Picnic Power

After a year off, the day-long This Ain't No Picnic alternative/indie/underground music fest has been resurrected and will return to its familiar Oak Canyon Ranch site at Irvine Lake on Oct. 5 for a third go-round (if you're reading this on Thursday, Aug, 29, tickets go on sale today at noon, bucko). And, as we've come to expect, it's a sweet lineup with a big-name headliner—Jimmy Eat World, taking over where Beck and Sonic Youth have come before—and a lot of smaller, radio-airplay-deprived bands who'll bring out their rabid cult followings, such as Guided By Voices, Blonde Redhead, the Mars Volta (featuring the shaggier members of At the Drive-In), the Donnas, Pretty Girls Make Graves, Your Enemies Friends and a mess of others. (Will KROQ once again be a Picnic sponsor, even though the only band they spin with any regularity is Jimmy Eat World? Bet on it.) The Picnic bypassed 2001 mostly for two reasons: the difficulty show promoters Goldenvoice had in securing worthy talent, and the decision of Oak Canyon operators to hold off on large, music-related events for awhile (Oak Canyon was also the home of the first several Hootenannys before relocating last year to an open area next door to the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater). So the natural, rustic wilderness shall once again be inundated by a flood of raucous electric guitar noise, as well as the incessant whining of people who'll find out too late that their cell phones have no reception amongst the rolling OC foothills. But at least it should be cooler, temperature-wise—the July heat of previous Picnics was always a tad oppressive, though it was always fun to watch the emo kids melt.

"GG Allin lives? No, that's not GG, that's Papa Roach front man Jacoby Shaddix. [TRANSLATION: "All the music journalists we send this out to won't really give a damn about Jacoby "Please Don't Call Me Coby Dick Anymore" Shaddix anyway, so let's drop GG's name at the top instead so they'll read it"] While performing for an intimate audience [TRANSLATION: "Maybe 12 people showed up"] in Boston last week, Jacoby urinated into a bottle of Gatorade [TRANSLATION: "Product placement! Ka-ching, ka-ching!"] he had onstage with him. But he didn't stop there. . . . He proceeded to drink out of it. [TRANSLATION: "He was too tanked to know what he was doing, and the roadies forgot to put the beer around the drum riser again"]. But the story goes on. . . . A young lady in the front row [TRANSLATION: "An audience plant."] nearly ripped it out of his hands and drank it as well. So much so that her friends had to yank it out of her hands! [TRANSLATION: "Chugging down and fighting over bottles of pee is infinitely more thrilling than having to endure Papa Roach's actual music"] And all we can say to that is . . . wow! [TRANSLATION: "For this, I went to college?"]