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Pitchfork Music Festival: Saturday

While I’m sad to see it go, Pitchfork Music Festival was without a doubt one of my favorite music festival experiences of all time.  There wasn’t a band all weekend that I was disappointed by, and I was blown away by multiple bands I hadn’t heard before. With a forecast filled with rain and thunderstorms almost all weekend, somehow the rain held off for almost the entire weekend, making it near perfect. Basically, for the next year, you’ll find me in my room listening to Broken Social Scene counting down the days until next year’s festival. Saturday featured performances by Brian Wilson, Anderson Paak. And the Free Nationals, Martin Courtney, and many more.  Check out some of the photos below, and if you want to see more than just 4 or 5 shots of each band, click HERE for a full gallery. Circuit Des Yeux Girl Band Royal Headache Jenny Hval Savages Martin[...]

Five Most Anticipated Acts of Pitchfork Festival: Saturday

Last year was my first ever Pitchfork Festival experience, and let me tell you, it’s something I’ll never forget.  The bands, the food, the city, and just the overall vibe of the festival, all come together to make one of my favorite music festivals – period.  The Chicago-based music festival boasts phenomenal lineups year after year, and 2016’s lineup is no different. As part of buffaBLOG’s coverage leading up to the festival this weekend, I will be highlighting my five most anticipated acts of each day of the festival.  You can check out last years photos here, here, and here. Royal Headache @ Blue Stage (2:45pm) This band is easily one of my most anticipated of the entire festival.  The punk / garage rock act from Australia released a new record in 2015, titled High which topped my top the list of my favorite albums last year. The band seems to[...]

Column 32: Brian Wilson’s Survival and Love & Mercy

Simply put, Love & Mercy,  Bill Pohlad’s loving tribute to the genius and struggles of Brian Wilson, is an effecting film and a rousing victory. Featuring two different actors in the role and chronicling the former Beach Boys mastermind’s life at two crucial junctures in his life: – his creative apex and fall during the mid and late 60’s (Paul Dano) and his lowest point in the 80’s (John Cusack) in the thrall of scumbag and now discredited doctor Eugene Landy – Love & Mercy is also a film about tremendous heroism. Not just Wilson’s artistic heroism after he stopped touring with the Beach Boys to stay home to create masterpieces and battle mental health issues, but also the heroism of Brian’s future wife Melinda (Elizabeth Banks) who’d eventually save him from Landy, and get him back out into the world where he is now. In terms of cinematic virtue, Love[...]

Various Artists – “God Only Knows”

Yesterday, the BBC released the video for their tribute to The Beach Boys legendary 1966 single “God Only Knows” featuring Brian Wilson and a tremendous all star cast of musicians, and it is beyond sublime. The Pet Sounds classic and “teenage symphony to God” got the deluxe treatment to raise money for the BBC’s Children In Need charity telethon, assembling a preposterous galaxy of talent to join Brian on the single: Elton John, Stevie Wonder, Dave Grohl, Brian May, Chrissie Hynde, Kylie Minogue, Chris Martin, Lorde, Florence Welch, Pharrell, Sam Smith, Emile Sande, Paloma Faith and a variety of other UK talent plus the BBC Orchestra and the Tees Valley Youth Choir. The brilliantly surreal video also features cameos by such BBC music luminaries as Jools Holland, Zane Lowe, and Lauren Laverne, and in true Brian Wilson (and Phil Spector) fashion, it still clocks in under 3 minutes. Only the BBC and[...]