Allow me to deviate from your scheduled programming and briefly review the performances from Two Thousand Trees’ streaming stand-in for an outdoor music festival.
Day 1
Milk Teeth
Context: I’d heard a stray song or two.
Performance: The biggest standout was that they displayed branded song titles onscreen as they played. For better and worse.
Strange Bones
Context: None.
Performance: Really trippy and – even though I had no expectations going in – it was nothing I could’ve expected. I kinda dug it, though.
Nervus
Context: None.
Performance: Most notable aspect was that the frontman was a larger fellow, which is rare in most genres, and I respected the hell out of him for it.
Airwaves
Context: I knew one song really well, but if I’d listened to any more, they must not’ve made an impression on me.
Performance: Took me too long to realize the split-screen “guitarists” were the frontman in different shirts.
Calva Louise
Context: Know them. Love them. Basically the whole reason I tuned in to today’s lineup.
Performance: Much trippier than their usual offering, which can dip its toes into twee alt girl anthems at times. Based on my affection for them, I couldn’t really have come away disappointed, and I didn’t.
Static Dress
Context: None.
Performance: God damned incredible. Most other bands showed up with a stripped-down set from their living rooms, and these guys turned in the equivalent of a full-value production-laden 90s-era Tool music video. They won an instant fan.
The Dirty Nil
Context: Know them some. Know one or two songs pretty well.
Performance: While the performance was very solid, it wasn’t new. It was footage from a concert that they may or may not have released before. That was disappointing.
Jamie Lenman
Context: Really like one song and tried to get into others but couldn’t.
Performance: Easily the most charming of the performers between songs. Seems like a cool guy, other than the ridiculous hair decisions.
Jimmy Eat World
Context: I think it’s fair to say I’m familiar.
Performance: “Big Casino” followed by “Bleed American” followed by “Work.” They played “Work!” I couldn’t have put together a more blasphemous and legitimately perfect set list.
Day 2
Nova Twins
Context: Recently became a big fan, which is fun, because it feels like I’m getting in on the ground floor of something.
Performance: Really excellent. I love seeing effects-pedals-heavy bands being able to execute onstage what they create on their records, and these two are so charismatic and skilled that they make every small performance a treat.
Oxygen Thief
Context: None.
Performance: Absolutely the pleasant surprise of the day. Complex instrumentation under clever – bonus: woke – lyrics? I’m in. The most personable frontman of the day on top of that? I’m a fan.
Non Canon
Context: None prior to today’s performance of the same guy as his band Oxygen Thief.
Performance: See above.
False Advertising
Context: A fair amount of listening to one album.
Performance: Really solid. The members switching instruments halfway through was really impressive.
Cancer Bats
Context: None.
Performance: Strange and really cute in a weird way. The frontman isn’t much of a singer – not that that’s a requirement; Ozzy’s done fine for a few decades – so the choice to have it be him exclusively performing to an acoustic backing track was bold. Doing it in front of an oceanside cliff was even bolder.
Delaire the Liar
Context: Lots of listens to what little they’ve released. “Shovel” was my pick for Single Of Twenty Twenty basically within the first thirty seconds of hearing it the first time. And that’s held up.
Performance: Among a sea of exceptionally talented and skilled artists, this was an exceptional entry. But it was undeniably raw. It felt live, despite all the polish. Which I consider a plus. And they played unreleased songs, which is even more of a plus.
Dinosaur Pile-Up
Context: Years’ worth of fandom with their last two records.
Performance: Good, but they pulled a The Dirty Nil: it was pretaped from a previous concert, and they only turned in one song. So, disappointing.
Vukovi
Context: Am a fan. Been a fan.
Performance: Top-knotch. I don’t know whether to give bands like this – who can sound exactly like the record live – more credit or less. For them, I’ll lean toward more.
Interlude On Forced Interaction
It occurred to me today, as I was watching more Two Thousand Screens performances152, that I could trace a very specific pattern through my patterns of musical recommendation over the years.
It certainly isn’t unique to my family, but we’ve always been big on recommendations. If you like a movie or record or whatever, you tell the people close to you that they should try it. Or you play it for them or experience it with them. It was and is a way to show someone that you’re thinking about them and that you want them to be happy. Again: not unique; not really uncommon.
What follows may or may not also be uncommon. I can only speak to my own experience of being met with frequent confusion or rejection instilling in me the thought that people would often not like what I liked. The thought that I should not like what I liked never crossed my mind – I was never going to give up my comic books or alternative music or slapstick comedy films or antihumor internet cartoons – so I adjusted accordingly.
I stopped saying, “You ought to like this,” where “ought” meant “need to,” and started saying, “You ought to like this,” where “ought” meant “are likely to.”
This adjustment came in different stages for different fandoms, and it’s still a process of adjustment from person to person. My wife likes synthpop, but not all synthpop, so I’ve had to narrow what songs I recommend to her. My wife generally does not like my favorite band153, so I generally do not recommend her their songs at all, but every once in a while, she hears a single track or a single refrain and says, “I like this one.”
As always, knowing your audience is everything.
152As a quick glance could help you guess: this isn’t a continuation or conclusion to the past two days’ festival review. But this is only a brief detour. I’ll finish up soon.
153Most people generally do not like my favorite band. It’s the high pitch of the frontman that usually throws them off first. I can sympathize, because the same thing threw me off before I wised up.
Day 3
Onward to the end. Possibly with a post-fest wrap-up tomorrow.
The Virginmarys
Context: A decent amount.
Performance: It’s always weird hearing proper “rock” rock played acoustically. It completely changes what you’re listening to. Still fun, in this case, but not what I come to The Virginmarys for.
Marisa and the Moths
Context: None.
Performance: Really liked the sound and classic “rock chick” (not “classic rock” chick) vibe. That well may not be super deep, but I’ll give a listen to find out.
Saint Agnes
Context: Some with a handful of tracks.
Performance: There are some bands you have to see perform their material before you go, “Oh, I know who you are now.” This both solidified and shook up my assumptions about them, and I’m happy to say it was in a positive direction. In that now I’m scared of them. In a good way.
Press To MECO
Context: Probably more than the band’s comfortable with.
Performance: That’s that good, good rock ‘n roll I came here for. I knew what I wanted to expect from the two-thirds of the band that remains, but I was still overwhelmed with the quality and production value. And they were funny and personable in the post-set interview (the only one I bothered to watch to completion).
Black Futures
Context: A lot with one song.
Performance: Surreal and incredible. It was just what I should’ve expected if I’d connected their name to their music prior to the set.
Orchards
Context: Lots.
Performance: What stood out most wasn’t that they were excellent – I expected that – but that I called my wife over. Every time I think a woman is “weird looking,” my wife says she’s hot. And that proved true once again. (I’m beginning to narrow it down mostly to big eyes, which aren’t my thing, but further experimentation is required.)
Courage My Love
Context: None.
Performance: Probably the big takeaway from this festival, period. Out of all the discoveries I made, this one has a pretty solid seat at the top of the pile. They were what inspired the previous post, actually. Because I want to recommend them to others immediately (but carefully).
The Wrap
On a technical level, what I took away most from Two Thousand Screens – the digital fill-in for the British largely alternative music festival that I would put somewhere in size and style halfway between campy Bonnaroo and my own love-and-hate fest Austin City Limits – was the appreciation that I could engage as much or as little as I liked. Because it wasn’t a stream like this summer’s earlier Five 4 Five Fest, it was easy to ignore videos when I wasn’t interested in the artists (rarely) or interviews (mostly). The trouble was that watching a video playlist on Facebook or Instagram can be a real pain in the ass. So, if you were like me and wanted to watch as much as possible, with your increased engagement came an exponential increase in frustration.
On an appreciative level, I couldn’t be happier with some of my discoveries this weekend. There were some musical triumphs – Courage My Love at the top of the list, followed by Marisa and the Moths and Static Dress – but mostly triumphs of personality. Puppy succeeded in creating a video replacement for a musical performance – intercut with the humorous images, video, and text typical of a certain type of quickfire internet comedians – that make me chuckle just enough to make me a fan of the dudes without ever having heard their music154. False Advertising broke from their grungy sound to do a piano cover of an album I’ve never heard that was so vulnerable, honest, and cleverly executed that I don’t know how anyone could’ve come away from that performance with anything but the greatest admiration for the frontwoman and the band in general.
All in all, I’d call Two Thousand Screens a thorough success. Save for one thing. Press To MECO had someone playing bass in their videos, but did they announce who their new bassist is? They did not. What does a superfan have to do, fellas? How many thirty-minute interviews do I have to stream? Because I’ll do it. I won’t be happy about it, but I’ll do it.
154Having now heard it, I can happily report that I am, indeed, a fan of that, too.
Alex Diamond 