Sisters perfoming at Death by Audio
Was I really going to return to Studio B? If you had told me before last weekend's Northside Festival that I'd ever visit that particular Greenpoint club seven times in four days, the final requiring both a hurried scurry up Wythe Avenue in the early a.m. and a semi-confident faith that Brooklyn's own reverb maestros Crystal Stilts wouldn't start on time.
Why would they? The only venue that seemed to be watching the clock during Northside weekend was the N. 6th strip's two-staged Public Assembly, punctually offering up enticing curiosities whenever the big-ticket offering of the moment wasn't getting drawn from my deck of cards.
The most lackluster being the five person on-stage nap Brightblack Morning Light, who headlined the Opening Night Party with a drowsy dose of decaf of smooth caucasian reggae (or something like that—I had trouble paying attention, showed up late, and then left early).
Meanwhile, I'll presume the Hold Steady boozed everyone's faces off down at the Music Hall that Thursday, and that the L Magazine, which put the fest together, didn't want badgeholders beating down the doors and thus attempted, by meaninglessly rechristening the Brightblack gig as a “party,” to split up the credentialed masses and keep Craig Finn and Co's set from becoming a grumpy focal point for the potential disenfranchised
Of course: maybe that wasn't necessary, this not being one of music industry's priced-for-professionals schmoozefests, but rather a consumer-grade, unlikely-to-pull-out-of-towners, reasonably-priced stab at a Choose Your Own Rockventure.
And perhaps a successful one, at least in that whether I was hitting The Music Hall for the charasmatic Swedish Americana of The Tallest Man On Earth, or taking an acoustic acid trip on with Juliana Barwick at Cameo, I pretty much never waited in line, despite walking up just as many acts were scheduled to start.
I did wait inside, though. A lot. And Cameo, the new venue/gallery in the back of the restaurant Lovin' Cup, let me know on several occasions that the time listed on Northside Schedule was of no concern to them: Barwick started half an hour late though clearly would have been able to play on time (she had a minimal, if rather fascinating, pre-recorded set-up that she tweaked with knobs and buttons as she sang overtop), and I only heard Patrick Bower sound check a song before both the sound guy and all his band members agreed to go dick around elsewhere for 30 minutes before reconvening for a set I never got to hear.
Still, there was a torrent of music played over the weekend, and, if one could manage to catch it, much of it sounded good. The big out-of-towners might have generally sounded the best (I'm looking at you, Dodos—thanks for reinventing indie rock along with my Sunday afternoon), but Brooklyn's own Sisters pulled a pretty stunning upset on Saturday night, using their two-man distorted churn to, in a quick dirty blast from the main room of Death By Audio, best even the festival's single true buzz band: Pitchfork-approved, volume-uped Pavement-hitters Cymbals Eat Guitars. The latter held there own, at least, and it was exciting to watch the Music Hall swell with curious listeners just as the quintet kicked off with “And The Hazy Sea.”
The locals I was curious about generally proved to be worth checking out—Ivana XL paired mature songwriting with hilariously juvenile stage banter (“this song is about, like, being old and shit”) and Henry Wolfe offered up an amusing Van Dyke Parksian song cycle, backed by a string quartet and motherfucking harp player. Plus out of town favs brought their all: circa-'65 Dylanites War On Drugs rung ears at Union Pool and sample-savvy west coast dandy Daedalus gave the ravers reason enough to call their drug dealers.
One could easily have seen $80 or $100 worth of music with a badge priced at half that. What's not to like about there? Perhaps that most of the attendees probably didn't.
It turned out that I got that final, late night run up to Studio B on Sunday only half right. Crystal Stilts were late, just kicking off as I rolled in at 12:40, but the garage drone bang I had hoped to go out, closing the first annual Northside from on high, felt much more like an echo-soaked whimper. The place was fucking empty, with 30 or so bystanders mostly looking drained and half-listening, and the set suffered accordingly. The emperor was drenched in guitar-and-vox effects for sure, but whether he wore clothes was unclear, as the hipster king's subjects didn't bother to attend his coronation.
Why would they? The only venue that seemed to be watching the clock during Northside weekend was the N. 6th strip's two-staged Public Assembly, punctually offering up enticing curiosities whenever the big-ticket offering of the moment wasn't getting drawn from my deck of cards.
The most lackluster being the five person on-stage nap Brightblack Morning Light, who headlined the Opening Night Party with a drowsy dose of decaf of smooth caucasian reggae (or something like that—I had trouble paying attention, showed up late, and then left early).
Meanwhile, I'll presume the Hold Steady boozed everyone's faces off down at the Music Hall that Thursday, and that the L Magazine, which put the fest together, didn't want badgeholders beating down the doors and thus attempted, by meaninglessly rechristening the Brightblack gig as a “party,” to split up the credentialed masses and keep Craig Finn and Co's set from becoming a grumpy focal point for the potential disenfranchised
Of course: maybe that wasn't necessary, this not being one of music industry's priced-for-professionals schmoozefests, but rather a consumer-grade, unlikely-to-pull-out-of-towners, reasonably-priced stab at a Choose Your Own Rockventure.
And perhaps a successful one, at least in that whether I was hitting The Music Hall for the charasmatic Swedish Americana of The Tallest Man On Earth, or taking an acoustic acid trip on with Juliana Barwick at Cameo, I pretty much never waited in line, despite walking up just as many acts were scheduled to start.
I did wait inside, though. A lot. And Cameo, the new venue/gallery in the back of the restaurant Lovin' Cup, let me know on several occasions that the time listed on Northside Schedule was of no concern to them: Barwick started half an hour late though clearly would have been able to play on time (she had a minimal, if rather fascinating, pre-recorded set-up that she tweaked with knobs and buttons as she sang overtop), and I only heard Patrick Bower sound check a song before both the sound guy and all his band members agreed to go dick around elsewhere for 30 minutes before reconvening for a set I never got to hear.
Still, there was a torrent of music played over the weekend, and, if one could manage to catch it, much of it sounded good. The big out-of-towners might have generally sounded the best (I'm looking at you, Dodos—thanks for reinventing indie rock along with my Sunday afternoon), but Brooklyn's own Sisters pulled a pretty stunning upset on Saturday night, using their two-man distorted churn to, in a quick dirty blast from the main room of Death By Audio, best even the festival's single true buzz band: Pitchfork-approved, volume-uped Pavement-hitters Cymbals Eat Guitars. The latter held there own, at least, and it was exciting to watch the Music Hall swell with curious listeners just as the quintet kicked off with “And The Hazy Sea.”
The locals I was curious about generally proved to be worth checking out—Ivana XL paired mature songwriting with hilariously juvenile stage banter (“this song is about, like, being old and shit”) and Henry Wolfe offered up an amusing Van Dyke Parksian song cycle, backed by a string quartet and motherfucking harp player. Plus out of town favs brought their all: circa-'65 Dylanites War On Drugs rung ears at Union Pool and sample-savvy west coast dandy Daedalus gave the ravers reason enough to call their drug dealers.
One could easily have seen $80 or $100 worth of music with a badge priced at half that. What's not to like about there? Perhaps that most of the attendees probably didn't.
It turned out that I got that final, late night run up to Studio B on Sunday only half right. Crystal Stilts were late, just kicking off as I rolled in at 12:40, but the garage drone bang I had hoped to go out, closing the first annual Northside from on high, felt much more like an echo-soaked whimper. The place was fucking empty, with 30 or so bystanders mostly looking drained and half-listening, and the set suffered accordingly. The emperor was drenched in guitar-and-vox effects for sure, but whether he wore clothes was unclear, as the hipster king's subjects didn't bother to attend his coronation.
anonymous
