Outside Lands — II

I have labeled Day Two of Outside Lands 2011, “The Monster.” By far, it was our busiest day. Not necessarily because I’d be filing anything on this day, but because a lot of great stuff was happening on Day Two, and I wanted to hit up all of it. Three-person crew on Saturday, with Matt coming again and my girl, Heather Murtagh, grabbing a camera.

Yes, that would be Muse frontman, Matthew Bellamy, as shot by Heather Murtagh. As I mentioned before, all these shots belong to the photographer who took them, and come with the copyrights and all our special tracking devices. Don’t steal, man. Just email and we’ll be like, SURE. Go ahead. Anyway, the day started with a bang. I get there and I have have have to see Ana Tijoux. It was a must. Why? Because I heard she was awesome. Actually, the day before, while I was trying to confirm my interview with Julieta Venegas, I got ahold of her press contact at Nacional Records and he arranged for some interview time on Saturday. #Winning. And everything I had heard about Ana was right. Girl has got mad skills on the microphone. I tweeted plenty while I was catching her set, but to sum things up, Ana puts all current and most former female MCs to shame. Manaj, Brown, Kim, they really don’t have jack on Tijoux. Here’s a bit of her set (performing, “A Partir de Cero”), which was awesome.

I caught a nice chunk of that and tracked down my photographers. Heather was in the building, but Matt got HIT BY A FREAKIN’ CAR! He was on his motorcycle, details details details, the man is OK. But that sucks for his day. I told him to take care of business and get ready for The Roots, this was after we got some shots of Ximena Sariñana, another Latina artist I wanted to talk to — which was part of my plan (more on that later).

Ximena is another great Latina talent. After her set, giving Heather and Matt the game plan for their shoots and sending them on their ways, it was time to get ready for my interview with Ana Tijoux. I went to the media tent early, got a couple of texts and got my camera ready. The plan was to record the interview and post it on the Daily Journal’s Facebook page. And that would have worked great, were it not for OK GO! starting their set at the exact time that my interview with Ana started. Urgh. Actually, going back through the video after the fact, we would have been just fine because you can hear her clearly, but I got scared you wouldn’t be able to, so I switched to my audio recorder. Which was actually worse. FAIL. I got good stuff anyway, and Tijoux was a joy to talk to. Here’s us after the interview.

While chilling in the media area, Ximena showed up and her PR guy was kind enough to grant the Daily Journal a couple of minutes. She looked tired … actually, when I asked how she was doing, she kind of gave me look like, “umm, dude, how do you think I feel?” Oops. I asked for 60 seconds, I took 142. But she was fun to talk to. This is me, being a journalist.

Interviews out of the way, it was time to make a stop at the Heineken Domes (FOR THE MEXICAN INSTITUTE OF SOUND) and then march on over to the Twin Peaks Stage for The Roots. Did I mention I was super excited to see The Roots? Probably did, but worth mentioning again. Well, Matt didn’t send me any photos from our time at the Dome, but THE MEXICAN INSTITUTE OF SOUND was the shit. Those that know me know very well that I hate House music. It’s a waste of time and your ears would be better off listening to say, a lawn mower, or fingernails on a chalkboard. But the MIOS was terrific. They mixed and spun records that I have never heard before. If they’re ever in town, I’m going to see them again.

I’m going to cut this post off here, because The Roots and Muse deserve their own separate posts. So, Day 2 Part I is done with. Day 2 part II to come in the very near future.