The Post-Rockist

The Shins - “Gone for Good”
(from Chutes Too Narrow)

As with all these sorts of things, I saw it coming, but it still came out of nowhere. It was like a basketball to the face; of course you see it coming, but you can’t move out of its path, and you don’t really believe it’s going to hit you until you hear it collide with your skull.

It wasn’t one of those “big” breakups. We’d only been together for a couple of months – enough time to get to know each other, but not enough time to understand the mechanics, which I think makes things worse – when you don’t know why things happen the way they do in a relationship, when you’re not sure what made those formidable bridges of expectation fall to bricks all around you.

Jens Lekman - “A Little Lost”

Appropriately for a post-rockist romance, we met at a Jens Lekman concert, where the starry disco lights, swelling ballads and the sweet Swedish crooner’s honey tones set just the right mood for a swoon. Then we found out that we knew each other already; I’d commissioned him to do an illustration for my magazine months ago, and we had exchanged a lot of pleasantly-mannered and modestly flirtatious emails. If every great love needs a great story to hold it together, this one, I thought, was clearly meant to be. How could an encounter so enchanted not lead to a legendary affair?

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This video is absolutely fantastic on so many levels. But first, before you click ‘Play,’ let me give you a preview of the awesomeness you’re about to experience: the 1970 incarnation of the Flying Burrito Brothers (consisting of three ex-Byrds, one future Eagle, and “Sneaky” Pete Kleinow on pedal steel) prancing around on a boat, lip-synching “Older Guys” for some poorly scripted television program I’ve never heard of before.

Now, if you’re anything like me and your mix of 2008 summer jams consists mostly of 38-year-old country rock singles, then your heart’s already beating a little faster. But hold on to your wild horses, kiddos, because it only gets better. The obvious focal thrust of the video is Gram Parsons, hamming it up for the camera and displaying the sort of affectations you would expect from a man who was born to a wealthy Florida citrus magnate and grew up to spend too much time indulging in the company of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. But the image that will forever etch itself into your mind is that of Bernie Leadon popping out of the hatch to sing back-up in all his unibrowed glory. Wow.

As a pre-MTV music video, the awkwardness of what to do in front of the camera is clearly evident. What do we do during the guitar solo? Hold your instruments close together and smile! Because if there’s anything more rock & roll than a boatful of foppish country dandies waving their hats about and exchanging boyish smirks, then I don’t want to see it.

Okay, enough of my yakking, just watch the clip. It’s a great song.

^{Mason Proper’s Jonathan Visger}

We’ve been bad bloggers this week.

The Rock City Festival night about which we have just posted took place over seven days ago. It was awesome, an entire day of music beginning at 1:00pm at the Contemporary Arts Institute of Detroit (the now somewhat infamous CAID, as of late) and ending at the Majestic complex at 2am after the last act had taken the stage. Subtract roughly an hour break between the last act at the CAID (interrupted, ahem, by the cops) and the first at the Majestic, and you have approximately 12 hours of live music in one day! Detour, I salute you.

But of course, the opportunity for 12 hours of music on Saturday meant little time for blogging about the approximately 6 hours of music from Friday night, and so began a chain of events over the week that prevented the punctual posting of this blog. One of these events was the marriage of one Whalebomb, who was still gracious enough to contribute to this blog even with the partaking of that most sacred bond at hand. Congrats Mr. and Mrs. Whalebomb on yer marriage.

But now, without the further mention of news most of you don’t care about, is our review of Saturday of Rock City.
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^Pas/Cal

So finally, nearly a week after the fact, we give you day 2 of Rock City Fest, as experienced by Whalebomb and myself. Here’s what happened: On Monday I saw Al Gore endorse Barack Obama at Joe Louis Arena. Pretty cool. Tuesday, I was lazy. Sorry. So this post was all ready to go this morning when I found that Photobucket had been hacked (we really need to move beyond the novice stage of blogdom). And now with Photobucket back online, I found that some of the review has mysteriously disappeared. Damn it, Fortuna! Don’t you want me to laud Detroit’s best and brightest?!

Anyway, here’s the low-down on Rock City Fest, Day 2.
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…to come. Sorry folks, I write, download, upload, code and publish slowly. However, if you want to know what went down, check Webvomit and Five-Three Dialtone. I’ll be up in the next day or two. Today’s Dad’s day (gotta put in some time) and tomorrow I’m going to see Barack Obama at Joe Louis Arena, where he will official choose The Post-Rockist as Vice President.

^Javelins

What a great night! The first eve of three eves of the Rock City Fest in Detroit City, and I, Scotter, and the Whalebomb, who joined me to cover Blowout, will be reporting on stuff that people report on when they go to a music fest. Whalebomb is getting married soon, so the Rock City Festival is his last major music fest as a bachelor. Things will never be the same for him at future music fests. For example, he’ll probably have trouble getting from venue to venue once that big diamond ring is placed upon his petite finger–it’ll weigh him down just enough to miss a few seconds of an act, whereas before he might have seen and enjoyed those three extra seconds of the show. Actually, that’s probably the only thing that will actually change. Still, it’ll never be the same again!

Whalebomb: There’s just something about looking at the menu of a festival and thinking to yourself, “Crap, it’s the same stuff I’ve been seeing for the past couple festivals,” but then getting there and going, “Oh, no, there’s tons of new stuff I thought I saw, but never have.” The problem with festivals is that you look at the names of the bands and think you’ve seen them, but you’ve really only seen the names. So yeah, the menu is the same, just order something different.
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From our infancy, The Post-Rockist has loved music festivals (see post numero uno) and the Rock City Festival in Detroit, June 12-14, shall also be loved by us, particularly in proportion to the amount with which it rocks (or pops, or sizzles, or jives).

If you’re from Detroit, you already know the information that follows–you can skip ahead to the next paragraph now. If you’re from the outlying areas of the Motor City, or if this is your first time ever on the internet, read on. Rock City is a summer music festival put on by the good folks at Detour Magazine, an e-rag based in Detroit but reaching for a national audience. A combination of national and local acts make up the bill–3 nights of non-stop music at the Majestic Theatre complex in Detroit and even a Saturday Bar-b-q at the Contemporary Arts Institute of Detroit. You should probably come.
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