Buzz Blog

Hello pre-and-post-moderate-punk-rock lovers. Let's kick this post off with a look at the 337 Memorial Wall.

--- So this past Thursday, there was this punk band in town, you might have heard of them. Sonic Youth?

Oh! It looks like you have.

In what appeared to be a crowd that required a boogie board to navigate, a good thousand-plus people packed Gallivan Plaza to see Awesome Color, and then another thousand joined them to see the Youth at the Twilight Concert Series. Special thanks to Casey Jarmin for the access to take these pictures from the show, which you can check out here. Phenomenal performance, hands down. A beautiful mix of old and new, I don't think there was a disappointed face in the crowd. One of those shows that takes you back to sitting in the basement listening all day. A thrilling moment seeing Thurston two songs in become frustrated with his guitar and crack the thing over his amp.

What amazed me in my old age of twenty-seven is how many teenagers there were. And before you read on, go read Brian Staker's awesome piece on the group before you listen to my ramblings. ...Sonic Youth, for all their musical brilliance and praise, we're more of an acquired taste that you had to go look for at a record store. Commercial radio stations to this day consider a good portion of their collection “inaudible” and refuse to play them in regular rotation. Don't believe me? Call X96 right now and see how quickly they get around to playing “Teenage Riot”. Their music to many from my age group was a secret treasure that only the cool college kids knew about.

So imagine my shock to see so many teenagers, who I might add were probably conceived to the sounds of the Goo or Dirty, cheering the group on and singing the lyrics to all the songs! Upon later reflection with others, I've come to the conclusion maybe the “Juno” soundtrack had a bigger impact than we thought. But it gives me hope that maybe, just maybe, there's a portion of kids in the group behind mine who aren't buying into commercial radio and are actually looking for good music.

Speaking of music, turning a bit local, Uprok is throwing their Doin' It At The Park show tomorrow at Pioneer Park. Catch some of SLC's finest rap and hip-hop, graffiti artists galore, DJ's spinning throughout from 3-9PM. Totally free! Head on over tomorrow and enjoy the downtown takeover.

Some news from me, nothing major but something to note, my blog has fully moved to the website. All of the archives going back to January 2008 have now been posted on CityWeekly.net, over 27 pages worth! Somewhat cleaned up and presented in as close to the original form as possible. Now you can check out show coverage, festivals, band interviews and more from me since I started doing this blog, now all a part of the Salt Blog and the Weekly's electronic library. Now that all that work is done, I'm going to go put my eyeballs back in their sockets.

As for other stuff from me, interviews on the way the next few weeks from The Collective Loft, a minor Craft Lake City preview, Teresa Flowers and the Salt Lake City Film Festival, plus some other surprises around the corner. As always, we'll see what happens.