Northside 2010 : Day Two Recap

<img src="http://www.qromag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/northside10recapfriS.jpg" alt=" " />Day Two of Northside saw some mixed deliveries from some mixed bands. ...

Northside 2010 : Day Two Recap

For the second year of L Magazine‘s Northside Festival, QRO not only bumped up from press to presenter, but also doubled our manpower, with duties shared between Ted Chase & Mike Gutierrez.  But even though our badges came thanks to the QRO Mag/Ampeater showcase on the final day (QRO event page), we still did our journalistic duty to cover the festival:

 

There was some Twitter chatter early Friday afternoon asking about early showcases.  The official event guide had MINKS playing the first gig at Union Pool (QRO venue review) around 5:00 PM, and that’s pretty definitive.  Northside isn’t SXSW (QRO recap).  You don’t have bands gigging on street corners at ten in the morning (though there were a few impromptu roadside sets throughout the festival) – and if there were, the audience would have been indoors watching the World Cup anyways.

– Mike Gutierrez

 

Pop Tarts Suck Toasted (RIP) Presents @ Public Assembly

blair
blair

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I made the blair gig at the Public Assembly (QRO venue review) front room around 6:30 PM, one of multiple Pop Tarts showcases.  The Public Assembly had decent shows all week, and if you didn’t like the show in the front you could usually duck into the backroom to see what was happening there.  In fact, the Pop Tarts showcase was a real double bonus on Friday – if you weren’t rocking the badge – because one ticket included admission to both the early and late show.  An all day affair, a real Pop Tarts-palooza.

blair was probably the right pick for the opening slot.  The band – one guy manning a guitar/laptop combo and a girl with a guitar, handling the vocal duties – was pretty mellow indiecore.  Gentle, even sweet, songs fit for a crowd that was maybe still working off a hangover from the night before.  It’s hard to get riled up for rock and roll before night falls.  Even big bands at the big festivals come off a little worse in the light of day, unless you have a head full of some chemical.  I cut out before Les Vinyl and Shark? (QRO album review) went on and made my way over to Europa to catch Phil & The Osophers.

– Mike Gutierrez
blair

 

Northside Presents @ Europa

Phil & The Osophers
Phil & The Osophers

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Europa (QRO venue review) is sort of ‘way the hell up there’, relatively speaking.  I think locals depend on some bus/subway route to make the distance, but I’m from Boston and don’t know any better, so I walked it.  Gave me a good opportunity to get the lay of the land.  Abandoned factories, studios, subsidized artsy youngsters and lower-middle class minorities who were slowly being pushed out of the community and/or marginalized into strictly supporting roles (taco huts, iPod repair, and so on).  Williamsburg is the absolute perfect target for hipster-haters.  But what the hell?  The tacos taste good and the music sounds great.  Neighborhoods change for better and worse all the time, and the ‘golden age’ of any neighborhood is always a ridiculous farcical myth that old tenants use to keep rents down.  The tenants that thought the neighborhood was shit would have left already – so of course, the ones who stayed and liked it have nothing except sparkling memories of the good old days.

The club had the feel of a chintzy discothèque.  Mirrorballs, open dance floor, mod-style furniture, and gauzy diaphanous draperies that separated the ‘beautiful people’, in what I assume was a green room, from the regular schlubs at the bar.  Cheesy, plus extra points off for overpriced drinks and an ugly bouncer.  I had been looking forward to Phil & The Osophers (QRO spotlight on) for a while now.  Never listened to an album (QRO album review) straight through, but the songs I had heard I liked, and I dug their style in general.  Sort of half-assed, sort of DIY.  They’ve got their own website but its not one of these slick productions.  It looks like the internet circa 1995.  Big bold type and Greco-roman column graphics at the left and right of the webpage to play up their band name.  Silly stuff, but makes you Phil & The Osophersnostalgic for the days when every other musician was not an unemployed graphic designer.

Half-expected Ted to show up at this gig and sure enough he came through the door just before Phil & The Osophers started up.  I let him do his photo thing for a bit then joined him stage left.  Apparently there’s a new Osopher in the bunch.  I don’t remember which one was new, but I do remember their sound being a bit off and a bit underwhelming.  Maybe that’s what you get for building a band up in your head.  Or maybe it was the growing pains of adding a new member.  Or maybe it was the unimpressive PA that Europa has going on.  It all added up to a very middle-of-the-road indie rock experience with no memorable moments.  Chugging guitars, bass, drums.  Sort of faceless tunes, which I hate to say because I’ve liked whatever else I’ve heard of their stuff recorded.  That’s a band you definitely try to catch a second time, outside of the confines of a discotheque. 

– Mike Gutierrez

Phil & an Osopher

 

Phil & The Osophers

C Lizbeth MarquezClick image for full gallery 

Phil RadiotesFriend-of-the Q Phil & The Osophers (QRO spotlight on) were playing on the early side of the North, but on the North side of the Northside, all the way up into Greenpoint at Europa (QRO venue review).  But still had to see them for the umpteenth time, and discovered one new thing & one old thing: There’s yet another new member to the band, and Europa’s sound system sucks.

Phil & The Osophers had long been just singer/guitarist Phil Radiotes, but a couple of years ago added roommate Kevin Estrada on drums (QRO interview with both).  And last year they added (now ex-) roommate Gus Iverson on bass.  Iverson & EstradaAnd now there’s another Osopher, a g-g-girl, C Lizbeth Marquez, on keys & tambourine.  While she doesn’t make ‘girl playing a tambourine’ look any less superfluous to a band, they could use some keys to add some tone to their garage-rock sound.

Not that you could have noticed at Europa, thanks to a sub-par sound system.  Not a regular haunt by any means (my last/only other time there?  Last Northside – QRO recap), and not just due to it being off the beaten path & away from other venues, but because it mostly/only books metal & hard rock (Rachael Ray’s husband’s awful band, The Cringe – QRO photos – have played there, without her help…).  And while the place looks like a nice nightclub, with cushioned seating around the walls, the live sound system, at least, leaves much to be desired, especially for a lo-fi band like Phil & The Osophers.
The Osophers

 

Netherfriends
Netherfriends

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While Mike left for greener pastures (see below), I stuck it out for most of the rest of the relatively early show, including all of the following Netherfriends.  The sound system at Europa probably did them no favors, either, so will refrain from judging them too harshly, but certainly wasn’t wowed.  Somewhere between the pots & pans percussion of live Drink Up Buttercup (QRO album review) and the seventies rock of Zeus (QRO live review), though looking like sleazy British seventies rockers, they did get better as their set wore on (and the club got darker).

The only advantage to Europa?  You can sit and watch a show, especially nice after walking all the way up there.  The drink prices are unsurprisingly high, but there were apparently free shots this night – though didn’t have any after last night’s tons of free Heineken (QRO Day One recap).

 

Slow Club
The Slow Club

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Most bands at Northside were New Yorkers, and there were precious few foreigners, but two of the Brits playing the festival were couple act, Slow Club.  Like their appearance last year at South Street Seaport (QRO photos), they began the show playing acoustic in the crowd.  Of course, it was a lot darker in the crowd there than at Seaport (QRO venue review).
in the crowd

a Slow Clubbera Slow Clubber, not Dan BoecknerSlow Club were a nice pair, but difficult to say they were anything more than just nice.  Reminiscent of Mates of State (QRO album review) in sound & (obviously) set up – though the guy looks like Dan Boeckner of husband-and-wife duo Handsome Furs (QRO photos) – their British accents did make them more charming.  That charm was enough to carry them through, you guessed it, technical difficulties, which got to the point where they at the lip of the stagejust decided to sing acoustic from the front of the stage.

At that point, I left the show early, for just about the longest trip possible at Northside – from Europa in the north to Shea Stadium in the southeast.

– Ted Chase
The Slow Club

 

Northside Presents @ Brooklyn Bowl

WOOM
WOOM

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I left Ted at Europa and started over to Brooklyn Bowl (QRO venue review) with plans to spend most of the night there, first for WOOM and then for closer Fiery Furnaces.  I’ve actually never seen Fiery Furnaces (please don’t revoke my license to report on indie music) and this seemed like the perfect time to remedy that situation.  Plus, I’d get a chance to visit the home of resident DJ and generally fabulous human being ?uestlove.  Brooklyn Bowl is a real shit-show of adult entertainment.  A kind of indoor Coney Island rah rah playground with bowling (of course), a little restaurant, a stage, and this wide-lumber sort of flooring that made you feel like you were at a steakhouse somewhere in the Pacific Northwest.  Points off for tackiness, overpriced food, and no readily apparent drink deals.
WOOM in Brooklyn Bowl

WOOMI stuck it out for WOOM, a guy/girl electronic duo from San Francisco with a gay new century vibe.  They seemed out of place in the carnival atmosphere; they’d probably be more at home in a tiny gallery show.  More a wine than beer crowd.  The songs were topnotch though.  The girl handled vocals, keyboard, and other electronic gizmos while the guy provided most of the stage show with a lurching-type style of playing.  A very new age guitarist, as adept at creating spacey white noise atmospherics as he was playing straight-up melodies.  In the final analysis WOOM was a bit too low key to fill a cavernous space like Brooklyn Bowl, but if you saw them in a smaller space, later at night, with your swerve on, you would have probably been blown away.

Some guy named John Mulaney was supposed to play before Fiery Furnaces, and the set times were running late.  It’s tough to hang out at a place like Brooklyn Bowl if you’re a solo reporter not zonked out of your mind.  My general antsiness level got the best of me and I cut out, regretfully missing the Fiery Furnaces.  Who knows if I’ll get another chance to see them again?  Who knows if I should care?  I always get really strong reactions to that band: either a fanatical yeah or a vehement meh.  You really miss the point of Northside though if you hang around all night staring at an empty stage waiting for one band.  There was so much to see, so I headed over to one of the grander venues of the festival: Music Hall of Williamsburg.

– Mike Gutierrez
WOOM

 

Woodsist Presents @ Music Hall of Williamsburg

Sic Alps

Friday night had the Woodsist presenting a pretty solid lineup with Real Estate headlining.  You could have stayed here all night and had a great time.  I arrived in time for the end of the Sic Alps set, which, according to another eyewitness, flashed shades of Nirvana for "one hot minute".  Meaning, basically, this band reached a level of animal brilliance that most bands don’t even pretend to try for these days.  I didn’t see the whole set, but I don’t think that was just the beer talking.  These guys did have something dangerous about them, raw and measured at the same time; though having never heard them before, I’d like to have a listen to recorded stuff before I say anything further.

 

The Fresh & Onlys
The Fresh & Onlys

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Following were The Fresh & Onlys who inevitably sounded a bit tamer following Sic Alps, but by any standard of reckoning, were pretty rocking in their own right.  Kudos to Woodsist for putting together a great bill.  Bummed that I had to leave before Real Estate (QRO photos), but I wanted to catch a stretch of late bands at Public Assembly.

– Mike Gutierrez

 

The So So Glos Present @ Shea Stadium

Not the now-demolished former home of the New York Mets, but a cheekily named DIY venue deeper into Brooklyn that I’d never been to before.  I figured they wouldn’t ever get a better band to play there than Electric Tickle Machine, so left Europa during Slow Club to take the G to the L to walking past a high school to the painted "20" on the door of the abandoned-looking warehouse, up the stairs to Shea.  Had left Europa early to catch ETM’s 10:15 PM set, but still got there late – and they were still setting up.

 

Electric Tickle Machine
Electric Tickle Machine

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Last year’s inaugural Northside (QRO recap) was pretty underwhelming, but one band that wasn’t was Electric Tickle Machine, easily the best band of all of Northside 2009.  That had started a yearlong affection for the band, culminating with booking them at QRO’s first NYC showcase earlier this month (QRO photos).  So couldn’t miss them at Northside 2010.

On their latest-yet drummer (different than at the QRO showcase, even), the long set-up time did limit the number of songs they played – or maybe it just felt too short, because time flies when you’re having fun.  Even made me warm to opener/personal pet peeve Shipa Ray (QRO album review), as she was dancing to ETM without even the encouragement of percussionist/rabble-rouser Clark Phillips – though he was raring everyone up as always.  Wouldn’t even have noticed that they had a brand-new drummer, save for missing ex-drummer Adam Kautz’s ‘fro (QRO photo).  Nothing can quite match the first time I saw ETM – or the show in January where, in return for playing a second encore, they got two girls to make-out (QRO photos – though not of that specific moment, unfortunately…), but still strong.  Debut full-length Blew It Again (QRO review) is out June 29th.
Phillips & Ray in the crowd

 

Asa Ransom
Asa Ransom

Asa RansomClick image for full gallery 

Another band that took their sweet time to set up, the stifling heat in the un-air-conditioned Shea was getting to me, no matter how many beers I had (in true DIY fashion, the venue served cans from trashcans of ice or the refrigerator – and could easily bring in outside beer if wanted to walk that far to save that little money), but Asa Ransom were definitely strong & wild, whether you knew their music (as a lot of the fans there did) or not (like myself).

The delayed night caused the following band, The Beets, to be skipped (or just never showed up) – felt bad for a Brazilian (living in Brooklyn) that I’d met, who’d come to Shea for them.

 

The So So Glos
The So So Glos

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‘Curator’ is a weak go-to term these days, where someone known picks the artists at an event, with the event-throwers hoping that fans of that someone will show up for whoever that someone likes.  That might work if it’s David Bowie (QRO album review) doing the picking, but even then, it’s just trying to glom onto someone famous.  There are only two reasons to care who the curator is: if it’s Matt Groening (QRO festival recap), or if the artist is playing, and The So So Glos were playing their curated night.

The So So GirlsBy this point, the heat was almost unbearable – girls were going to the single-occupancy bathroom in not just twos, but threes, and ETM’s Phillips tried to get me to join him in shirtlessness (we don’t all have your physique, Clark…), but the hot times didn’t cool down SSG, who rocked through technical difficulties (which one is a lot more willing to accept at a place where the beers are three dollars, and not six…).  There was a mosh pit of a few people (including Patrick Stickles of Sunday’s Titus Andronicus – QRO photos on a bill with The So So Glos), but never felt dangerous or dominant – still space for the ladies to dance as well.

– Ted Chase
The So So Glos

 

 

Pop Tars Suck Toasted (RIP) Presents @ Public Assembly

Yes, once again back to Public Assembly, and back to a Pop Tarts showcase.  Mr. Pop Tarts (Patrick Duffy) appeared to be everywhere at Northside, shamelessly riding the minor wave of notoriety accrued during the whole Blogocide 2010 episode.  Here’s a quick recap: a number of well-liked music blogs based on the Blogger platform got shut down in a fairly short period of time.  Apparently Blogger’s parent company, Google, had started to crack down on music-sharing blogs as a matter of policy.  Blogger says that these sites have been warned repeatedly not to share unauthorized mp3s.  The music bloggers say that all (or most) of the mp3s they post have been explicitly approved by the appropriate party, whether it’s the band, their label, or their PR.  And so back and forth these arguments go until Blogger says "fuck it" and just shuts down the music blog, often erasing years of work.  Not very nice.  There’s been an understandable outcry over these site takedowns and the internet martyrs who have suffered these electronic blows have become minor celebrities in an extremely small corner of the internet.

Ugly, strange stuff.  At least Northside gets to enjoy the fallout as Pop Tarts’ newly-minted cachet was enough to book one of the (don’t say it, don’t say it) buzzier (ugh, you said it) bands at the festival, Worcester’s own DOM.  Or maybe DOM was just stuck for a Friday night gig because 1:45 AM is not the sexiest slot.  Maybe the Duffster thought he’d get the runoff from other gigs, because the DOM set was probably the latest scheduled set of the night.  In any case, it was a really nice add to a solid bill front to back: MiniBoone, Dinosaur Feathers, the Grates, Darlings, DOM.  Lower middleclass bands through and through with no ‘big headliner’, but nothing to sniff at either. 

 

MiniBoone

The ubiquitous MiniBoone were finishing up as I entered the back room.  They looked like they were warmed up from Thursdays gig (QRO Day One recap), bouncing off the wall, as always, and enjoying every bit of the larger stage at Public Assembly.

 

Dinosaur Feathers
Dinosaur Feathers

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Dinosaur Feathers, a band I’ve had my eye on from afar, came on next.  They had released a quirky (and free) EP called Early Morning Risers in 2009 that was probably better than about 90% of the free music that’s floating around.  The EP leaned on lots of bells and whistles to catch your attention, but you could sort of tell that underneath the flash was some really respectable songwriting.  Sure enough, their full-length follow-up Fantasy Memorial stripped away the frippery for a happy-go-lucky, island-y collection of pure pop jingles.  Any time musicians choose less instead of more, they are usually growing as artists, and so I looked forward to their live show.

In person they have a real clean look, a bunch of guys that look like they just got back from the Hamptons.  A surefire bet to open for Vampire Weekend (QRO live review) if they can get/keep some momentum going.  Not my bag, personally, but I can see a segment of the population getting really into them.  Or maybe just whoever it is at Pitchfork that really likes Vampire Weekend will have a boy crush on Dinosaur Feathers and hook ‘em up.

As a special side note, their keyboardist is super blind.  I happened to be standing beneath the keys when the guy lost his glasses in a fit of sunny ecstasy.  They fell right at his feet and it took me a second or two of watching him fumbling around to realize he was totally lost without them.  I grabbed them quick as I could and returned them to his grasping white palms.  Felt sort of bad that I wasn’t quicker on the draw; I wear glasses myself, but I’m not blind without them and it doesn’t immediately occur to me that some people are.

 

The Grates
The Grates

Patience HodgsonClick image for full gallery 

My prize for best frontwoman of Northside gets split between two girls, and one of them was the blonde spitfire for the Grates, the Australian-by-birth pop-rockers that followed The GratesDinosaur Feathers.  I’d never seen the band, though QRO has some great photos of one of their gigs (QRO photos).  I expected energy and they delivered.  The frontgirl has an impossible amount of bounce to her; she pretty much bounces the entire set like an aerobics instructor trying to motivate a bunch of lazy slobs.  That’s probably not an unfair description of most indie shows – the funny part is we (critics or audience) feel we’ve been cheated when an artist doesn’t put out 10-15 times the amount of energy that the audience Grate drummertransmits.  Sure, you’ve paid your money and want a show, but club shows are a give-and-take affair and you can’t always ask the artist to do all the work.

If there was anyone that could handle that assignment though, it would be the Grates.  Their music matches the stage show: bright, snappy pop rock that flexes just enough grunge muscle to avoid comparisons to Avril Lavigne, et al.  It’s unfair to call the rest of the band cardboard cutouts just because the frontgirl was so out of this world, but it was a fairly short bench.  Hats off to the girl on the drums though; she had a sort of weird intensity, like someone was holding a gun to her kitten’s forehead and threatened to pull the trigger if she made any facial expressions.
The Grates

 

Darlings
Darlings

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Darlings came on next.  I asked Ted about this band the same afternoon; he recalled that he had, in fact, seen them, though he remembered no specific details (QRO recap).  This band must have a hex on them, or maybe they use one of those Men In Black memory erasers on the audience, because I don’t remember a damn thing about the band either.  I enjoyed the music, that’s all I can say.

 

DOM
DOM

Click image for full gallery 

The pride of Worcester came on next, DOM.  After their "Jesus" track made some waves in the blog circles, these guys have been regularly making the hike to New York and Boston to try to build some momentum.  Enough internet chatter finally resulted in a Pitchfork interview, by Brooklyn’s own Ryan Schreiber (or DJ RAVVES), who seemed dubious of the band’s professed reliance on food stamps.  Check out the interview if you haven’t read it (link) – sort of funny.  Who knows whether the food stamp thing was bogus or not?  Music equipment is pretty expensive and you usually need a larger financial margin of safety to mess with it.  Besides, none of the DOM guys look smart enough to figure out how to get food stamps to be honest.  But if you’ve ever lived, or even passed through, Massachusetts’ own little Rustbelt in the central and western part of the state, you can’t rule DOM’s claim out of the realm of possibility.
crowd DOMination

So how do you take these guys?  As a bunch of hardscrabble musicians turning out great music in the cultural wilderness of Worcester?  Noble savages?  Or just some middle class white dudes making tasteless, classicist jokes while getting stoned on X and jamming out on synths in their parents’ basement?  Tough call.  But at a 2:00 AM start time you don’t really think about these questions too hard.  They played a nice set though the sound was a bit wonky.

The REDHOT single "Living in America" closed out the night.  As if to say ‘hey, we’re more than that one song’, which they certainly are.  Their super catchy synth-drenched dance-rock, delivered with a mix of boyish brattiness and femme sensuality, makes for a pretty entertaining act.  No wonder Passion Pit (QRO album review) wanted to snatch them up onto their private label (DOM declined), no wonder every booker wanted to jam them on their Northside bill.  That being said, not their best show Friday night, I’m sure.  Tough to come out on fire in the early morning hours when you probably slept on someone’s couch the night before.

– Mike Gutierrez
DOM

 

Unfortunately missed:

-Fiery Furnaces @ Brooklyn Bowl, 10:20 PM – 11:20 PM.  Feel like I’m going to get my indie-card revoked.

-Tame Impala (QRO live review) @ Glasslands (QRO venue review), 11:00 PM – 12:00 AM.  Lots of hype floating around this one.  Do they deserve it?  Have to see to find out.

– Mike Gutierrez

-Tame Impala @ Glasslands, 11:00 PM – 12:00 AM.  Word is the hyped band had already sold-out the show, so badge might not have gotten me in.  Plus a hot & packed Glasslands would have been even more of a heatstroke-inducer than Shea.

Actually, the real reason I didn’t leave Shea until late was because, as I read when taking the L out there, it was shutting down at 11:30 PM around Lorimer stop, to be replaced by a shuttle service.  People who live on that end of the L hate using the shuttle, and they’re not wrong – got off too soon, had to hoof it much of the way back to Bedford & 7th.

– Ted Chase

 

Fortunately missed:

-A reading by Shalom Auslander @ Coco 66, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM.  I love the German/Jewish mix of the name, so much tension straight off the bat!  But poetry readings at rock shows are always dogs.  Except when Patti Smith is in the house.

– Mike Gutierrez

-Shilpa Ray (solo set) @ Shea Stadium, 9:30 PM – 10:15 PM.  I thought one of the very few good things to the break-up of my beloved Harlem Shakes (QRO tribute to) would be way less exposure to the bellowing, overrated Shilpa Ray, who always seemed to be opening for them (QRO photos, opening for Shakes).  And then she goes an opens for new favorite Electric Tickle Machine…

– Ted Chase

 

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