Carpool to Monolith and Save $$$: Green Ticket Packages Now Available

Jul 07, 2008

A limited number of Green Ticket Packages have just been released! Reduce your carbon footprint; carpool to Monolith and save some green. Green Tickets are the same as a 2-day festival ticket but the only catch is you need to arrive to the festival in the same vehicle. Green Ticket Packages are only available in blocks of 4 or 8 tickets. This special package is only offered for a limited time and available at all Ticketmaster locations, Ticketmaster.com or charge by phone at 303-820-TIXS.

Buy GREEN TICKET Package Now – $85 (Includes Both Days)

Artist of the Week: CSS

Jul 03, 2008

CSS is tired of being sexy

Brazilian band Cansei de Ser Sexy (CSS) has one of the best band names ever, for two reasons:
1) it literally means “I got tired of being sexy” (and who hasn’t?)
2) the name’s taken from something Beyonce once said to that effect. I mean, really.

Singing in both Portuguese and English, CSS weaves together shiny, syncopated electro-pop with an edge of irreverent glamour and charming naivete. The Guardian once wrote that “they sound like an unlikely, brilliantly wrong fusion of Tom Tom Club, dance culture and the Fall.”

Although CSS favors topics of pop culture and night hedonism (song titles include “Jager Yoga,” “Let’s Make Love And Listen To Death From Above,” and “Meeting Paris Hilton”), their music is not vapid. The new song below evokes a lot more Karen O than Paris H, even though they sometimes sing about the latter. And I say this with affection because my new job is in this field, but they also look like an innocent group of foreign exchange students. You practically want to help them find the library, bring them to a soccer game, or maybe take them home for Thanksgiving when the dorms close.

Download MP3s at Fuel/Friends

The new CSS album Donkey (produced in Brazil, mixed in L.A.) is out July 21 on Sub Pop.

Oh, and it’s gonna be a party with these kids out at Red Rocks. CSS is one of the penultimate acts capping off the Monolith Festival this September, playing at 9:45pm Sunday, September 14. Come, dance.

by Heather Browne of Fuel/Friends

Artist of the Week: PORT O’ BRIEN

Jun 25, 2008

by Heather Browne of Fuel/Friends

Port O’Brien is a nautically-named collective of five musicians based out of the California port city of Oakland, the neighbor across the bay from San Francisco. Their songs are mostly written by lady baker Cambria Goodwin and her commercial salmon-fisherman boyfriend Van Pierszalowski. Their self-released 2008 album All We Could Do Was Sing contains one of the most vibrant tunes of this year:

I Woke Up Today – Listen in the MONOLITH Festival Player

Check out All We Could Do Was Sing, which was recorded at John Vanderslice’s Tiny Telephone Studios—the same ground where folks like Sun Kil Moon, the Mountain Goats, and Death Cab for Cutie have also done their musical thing. The band describes their album as “lush string arrangements, raw electric guitar, percussive banjo, pots + pans, a tight rhythm section, group chants and screaming . . . with a diverse, but cohesive feel.”

PORT O’BRIEN will be performing at the MONOLITH FESTIVAL on Saturday, Sept 13th, 2008.

Cloud Cult Announced for VIP Kick-Off Party

Jun 19, 2008

Sustainable friends of the MONOLITH Festival, Cloud Cult, return in 2008 to help set the the festival off in style at the official VIP Kick Off Party on Friday, Sept 12th at the Bluebird Theater. This event is exclusively for VIP Badge holders – get yours today. For a preview, check out Cloud Cult tonight (Thurs, June 19th) on their national television debut on the Carson Daily Show!

Buy Tickets Now >>

Artist of the Week: Chester French

Jun 16, 2008

by Heather Browne of Fuel/Friends

So the story goes that a pair of Harvard boys get bored and decide to record an album in their dorm basement. A lot of things happened in my various dorm basements but nothing that sounded this good; I think it was too dark with those half-lit humming fluorescent lights, the broken foosball tables, and slightly dodgy-looking couches that you knew had some sketch tales to tell.

So what did Chester French conjure up there instead? Think robust strings over crisp and sexy beats, some chiming mid ‘60s guitar . . . and they get all Zombies here at the beginning of this track. What’s your name / who’s your daddy?

Visit Fuel/Friends to Download MP3s

Go traipse on over to their MySpace now and listen to “People” . . . then try and tell me that doesn’t make your day significantly better. So pleasing that I’ve already used it on a mix. Chester French’s debut album Love the Future is forthcoming in 2008 on Pharrell Williams’ Star Trak label.

CHESTER FRENCH will be performing at the MONOLITH FESTIVAL on Sunday, Sept 14th, 2008.

—Heather Browne, Leave a comment about this story on Heather’s Blog, I am Fuel, You are Friends.