I got my 3-day bracelet in the mail today, so I suppose it’s about time to start looking more closely at the lineup for the annual trip to Lollapalooza.  Hopefully by now you’ve secured tickets because by now they are sold out – all 270,000 of them!  So if you’re a procrastinator like me, now is the time to hop on Craigslist and eBay and hope for a rare deal, because this is looking like a solid festival.

By now you’ve likely heard all about the acts heading the bill for this year, the 20th anniversary of the festival.  Coldplay, Eminem, Muse, The Foo Fighters, and My Morning Jacket are all well established acts with loyal followings – but what about some of the artists that play earlier in the day?  Here are some acts that are worth checking out in Grant Park.

Friday:

In my opinion, Friday offers the most complete top to bottom lineup, with a host of talented young indie bands throughout the afternoon.

12:00 – 12:45: Wye Oak – “Civilian” [Buy here]

1:00 – 1:45: Tennis – “Marathon” [Buy here]

1:30 – 2:15: The Naked and Famous – “Young Blood” [Buy here]

2:30 – 3:30: Grace Potter & The Nocturnals – “Paris (Oooh La La)” (Live) [Buy here]

3:00 – 4:00: Foster the People – “Pumped Up Kicks” [Buy here]

3:30 – 4:30: Smith Westerns – “Weekend” [Buy here]

4:00 – 5:00: White Lies – “Death” [Buy here]

4:30 – 5:30: The Kills – “You Don’t Own The Road” [Buy here]

4:45 – 5:30: Cults – “Go Outside” [Buy here]

5:00 – 6:00: Two Door Cinema Club – “Something Good Can Work” [Buy here]

5:30 – 6:30: The Mountain Goats – “Dance Music” [Buy here]

Waiting for The Antlers to come back to the Black Cat stage to perform a four-song encore, one can’t escape the impression that there is a connection between this and those fans lucky enough to catch Radiohead at an early show in a seedy English club.  This isn’t to say that The Antlers are bound for international fame and fortune – in actual fact, their music is far too intimate for that – but it is to say that there are striking similarities between the two bands that resonate more deeply with the listener than most.

I first came upon The Antlers by way of a recommendation to check out a newly released track called “Kettering” that would be featured on their first major album as a newly-minted trio (Frontman Peter Silberman previously released two albums under the moniker as a solo act).  “Kettering” is a tense, building track that packs a large emotional punch.  Beginning so soft as to be almost inaudible, a surge of piano and the quiet wail of Silberman’s falsetto creep into the mix slowly, immediately setting the listener on edge.  Only fragments of the haunting vocal are intelligible at first listen, with snippets such as “But something kept me standing by that hospital bed” and “those singing morphine alarms out of tune” – this is no ordinary song about break ups or teenage angst.

In actual fact, Hospice, the 2009 album that features “Kettering”, is the product of more than a year of Silberman’s isolation in his Brooklyn apartment, during which he rarely left home and burned bridges with many of his friends.  Though he doesn’t speak about the experience directly in public interviews, he has alluded to this as a dark period, possibly post-break up, during which he did little other than write music and volunteer at a pediatric cancer ward.  Perhaps the link between a tragic breakup and the experience of caring for dying patients resonated with Silberman emotionally, because he decided to cut an album plumbing these emotional depths.

In the hands of a less capable artist, such an overload of emotional catharsis would be overwrought and melodramatic.  It is a testament to how nakedly Silberman channeled his emotion that Hospice is instead exactly the opposite: delicate composure teeters on the brink of uncontrolled release, but the pain and feeling of Silberman drips from every couplet.  It’s the type of magical concept album that artists often conceive but can rarely execute.

The emotional weight of Silberman’s straining falsetto has drawn comparisons to Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, but Vernon merely retreated to the woods to get over a bad break-up forever ago – he didn’t fall in love with a dying cancer patient, after all.  Hospice was about so much more than a lost love – it’s the work of a 23-year old who sees loss all around him and uses it to deliver a message about heartbreak and recovery in a difficult world.  Silberman is socially conscious in the way of Thom Yorke, and the similarities in vocal chameleonism to convey feeling are remarkable.

With so many words spent applauding a devastating concept album about love and loss in a cancer ward, it’s easy to see why The Antlers had their work cut out for them in delivering a follow up.

2011′s Burst Apart forgoes the concept album niche, though is in itself a surprisingly well-rounded offering.  In the two years since Hospice’s optimistic conclusion that recovery is possible in the land of the living, Burst Apart finds Silberman hesitant to let himself go completely.  Fixating on the self-analysis of Hospice‘s “Wake”, in which Silberman confides, “It was easier to lock the doors and kill the phones / Than to show my skin / Because the hardest thing / Is never to repent for someone else / It’s letting people in.”  On “I Don’t Want Love” Silberman shows that his experience with loss leaves him hesitant to open himself to getting hurt again:  “You want to climb up the stairs / I want to push you back down / But I let you inside / so you can push me around.”

On “French Exit” Silberman shows his mounting frustration: “I’m not a puppy you’ll take home / Don’t bother trying to fix my heart.”  Yet over the course of Burst Apart, the emotional walls he’s built literally do, and he once again finds himself reliant upon somebody else on “Corsicana”: “We lost our chance to run / Now the door’s too hot to touch / We should hold our breath with mouths together now.”  But rekindled love isn’t without anxiety – Silberman can’t help but conclude the album with an apocalyptic what if on “Putting the Dog to Sleep”, a thinly-veiled euphemism for the end of a relationship:

“Don’t lie to me
If you’re putting the dog to sleep
That pet you just couldn’t keep
Couldn’t afford

Well prove to me
I’m not gonna die alone
Unstitch that shed off soul
To close up the hole that tore through my skin”

Yes, recovery is a process, and though Silberman is no longer the recluse he was before he poured his diary into a microphone on Hospice, he isn’t entirely without reservations about letting someone back into his life and becoming emotionally dependent.  In the end, however, risk is worth the reward, and Silberman concludes with a plea:

Put your trust in me
I’m not gonna die alone
Put your trust in me
I’m not gonna die alone
I don’t think so

Having seen The Antlers once before as they toured in support of Hospice, I came to the Black Cat mostly curious about how the songs would work with one another.  On this point, I was mostly disappointed, as the band chose to (understandably) lean heavily on the new material, throwing in only the most popular tracks from Hospice in to flesh out the set list.  “Kettering” remains an absolute juggernaut live, and along with “Wake”, the other bookend in the night’s encore, was the highlight of the evening musically.  The band seems to still be feeling their way through some of the new material in a live setting – “I Don’t Want Love” struck what sounded like a few false chords, though Silberman’s falsetto wail at the end of the song sounded incredible and served to hook in an audience seemingly filled with mostly curious unfamiliarity.  “Parentheses” sounded dark and sinister, a welcome surprise for a track that feels a bit out of place on record.  “Putting the Dog to Sleep” sounded great in a live setting as well, and was a fine cap on a quick set.  But for the finale, Silberman reached back to Hospice and lifted a piece of hopeful advice from “Wake”, imploring the audience to not fault themselves: “Some patients can’t be saved / But that burden’s not on you / Don’t ever let anyone tell you you deserve that.”

What’s remarkable about The Antlers is that they create restrained and lush sonic landscapes that bear the weight of this emotional unloading without treading into the territory of adolescent emo.  Silberman is still very young – his emotional development into adulthood is literally exposed in the verses of these two albums – yet the maturity and complexity of the material is what hearkens back to Radiohead.  The social longing of Thom Yorke’s plaintive falsetto on “Creep” is a clear forebear to Silberman’s similarly high-register regrets.  And the focus on atmospheric innovations to create a sonic texture complementary of his voice does at times remind one of Jonny Greenwood’s tense compositions for tracks like “Climbing Up The Walls” or “Exit Music (For A Film)”.

Lyrically, Silberman masterfully employs vivid metaphor and visual descriptors – from the chorus of “Every Night My Teeth Are Falling Out” (a reference to nightmares related to sexual frustration) to “there’s a bear inside your stomach, the cub’s been kicking you for weeks” (a reference to a fetus? tumor? Silberman isn’t saying), and that “pet” he can’t afford or keep.  Mostly discernible in song, his lyrics also represent some of the most hauntingly evocative poetry in music today.  Seriously, take a moment to read them.

What The Antlers do lack in the comparison to Radiohead is pep.  Silberman may have appeared energized enough in his stange banter, and the band is certainly capable of some nifty sonic swells, but they lack the crunch and grit that Yorke and company dole out on a fairly regular basis to counter the emotional fragility of their quieter moments.  For every “Fake Plastic Trees” there is an “Airbag” or “Electioneering” that shows Radiohead has verve.

That may yet be forthcoming for The Antlers – after all, “Parentheses” and “Every Night My Teeth Are Falling Out” wouldn’t feel out of place as mid-tempo numbers on King of Limbs.  The band is developing, and that is in large part a reflection of the personal growth of Silberman himself.  If he continues to grow, the band should have plenty of material going forward in what promises to be a very interesting career.

The Antlers – Kettering

The Antlers – I Don’t Want Love

The Antlers – Parentheses

The Antlers – Putting The Dog To Sleep

I was on the phone with the Indian Land volleyball coach — at least that’s how I remember it — when I was told that there was a call for me. I told them to put the call on hold where it stayed for a few minutes. When I finished my in-depth interview with the coach, I picked up the phone. And it was Bob Costas.

He told me that he had gotten my letter, and it had told him more about me than any story ever could. He told me he had pinned the letter on his refrigerator door. He told me that someday, when I was working at the New York Times (or Sports Illustrated — Bob seems to remember it as Sports Illustrated) he would tell people he knew me when.

I cannot begin to explain what that call meant to me. My crazy life has been overcrowded with lucky breaks — breaks I did not fully (or, in some cases, even partially) appreciate at the time. Everything broke right. I worked for great editors at precisely the right time in my career. I ran into great stories, often by accident. I met amazing people who offered a kind word or perfectly timed advice or a brilliant lesson. I have made great friends in this business, and we have challenged each other and pushed each other and inspired each other and mocked each other just when we needed it most.

And that call from Bob Costas on that afternoon … well, I can only explain it this way. I try to teach my daughters a lot of things. Right now I’m trying to teach my oldest her 8 multiplication table (“Figure 8 … it would be great … if I could skate … “), and I’m trying to teach my youngest that chocolate chips do not make a viable meal, but the biggest thing I want to teach them both is that it is possible. Whatever it is. The world, I believe, is best enjoyed and most affected by those people who believe in possibility, who strive for it, who shake off the doubters and their own self doubt, who laugh with the critics and keep moving forward, who follow their own curiosities until they are filled, who see themselves accomplishing the best they can imagine.

From CNN’s article about flood prevention efforts in New Orleans:

“The Bonnet Carre Spillway was partially opened on Monday … in order to keep the volume of the Mississippi River flows at New Orleans from exceeding 1.25 million cubic feet per second,” the Corps said.  But the muddy water had already exceeded that speed, with a flow of 1.36 million cubic feet per second by Wednesday night, authorities said.

To put that in a bit of context, that’s 38,500 cubic meters per second.  The Jacqueline Kennedy O’Nassis Reservoir in Central Park is 3.8 million cubic meters.  So a volume of water approximately equivalent to Central Park’s reservoir is flowing through New Orleans… every minute and a half.

Painting depicting the Istanbul earthquake of 1754.

Leaving aside whether it is really possible to create an urban center completely and 100% resistant to earthquakes, this strikes me as a good idea:

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced that he plans to build two earthquake-resistant “cities” in the Istanbul area to encourage people to leave the capital’s earthquake-prone areas. The AP explains that Istanbul sits near a major fault-line and suffers from overcrowding and shoddy city planning and construction. In 1999, two earthquakes in northwestern Turkey killed 18,000 people.

There are a surprising number of cities – predominantly in developing countries – that are poorly positioned to deal with the prospect of a large earthquake and its aftermath.  I’ve read a lot about Tehran and Seattle, in particular, being severely at risk for widespread destruction in the event of projected quakes.  There are so many cases where we can’t predict disasters before they happen, so it seems to me that when we know in advance that a place is at higher risk for catastrophe, that planners and developers take all necessary precautions.  One only need to look at the difference between Tokyo and Port-au-Prince to see that good planning can save thousands of lives.

Via The Atlantic Wire.

A spokesman for Moammar Gadhafi suggested that increased illegal immigration was the price European nations would pay for their military and political support of the rebels trying to topple Libya’s strongman.

“Because of the NATO aggression against our country and because our coastal border guard is being hit daily … we are unable to deal with this situation and that is why Europe is being flooded with illegal immigration,” government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said. “We cannot be the guards of Europe at this moment.”

This is a harrowing demonstration of how marginalized migrants are within host societies and how politicized human rights is for the undocumented.  It’s a horribly sad story all around.

Rye Rye – Never Will Be Mine (Feat. Robyn)

[...] bin Laden’s shoes will be hard to fill. Recruitment and fundraising may suffer as a result as wealthy donors give their money to other causes while impressionable youth take up more local fights or, better yet, stay home.

The lack of a charismatic leader may create fissures in a movement always prone to them.  Like-minded affiliate groups in Yemen, Algeria, and elsewhere may become even more independent, reducing al Qaeda’s global reach.

Worth the full read.

I view it as a major, mega, landmark event marking the end of the life of a person involved in terror and destruction.  Our hope [is] it will mark a beginning of an end of a very dark era.

Coupled with the rise in civic activism across the Middle East, as whole societies demand representation and an end to autocratic rule, bin Laden’s death could come at a watershed moment for the region.  As Lawrence Wright notes in The New Yorker:

Democracy and civil society are the cure for the chronic misery of Muslim countries that has fed the rise of Islamic extremism. The death of the most notorious terrorist the world has ever seen, whose mission was to create a clash of civilizations, will allow the door to open more widely to the tolerance, modernism, and pragmatism that is so badly needed and so long awaited in a part of the world where despair, corruption, brutality, and fanaticism have laid waste to so many generations.

But beyond that, it is impossible to miss the racism at work here. This is not Vince Foster. This is not Swiftboating. This is the dude who passed health care reform as “the biggest Affirmative Action in history.” This is the whitey tape. This you are an “Indonesian welfare thug.” This is the host of “Celebrity Apprentice,” questioning the intellect of the past president of the Harvard law review. This is the scion of inherited money as populist, and the scion of a teen single-mother as elitist. This is, if you were white, you–and the black dude who came before you–wouldn’t be here. This is we don’t believe you.

In other words, this is a racism of the bone.

My ire is not so much for those who see their interests in that frame, but for Very Serious People, who see nothing in the fact that those who are sorry that country wasn’t cleaved in half by Genosha, and those who believe the first black president is a Muslim sleeper agent, are all at the same party. Who with a straight face chalk it all up to the inexplicable vagaries of the human mind, or mere chance.

My ire is for those who claim to know better, but do not.