Pitchfork Music Festival

I was thrilled by a lot of the bands that played this past weekend and disappointed by a few. Here is my list of the top 5 bands I witnessed over the course of the fest.

Friday:
The Jesus Lizard

Saturday:
Plants and Animals
The National (The biggest surprise for me)

Sunday:
The Killer Whales
Japandroids

bygones

Arguably two of the best in their noisy rock genre, Nick Reinhart, guitar and vocals for Tera Melos and Zach Hill, drummer for Hella, Goon Moon, Marnie Stern, El Grupo Nuevo de Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, etc, have teamed up to make bygones. They have said that this is a band, not a one time deal, that will tour and continue to make albums. Tera Melos is still together and Zach Hill is now in the thick of another solo album (not to mention a lot of other things):

Untitled from TERROREYES.TV on Vimeo.

bygones first release, by-, will be out on August 4 (as long as they don't delay it anymore).
Listen HERE

31Knots

From one of my favorite albums of 2008

Wires On Fire

"Annie Carr" Wires on Fire from Evan Romoff on Vimeo.

Portugal The Man

One of my favorite bands of all time. New and different sounds with every release. Here are all the videos up to this point that are out for their new album The Satanic Satanist, but it seems like more are out everyday.

Portugal The Man "Everyone Is Golden" Preview from Portugal The Man on Vimeo.

Dirty Sweet

Pretty awesome video, and song. This is a song from their next album American Spiritual. They've recently been added to the Lollapalooza lineup as well.

Dirty Sweet - Marionette from Dirty Sweet on Vimeo.

See it here in HD (make sure you click HD)

BLK JKS

Here are some guys from Johannesburg, South Africa. They only have the 4 song Mystery EP released so far. I'm really enjoying the song Lakeside on their myspace.
Here is Summertime. A nearly 7 minute version performed at SXSW is on youtube.

Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks

Here's a new song, Senator, performed live


Mr. Malkmus is wearing a nice Joggers shirt also

Maps & Atlases

This band reminds me of summer, probably because I saw them twice in summer '08. They are pretty great live and have a fun sound comparable to Vampire Weekend. I haven't seen Vampire Weekend live yet (Lollapalooza '09 will fix that), but I think Maps & Atlases (myspace) are more exciting.

Maps and Atlases - Pigeon from If You Make It on Vimeo.

Porcupine Tree

Although they've been around for awhile, Porcupine Tree's sound is ever changing. It is definitely atop my list of must have music.

Young Widows

It seems I prefer videos over long-winded descriptions


Old Skin - Young Widows from J.J. Johnstone on Vimeo.

Spinnerette

Spinnerette's newest video. CD comes out in June

Abe Vigoda

Abe Vigoda - Skeleton from Weston Currie on Vimeo.


Abe Vigoda - Bear Face from elephant parade. on Vimeo.

O! The Joy, O Lucky Man!, The Plastic Constellations, and The Reptilian

Band O! The Joy is from Sacramento. I completely enjoyed their album Zen Mode, which came out nearly a year ago. This is definitely a band I am looking forward to hearing more from. Songs and a little info are here.
O Lucky Man! is also from California. They create a lot of sound with just a two member band. Their website simply explains of a new record, but I don't know how long that has been there.
The Plastic Constellations had their "last show" on April 19, 2008. The band is from Minneapolis and have four albums from 2002-2008. I recommend 2004's Mazatlan as a starting point.

The Reptilian have released two EP's so far. I am still working on hearing one, but Boys' Life was released March 3rd, 2009. It is pretty fantastic in my opinion. Both EP's are available on iTunes.