hardcore happy

I was really blown away by the Vic Chesnutt show we had here at The Cedar last night. Similar to seeing Mount Eerie at The Bedlam not long ago, the evening was a collection of soft, staggeringly-intimate moments, and rib-cage-rattling power. Before Mount Eerie, I was scoffed at when I mentioned forgetting my ear plugs. I was sorry I had. I didn't forget them last night.

A coworker asked me to describe what the Vic Chesnutt show was going to be like. Our conversation went like this:

"Does he play guitar?"

"Yes. There is a clip on the video screen in the lobby."

"So, it's folky? Kinda quiet?"

"Yes. But he is playing with members of A Silver Mt. Zion and Godspeed! Both of which are post-rocky bands. So overall, it sounds much louder and more...epic."

"So, it's right up your alley, then?"

I think I just responded with a shrug and a smile. This conversation happened only a few days after a friend said "cute" in response to the fact that I liked to attend hardcore shows in high school. Cute? Puh-lease.

***

One of my friends that lives in Brazil visited about a month and a half ago. We sent her home with a Forro in the Dark record, that she already was adoring. Wish I could have sent a copy of Céu's new record, Vagarosa, with her as well. Really getting into that record again.

***

And speaking of music I've gotten really excited about, Nomo will be at The Cedar tonight. Yep, you read that correctly. The band I've been all in a tizzy about for months and months is going to grace my favorite stage. SO EXCITED. And I'm not the only one. At least two other coworkers told me they were glad I gave them the heads up on this one. Sort of wish I could have the night off to enjoy their set (as well as that of locals The Brass Messengers, who might be the most fun band in the Twin Cities) but, if I had the night off I'd be torn about not heading over to The Acadia to catch "Wake Up." This event is sponsored by the U of M's campus mag, The Wake and it sounds like it is going to be pretty wild from start to finish, including a performance by Dance Band, three comedians, and an acoustic version of local favorites Zombie Season. They'll also be adding cello, banjo, french lyrics, and some guest performers. And that isn't the half of it. More information at www.wakemag.org.

Another weekend where the West Bank is the place to be. See you there!

Beginnings

Last week, on consecutive days, a friend and a movie reviewer I follow both brought up the same subject independently of each other: Steve Forbert's 1979 debut album, 'Alive on Arrival.' Here is a little something from that classic:


In his blog, the reviewer used the Forbert album as a springboard for a thread that I swiped and revised for Facebook purposes. The premise: What are the five all-time best debut albums?

To elaborate: Who came out of seemingly nowhere fully-formed with a knockout debut album? (This is intended to weed out acts that gained fame in prior incarnations, e.g. Crosby Stills & Nash). The game does allow a certain leeway for artists who released singles and/or EPs prior to the album. Also, it seems worthwhile to allow extra credit for 'game-changers;' i.e. debut albums that were also signposts to the future.

Here are my five:

1. Nick Drake -- 'Five Leaves Left'
2. Jimi Hendrix Experience -- 'Are You Experienced?'
3. The Jesus and Mary Chain -- 'Psychocandy'
4. REM -- 'Murmur'
5. Massive Attack -- 'Blue Lines'

What are yours?

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Recently the Cedar blog has witnessed a bit of intramural scrimmaging over Steve Jobs, iTunes, and their position and importance in the modern-day music business. Click on the following for the initial thrust and parry.

To Mr. Figurehead's rebuttal, a few rejoinders:

1) The name is Fever, not Fevers. No wonder your staff complains incessantly to me about you.

2) Yes, the Jobs-bashing in my initial tease was a bit gratuitous; call it a ratings-booster. Truth be told, if the new liver hadn't taken hold I would have volunteered to eulogize the guy for the development of the iPod, the single greatest gizmo of my lifetime. However, such genius no more makes him a music-selling expert than designing the Technics SL-1200 made Matsushita a gifted LP seller.

Frankly, I'm surprised MF didn't PhotoShop a halo over Jobs' head in the romantically-lit picture he posted.

OK, enough sniping. Let's get a bit more substantive.

3) Community is the single biggest driver of music interest and exploration these days. Everything has returned to the grassroots: recommendations among friends and trusted voices. I agree: Tower 'evolved' into a real-estate pusher at the expense of editorial-based selling. My point is that the iTunes store looks just like that to me.

4) I never look at Amazon-generated recommendations. However, were MF to look at the product detail page for any given music release, he would find gold in the 'So You'd Like To...' and (especially) 'Listmania' features. Thousands and thousands of customers have posted (usually themed) lists of favorite albums. When there is a 'hit' (meaning that the title being researched turns up on a customer-generated 'Listmania' post), that list is made available for viewing. And if on that list there are some other titles I am particularly fond of, that poster becomes a trusted voice and I will want to look into the other stuff she has recommended. For that feature alone (on top of the endless user reviews and discussion threads), Amazon is the best community-based music-exploration site on the web.

5) The iTunes 69-cent price point was a public-relations ploy, as Jobs knew it would be. By citing the bold new three-tiered pricing system, iTunes managed to engineer a price increase while making it seem that pricing was remaining essentially flat.

69 cents was doomed to failure. Too many label bean-counters would want to know where the increased volume was going to come from to make up for the lost revenue. 69 cents or 99 cents or $1.29 mean little to the convenience shopper. 69 cents is not a driver.

6) Yes, the 'dog ate my music' argument has the flaw MF brings up...anyone who rips their CDs and then discards them without backing up their digital files is asking for heartbreak. Disk-drive failure is as much a certainty as a devastating California earthquake: who knows where or when? But the point is still valid: in the current music-commerce environment, 50,000 tracks will not fetch $50,000. Nor should they. And this brings us to the lucky number

7) Mr. Figurehead's most interesting line was this: 'I do also subscribe to eMusic, although I have to say that while it's a great deal for the music consumer in me, it's such an awful deal for me as a record label that I won't go near it!'

Exactly. While we both have backgrounds in the music business and have witnessed the past decade's carnage up-close and personal, MF is a content-owner and I am not. Hence our difference of opinion: he has a rooting interest in the iTunes model while I don't have a horse in the race. I do, however, have a certain fascination for the sport. Here is what I see:

The industry is headed for a service model. For instance: mobile carriers are service providers who sell buckets of minutes. Cable companies sell buckets of TV channels. Successful music-sellers of the future will sell buckets of songs. Some form of subscription model is the ultimate answer...variations on the Rhapsody or eMusic approaches, perhaps. The idea is to extract as much money from music customers as possible in the hopes that they won't use their full allotment and won't be tempted by piracy.

To my mind, all-you-can-eat for free with ads is a bridge too far. A-dollar-a-track pricing is a niche market. The answer is somewhere in between. In the buckets.

To the extent that a Dexter like me can empathize, I do understand why MF would hold out. Certain specialty content-holders will attempt to create mini-universes for themselves. To them, iTunes is a lot closer to what they wish were true. Alas, it is ever-more a fantasy.

**********

In this household, Scott Walker is a divisive figure...and other artists with a similar, um, theatricality can be tarred as well. One such is The Divine Comedy. Their album 'Absent Friends' is a staple around here...when I'm on my own with my scented candles and bubble bath, that is. Anyway, a friend sent along a link to the following video, a lovely cover of one of the best songs from that album, and a version that provokes no squabbling around here:


**********

In honor of the Big Event next Thursday, we can all give thanks that there will be no Veronica Fever posting that day. Seeeee yooooou....in Decemmmmberrrrr.....

Some Love for the Opening Act

One of my favorite parts of being "backstage" helping to produce a big show is watching the audience react to the opener. There's just something about watching somebody win the crowd over that gets me every time. The way the Dirty Projector's fans gobbled up Tuneyards' set last week reminded me of this. By the second or third song they were right there with Merrill, whooping and yelling along as she hit a big crescendo. I think she sold most of her groovy vinyl by the end of the night, too. Hey, don't forget to mail us one for the Cedar green room, Merrill!

Reminds me of the last time we had Ani DiFranco at the State Theater downtown. The Cedar got Dessa from the Doomtree Collective to open. Ani's fans...well, you know how they are. They just like Ani. So it was quite great to see a couple thousand go from gabbing and playing with their phones to "Wow! She's really cool! What's her name again?" in the space of three tunes of Dessa's quietly fierce rapping. Catch Dessa and others of the Doomtree crew at their Blowout at First Avenue December 5.

Then there's Sunday nights opener, local (she's my neighbor!) gal Chastity Brown. After her set, Chastity confessed to the Angel of Rock and I how honored and thrilled she was to play a show at the Cedar. She also said she could hardly believe she was in the green room with Toshi Reagan, an artist she's admired for years. She was so sincere and genuine. AOR and I just kinda looked at each other and said "Wow. We really take the Cedar for granted, don't we?" Thanks for the reminder of what a special place we have here, Chastity, and hope to see you on the stage again soon. Maybe for that cd release you're doing next spring?

* * * * * * *

Cedar faves the Carolina Chocolate Drops are putting the finishing touches on their new record, their first for the Nonesuch label. When I heard it was to be called Genuine Negro Jig, I got pretty excited, because that means I will soon be able to hear the eerie and wonderful "Snowden's Jig" whenever I want to! I wrote a big ol' post about the fascinating and controversial history of this tune. In a nutshell the tune was probably swiped by Daniel Emmett, "author" of "Dixie", from his African American musician neighbors, the Snowden Family. (Even the Wiki entry mentions the Snowden theory now!) Emmitt called it "Genuine Negro Jig." Read the post for the details. It's a sassy political act in a couple of ways to name their new disc as they did, and I wouldn't expect any less from the 'Drops. Reclaim that history! U.S. release date in late February. Touring before and after the release date; not coming to town this round. (Hey now, they were just here in May...We can wait our turn.)

* * * * * * *

Lookit the fur fly!! Did you see my fellow bloggers Miss Fever and Mr. Figurehead square off last week on Bill Gates, I Tunes pricing and related topics? Thought provoking points are made on both sides, so be sure to give it a read, but whoa! Meow!

A Stevie 99 Rebuttal

I took me a while to figure out what that high-pitched noise was which started at 1:43 this past Thursday afternoon. Turns out it was the whining of Ms. Veronica Fevers with her latest blog posting, trying to support her previous provocative claim that "Mr. (Steve) Jobs has been wrong from the get-go and has been doing a disservice to the industry and the music lover for years."
Actually, there's not much in the new post to support the "wrong from the get-go" claim, and while there are actually some valid criticisms on places where the iTunes/iPod model falls short, I'm going to dispense of that previous claim right now... If nothing else, Steve Jobs needs to be thanked for rather dramatically proving to the completely clue-less titans of the music industry that a pay-for-download model was not only something that could work, but if designed simply and elegantly enough, is something folks would actively flock to. It's easy to forget that before iTunes, this was generally dismissed as a workable model. Now whether that alone qualifies him to be crowned "savior for the music business," something Veronica admits to be looking for, I cannot answer. But clearly that was the first big step, and he was right.

Veronica categorizes her two main complaints as the lack of community and absence of innovation. I, for one, think the best commerce model tends to be incompatible with the kind of community to which Veronica aspires. With music retail, it always goes back to re-creating the corner record store, where there was at least one clerk who knew your musical preferences, and could recommend new things or gently push you in new directions knowing your proclivities were more likely to respond positively. Ms. Veronica, being a former member of the Tower Records empire, remembers fondly the rather brief period where this kind of thing was de rigueur (pardon my French, literally) at individual Tower stores.

But what happened at Tower should be the cautionary tale of mixing commerce and this form of "community," and I'm not talking about its bankruptcy and financial collapse, although this may well have been one of its first mis-steps toward that end. What happened is that the concept of personal recommendation became seen as an opportunity for another revenue-generating profit center. Each slot on that main wall of recommended new releases, once a source of great debate and pride among the individual store's staff members, became something that was sold to the highest record company bidders on a national level, and became an important "profit center" for Tower corporate.

The same thing happens at Amazon (and every other national music retailer, to my knowledge). If you believe that the "other customers who purchased this title also bought these" recommendation system is based on some pure mathematical algorithm from their purchase history database, consider yourself a newly enlightened chump. As a record label, I can pay money right now to have someone buying a Beyoncé album be recommended, say, a Garmarna record.

So I would argue that the community part is best left to disinterested third party bloggers and recommendation sites (who will still, inevitably, get a kickback from iTunes (or whomever) for the link). Frankly, I would always be skeptical about any recommendation system, but especially those generated directly by any major retailer.

As for the innovation issues, here is where Ms. Veronica finally lands a few punches. But she seems to be unaware that iTunes began offering a lower price-point, 69 cents, at the same time that it started offering the higher price point of $1.29. So far, the lower price point has hardly been utilized by the record companies or the artists that have direct deals with iTunes (of which there are more and more). It is, after all their decision to set the price point, not that of iTunes (albeit at those three limited choices). So a good amount of the innovation blame goes to those putting these things into the iTunes store in the first place.

As for the flood scenario (what would you do if you lost all of your iTunes music in a flood?), here's where Veronica actually builds a stronger case for the value of the 99 cent download. For the first time in history, Veronica's entire music collection, all 49,577 tracks, can now be copied endlessly onto storage devices, each the size of a pack of smokes. It's pretty much common sense now for anyone with a large data music collection to maintain at least one backup volume, and if you want to protect yourself from fire or flood, it's pretty easy to have one of those backups be a portable drive that you keep off-premises. Need I remind you that this was never an option with LPs, tapes and CDs?

Considering this ease of portability of digital files (which also enables you, theoretically, and also for the first time, to maintain an endlessly playable, near-perfect copy for all eternity), I would say that ever since the record companies allowed iTunes to be rid of DRM restrictions, and to upgrade to 256k, 99 cents per track and $9.99 per album actually represents enormous value. And I think I need to remind Veronica that before the $9.99 iTunes model came along, the selling price of most reasonable new-release 10-track CDs which were "produced, manufactured, packaged, shelved, shipped, received, shelved again," as she accurately put it, was more like $15, or about 50% more.

Now, don't get me wrong. I don't see Steve Jobs or iTunes as the panacea or savior of the music industry. I do also subscribe to emusic, although I have to say that while it's a great deal for the music consumer in me, it's such an awful deal for me as a record label that I won't go near it! There is plenty of room for improvement, further innovation, and better execution at iTunes and elsewhere. But it has unarguably altered the landscape of music retail for the better, and as a music consumer, I for one am grateful.

* * *


To leave on a more musical note, it's going to be difficult to top last Wednesday's packed Dirty Projectors show. Here's a recent live clip with a taste of the amazing things they do:

It's contagious

Though my classmates are disappearing, and hand sanitizer dispensers are sprouting from the walls, I'm not talking about H1N1 or seasonal flu.

But rather music exchange: The mix tape, the mix CD, the flash drive filled with hand-selected tracks.

It's contagious in more ways than you think. Someone gives you a mix tape, and you are compelled to return the favor. A coworker overhears the exchange: "Well, if you made a mix for so-and-so, I want one too." But lately, I've found a third route. When in mix making mode, I tend to be more aware of what I am listening to. I tend to ask "What are you playing now?" more often. Frequently, this is rewarded with a response like, "WHAT? You've never heard this Brian Eno record? You don't know the old Raveonettes material? You've never heard a singing saw? I can't believe it! I will make you a mix tape."

Through a surprising number of conversations like this, I am now responsible for making four CDs (This includes one for Ms. Veronica Fever, whose is embarrassingly overdue. I get a break from school soon, and will hopefully have a little more time for music).

That's all for now. This is one bug I hope you do get.

Stevie 99 Part Two

The following is based on the opinions of one Veronica Fever, and is not necessarily representative of those of any Cedar staff members or, in fact, anyone else I know.

It is hard being an idealist.

If you are one, you know: your candidate wins, so you expect the promised change you can believe in. You fall in love and you're sure this time your heart won't end up squoze in a vise. For me, it's continually believing there will yet be a savior for the music business. At least I'm clear-eyed enough to see it will never be Steve Jobs.

As a music-store operator, Jobs is a dandy iPod and Mac designer and marketer. The iTunes store is surely one of the most overrated sites on the web. Yes, it is a 'success story' of sorts, but only as a seller to people who pretty much know what they want going in. The site itself is cluttered and lifeless, and it lacks two major components in what should be expected from a leader who would help the industry claw out of its pit: community and innovation.

Community. Where are the peers, the tastemakers, the music-lover next door? Where is the incentive to explore? Where are the recommendations you want to follow, the opinions you want to believe? OK, fair enough: the entire web is chockablock with all that, and iTunes is a point of destination. Tower Records filled that role ten years ago. Where are they now?

This isn't talked about a lot, but the digital music commerce growth curve is slowing, and it ain't because the business is mature. Two-thirds of people who buy music still buy CDs exclusively, only fewer of them. Where is the incentive for those people to get in to the game? After the hurdles of ripping all their CDs and mastering their vexing playback gizmos, then what? Paying 99 cents or $1.29 for tracks condensed to a fraction of their original (already condensed) file-size?

(Time for a shred of fairness here. While I see the price as too high, the major labels see it as too low. In the cases of big-name artists, neither is Apple's fault. Pricing innovation won't come without revisiting some of the fixed costs attached to getting a song to market. I would only suggest that if a 10-track CD could be produced, manufactured, packaged, shelved, shipped, received, shelved again, and sold for $10, surely there is some cost wiggle-room with unpackaged binary data.)

(Hard to stay on the rails here; please bear with. Can my ears detect the difference between a CD WAV (or lossless) file and a 320 rip? Not readily, no. Can I tell between 320 and 192? You bet. It's all to do with ambient space. That's a big deal for some, and a psychological factor for others. If we allow that 192 has been a sweet spot between sound quality and player storage capacity, let's also allow that 192 is an inferior product to a WAV file.)

This brings us lurching to the second point: innovation. At the time, uniform per-track pricing seemed novel when Steve Jobs insisted on this concession from distribution and label mavens who fought the idea hammer and tongs. And as much as I wanted to disagree with many of these boobs masquerading as trading partners, they seemed to have a point. The internet was a gigantic petri dish for experiments in retail...why not try anything and everything? My belief, which admittedly morphed quite a bit over time, was that individual song pricing could be based on a number of factors, e.g. fixed costs, popularity, and bandwidth usage. For instance, 'Hey Jude' ripped to 320 would naturally retail for much more than, say, 'Wild Honey Pie' at 128. Also, you could blend in subjective pricing factors such as essentially giving away baby band tracks to start and then adjusting according to popularity.

Yes, all of that would have been a real chore to implement and administer in the beginning, but what about now? Where is the innovation? We're seeing some of that elsewhere...but not in the iTunes store. They would seem to have little reason for such effort, because they're the runaway leader who benefits from masterful integration with the deservedly popular iPod. So. Apple has no incentive to innovate and acts accordingly.

99 cents or $1.29. For what, again? A condensed slice of ephemera? Yeah, that's fine here and there. Say you're sitting in a Starbucks and you're talking with friends about the TV show 'Lie To Me.' Someone says they like the opening credits theme song, so you do a Google, find out it's 'Brand New Day' by Ryan Star, hop onto iTunes, purchase, and bam, you're all listening to it. Very cool.

But take a longer view. If you lost your entire music collection in the same flood that took Toad's ID, what would you do? If you're me and you lost all 49,577 tracks, you won't be spending fifty large at iTunes to replace 'em all with inferior rips and with no incentives to buy big.

See, that's the thing. Where are the pricing models that encourage exploration and bulk buying? In the world I imagine, I could go somewhere and commit to buying, say, Steve Earle's entire oeuvre for, I dunno, sixty bucks. Or a whole 'if you like' 50-track playlist for twenty. How about a Costco model: Pay a membership fee and then buy in bulk the music available from participating artists and labels. And let's not forget the sliding pricing scale. OK, so supply-and-demand doesn't exist in the digital world, but artist development still does. Get artists out there at 20 cents a track and adjust upwards if the grassroots catch fire. And, of course, there is always the all-you-can-eat on-demand music buffet. The subscription model is still in play; apparently Spotify is meeting with resistance in procuring content for its free, ad-driven on-demand service, and MySpace is looking at moving to a pay model from its (currently) free streaming service.

Oh, and why isn't Apple offering an on-demand service? Presumably because they fear cannibalization of its own prematurely peaking music sales. But also because Mr. Jobs claims that people want to own music, not rent it.

Actually, most folks believe that, and it's a reason why the movie studios will still have sources of reliable revenue for longer than the music industry did: people are cool with not owning the movies they stream because they're used to the rental model. Music admittedly does have a higher hurdle there. But all revenue streams must be considered, even if that means hammering away at music-lovers' traditional expectations of ownership. Piracy is rampant, and all too available: do it once and it's real easy to do it again. The industry must combat it in two ways: keep swinging the Whac-a-Mole mallet, while figuring out how to compete with free.

Me? 99 cents or $1.29 per track is a last resort, and if I deploy it I'll do it at Amazon, where one can be immersed in community if desired, find that all available tracks are ripped to 256kb and on sale for 99 cents, and have their purchased tracks passed through a downloader that adds 'em to their iTunes library automatically.

But before I even go there, I'll check out eMusic (wide array of indie-label tracks that average out to about 40 cents per, depending on the package a subscriber chooses), Amie Street (much smaller indie retailer...limited selection but with pricing based on the afore-mentioned popularity sliding scale), or I'll see if the desired music is available on a $3 used Amazon Marketplace CD, which I can then rip and resell.

99 cents or $1.29 is a convenience price, and the iTunes store is a giant, virtual, music 7-11. Convenience is a compelling motivator for the shopper on the go. But it ain't enough to fuel digital music sales growth that is unaccountably sputtering.

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As an au courant music critic of the highest order, I like to keep up with what the kids are into. The following is gonna be a big hit, I can tell:

Among the Heathens

DJ Blanche and I journeyed over the river and through the woods to a metal festival the other night, mostly to see Swiss "pagan-metal" band Eluveitie, but partly just to check out the scene. "I'll be the one in the black t-shirt," she quipped as we made arrangements to get ourselves over to Heathenfest in St. Paul.

So, yes, I was throwing the horns and jumping up and down with all the youngsters for a while there, but I just have to say, (for about the millionth time) we are so spoiled by the Cedar's sound system. I don't know if the poor guy over at Station 4 had ever worked with instruments beyond the holy trinity of bass/guitar/drums or not, but the mix was so far down in the Murkwood quality range. Alas. I keep pulling out my earplugs hoping to hear a bit of the upper register instruments, but they were just buried by the onslaught 95% of the time.

Not what you want your sound system to reminds the audience of...

Too bad, because it's the fiddles, hurdy gurdy, bag pipes, whistles and mandola that make Eluveitie so much more interesting to me than the average metal band. I've blogged about this band in the past, so I won't dwell on their merits, but their recorded work harnesses the raw power of metal but juxtapositions it nicely with the acoustic instruments mentioned above. Fans of old Garmarna and Hedningarna stuff might dig it. The lyric cycles in Gaulish describing the rise and fall of the Helvitii tribe work with with this mix, although few people can translate the ancient language. You know me, I'm perfectly happy not to understand the lyrics; I'd rather have vocals be just another strand in the chord. Plus you gotta love a metal singer who uses adjectives like "sublime" to warn fans of a slower tune coming up. (Especially refreshing because the "black metal" band Belphegor earlier on the bill that night had about two words in their lyrical vocabulary, "Satan" and "F---ing.")

There was a great moment near the end of their set when Eluveitie front man Chrigel Glanzmann was pulling out all the stops, eyes rolled back in his head, flanked by fiddler Meri Tadic and hurdy player Anna Murphy, both their heads of long hair spinning in unison, the guitars and drums thundering behind. Wish I'd had a camera, that is the beauty in the power. But Glanzmann's mandola work, Tadic's fiddles...so lost in the mix that most of the time the band sounded like metal mush.

Eluveitie on the Paganfest-Europe tour last year.

I do have to plug Nathan, aka The Sword Lord, for organizing metal shows around town. (Sorry I did not get the last name.) The guy is a tireless promoter, and is part of the team that fills in Earl Root's mighty footprints on KFAI's Root of All Evil overnight metal show. (He does the "Dragon's Hall" segment.)

The Monday night crowd, about equal parts wide eyed high school kids in brand new Heathenfest shirts and oldsters in their pirate/buxom wench gear was friendly and really quite free of attitude. ( I think the pirates were fans of Scottish "Pirate Metal" band Alestorm. Gotta love those metal sub-genres!) Room was made for those who wanted to mosh, but hands were there to catch those who got out of bounds, rather than shoves. A rather welcoming community, if I can say that.

Good for Station 4 for providing a home for local metalheads, and for doing the 16 and over shows, but golly folks, please put some money into your sound system! And while you're at it, maybe a little pipe insulation for those exposed hot water pipes along the wall. Ouch! Or some kind of padding for those big pillars that run down the middle of the floor. Whine whine whine.

You know what I'm going to say now, don't you? Just makes me appreciate the Cedar clear sight lines, amazing sound system and skilled sound techs all the more. We love you, Chris, Eric and Ray! Ray's work on Tuneyards' set was great tonight, with some pretty tricky stuff.

Would love to see Tuneyards back here soon; nice folks, really fun to see them do their loops and samples live with Merrill's amazing vocals!