As we are getting further and further away from North Side Festival I am finding it slightly less relevant to be posting about it…so I’m going to try kick these last two (maybe three) posts out this week.

I had a busy Saturday June 13th: farmers market, going away picnics, and North Side Fest.  And I did pretty much everything I wanted to do too.

After the market and the picnic we headed over to Spike Hill, and caught Anamanaguchi.  I knew very little about them other than hearing their cover of Wavves’ “So Bored” which is actually really good (see below).  We got there right as they were taking the stage at around 3:30, and the first thing I noticed was that the drummer was wearing an Ink and Dagger shirt (something rare these days), then the bass player made sure his base was in tune by playing a Piebald bass line (just notes…and it makes me wonder where they are originally from).  Anamanaguchi played a 30min set of intense Nintendo fueled mostly instrumental rock.  They had video being projected behind them, and were very enjoyable to watch.  My only complaint was that someone in the crowd yelled out a song and they didn’t play it.  I understand when a band hits a level of popularity that they don’t play all requests, but I just felt that these guys are young enough of a band to fulfill the one request shouted at them.  They were entertaining…and I wouldn’t mind at all seeing them play live again.

[mp3]Anamanaguchi- “So Bored” (Wavves Cover)

Next up was Bishop Allen at Studio B.  What I have heard of Bishop Allen’s music I have enjoyed, but I have to say if it wasn’t for the North Side Fest badge I would not have payed the $17 cover charge that Studio B had to see them play.  We got there kinda early to take advantage of the free Heineken open bar, but sadly the 150 bottles of beer (yep there weren’t that many) that they had to give away were gone before we got there.  The crowd at the show wasn’t totally packed, but very crowded.  Bishop Allen put on a totally entertaining show, and engaged the dorky audience.  When I say dorky this is in an entirely different dorkiness than the crowd at Franklin Bruno.  All in all Saturday at North Side Fest has been fun so far.

Next up was a quick stop at home, and then off to see Woods at The Shank.  At the Shank I was finally able to secure my first free drinks of North Side Fest…two Colt 45s.  Gross, but it was free.  We got to see Woods play…they sounded good as always, but then again if it wasn’t at the Shank it probably would have sounded better.  I got some good pictures though:

A couple more photos from Woods’ set can be found here.

At the point it felt like the heat death of the universe had set in.  Cigarette smoke had filled The Shank from the sold out crowd that was there to see Woods, and temperature had risen so high that we had to get out of there.

We headed up to see The Van Pelt at CoCo66.  The cool night air was welcomed.  When we got to CoCo66 the capacity for badge holders had not been met yet, nor had it sold out for people paying to get in.  I showed my badge and walked into the room in the back of CoCo66…but that was as far as I got.  I could literally only take two steps into the room.  More people were trying to fit in, but the room was so packed that people just started to stand in the door way.  At this point I could only see Chris Leo’s face in a mirror on the wall, and I said fuck it.  It wasn’t enjoyable to be in there, and while I’m sure The Van Pelt were great…stopping at the Diamond for a good beer was better than standing in a room where you can’t see anything. Oh if I hadn’t already mentioned it…North Side Festival was full of shitty beer.

Now it was back to the Shank.  We caught Blues Control…a band that I have been grooving on since December…and as expected they were good, but again one of those bands that I think I like better on the record player than live.  I really enjoyed their set though, and am looking forward to the new album on Siltbreeze.

Blues Control:

After Blues Control we hung around the extremely hot, humid, and smokey  Shank until Kurt Vile.   I think I can safely say that The Shank is now my second least favorite venue in the city.   Because of the conditions inside we were hanging out in the park, and noticed that someone fell asleep on Leah‘s bike:

The show started to drag on really long.  Kurt Vile played in the War On Drugs earlier in the evening (thanks McG)…and not all of the Violators were there for them to start playing at 1am.  Kurt Vile and the Violators finally went on at around 2:30am.  At this point I was exhausted from the heat, and the Violators turned Viles lovely psychedelic folk in droney noise.  I’m totally down with droney noise…but what I really wanted was for Vile to be cranking out the folk.  What I really love about Kurt Vile was essentially lost in the full band live format that preformed.  Not to say that they sounded bad, they did not…it’s just not what I wanted to see.  We stayed for about 20 or 25 minutes until we decided to head out.  I wouldn’t mind seeing the Violators again if I was in the right mood.  What it comes down to is that I long to see Kurt Vile solo again, but I’m not sure if that will happen anytime soon.

Links:

More on the Van Pelt here.

More on Woods here.

More on Kurt Vile here.

More of my North Side Fest coverage can be found here (including Day 1 and 2 wrap ups).

I was totally unfamiliar with this band until yesterday…and that makes me really sad.  My buddy, Mike, was looking at the North Side Festival line up, and was like The Van Pelt are playing?  At the time I didn’t realize who that was, and he was like it’s Ted Leo’s brother…Chris Leo.

I didn’t think much of this initially, but it sat in my head a couple hours…I remembered that two of the Leo’s, and not Ted, were in one of my favorite emo bands: Native Nod.  Now this isn’t the type of emo that people think of today (that combination of candy coated punk-core that has both pretty singing and screaming), but rather when emo actually meant something…I guess in simple terms a sub-sub genre of post-punk or post-hardcore.  Native Nod were contemporaries of Moss Icon, The Hated, Cap n’ Jazz, Heroin, and Antioch Arrow.  Well, some people might not say that but growing up in the south far away from where that music was happening…I feel that it is pretty accurate.

What truly made Native Nod unique was the singer, and that was complemented by the music perfectly.  Chris Leo’s vocals ranged from spoken word to adolescent screaming.  To this day their discography titled Today Puberty, Tomorrow the World is still an album I go back to when making mix tapes.  Listening to Native Nod brings be back to when I was younger, but at the same time I still find it timeless.

[mp3] Native Nod- “Tangled”
(from Today Puberty, Tomorrow the World. Buy it here)

The Van Pelt formed in 1993 and played music until about 1997.  The band consisted of Christ Leo, as previously mentioned,  Brian Maryansky (who went on to play in Jets to Brazil), Toko Yasuda (ex-member of Blonde Redhead, who also played in The Lapse with Chris Leo in the late ’90s), and Neil O’Brian.

This year they reformed and started playing out at a couple of shows including South By South West, another date in DC with Frodus, and this Saturday as part of the North Side Fest.

The Van Pelt remind me a lot of a matured Native Nod but where the adolescent screaming had been there is now singing (not knocking Native Nod at all, that is just how it is).  I have only been able to grab a couple of mp3s, but right now it looks like I might be ditching Kurt Vile for The Van Pelt.  Check it:

[mp3] The Van Pelt- “The Speeding Train”
(from the s/t EP.  But it here.)

[mp3] The Van Pelt- “His Saxophone is my Guitar”
(from Stealing From Our Favorite Thieves. Buy it here.)

[mp3] The Van Pelt- “My Bouts With Pouncing”
(from The Sultans of Sentiment. Buy it here.)

According to North Side Festival, The Van Pelt will play their first ever Brooklyn show (despite being from the New York/New Jersey area) this weekend! The show has also been curated by The Van Pelt.

This Saturday, June 11th:

The Van Pelt @ 11pm
The Holy Childhood @ 10pm
Ghost Gamblers @ 9pm
Coco 66
Doors at 8pm
$10

If you need a guide to the festivities check out my North Side Fest schedule here.