The New Alternative Music Festival at Asbury Park's Convention Hall, Night 1, 9/16/16

Screaming Females headlined Night 1 of Don Giovanni Records' New Alternative Music Festival

Live and Commercial-Free

It was a huge undertaking: 3 days and 50-plus bands inside Asbury Park's cavernous Convention Hall without corporate sponsors and without utilizing the infrastructure provided by the major monopolistic players in the live music business like Ticketmaster. About a week before the New Alternative Music Festival started, there was evidence that maybe it was too much too soon. Don Giovanni Records announced the cancelation of Sunday, the festival's third day, lopping off all but one or two of the bands that were scheduled to play that day. They were left with a two-day festival featuring bands like Screaming Females, Downtown Boys, P.S. Eliot, Laura Stevenson, Girlpool, Sex Stains, Ought, and more. Plenty for those of us in attendance to gorge ourselves on and, looking back, more than I could even imagine handling.

The festival had been underway for about 3 hours by the time I arrived after fulfilling my school pickup and swim carpool duties. Ithaca, NY rapper, Sammus, was just setting up; and it was a great start to my weekend. She was able to turn the vast space into something intimate as she rapped about frustration and anger while mixing in exhortations to positivity and self-respect. Sammus ended her set on the floor without a mic, weaving around the audience, shaking hands and thanking almost everyone personally.

Sammus

The huge Convention Hall stage was divided in two with one band setting up stage right as another band played stage left and vice versa. It was like a whirlwind. We sidled from one side to the other as acts took the stage at a relentless clip. Following Sammus, we got The Max Levine Ensemble, California X, Nude Beach, Radiator Hospital, Tenement, P.S. Eliot, Ought, and Screaming Females.

Each of those sets had something great to offer. I've been a fan of California X, Nude Beach, and Radiator Hospital for a while now; and all three were major reasons why I looked forward to NAMF as soon as it was announced. Montreal's Ought came highly-recommended; and, after their set, I'm going spend some more time digging deeper into their music. The highlights of the evening for me, though, were the sets from Tenement, P.S. Eliot, and Screaming Females.

Nude Beach

Radiator Hospital's Sam Cook-Parrott

I've seen Wisconsin's Tenement a few times, always as a trio. They come out onstage and deliver songs at a relentless clip. No bullshit. Singer / guitarist, Amos Pitsch, channels all of the energy from the band and just blasts it out over the audience. For their performance on Friday, they'd expanded with the addition of keys and backup singers. They steamrolled us all and concluded with a noisy set finale that saw the backup singers pick up a violin and a sax to add to the din.

Tenement

Ought

Then, it was back across the floor for the reunited P.S. Eliot. Katie (Waxahatchee, Great Thunder) and Allison Crutchfield (Swearin', solo) have produced some of my favorite music since I started CoolDad Music. Don Giovanni just re-issued the back catalog of the sisters' early band, P.S. Eliot, and the audience were ready to get back into it. A guy standing next to me had flown in from Amarillo, TX for the set and lost it at the opening chords to almost every song.

P.S. Eliot

In all the times I'd seen Katie Crutchfield with Waxahatchee, solo or fronting a full band, I'd never seen her just rock out the way she did with P.S. Eliot. The whole band appeared to be having a blast.

At one point during the set, an altercation over dancing / bumping / personal space erupted between a man and woman in the front row. Katie Crutchfield stopped the band and told both to "chill out" as she was forced to play elementary school teacher and direct a few people to stand between the pair to keep them separated. It was a tiny bump in a fantastic set, and people screamed for more when it was done.

Screaming Females played to the largest crowd of the two days. Things were running a little bit ahead of schedule (surprisingly), and the band started about 15 minutes early. They blasted through a set that was heavy on selections from 2015's Rose Mountain.

Something happens to singer / guitarist Marissa Paternoster when she puts on that black dress and starts to play. The music runs through her and she goes to another place. You can see it flick off when she speaks to the crowd while tuning her guitar, and it flicks back on again as soon as the next song starts. King Mike (bass) and Jarrett D (drums) are right there with her; and the whole band came together on some extended jams, facing each other and kind of reveling in the noise they were making. As the set went on, I could see sound people and techs standing in the wings or massing on the stairs just to catch a glimpse of what was going on onstage.

Screaming Females

When the set was done and Paternoster had thrown her guitar to the floor, several people up front chanted for more; but the band was done. The switch had flicked off again; and Paternoster was calmly shaking hands, introducing herself, and thanking fans for their compliments.

I was bleary-eyed and kind of in a bit of pain feet and leg-wise. Time to go grab a Korean burrito, head home, and re-energize for the next day.

I'll have a recap of Day 2 with some overall thoughts on the festival a little later. I'm still working my way through pictures, but I'll have shots from both days up in the Flickr galleries when I'm all done.

Don Giovanni Records Showcase at The Knitting Factory Brooklyn, 2/6/15 (PHOTO LINKS)

Black Wine as Devo

Night 1

What a weekend. I'm still recovering. Swim meets. Father / daughter dances. Birthdays. Lots and lots of driving (including a traffic ticket -- the first since my late teens -- in the wilds of Brooklyn). Here's some stuff that happened Friday.

Allyson Dwyer and I set off in the sub-freezing temperatures for Night 1 of the annual Don Giovanni Records label showcase and arrived in Brooklyn a little after 7pm. We parked the family truckster atop a glacier about a block away from The Knitting Factory. We got inside and settled in for a drink before the show.

The great thing about this showcase -- and the label, in general -- is the communal feel. I said hi to Shellshag and Black Wine before the show, and I saw several people with whom I've become friends as a result of attending last year's shows.

We made our way into the performance space, and I parked myself right up against the stage. Host and Don Giovanni artist Chris Gethard started things off talking about how weird and awkward it always is for a comedian to host a concert. I think his worries were unfounded. At least with this crowd. Gethard gave away some free stuff -- really undesirable free stuff that people jumped on because it was free -- like a broken USB wall charger. Allyson got the package of wet naps. He brought Don Giovanni "label honcho" Joe Steinhardt up on stage to preview one of the jokes that Steinhardt has available for sale. I won't print it here, since I didn't buy it.

Gethard then laid down a challenge for each of the bands to include a joke in their set. Each band would ultimately comply with varying degrees of success. As a show of solidarity, Gethard started off the evening with a song. He brought out John Driver of Shellshag to accompany him on his (and my) favorite song of all time, Billy Bragg's "A New England."

John Driver, Chris Gethard

The music from the bands started. It would end up being a night of surprises -- some for me,
some for everyone. My first surprise of the night was Crow Bait. I hadn't heard them before and loved their set. A great discovery.

Once the stage was set for Black Wine, Gethard came out saying that he'd been asked to stall for some time. After a few minutes, the band came out wearing yellow jumpsuits and launched into a full Devo cover set. The whole set. All Devo. Halfway through, the band stripped down to the all black t-shirt / shorts combo. The audience went kind of bananas. Joe Steinhardt later told me that it was a total surprise to everyone. So much fun.

Mal Blum, whom I'd first seen at the Boyd Park show back in September, did another fun set including stuff from her upcoming Marissa Paternoster-produced record. Blum and the rest of her band have really relatable personalities onstage. Her sets are full of humor and warmth. When she and bassist Audrey Zee Whitesides stopped to give "a shoutout to CoolDad," I was floored. It kind of explained the surprising moment (one of the best moments to have ever happened since I started this thing, by the way) earlier in the evening when Chris Gethard said, "Is CoolDad here? There are rumors flying around backstage that CoolDad may be here tonight." I passed Blum and her band some stickers when they were done.

The Hamiltons

The Hamiltons, Canadian arch-rivals of The Ergs!, did an intense set of Ramones-inspired punk only after making sure that their nemeses weren't in the house. They rattled songs off one after another in a non-stop barrage. After their set, Gethard noted his surprise -- shared by me -- that several members of the audience knew every Hamiltons' lyric.

Shellshag were next and, as usual, turned the place into a crazy dancing love fest. The duo kind of epitomize the feel of the whole showcase weekend with their positivity. I don't know what more there is to say about their set other than everyone had their arms over their heads as they sang along.

Chuck Betz of Nude Beach

We were already almost an hour into the next morning by the time Nude Beach came out for the final set of the night. I loved their record from last year and had been looking forward to their set all evening. It looked like they'd grown the live band by a few members since I'd seen them in September, and the new set up did a great job of reproducing the sounds on 77. Guitarist Chuck Betz even broke out the double-necked guitar for a few songs.

Allyson and I headed out into the freezing temperatures for the long drive home. I had a swim meet to get to in the morning. I knew I'd be exhausted, but we'd be back for part 2.



I went a little crazy with pics both nights. Here's night 1.

Chris Gethard, Joe Steinhardt, John Driver
Crow Bait
Black Wine
Mal Blum
The Hamiltons
Shellshag
Nude Beach

Nude Beach, 77, 2014

Album Review

When we were teenagers, New Jersey didn't have this weird "minors can't all drive around together in one car and can't drive past midnight" rule. I'm not sure when that came in; but, in about 1987, teen driving was pretty much a free-for-all. We'd all pile into my Tercel, Chris's Rabbit, or Justin's parents' Peugeot and drive around all night -- sometimes six or seven of us in the same car. Crazy times.

Cassettes were the thing then. You either had proper, store-bought cassette copies of albums or you dubbed them from LP's on the record player in your room. Chris and I were pretty into Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, Elvis Costello, Bruce Springsteen, and The Replacements at the time. Those cassettes soundtracked late Friday nights we'd spend driving around in those tiny cars after we'd finished eating the leftover pizza my mother had left out on the stovetop for us. I know Justin liked Elvis Costello and The Replacements. I feel like he kind of just tolerated Petty and Springsteen.

I've said this before, but I like to tell myself that my classic rock-y tastes back then fell more to the left-of-center side of things. Tom Petty and Elvis Costello both eventually toured with The Replacements, and I think you can hear some Petty influence on the later, kind of country-inflected Mats / Paul Westerberg material.

The other thing I'd like to point out here is that, while this was the mid- to late-80s, the best records from these artists -- and the ones we all loved the most -- had come out in the mid- to late-70s, early-80s: Greetings, E Street Shuffle, Born To Run, Darkness, The River, My Aim Is True, This Year's Model, Armed Forces, Imperial Bedroom, King of America, Damn The Torpedoes, Hard Promises, Let It Be, Tim. OK. You can throw Spike and Pleased To Meet Me in there, too.

That's all a run-up to some of the thoughts I had while listening to 77, the ambitious, double-LP from Long Island's Nude Beach. Those memories came flooding in just as album-opener "Used To It" kicked in. Frontman Chuck Betz has that reedy, Tom Petty drawl. Add in the twang of 12-string guitar, and the song transports me to the ripped pleather seats of my silver Tercel. Betz also produced, and he ended up with a clean sound that's missing all the tape hiss and LP pops and clicks of my personal cassettes.

There's the occasional "Where have I heard this before?" riff, like those that open "I'm Not Like You," "Yesterday," and "I Can't Keep the Tears from Falling." You search your brain and can't quite place them. Then the songs go off in their own direction, Ryan Naideau's rumbling drums anchoring all of those influences and roughing them up just a bit. It's just enough to take these sounds from the 20,000-seat arena where you'll usually hear them these days to a small bar or dark basement.

Single "See My Way" starts with an infectious riff and is just a great pop song, rhyming "It's ok" with "see my way," "on your knees and pray," etc. There are the ballads, like the starts-quiet-gets-epic "Time" and the acoustic "It's So Hard." This sound lends itself well to the extended guitar jam, and we get one of those on "I Found You."

It was a pretty daring choice to make a 68-minute, double-LP of songs anchored in the power pop rock sounds of my teenage years. Even back in 1987, acts like Petty and Springsteen were pretty much off the radar of anyone with an appreciation of alternative or underground music. They were on major labels, made the top 40, and got played on the same radio stations as plenty of major label schlock. What Nude Beach succeed at here, though, is reclaiming these sounds from their big budget, major label niche. Carefully crafted, lovingly self-produced, and released on an independent label, 77 has the potential to capture the ears of more than a few jaded listeners.

We would've had this one rattling the tiny speakers of the cheap tape deck I installed in my Tercel. I'm pretty sure everybody would've been into it, too. Even Justin.

77 is out now on Don Giovanni Records and kind of demands to be heard on LP or cassette.

Don Giovanni Records Put on a Free Show w/ Screaming Females, Shellshag, Nude Beach, Mal Blum, and More at New Brunswick's Boyd Park, 9/20/14

Saturday in the Park

I go to lots of shows by myself, obviously. Yesterday, though, presented a great opportunity to introduce the whole family to some really good bands. Don Giovanni hosted their annual, free, outdoor concert in New Brunswick's Boyd Park. Screaming Females, Shellshag, Nude Beach, and Mal Blum were all part of the bill that also included some bands from New Brunswick High School. I'm trying to coax CD1 to join me for the all ages PUJOL / Screaming Females show at Asbury Lanes, and CoolMom has never gotten the chance to see either Screaming Females or Shellshag live.

Well, CoolMom and I both really enjoyed Mal Blum's set. I hear that Screaming Females' Marissa Paternoster is producing Mal's next record, so that is definitely something I look forward to hearing. CoolMom also had a great time during Shellshag's "in the round" performance. The cooldaughters pretty much just played on their mobile devices. They didn't complain, and they assured me that they could hear -- and liked -- everything, but I think they may have been humoring me. It's nice to feel loved anyway.

There were birthday parties and movies to go see in the evening, so CoolMom headed home with the girls after Shellshag were done. I stuck around for Brooklyn's Nude Beach and New Brunswick hometown heroes Screaming Females.

Nude Beach's sound is heavily influenced by some of the stuff I spent a lot of time with in my youth -- Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, Bruce Springsteen. They own it and do a great job with it, adding a rough, maybe Replacements-y edge and a DIY vibe that draws in the younger folks. They're recent Don Giovanni signees, and their LP, 77, is due on October 21st.

Screaming Females coaxed everybody up to the front and played an intimate outdoor set that covered some favorites as well as some new songs. They sounded just as good as they have the other times I've seen them; but, this time, it just looked like they were having a bit more fun. It was a beautiful early evening in their hometown.

Things were done by about 5:45, and I headed home to meet CoolMom for dinner while the cooldaughters were out doing their evening activities. It was a really nice Saturday. I wish that CoolDaughter 1, at least, had paid a bit more attention to the bands; but she and her sister came with me without complaint and were all smiles. Baby steps, I guess.

Here are some photo highlights. You can see the rest of the pics up at Flickr.