The first person you’ll see when you get off the plane in Barcelona is the sixteenth-century regent of Galicia, a tall individual with flowing black hair and an Inigo Montoya mustache, talking on a cell phone while a toddler runs circles around his legs.1 How he got there is a spatiotemporal mystery. You could say he’s waiting for his family at baggage claim, returning from a weekday vacation. But you could also say he’s an ambassador of the ancient Berber-Visigoths welcoming strangers to the Mediterranean state. You pick. Same mustache either way.
When you get to the city center you’ll put your bags down and walk six kilometers to Kiosk Universal, my dad’s favorite restaurant in Spain. The market surrounding it has existed in some form since 1217, when farmers set up tables to sell their ham. You’ll wander around for an hour, the first time you’ve been here by yourself, eating chocolate-drizzled fruit on a stick and marveling at the hundreds of pounds of jamón dangling from eaves and a stall just for eggs. (Not cooked ones. Just eggs, piled high into pyramids.)
This is a really rude thing to say, especially about a city I find so beautiful, but Barcelona amazed (this time) with its pungent sewer-sea odor. Wafting from every grate on the curb and from the middle of sun-baked plazas, there was something fresh and seaborne but also poopy and fetid. I didn’t remember that from 2016, the last time I was here. And I won’t pretend that every big city doesn’t struggle on some level with shit management. Barcelona’s made headlines probably because it contrasts so much with its incredible architecture, food, and people. Anyway.
Waxahatchee was there to play at the world’s most beloved mega-festival, Primavera Sound. And we did. And we loved it. And we got to see This Is Lorelei (twice) and Stereolab and Charli xcx. Here’s my micro-review of each show:
I can’t stop thinking about This Is Lorelei’s song “Mouth Man.” I hadn’t heard it before the other day. Live on a festival stage, with Bailey Wollowitz playing monstrous Gang of Four-style toms, and with Al Nardo’s confident/cool swaying on bass, it turns into one of those songs from an alien cantina, makes you feel like you’re someplace that doesn’t exist in this universe. I loooooove songs/shows that make you feel that way. Here’s an example from some other (indoor) show in NYC. (It’s crazy that Nate Amos is so prolific that he has songs like that he can just pull out of the catalog and turn into new live staples, already.)
Stereolab sounded great. Lætitia is so cool. One of the things that strikes me about Stereolab, and even more now that I’ve seen them live, is that they turn really basic, uh, jams into something I want to hear. By dint of cool sounds and repetition. Some of the instrumental sections would have a “teenagers in the basement” quality if the group didn’t elevate them, heroically, into something worthy of a mod cocktail party. “Smoke on the Water” + literature + technology + discipline is a winning recipe, we’ve learned.
Charli xcx, what the fuck. So good. I’m sorry to ignore Troye Sivan, who co-headlined with her, and who has a huge slate of undeniable hits. But Charli is in charge. I love her stage presence, her now-infamous “fuck you I love you” relationship with audiences. I love A. G. Cook’s super-mega purified sparkling candy armored vehicles of sound. And I love the (literal) six-story scaffolding they built, the way that Charli could carry the mammoth stage by herself, accompanied only by lasers. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to watch a choreographed pop show without wishing for true rock n roll spontaneity. Every artist has to throw themself at the challenge of making tonight feel like the only night—to let it be the only night—even when it resembles many nights from the past and the future. And Charli got as close to that ceiling as you can get while you’re in a delicate ballet with steadicam operators and tracks engineers. I think every folk musician could take a cue, honestly, even if I long for another time where Tina Turner could make a show that big feel like they were the last moments on Earth.
That’s it for now. We’re in Glasgow today, a land not of Inigo Montoyas but of kindly pale people whose English I can only hope and pray to understand—and the origin of my clan.
I just learned, on the internet, that Clan Tweedie’s slogan is “thol and think.”2 Thol: Scottish, “to suffer.” Suffer and think. Never heard anything more appropriate.
XO.
P.S. Casey’s album Last Missouri Exit was announced last week, and the special discount code that Merge Records created for our newsletter subscribers only works until June 15, so use it now! “CASEOATS17” for 17% off in the Merge web store. Use it for vinyl or CD (the CD package is soooo cool).
P.P.S. Watch our video for “Bitter Root Lake”!
Inigo Montoya, that great Spanish fencer, AKA Mandy Patinkin, was born in Chicago.
Michael Forbes Tweedy, in 1902: “The ancient tombstones and memorials of the Tweedies are but few. [William] Chambers [historian] says of the family, ‘their principal place of sepulture was a vault in the old church of Drummelzier where was carved their coat of arms bearing a fierce bull’s head with the motto, “Thol and think,” an admonition singularly at variance with the impetuosity of their character.” Emphasis mine.
Love your posts and your cool life. Enjoy every minute.
Caseoats poolside unplugged skybluesky would be just right!