127 Bands, 5 Stages, 3 Days and 1 Mean Sunburn.

"Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival - April 17-19th, 2009 or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Find 30 Reasons To Love a Weekend in the Desert."

- By Scott Butterworth


Day #19 - Artist #19 - Paul McCartney (Motha F%&*#in' Beatle!):

We all know Paul McCartney. Former Beatle, one half of the greatest songwriting partnership of all time, and successfull solo artist. But you know what I want to know? When did it become "cool" (and I use that term very loosly) to hate Paul McCartney!?!? What year was it that the hipster constitutional convention convened and declared, "We, the hipsters of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union...agree that we will try to claim personal validation by systematically hating Paul McCartney?" It was ridiculous then, it's recoculous now, and absolutely asinine to ever contribute to in the future! C'mon, let's just put our hipster pride aside for one second.

Paul McCartney is without a doubt one of the greatest songwriters, musicians and cultural innovators in modern history. There is supposed controversy about whether or not he will "fit in" as a headliner in the Coachella environment. I've yet to hear a legitimate argument to support that. I'm willing to bet my entire next paycheck that more performers from the entire ten years of Coachella have been inspired by the music of Paul McCartney than by any other artist. And I'm willing to make the same bet that attendees at this year's festival own more albums of Paul McCartney's music than the last two years of headliners' put together!! Yeah...I said it! I just don't get it...where the #%&* is the controversy?

The last half of this decade might not be Paul's most prolific, but could be argued that it has been his most consistent five year block of musical output since the early '70s. 2005 saw the release of Chaos and Creation In The Backyard, which was touted as his "comeback" album. The opening piano notes of "Fine Line" made as big a contribution to this particular point in his career as the opening guitar lick of Rubber Soul's  "Drive My Car" did to the new direction of the Beatles' career in 1965. Both announced, "There's more to come!"

He completed what he described as a "modern classical musical work," Ecce Cor Meum, in 2006. If you ever wondered what McCartney would be up to "When (he's) Sixty-Four," 2007 would prove he's back to business as usual with Memory Almost Full, released to his best critical reviews in a decade.

In 2008 Paul reunited with sporatic electronic music collaborator Youth under the moniker The Fireman for their latest project Electric Arguments. While researching the new album I discovered the interesting process that took the album from concept to completion. Over the course of one year, 13 songs were recorded in 13 separate days, but each song was written and recored entirely in just one single day. I had never heard of approaching an album in this deliberate fashion. I interupted my roommate Dave's medical school studying to mention this fascinating recording concept and get his take on the experiment. Dave thought about it for a second and the first thing that came to his mind was, "What did he do the rest of the days?" The only reply I could think of at the time was, "It's Paul McCartney, who knows what the hell he does anyway?"

Here are a few things he's been up to recently:

Headlining Glastonbury Festival 2004: