7 Must-See Acts at 2013’s Treasure Island Music Festival

Never mind the headliners. These guys will have you dancing in the fog.

<a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dr_Dog_Treasure_Island_Music_Festival.jpg">Tyler Love</a>/Wikimedia Commons

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


It’s here: the Bay Area’s most surreal music gathering, based on the setting alone. Plunked on a landfill island in the middle of San Francisco Bay the Treasure Island Music Festival offers a textured, talented lineup for the weekend of October 19-20. With Atoms for Peace and Beck headlining on Saturday and Sunday, respectively, the fest lacks not for star power. All the buzz around Radiohead’s Thom Yorke collaboration with the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Flea is understandable, and Atoms for Peace is sure to deliver a riveting set—but those guys are olddddd, man!

Major Lazer and Animal Collective will also be there, and if you’re already going, I hardly have to convince you to see them. For some of us, though, the real excitement will come earlier in the day, with a diverse and youthful sampling of bands that promise to entertain. Here are seven reasons to get yourself to the Island before the big boys go on.

Antwon (Tunnel Stage, Saturday 12:40-1:10)

With “Dying in the Pussy,” rapper Antwon spins a darker, more philosophical narrative, without losing his sense of humor. To my ear, it’s a song about post-coital tristesse, or the malaise some men suffer after sexual climax. And it takes the morbid and bawdy aspects of hip-hop to their logical conclusion. In the video, waifish women dance a drugged-out sway, as tragic videos flicker in the background. By contrast, the lyrics sumptuously detail the carnal appetite of the man (Antwon) who told SPIN his “favorite thing to do on a day off is just lying in bed, having sex all day.”

Holy Ghost! (Bridge Stage, Saturday 2:45-3:35)
“Brooklyn’s too civilized,” Alex Frankel, one-half of Holy Ghost!, told Pitchfork. Maybe that’s why the duo rolls out sexy disco slaps without hipster pretension. The Brooklyn-based act released its second album, Dynamics, last month. The vibe on the indie-house train they’re driving is hedonistic in a refreshingly honest way.  “You’re all just fucking dumb and young,” Alex said, “It’s okay to go out and get laid.”

Disclosure (Bridge Stage, Saturday 4:20-5:10)
This brotherly British dance-pop duo brings disparate influences to its electro, which might feature a soul singer or, just as likely, a motivational speaker. But these talented siblings stand out for another reason: Disclosure is simply a class act—in a messy, bro-y electronic scene dominated by testosterone dubstep and neon, it’s among the most sophisticated. The duo’s stylistic takeover was validated this past summer when its latest record, Settle, topped the UK’s Album Chart.

Little Dragon – (Bridge Stage, Saturday 7:40-8:35)
Driven by Yukimi Nagano’s soulful, dreamy voice, Little Dragon crafts futuristic R&B jams with a sound edging at times towards electronic lullaby. The confidence and camaraderie of the band members is palpable—which makes sense, since they are old high school friends. This eerie video captures perfectly the Swedish-gothic dreamscape Little Dragon weaves around its listeners. A curious, dark-haired girl finds magical beings in a dreary, picturesque little town, but are the scarecrow sprites friendly?

Haim (Tunnel Stage, Sunday 3:35-4:15)
“The more powerful girls are, the more interesting they are,” Alana, the youngest Haim, told Fader. The Haim sisters certainly are potent. In “The Wire,” the trio must stave off sobbing suitors, including Jorma Taccone of The Lonely Island. But it’s a warm, familial strength—and they’re confident enough to take their parents on tour. Indeed, there’s something reminiscent of the Jackson 5 in the group’s wholesome pop. The Haim (pronounced like “rhyme”) girls are having fun, and it’s totally infectious.

James Blake (Bridge Stage, Sunday 6:00-6:50)
Blake’s masterful composition defies genre-boxing. The diversity (Aaliyah to Joni Mitchell) of his influences aside, Blake brings listeners to a place more pure and spacious than his contemporaries in the minimal dubstep world. What’s more, he’s a singer-songwriter, as strange as that may sound to fans of electronic music. His first LP snagged a 9.0 on Pitchfork. But I like his latest, Overgrown, even better.

Japandroids (Tunnel Stage, Sunday 6:50-735)
Hail the two-man punk band. While the Japandroids, of Vancouver, are certainly good for a wild romp, they don’t sacrifice content. Theirs is a message of vitality and sensation—awesomely positive stuff, all in the context of the pain and hormones that young people suffer. In “The House that Heaven Built,” guitarist and lead singer Brian King gleefully cracks beers and throws his body into the crowd. While this behavior is not mandatory during their set, it is recommended.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate