July 9, 2009

Pitchfork’s annual music festival returns to Union Park in Chicago on July 17 – 19 for three full days of eclectic bands (and presumably lots of tight jeans and small pins). Hidden Track will be there covering the good, the bad and the ugly with a full review to follow the fest. In the meantime, we’ve put together a list of the top five bands we’re most excited to catch. From the genius soundscapes of Tortoise on Friday through the closing circus of the Flaming Lips on Sunday, this promises to be a great event.

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1. Tortoise [Friday 5PM @ the Connector Stage]

Any day I can see Tortoise is a great day. Their set next Friday night is part of the “Write the Night” series where fans vote for what songs the bands playing that night will tackle. For a band whose catalogue runs as deep as Tortoise’s this is quite an exciting prospect. Personally, I’m hoping for gems – tunes such as Gamera, Djed and Onions Wrapped in Rubber. I’m also quite interested to see if any tunes off of their recently-released Beacons Of Ancestorship will make it into the set. Prepare Your Coffin would make a particularly nice addition to a set of classics and rarities.

READ ON for four more bands to catch at the Pitchfork Festival…

The promoters of Camp Bisco VIII have just unveiled the schedule for each of the three stages. CBVIII kicks off on July 16 and runs through the 18th at the

Mazzy Star – Black Session #38  Paris, France – 1993-10-26 [.zip archive] 01 Mary of silence 02 Ghost highway 03 She hangs brightly 04 Bells ring 05 Halah 06 Blue

With all the new columns being started around here I figured I’d get in the act by kicking off Through The Years. Each month we’ll provide a YouTube playlist with one song from each year of a band’s existence.

For our first edition of Through The Years we’ve got a killer playlist of Wilco tunes from 1995 to 2009. Let’s take a look…

READ ON for a list of the tracks we used this week…

While the Music-Hole mp3 bootleg blog isn’t updated often, the latest update has been well worth the wait. Their Glastonbury 2009 post contains recordings from the BBC broadcast of the