Finally recovered from the America-inspired bender I went on for the 4th, celebrating my freedoms and global superiority to the max — just in time to do it again for the Olympics! Before I go back down the rabbit hole, though, had a few items worth sharing to serve as an alternative to the anthem for the forthcoming fortnight. First, had a chance to watch the new HBO documentary on Woodstock 99 last night, the aptly named Woodstock 99: Peace, Love, and Rage, and like the festival it portrays, it’s a bit of a mixed bag.
Things it gets right — there were a lot of bros. A LOT of bros. I believe a study conducted afterward by the prestigious Boston School of Zoology & Migratory Travel determined that 87% of the world’s bro population was present at the festival that weekend, making it the third largest gathering of a single species last century. And they were mostly white. And gropey. And they really enjoyed the more aggressive, harder bands that headlined each night. (The Offspring and Korn the first, Limp Bizkit, Rage, and Metallica the second.)
As someone who was there I can verify these things are all true — also, my GOD was it hot. And dirty. As I was watching I started to get flashbacks and my skin started crawling as I have never been so consistently hot, filthy, and uncomfortable as I was that weekend. The 100 degree temperatures, the miles and miles of concrete you walked on between stages and sets, the lack of shade or ability to cool down at night. You were camping out in tents or your car, remember — if you could recall where the hell yours was, that is — as the surroundings continued to radiate the day’s heat and you tried to sleep while covered in sweat and grime from the day’s activities.
Add in the soupy morass of piss and shit you had to wade thru as you tried to refill your water and/or rinse some of the grime off you meant you had a lot of people who basically baked for three days straight, stewing in their own juices (if not throwing in loads of mind-altering booze and chemicals on top of that to really perfect the recipe). I remember the promoters turning hoses on the crowd to try and cool them down during the day, but when you’ve got hundreds of thousands of people that only goes so far (and lasts so long).
By the time the weekend was done I had definitely gotten heat stroke — the sun was so incessant (and my attempts to hide from it so ineffective) that my head had swelled about an inch in size. (I discovered this fact when I got back to my buddy’s house and sneezed after that first amazing shower, at which point I felt my entire scalp slide forward like it was riding on a slip and slide — which essentially it was, as my head had started stockpiling whatever moisture it could find up top in an attempt to protect my brain. The picture I took upon realizing this shows my forehead jutting out like Frankenstein, which I found simultaneously hilarious and horrifying.)
So all of that was true and made for a pretty uncomfortable concert-going experience. It was hot, it was dirty, and there were a ton of white bros roaming around. (Also true, there were a TON of topless women — I had forgotten about the tents doing the skin art, but that led to an endless array of women walking around with paint shirts on. I honestly saw more breasts that weekend than I think I have in the subsequent 20 years combined.)
What the documentary gets wrong is when it tries to portray the festival as this overtly aggro/aggressive/racist/misogynistic thing that was doomed to devolve the way it did. Yes, there were a lot of hard rock acts on the bill — but there were also ones like Counting Crows, Dave Matthews, Brian Setzer, Bruce Hornsby, Elvis Costello, and Rusted Root, which are about as far to the opposite side of the spectrum as you can get. Yes, the lineup was skewed more towards more white male-led rockers — but there were also bands like The Roots, Ice Cube, Wyclef, and George Clinton, in addition to the iconic performance by DMX and the three females (Alanis, Jewel, and Sheryl Crow) noted in the documentary. (And as at all festivals they were butting right up against each other — the two acts that preceded the Chili Peppers on that closing night were Creed and Jewel, which has to be among the more bananas transitions in styles and fan bases you’re ever going to see.)
Yes, there was a an uncomfortable amount of groping of women crowdsurfers (and turns out full-on assaults, which was not apparent to us at the time) and a whoooole lotta white people shown saying the N-word in response to DMX’s exhortations — but portraying it as some liberating release of pent-up racism and rapiness isn’t fair or accurate. All of which makes it sound like I’m defending the festival or saying what happened was acceptable (or enjoyable) — I would no sooner go to this again than I would condone the actions of the idiots who torched the place, looted things, and/or assaulted the female concertgoers. I just don’t think you can say those things were destined to happen and/or caused by some broader societal tolerance of misogyny and racism. (For every asshole/idiot who acted unacceptably there were an equal number if not hundreds more who did not, which diminishes the argument for predestination and inevitability.)
Avoidable? Potentially. Something to be held accountable for? Absolutely. (Although 20 years on this is something the promoters still seemed largely unable to do — in their telling this was a Fred Durst (and maybe MTV) problem vs anything they could have done better.)
So while I wouldn’t do it again, I don’t regret going either. I remember some fantastic performances — DMX’s in particular stands out (a point validated by rewatching his set after his sudden passing recently). I remember the vast carpet of humanity undulating like a wave during Limp Bizkit’s set — the first time I’d ever seen that happen. (And still probably the largest — it went on FOREVER, just like waves in the actual ocean, which you can get glimpses of in the documentary.) I remember that Saturday bloc of Bizkit, Rage, and Metallica being a pretty epic close to a pretty decent day. (I had forgotten about the plywood surfers until I watched this, but there were LOADS of em out during that stretch, which is another memory.) I remember driving out while the Chili Peppers were playing, as the bonfires started to multiply and things really started to disintegrate. And I remember being hot, dirty, and wanting to shower really, really bad. That, and Frankenstein forehead and nearly boiling my brain.
All in all a fun trip down memory lane! (Eye roll) Worth a watch, though, if only to appreciate how far we’ve come at our festivals since then. (The occasional Fyre Fests notwithstanding…)
We’ll close with a couple new tracks that caught my ear the past couple weeks — first up comes the latest from Woods, whose deluxe release of last year’s Strange to Explain (which landed at #13 on last year’s best of list) came out Friday. It sports five new tracks including this one, “Nickels and Dimes” — give it a listen here:
Next comes the latest from the poppier side of some Norwegian death metalers, Beachheads, who released the single “Jupiter” recently. It’s a bright, catchy little tune — no word on if it’s part of an upcoming release or not, but am glad to have it either way. See what you think here:
Up third is the rolling celebration for the Indiana label Secretly Canadian’s 25 anniversary, which has spawned some solid singles where their acts offer deep cuts and/or special covers to help raise funds to combat homelessness in their hometown of Bloomington. It’s a good cause that’s yielded some good tunes, including Jim James’ recent cover of Steve Miller, “Seasons.” This early one from Jason Molina’s first Songs:Ohia album is the one that’s gotten stuck in my head, though — a solid tune from someone gone too soon. Check out “Gauley Bridge” here:
Someone else looking back is Pile frontman Rick Maguire who decided to spend part of his pandemic revisiting old songs and demos of the band, recreating and re-envisioning them for a solo album, the upcoming Songs Known Together, Alone. One of those tracks was the first thing he recorded for the band, the demo “Build a Fire,” which he delivers this time as a lovely piano ballad. Really interested in how the rest of the album turns out — in the meantime give this one a ride:
We’ll close with one last band deciding to dive into the archives, Wye Oak, whose album Civilian turned 10 this year. As part of that re-release the band went back to a couple outtakes and demos from those sessions and unearthed this one, the excellent “Electricity.” It would have sounded perfect alongside existing album tracks, harnessing the power and urgency of the band in this era — still my favorite of their many incarnations. See what you think here:
That’s it for now — until next time, amici…
–BS