Sound Advice: Thankful jams and hit snippets

Guitar virtuosos and trees: I was driving 8 miles per hour through the hilly camps of High Sierra Music Festival. A guy in dreadlocks and a tie-dye shirt didn’t immediately get out of my way.

“Whoa,” he said. “Slow your roll—there are children here.”

It took a while to settle into the High Sierra mood. Unlike Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival or other music gatherings I had been to before, no one is in a rush at the annual four-day Quincy affair that’s held each Fourth of July weekend.

The fairgrounds are gorgeous and green. Campers set up turntables in their tents for late-night grooving. During this year’s fest, fire dancing took place every night and acroyoga every morning—I couldn’t believe I balanced a 60-year-old man with a long, gray ponytail on my feet.

And I relished in nearly nonstop, excellent music.

STS9, Beats Antique and the Polish Ambassador brought out the rave kids, wearing LED-lit clothing and inflatable animals on their backs. Smoke made the air so thick during STS9’s set that I felt like I was inside a Berlin nightclub. Beats Antique concluded with belly dancers surrounding a giant, inflated cyclops kitty. And Nevada City-based the Polish Ambassador was, as always, clad in a neon jumpsuit.

But I was actually most moved by Moon Hooch. With a drum set and two saxophones—sometimes swapped out for a contrabass clarinet—the three New Yorkers played an incredibly groovy, raw version of house music. Emotionally, I was most moved by the Carolina Chocolate Drops. The North Carolina, old-timey string band sang of cornbread and slavery, but a traditional Scottish Gaelic tune was the true stunner.

The Travelin’ McCourys provided the ideal Fourth of July bluegrass set to a sunburned, beer-guzzling, raucous crowd, which got even more raucous when the Del McCoury graced the stage for one song.

The weekend was packed with similarly renowned guitarists: Bill Frisell, Ernest Ranglin, Fareed Haque, Bombino. At a more intimate, casual gathering, Haque and Bombino met for the first time and engaged in an improvisational, bluesy jam session. The looks on their faces—especially Bombino of Niger—were of pure honor and gratitude.

Really, the whole festival was a thankful place. I don’t think I’ve ever heard so many fans shouting “Thank you for being here!” after sets or in between songs. Plus all the thanks between festivalgoers for being lovely and beautiful and stuff. Thanks.

Don’t believe the hype man: Most fathers of a 6-week-old baby would probably choose to stick close to home to help their partner with feedings and diaper duty. But not rapper Future, who recently became a dad to baby Future Zahir Wilburn with pop star Ciara. In fact, he’s currently on tour to support his latest album, Honest, and stopped by Ace of Spades last week for a show.

Sales of the emo and uneven album have been lackluster despite buzz around the single “Move That Dope,” which, although it was arguably the song of spring (if there is such a thing), peaked at only No. 46 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart. It’s a shame that it wasn’t a bigger hit because it features one of the best verses by Pharrell Williams ever, in which he wipes the floor with Future and Pusha T, who is also on the track.

The crowd certainly responded to that track as if it had hit No.1, but since Future appears on only on one verse, he just performed a snippet, which was pretty par for the course for the night. There were also snippets of club hits “Karate Chop,” “Covered N Money,” “Racks” and “Same Damn Time.”

Future’s signature sound is his Auto-Tuned croon, which can make his tracks seem very generic. Almost anyone could be singing the hooks, and his verses cover the standard topics of money, drugs and women-themed litanies without much clever wordplay. He has songs that hint at a potential for a more creative direction like the spacey, “Gone to the Moon” and the banger “Sh&t.” The Auto-Tune wasn’t as prominent on the latter song, and Future sang in a staccato, yelping tone.

The enthusiastic crowd dutifully called out “Shit!” at the end of each chorus, and Future’s hype man proclaimed the Sacramento crowd to be one of the loudest of the tour so far, but the energy was still only medium-high. Compared to recent shows at Ace, Future’s was much better than the phoned-in disappointment of Riff Raff, but couldn’t even touch the off-the-hook lovefest that YG brought to the house in back-to-back sold-out shows. If the hype man wanted to hear a loud crowd, he should have bought a ticket to that.