Star Wars Day and Cinco de Mayo / Lord Huron vs tUnE-yArDs

If you're a geek, you no doubt spent yesterday celebrating Star Wars Day. We found ourselves drinking space-beers at the Replay which, as Chip has often remarked, is probably the closest local approximation of the Mos Eisley cantina in Star Wars.

We even encountered a few costumed geeks on campus yesterday, including this frightening jawa:















Chip: "Normally I like to mess with the Star Wars geeks by shouting lines from other franchises ("Beam me up, Scotty!"), but this little fucker from Tatooine was just too intense to antagonize."

Today, of course, we turn our attention to Cinco de Mayo, our second favorite boozing holiday after St. Patrick's Day. We tend to spend our Cinco de Mayos drinking super-sized margaritas in the basement of the El Mezcal on Iowa, leering at sloshed sorority girls from beneath the brims of our giant sombreros. How do you all celebrate? Perhaps at the Pig, which has a live mariachi band from 5:00 to 8:00? Or perhaps with a Tecate (the PBR of Mexican beer?) on the patio at Esquina?




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It's a battle of Pitchfork-approved bands on Friday as tUnE-yArDs take the stage at the Jackpot (the new album gets an 8.8) and Lord Huron rocks the Replay (8.0 for their 2010 EP). We covered tUnE-yArDs last week, so let's turn our attention to Lord Huron. Pitchfork poses this long and confusingly worded question for you to ponder:

"The sonic dichotomy is most pronounced on "The Stranger", where American roots instrumentation (pedal steel, mandolin) are smeared together with bongos and shakers into a hypnotic gallop, bringing to the fore the biggest flaw in the ongoing criticism of white boys copping international rhythmic influence: With so many sonic possibilities available to us, what, exactly, is admirable about strictly adhering to a codified American indie template?"

Richard: "I think indie bands simply stick to this template because they don't want to confuse their scenester audiences by presenting international rhythms in such a way that might inspire dancing or some other other outward signs of enjoyment."

We like this photo that pops up when you start searching Lord Huron: