In about five hours, we’re supposed to be at the airport to head off to Chicago for this festival and to hang out with all sorts of peeps: Gorilla vs. Bear, Marathonpacks, My Old Kentucky Blog, Indie Interviews, Muzzle of Bees and a host of other blogger types that I’m sure I’m forgetting.

Thursday night, we might even be seeing the Cloud Room and Muse at the Avalon. Friday, we’re gonna try to scalp tickets to the Cardinals-Cubs (wish us luck), then later that night is the pre-festival show with Sunset Rubdown, the Joggers and Voxtrot at the Metro.

Saturday and Sunday is the festival, and then Annie and I are spending a couple extra days to see some of my family, friends and another Cubs game (vs. Diamondbacks on Monday).

I’m probably bringing the laptop, though I’m counting on Royce to keep the place warm while we’re away.

Here’s a some recent posts on a few of the bands playing the festival:

The Walkmen cover Mazarin
Mr. Lif live on KEXP
Spank Rock Sweet Talk w/remixes
Band of Horses live on KEXP

Over the weekend, I picked up one of those cheesy (though very convenient) “20th Century Masters” compilations for Buddy Holly. I’d been wanting to dive into Holly’s catalog, and this seemed like as good a place as any.

As amazing and intricate as some of our current music is, I had an urge to scale back. Not one song on this collection reaches the three-minute mark; True Love Ways at 2:51 is the longest. That seems like an amazing feat, considering the lasting power of Holly’s songs through the years. Less sometimes is more, eh?

Anyway, I’d always been interested in Holly because my dad had (which I now possess) an old Wurlitzer jukebox with at least one Holly 45 in there: Peggy Sue b/w Everyday. To me as a kid, Holly just seemed like one of those artists you pass off as an “oldie”; something only your parents would ever listen to, right?

But then in 2000, I took a job as a sportswriter in Lubbock, Texas, birthplace of Holly. Then I find out that I share the same birthday (Sept. 7) as Buddy. Just coincidences, yes, but enough to stir my interest. I visited the Buddy Holly Center a couple of times, and now regret never bringing a camera or fully absorbing the artifacts in there – lyric books, Lubbock High yearbooks, guitars. It also had on display his eyeglasses recovered from that fatal plane crash, which sort of creeped me out.

Not surprisingly, Lubbock, the “Hub City,” a somewhat barren and isolated locale, takes great pride in being Holly’s birthplace. There’s Buddy Holly Avenue, a Buddy Holly Recreation Area, a Buddy Holly statue (above) and so on. The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal (my onetime employer) has a site dedicated to archived stories about Holly, including a birth announcement mistakenly identifying Buddy as a girl. Oops.

Anyway, I don’t mean for this to be some all-encompassing history or biography. But I imagine many of you won’t ever make to Lubbock, which is just as well (though I will say that the city gets a bit of a bad rap). If anything, Lubbock has produced some great country musicians: Jimmie Dale Gilmore and the Maines Brothers among others. (That’s to speak nothing of one of my favorite albums, Richard Buckner’s Bloomed, being recorded there, with help from Lloyd Maines.)

My guess is the desolation and spartan landscape of Lubbock lends itself to mournful country music. So I’m always surprised when I listen to Holly and the bright guitars and inventive (for its time) instrumentation of his songs.

On Everyday, drummer Jerry Allison produces the procussion line by slapping his knee, and producer Norman Petty’s wife, Vi, played something called a celesta for the chimes effect.

Buddy Holly | Everyday

eMusic continues to give us reasons for its greatness: a five-song, eMusic-only EP from Sunset Rubdown (aka Spencer Krug from Wolf Parade).

I’m downloading it now as I continue to (slowly) warm up to Sunset Rubdown. (Obligatory pitch: Get it with a trial of 25 free downloads. That’s the EP, plus 20 more songs, jack. And you keep ’em all. And then you’ll end up subscribing like I did – $9.99 for 40 downloads a month.)

Related: The Lovely Feathers and Sunset Rubdown

Eight years after their last release, Golden Smog is coming back on Tuesday with Another Fine Day. The band is a side gig made up of members from the Jayhawks (Gary Louris, Marc Perlman), Run Westy Run (Kraig Johnson), Soul Asylum (Dan Murphy) and Wilco (Jeff Tweedy). Anything loosely affiliated to the Jayhawks or Wilco always will grab my attention.

I own Golden Smog’s 1995 release Down by the Old Mainstream, a loose, sometimes-twangy gem of an album. Judging by 5-22-02, which has lots of fun guitar work and some incidental horns, the guys are keeping true to the laid-back spirit of the project.

Golden Smog | 5-22-02

Wading through the local concert calendar, I spotted an August 23 date in Tempe for seminal punk/hardcore group Gorilla Biscuits, who are reuniting for a monthlong tour of the United States. (Brooklyn Vegan has the dates.)

That got me thinking about Walter Schreifels, guitarist in Gorilla Biscuits and frontman of many projects, including the fabulous Quicksand, Rival Schools and, most recently, Walking Concert. So I hit up the MySpace page for Walter (yeah, we’re on a first-name basis). It appears he’s working on some acoustic-type solo material for something called the Arthur Lee EP. All I know about it is what I gleaned from his MySpace page, which is next to nothing.

Depressed Friends is a touching if not, well, depressing track – Schreifels coming to grips with how to console his down-and-out buddies. It’s a far cry from Biscuits/Quicksand/etc., but just as welcome.

Walter Schreifels | Depressed Friends

If I’ve discovered anything about myself in listening to so much music the past year, it’s that I can be impatient. I like hooks, I like beats. Get me in and get me out in four minutes. (OK, I’ll give you five or six minutes if your first name is Sufjan.)

So when I popped in Grizzly Bear’s Yellow House – probably in the car or something – it didn’t last but two songs. This has little to do with Grizzly Bear and more to do with my sometimes antsy nature. From the get-go, I could tell listening to Yellow House would not be a mindless activity. This requires physical and mental concentration. Restraint and patience.

Although I’m not entirely familiar with the “freak folk” scene, the band was mentioned in passing in the New York Times article about it, although the guys dispute the story’s description of them. I prefer the label from Gothamist, which described Grizzly Bear’s music as “bewilderock.”

More than any album I’ve come across this year, Yellow House tests my iPod trigger finger. When I feel the urge to flip songs, then I’m oddly compelled to keep listening. There is no traditional verse-chorus-verse safety net to fall into.

Again, this probably says more about my tendencies as a listener than Grizzly Bear as a band, because they’re good. Really, I need more albums like this. Or I need to actually listen to more albums like this. Each song takes awhile to wrap my head around. Plans, for example, offers everything I love in a song: horns, great drums, rhythm. But its scattered approach tends to confuse on first listen and then fall into line with each successive play, much like the album as a whole.

Yellow House comes out on Warp Records on Sept. 5. Sept. 4 The group is offering a free download of the single On a Neck, On a Spit at its Web site.

Grizzly Bear | Plans

Finally. Birdmonster and Division Day are making their way to our fine state, playing Modified on August 19. Only $6.

These two bands have been touring like mad with no Phoenix stops. Birdmonster has played Tucson a couple of times. So I’m pretty jazzed about this show. Six dollars? Six American dollars? Hel-lo! That’s a bargain. You can’t get out of Subway these days for less than $6.

Birdmonster | Balcony
Division Day | Hurricane

Related:
Birdmonster on WOXY.
Division Day video for Hurricane.

Are you wondering what other shows are coming to Arizona? I thought so:

• Friday: Built to Spill with Brett Netson and Sonorous at Marquee Theatre, Tempe.
• July 18: The Raconteurs with Kelley Stoltz, Marquee Theatre, Tempe.
• July 22: The Church with Rob Dickinson (!), Marquee Theatre, Tempe.
• July 28: Jurassic 5 with X-Clan, Marquee Theatre, Tempe.
• Aug. 2: Pete Yorn (acoustic), Martini Ranch, Scottsdale (ugh); Pollstar lists an in-store Yorn performance at Zia Records, though I’m not sure which store as there are about four in the Valley.
• Aug. 13: Final Fantasy with Bob Wiseman, Modified, Phoenix.
• Aug. 17: The Clientele, Rhythm Room, Phoenix.
• Sept. 2: Centro-Matic, Modified, Phoenix.
• Sept. 26: M. Ward, Clubhouse, Tempe.

With the release of debuts by Silversun Pickups (July 25) and Darker My Love (August 22), Dangerbird Records could have a very fruitful summer.

The similarities between the two bands are pretty evident; they both have updated takes on the shoegaze/psych-rock sound. To me, Darker My Love recalls a little Kyuss with driving melodies of British Invasion era (especially on Summer Is Here). The bio cites My Bloody Valentine, The Velvet Underground and The Dandy Warhols, so I may be way off. I only know what I hear.

Either way, I think a tour with Silversun and Darker sounds like a fine idea. That said, Darker My Love is playing in Phoenix at (sigh) Dodge Theatre on August 8 as openers for AFI. Nothing against AFI … Dodge is just a fairly sterile/impersonal venue.

Darker My Love | What’s a Man’s Paris
Darker My Love | Summer Is Here