Top 5 Other Outside Lands Things

By now you’ve read as much as you’d probably care to know about last weekend’s Outside Lands festival. Either you were there yourself and needed to get filled in on whichever acts you missed; you weren’t there but experienced it vicariously through tweets, blogs, and livestreams; or didn’t care in the first place (in which case it seems doubtful that you’d be reading this now, so maybe that third option doesn’t apply).

You’ve heard that Hot Chip closed out their set with a Springsteen-into-LCD cover. Tame Impala was transcendent. Wilco subjected the audience – once again – to the entirety of their new Star Wars LP before obligingly playing some hits. Kendrick Lamar was king; Fantastic Negrito was rolled up. The Barbary Tent was too far away; but the mini golf addition to Winelands was a neat idea. The weather was awesome.

But this isn’t a music blog. It’s my blog. Yes, it masquerades as a music blog, but that’s all part of an elaborate long con to occupy a corner of the Internet with personal memoirs puzzled together via handstamps, ticket stubs, and record sleeves. Shows are signposts, really. Reminders to write. About… whatever.

And today’s whatever is all the other stuff that resonated with me during my Outside Lands weekend. Objectivity and setlists can be found elsewhere. In fact, MH is working on a more thorough Oral History of Outside Lands 2015 for the parent blog. Maybe some of my more review-y comments will show up there.

In the meantime, here’s the other stuff.

Master Mix: Red Hot + Arthur Russell

For twenty-five years now, Red Hot Organization has been “Fighting AIDS Through Popular Culture.” The non-profit group has teamed up with artists, musicians, and record labels over the last two decades-plus to produce some of the most unique and successful charity albums of our generation. The American folk-inspired compilation Dark Was the Night, released in 2009, is one of the few CDs that survived my digitization-then-physical-media purge of 2012.

On October 21, Red Hot and Yep Records will release Master Mix, a tribute to the genius of Arthur Russell. Hot Chip covers “Go Bang,” one of Russell’s Dinosaur L tunes.

Nothing can touch the vocal power and instrumental dynamism of Russell, who died of AIDS-related causes in New York in ’92. But if this album of interpretations can bring more support for the cause and expose more people to the man’s music, then I’m doubly enthused.