on there and I'm adding more as we get closer to Weekend 1 of Coachella. It's a lot of hours and not for the faint of heart.

| Pet Bear Sounds on Spotify | Instagram.com/PetBearSounds |
| @PetBearSounds | facebook.com/PetBearSounds |
| last.fm/PetBearSounds | g+/PetBearSounds |

REMEMBERING: The Postal Service - "Give Up"

Ten years ago today The Postal Service released Give Up. Ten years! Makes you feel old doesn't it?

I find it difficult to figure out where I was in 2003 without a bit of context. (It's a sign of aging, I hear). A while back I wrote up a top albums of 2003 list which brings me back to records like So Much For The City by the Thrills, Rooney's debut album, Muse's third record, and Radiohead's Hail To The Thief. Digging back through email records doesn't really help because it appears as if I don't have anything in my Gmail before August of 2004 and my Hotmail account has long been defunct and the emails from there are lost forever.

I took a quick glance through the year 2003 on Wikipedia. That was the year where 100 people were killed in a Rhode Island nightclub at a Great White show. And that was the year America invaded Iraq (again) and George W. Bush declared "mission accomplished." I think the MTV Music Video awards was still pseudo-relevant, right? (The one in 2003 was when Madonna and Britney Spears open-mouth-kissed on stage). June and Johnny Cash passed away that year.

Frankly, I feel as if a lot of the years seem to blur together. Perhaps there haven't been enough hallmarks in those years to really make an impression. Though, I've come to realize that I'm simply not very good with marking the passage of time and have a lot of difficulty attaching a particular place/event to a certain time. I generally save my concert ticket stubs and I am routinely surprised at the dates on those stubs. Days that once seemed so long ultimately turned into years that were too short.

Listening to Give Up now, I can recall the strong impressions I had then: I remember thinking that this was a "hipster" record before the word became ubiquitous. I remember not wanting to like this record as much as I did. I remember thinking that - some sappy lyrics aside - this was a beautiful, near perfect combination of electronic music and indie rock. I remember playing this album a million times. There were countless nights this dreamy record lulled me to sleep. The hyperactive, ear-candy production kept me awake behind the wheel on long road trips. I remember songs that felt at home both in the club or on the living room hi-fi. Listening now, there is certainly an undefinable nostalgia that coats this album like honey.

The Postal Service are playing this April at Coachella. I'm not sure what sort of memories will come back to me in a sort of post-traumatic-Pavlovian sort of way but there is a good chance that a little desert dust will find its way into my eyes.

Stupid dust.


What are your memories of Give Up by The Postal Service? Comment below!


| Pet Bear Sounds on Spotify | Instagram.com/PetBearSounds |
| @PetBearSounds | facebook.com/PetBearSounds |
| last.fm/PetBearSounds | g+/PetBearSounds |

COACHELLA 2013: Spotify Playlists

The Coachella lineup is finally here and the reaction seems to be more mixed than usual especially with some Coachella veterans. I'll have full thoughts some time next week or so but my initial reaction? Very solid. At first glance, it feels bit more Mary Jane rather than Molly. Just depends on what strikes your fancy.

Like last year, I've created some Spotify playlists for Coachella 2013. Click the links for each day to open up Spotify and listen to playlists for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Go ahead and subscribe to the playlist too as I will be updating as we get closer to Chellatimes.

Don't stress, don't sell your tickets, you'll have fun, I'm sure of it. See you Weekend 1!

(Feeling some Coachella 2012 nostalgia? Listen to my Coachella 2012 Spotify Playlist here).



| Pet Bear Sounds on Spotify | Instagram.com/PetBearSounds |
| @PetBearSounds | facebook.com/PetBearSounds |
| last.fm/PetBearSounds | g+/PetBearSounds |

ALL THINGS MUST PASS: George Harrison (25 Feb '43 - 29 Nov '01)

An excerpt from Here Comes The Sun by Joshua Greene:

In March 2001, doctors at the Mayo Clinic discovered cancer in George's lungs. A growth was removed, but within a month the cancer spread. Soon a malignancy was found on his brain. This, too, he took in stride, knowing that death would mean he had finished his work here and was at last entitled to leave.

"He never sat around moping, 'Oh, I'm ill,'" his son, Dhani later said. "Even when he first found out that he was ill years ago and the doctor gave him - what, six months to live? He was just, like, 'Bollocks!' He was never afraid. He was willing to try and get better, but he didn't care. He wasn't attached to this world in the way most people would be. He was on to bigger and better things. and he had a real total and utter disinterest in worrying and being stressed. My dad had no fear of dying whatsoever. I can't stress that enough, really."

Soon after the diagnosis, George took his family by private jet to Varanasi, India, where he bathed in the Ganges - a traditional practice for one who is preparing to die.

After their return, Olivia tried everything possible to find a cure. While staying near a hospital in Staten Island, New York, George received a few select visitors. Ringo visited and stayed for hours.

George's sister, Louise, arrived. They had not seen one another in several years. Louise had become a grandmother in 1990. Her son had taken up Transcendental Meditation, while she had joined the Self-Realization Fellowship and become a dedicated advocated of environmental awareness. "I believe this is your dharma," George told her. "This is what you have to do." Looking back, she remembered him at that final meeting as kind, loving, and completely fearless in the face of death.

Later, Paul visited the hospital and they told jokes, hugged, and cried. George and Paul had known each other nearly half a century. That last visit was the first time they ever held hands.

(page 268)

It's a bit difficult to grasp that it has been eleven years since George Harrison passed away, but, here we are. Time magazine put George on the cover of the 10 December 2001 issue and it's a time capsule. To get to the article on George I had to flip past articles questioning former Attorney General John Ashcroft's new powers to fight terrorism, articles documenting the hunt for Osama Bin Laden and the bloody battles against the Taliban. Remember Enron? They collapsed and officially went bankrupt on 2 December of 2001. There was fascination over the new Segway and praise for the television show JAG.

Of course, for most, the likes of Enron, John Ashcroft, Segways and JAG are easily forgettable while the message and music of George Harrison still endures.

(Honestly, it's not even fair to compare Ashcroft to Harrison, really).



(This demo for "All Things Must Pass" was recorded for the Beatles' Get Back sessions but a complete version was never released until George's first solo record of the same name. I often imagine what Let It Be would sound like with "All Things Must Pass" on the album. If it was included on Let It Be it's would surely have been one of the few songs that actually would have sounded good with the Phil Spector production. Eventually Spector did produce the track and the rest of George's solo debut All Things Must Pass.).




| Pet Bear Sounds on Spotify | Instagram.com/PetBearSounds |
| @PetBearSounds | facebook.com/PetBearSounds |
| last.fm/PetBearSounds | g+/PetBearSounds |

TOP 5: Artists/Bands For The Next James Bond Title Theme

Last Thursday I revealed my Top 5 James Bond Title Themes and today - after watching Skyfall over the weekend (it was extremely entertaining and I'd put it just a couple ticks below the modern James Bond classic Casino Royale) - I'm thinking of my Top 5 artists or bands who should do the next James Bond title theme.

I know, I know. You're probably thinking, "Hey, Pet Bear Sounds, the next one doesn't come out until late-2014. What's the rush??"

Truth! But ruminating on these sorts of things is, well, kinda my thing.

If you're playing at home, here's the loose criteria I have created in my head. The people involved have to be alive (sorry, Amy) and relatively active (sorry, Bowie). Repeats of previous James Bond title theme performers are allowed. Also, my Anglophilic bias also tells me that non-UK/Ireland acts are not acceptable for the Bond song (sorry, Black Keys).

TOP 5: James Bond Title Themes

The latest James Bond flick Skyfall is officially released in the United States tomorrow and I'm just as excited about the title themes as I am the films themselves.

No question that Adele was the best choice for the title theme. The quality and power of her voice ranks right up there with classic Bond song singers like Shirley Bassey. The song itself isn't particularly adventurous in scope and doesn't stray too far from Adele's style but "Skyfall" has all the hallmarks of a classic Bond song: Powerful female vocalist, sweeping strings, epic build, soaring finish. And it has that all-important x-factor doesn't it? "Skyfall" feels like a Bond song and I haven't felt that way about a Bond song in a very long time.


Trivia: How many James Bond title themes have gone to number 1 in the US or UK? Just one. Duran Duran's "A View To A Kill" went to number 1 in the US and just number 2 in the UK.

"Skyfall" - thus far - has peaked at number 2 in the UK and number 8 in the US.

Does "Skyfall" crack the Pet Bear Sounds Top 5 James Bond Title Themes?