Uncategorized

Kilby Block Party parking: Read here to get in and out

KevinLeave a comment
Get info here for Kilby Block Party parking to get north on West Temple as close to the state fairgrounds as you can

Have you been to the Utah State Fairpark? Possibly not, you’re an urbane city-dweller with limited interest in competitive lamb grooming. Kilby Block Party parking just got a lot easier — so read on to learn about paid parking and free transit. I’m basically here to make your musical adventure easier at the Kilby Block Party.

Kilby Block Party parking: You have options

Yes, you have Kilby Block Party parking options, but I don’t recommend them all.

A one-day parking pass from the Kilby Block Party for the shows May 12-14 are $40 per day. General admission to actually HEAR THE MUSIC on those same days is $89. We’re more or less talking about an additional 50% on top of your ticket price. This seems unwise.

Wisdom aside, if the sheer convenience of parking in the state park fairgrounds outweighs other considerations, you can invest in $40/day parking passes or $100 parking for the 3-day event. Either way you’re adding about half of the cost of your ticket price for the Kilby Block Party to park at the fairgrounds. Here is the link to buy those parking passes.

Lots nearby for Kilby Block Party parking

My experience with random lots near the fairgrounds — for events much less in-demand than the Kilby Block Party — is $20 or $30 per event. Real estate is pretty limited and they know the market is nearly cornered. You’re also walking a block or two or five. Also you’re traversing the hellscape that is west North Temple Street at midnight.

I don’t recommend this either.

Construction and demolition blight nearly every block of west North Temple near the fairgrounds
Luxury accommodations for the Kilby Block Party located nearby!
Lots of dirt and dumpsters near the Utah State Fairgrounds
Better Call Saul for safe passage through the NOTE District to Kilby Block Party SLC
West North Temple is still a no man's land of fenced off lots and demolition
Homelessness and drug activity are ever-present on west North Temple near the venue for the Kilby Block Party
I actually kind of like this building on the north side of west North Temple
Overflow parking for the state fairgrounds is squalid

Kilby delivers with free Trax passes!

Earlier this month, concert organizers notified ticket-buyers that they could ride to the KBP4 for free from any location. This means you could park in a Trax Park & Ride lot as far north as Pleasant View or a Frontrunner station in Provo and commute to the Fairgrounds without paying a dime. I work downtown so I can park near the Arena station and get there in 10 minutes.

From the Fairgrounds Trax station it’s maybe 100 yards to a park entrance. I’m going to check my math on this Saturday to be sure — I’ve actually only taken Trax to the airport and not to the fairgrounds. I also need to learn if you can enter the park immediately across from the station, at the 801 Events Center or if the only entrance is at North Temple and 10th West.

Information on Trax Park & Ride lots and Frontrunner routes are here. More information to come to make the Kilby Block Party as safe and convenient as can be!

Is this a popular Pixies song? You might think so

Kevin1 Comment
Find a popular Pixies song on the tribute album Dig for Fire

This is a story about a boy and his OCD fixation with a song I thought for sure was cribbed from or inspired by the Pixies. I chanced upon NYC’s Nostranders “The Thing” this summer and immediately started to wrack my limited memory for the popular Pixies song that inspired the cut. It comes from Nostranders’ June 2022 Visceral Garden EP. You can stream Nostranders on Spotify.

What was I missing here? A song about the Great Salt Lake with discomfiting backing vocals. I couldn’t. quite. place it. I don’t post many videos but the audio is not easy to access. Here, then, are Nostranders:

A lost Pixies song?!

Nostranders cover popular Pixies song "Wave of Mutiliation"

I felt sure the backing vocals on “The Thing” were inspired by or literally credited to the Pixies — my brain simply couldn’t boot it. I even tried to crowdsource the question with an alternative music group on one of the socials. Smart, hip people. A lot of agreement that it sounded like a popular Pixies song or Kim Deal song, but in the end? Nothing. Weeks go by.

Pixies mystery starts to come together

Now cut to Monday morning, Labor Day, 3AM. I peek at Nostranders’ Soundcloud page. What is the first song in their cue? A dream-pop cover of “Wave of Mutilation.”

And not a bad one.

This made me wonder if Nostranders were actually SINGING about the Pixies on “The Thing” — the vocals get a bit lost. So I was using every world wide Interweb skill to find the lyrics when I chanced across a little-known track, “The Thing,” a B-side from…………….. wait for it………………….. Pixies.

“The Thing” by The Pixies (from Complete ‘B’ Sides)

My humiliation only grew from there. The Pixies “The Thing” is actually just an outtake from Bossanova. AND THAT is where the remaining brain cells kicked in when I heard the “Aaaah’s” from “The Happening” and Black Francis’ story of an alien encounter.

It is, quite literally, a popular Pixies song. This is part of what it means to get old. Another video, “The Happening”….

Popular Pixies songs are easy to find

In about three weeks, Pixies release Doggerel, another album without Kim Deal. If you’ve heard “There’s a Moon On” then you probably know what to expect. Not a lot. But this isn’t a Pixies bashing website. I’m 100% pro-Pixies.

However, if this sad tale has whetted your appetite, you could do worse than the 2007 tribute Dig for Fire with Pixies tributes by The Rosebuds, Mogwai and OK Go, among others. British Sea Power’s cover of “Caribou” is especially provoking.

See Dig for Fire and other cool tributes and themed compilations at American Laundromat Records.

I will have no further comment on the amount of time spent trying to figure this out. You can find the Pixies’ Complete ‘B’ Sides at Discogs, and the rest of their catalogue basically everyplace on Earth.

Club Curry With Cornershop

KevinLeave a comment

Yes, I have been absent for much too long and there is no way to excuse my sloth.

But I have largely kept up with my listening of new music in 2011 and Cornershop’s Double-O Groove has been one of just a couple of CD’s that has captured my fancy for more than just a few spins this year.  Cornershop, that lovely vehicle of  Tjinder Singh, was unfairly assigned one-hit wonder status after 1997’s “Brimful of Asha.” 

Certainly Tjinder is not prolific.  It took Cornershop another five years to release Handcream for a Generation and then in 2009 came Judy sucks a Lemon for Breakfast.  Both albums merited more attention than they received.  But scarcely two years since Judy we have an album recorded entirely in Punjabi with the charming Indian vocalist Bubbley Kaur. 

Nearly every track is gold but for your sampling pleasure I attach what may be the most infectious hook of 2011 in “The 911 Curry.”  If the groove does not immediately catch you, give it a scant 30 seconds for the impossibly catchy horn sample.  For whatever reason were you not then already in love, Cornershop layers a winsome blooping organ after about two minutes.  If that doesn’t do it, you are dead inside. 

“The 911 Curry” by Cornershop

“Brimful of Asha” by Cornershop

Get on the BOAT!

KevinLeave a comment

Hey kids guess who released their 4th record Tuesday?  BOAT, that’s who.  The band who made it cool to sing about your mom and seemingly invent lyrics on the fly have another fantastic outing with Dress Like Your Idols.  The first single, although BOAT is a band of nothing but singles, is “(I’ll Beat My Chest Like) King Kong.”  

Guess what else?  The owner of a certain Salt Lake record store whose name rhymes with banana told me one time that she knows a publicist at BOAT’s label, Magic Marker, and promised (or at least that’s the way I choose to remember it) to make the call and get a Utah show booked.  So stop by Slowtrain Records this weekend to buy a copy and badger the proprietors into pulling some strings!

“(I’ll Beat My Chest) Like King Kong”