Photos by Andrew Parks

As smooth as this past weekend’s Creators Project event was—structurally, not sonically; the outdoor stage sounded godawful and Justice’s headlining set featured the same LCD (lowest common denominator) songs they’ve spun since 2007—two things stood out: A$AP Rocky’s dedication to entertaining a crowd that clearly didn’t give a damn, and Jonathan Glazer’s rather incredible reinterpretation of Spiritualized’s “Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space.” More than just a simple art installation, it felt like the virtual embodiment of exactly what J. Spaceman was feeling when he wrote one of the greatest heroin-haunted anthems of all time. If only the rest of the program had found a way to fuse art and music that powerfully.

Here are a few more shots that capture what we mean…

Photos by Andrew Parks

If you can’t tell by the delay in posting our final set of Pitchfork Music Festival photos, last weekend kinda left us feeling like the guy in the above photo. Here’s what wore us  out as we tried to hit every act across three stages…

[Yuck]

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[How To Dress Well]

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[Twin Sister]

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[Odd Future]

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[Ariel Pink]

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[Cut Copy]

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[Toro Y Moi]

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[Kylesa]

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[Deerhunter]

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[TV on the Radio]

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[Various Fans]

Words and Photos by Andrew Parks

If you could make it past the kill joy closing of Fleet Foxes—seriously dudes, no one cares that Dizzee Rascal dissed your MOR folk music a few years ago—the second day of Pitchfork’s annual festival was rife with artists reinventing their studio sound for the stage. That goes for everything from the feel-good Grateful Dead-isms of Woods to the muscular synth-pop of Cold Cave, which finally saw frontman Wesley Eisold relishing his frontman role with the same sense of confidence and pressure-cooked aggression that he once had in the hardcore band Give Up the Ghost.

The only letdown of the day? Watching DJ Shadow struggle to project the live visuals of his ambitious “Shadowsphere” show in broad daylight. Some advice for Pitchfork’s promoters: don’t make a sample-chopping, crowd-pleasing legend in a Death Star globe play before a band that’s best heard in coffee shops and the main stage of Bonnaroo.

Words and Photos by Andrew Parks

So the first day of this year’s Pitchfork Festival was a relatively sedate one, punctuated by such attention-seizing moments as the wall of noise/heavy bass lines that bookended James Blake’s precious but prickly version of “The Wilhelm Scream”; the sloshed college rock of Guided By Voices; an absurdly tight Battles set that made us finally believe in their Tyondai-free lineup; and some new Animal Collective song that ended in Panda Bear clobbering his kit like an angry Muppet.

More to come as the weekend goes on. For now, some photos…

Photos by Andrew Parks

We’re pretty sure you’re all sick of LCD Soundsystem think pieces by now, so let’s just get straight to photos from last night, shall we? As always, be sure to click on any of the shots for a slideshow version of the entire set.

Set One:
Dance Yrself Clean
Drunk Girls
I Can Change
Time To Get Away
Get Innocuous!
Daft Punk Is Playing At My House
Too Much Love
All My Friends
Tired

Set Two:
45:33 Part One
45:33 Part Two (w/ Reggie Watts)
Sound of Silver
45:33 Part Four
45:33 Part Five (w/ Shit Robot & Juan MacLean)
45:33 Part Six
Freak Out/Starry Eyes

Set Three:
Us v Them
North American Scum (w/ Arcade Fire)
Bye Bye Bayou (Alan Vega cover)
You Wanted A Hit
Tribulations
Movement
Yeah! (Crass Version)

Encore One:
Someone Great
Losing My Edge
Home

Encore Two:
All I Want
Jump Into the Fire (Harry Nilsson Cover)
New York, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down

Words and Photos by Andrew Parks

“So we’re playing our first album all the way through tonight,” said Queens of the Stone Age’s towering frontman, speaking to a capacity Terminal 5 crowd who didn’t seem to mind. “There’s always that one person who didn’t know, though. So I say to that person, ‘Fuck you.’ And I mean that in the nicest way possible. More like ‘fudge you’ or something.”

Josh Homme, everyone—still a comedian after all these years. That’s not the only thing that’s stood the test of time, either. The band’s self-titled debut also sounds as fresh today as it did 12 years ago. From the cutthroat chords of “Regular John” to the careening coda of “You Can’t Quit Me Baby,” it’s a thick, malted slab of sludge-pop and Route 66 rock that actually translates better to a big room than many of their latter-day singles. Probably because the songwriting is rawer than an omakase special, although QOTSA did leave us with quite the night cap: two encores, including such relatively recent fan favorites as “Burn the Witch,” “Little Sister,” and “Make It Wit Chu.”

Check out a stack of live shots from last night below, along with a streaming version of the record of the hour…

Poland's OFF Festival

For the stories and sets related to any of the following photos, just click on the shots…

Animal Collective @ The Guggenheim

Salem @ SXSW

Stone Temple Pilots @ SXSW

MtyMx

Atlanta's Mess-Around Festival

The Fader Fort @ SXSW

Calgary's Sled Island Festival

Screaming Females @ Siren Festival

Warpaint @ SXSW

Uffie @ Webster Hall

Atoms For Peace @ Roseland Ballroom

Atari Teenage Riot @ Gramercy Theatre

Led Er Est @ Bruar Falls

Cut Copy @ JellyNYC's Pool Party

Twin Sister @ Bruar Falls

Isis @ Music Hall of Williamsburg

Underworld @ Roseland Ballroom

Wolf Eyes @ Secret Project Robot

Sleep @ Brooklyn Masonic Temple

The Black Lips @ The Shank

Boris & Sunn O))) @ Brooklyn Masonic Temple

Guided By Voices @ Terminal 5

MGMT @ Mercury Lounge

LCD Soundsystem @ Music Hall of Williamsburg

The Whitest Boy Alive @ Music Hall of Williamsburg

PiL @ Music Hall of Williamsburg

Brian Jonestown Massacre @ Terminal 5

A Moon Duo fan

Das Racist @ SXSW

Man Or Astroman? @ SXSW

Courtney Love @ SXSW

Deerhunter's "Secret Generator" Show

The Dream @ FADER's Summer Issue Party

Arcade Fire @ Madison Square Garden

The Dillinger Escape Plan @ SXSW

1349 @ Gramercy Theatre

Sleigh Bells @ Vice's Creators Project Party

Massive Attack @ Terminal 5

Empire of the Sun @ Terminal 5

Caribou @ Metro

Photos by Andrew Parks

So what if “M.I.A.,” “O Katrina!” and “Dirty Hands” were the only Black Lips songs that survived the Shank’s murky mix on Saturday? Considering the way people rushed the stage from the start, the point of JellyNYC’s “secret show” was quite simple—to shotgun beer and slam into 18-year-old kids who looked like they’d just seen Black Flag for the first time. (You can blame Cerebral Ballzy and an all-ages bill for that one.)

Anyway, here’s what survived the wreckage as we stood on stage and tried to keep one of the band’s speakers from crushing a couple fans…

Words and Photos by Andrew Parks

“I want to feel your love!” shouted Karl Hyde, as he eased into the middle section of Underworld’s nearly two-hour set at Roseland Ballroom on Wednesday night. The request was rife with nostalgia for anyone who lived through the peak era of rave culture in the ’90s. Or if you’re like us, anyone who learned about songs like “Pearl’s Girl” and “Born Slippy Nuxx” through the Trainspotting soundtrack and MTV’s shortly-lived/dearly-missed Amp show.

Setting that nostalgia aside, the highlights of Underworld’s performance were mostly from their new Barking album, including the bleak midnight drive beats of “Grace” and “Between Stars,” the euphoric head rush hooks of “Scribble” and “Always Loved a Film,” and the abstract, steady build of “Bird 1.” As Hyde told us in an exclusive interview yesterday, these songs have established the foundation of a “new Underworld.” Considering they’ve survived several decades already, as many young electronic artists come and go on a monthly basis, this has to be a good thing.

And now, some more photos…

Photos by Andrew Parks

As murky as their mix sounded on Wednesday night, 1349 was still…amusing, enough to warrant their own Web post. We’ll share some shots of Triptykon and Yakuza in a bit…