I remember driving 4 hours from Sioux Falls, SD to Fargo, ND late 2007 to see Bon Iver perform in a tiny, dark bar that was half full. I had decided to go after reading a short write-up that detailed what a grease fire his life had become, and how that led to the creation of the album For Emma, Forever Ago.

A third of the crowd was watching sports on two TVs behind the bar; another third was shooting pool or interacting with friends. So it was me and 30 other people, standing there, taking it all in. I never will forget that performance. It was like catching Pacino doing community theater before he landed roles in Scarface or The Godfather. You knew things would never be the same. They couldn’t be.

A year and a half later, Bon Iver is an indie icon. The band has toured relentlessly and with good reason, decided to make October 11^th’s performance at the Riverside Theater in Milwaukee its last. For awhile.

Radio Milwaukee broadcast the performance and is now streaming Bon Iver Live at the Riverside here.

P.S.  For those of you Bon Iver super fans (like me) who think you’ve heard all his songs, you haven’t. He covers The Outfield (I’m serious) during this set.

Months ago, I told you about Fun, or, the new incarnation of The Format.

First, a little background: Fun is fronted by Nate Reuss, former lead singer of the now defunct band The Format. If you lived in Phoenix in the mid 2000’s and were dialed into local music, you had them on repeat and often muttered “These guys are ridiculously amazing. Seriously.” They were the one of the hottest things to come out of AZ, besides, you know, the fucking sun.

Well, the band is knee-deep in its kickoff tour. I caught them in Houston when they opened for Manchester Orchestra (Audrye Sessions was also on the bill).

In between stops, Fun sat down for a studio performance at Paste. “The Gambler” is a pretty ( “I swear when I grow up,  I won’t just buy you a rose / I will buy the flower shop”), haunting (“We moved to Arizona to save our only son”) song that is amongst my list of top singles for 2009.

Note: Click on Menu to navigate songs.

I also wonder if he and Matthew Sweet get together and share creeper secrets:

John: “So I’m thinking of growing out my hair. Should I wear it in a pony tail?”

Matthew: “Absolutely not. That’s dorky, not creepy. You’ll look like an IT guy, or a tennis player.”

John: “Good call. No ponytail. What are your thoughts on the receding hairline and the mustache?”

Matthew: “Killer dude, pun intended.”

I have no idea how to classify Deer Tick’s sound. Grunge country seems fitting. I think if Kurt Cobain smoked a carton of Marlboro Reds while watching a CMT marathon on Merle Haggard and then recorded, it would probably sound something like McCauley

Me: “They sound a bit like Radiohead.”

Fan: “Maybe, dude, but that’s saying a lot. I mean, they’re good, but fuck.”

Me: “No, I know. But there’s a little resemblance there. Maybe they’re not like Radiohead, but the poor man’s Radiohead.”

Fan: “Maybe, dude, but that’s still saying a lot. I mean, they’re good, but fuck.”

Me: “True. Maybe they’re like the homeless man’s Radiohead.”

Fan: “Sort of.”

Me: ‘What do you mean ‘sort of?’”

Fan: “Well, yeah, generally speaking, they sort of do. But on ‘Turn Me Off’, they do especially, but in a coked-up kind of way. Like Tom Yorke is in a hurry to finish a song.”

Me: “So Audrye Sessions is a coked-up, homeless man’s Radiohead?”

Fan: “Well, yeah.”

Me: “Is that good?”

Fan: “Good? That’s great.”

But the song has nothing to do with California. Or San Francisco, Or Oakland. Or anywhere specific. Really, it has to do with everywhere.

Most of us have lived in a place, grew tiresome of it, and remarked to a friend or to our pillow “Fuck [insert city here]” or “Fuck this place.” I have. A few times. I don’t know what that makes me. To my stay-near-home friends, I may be described as “antsy” or “unsettled.” To my mobile friends, I may be described as, well, “mobile.”

So this song isn’t about a specific location so much as it is about a feeling. A feeling when you want to leave a city, a company, a person, a …

The Format’s history makes for a decent Behind the Music episode. The band garnered critical acclaim, Reuss started dealing with a slew of relationship disasters and boozing more heavily, and the band got a shit load of dogs together, which Reuss was stuck with when The Format broke up.

Reuss is the only former Format member in Fun, but his voice is so impressionable that it’s impossible not to dub Fun the “The New Format.” Whatever. Fun’s debut EP won’t drop until this summer. Until then, enjoy “At Least I’m Not as Sad (As I Used to Be)” – which is your typical saloon-inspired, orchestra-fused indie ballad.

So, when buzz started to build in mid 2008 about Justin Vernon (Bon Iver) and the album he had spit out after three months of solitude in a desolate log cabin following the breakup of his band, getting dumped and battling mono, I thought,  “this record is going to be fucking brilliant. How can it not be?”

And it is.

“Skinny Love” and “Flume” are the two most acclaimed songs off of Bon Iver’s solo masterpiece, For Emma, but it is the title song that allows the listener to best understand how overwhelming that angst was for him.

“Go find another lover; / To bring a. … to string along.”

Just typing that hurts.

But then I remembered that Dave Grohl covered a Creed song a few years ago.  OK, fine, so Creed sold millions upon millions of albums and made millions upon millions of dollars.  Not sure how to explain that one. Let’s call it the “Nickleback Effect.”

Unfortunately, success does not always equate respect, and frontman Scott Stapp, while worth a ton of money, is unintentional comedy at its best.

Pop quiz – what’s most funny:

a) Greeting card Stapp

b) Karaoke Stapp,  brought to you by the temple grab and the double mic clutch 

c)  Under Armour Stapp

d)  Artsy Stapp

e) Dave Grohl’s mockery of “Arms Wide open”