the camera is fixed.

::Willie & Family Live plays in the background as people sleep under tables::

it's amazing what beating a camera up against the side of a couch and digging into it with a rusty leatherman will accomplish....

btw, no-go on the hike, so shower then off to the festival for:

- 11:30 bela fleck duos with friends
- 1:15 Emmit-Nershi Band
- 3:00 Peter Rowan and the Free Mexican Airforce
- 4:00 Tim O'Brien

If I'm still able to stand the sun, i'll stick around to check out Paolo Nutini, as i've heard good things... but tonight is Yonder's nightgrass show at the Sheridan...

also, I have been trying to upload the several videos I have (including two great little minute-long shots of Uncle Earl on stage), but the connection here is horrible and I'm not really going to walk somewhere to find a wireless connection. Its vacation, and have to draw the line of being a complete nerd (albeit an undercover one) somewhere.

day two begins...

with my camera refusing to turn on.

"wt fucking f." - Ryan Adams

::a Lasko rotary fan hums in the window, blowing a cool breeze across my toes::

really, the second day of the festival and I can't take a damn picture other than on my phone. great.

whatever, we'll make the best of it... by starting the day with a glass of Jameson and forgetting I have a camera all together.

so, i decided that i'm not a music critic, and me trying to talk bluegrass in any sort of critical form just reads painfully.... so while i'll keep up with that, there's plenty of other stuff i'm more capable of writing about.

like the guy out of his head on mushrooms in front of us for Ryan Adams set last night.

Had the camera not broken, I could have gotten a picture of this guy scooping up dust in his hands, throwing into the air and laughing. Oh, and he sang along at the top of his lungs with Adams as he sang Oasis's 'Wonderwall'.

At least he was a nice kid. He offered to roll my friend a cigarette. However, I"m sure it would have taken him an hour and it would have turned out in the shape of a question mark or something like that.

Adams' set was great. You could see the look of 'oh, i'm not going to tlike this' on some of the more docile festivarians faces as the soundcheck guys cranked his amps to 11 (sadly over a recording of Crooked Still from last year).

In what I am to understand is typical, he popped out on stage late, mumbled something incoherent and then blasted into his rock/folk/emo mix of tunes.

btw, don't try and walk from east to west across the festival grounds at night. the light from the food booths WILL blind you, and you WILL walk into the back of a lowback chair. this happened to me twice.

ended up near the stage at the end for a tiny glowstick war. i'll post some vids of it later.

After the show, i decided not to do any night grass concerts and instead went for a classy drink at the Sheridan Bar (which is under construction, but opened up for the festival - hence the overflowed toilet).

Somehow ended up in a condo watching some 23-year-old playing a drinking game where they duct-tape their beer cans together as they finish them. needless to say the guy with the longest beer-can-cane was torched and making an ass of himself as he tried to be the funny guy at the party.

came home around 1:30, passed out and feel like a damn champ thismorning.

off to Bridal Veil Falls for a hike with greg and sara, then on to the festival!

music to check out while i'm gone: Paper Bird. They aren't playing the festival, but dear god they should be. These three girls voices are like honey dipped in melted glass dipped in pixie farts -- and the trombone/banjo/bass/guitar instrumentation is amazing.

www.myspace.com/paperthebird

(in the pics: Max the Team-Awesome Telluride mascot and shots from Ryan Adams)
(more to come later)

On stage: Jo Koy

If you're looking for something to do this weekend, head over to ComedyWorks Downtown and check out Jo Koy.

I saw him perform on Wednesday night and he's hilarious. High-energy observational humor about topics ranging from sex and relationships to the antics of his 5-year-old son.

Showtimes are 8 p.m. on June 18; 8 p.m. on June 19; 8 and 10 p.m. on June 20; 6:30, 8:30 and 10:30 p.m. on June 21; 8 p.m. on June 22. Tickets range from $14 to $22.

And if you want to know more about him, check out this story.

festivaaaaal!

::a recording of last night's Yonder show, courtesy of Philly, plays in the background -- and it's freaking good::

okay, i'm sun baked like a freakin' clam right now. i think the sun hid behind the clouds for a total of five minutes between noon and 3:30. i have on SPF 50 and i'm still red.

and this is only day one. fucking hell...

anyway, i tried updating from the iPhone, but i can't hack into the press wireless in the concert grounds so i'm back to taking notes.

Cadillac Sky was pretty darn good. a bunch of texas guys, but they had a great country/bluegrass mix sound with a bit of Flecktones-space mixed in for good measure. good soaring banjo, with a light mando sound backing it.

"12:15 - getting kinda hot here"

I sat and read the Daily Planet for a while while the band played and enjoyed the crowd. pictures should be above...

our tarp neighbors had some crackers, swiss cheese and avacado slices that were quite tasty.

"So many pretty bluegrass girls"
yes, there are. though, most of them are in better shape than i will ever be and spent the entire morning before the festival grounds open climbing thousand-foot cliffs with their Siberian husky named Kiva and boyfriend named Tarzan.

i digress...

"1:04 - holy fucking hot"

though, at this point one of the largest clouds of the day came creeping over the valley. It's like watching the guys at Coors field throw out Cracker Jack at the 7th inning stretch and hoping one floats your way.

and why do people have to smoke in the middle of the day, in the middle of a hot, sunny field?

"1:13 - new addition to my list: #2 - shade umbrella. and holy crap, this band (Cadillac Sky) is covering Green Day's 'Basket Case' (video to come). seriously?"

Cadillac Sky ended, we sat through the 'tweener (featuring 17-year-old Dominic Leslie on mando) and on came the g'Earls of Uncle Earl. (like sweet sirens!)

this band is old-timey, all female and awesome. they have a high-and-lonesome -type harmony mixed with a good swingy-shuffle.

"ah fat tire on a hot day" (someone had brought me my first beer of the day). Uncle Earl is freaking great"

new addition to the list: #3 - suntan lotion that won't burn my eyes when i sweat.

"my coozie fits my beer cup. nice"

Uncle Earls set ends with 'crayola' with the super-sugary-sweet line: "crayola doesn't make a color like your eyes."

decided to get up and come back to the condo at this point. Arlo Guthrie might be good, but i'm not about to stick around in the sun for that. I need to go to the grocery store and get some breat, peanut butter, jelly and a bag of cheetos.

i ran into someone i work with from time to time at the show when i was walking out. Great to see them though, as it's always nice to see people outside of the professional context.

off to the grocery, back home to eat, shower and then off to elks park (picture above) to see some small performances for a bit then off to Ryan Adams and the Cardinals tonight back at the mainstage....

-b

(included in the pics: greg and sara walking to the venue, elks park stage, bridal veil falls, view from the seats and my super-awesome neon chair)

11:02 update...

::Bob Dylan's new morning plays in the background::

just walked up to town, got the yellow wristband on my arm and threw down a huge tarp just behind the last stack on the stage right side of the fairgrounds. we came back to pick up some chairs, grab some drinks and relax for about an hour.

It is yet another cloudless day in telluride. kids are selling lemonade on the side of the street, though i am still on water for the moment.

i learned yet another lesson for next year (And i'm keeping a list):
1. bring a bicycle.

since we got a good tarp spot, i'll be going baack by noon to see cadilac sky then uncle earl. though by the time arlo comes on, i think i'll go find some shade.

no pictures yet, but i'll start taking some pics -- sadly i can't upload them from the iPhone... yet...

music to check out while i'm gone: Tim O'Brien

-b

Telluride 2008 - first day.

GREETINGS FROM TELLURIDE!

well, after a Wednesday drive from Denver that included:
- smoke pouring out the back of my car in Eisenhower tunnel,
- numerous idiot drivers,
- a 30-minute pileup south of Montrosse where road work had funneled everything down to one lane, and
- a strange odor of gasoline coming from my air conditioner

we made it into town.
Also, having a press pass on your car DOES have it's advantages (aside from the TWO "press" parking spots near the capitol) as I got full car access into town without even a word said by the guy at the gate.

Wednesday night is technically the night before the festival, so most people are getting into town and setting up camp or getting into their condos. (the hardcore town park campers have been here for weeks, however).

anyway, it is also the kickoff party night with Yonder Mountain String Band at the conference center up in Mountain Village. Me, Jason, Rick and his buddy Josh rolled up in the gondola with fresh drinks in hand around 7:30, stood around in line for a bit running into a good 20 people or so we knew. There were a lot more ticketless people outside this year than years past -- the show sold out this year in 24 hours.

the band came on right around 9 and opened up with Shawn Camp's 'redbird' with the crowd raging behind. Dave Johnston's banjo was on point from the start of the show and i remember thinking how loud the band was without sounding distorted.

The venue itself is just a huge ballroom/conference center, nothing too special, but it has a really flat sound thanks to the carpet of the room.

I haven't seen Yonder since February, and the band sounds much more rehearsed. they ripped through originals like 'at the end of the day' and Johnston's recently-penned 'Fingerprint' as well as Bob Dylan's 'Spanish Harlem Incident' in the first set, but the highlight for me was 'new horizons > suspicious minds (Elvis) > new horizons'. I have heard them cover that song once before in 2004 at a show in Vail, so to hear it again in the middle of new horizons was great. I was in the beer line when they started it, and turned to some random girl behind me, grabbed her and started two-stepping.

the boys closed out the set with a 'new horizons' dedicated to the folks in the midwest floods.

it's bluegrass festival, afterall.

a fifth microphone was put out on stage at setbreak, and after the lights went down Mr. Drew Emmitt from Leftover Salmon walked on stage to play the entire set. the band kicked off the last hour and a half with Adam Aijala ripping through the intro of Shawn Camp's 'damned if the right one didn't go wrong'. After a lackluster 'East Nashville Easter', the band tore through Todd Snider's 'sideshow blues' and into bassist Ben Kauffman's 'Catch a Criminal', with the home-town crowd-pleasing first line "I'm going back to Colorado, with my suitcase and a gun/I'm gonna find me a desperate woman/and have me a little fun'

yes. yes we are.

the band toyed around with two of their murder ballads at the end of the night, 'on the run' and 'dawn's early light'. The first song being a part of an ongoing saga of songs that revolve around the rambler, the sherriff and the sheriff's wife. The latter is about brothers seeking revenge for the killing of their third brother by an outlaw.

oddly, the band chose to jam out of dawns and into Danny Barnes's (of the Bad Livers) Death Trip - a song about not wanting to grow up again, among other things such as selling 'it by the pound'.

the band played up until midnight, leaving no time for an encore. But I've still got three more sets of YMSB this week, so i'm not complaining.

Afterwards, we waited in an hour + line to get back down the gondola into Telluride where the parties lasted until well after 3 a.m.

SO....
Today is the start of the actual festival on the other end of town. I"m going to get up and get some food in me, take a longboard over and check out the scene at the gates, pick up my wristband and do some people watching.

there's no bands i want to see until 2 p.m. when the ladies of Uncle Earl take the stage. AFter that is a set by Arlo Guthrie, then Del McCoury Band, then Ani DiFranco and finally tonight, Ryan Adams and the Cardinals (if he shows up)

More updates and pictures later.

In Theaters: 'Speed Racer'

Hollywood seems to have an Asian fetish these days.

From the countless horror remakes to the martial-art-heavy films such as "The Forbidden Kingdom" and "Kung Fu Panda," Hollywood producers have taken a liking to all things Asian. Now they're moving into the world of cartoons.

Five years removed from "The Matrix" trilogy, the sibling duo of Andy and Larry Wachowski have returned with a live-action version of the classic '60s anime, "Speed Racer." Taking a page out of the cartoon's frenetic animation style, they create a hyper-realistic world of fast cars and intense racing. But the film is constrained by overly corny moments and a lack of intelligent dialogue.

The film follows the story of Speed (played by Emile Hirsch), the middle child of the Racer family and a naturally talented driver who follows the footsteps of his late older brother, Rex (Scott Porter), who died in a race years earlier. Speed dominates the local circuit and is offered a lucrative deal to race with Royalton Industries. He turns down the deal and suffers the wrath of the company's maniacal owner.

What makes this film is its visuals. The Wachowski brothers tried to replicate the appearance of an anime by keeping both the foreground and the background in focus. The colors were saturated, creating a vibrant look. While it is trippy and a little difficult to absorb initially, it adds

The strong cast shined in their performances. John Goodman and Susan Sarandon are marvelous in their portrayals of Pops and Mom Racer, giving the film grounded balance to the cartoonish world. Roger Allam, who played the mogul Royalton, is the quintessential movie supervillain down to his Segway. Slithering and sliming his way through the film, he is fun to hate because he exudes natural charisma.

However, Hirsch didn't do much to give life to Speed, plodding his way with one emotion: focus. But his trash talking is amusing during the races.

But the quips were few and far in between. A lot of the dialogue is annoying, especially anything that came out of the mouth of Spritle (Paulie Litt). Much of what Spritle said sounded forced and added nothing to the film.

"Speed Racer" is a decent adaptation that provides some entertainment. While the visuals and the race scenes are fun to watch, the stuff in between comes off more as filler than substance. It's worth watching at the dollar theater or as a rental. Here's hoping the next anime adaptation, "Dragon Ball Z" will be better.