Summer Camp Music Festival: Thursday night

Photos by Eric Heisig

I chose to do these posts in the order in which I saw things. I got there late on Thursday, so this will be a shorter post, but the next three days will be longer.

Also, even though these posts are day-to-day, my days don't exactly end at the midnight threshold. So, if something seems incomplete, go to the next day and you will most likely find the rest there.

11:30 p.m. – After dragging my feet on actually leaving Urbana, I arrive at Three Sisters’ Park in Chillicothe. I park, get my press pass and do a bit of exploring.

The band 56 Hope Road is playing on the Campfire Stage, a small stage near the entrance, and I get bored quickly. They try to be funky in the whitest way possible, with absolutely no semblance of musical ambition. It’s a party-vibe vamp, and I get bored.

Much more interesting was a tent located in the middle of the two main stages. There was a DJ who is playing to about 25 people, and a Bloomington-based artist named Jason Mack who is starting a weird sculpture involving melting shopping carts. The melting metal was cool to watch, and Mack plans on finishing it by the end of the festival (Note: even though it’s hard to have a bias about melting shopping carts, I should disclose that I knew the artist’s girlfriend from when I attended Illinois State University).

The tent also had some art activities, including a painting made while it is spinning (see the photo below). It made for a very cool visual.

The people are friendly and wanting to talk. Usually it’s about what bands they are looking forward to, but hey, that’s the main reason everyone is here.

Tonight though, it’s all about drinking, smoking and having a good time. Tomorrow, it’s about the music…and drinking, smoking and having a good time.

Almost everyone I ask is pumped to see moe. I am looking forward to it too, but these people are dedicated. One person I met came from Pennsylvania (he said it took 14 hours to get here) to see them.

Again, here is the photo of the spinning painting:

Summer Camp Music Festival: What I am expecting

Last year was the first time I had been to the Summer Camp Festival in Chillicothe, Ill. I covered it for another publication, but this year it's all me. I will be there (if all stays the same) alone, doing photos, interviews, recording audio and everything else imaginable.

This isn't a "woe is me" kind of post, but rather an "I'm excited" one. It will be a lot of work, but I think it will be worth it.

The schedule for the festival can be found here. Plan accordingly.

In the meantime, here are just a few bands I think will be good, okay or bad

Worth seeing

-Girl Talk - last year was the first time seeing Gregg Gillis, and I loved it. He was able to transform a somewhat skeptical crowd into a sweaty mess. An early highlight for me

-Medeski Scofield Martin & Wood - The first album I heard by Medeski Martin & Wood was "Friday Night in the Universe." It was strange, but I loved it. This time though, they will be playing with John Scofield (he played with Miles Davis). This will be my first time seeing them, and I'm pumped.

-Les Claypool - He's a weird guy, but his bass-playing style is uncopied and his vocals are weird to a fault. Should be awesome, and make for much more interesting jamming than half the bands at the festival.

-moe. - My regret last year was that I didn't stay for the full final set. I liked what I saw (and was able to shoot in the photo pit), so this year I think I'll be sure to see more of them.

-Willie Nelson - I saw him at Assembly Hall in Champaign last December, and his saving grace at age 76 is his guitar-playing skills. That man shreds on a classical guitar, and it's pretty sweet. It lifts his tunes above the standard three-chord country ditties.

-The Easy Star All-Stars - Reggae covers of famous albums and bands. Enough said.

-Backyard Tire Fire - Great country-rock from a band based in Bloomington, Ill. They had a great set in an early slot last year.

Interested in

-Hill Country Revue - It has some members of the North Mississippi Allstars. I'm in, but I'm not terribly familiar.

-Dark Star Orchestra - I never saw the Grateful Dead live (though my dad took my mom to one of their concerts when she was pregnant with me. Probably explains a lot), so I'm interested to see how their setlist-recreating shows turn out.

The Wood Brothers - I have heard good things about this bluegrass-infused duo, so I am looking forward to seeing at least one of their sets.

I'm on the fence

-Umphrey's McGee - I was not impressed by one of their sets at least year's festival. Yeah, I know, they are a mainstay and that's why they play umpteenth amount of times, but I still wasn't buying it. I am ready to give them another chance though. Boys, impress me.

-Buckethead - Pro: He was in Guns 'n' Roses. Con:...He was in Guns 'n' Roses. I'm interested to see how his guitar wankery will go over, but it will be interesting if nothing else.

Bands I think will be poorly attended

Note: Last year, one of the worst-attended shows was the set by The New Pornographers. A misbooking possibly, since I don't think the Summer Camp-goers were that interested. It's great to be eclectic, I agree, yet it was a shame to see a great band go unnoticed at such a big place. Here's who I think will suffer a similar fate:

-Los Lobos - These guys are so much more than "La Bamba," but I bet few others else knows that. They are consistently innovative, funny and rocking, but I bet few others know that. My cards are on this for one of the smaller crowds.

-Gomez - They will have less of a turnout than Los Lobos, because they really haven't made that big of a mark in America. I hope I'm wrong, but I think it will be quite intimate.

Note: Follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/eheisig. I don't know how the Internet will be there (free? too expensive? spotty?), but I can guarantee I will be updating on Twitter. All you need is a phone and a way to say something in a short way.

Seksu, the fun type

Note: Photos by Aaron Facemire.

Here is my photo documentation of the intimate show at The Canopy Club last Sunday.

Mogwai @ Congress Theater in Chicago

Note: Photos by Aaron Facemire.

I ventured to Chicago last Friday to see Mogwai perform at the Congress Theater. Mr. Heisig was unable to accompany me and being as I am not a great writer by any stretch this will be a short post.

Of the four or five times I have seen Mogwai now, I liked this performance the best. As usual, they play only the tracks they want, not as to piss of the audience but they are techinically limited to what songs the can put in a playlist. Be that as it may, they always choose a great playlist, intermixing old songs with their new(ish) material to keep the whole crowd please.

They definitely knew how to navigate their catalogue at the Congress, having a keen ear on when to play their slow songs, when to sound heavier, and when to stop. I was even surprised during "Killing All the Flies" at the timing of the sudden burst near the end of the song, something I pride myself in being able to predict after listening to the song a couple dozen times (in a row).

They closed out with "Like Herod" in their encore and while I would have preferred "Mogwai Fear Satan" or "Xmas Steps" as an ending, it left me pumped as I exited the theater.


They band that opened for Mogwai, otherwise known as Twilight Sad, could not do justice to the show. I would venture to say either they couldn't hear each other, or they simply did not care, but their music, while plenty brooding, was not as cohesive as it could have been.

They reminded me of the band I Love You, But I've Chosen Darkness, minus the driving force that goes into the performance of darker music. While it was their last show on the tour with Mogwai, I think they seemed a bit more tired than just being on the road.

Short and "focused": George Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic at The Canopy Club

Note: Photos by Erica Magda.

Clocking in at three hours, Thursday night's P-Funk show was a short set...for them.

I'm not exaggerating. George Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic can play up to four, four-and-a-half hours. Three hours is nothing to them.

Yet at the same time, the version of P-Funk I saw on Thursday at The Canopy Club was more focused than it had been any time I had seen them in the past. They jammed, but it usually led to something new. The singers and performers seemed more organized, and Clinton...well...instead of just kind of wandering around, he took an active role in making music (even though it was not a very large role).

This is the fourth time I have seen the band in some incarnation, and by now I know what to expect. The band, minus Clinton, starts playing to warm the crowd up as "the Mothership has just landed." As they play, a pimp-esque character named Sir Nose comes out and makes fun of the funk. He is then thwarted by Clinton, who shows him the way of the funk. Sir Nose starts to dance, and Clinton and the Mothership keeps on funkin'.

This has been done for a few years now, with very little variation. The only switch-ups come night to night, as the band switches out songs.

And the setlist was pretty good, with good but sloppy versions of "Cosmic Slop" (no pun intended), "Atomic Dog" and "Flashlight." But the undeniable highlight, though, was Michael Hampton, a.k.a. Kidd Funkadelic, and his full reading of the guitar epic "Maggot Brain."

It was done in its full form, and Hampton's playing (minus a cord getting unplugged) was flawless and a sight to see him go up and down the fretboard. The 10-minute-plus song provided something the show can lack at times: real emotion. His guitar had emotion, whereas so much more of the music can be reduced to a joke or a chant.

The rest of the music fared much better than in the past as well, with more vocal performances instead of pointless jamming (even though there were six guitarists on stage at one point). Since Clinton himself can't really sing anymore, he relies on a group of performers to carry on for him, including Garry Shider (original P-Funk member), Belita Woods, Kendra Foster and Kim Manning (a.k.a. "Peaches" from the reality show Flavor of Love). All of them are good singers, even if some of them are too y0ung to have understood the band in their heyday.

Still, the real star ended up being Gene "Poo Poo Man" Anderson, a soul singer who has been around for quite some time. His faux-James Brown moves and vocal performance provided a real boost of energy when it was needed.

And Clinton himself did not come even close to matching that energy. He was content looking into the audience, waving his hands around a few times and maybe shouting along to a song (remember how I said he contributed more this time? Well, that was his contribution).

Even though this has all been done before, there is no indication that these guys are phoning it in. In the 70s, this kind of music and clothing (outlandish, with a man in a diaper, a lot of colors and weird suits) was akin to a minstrel show, parodying the old stereotypes of blacks.

Today though, the attire is accepted, but not as a parody, and nobody is looking to break any new ground. They are jamming on whatever idea comes to their heads, and it can make for some great ideas in a show that rarely drags. For a bunch of old funkateers, they can still pull it off.

The band knew they had to get their show done though (again, because they have been doing the same show for so many years), and they pulled it off, albeit in a shorter window. Maybe this was because of a curfew, or maybe it was because they had their act together.

I don't know, and I guess I'll have to see how it turns out next time.



Note: A very bizarre thing happened to photograher Erica Magda and I when we were getting into the show, which led to us meeting Clinton right before the show started. I may or may not write up something for that story, since it left me confused yet delighted at the same time. Maybe that was the point, because that's how the show feels at times as well.