Unyielding Commissioning says “Poo-tee-weet”

Good night, sweet prince. As you have no doubt heard, Kurt Vonnegut passed away on Wednesday, much to the dismay of all learned folk who ever appreciated his wonderful, creative fiction. He was widely revered, and in my opinion, he earned that reverence and then some. Probably my favorite writer, I now find myself going over his catalogue and realizing how many of his works I’ve yet to read. While that makes me lament time wasted watching television or reading anyone else’s less interesting work, I also take comfort in knowing that I still get about five or six chances to read one of his books for the first time even though he is gone. And that makes me excited. As Billy Pilgrim found out on Tralfalmadore, time isn’t necessary linear, and in the case of great authors, they leave their work behind for us to experience over and over as long as people walk the earth. There have been various tributes out here on the internets, but I thought perhaps Brian’s did Vonnegut the most justice, letting the man speak for himself – in a sense.

He’ll flip you. Flip ya for real. Lolla lineup is posted and extremely difficult to navigate on their website. Luckily everyone all over the place has given us a much more user friendly version. Many people are complaining that the lineup “sucks” or “is weak” or “isn’t as good as last year.” First of all, last year was freaking unbelievable and should be recognized as such. There’s no way you are ever going to see that many incredible bands in the same place ever again. That was a one-time thing. Plus, they will be adding more acts over the coming weeks and months. All that said, here are my picks:

Bands I’ve never seen, but am super-geeked to catch
Iggy & the Stooges
Interpol
The Black Keys

Bands I’ve seen before and can’t wait to see again
Modest Mouse
The Roots
Kings of Leon
Tapes N Tapes
Ted Leo RX
Silversun Pickups

Bands that I’m intrigued by and definitely want to check out
Daft Punk
Yeah yeah yeahs
TV on the Radio
Pete Yorn
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
Blonde Redhead
LCD Soundsystem
Roky Erickson & The Explosions
The View
The Fratellis
Tokyo Police Club
Rhymefest
Electric Six
Aqueduct
Peter Bjorn and John
The Rapture

Bands that are notable in that I’ll let the hippies go see ‘em while I get a funnel cake or do something more worthwhile like sit around
Ben Harper and whateverhescallinghisband
Muse
G Love and aretheyreallyfreakingplayingagainthisyear?

Bands I’ve already seen that were fine
Pearl Jam
Spoon
My Morning Jacket
Snow Patrol
Yo La Tengo
The Hold Steady
Chin Up Chin Up
Viva Voce

Bands I’ve already seen that made me angry and irritable


Note that there are no bands listed in that last section. And there are about fifty more bands that fell into the “I have no strong opinion about these guys” bucket either because they’re Silverchair or because I just don’t know that much about them. I’ll certainly be checking a lot of these randoms over the coming months. So you can hate on this lineup, but there are plenty of bands that were covered on my wishlist from yesterday, so I’m netting out at “pleased.”

Here there be tygers!