If the CMJ Music Marathon is the place to discover up-and-coming bands, consider Pete and the Pirates the old friend we knew would make it to the big leagues. The Reading, England-based band recently performed at the fest, where quite a number of media-types found them as charming as we always have–along with, oh, several other thousand people across the pond. In short, there’s a Pete and the Pirates bandwagon, and you’re the next to jump on it.

Released in 2008, the band’s debut full-length, Little Death, garnered praise from the likes of the BBC, Pitchfork and the NME, who said of the band “…They’ll make you realise that, sometimes, all you need is a guitar, a head full of melody and a heart full of romance.” Indeed, the quintet writes poppy rock songs with simple themes and include plenty of handclaps–anyone can relate.

They’re often referred to as indie rock without the snobbery, and such approval could have been the result of combining pure talent and a talented helping hand–producer Gareth Parton (The Killers, The Go! Team, Foals). They earned fan favorites with songs like “Knots” and “Come on Feet,” plus toured alongside Maximo Park and Vampire Weekend.

Pete and the Pirates’ success may also come from good old fashioned elbow grease. There’s something to be said of a band that sets a goal, works on it for 10 years and actually makes it a reality.

The Antlers are set to kick off a national tour with Minus the Bear next month. The band is currently playing shows in the Midwest with Holly Miranda, and will join up with Minus the Bear in New Jersey October 3 before trekking across the U.S. to sunny California, then eventually making it back to the East coast mid-November.

Earlier this year the Brooklyn-based band released Hospice via Frenchkiss Records. NPR nominated it as the best album of the year at the time, Pitchfork gave it the thumbs up and a lot of others described it as “shimmering.” You can decide for yourself when you see them live. As for the band? Well, they like to play both sides of the fence.

This weekend Chicago gets its chance to shine with the Pitchfork Music Festival. The three-day extravaganza kicks off tonight with hometown heroes Tortoise, The Jesus Lizard, Yo La Tengo and Built To Spill. As UI previously reported, Write the Night: Set Lists on Demand has the aforementioned bands playing songs selected by fans.

Things get poppin’ both days this weekend beginning at 1 p.m. with sets from dozens of bands, most of which scored around eight points on the Pitchfork scale (seriously, go check the album reviews!). Musicians such as Beirut, Wavves, Cymbals Eat Guitars, Matt and Kim, The Black Lips and The Nationals take the stage Saturday, while M83, The Mae Shi, The Thermals, Pharoahe Monch, Vivian Girls, Frightened Rabbit and The Flaming Lips close it out on Sunday. That’s just a handful of bands, so make sure to wander around and catch artists at other stages.

And if you need tickets, Friday passes are still available, or you better have really nice friends. Check the schedule before you go and remember the El will be packed!

Welcome to Six Degrees, a new Uncensored Interview feature inspired by none other than Mr. Kevin Bacon. You know the game–it’s a small world and we’re all somehow related. This theory applies to the music scene as well, no matter what you listen to, where you hang or who you know. We’re just showing you the connections.

Summer is here and that means one thing: music festivals! This month we’re celebrating everything that makes catching the best bands outdoors a great experience. From excited fans and performance anxiety to making friends and dream lineups, here are a few of our favorite festival moments.

!!! kicked ass at last year’s Pitchfork festival, but Nic purposely avoided reading their review of his performance for fear they rip him apart. As long as the kids are going nuts in the audience, that’s the only thing that matters.

But there are friends to be made at festivals, too. Au Revoir Simone knows how great it is to wander around checking out other musicians, only to end up getting buddy-buddy with the likes of Wilco, Fiery Furnaces and the intimidating Midlake.

Sometimes it’s the fans that show the most love. And skin. Even if it’s not exactly what you envisioned seeing as a rock star.

Festival season is upon us, and in a major way. But these aren’t your average hootenannies put together by the powers that be. Oh no. A new trend in the already fad-addled music biz is taking summer festivals by storm. The craze du jour? Guest curators. It’s like Trading Spaces for the music world except with important, existential cultural implications! Not to mention the prosaic–but equally important–concerns that festival coordinators have to take care of.

Metric saw firsthand what can happen when random muttonheads are given free rein (promises of crowds numbering 15,000 turn up 300; beatings; a bottle of whiskey and four Power Bars). Share their pain:

Before we start panicking, let’s take a deep breath and a closer look at this little dernier cri. Here are our top five picks for festivals that won’t suck, given the brains behind things.

5. David Byrne, Curator, Bonnaroo

The sonic polymath (because founding the Talking Heads, snagging Grammys, Oscars, Golden Globes, writing operas and being a photographer only takes up so much of one’s time) is taking on the legendary festival. He’s approaching it with the same level of stress and OCD-obsession with which a normal person might approach figuring out which bagel shop to hit Sunday morning. “I thought, ‘OK, then, I’m just gonna reel off some names that I like…and we’ll see where it goes,’” Byrne told reporters. Alrighty then! The laid-back attitude seems to have worked; so far, the lineup includes Santigold, the Dirty Projectors, Katzenjammer, Public Enemy, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Band of Horses, St. Vincent and of course–David Byrne and Brian Eno. The show goes on June 11.

4. The Flaming Lips, Curators, All Tomorrow’s Parties

The Oklahoma all-stars are playing the show too! Woot! It’s tough to predict what a band that produces gems like “Psychiatric Explorations of the Fetus with Needles” and shows that feature puppets, confetti and big, scary hands will come up with, but that’s part of the fun. Set in Monticello, NY, just as summer winds down, this promises to be one final outdoors Bacchanalia anyone can get behind. And with bands as disparate as The Jesus Lizard, Suicide, Black Dice, the Feelies and the Melvins playing, maybe this is a show all of your friends will actually enjoy (for once). The show goes on Sept. 11.

(MORE FESTIVAL CURATORS HERE)

When we hung out with Shy Child not too long ago, they were really psyched for the release of their new record Noise Won’t Stop (clicking on link launches iTunes). But as you can see in this clip, they were also a little skeptical that the almighty music review gods at Pitchfork would give them a good write up:

Boys, for once, being wrong feels GOOD, unlike that plum-tomato eating contest I mistakenly held at the studio yesterday (who knew The Bark had that much loose feces in him?). Pitchfork fucking LOVED the album and gave it an 8, which I’m assuming is out of 10, or else maybe you were right. Knowing how discerning and sometimes utterly pretentious Pitchfork can be, it must feel amazing to have garnered such a glowing review. It’s like a fat chick has been lifted off your chest. What she was doing there in the first place is another matter altogether. I’m exaggerating here, of course. I don’t think Shy Child are really into obese suffocation fetishes, they’re actually pretty clean cut guys, maybe a little TOO clean cut:

One final thought before I go – coffee fucking rules. I don’t care what people say about large quantities of it being bad for you – it’s 2nd only to cocaine in terms of helping you stay energized through a long day. And it’s cheaper, and much more legal. Now I’ve noticed that a lot of people like to smoke cigarettes when they’re imbibing their piping hot cup o’ joe, which made me wonder – why haven’t we developed a form of coffee that you could smoke? It seems easy enough – just take some coffee grinds, mash them together with some tobacco (or marijuana, if that’s your type of thing), roll it up, and voila, you now have one free hand at your disposal to do vital things in the morning like wash your face, rummage for your Metrocard, or slap your children when they’re insolent. It’s the ultimate in multi-tasking for the 21st century. Marlboro, if you’re reading this, call me.

Hey everyone. Since this is the first of many posts exploring the meaning of the word…err…abbreviation… “indie,” I though I’d start out by telling you what “indie” means to me, a somewhat grown-up kid from Los Angeles, California. Ask someone to name a city revered for its “indie” music scene, and you’ll get answers along the lines of Brooklyn, Austin or Portland. Conventional wisdom dictates that Los Angeles is a place for movie stars and plastic models, not independent musicians. However, I can honestly say that I saw some of the best “indie” music of my life while living in that city. I remember gasping in awe of Elliott Smith’s guitar playing genius at the Roxy, jumping up and down to Superdrag and Nada Surf at the Troubadour, and discovering Grandaddy and Earlimart for the first time at the Brown Derby. Jon Brion & Aimee Mann made Largo into what I still believe is the most interesting bar in Los Angeles, and I even got to see 70s pioneers Love and Arthur Lee play Royce Hall at UCLA. Now if you think I’m bragging about all the concerts I’ve been to (or perhaps you’re laughing at them, depending on your particular taste), I’m not. I bring them up because they illustrate my point that “indie” music transcends location. If it can exist (and thrive) in a city like Los Angeles, it can exist anywhere. That’s why you see small labels like Saddle Creek springing up in Omaha, music websites launching from Chicago (cough…Pitchfork…cough), and tiny venues growing from every empty building in between. In part, this is why I find blogging on Uncensored Interview so interesting. You’ve got bands here like Irving, who are from Los Angeles, alongside Neimo, who come all the way from Paris. The bands and artists on this site literally come from all over the world. They dress differently, talk differently, and play different types of music, yet they each represent one of the many incarnations of “indie.” With that, I’ll say that I don’t believe in a singular definition of “indie,” I believe in the concept, the movement, the idea or whatever you’d like to call it. In the future, this space will serve to explore all the different forms that “indie” can take. It’s a term that generates some strong opinions, so feel free to chime in and comment as much as you want as I continue writing. See you again next Tuesday. Aaron