The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Monday, October 8, 2018 — 5A

By Gail Grabowski and Bruce Venzke
©2018 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
10/08/18

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

10/08/18

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

Release Date: Monday, October 8, 2018

ACROSS
1 Stand watch for, 
say
5 Oompah 
instrument
9 Think-on-your-
feet tests
14 Greiner of “Shark 
Tank”
15 Sister of Osiris
16 Fabled wish 
granter
17 Time-consuming
18 With “of” and 
71-Across, 
Steinbeck 
classic
19 Swim cap 
material
20 Soon
23 Hulu service
24 __ about: 
roughly
25 Eyelid bump
29 Onetime Leno 
announcer Hall
31 Prefix with mount 
or charge
33 Head-butting 
beast
34 Scoop in a cone
39 Katmandu native
41 Soon
43 Make an error
44 Pedals on 
antique sewing 
machines
45 Right-angled 
piece
46 Gp. with Vikings
48 Bearded beast
49 Fraction of a min.
51 Hindu princess
53 Andean pack 
animal
58 Soon
61 Pentagon, for 
one
64 Med. readouts
65 Molecule part
66 Usual bus. 
address for 
sending in 
payments
67 Cheer (for)
68 Vaccine fluids
69 Hollywood 
go-between
70 Actress Gunn of 
“Breaking Bad”
71 See 18-Across

DOWN
1 Dead tired
2 Trailblazer Daniel
3 Surrealist Max
4 Tied snugly
5 Wedding cake 
layer
6 Gannett’s 
flagship 
newspaper
7 Badlands bovine
8 Texas team that 
won the 2017 
World Series
9 Look like a wolf?
10 Brings up, as kids
11 Industrious insect
12 Tell it like it isn’t
13 “__ sells”: ad biz 
mantra
21 Exceed, as a 
budget
22 Like an 
intoxicated spree
26 Fish with a net
27 New Haven Ivy 
Leaguer
28 Radiates
30 Cook, as onion 
rings
32 Le Car maker
34 “Peer Gynt” 
playwright

35 Honeycomb 
units
36 Paperless tax 
return option
37 “Blue Bloods” 
extra
38 Bon __: witticism
40 Pea container
42 Encouraging
47 Picture taker
50 Roasting bird
52 47-Down brand
54 Tenant’s contract

55 Tossed in a chip
56 Bond portrayer 
Roger
57 “Seriously, bro!”
59 “I’m __!”: “My 
turn!”
60 Davis Cup org.
61 Place for a mud 
bath
62 Biker’s wheels
63 Springfield 
presidential 
library nickname

MUSIC FESTIVAL COVERAGE

“Wait, is that Diet Cig?” Sean 
said, pointing at a duo as we 
walked past a mineral water booth. 
Over the course of one weekend at 
Audiotree Music Festival, each 
of us asked a variation on this 
question about a dozen times. 
Although it’s common to see 
musicians hanging out at festivals, 
something about being in a small 
crowd in Kalamazoo’s Arcadia 
Creek Park made these encounters 
feel even more unique.
2018 marks the sixth year of 
Chicago-based Audiotree’s annual 
music 
festival. 
Taking 
place 
in Kalamazoo, Mich. — which 
Audiotree’s two founders, Adam 
Thurston and Michael Johnston, 
call home — the mid-sized festival 
brings in a wide range of indie 
acts, many of them featured at 
one point or another in one of 
Audiotree’s 
various 
sessions. 
This year, in addition to the main 
stage, Audiotree introduced a 
smaller stage that featured a 
variety of local bands from Mich. 
and Chicago. Named the WIDR 
stage, after Western Michigan 
University’s (WMU) student radio, 
the additional performance space 
ensured that there was never a dull 
moment in between sets on the 
main stage.
It seemed like an amazing 
opportunity for a lot of local bands. 
Every group on the WIDR stage 
was either from Mich. or one of 
its neighboring states. Because the 
festival takes place in an arguable 
mecca for DIY alternative music, 
it is uniquely positioned to choose 
from a slew of talented bands that 
just haven’t yet had their moment, 
despite an abundance of talent.
The WIDR stage was also 
a result of WMU’s increasing 
involvement with the festival. 
Starting last year, Audiotree also 
partnered with WMU students 
studying visual arts, organizing 
a competition in which students 
could 
submit 
art 
meant 
to 
represent an artist playing at 
the festival. The winners of the 
competition got to see their work 
printed on quality 24” by 36” 
cardstock and sold over the course 
of the weekend.

All weekend long the sun shone 
brightly and spirits were kept high 
by a seemingly limitless supply of 
free bottles of Topo Chico. Once 
the sun set each day, temperatures 
dipped to a chilly 55 degrees or so, 
but headliners Local Natives on 
Saturday and Father John Misty on 
Sunday kept us just warm enough. 
Khruangbin and Real Estate were 
featured as sub-headliners, and 
many of the smaller acts managed 
to draw their own crowds. The 
Chicago-based 
Post 
Animal 
garnered 
a 
healthy 
audience 
despite 
their 
mid-afternoon 
time slot on Sunday, and English 
rock group Basement certainly 
benefited from being the only pop 
punk-inclined group to play the 
fest.
In addition to seeing every band 
on the main stage, we also got to 
speak with Common Holly, Diet 
Cig and Palm. Each interview 
proved to be unique in its own 
right: We engaged in some serious 
astrological philosophizing with 
Diet Cig, pondered memory and 
uncertainty with Common Holly 
and tried to discover how Palm 
pulls off sounding like Palm.
— Ryan Cox, Daily Arts Writer
Melkbelly
Chicago’s Melkbelly was the 
first act I remember being excited 
to see. The band, led by guitarist/
vocalist Miranda Winter, embodies 
a unique sound that brings in the 
perfect ratio of pop to noise. Their 
debut album, Nothing Valley, plays 
with strange tonalities, noisy 
guitars and some catchy yet almost 
dystopian-sounding vocal lines.
The band played one of my 

favorite tracks, “Middle Of,” early 
on in their set, and I found myself 
becoming seemingly hypnotized 
by the animalistic drums and the 
aggressive-sounding guitars in the 
descending, chaotic pre-chorus. 
They were absolutely bringing 
it. However, after a few songs, 
the band lost a bit of their initial 
energy. The metaphorical space 
between the band and the audience 
grew larger from the beginning of 
the set. In their defense, they were 
playing pretty early on in the day, 
and I overheard that they did play 
a different setlist than at Pitchfork, 
so either one of these things 
might explain the decline in the 
performance. Although they had 
an incredible opening, it seemed 

that 
Melkbelly 
couldn’t 
quite 
satisfy 
the 
appetite for noise-
rock I had that 
day.
— Ryan Cox, 
Daily Arts Writer
Diet Cig
Last semester, 
I took ENGR 101, 
my first coding 
class. 
And 
as 
much as I liked 
that 
class 
(sort 
of), 
I 
resented 
the final project 
because it kept 
me from seeing 
Palm and Diet Cig 
play the Union. So 
when Diet Cig was 
announced on the 
Audiotree lineup, 
I was incredibly 
excited to right 
the 
wrongs 
of 
ENGR 101.
And 
what 
a 
wrong that was.
Diet 
Cig 
not 
only 
had 
an 
incredible 
amount of energy 
on-stage, but they 
had an incredible 
connection 
with 
the 
audience. 
Despite 
wearing 
a leg brace caused 
by a torn ACL, 
Alex Luciano, the 
band’s 
guitarist 
and vocalist, was 
dancing around on 
the stage, kicking 
her leg up to the 
stars to show off 
her 
seemingly 
robotic leg. The 
now-three-piece 
had a huge live 
sound, 
despite 
their 
limited 
instrumentation, 
and, in some cases, 

sounded as good as their recorded 
material, if not better. Hearing 
Alex’s voice belt out her choruses 
with Noah Bowman pounding the 
skins of the drums felt earnestly 
powerful live.
Before the music even started, 
Alex addressed the audience, 
ensuring 
that 
everyone 
was 
comfortable and the environment 
was kept positive and safe. She 
also took some time to emphasize 
how important it was for everyone 
to register to vote and actually go 
out to the polls, an issue that she 
believes, especially in this political 
climate, 
is 
overwhelmingly 
important.
I 
found 
myself 
dancing 
throughout 
the 
entire 

performance, 
but 
more 
importantly, 
I 
found 
myself 
listening to every single element 
intently. Although the group may 
have an uncaring DIY look, their 
sound is extremely intentional. For 
a group with only three people, 
Diet Cig produces an enormously 
huge sound, aided significantly 
by 
Luciano’s 
powerful 
vocal 
performances.
— Ryan Cox, Daily Arts Writer
Palm
This might have been my 
favorite 
performance 
at 
this 
festival.
I was exposed to Palm last 
summer with the release of their 
Shadow Expert EP. I had no idea 
what to think. Blending elements of 
so many different genres, sticking 
one label on this band would be a 
huge mistake. I was worried about 
how their sound would translate 
to a live environment, but to 
slightly surprisingly, they sounded 
extraordinarily clean and almost 
exactly like their records. Whether 
it was the timbre of the guitars, the 
rhythmic complexity of the rhythm 
section, 
or 
the 
mesmerizing, 
chorus-heavy vocal lines, every 
nuance was present. There were a 
few times where I caught myself 
marveling at how the performance 
was actually happening. I felt like I 
was slipping in and out of a trance. 
The band was extraordinarily 
tight, despite the chaos present in 
their performance. I frequently 
caught myself noticing elements of 
the performance at a micro level, 
like how drummer Hugo Stanley 
seamlessly transitioned from live 
electronic drum samples to the 
acoustic kit, or how guitarists 
Eve Alpert and Kasra Kurt subtly 
played off of each other’s guitar 
riffs and vocal harmonies.
As the art-rock group finished 
their six-song set with a track from 
their new album “Dog Milk,” I 
finally started to realize that what 
felt like five minutes to me had 
turned into a 30-minute set. As 
the band concluded their extended 

jam-like outro to the song, I found 
myself turning to Sean and simply 
mouthing the word: “Wow.”
— Ryan Cox, Daily Arts Writer
Father John Misty
I’ve missed seeing Father John 
Misty more times than I can 
count, despite being a massive fan 
of not only Josh Tillman’s music 
and lyrics, but his personality as 
well. I had a friend see him shortly 
after the release of I Love You, 
Honeybear and show me a video of 
him picking up her phone from the 
stage, recording a video of himself 
making snarky comments to the 
audience before finally returning 
her phone. His weird fascination 
with Taylor Swift, whether it be 
through a quick name drop or 
covering her songs in the style of 
Lou Reed, is a weird quirk that I 
find absolutely hysterical. I used 
to really love this man, despite his 
disappointing third studio album 
Pure Comedy.
And while I’ve heard of all 
these crazy things Tillman has 
done at shows, he really didn’t 
do anything out of the ordinary 
at Audiotree. Aside from a few 
sarcastic comments about how 
annoying the beach balls at 
festivals are, a sentiment I agree 
with 
wholeheartedly, 
there 
wasn’t a huge amount of audience 
interaction. But what was so 
amazing about the performance 
was how good it was despite Josh 
failing to go into some long rant 
about nothing or cover some crazy 
Def Leppard song following a 
slightly more vulgar “Screw you” 
to the audience.
While he did have a rather 
large 
ensemble 
behind 
him, 
certain songs featured differing 
instrumentations: The trumpet 
solo at the end of “Chateau Lobby 
#4 (in C for Two Virgins)” was 
replaced with a slightly more 
aggressive guitar solo. Tillman’s 
voice sounds fantastic live, and 
with the release of his fourth 
studio 
album 
God’s 
Favorite 
Customer, he had an abundance of 
songs to pick from, both new and 
old.
For me, the highlight of the 
festival as a whole was hearing 
Tillman yell the lines, “Maybe 
love is just an economy based on 
resource scarcity, but I fail to see 
is what that’s gotta do with you 
and me” right before the weekend 
ended. I could feel my high school 
self sneak out and remember, even 
if for just a few seconds, a time 
when that album accompanied 
a 
very 
transformative 
period 
in my life. It made traveling to 
Kalamazoo a pilgrimage of sorts; 
it felt like returning to a childhood 
home.
— Ryan Cox, Daily Arts Writer
NE-HI
The 
Chicago-based 
NE-HI 
have been on my radar for some 
time and, despite having been 
disappointed by them at Pitchfork 
Music Fest back in 2017, I was 
impressed by their performance. 
More or less led by the illustrious 
guitarist-vocalist Jason Balla, the 
four-piece plays good ’ol fashioned 
modern rock ‘n’ roll. By the time 
Audiotree weekend rolled around, 
though, I was a biased audience — 
over the course of the past year, 
I’ve come to love a good handful of 
NE-HI’s Chicago contemporaries. 
Balla actually plays in another 
group called Dehd, a group 
whose bassist also plays in Lala 
Lala (who just came out with an 
excellent record). He also released 
a solo album, Blue Tape, under his 
Accessory moniker at the end of 
this past summer.
Either way, you’d be forgiven 
for thinking Balla were truly 

possessed on stage. When he’s 
not busy providing vocals, he’s 
like a miniature version of one of 
those wacky waving inflatable arm 
flailing tube men, with one key 
distinction: He’s not stuck in one 
place. I spent almost the entirety of 
NE-HI’s set captivated by Balla’s 
antics, but that’s not to dismiss 
the rest of the NE-HI crew. 
Bassist James Weir, drummer 
Alex Otake and guitarist-vocalist 
Mikey Wells’s more-than-solid 
musicianship is the only reason 
Balla can afford to be so free. 
Leaving the stage after NE-HI’s 
far-too-short half hour set had 
me wondering what had put me 
off just over a year earlier. I never 
quite figured it out, but I knew I’d 
never go back.
— Sean Lang, Daily Arts Writer
Local Natives
For better or worse, I’ve long 
adored the Los Angeles-based 
Local Natives. Pandora radio led 
me to Gorilla Manor back in high 
school, and I eventually became 
enamored with its boisterous 
energy 
and 
instrumental 
intricacies. I latched onto the 
band’s oh-so-sweet harmonies and 
followed them right into 2013’s 
Hummingbird, where they were, 
yeah, sadder, but again so good. 
When the group’s third album 
Sunlit Youth came in 2016, I lost 
no small amount of faith. Their 
sound became “more full” in the 
way indie outfits typically do when 
they reach for wider crowds. It also 
seemed as though they decided 
they were going to be a Socially 
Conscious 
Alternative 
Rock 
Band,™ with clunkers like “How 
can we quit drugs if you’re gonna 
watch like that?” or the poorly 
aged “I have waited so long, Mrs. 
President,” a line their vocalist-
guitarist Taylor Rice insisted on 
singing as written during the 
band’s Audiotree performance.
All this being said, the five-
piece reliably delivered on all of 
their material. Now that it’s been 
over two years since Sunlit Youth 
first saw the light of day, they 
worked pretty deep into the back 
catalog. Local Natives played an 
18-song set, but only five of them 
came from Sunlit Youth. With 
their extra time, they treated the 
audience to six Gorilla Manor 
tracks — including longstanding 
show-closer “Sun Hands” and 
deep cut “World News” — five 
Hummingbird cuts — including a 
longer breakdown of “Colombia,” 
vocalist-multi-instrumentalist 
Kelcey Ayer’s ode to his departed 
grandmother, and the deep deep 
cut “Mt. Washington” — the one-
off single “I Saw You Close Your 
Eyes” and a new song, “When Am 
I Gonna Lose You?”
— Sean Lang, Daily Arts Writer
Common Holly
Although she was the first act 
up on the second day of Audiotree, 
the act I was most excited to see all 
weekend was probably Montreal-
native Brigitte Naggar’s Common 
Holly project. After hearing her 
first single “If After All” on NPR’s 
All Songs Considered last year, 
I was entranced. Her publicist 
likens her to Angel Olsen or a 
female Leonard Cohen, but I prefer 
a less pretentious resemblance 
— her music reminded me of 
Daughter’s first album, When You 
Leave, which has soundtracked 
my every autumn for the past 
six years. Either way, Naggar’s 
songwriting is uniquely fresh and 
unpredictably eclectic.
Five minutes before she and 
her band took to the stage, there 
were about 11 of us in the crowd. 
Thankfully, this number swelled 
to about 25-30 by noon, when the 
band walked out. Every note was 
carefully played, every melody 
tenderly sung and the songs, 
whose studio versions are imbued 
with a sense of restlessness, of 
life, became even more so played 
live. At one point during her set, 
Naggar turned to the VIP section 
of the audience — off to the left 
and on the other side of a fence — 
and asked them if they felt special. 
Her tone wasn’t incriminating, 
nor do I think it was meant to 
make them feel uncomfortable. 
It was humanizing to see her sort 
of nervously, accidentally call out 
the VIP crowd. Before being cut 
off early by the festival crew — 
and I will never forgive them for 
this, as she clearly had three more 
minutes left to play — she debuted 
a new song, leaving me more 
excited than ever for the future of 
this up-and-coming group.
— Sean Lang, Daily Arts Writer

Daily Arts takes on the Audiotree Music Festival

RYAN COX
Daily Arts Writer
&
SEAN LANG
Daily Arts Writer

SEAN LANG

RYAN COX

