Coachella Discovery #1: Alberta Cross, Bajofondo
I’ve decided that I’m going to check out a couple of artists each day on the Coachella lineup that I’m not already familiar with. I went over to the Coachella website and click on their lineup and started going down the alphabetical listing of Friday’s performers. I am familiar with, and stoked about, A Place To Bury Strangers so I skipped over them and went to Alberta Cross.
I am judging these mini-reviews of these bands entirely on the one song they have posted on Coachella.com. If I don’t like it, then I’m moving along. If I like it, maybe I’ll check out some more stuff from that artist. I have one of each in the first edition of Coachella Discovery.
I mentioned that, after skipping over a band that I know and will definitely be seeing at Coachella in A Place To Bury Strangers, I came to Alberta Cross. I can honestly say that before today I don’t think I had ever heard any music from or even the name of this band. I only listened to about thirty seconds of the song before saying to myself, “That is not my kind of music.” But I decided to listen to the whole thing for the sake of this review. “Old Man Chicago” is the song posted on Coachella.com, and it’s a very folky singer/songwriter kind of song. A small amount of research afforded the nugget that they are from Europe, but are based in New York. Interesting. They are very Neil Young, in my opinion, and not being a big fan of Neil Young, it doesn’t really do much for me. I think it’s safe to say that I won’t be too sad about missing these guys at Coachella. You can check ‘em out on MySpace.
The next group I came to is an electronic collective that plays “Electrotango”. I don’t have a huge Tango section to my music collection, but after listening to the one song on Coachella.com, I’m definitely interested in hearing more from this band. I assume they’ll play in the Sahara tent on Friday, and I might just have to wander over there (assuming no conflicts) to check ‘em out. According to their Wikipedia entry, they are from South America, Argentina and Uraguay to be exact, and were originally called Bajofondo Tango Club, dropping the “Tango Club” as their music expanded beyond the confines of the genre. Check ‘em out on MySpace.
There you are; two bands I wasn’t at all familiar with when I woke up this morning that are playing Coachella this year. I’ll probably skip Alberta Cross, but I’m curious to see Bajofondo. I’ll keep this series going as we countdown to Coachella, April 17th-19th at Empire Polo Field in Indio, CA. For more information on Coachella, visit Coachella.com.
