Author Archive for LJHarb

Live 105's BFD 2008

Every year in early June since 1993, Live 105 (a ClearChannel radio station in San Francisco, 105.3 FM) puts out a huge concert called, appropriately, Big Fucking Day (or Big Fucking Deal, depending on who you talk to). It’s held at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, CA – which happens to be spitting distance from Google‘s main campus. Generally the tickets are $30-50; there’s at least 20-30 bands/DJs/groups on the bill, always a great mix and match; you can select from multiple stages, so if you don’t like who’s playing you don’t have to listen to it. The concessions, like any venue, are retardedly expensive – but that’s the price of needing to eat and drink. It’s always been during the week, but the last 3 years have been on Saturday, which is nice for those of us with real jobs (by “us”, I don’t include myself). This year, the tickets were only $10 – a good way to pull in more people in a time when we need an economic stimulus.

I’ve been to five or six BFD’s in the past ten years – I always have a good time, I always run into a veritable horde of people I know (way out of context), and the cheap ticket price totally makes up for when some of the bands suck sphincter. Last Saturday (June 7th) I went to this year’s BFD (the 15th).

  • Cypress Hill headlined, preceded by Pennywise, Flogging Molly, Alkaline Trio, Everlast, the Kooks, Anti-Flag, MGMT, Atreyu, Flobots, the Whigs, Airborne Toxic Event, and Middle Class Rut (on the main stage).
  • The local stage had the Federalists, Apside, Love Like Fire, the Hundred Days, Here Here, the Action Design, Magic Bullets, and the Phenomenauts.
  • The Subsonic Tent, primarily reserved for techno/trance acts, had Moby headlining, preceded by Mstrkrft, Santogold, DJ AM, Steve Aoki, Lyrics Born, Mike Relm, PlayRadioPlay, DJ Omar, Richard Oh, Hottub, and DJ Miles.
  • I showed up at about 1:30PM, in time to catch the Flobots. I’d only heard their single “Handlebars” on the radio, and it’s a pretty good song – very Cake-ish – but I wasn’t blown away. However, after hearing their live performance of Handlebars, Mayday!!, Combat, and Rise – they’re pretty amazing. It looked basically like a rock band, a violinist (a cute one), and emcees – and I personally am always swept up in quality popular music when it incorporates a talented violinist (think Yellowcard, Fort Minor, etc). Atreyu was good but angry. I’d heard MGMT’s single, Time to Pretend – quite decent, and their live show made me like their sound more.

    After climbing the Army’s climbing wall barefoot (a fun and blatant recruiting gimmick), I headed into the Subsonic Tent to check out Mike Relm – sadly he didn’t show, but Lyrics Born came out early and had a great set. He’s been at BFD before, and always gets me and the crowd moving. I thought he was an odd choice for Subsonic, but it fit, and I wasn’t complaining.

    The local bands I’d never heard of, although while buying yet another $11 beer, one caught my ear: the Action Design – it had a very Paramoreish sound and I liked it alot.

    Everlast played some quality old singles (I didn’t really pay attention to the new stuff) and Alkaline Trio I skipped in favor of the Subsonic Tent. I did catch Flogging Molly and Pennywise, but I napped on a strip of grass for awhile so I missed alot of it.

    Cypress Hill was very high energy, and of course there was tons of herb floating through the air (and definitely on stage). At one point they inflated a giant skeleton king. Why, I am not sure. However I did not care. Afterwards we were tired, and headed out rather than stay late for Moby.

    All in all, it was a great concert day – my only complaint, and a MAJOR one, was the lack of the lawn stage. This year, unlike prior years I can recall, they closed off the main Shoreline stage and had the main stage in the parking lot, Warped Tour style. This was incredibly weak – chilling on the grass, with a great view because of the slope, for a cheaper ticket price – is always a highlight of a Shoreline concert.

    the Main Festival Stage

    Privacy is Obsolete

    We live in a society that is entirely public. Privacy is a thing of the past. (see the Anonymity Experiment) Advertisers and marketers know your shopping habits, your drug prescriptions, your political, religious, and professional sport affiliations. Facebook’s Beacon is only the scapegoat of what any advertiser is frothing at the mouth to implement. The clerks at your grocery store or the people that run the gas station or the car wash are just as likely to steal your credit card number and identity as a random hacker over the internet or some dude scavenging your bills out of your trash can. Anything that can be reproduced digitally will, inevitably and rapidly, end up being illegally distributed over the internet, either for profit, or just for fun.

    So why are people still paranoid about privacy and piracy? Fear is only useful when it helps us prevent harm. What’s the point of being afraid of getting salmonella? I don’t need to be afraid of it anymore, I’m just careful around raw food. Loss of privacy is inevitable – you can not prevent it. All you can do is slow it down. I have my cell phone number on my Facebook profile. Yes, I limited my privacy settings so only my virtual “friends” can see it – but if I really didn’t want my cell phone number getting out, I wouldn’t be an IDIOT and put it on the internet. Honestly: how many of you really have a true expectation of privacy when you put any information on the internet? Why be afraid anymore? If you want it private, keep it in your head – nothing else is private. Deal with it.

    I’ve talked to a lot of musicians lately, and a lot of them are concerned about their music being pirated. My immediate reaction is always, why? Things are only stolen because they have value. If somebody is stealing your music, it’s because they want it – you don’t suck. That’s wonderful! People want your art! Why would you want to limit your audience? Share the beauty that humans produce with humanity – privacy is selfish.

    Let’s say some local aspiring rapper steals your beat and uses it as a hook in his rap song. Maybe a thousand people hear it – maybe it’s only a mediocre song. Perhaps he earned a few hundred bucks from it. Sure, you should be owed some percentage, since he used your intellectual property. But do you really care about (likely no more than) $50 from some local nobody artist? Get a day job if you need $50. However, let’s say some artist steals your beat, and his song turns into the next “Soulja Boy.” Now he’s got millions – and here’s where you might be thinking, “See? He stole my music and now I lost out on all that revenue!”

    Our society may be public, but we’re also litigious to a ridiculous extreme. If you can prove that it’s your music – for example, by widely distributing it for free through a medium that can vouch for you – then you’ll win the case, and that rich thief will settle out of court with you for a tidy sum. If you’re crafty enough, you’ll get him to publicly credit you. All of a sudden, you’re rich and famous, because somebody else stole your music. When Kanye and Timbaland come knocking at your door to sample some more of your beats, don’t forget to thank internet piracy.