After last year’s underwhelming headline performance from Lit – climaxing early in the night, with their 1999 could-have-been-Blink-182 single “”My Own Worst Enemy”” – Muirstock’s reputation is in a bit of a muddy quad puddle, with nowhere to go but up. Quite pleasantly, and in deserved homage to the first 4/20 landing in many, many moons (not that everyone wasn’t stoned for those in between), this year’s lineup bulges with a handful of highlights, and socks it to all lesser college’s sucky fests. So let us be merry and “”celebrate our independent spirits”” with enough helpings of kid-friendly indie pop to feed two towering dorm buildings of off-campus-starved freshmen and enough fresh NorCal nugs of talent to put us happily to sleep once the wee hours crawl in and that long-burning roach begins to sear our fingertips.
Crown City Rockers
CROWN CITY ROCKERS
As opposed to flimsy live hip-hop acts like Fallfest-crashers Gym Class Heroes, the rising Crown City Rockers know that if you’re going to opt for a live band over the infinite immortal possibilities of a beat machine, there’s got to be a pretty damn good reason. In the case of this five-piece Oakland powerhouse, it’s a right-here-right-now, it’s-goin’-down energy, paying worthy tribute to the pounding simplicity of golden-age hip-hop but expertly layering its old-school groove with rounded bass guitar, quick drumset switch-ups and scene-setting keyboards. And, never denying the power of a good sample, they’ve got Woodstock, the friendly-faced Los Angeles native, manning the MPC knobs and buttons in back.
Right at home on the Oakland streets they’ve come to command, there’s an eclectic bunch behind CCR’s surround sound. Beat composer and bass player Headnodic met Kat (the crazy Asian chick on the keyboard) and drummer Max in Boston at indie-innovation headquarters the Berklee College of Music, later meeting up with Woodstock and the true key to the group’s success: the L.A.-raised, smooth black mic-commander Raashan Ahmad. Rolling off feel-good, sun-through-the-clouds sidewalk raps with the subtly conscious, dense rhythm of heroes like Q-Tip and the guys from the Roots, Ahmad is marked by the robust energy of Gift of Gab but without any of the Blackalicious MC’s over-eager tendency to get ahead of himself.
The Dimes
With 2004 freshman LP Earthtones, CCR let none of their lovable in-the-moment expertise slip through the cracks of the recording studio floorboards. The album’s titular earthy palette is marked by lazily winding sax rivers and crashing seashores, a constant stream of paced labor and rich shovelfuls of the darkest soil (a fitting tribute to Muir College’s namesake). Perhaps best of all, these Rockers seldom take themselves too seriously, even in obligatory ego-shots: “”I wanna move to the desert, play guitar songs / Wanna move away from the city, crime and fear / But I know the world needs me here,”” Ahmad spits coolly over the humid funk of first single “”Another Day.”” Rare exceptions include one too many jammy interludes and – why, God? – the sore-thumb “”fronters, fakers, Hollywood makers”” diss “”Simple.”” But for the sheer quantity of natural gold on the 19-track masterwork, we can easily forgive a shortcoming or two. Glad to have you back down south, Bay Area brethren. Think you could you grab a sack on your way?
Boss ditties: “”Another Day,”” “”B-Boy””
PERSEPHONE’S BEES
If the second-wave Pixies trend of soft/loud jumps and sudden spurts of quirky instrument (see Fiery Furnaces, Envelopes, Danielson) should be taken any further, there’s no better vessel than the sexy Russian chops of Persephone’s Bees frontwoman Angelina Moysov, an exotic product of her mother’s classical gypsy folk and brother’s modern garage rock. The foursome’s first major-label release, 2006’s Notes From the Underworld, is a chirping garden of sweet “”Strawberry Fields”” organ and clucking-chicken guitar wails, nurturing and polishing the seeds sown by their head-turning self-produced 2001 LP City of Love.
As one of the most accessible acts in their aforementioned mini-genre, the Bees have turned a couple of corporate ad agency heads as well. Their sparsely electronic, flirty single “”City of Love”” was featured in a Cingular Razr commercial; Wal-Mart set their low-low prices to the perky piano of “”Nice Day””; and the clientele list goes on, including multiple television shows. It’s really no wonder – Underworld sees Moysov and her men on a trip around the buzzing marketplaces of the globe, with foreign touches extending far beyond her lilting Russian accent and gypsy jangle. Swinging Havana breezes and Bossa Nova horns take their stop/start jazziness to a universally lovable level – an aspect that does wash any thrill of intimacy or personal nostalgia.
Boss ditties: “”Way to Your Heart,”” “”Queen’s Night Out””
UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF GIANTS
There is a delicate balancing point between slap-happy pop and sap-crappy pop, and the four swishy-haired, sheepishly hip white men of UTIOG are under the influence of some devilish playground giants. From the opening track of their self-titled debut, every last wispy member is skyrocketed off the see-saw onto a high-hovering cloud of watery synths, department-store drumrolls and robo-lite falsetto. The air up there is thin, and their noise, however cleanly executed, feels trapped inside the sticky, suffocating atmosphere of a blown-up piece of bubblegum – a lower-budget, already-been-chewed mash of flamboyant masters like proclaimed influences Prince and the Bee Gees, ultimately falling more accurately into Maroon 5 territory. The band’s theatrical funk/soul/disco revival aspires to the success of the Scissor Sisters, the Rapture (for whose tour UTIOG opened) or Of Montreal, but lacks the dark breaks and experimental jolts to rescue us from sticky-bubble land.
However, there is no shame in writing the kind of guilty-pleasure radio hooks you can feel way down in your toes, and UTIOG are certainly hovering on the edge of a catchy breakthrough. The orchestral jump-rope of “”Mama’s Room”” put them on the MySpace frontline, and their album delivered plenty more danceable club-shakers. “”Meet me in the clouds / Let me work it out / Don’t you take it personal, personal / Don’t you like the control?”” the treated vocals of Aaron Bruno ask to a sea of rainbow ravers. Sure, Aaron – after all, who can’t dig some good ’70s costumes and light shows, especially pulsing to a soundtrack that blows the helium back into possibly the most awesomely bad decade of the century?
Well, actually, a field full of heavy-lidded college students in their 12th hour of 4/20 celebration might have some trouble. But don’t you take it personal.
Boss ditties: “”Stay Illogical,”” “”Against All Odds””
THE DIMES
Making their way down from the fresher airs of Portland, Ore., the four late-20s/early-30s regular dudes of the pop-rockin’ Dimes take a moment to talk about everything marijuana – and, of course, the Beatles. Drummer Jake does the talking.
Guardian: So Muirstock has a 4/20 theme this year.
Dimes: A 4/20 theme! What kind of operation are you runnin’ there?
G: I was wondering if you’d be comfortable with that being the theme of this interview.
D: Comfortable? Are you kidding me? I spent the better part of a decade … (trails off)
G: So do you guys ever get high before your own shows?
D: Honestly, I would have to say no to that. We’re pretty adamant about making sure everything’s tight and professional.
G: I know you guys have two shows on Friday. Are you going to let that ruin your 4/20?
D: (Laughs.) Usually it only happens when shows are done. We’re all postcollege and have gone through different phases in our lives – I know I was very much in the jam band culture for a while … I’ve been to more Phish shows than I could possibly count. That was definitely a large part of my life for a long time, but as of late it seems to be more of a rare, recreational thing.
G: What about for inspiration? Do you ever smoke before writing songs?
D: Well Johnny does all of the writing, and I would have to say that he doesn’t. However, a lot of times Johnny will bring a song to the table and every now and then, when we’re working on different parts or arrangements, sometimes it’s good to just kick back and see where things roll out.
G: Do you have any good stories?
D: Oh, man. (Laughs.) I’m just wondering how much trouble I’m gonna get in for this article.
G: The administration doesn’t exactly read our paper.
D: Well I will say that … actually, we were driving down after doing a show at Southern Oregon University, and we had to get from there to Sacramento in six hours to set up for another show. So we were driving through the mountains, and we passed by Weed, Calif. And Ryan kind of looks over at me and he’s like, “”Hey man, check it out, Weed next three exits.”” And I looked back over at him and I was like, “”Yeah, I could smoke weed for the next three exits.”” And we just started laughing. So he rolled a J, we sparked the J and ended up just kind of rolling through the whole Ashland Mountains all the way through Shasta. And it was just gorgeous, you know – beautiful and sunny and springtime, just uber-green, and he and I got all nostalgic and put on Pink Floyd. We kind of shared a cinematic moment together.
G: So is that officially your favorite blazing music?
D: It’s funny because for years and years and years I would have easily said Phish. When I first started smoking, like right out of high school, I was huge into Led Zeppelin. And obviously Pink Floyd … and Beatles, for sure. I know for certain that that’s Johnny’s favorite. We’re all huge, huge Beatles fans. A lot of times we’ll cover Beatles songs – in fact, if you got a favorite record, come to the show and just holler out, you know, “”Hey, play something from Rubber Soul!”” Or Sgt. Pepper’s, you know? And we’re usually happy to oblige.
G: Do you ever see people smoking at your shows?
D: At college shows in general, even the most liberal of schools, people are still a little timid about smoking on campus, and the other shows we do are usually in controlled club environments. I’ve never thought of our band as catering to the blaze-friendly crowd. But I will say that the times that I smoke and listen to our music – I think it’s pretty damn cool.
G: So it’s not pretty damn cool when you’re not smoking?
D: It’s just that different perspective – all of a sudden I’m like whoa, OK. You have a different perception of what’s going on and you get to hear some different interactions and stuff like that.
G: Have you tried the weed down here?
D: (Laughs.) I’ve tried it everywhere.
G: Where is it best?
D: I mean, if we’re talking about the absolute best that I’ve ever gotten, I got some from B.C. that was scary – I mean, it was that good. I’ve gotten some stuff from Humboldt County that was unbelievably good as well. In general, NorCal definitely holds its own when it comes to overall quality.
G: What about SoCal?
D: To be honest, I’ve never really gotten anything good in Southern California. But most of the time that’s because I’ve got my own – Oregon’s definitely got more than its fair share of quality grass. Eugene specifically – that’s where I went to school, at a pretty liberal hippie college.
G: All right, well come Friday, expect to see a lot of red, droopy eyes.
Boss ditties: “”Catch Me Jumping,”” “”Letters in the Sea””
