End of Silence

ACL Program - Manu Chao

Several of the bands in town this week for the annual Austin City Limits music festival are also taping episodes of the show. Erykah Badu cancelled, but Manu Chao, Drive-by Truckers, Gnarls Barkley, The Swell Season, and The Foo Fighters are all taping shows in the next week. ACL show producer Terry Lickona described the first taping last night as an unusual treat.

Manu Chao rarely perform in the US and it’s even more rare for them to appear on US television. They tend to focus on Europe and South America. Manu Chao’s parents fled Franco’s regime in Spain and settled in France where he was born, so many of his songs are in Spanish or French. He was a founding member of the early 90s band, Mano Negra. Like that band, his current work has reggae and ska influences along with a decent helping of latin music & rhythms and punk rock. Their most recent album, La Radiolina, was released last year. Many of his lyrics are political. I’m pretty sure I heard a few references to a certain controlled substance, not surprising given the reggae influence. He was interviewed by High Times last year around the time that La Radiolina was released.

They’re a high energy band and will do well on a festival stage. The normally subdued ACL taping crowd took a little prodding to get going. Last night’s band included 6 musicians in addition to Chao himself: a drummer, a percussionist, a trumpet player, a keyboardist, a bassist and a guitarist. They wore their influences on their shirts. The percussionist was wearing a Tuff Gong shirt and the bass player, looked like a massive soccer hooligan, was wearing a Bad Brains shirt. They all made an effort to pump up the crowd and got people clapping and shouting throughout the set.

They stuck to mostly up tempo numbers and didn’t really pause much between songs. Several of the tracks on La Radiolina include a siren sound repeated throughout. I thought it was overused and, honestly, after several songs, they kind of started to sound the same. A sampling of their recordings while writing this reveals more diversity. I’d chalk some of that impression up to my unfamiliarity with the material. I’d definitely check them out for at least half of their set. I’m glad to see the show is still making an effort to introduce its audience to artists they may not have seen before in addition to pulling in more mainstream acts like Foo Fighters.

Manu Chao is the Friday night headliner at ACL Festival, starting at 8:30pm on the AT&T stage.

Set List (may not be exact):

PANIK PANIK
EL HOYO
BOBBY MARLEY
LA PRIMAVERA POLITIKS
RADIO BEMBA…COURT
BIENVENIDA A TIJUANA
EL VIENTO
CLANDESTINO
MINHA GALERA
RUMBA DE BARCELONA
LA DESPEDIDA
RAININ IN PARADIZE
A COSA
DIA LUNA
VOLVER
RADIO BEMBA ELDORADO
MI VIDA
INFINITA TRISTEZA
TOMBOLA
ALAS ROTAS
DESAPARECIDO
ME LLAMAN CALLE

There are two posts to the Statesman Homeroom blog about early school closures tomorrow for Hurricane Ike (am I the only one who keeps wanting to make South Park jokes?).

AISD Closing Times (via AISD as well)

Info on other areas like Bastrop and Elgin

Seems like a bit of an overreaction to me, but I guess they’d rather be safe than sorry.

So this is what it takes to bring me out of my blogging doldrums?

For those that aren’t familiar, Michael Gonzales had a choking poodle and decided to drive 100 mph to get the poodle help. He could’ve picked a closer vet? He could’ve learned the poodle Heimlich? In the video, he’s clearly panicking and emotional. He shouldn’t have been speeding. He shouldn’t even have been driving. I saw the interview with him after the fact. He’s annoying and self-righteous. I’m a dog owner. I’m sorry for his loss, but let’s get some fscking perspective here, please.

Newsflash, there are cops who don’t have the best people skills. Unfortunately, the job attracts a few like that. It also turns some people into that. The chief admitted it wasn’t handled well. The guy’s been reprimanded. Let it go. Please.

I’m tired of the news media rehashing it. I’m tired of hearing about it. Aren’t there more important things to worry about? Like, oh, I don’t know a war? The economy? Health care and education in the shitter? A worthless governor? I feel bad even giving it more attention. And now the dipshit cop is getting death threats? Death threats? That sort of thing makes me want to feed the animal activists to a pack of cranky pit bulls.

This will probably only interest a small minority, but that’s what blogging’s all about right?

I’ve been planning on getting the 3G iPhone for pretty much the past year, but I wasn’t enthusiastic enough to wait in line last Friday to get one. Last year, when the first generation was released, a co-worker waited a little less than a week to go get one at the Apple store at The Domain and walked right in and out with one. I was hoping that I’d be able to do the same.

No such luck.

I’ve been watching the iPhone availability page over the past week and both Barton Creek and The Domain have shown no stock. I finally decided to call The Domain store this morning at 10am. Turns out, they are, in fact, getting phones on most days, it’s just that people are lining up as soon as they’re open and they’re selling out of each day’s stock by the end of the day. So, if you really want one anytime soon, it appears you’re going to have to do pretty much the same thing that you had to do on the first day.

A few more tips:

• Be prepared to wait. I was there for 3 hours today. One of the employees estimated a 1 hour 45 minute wait when I arrived. Yeah. They did seem to be good about making sure that there were enough phones for those in line.
• The holdup appears to be people switching from another carrier. One man was being helped for a full hour and three others were there for a half an hour. I’m an existing AT&T customer. It took them 10 minutes to check me out.
• Over the three hours I was there, there were between 2 and 5 Apple employees actively setting people up with phones. It really should be 5 all the time. I realize they need breaks, but Apple needs to staff up.
• They could probably streamline some of the process. The employee has to ask you which model you want and then shuffle back to the back room to get the phone and come back. They’re using up a few minutes with each customer to do this. It’s probably to avoid theft, but this adds up.
• My guess is that you might have a faster experience at an AT&T store but I hear that their stock is much lower. That’s all purely anecdotal, so please correct me in the comments if you’ve had a different experience.

How do I like the phone so far? It’s pretty fscking amazing. I giggled like a little girl the first time I controlled my iTunes library on my PC from the phone. I sense an Airport Express purchase in the near future. The App Store is like crack. I downloaded several apps, including Shazam, which can identify a song you’re listening to on the radio and then link you to purchase it in iTunes. Unbelieveable.