Outside Lands Festival 2015: Band of the Day picks

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Less than one week to go until we’re grooving in the groves at San Francisco’s Outside Lands Fest! To help you navigate the lineup, I’ve put together a list of all of the bands that were ever featured in Band of the Day app, and playlists for each day.

FRIDAY 8/7 (click here to listen to the Spotify playlist)

Amon Tobin - A legendary electronic music pioneer explores otherworldly sounds and melodies

Iration - Spreading feel-good waves of reggae infused with sunny rays of pop and rock

Alvvays - Starlit indie pop that glitters like sea glass, from a Canadian group inspired by jangly Britpop

The Family Crest - Communal creators of audacious Baroque/orchestral pop

The Revivalists - Zealous roots rock spirited by the funky essence of New Orleans

ranger dave full

SATURDAY 8/8 (click here to listen to the Spotify playlist)

Tame Impala - Arena-ready rock steeped in 1960s psychedelia and tied together with a tight pop sensibility

Milky Chance - Elegant electronic production with acoustic guitars and lilting, lush vocals

Angus & Julia Stone - Gruffly majestic country-folk

Classixx - Coastal summer anthems with impossibly sunny dance grooves

UMO - Gloriously psychedelic lo-fi funk over warped hip hop beats

Misterwives -Join a trio of New Yorkers on a vivacious excursion through turnpikes of soul, dance, and pop

Langhorne Slim - Rollicking folk-rock gems from a true American troubadour

Twin Peaks - Nods to godfathers of guitar-guided pop, but fueled by gallons of garage rock

Fantastic Negrito - Channeling his Blues forefathers to tell the story of a life rebuilt after destruction

Can't wait to bask in his crotch

SUNDAY 8/9 (click here to listen to the Spotify playlist)

Slightly Stoopid - Catch a whiff of feel-good vibes from one of the defining bands of California's reggae/rock scene

Hot Chip - The U.K.'s brainiest dance group injects some joyful house into their quirky electro-pop sound

The Devil Makes Three - Raw and raucous trio inspired by both old n’ new timey barn-burners

ODESZA - An electronic wonderland of glitched-out vocals and visceral pop hooks

James Bay - Stark, elegant acoustic strumming powerfully delivered by a 22 year-old singer-songwriter

Allah-Las - Californian surf rock for bumming around in a 60s-style beach bungalow

Shakey Graves - Powerful and mesmerizing lo-fi folk/blues from a true Texas gentleman

Givers - Louisiana's jubilant musical altruists combine indie pop with Afro-beats

Kidnap Kid - Expressive, emotionally-charged house music from one of the UK's rising producers

Sometimes I ambush interview bands (in this case, The Vaccines)

Back in the summer of 2011, right before the release of Band of the Day app, I decided that I wanted The Vaccines to be the very first band featured on the day the app launched. They had caught my attention when I was finishing up my MA degree in London the year before, and I had written a review of their EP as part of the application process for my job. I saw that they were coming to San Francisco, so I reached out to their record label to try and set up an interview with the band. At the time, given that the app was unreleased, my request was (understandably) ignored. Nevertheless, I decided to prepare some questions anyway, banking on the chance to introduce myself to them directly at the show and get that interview.

I dragged my friend Jon, and after their sweat-inducing set we went outside to have a drink and catch some air. We spotted bassist Arni Arnason hanging out in the same area, so Jon prodded me to just go over and talk to them. As extroverted as I appear to be, I actually hate approaching people. I'm completely comfortable chatting to people when they approach me, but I find that making initial contact with a stranger brings up a lot of anxiety. But I also knew that I really wanted to get that interview.

So I took a deep breath, quickly downed the rest of the liquid courage that was in my hand, walked straight over to him and said, "Hey! I'm Amanda. Can I ambush interview you?"

He gave a bemused chuckle and said, "Sure, as long as you don't ask boring questions." I promised that he wouldn't be bored because, if I'm truly confident about one thing, it's that I'm not a boring person. And this is the conversation that followed:

Listening back to it four years later, I can't help but self-criticize on a few bits ("You respond with the word 'nice' too much!"; "Your voice sounds really weird there!"), but overall it warms my heart that I have audio documentation of where I started from in that first year of working on Band of the Day app. I came into the role with very little professional experience and, today, on the very last day of the app's existence, I now have 4.5 years of a crash course into working in both the music and tech startup industries.

Oh, and I'm happy to report that I finally got clearance to feature The Vaccines in the app. 

Playlist: Global Fund For Women

Last month, my friend JP Pineda, who runs JRNE Artist Management, reached out to me to collaborate on a female-powered playlist for an event put on by a really cool organization called Global Fund For Women. One of his artists, the Grammy-nominated singer/songwriter Carolyn Malachi, was a key part of their #hackgirlsrights campaign. Meant to post this earlier, but better late than never! Enjoy! :)

JRNE: Global Fund for Women Playlist

The Obligatory "Amanda's Top 14 Tracks of 2014" Playlist

It's nearly the end of December, which means my inbox is starting to explode with lots of "so what were your favorite albums of the year?" messages from friends and colleagues. So far I've ignored all of these messages (sorry, pals!) because my mind completely goes blank when I'm asked that question. Why? Because my music ADD is at an all-time high, and I actually rarely listen to full albums.

This is mostly due to the fact that I've been the sole curator of Band of the Day app for the past couple of years, which requires listening to an obscene amount of music in order to effectively choose the best bands to feature. To put it into perspective, that's over 1000 bands I've had to choose, which is drilled down from at least 5-10 times that amount of music listening! But hey, if "I have to listen to TOO much new music" is the worst part of the job, it's not a bad one to be in ;)

Right, back to the matter at hand - my personal list of stand-out tracks released in 2014. I'm too indecisive to rank them, so I've taken the lazy way out by posting them in alphabetical order. Hope you discover some gems from this list, and I'd love to hear feedback on what your favorites were (the YouTube playlist up there has every track).

1. Benjamin Booker, "Violent Shiver" - This is a song that had me going, "Whoa. Who IS this guy?" the first time I heard it. Bluesy, gritty, with just a hint of punk.

2. Dillon Francis feat. DJ Snake, "Get Low" - Oh hey, you didn't realize I also like mainstream music? It's dirty, ridiculous, and any song that causes such a mass dance floor frenzy every single time is a-OK in my book.

3. Fink, "Looking Too Closely" - Gorgeous vocals, heartbreaking melody, utterly captivating.

4. Hamilton Leithauser, "Alexandra" - Dude from The Walkmen. He's still got it!

5. Johnny Stimson, "So.Good." - For a panty-dropping good time, call Johnny Stimson.

6. Kishi Bashi, "Philosphize It! Chemicalize With It!" - I wish I wasn't scared of trying 'shrooms. Because otherwise I'd eat a whole bunch, listen to this song, and run around a psychedelic forest wonderland.

7. Michael Jackson, "Love Never Felt So Good" - there's a 1 in 7 chance that if your song title has the words 'so' and 'good' in it, it'll make my playlist (see: number 5).

8. Milky Chance, "Stolen Dance" - I can't read their band name without thinking of the scene in This Is England when Milky gets beaten up ("Wake up, Milky! Milky, wake up!" cries the little kid). But I digress. Again. Anyway, it's a song that's gotten a ton of airplay this year, but one that I'm always happy to hear and never skip over.

9. ODESZA, "Say My Name (feat. Zyra)" - ODESZA is the perfect intersection between glitchy electronic pop and indie pop, and Zyra's vocals are hypnotic as she sings, "I wanna dance, I wanna dance, I wanna dance with you/So take a chance, take a chance"

10. Porter Robinson, "Sad Machine" - I still get chills from the opening melody of this song. Stunning!

11. Rich Aucoin, "Are You Experiencing?" - Hands down, one of my favorite live acts EVER (please watch the video to see what I mean!). And this song is pretty much the epitome of sonic serotonin: uplifting, makes you feel alive. <3 <3 <3

12. Terror Pigeon, "Girl!" - Another one of those 'makes you feel so alive' tracks. Starts out a little slow, but then builds up into an explosion of awesomeness. I can only imagine how much fun they must be in concert, and I'm hoping to catch them in 2015!

13. White Arrows, "We Can't Ever Die" - One time a dude hit on me by asking, "do you #YOLO?" I wanted to say, "No sir, because that's not grammatically correct!" But I didn't. And now I'm guessing by the title of this song that White Arrows also don't YOLO. #TeamImmortality #FTW

14. Yellerkin, "Solar Laws" - Love at first listen. Seriously, how could you not fall in love with those melodies and vocals?