Desdemona Day 1 - What Are We Doing Here?
Posted by Todd
Friday, June 23, 2006 - The Post-Rockist, on its first official assignment, approached the Desdemona Festival with no heady preconceptions. Nestled on the banks of the Ohio River in Sawyer Point, Cincinnati, the Desdemona Festival was flanked by yellow and purple bridges, triangular blue flags, and curious patches of dead air. A few seemingly lost individuals sat idly picking grass, while small collectives of people were gathering near the woxy.com tent (”The Future of Rock and Roll”) or the Budweiser kiosk (”The King of Beers”) to purchase warm, plastic bottles of beer. There was a sense of aimless confusion as I first stumbled upon the park grounds - Was it going to rain? Would people show up? Does the Queen City have any shot at becoming an important landmark in the Indie Rock universe? Where was the music? It was unsettlingly quiet for a music festival that was supposed to have started over an hour earlier. There were rumors that music could be found to the east at the Schott Amphitheater, but when I arrived all I found was Cincinnati’s The High & Low sound checking. Since The Sundresses dropped out, the Stage 3 schedule was all pushed back. Rhythm-hungry fans sat and even nodded their heads at this musical teaser. Disappointed, I walked silently back along a cement path that chronicled the history of the Ohio River Valley going back over 460 million years. The orange plastic palm trees at the Hooters over on the Kentucky border winked suggestively at me. 
It wasn’t until Margot & The Nuclear So and So’s exploded onto center stage like a joyous bunker buster that things began to feel like a real festival. The eight members of the So & So’s spouted forth spirited, cinematic pop songs that almost sounded too big for the empty space around them. Richard Edwards led the band through a short, romping set filled with colorful choruses that began to reassure the few devoted concert-goers that this festival might be something spectacular after all. Returning to Stage 3, The High & Low were prepared to knock out a series of D- and G-chord dirges. Over time, however, their formula of dope drowsy guitars, restrained PJ Harvey vocals, and padded Mo Tucker drums started to blend together in a hazy, indistinguishable codeine fog.
Seeking fresh air, I headed over to Stage 2 where New York’s Northern State cheekily traded old skool barbs and rhymes, with all the confidence and gusto of a group of close friends in a high school talent competition. The set was energetic and mildly amusing, but The Post-Rockist was seeking something meatier. That meat came in the form of apples: The Apples in Stereo. Fresh from the studio recording their sixth full length album, Rob Schneider and co. kicked out a series of stripped down, rock & roll versions of their paisley classics. Sounding more like a psychedelic power pop group than as the adventurous magical mystery troubadours of yore, the Apples only turned on the lysergic for a reverb-drenched and epic rendition of “Strawberryfire” toward the end of their set. To see their performance of “Ruby” at Desdemona, click here. 
As the day wore on, playful melodies were bandied about, but no real climax was ever reached. When the sun went down, however, the mood changed entirely. Hordes of people with one day passes and grimacing sneers and chiseled shoulders stormed the central park. Make no mistake, we were all there to see Ghostface Killah: many of the lily white indie rockers were there for the sheer ironic pleasure of witnessing an aging hip-hop icon, while a noticeable presence was there because their lives had somehow been significantly touched by the Shaolin. The Post-Rockist was there for entirely professional purposes, of course. Tony Starks’ emcees/PR rappers held the crowd in torturous anticipation of the main act, only breaking the spell occasionally to remind us that “Fishscale is in stores now,” causing viewers to wonder whether they were about to witness a concert or an infomercial. Two songs into the set and the Ironman finally makes his appearance, roaring triumphantly to the soul samples of “The Champ,” and donning a tee shirt bearing his own likeness. Ghostface, always one of the more innocuous and overshadowed members of Staten Island’s Wu-Tang Clan, has dedicated much of the past decade to proving himself as an unbeatable solo act; tonight being no exception. He took it upon himself to connect the masses to a high-speed and uninterrupted access to the true WWW of Shaolin wisdom: Weed, Women, and the Wu.
“Where my weed smokers at?” asked one of the emcees. Well, apparently everywhere, as this guileless reporter soon found out; the pungent haze soon made it difficult to see all the W’s people were tossing up with their fists. Ghostface seemed to have a hundred heads at once as he stomped and swooped and swayed all over the Procter & Gamble stage, spitting more visionary detail into a single verse than most rock artists care to attempt over the course of an album. But as much as the Fishscale record lends great attention to the process of cooking commercial cocaine or hiding from the Feds in your girlfriend’s closet; Dennis Coles is not without a sentimental side. Halfway through the event, he asked the audience to pause to reflect on his recently departed compadre, O’ Dirty Bastard, a.k.a. Big Baby Jesus, which was followed promptly by a medley of “Shimmy Shimmy Ya” and “C.R.E.A.M.” As the show came to a close, he wanted to discuss his true love - the lovely women with us this evening. Breaking down the fourth wall between performer and audience, he invited a veritable bevy of ladies young and old to join his crew on stage, where he started to serenade the women with a touching rap about their posteriors and their privates. A sentimental rendition of the tune “Back Like That” soon followed. The crowd, drunk on excitement and perhaps something else, stumbled home shortly thereafter, with high expectations for the performances to follow. 
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