Big Ears Festival 2015 [Knoxville, TN]

http://assets.rollingstone.com/assets/2014/article/kronos-quartet-big-ears-festival-2015-20141007/170597/medium_rect/1412616108/720x405-42-49417499.jpg

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/kronos-quartet-big-ears-festival-2015-20141007

Presale for 2015 weekend passes starts tomorrow, BTW.

can't say I care much about the Kronos Quartet, but last year was such a blast that I would probably buy a weekend ticket if the artist in residence was a statue of a giant farting ass

also where are you seeing that weekend passes go on sale tomorrow? the email I got says November 7th

FB post, somewhat confusing to have a "presale" sale and an official on-sale date:

This year, we’re proud to welcome the highly esteemed Kronos Quartet as our 2015 Artists-in-Residence! Join the Big Ears newsletter below before 10am ET tomorrow to receive an exclusive presale code to purchase your weekend pass for $153.50 plus fees. The presale at this special low price will last as long as supplies remain OR through Sunday, October 12 at 10 p.m. ET.

We’ve got plenty more to share over the next few weeks, including the initial lineup encompassing over 50 artists on Tuesday, November 4 with weekend passes officially on sale Friday, November 7! Stay tuned…

So, no passes will be sold between Oct. 12 and Nov. 7?

Oops, sorry: link to pre-sale info on the Big Ears website:

http://www.bigearsfestival.com/just-announced-kronos-quartet-2015-artists-residence-plus-special-presale/

The hint of a Terry Riley return is exciting. Anyway, I'm buying passes no matter what.

me too!

if i can secure crash space/cheap accommodation close to the venue, that will dramatically increase my chances of being able to go to this.

I hope you can make it! I'm 3 for 3, no reason to miss one of these now. I'll get my pass this week after the duck drops down with the secret word tomorrow.

I'll be there for sure - Hoping to meet some ILXors I haven't met before!

airbnbs are pretty affordable -- does anyone want to go in with me on one? i don't snore and i won't steal your jewelry!

I'm hoping to see the same people I met last year and add some new ones! Definitely one of my highlights of this calendar year.

i dunno how airbnbs work but i am not staying in the merchants drive quality inn this time since i ran into some bedbug issues there last month

I splurge on a room at the Oliver every year -- can't beat the location for proximity to the venues.

oh no, knoxville has bedbugs now too?

nah it's not like an epidemic! bedbugs are in every city. i think in this case it was just a cheap hotel thing.

also this hotel is fairly removed from the festival locale

if i get tickets and have to flake, is there any way to transfer the passes? i'm trying to find the policy on the ticketmaster site but can't find any info. i know that a lot of venues are making it hard to re-sell your tickets due to scalpers. i'm def not gonna scalp, i'm just pretty broke and dunno if i'll be able to afford flight/lodging. anybody have any experience with this last year?

(tickets on sale now, fyi)

if you can make it to chicago and can stand to be in a car with me for many hours, you are welcome to join me in my car!

hmmmm, that's an idea! i should just go for it. lemme think about this for a bit tho

ticket purchased!

this is going to be so fun! ticket purchased. i already told my coworkers that i will not be in the office on that friday. (i told them a few months ago tbh)

Bought and printed.

thinking it might be fun to drive there and see america by car

I love road trips

New Orleans is the perfect halfway point from Austin, and I could also stop and hike in the Smoky Mountains on the way back!

purchased my ticket!

dream team

got my ticket. looks like they are transferable through ticketmaster.

This thing doesn't like sell out does it? Bc it will be actual 2015 before I have any earthly idea whether I can go

^

2014 sold a lot better iirc, but I don't think it sold out.

Forks: road trip!!!

I may drive straight from Knoxville to the west coast, who wants to come with?

xp tempting. maybe even possible given my work schedule!
i have an issue with motion sickness that makes road travel severely difficult. But i can fly!

I believe u can

i know all the criticisms of kronos quartet as dilletantes etc. and i think it holds some of the time

but the very adventurousness and eclecticism of their work suggests they will put together a pretty awesome lineup

i don't know if i can make this but if i can i will

Be cool if they got some crumb and some Volans on the bill

Kronos Quartet don't get to pick all the other artists, do they? I kinda doubt that Nazoranai and Body/Head were Steve Reich's idea.

whoever does should try to program a performance of an unrecorded moondog piece, since there are so goddam many and i mean c'mon

crüt, I don't think so. I usually hate guessing, but if I had to, I'd say this five-day ticket window is a smart way for AC to gauge how much of a Kronos/Harrington wish list to go with.

I want festival goers to enjoy some Jon Mueller! His new stuff is really great.

it will be a fun winter once they share the lineup!

Just got to see Kronos Quartet play with Laurie Anderson and I am suuuuuuuper jazzed about next March!

I wonder if they could get Swans to be the big rock/metal/etc name for this - they're touring for To Be Kind and seem like they'd be an awesome fit for the festival's overall steez.

they were the big name at basilica soundscape, and while i certainly wouldn't mind seeing them again, i'd love to see that slot reserved for someone else.

Gira was the Sunday night closer at BE#1 (2009), so he has some connection to the festival. Don't know if that would make it more likely or less likely for Swans to be booked for #4.

I love Swans but they'd be a boring pick for this thing.

maybe john cale AND terry riley will come back and + kronos and who knows who else, it'll be church of anthrax redux, just like a dream!

how is the sushi bar near the regal riviera? i know coming from california to tennessee to eat sushi is a little weird, but i want something healthy.

Enjoying the happy hour there right now.

I'm at the Tennessee Theater posted up for Richter, dead center, reading an iPad; come say hi if you see me. I'm probably going to bail to catch Swans after the Vivaldi piece though.

Also idk if any of yall brought a 3ds but I've StreetPassed a couple of folks a few times; I sent out a Big Ears-related greeting to all repeat visitors. My username d trdn88 - check out my stylish King Dedede hat.

At the Bijou eagerly awaiting Swerns. Anyone getting food after this?

Can't believe I missed seeing JBR and Crut all 3 days and only saw LL once. I wasn't hiding out, I swear. There's an outside chance I'll make the Orcutt show in Chatt tomorrow but it's a very small chance.

Kronos' closing set last night was my favorite thing they did all weekend, with the possible exception of their brief intro thing with Wu Man at the museum. The Nels Cline piece was great, and so was another new thing they did, by a Lebanese-American composer about Beirut. Other good things on the last day: Rhiannon Giddens, Bill Frisell, Perfume Genius, Silver Apples -- and obviously Swans, doing apparently mostly new (and good) stuff.

i had mixed feelings about kronos going in and still do even though i didn't watch much of their stuff this weekend. their eclecticism, while very well-intentioned and appreciated, can be a little meet-cute, and sometimes their academic approach sucks the vital energy out of the stuff they're pastiching. i'm glad they exist though!

I agree, that's always been the issue with them. Sort of built into their mission in a way -- they can for sure come off as academics and/or dilettantes. But with the right piece or right collaborators, they can be great. Nels and Wu Man both fit naturally into their settings. And the Beirut piece really was good.

i'm not opposed to dilettantism as a general principle. dilettantes can do great things!

I guess I'm the only one here who unreservedly loved Landfall.

I liked it a lot and it really came together at the end. I didn't think the music was terribly interesting -- it had its high points, but also some pleasant-but-anonymous passages. But I thought the text and theme were great, and its conclusion was really affecting. One of my friends loved it more than me and actually started crying at the end.

ay: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/live-reviews/big-ears-2015-on-the-ground-at-americas-biggest-avant-garde-party-20150330

Ha! Just came here to post that.

Turns out I can't do Chattanooga after all. They wouldn't let me on the Megabus with the amount of bags I brought (two little carry-on sized cases, a backpack, a purse). I might write to Megabus with an invoice for the flight change, the hotel room, the show ticket, the bus ticket, and the Uber to the airport just now because I'm going back to LAX a day early.

Whiney, I saw you for a second but didn't get to say hi. I think there's a shot of you in the Nazoranai doc too!

you guys i hightailed it home and now i get to see silver apples and holly herndon again tomorrow! for $3!

genuinely bummed i didn't get to meet jody or see roxy
i think i saw whiney too but i wasn't sure bc i was on my way out of the bathroom and i had been in the standard for like 6 hours

their set looking like they were literally shaking dustballs from the rafters

lol, i like that a single ball of dust merited this bit

i saw that dust ball

Love that write-up Whiney
<3 Tanya so much so much

apparently water was a major theme this year

<3 Tanya so much so much

me too! thrilled she's getting so much positive attention.

me too
she was increíble
so was Hildur Guðnadóttir -- she asked for the door to stop opening and closing, a valid request
although i think both she and Grouper would have been better off at the bijou
crowds would have been sufficient and the atmo would have improved
nbd, both were great but i dunno

i'm excited to see holly herndon tomorrow and silver apples AGAIN!!

love holly! was listening to glasser's most recent tonight and thinking those two could pair up really successfully.

Holly was definitely the performance of the show; I threw Movement on as soon as I got back home and while it's definitely better than I remember, it's indivisible from that absolute brain-melting video piece kinda like listening to Nils Frahm outside of the confines of the Tennessee Theater. I'm glad to hear that Bing & Ruth are getting some press too; Tomorrow Was The Golden Age is a really gorgeous album which didn't get nearly enough love IMO. strong showing for RVNG overall.

Max Richter's Vivaldi thing was good, but Infra was far and away the best performance of any of his pieces I saw in Knoxville; I hadn't really paid much attention to it before this weekend, but it was just searingly beautiful. wish I could find a copy on vinyl but it's long OOP apparently.

geez this festival seems ridiculous & amazing. if i ever splurge and travel for a music event, it's going to be this...

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/31/arts/music/big-ears-festival-stars-the-avant-garde.html?emc=eta1

I hadn't picked up on the fact that the Windish Agency repped a bunch of the artists on the lineup. kinda interesting to think of Big Ears as a label showcase for Nonesuch, Windish, RVNG, Erased Tapes, etc.

I mean, it's one thing to complain about the Windishing of the underground when it's like dictating Pitchfork events when the site is, ostensibly, an unbiased group of journalists

But Big Ears makes no claims to being anything but a passion project of the Bonnaroo dude, and I see no real ethical issue with the ease at which one company can offer a bunch of bands he likes. I mean, you could see it in how Swans opening act Little Annie promptly appeared on the bill — oh, this quick and easy and on-brand thing is going to make the fest fuller.

Especially when, "deals" like that (if that even was a "deal") are way more pronounced at fests like Lolla or late night television bookings where shitty major label newbies show up — with my presumption being that it allowed the ease for getting a big major label headliner...

And, like, Betty Who playing some mega-festival is way stupider looking than Loscil playing a 1pm show at a museum

yeah and i dunno looking at that list, the Big Ear lineup is still pretty curated re: their roster of artists:

http://windishagency.com/all_artists

like i don't think Diplo or War on Drugs would have fit on this lineup

Capps is doing the lord's work out there; there's no conflict of interest going on

or misrepresentation or whatevs

in case anyone wondered, toby dammit did not play at the chicago show with holly herndon ;_;
made me realize how extraordinary that performance was!

heh, I kinda wanted to stick around in Knoxville and see the War on Drugs last night, but I had to come back to work! anyway, I had a great time and it was nice to meet the various ILXors and hang out a little. The organizers did a really great job, I thought... such a casual and low-stress experience compared to any other music festival I've attended. Definitely will plan to go again next year! I think my favorite shows were the Demdike Stare/Haxan screening and the final Max Richter/ACME performance. But I saw lots of other great shows too!

xpost nobody doubts Big Ears' mission statement less than I do; I couldn't care less if all the artists came from one source or a thousand when the experience is that great. I'm mostly just intrigued by the notion that agencies like Windish can exert such a big influence over an experience with as tangibly personal a vibe as the one Big Ears has established.

some cool .gifs here

http://clatl.com/cribnotes/archives/2015/04/02/big-ears-2015-music-of-our-times

Where's the stuff your friend was shooting?

some of the gifs are taken from that footage! I don't know when they're uploading them in full, though.

yeah, having experienced the hellishness of the badly bungled corporate festival experience that was fyf fest last year, this was so much better than i could have asked for. nice companion piece to basilica soundscape, which also had swans as one of the main acts.

those gifs are neat! also, terry riley looks like dumbledore.

Where's the stuff your friend was shooting?

it's finally up!

http://clatl.com/cribnotes/archives/2015/04/10/a-lush-and-impressionistic-visual-recap-of-big-ears-2015

awesome video!! special surprise in there too!

with special guest!

I miss this so much

(i saw very few bands, mind)

(just to clarify my last attendance was 2010.. it'd be nicr to meet/see y'all again)

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/big-ears-festival-breaks-barriers-open-minded-music-lovers/

omg lol i hadn't actually watched that whole video yet

Gotta watch at least through Zs

:)