This past weekend L.A. hosted the heavily (and according to various reports, perhaps overly) attended Fuck Yeah Festival. Great lineup, though apparently not the most easily navigated festival experience, according to our forces on the ground. We sent photographers Graeme Flegenheimer and Patrick Collier, who suffered through $4 water bottle prices and severe crowding to come back with a great shots of Panda Bear, Best Coast, the Blow, Big Freedia, Ariel Pink, Magic Kids, Abe Vigoda, Warpaint, Cults, the Mountain Goats, Sleep, Titus Andronicus, Wavves, and many others, including a Kisses aftershow at the Echoplex and a late night Panda Bear set at The Glass House. Some Polaroid portraits in the mix, too.

This past Saturday and Sunday was the third annual Treasure Island Festival, on San Francisco’s Treasure Island. We sent Josh Bis to capture the weekend in photos.

The eco-friendly Green Man took over Brecon Beacons, Wales this past weekend with a heavy dose of Americana: from midwestern folkies (Bon Iver, Wilco, Andrew Bird) to wailing east coast electropoppers (Animal Collective, Gang Gang Dance) and reinvigorated psych legends (Roky Erikson, Rodriguez) the lineup wasn’t significantly different than, say, Lollapalooza. But Green Man stands out in other ways. For starters, there are literature and science tents, making the festival more like school (if your teacher was Robyn Hitchcock). We sent photog Elena Morelli to capture the sights while dodging Chupa Chups thrown from the stage by Jarvis Cocker.

The first single from Vetiver’s Sub Pop debut is a straightforward and breezy little jangle-pop ditty, coming from a crew which has gotta have a sense of humor (of people who can tolerate Devendra, I assume it must be so), so I’m glad to see it get a video this playful. The story about a hardluck loser in love plays out in the style of a karaoke video, so the scenes of happiness and sad times are particularly goofy and exaggerated. Dude laments the loss of his girl, chucks a camera on the beach in depression (this is the most effective way to register depression), finds a hottie in a red jeep and a love for the GIN BLOSSOMS so you know it is on, until she drugs our Romeo, steals his money, and absconds with the Gin Blossoms vinyl because even grifters feel Gin Blossoms are underrated (real talk). He ends up homeless because, you know, the economy and Geithner and things of that nature.

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Just before Halloween we premiered Vetiver’s cover of A.R. Kane’s “Miles Apart” from More Of The Past. Well, here’s to the future: Next month Andy Cabic & Co. are releasing Tight Knit, their first album for Sub Pop (and fourth full-length overall). For now you can take a listen to the sunny lead track “Everyday.” It’s decidedly more straightforward than that danceable “You May Be Blue (Neighbors Remix).” We also have the album art, which is bluer than you might imagine after listening to “Everyday.”

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As a followup to Thing Of The Past, psychedelic San Francisco folk-rock troupe Vetiver, aka Andy Cabic & Co., is releasing a companion covers EP called More Of The Past (11/11, Gnomonsong). In addition to the EP, the band’s putting out a two-song 7″, which finds More Of‘s “Hey Doll Baby” backed by the vinyl-only “Miles Apart.” Well, vinyl-only until we premiered it in this week’s Drop. On top of offering the new track, we asked Cabic about his take on A.R. Kane’s original. You can listen to the song and read his thoughts (“I’m not setting out to ‘own’ the song. Ownership is determined by the ear of the listener I suppose…”) here.

On top of the Vetiver, we offered the chance to win a Logitech Pure-Fi Elite iPod Speaker System and an iPod Nano (in pink), courtesy of New York trash rock duo the Gay Blades.

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As a followup to Thing Of The Past, psychedelic San Francisco folk-rock troupe Vetiver, aka Andy Cabic & Co., is releasing a companion covers EP called More Of The Past. Accompanying the release is a two-song 7″, which finds More Of‘s “Hey Doll Baby” backed by the vinyl-only “Miles Apart.” Well, vinyl-only until we premiered it in this week’s Drop. We asked Cabic about he and his band’s take on A.R. Kane’s original.

How did you decide to cover “Miles Apart”? Why didn’t it show up on Thing Of The Past or More Of The Past?
I’m a fan of A.R. Kane — much like all the other artists whose songs we performed on Thing Of The Past — and this was a song in particular of theirs that I enjoyed a lot and thought would be fun to try our hand at. It didn’t make the album because I wanted to keep Thing Of The Past concise, and “Miles Apart” didn’t seem to fit alongside the others.

Any significance in its pairing with “Hey Doll Baby” on the 7″?
Not really, no. They are both songs I personally wanted to have available on vinyl.

How do you go about making a cover song your own?
I’m not sure you do anything different than perform it sincerely, with your own sense of style and abilities, right? I’m not setting out to “own” the song. Ownership is determined by the ear of the listener I suppose. All the songs we performed are significant to me, personally, in how they’ve played a role in my life through their melody, their lyrics, their style, what they suggest. They already are personally significant … We just recorded them because it was fun to do, to present these songs in a new but not dissimilar way to people who may not have heard them before.

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More Of The Past is out 11/11 via Gnomonsong.

The last we heard from Andy Cabic & Co. was a pretty heady section of the 10-minute extended ProTooled remix of “You May Be Blue.” But Naturalismo blog caught and videotaped his show at the Troubadour in West Hollywood this past Wednesday, so now we can update your Vetiver log with a brief interview about his covers collection A Thing Of The Past (seemingly out tomorrow on Gnomonsong), among other things (like Vashti Bunyan), plus the performance of a brand new tune, “Another Reason To Go,” which will ostensibly show up on his next full-length, slated for an ’09 release. The band sounds great. Even better, Naturalismo tells us they recorded the entire concert and will post additional songs in the next few weeks. Cool. One thing first, though: Does that say “freak folk” above Andy’s head? Incorrigible.

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Ever wonder what would happen if a major purveyor of what was once called “freak folk” turned into a dance-floor demon? No, we never did either. But goddamn if this Vetiver remix isn’t hot stuff! Andy Cabic is Vetiver, and vice versa, as we once learned while in his neighborhood. With Devendra Banhart, he’s also one of the founders of the Gnomonsong label. It’s been two years since he released his sophomore Vetiver album To Find Me Gone, but two tracks from it — “You May Be Blue” and “Been So Long” — have been revisited and restructured for a Gnomonsong 12″ by Cabic and longtime producer/pal Thom Monahan. We have the layered and ProTooled remix of “You May Be Blue” after the jump. It includes the keyboards and live and electronic drums of Cabic and regular compatriot/Espers dude Otto Hauser, along with gusts of the original’s gentle vocal line.

[Photo by Alissa Anderson; l to r: Sanders Trippe (guitar, vocals), Brent Dunn (bass), Andy Cabic (vocals, guitar), Otto Hauser (drums)]

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Since I’m in the area, it seems appropriate to throw some love at San Francisco neo-folkies Vetiver. Here’s what music mecca Aquarius has to say about Andy Cabic & friends’ new one To Find Me Gone:

“Unlike their debut, where the strong songwriting and performances were a bit overshadowed by the heavyweight guest appearances from Hope Sandoval, Colm O’Ciosoig and Joanna Newsom (It also came across in some press as a Devendra side project), Cabic comes fully into his own here, showcasing a sublime quality of world-weariness hewn from months on the road. It’s exciting, after hearing their debut, which was years in the making, to not find the usual sophomore slump, but instead witness such naturally self-assured songwriting and arrangements. … Less ‘freak-folk’ than his friends and contemporaries, Cabic instead follows the compositional path of 70′s singer-songwriters like J.J. Cale, Emitt Rhodes and John Phillips. Beautiful and so totally recommended!”

Aquarius has never steered me wrong. Well, except for L.

Here’s the dreamy, tribal opener I uploaded for ya before I got here.

Vetiver – “Been So Long” (MP3 Link Expired)

Vetiver only have one friend? C’mon kids, we already told you Devendra’s not a pedophile! Speaking of which — yes, I’m going there — does anyone else LOVE Dateline’s To Catch A Predator series?