Day 1: Loads of neon – and why didn’t anyone tell me about taking drugs?

With October hosting major music functions in its 31 days – Austin City Limits, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, and the illustrious CMJ – San Francisco’s Treasure Island Music Festival nestles comfortably in between, boasting prestigious acts to grace the island shores as well as maintaining a crowd size that’s not overwhelming or annoying. Good weather afforded people the opportunity to dress up for the occasion and sample the special brownies the guy in the AT&T ballpark parking lot was offering.

Our highlights and lowlights included:

- Witnessing The Streets’ Mike Skinner being adorable: after he opened with “Let’s Push Things Forward,” he reminisced about his last SF experience that left him bruised— a jump off the balcony at The Fillmore. He then proclaimed to the audience below him “I’m gonna jump into the crowd and make love to you all” before punctuating his set with more words of adoration for the city by the bay.

- Missing Passion Pit as a result of waiting to take a shuttle to the island, which we also contemplated swimming to as a result of the delay. When someone started blasted “Sleepyhead” in the parking lot where we were congregating, it was met with “Yeah guys, let’s listen to the band we’re missing as we stand in line. Real smart. Idiot.”

- DJ Krush providing a most excellent soundtrack as we rode the Ferris wheel.

- Having dinner on a pirate ship.

- Girl Talk being all over the place: crowd-surfing during Dan Deacon’s set, jumping around on stage during his own, and then air pelvic thrusting timed to fireworks at the end of his dancetastic set.

- MSTRKRFT still is just two dudes with a laptop.

- MGMT playing “Oracular Spectacular” from start to finish, which is a good idea if the nostalgia factor is there. But having all your singles in the first half of your album – especially the dance-centric ones – guarantees that your audience takes off midway through your show.

- Afterparty with Dan Deacon, who is so rad I just want to hug him all the time.

It’s a strange world when your ex-love’s sister serves you liquor unexpectedly in the beer tent (why, how did you know I needed a beverage for this conversation?). But in all seriousness, at the end of the day when the guy in the penguin suit apologized to me for whacking my ear during Girl Talk’s set, I was glad to be in the company of some fun – and strange – folks. The Treasure Island Festival is fast becoming my favorite out of all the exravangaznas we have to offer, and it’s for good reason: we all just want to have a good time.

The Streets:

Girl Talk:

MSTRKRFT:

MGMT:

Afterparty with Dan Deacon:

Hey look! It’s the hobbit that puts out Apples in Stereo records.

Y’all, isn’t music awesome? We think so too. And, apparently, so do the producers of Nickelodeon’s Yo Gabba Gabba, the playpen friendly kid’s show that’s always featured alt celebs like Mark Mothersbaugh, who knows a thing or two about Rugrats (wink, wink), and Biz Markie as special guests. Knowing that, it should come as no surprise that the show, which has featured a bevy of inscrutable indie acts, should release a compilation. Lots of kid friendly acts get in on the mix, including I’m From Barcelona and Of Montreal, both of whom really express their inner child on a regular basis. While it’s nice to see new music from the Shins and Money Mark, I can’t help but think that the best track on this record is sure to be the Yo Gabba Gabba contribution “Party in My Tummy,” which has serious adult remix potential.

Yo Gabba Gabba! Music Is Awesome!:

01 Yo Gabba Gabba! Theme
02 Party in My Tummy
03 The Shins: “It’s Okay, Try Again”
04 I Like to Dance
05 Money Mark: “Robo Dancing”
06 Get the Sillies Out
07 Biz Markie: “Biz’s Beat of the Day #1″
08 Chromeo: “Nice ‘N’ Clean”
09 Try It, You’ll Like It
10 The Roots: “Lovely, Love My Family”
11 Don’t Be Afraid
12 I’m From Barcelona: “Just Because It’s Different Doesn’t Mean Scary”
13 Bubbles
14 Of Montreal: “Brush Brush Brush”
15 Nice & Easy
16 The Little Ones: “Hey, Won’t Somebody Come and Play”
17 Weird Science: “Go Crazy Remix”
18 Yo Dazzlers: “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”
19 Mark Kozelek: “Bedtime Lullaby”
20 Goodbye Song
21 Yo Gabba Gabba! Closing Theme

MGMT teaching “Art is Everywhere” on Yo Gabba Gabba.

Swedish indie-pop duos may not scream street cred, but then again Kanye West has turned a lot of non-traditional concepts into everyday parts of the hip-hop blogosphere (See: Mr. Hudson, uncomfortable looking chairs.) Not so long ago, it was West’s blog that debuted PB and J’s single “Nothing To Worry About.” And if we measure Ye’s excitement on a scale direcetly linked to his Caps-lock usage, he certainly liked what he heard. Then the duo were sampled on the biggest mixtape of the past year when Drake included “Let’s Call It Off” on So Far Gone. And now Mick Boogie has curated a mixtape entitled Re-Living Thing reworking all of their recent album Living Thing with the help of a legitimately interesting mix of old and new school rappers (Wale, Gza, Bun B, Fashawn) and producers (DJ Jazzy Jeff, Cookin’ Soul, Apple Juice Kid, The Kickdrums). The music molds the genres together oddly well, making the association seem almost natural. So odds tell us Jay-Z should eb attending their next Brooklyn concert, schedule permitting. Check out Re-Living Thing here. (Via: Nah Right)

After covering The Velvet Underground & Nico with a group of musical collaborators including Devendra Banhart and members of MGMT for the first iteration of his Record Club, Beck has opted to focus his second effort on Songs of Leonard Cohen and has posted his cover of “Suzanne” on his Record Club’s website. Collaborators include Devendra and MGMT again, along with members of Wolfmother and Little Joy.

The website describes the Record Club project as “an informal meeting of various musicians to record an album in a day.” Relying on spontaneity (nothing is rehearsed or arranged beforehand), the group selects an album “to be reinterpreted and used as a framework.” A track is posted to the Record Club website once every week, and the recordings tend to be rough renditions, especially since they are frequently the first takes of the day. “There is no intention to ‘add to’ the original work or attempt to recreate the power of the original recording. Only to play music and document what happens,” the site claims.

Check out the cover of “Suzanne” here, and be sure to check the Record Club’s website over the next few weeks for more covers from Songs of Leonard Cohen.

You may think “Electric Feel” doesn’t feel like a sports anthem (although I bet they had it cued up at the Grizzly Bear pool party show if Jay-Z stepped in the dodgeball pit). But we’ve secretly always thought it was the perfect accompaniment to those lime-green throwbacks the Hawks wear from time to time. Sure, they could play basketball if they must, but if the game comes to a sudden halt when MGMT comes on and an all-out rave breaks out at Philips Arena.

So we were right there with NBA2K10 when they decided to put MGMT on their soundtrack/game along with Miike Snow, Ratatat, Illinois and some exclusive hip-hop tracks from Izza Kizza and Donnie Bravo. Check the full tracklist here.

On a sidenote, there’s a special feature in the game where you can play as (among other rappers) Kanye West, and his song (”Amazing”) is featured in the game. This means in theory Yeezy could be playing a video game as himself at center court of Madison Square Garden with his own song in the background, which has to be some sort of daydream come true for him.

(Via: 2KSports)