Brooklyn’s been a mega-force in music for so many years now it’s hard to remember when it was ‘that outer borough’. In 2010 L Magazine started the Northside Festival in Williamsburg & Brooklyn, to celebrate acts from the area and bring in acts to the area. It’s more-or-less beefed up every year since then, and though it still had to live in the shadow of the prior weekend’s Governors Ball on nearby Randall’s Island (QRO recap), the festival brought the sounds to the north side of Brooklyn, Thursday to Sunday, June 12th to 15th:
Day 2 deluged Brooklyn with music and wet, sopping weather. The War On Drugs show at outdoor space 50 Kent (QRO venue review) was canceled/moved to Sunday, and your correspondent spent fifteen minutes in a restroom blow-drying a sopping wet see-through shirt and adjusting his schedule: typical first world problems.
-Donald Lee
Northside showcase @ Trash Bar – Donald Lee
I tend not to make a habit to check out big shows because would rather keep away from the crowds and there’s usually five to six other people covering it. Plus, it’s Northside; the basis of the festival is to try out new stuff between the small time favorites.
I visited The Trash Bar for the first time this year and found it just like I remember… sort of. The sound system started to go out from one speaker or another, and then a dead cranefly fell on my head. For a name like Trash Bar, I’ve dealt with worse at festivals.
Tiers
The starter of tonight’s festivities, Tiers, brought synth and bass into a sea of sound. Want to say there’s an influence of new wave there between the shoegaze, of a Depeche Mode lurking in its layers of musical ferocity that threatened to drown the vocals into its ferociously calm waters.
Tyburn Saints
Johnny Gimenez’ vocals feels drawn out of The Smiths and the guitar-work felt like sounds you would hear The Edge bragging about between the New Wave synth, and some sounds borrowed from The Cure. There are a lot of influences here in Tyburn Saints, but I don’t mean to say that it’s patchwork as much as cultivated from many different parts to refine in its own way. It’s addictively refined and sometimes anthemistic enough to really get you to move.
Dead Leaf Echo
A combination of dreamwave, coordinated guitar tones played like echoes (okay, I get it), and emotionally charged lyrics commanded by a main vocalist who was as frenetic on his feet as their morphing backdrop. Between some great hooks there was a willingness to break their play styles with stop-on-a-dime pauses. It should also be pointed out that Dead Leaf Echo was probably the first to ever get the Trash Bar to weep: their playing managed to shake the roof enough to get it to release some of its rainy day leakiness.
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Noise Love showcase @ The Flat – Donald Lee
This was my first time going here, so was surprised to find a bag check. Grumbling over the three-dollar service (again, first world problems), I wanted to catch the headliner. If I were smart enough to check my schedule, I would catch them again. Quite a few more times, in fact.
Clouder
I came right in time to see a mosh pit in one of the smallest places you could ever expect to see it. Lead singer Eric Gilstrap barely even fit in the ‘stage’ – he would tell me a day later that he also woke up finding bruises over his body he didn’t realize he had. That’s the kind of energy that Clouder unleashes, which is telltale when you watch them perform on stage and you watch Eric go right up to people as he belts out lyrics.
Their music is an influence of honky-tonk, classic rock, a bit of metal and a good number of lyrics littered with earworms. If there was an actual bar based on Roadhouse, I could see Clouder being the guys playing behind that fence-covered stage.
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Aputumpu showcase @ Black Bear – Ted Chase
EULA
What was once Public Assembly (QRO venue review), and before that Galapagos, is now Black Bear, just a few doors down from Music Hall of Williamsburg (QRO venue review) on North 6th Street. While Music Hall was hosting Strokes member Albert Hammond Jr., Black Bear had the Aputumpu showcase – or at least was supposed to have had it.
The changeover and refurbishment, while it didn’t move the smaller back venue (which had some show so small it wasn’t even part of Northside), eliminated the main stage at the back of the space, but Black Bear tried to throw a show in the front space, much closer to the street. This caused noise complaints, and only a few acts played. Your correspondent went there for EULA, who only got to play one song, their new single “Orderly”, which he missed…
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BrooklynVegan showcase @ Baby’s All Right – Ted Chase
Operators
BrooklynVegan was putting on a showcase at Baby’s All Right (QRO venue review), headlined by Operators, the new band from Dan Boeckner (Wolf Parade, Handsome Furs, Divine Fits). Effectively a new version of Handsome Furs – divorcing his wife meant he had to find a new keyboardist, though still a pretty blond one, but did also get a drummer this time – it was even synthier than his previous stuff.
It was also a packed, sweaty backspace at Baby’s, nigh impossible to get to the front.
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Other notes:
-EULA’s shutdown did result in your correspondent getting his name in BrooklynVegan.
-While catching Clouder on-stage, I kept thinking the drummer looked familiar, but then dismissed it as me thinking that I was either tired or ignorant. As I worked on these photos under the scrutiny of Adobe I eventually realized that he is, indeed, the drummer for Crazy Pills, a band I have caught more than once (QRO photos at Northside ’12). Excuse me as I slap my forehead.
-At The Flat, one of the people catching Clouder included a bearded guy wearing a black dress. As much of an impression as it left on the band and any other people who noticed, everyone agreed when guitarist Matt said, “I think it was one of those things you expect to see in Brooklyn.”
Unfortunately missed:
-EULA @ Black Bear, 9:50 PM – 10:30 PM. See above
-White Mystery (QRO mp3 review) @ Bar Matchless (QRO venue review), 11:30 PM – 12:15 AM.
