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—A Hangout Fest 2014 Recap— page 15
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—A Hangout Fest 2014 Recap— photos by Hana Frenette and Samantha Crooke
Conor Oberst
OutKast
Modest Mouse's Isaac Brock Our sunburns are fresh, our ears are still ringing, and OutKast’s “Hey Ya!” is playing on repeat in our minds. Hangout Fest 2014 is officially in the books, and although we might still be a bit hungover, we feel confident calling it the best year yet. But before we get ahead of ourselves and start counting down the days until we can do it all over again in 2015, this year’s festival deserves some ample reflection time. This year Hangout Fest exploded and grew to epic proportions. It ended up being a total sell out, making it quite reminiscent of gigantic festivals, such as May 22, 2014
Jack Johnson the infamous Bonnaroo. Just substitute the grass and mud mixture for sugar white sand and add a clear view of the Gulf of Mexico in the background and you’ve got yourself one heck of a festival environment, topped off with some picture perfect weather. From Girl Talk during Thursday night’s Discover Great Kickoff Party, all the way to OutKast closing out the festival Sunday with every hit single imaginable (and some we had almost forgotten about), we certainly got our fill of dancing and then some. We also finally learned what “Turn
Down For What” means, considering we lost count of how many times we heard it playing (or being yelled) this weekend. Still there were quieter coveted moments to be had, including Conor Oberst’s Friday night set, taking place at the same time as Queens of the Stone Age. While Oberst may have made jokes about drawing the short straw and being personally bummed on having to miss Queens, the intent crowd holding onto his every word clearly wouldn’t wish themselves anywhere else but singing along in a nostalgic Bright Eyes daze.
Oberst’s set wasn’t the only time widespread nostalgia happened over the course of the weekend. Between Modest Mouse and The Killers on Saturday night, nostalgia might as well have been Hangout’s middle name. From start to finish, Hangout Fest 2014 gave us all a shared surreal experience. On top of the music and the larger moments, sometimes the best moments are the quiet, small ones like discovering a new band or randomly bumping into an old friend. If you were lucky enough to be at Hangout Fest this weekend, we hope you took home plenty of both. We certainly did. 15
Partying Hard with Andrew W.K. by Hana Frenette
Andrew W.K. is a modern day renaissance man. He plays metal music, DJ’s, writes advice columns, gives motivational speeches and is working on his first book. He can probably fix your car and cook a five-course French meal, too, or at least talk you through it and make you feel good about the direction your life is heading. Andrew took some time out of his increasingly busy schedule, just days before playing the Hangout Music Festival, to chat with the IN about writing his book, “The Party Bible,” touring with Black Sabbath and meeting the Internet’s most famous cats. And it was inspirational.
IN: You have your first book coming out, “The Party Bible.” Tell me a little about it. W.K.: Writing this book might be even more challenging than recording an album. It’s a guide book about life in general and appreciating the party that life can be— really just celebrating not being dead. I thought that I should do the most fun thing that I could think of: partying. I want to do
IN: You’ve been writing an advice column for The Village Voice recently. How did you get into that? What has it been like so far? W.K.: I started writing an advice column for a magazine in Japan in 2002. It was just a monthly advice column—really random and broad, lots of questions about life. Lots of people that are at a crossroads. They’re wondering, should I change what I’m doing or should I move? For me, it’s more about responding in an uplifting and positive way. They asked me if I’d like to write for The Village Voice and I said yes. It’s nice to be writing and getting things out in a way. Andrew W.K. / photo by Hana Frenette It’s challenging because this column forces me think about something that’s about cheering up, or that things that I might not have thought about at least creates an atmosphere of general or considered otherwise. good cheer. And sometimes you can say a lot with a little. IN: What are some of the questions you’ve been getting? IN: You’ve been giving motivational W.K.: We get people writing in from all speeches, what are the crowds like for over the world, and I try to pick something those and where do you usually speak? fresh, something stimulating. One of the W.K.: It often turns into more of a discusfirst questions that I got was from a young sion. They ask me questions, I ask them man, who was thinking about experimentsome—it’s more engaging for everyone. I’ve ing with same sex relations. It really takes got one coming up at Oxford in England nerve to confront those thoughts yourself, soon, and that’ll be exciting. I like to see if much less express them to a stranger. we can conjure up that same party power And then there was another guy who was just sitting and talking as you can at a show wanting to try and recreate the sexual by just bringing the good cheer and the peaks in his life with his current girlfriend. right attitude. There are people that don’t And someone else who wanted to know if like loud rock music, and I’d like to reach they should be eating meat or not, or how them, too, in some way if I can. to protect their home without guns—and with a lot of these people, I don’t even feel IN: You currently live in New York. How comfortable telling them what to do, bedid you first end up there? cause you want them to be able to think for W.K.: I was 18 and I wanted to move to themselves, but you also want to be able to New York. I had been accepted to a college tell them it’s all going to be ok. 616 1
in Chicago, but I didn’t want to go because it wasn’t New York. I also didn’t want to go back to school, although I liked high school. In New York, my first few days were lived with my sister, where I saw how it was possible to really live here. Then I stayed with a friend of a friend on a cot
“I never take it for granted, not even a minute. There are many times I can’t believe this is all happening.” Andrew W.K. like your future self is pulling at you, telling you what you really should be doing. IN: You toured with Black Sabbath for a little while. How was that? W.K.: I still can’t believe it happened. I think about it all the time. It’s crazy it’s been a year ago almost. It was in July and August. If it hadn’t happened I would have never even had the nerve to dream it up. They wanted me to DJ for them before the shows, so I would just play my favorite heavy metal songs and hype everyone up, and then one of the greatest metal bands of all time would come out.
in the living room. It was supposed to be a few days and it turned into a few months. It was quite crowded and I wasn’t a very good roommate, I’d never been a roommate before. After that I lived in Brooklyn for three years with my girlfriend, and then started playing and recording a lot with the band in Florida and was there often. But I always come back to New York and I never take it for granted, not even a minute. There are many times I can’t believe this is all happening. IN: And how did the music portion come about? W.K.: I had always played music all of my life, and I never thought that it was something I could do for a living. But in the entertainment industry you can do all of it. You can paint a logo if you want or act in a music video, and I started thinking maybe that’s what I should do. There’s a difference between what you want to do and what you were meant to do sometimes. It’s
IN: Have you thought about making another album or have any plans for one in the future? W.K.: I’ve had two or three albums worth of material that I’ve had for years, but there have been several things that have been preventing me from recording. When the time is right, I will record another album. I had to make time for work on the book and touring with Black Sabbath. It’s like sometimes I’m not in control, but something is taking me the right way anyway. But it will happen. IN: Slightly off topic, but I noticed you met both Lil Bub and Grumpy Cat. What were they like? Soft? W.K.: They are both very soft cats. And as someone who has been allergic to cats for most of their life, I never got any allergies from either of them. I did spend a lot more time with Lil Bub than Grumpy Cat, though. They are magical cats. They just have this light that seems to shine out of their eyes. They are both such tender and soft cats with big personalities and they get so over-petted, I kind of just let the owners handle them and just be in the same room as them. inweekly.net
L-R; The Black Keys' Dan Auerbach, Wiz Khalifa, Gary Clark, Jr.
Tegan and Sara
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Dawes
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