This year's Athens Popfest lineup has been announced (Roky Erickson headlining), which spurred the guy who taped a lot of last year's Popfest to get his recordings from it out to the public. Check out this thread for several recordings from Popfest 2007, including Daniel Johnston (backed by Casper and the Cookies) and Apples In Stereo frontman Robert Schneider's side project Marbles. Last year's Popfest proved to be the breakout performance for Jacksonville, Florida's Black Kids [myspace]. The strength of their infectous debut Wizard of Ahhhs EP and the buzz from their Popfest performance eventually saw them turn into US and British press darlings and signed to Columbia Records earlier this month, but it seems they are especially loved overseas, recording their debut LP in the UK while touring there. Starting in June they'll be headlining their own European tour, just played Coachella (pictured) and several festival slots in the UK, and going by those measures it's not hard to see a bright future for these guys, but it's well-deserved - those spoils are built upon a foundation of some solid music. Black Kids have a certain swagger - even at their most rocking there's an underlying laid-back disaffection, and it's a juxtaposition that works, a bit like it did for Pavement. Theirs seems to be a gentle rollicking soul overcome to bouts of dancing and tuneful yelping (and a few Isaac Brock-ish vocal phrasings). Not too hot, not too cold, juuust right, with breezy keyboards cooling the air throughout. So before their debut LP skyrockets their popularity to Vampire Weekend levels, now is a good time to go back and hear the performance that helped launch it all:
So you may have already heard... Explosions In The Sky is curating the upcoming All Tomorrow's Parties, to take place a month from now. They were asked who they wanted to be on their bill, and from what I've read it what almost an off-the-cuff joke when they suggested Polvo, who had been broken up for ten years and showed no signs of reunion. It's a shame Polvo's torch hasn't been carried nearly a tenth as brightly as their contemporaries The Pixies and Pavement, so who could blame the guys in EITSky for trying. Well, apparently that suggestion was all it took to get the ball rolling, Ash Bowie and most of the guys were up for it, and they were booked. What started as a couple of warm-up shows and the ATP gig itself has now expanded into a few more additional shows, and in Bowie's recent interview with Pitchfork, looks to be gearing up for maybe an album (full tour?). So if you see older music geeks giddy with excitement over the next few weeks, a big Polvo reformation may be why. I saw them once around '94, maybe '95, opening for Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 in Austin, I think at Liberty Lunch (RIP) if I'm not mistaken. You don't realize how monumental some of those memories will become when you're experiencing them. I'll never forget witnessing the sheer beautiful dissonant weirdness coming from Ash Bowie's guitar, and I'm giddy myself thinking about seeing it again. Please come play Austin again.
