Now that I can direct you to see Golden Triangle (playing Saturday, Sept. 20 at Glasslands), even if it’ll be just under the seasonal wire, I’m officially giving summer permission to end.
Let me explain myself: It’s only defeatists who believe our hottest season concludes after Labor Day. Hipsters, generally too busy partying to contemplate defeat and thoroughly unacquainted with labor, have been unafraid to plan an unprecedented number of simultaneous bashes for the weekend after we supposedly commemorate those who toiled on our behalf.
The problem, though singular, was enough to sideline nearly everyone. Unwelcome precipitators, collectively assembled as the plan-dousing remnants of Hurricane Hanna, arrived in the boroughs early afternoon on Sept. 6, overwhelming outdoor drainage systems and rapping against artist-loft windows everywhere, tapping out a distinct messages in Morse Code: “The East Village Radio Fest is postponed ‘til tomorrow,” adding, “do not proceed to HOWL! or collect the newest issue of Showpaper.”
Nearly stranded in my apartment, my full day’s rock itinerary (with stops planned at every fest under the supposed sun) having been severely diminished, I eventually dispatched myself reluctantly, umbrella in hand, to Williamsburg’s Monster Island Block Party, a Todd P. affair that was proceeding—albeit behind schedule—indoors.
Wandering from the dimly lit basement stage to the main floor of the Kent Avenue art gallery, it took me awhile to discover I had missed Brooklyn indie noisemakers Oneida (note to fest throwers: If you put a band’s name in the largest font at the top of your flyer, it’s supposed to mean they play last), and my friend and I were preparing to pack it in.
With one of my defeated feet almost out the door, I saw the crowd suddenly amass upstairs almost with a Flash Mob’s spontaneity, writhing from the first clanging chord on. Golden Triangle, six strong, incited a stage-less sound riot, a tumult of joyfully indecipherable lyrics wailed over gnarly surf-punk.
Two women, Vashti Windish and Carly Rabalais, howled bloody voodoo hexes into their mics and slammed along on their tambourines, while a third, Alix Brown, pummeled her bass. Drummer and vocalist Nick Ray abused his kit, shouting out as it suited him, and two guitar-wielding dudes, the feral Po’Jay San Felipe and the lankily unshakable Cameron Michel, assaulted their fret boards, producing a distorted jangle.
There was minimal space between the band and audience, the fierce crowd almost meshing with the band as it pulsed on the front line: a frizzy blonde wearing a scant yarn-fashioned dress and hooded mask combo kept furious time with both of her feet; a skinny, shirtless man shook his entire body, from his blue-body painted torso to his high-waisted, striped shorts; despite there being no launching point, a dude just casually rockin’ out by a blaring speaker was suddenly crowd surfing, continuing to coolly puff on a smoke as he was passed overhead.
By the last song, half of the equipment had given out, guitarist San Felipe and bassist Brown unquestioningly forsaking their instruments in favor of dancing in the frenzied crowd.
I was so overwhelmed that I had to see Golden Triangle again, so I waited late into the following Monday night to catch the band during a Fashion Week party at Chinatown’s Santos Party House.
It was a more controlled affair, the audience populated with cross-armed, black-banged fashionistas who respectfully nodded but maintained significantly more composure, though the GT crew seem, rather appreciably, to attack full on even if there wasn’t a raging mass of PBR-fueled revelry within grabbing distance. The stage, it seemed, was acting as an elevated deterrent to the full-scale anarchy I had seen in Williamsburg two days prior, the group better able to ecstatically connect with the audience when such formal conventions are eschewed.
The difference, ultimately, was that the onlookers at the Williamsburg show were comfortable being the spectacle: Ten more minutes of their fuzzy, primal spell casting and everyone at the Block Party, in final effort to pay tribute to a waning summer on a drizzly Saturday, would have probably taken their clothes off. I honestly can’t suppose such a thing might have happened had the Santos set been extended, but it’s just as well: If everyone were naked at a Fashion Week party, it’d surely defeat the purpose.
Let me explain myself: It’s only defeatists who believe our hottest season concludes after Labor Day. Hipsters, generally too busy partying to contemplate defeat and thoroughly unacquainted with labor, have been unafraid to plan an unprecedented number of simultaneous bashes for the weekend after we supposedly commemorate those who toiled on our behalf.
The problem, though singular, was enough to sideline nearly everyone. Unwelcome precipitators, collectively assembled as the plan-dousing remnants of Hurricane Hanna, arrived in the boroughs early afternoon on Sept. 6, overwhelming outdoor drainage systems and rapping against artist-loft windows everywhere, tapping out a distinct messages in Morse Code: “The East Village Radio Fest is postponed ‘til tomorrow,” adding, “do not proceed to HOWL! or collect the newest issue of Showpaper.”
Nearly stranded in my apartment, my full day’s rock itinerary (with stops planned at every fest under the supposed sun) having been severely diminished, I eventually dispatched myself reluctantly, umbrella in hand, to Williamsburg’s Monster Island Block Party, a Todd P. affair that was proceeding—albeit behind schedule—indoors.
Wandering from the dimly lit basement stage to the main floor of the Kent Avenue art gallery, it took me awhile to discover I had missed Brooklyn indie noisemakers Oneida (note to fest throwers: If you put a band’s name in the largest font at the top of your flyer, it’s supposed to mean they play last), and my friend and I were preparing to pack it in.
With one of my defeated feet almost out the door, I saw the crowd suddenly amass upstairs almost with a Flash Mob’s spontaneity, writhing from the first clanging chord on. Golden Triangle, six strong, incited a stage-less sound riot, a tumult of joyfully indecipherable lyrics wailed over gnarly surf-punk.
Two women, Vashti Windish and Carly Rabalais, howled bloody voodoo hexes into their mics and slammed along on their tambourines, while a third, Alix Brown, pummeled her bass. Drummer and vocalist Nick Ray abused his kit, shouting out as it suited him, and two guitar-wielding dudes, the feral Po’Jay San Felipe and the lankily unshakable Cameron Michel, assaulted their fret boards, producing a distorted jangle.
There was minimal space between the band and audience, the fierce crowd almost meshing with the band as it pulsed on the front line: a frizzy blonde wearing a scant yarn-fashioned dress and hooded mask combo kept furious time with both of her feet; a skinny, shirtless man shook his entire body, from his blue-body painted torso to his high-waisted, striped shorts; despite there being no launching point, a dude just casually rockin’ out by a blaring speaker was suddenly crowd surfing, continuing to coolly puff on a smoke as he was passed overhead.
By the last song, half of the equipment had given out, guitarist San Felipe and bassist Brown unquestioningly forsaking their instruments in favor of dancing in the frenzied crowd.
I was so overwhelmed that I had to see Golden Triangle again, so I waited late into the following Monday night to catch the band during a Fashion Week party at Chinatown’s Santos Party House.
It was a more controlled affair, the audience populated with cross-armed, black-banged fashionistas who respectfully nodded but maintained significantly more composure, though the GT crew seem, rather appreciably, to attack full on even if there wasn’t a raging mass of PBR-fueled revelry within grabbing distance. The stage, it seemed, was acting as an elevated deterrent to the full-scale anarchy I had seen in Williamsburg two days prior, the group better able to ecstatically connect with the audience when such formal conventions are eschewed.
The difference, ultimately, was that the onlookers at the Williamsburg show were comfortable being the spectacle: Ten more minutes of their fuzzy, primal spell casting and everyone at the Block Party, in final effort to pay tribute to a waning summer on a drizzly Saturday, would have probably taken their clothes off. I honestly can’t suppose such a thing might have happened had the Santos set been extended, but it’s just as well: If everyone were naked at a Fashion Week party, it’d surely defeat the purpose.
Editors
