A Chicago post-script (Noise Floor Radio Volumes 11 & 12)

To make up for a week away, two new ones this week in a continuing series of Noise Floor-curated playlists. 

I’ve made it out to Chicago’s Union Park for the Pitchfork Music Festival most years since 2010, and it’s typically a great time! The festival is small but not too small, well-curated and better-natured than your average three-day outdoor music gathering. But folks, 2019 was a weird one.

The festival went down amid oppressive heat and roving thunderstorms last Friday through Sunday (you can scope out my galleries for Brooklyn Vegan Chicago here), and the oft-straightforward trip to the midwest also fell victim to the whims of the weather. My Thursday afternoon connection from Columbus, OH was first delayed, then canceled, stranding me in an airport Chili’s for eight (8) hours, struggling to drink enough Blue Moons to forget that the guy on the stool next to me was audibly making out with his neighbor and flagrantly making plans to cheat on his wife. All unholy things are possible under the light of a neon Budweiser sign in the shape of the state of Ohio.

Suffice to say, I was not in a state to complete and post up last week’s mix. In fact, I spent most of the next 72 hours simply trying to survive getting my shots and getting back to my AirBnb without dying of electrocution or heat exhaustion.

Anyway.

Two playlists this week to make up for it. Number 11 is alternatively inspired by the fest (Parquet Courts), the city of Chicago (Silkworm), new releases (False, Gauche, Horse Jumper of Love), being in love (Spiritualized) and the fourth anniversary of DS2. Number 12 is more akin to a post-festival hangover (a double dose of Low) that’s willing to let the sunshine in (Pavement, Beulah, the ebullient new Beeef single whose video I may or may not appear in). And a uh, Goo Goo Dolls song. I listened to Dizzy Up the Girl for the first time in well over a decade this week and can now clearly recall “Broadway,” the song about waiting for one’s turn to die, being my favorite circa age 10. Some things never change.