performance :: mccarren park
on sunday i headed to a free music festival at mccarren park pool in williamsburg. hats off to jellynyc for hosting the free shows. the space is an old emptied out pool, turned into a summer stage. the setup was pretty fun: team dodgeball with tournament, a slip and slide, burgers, brooklyn beer, and hot dogs. it's actually a perfect set up for outdoor concerts. the heat was intense at times, but if you come prepared and ready for sun, it was no big deal. many people brought their own blankets to lay on. of course the fastest way to cool off was to hit the slip and slide. [
watch video]playing on the bill were asobi seksu, irving, enon, and of montreal. i was mainly there for enon, but i wanted to check out asobi seki (an 8.3 according to the pitchfork rictor scale) and of montreal. irving was the flattest of the performances; straight indie pop over influenced by morrissey and the smiths. asobi seki didn't really touch me in any way, the album songs sound good on CD, but live i just didn't really feel anything. as for their my bloody valentine or shoegaze comparisions, i didn't find it in them either.
seeing enon again was great. they're my record for most seen shows; i think i've seen 'em about 8-10 times now. john had some guitar tech probs and toko awkwardly entertained the crowd, squeezing out a couple of giggles here and there. most of the material was new, much more guitar and rock oriented then their play into electro such as on high society. i was glad to hear new material and can't wait to hear it on headphones for their next album.[ watch video]
overall the show was great. they had dodgeball. dodgeball! if you weren't into the music, there were plenty of distractions to take up your time until the next act. i left shortly after of montreal started, half overbaked from the sun and half not into their glamour pop. deerhoof is playing in a couple weeks with the same mccarren park set up, and i'm totally psyched for that.
performance :: bushwick art project
on saturday night i headed to the bushwick art project festival held at 3rd ward, an all day and night mix match of electronic music and new media art. coming to the festival i was thrilled to see some of my friend's art and music: chia was doing video for helios's performance [ watch video] , sawako was set to play, and also a live / electronic set from combo loring and pandatone. sadly, after helio's set things started to fall apart. sawako's plane was delayed and she never made it to bapfest. i was excited to finally see bubblyfish though, bouncing around on her gameboy compositions.
:: listen to bubblyfish live at BAP
after her, bapfest basically just turned into a rave. this caused huge problems for pandatone / loring because the music was so loud from the other rooms, it was feedbacking the mics in their performance space. what's the point of having a multiroom music fest when one room takes over all the others with its sound? loring never performed that night, and pandatone switched to a laptop set, playing two hours after his set spot.
bapfest had some amazing new media installations downstairs. one of my fav's was this robot wall sketching machine.[ watch video] most of the pieces were interactive. but the magic of all the digital candy faded fast due to the sloppy management of the venue. bapfest was basically sweatfest and the poorly maintained restrooms on the third floor were absolutely horrendous. cramming a couple thousand kids into a 3 floor warehouse without air conditioning in the middle of a new york summer is just trashy. what's wrong with setting up this kinda festival in the fall? the festival just became a heat tolerance tester. sadly most of audience that came to see loring's performance baked long enough and went home. i left too, pretty disappointed. when i left, i thought of the festival less of a "festival of ideas"; it was just another sweaty rave.
Labels: BAP, events
performance :: blizzards
last night, fighting jet lag from europe i checked out the final show of the blizzards / good anna tour at goodbye blue monday in bushwick. anthony, hektor, and adam have been touring for the last two weeks up and down the east coast with u.k. band, good anna. good anna's set was amazing, an experimental noise set composed of drums and guitar. the most fascinating aspect was watching the drummer wail away with great velocity and his creative alteration of drum sounds. [ watch video]
next the blizzards took stage and this was probably the best live showcase of twi and liek on stage. the music jumped from guitar and fx vocals with atmospheres and noise coming from twi's machines and liek's infamous blue suitcase. adam's drums drove and carried each song, and his work with the noise and electronics was fab. the songs varied from experimental to accessible avant gard and jam out, each of its own form. the blizzards may play an impromptu show with japanther tomorrow, but that's not confirmed. [ watch video]
the usual suspects we all there to support the blizzards, and for as deathly hot as was monday, blue monday stayed pretty cool with fans at every corner, and sangrias to ease the sweat factor.
review: oorutaichi single