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| Big Ups at Silent Barn |
After several days of unsolicited advice from my Brooklyn born and raised father about how to avoid death and dismemberment in the wilds of Williamsburg, Greenpoint, and Bushwick, I got in the minivan and headed up to Brooklyn for Night 1 of this year's Northside Festival. Getting in from Jersey and finding street parking was uneventful. I went and grabbed my badge and then headed over to Cameo Gallery on 6th Street for the early Terrorbird Media / Carpark Records / Kanine Records Showcase. My plan was to park myself at Cameo Gallery until after Herzog's set and then head over to the Deli Magazine show at Silent Barn for Big Ups and whatever other bands I could catch there. I didn't want to get too ambitious on the first night.
I like what Kanine are doing as a label. Eternal Summers, Bleeding Rainbow, Fear of Men, Beach Day. There's lots of reverb and lots of post-punk sounding pop. In between the early sets last night, Kanine's label head was spinning tunes from the likes of The Smiths and The Jesus and Mary Chain. I knew we were on a similar wavelength.
The front of Cameo Gallery is a nice little bar. The performance space is in the back, down a narrow hallway and through a door. It has a little bit of an extra-legal feel to it (Though, it is without a doubt totally on the up and up.), but it's open with a tall stage. It's dark, though, except for some sea anemone-looking fiber optic lights that hang from the ceiling.
Brooklyn's Piers started things off and played just the kind of pop you'd expect at the Kanine show. They were a little more rocking than they sound on the 7" they recorded under another name, but that could be because they were down a keyboard player and playing as a power trio.
Carpark Records -- home to bands like Speedy Ortiz and Cloud Nothings -- also had a hand in curating the show. One of the bands on their roster, Atlanta's Dog Bite, were next. I enjoyed their set as well. Somewhat more downbeat than Piers, but still plenty of reverb. A Strat and a Jaguar. My thing.
Food truck taco break.
Things got a little punkier for Chandos from Allston, Massachusetts. It was buttoned up and very polite between songs punkier, but I liked it.
Herzog took the stage right on time at 8:30 and played a set heavy on songs from this year's Boys. Dual guitarists / vocalists Nick Tolar and Dave McHenry did a great job reproducing the record's big sound of huge guitar hooks and multi-tracked vocals. As the final jam on "You Are Not The Villain" ended, I started making plans to head over to Silent Barn. Before leaving, I did manage to grab a few minutes with Nick Tolar and, hopefully, put a bug in his ear about keeping Asbury Park in mind for any upcoming tour plans.
Attending a festival in a minivan proved advantageous as Silent Barn is a good 2 miles from Cameo Gallery. I rolled over to Bushwick and got to the venue a few songs into the set by lost boy ?. Silent Barn, like a lot of the DIY-type venues in Brooklyn, is an art space as well as a music venue. It's got large murals on the walls and a garden outside. Talk about your "extra-legal feel." There was a guy selling beers out of a fridge, and there was free water with a sign next to the cups: "Save your cup. Save the planet." I drank my water and stuffed the paper cup in my back pocket.
Oh, and it was about a million degrees in Silent Barn.
lost boy ? play some enjoyably heavy guitar pop and appeared to have lots of friends in the audience. I feel like maybe Butter The Children, who I really wanted to see, were a late scratch from this event; but I may have just missed them. At any rate, Jersey City's Vomitface were next. They experienced a few technical difficulties and equipment malfunctions, but I liked their set of 90s-infused, quiet-loud-quiet rock.
The crowd was, surprisingly, pretty stoic for the set. It was weird. I could tell they liked it, but nobody was really moving. Maybe it was the heat. Frontman Jared Micah remarked on it a couple of times. I realized then that, while I don't do the mosh, circle pit thing; I do enjoy being on the outskirts of it, being pushed around, feeling like something is happening. None of that for the short set.
Brooklyn's Big Ups were the act everyone was waiting for, and they are having a bit of a moment now. 18 Hours of Static is an excellent half-hour or so of post-hardcore emo. Frontman Joe Galarraga dispenses with the overly testosterone-driven act and, instead, opts for a punk Mick Jagger style of performance art. Barefoot and shirtless for most of the set, Galarraga contorted his body and face, posing or writhing on the stage, as he delivered the lyrics.
A pit kind of got going during the set -- if about 8 guys literally running around in a circle counts as a pit. At one point, Galarraga got down from the stage and did a few laps with them.
"Thanks, guys." And the set was done. A few guttural growls from guys in the crowd, which was weird, and my night was done. I thought about humping it back to Cameo to catch the pre-record release performance from Beverly, but my journalistic curiosity bowed to exhaustion.
Back tonight. I'm thinking maybe Sharkmuffin, Tweens, and Marnie Stern.
Here are some pics from last night.
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