Tankboy on TV.

Fox 32's Good Day Chicago invited me on to share my thoughts on this year's Lollapalooza. I've been on the program a few times now so I'm pretty comfortable with it now, plus the hosts always do their best to make the guests look good, which I obviously appreciate!

The Tankboy sanctioned guides to enjoying Lollapalooza.

Justice

If you're heading to Lollapalooza this weekend then the reading below is mandatory for you! Stay safe, stay hydrated and, most importantly, have fun!

And say hi to me if you happen to see me running around, and don't forget to swing by that kickball game on Saturday morning. And if you don't go, or don't see me, tune in to FOX 32's Good Day Chicago around 7:55 a.m. when I'm slated to appear and sum up the weekend in five minutes or less. probably less.

The Tankboy sanctioned guides to enjoying Lollapalooza 2012:

The Official Chicagoist 2012 Lollapalooza Survival Guide
What to see on Friday
What to see on Saturday
What to see on Sunday
A preview of Perry's stage

Blur on the brain.

The lovely lady to the right there showed up last Monday. I think it's safe to say that Blur's Bur 21: The Box is one of the kost expensive items of prerecorded music I have ever bought. But it's also the first time in I can't even remember that I felt genuine excitement at ordering, receiving and unpacking anything musical. Seriously, I felt the same rush as I did when I wold make new discoveries at Music Warehouse in the late '80s. Heck, it was even similar to when I'd get that fist box of ten tapes (eleven if you make your first order now!) from Columbia House.

I miss that feeling.

I also miss reissues and box sets actually living up to the pomp and circumstance that usually accompanies their release but I have to commend Blur for not failing to deliver on the promised goods. Granted, I already have most of the music in this set through years of hunting down singles and gathering fanclub singles back in the day when I was a subscriber to Blurb, but the wealth of unreleased material, the live shows, the hardcover book, the 7" single ... I mean, really, it's all just absolutely terrific. This is the epitome of "not for the casual listener, but if you're a serious or longtime fan this will not disappoint." And just when I thought I was giddy to the point of bursting I found out that the set comes with an online code that allows you to download al the music (saving me from an hour ripping this stuff so I can listen on the go without breaking out my Sony Discman) and other bonus materials, including the entire run of the fanclub's Blurb magazines!

Honestly, the whole thing transports me back to the days of waiting desperately until every Tuesday to pick up some new piece of music. Call me sentimental, but I really miss that.

Can you see it slowly spread across the field?

One of the benefits of my office having a window is watching Lollapalooza as it builds up from nothing in Grant Park. I'm also a short walk from the box office so I was able to pick up my personal wristband today too and beat the lines! Also, I'm starting to get emails from friends coming in from out of town so that's getting me stoked as well. I have to admit that as recently as a few weeks ago I was still wondering if it was going to be worth it to kill myself for yet another long weekend of Lollapalooza but now that it's here I can't believe I had any doubts.

Lolla-love you.

This is typically one of my most insane weeks of the year. Yes, it's time for Lollapalooza to descend upon Chicago. It is a week of lots of stress. It's a lot of fun, but it's also a lot of stress. Right now I'm struggling to write a couple pieces related to the fest by tomorrow night and there seriously are not enough hours in the day.

As far as covering the fest itself for Chicagoist, this year I'm not taking pictures for the first time since 2005 so at least I won't be running from one end of Grant Park to the other every 25 minutes. That's about a mile, and I can make it quickly, but thank god I don't have to this time around. In addition, I have a couple great writers handling the recaps with me so hopefully some of the burden will be off me there as well. In previous years it was usually me shooting and then writing with only one other person contributing, so this is going to be bliss in that respect.

Don't worry though, I have plenty of time carved out for the fun stuff too. I plan on checking out a few of the day lounges, our friend Dana Dynamite has offered to take us to see The Afghan Whigs' show at Metro and of course there's the annual Do312 Lollapalooza Celebrity Kickball Game!

And, of course, I took Monday off work to recuperate.

Is Tom Waits the Joker?

Kottke posted this amazing video from 1979 of an interview with Tom Waits on an Australian television show. Once you hear his delivery and watch his mannerisms I think it's more than fair to wonder if Heath Ledger stumbled across this same clip in his preparation to play the Joker in The Dark Knight.


Has anyone out there read anything that might corroborate this or is it just a really eerie coincidence?

Play ball!

Clearly, I needed this today. Yay!

A quick word about The Dark Knight RIses.

With a big summer movie like The Dark Knight Rises I feel that one week from the initial release is an appropriate window to expect not to have the film spoiled for you. So I won't. What I will say is that despite some of the mixed reviews I enjoyed it greatly and think it's a wholly satisfying conclusion to Christopher Nolan's trilogy.

So go see it.

Shut Up And Watch This Movie

Monday night we saw Shut Up And Play The Hits, the documentary covering LCD Soundsystem's last show in Madison Square Garden. And let me tell you, now I really regret missing that show. I didn't go because my memory of them playing Metro on the This Is Happening tour was so 100% perfect and awesome and I didn't want to risk marring it with what could have been a bloated overdone send-off. Instead what I missed was an incredibly emotional, 100% cathartic, once in a lifetime send-off. So I'm dumb.

The movie's done by the same team that did Blur's No Distance Left To Run doc and their M.O. is basically the same here; intersperse video of the run-up (and in this case aftermath) of the show amongst concert footage. It's a pretty standard approach but Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace have an incredible eye for capturing rare moments of both explosive and quiet intensity. My favorite shot in the entire film of a couple you can only see in silhouette clearly losing their mind and dancing with rapture. When you see them you see the deep and irresistible power LCD Soundsystem's music can have on people.

At the moment it's only screening occasionally in theaters but if it plays anywhere near you then I HIGHLY recommend seeing it on a big screen with a LOUD sound system. And I think theaters should be fully endorsing people to dance in the aisles during the musical numbers. It took all my effort to stay in my seat!

The DVD is out on October 9.

Two movies in two theaters in two nights? Unheard of!

Tonight I'm finally going to see The Dark Knight Rises. I had bought tickets to an 8:30 a.m. showing Sunday monring but that proved a little, um, overly ambitious. I can't wait!

Just finished an excellent documentary.

Photo by some guy named Jim Kopeny

I'll tell you all about it later.

At a concert right now.

Kids are dancing to a rock band. There's hope for the future!

My buddy Brent put out a new album.

I've decided I like it.

How did I miss celebrating the 10th anniversary of my blog?!

Friday, May 24, 2002. That was the day of my first entry on this website. It was a reprint of one of my Tankboy emails, a series that had been running since 1995 and was a precursor to what would become known as blogging, but it marked the beginning of what I still consider the epicenter of my ramblings.

Jeez, without this little outpost I might not have continued the music writing I started in 1989. And maybe I wouldn't have written for a number of online publications, the main two being donewaiting and Chicagoist. Oh who am I kidding, I'd still be writing, but without the opportunities this place opened for me maybe YOU wouldn't be reading what I write.

Thankfully you, and a whole lot of other people, are. And hopefully I've had an honest effect on you, because that is the highest praise I could hope for.

It's true times change. While I still write here regularly most blogs I've read that didn't go pro or get subsumed by larger media properties are long gone. And if you want a true pulse of where I'm st you probably follow my Twitter or Tumblr or Chicagoist.

Times change. And often I change with them. And even more often, professionally I'm ahead of the curve. But through it all I haven't abandoned this little corner of the Internet.

And since you're reading this, let me sincerely thank you for not abandoning it either.

I'll try not to miss this place's 20th anniversary.

And again, thank you. So very, very much.

Marc Maron + Fiona Apple = awesome smashing of public preconceived notions.

The title basically says it all. Listen for yourself. Once you hear Fiona Apple giggling and talking and embracing just being Fiona Apple with anything BUT despair or melancholy or the kee-razy that everyone wrongfully assumes Apples operates from under, you will reel with wonder.

It's been busy around these parts.

Today has been the first day I've been able to relax after an insane run of events. It's been nice. Hilariously I planned on this Friday and Monday as a mini-vacation book-ending this year's Pitchfork Music Festival. I should have remembered just how draining a three-day festival is, even when I take it as relatively easy as I did this year. Although it should be telling I consider getting a tattoo at a Sailor Jerry afterparty as "taking it easy."

Anyway, if you're interested you can read our daily recaps below.

Pitchfork Music Festival: Day One
Pitchfork Music Festival: Day Two
Pitchfork Music Festival: Day Three

And now, back to my Mad Men marathon, because I have zero problem with binge watching TV!

P4K Music Fest 2012!

I've barely been home a second and now I'm on the run all weekend! Long. Check out our preview of hoped for highlights.

Home again!

I'm so ready to sleep in my own bed. Know the feeling?

Closing down the shoot.

It's been GOGOGOGOGO since early Sunday but we wrap our shoot today and can finally stumble back to our respective homes. It's been exhausting but totally worth it. I've met some amazing people, lost count of the number of states I've been in (four, five, six?) and the team has worked together to get some terrific interviews and eye-popping images. I can't wait to share the end result with you in a couple of months!

Disconnected and it feels so WEIRD.

Now I know what it's like to unplug from the world when you don't want to! Obviously when I'm on vacation I don't find it to be that much of a problem if I can't get online, but right now I'm in Crete, Nebraska and am learning what it's like to be in a town that has zero service for AT&T phones, including tankPHONE. At first I thought it was just me but then another member of the film crew I'm with reported the same problem. And it's freaking me out. It's not like Crete is teensy tiny--it has at least two large manufacturing facilities, a college and a high school from what I can see in my drive around town trying to find a cell signal--so now I know what it's like to actually be somewhere your carrier doesn't cover. On the bright side I definitely got a chance to get the lay of the land as I drove around looking for that elusive (at that time I was unaware it was nonexistent) signal!

Luckily for me I have a Sprint card for my laptop so I can at least get back online to type this, prep for this evening's shoot and get some other work done.

Regardless this is WEIRD.