Noise Pop 2008: The Mountain Goats, So Many Dynamos, Caves
March 14, 2008
Photos by: Josh Uziel
Mountain Goats
Noise Pop 2008: His and Hers Reviews of She & Him, Closing Night at GAMH
March 14, 2008
His: By Nate Baker
She & Him, She and Him, She and Him … say it ten times fast and it begins to sound like the chug-a-lug of an oncoming train, which is about what the hype surrounding this celebrity pair amounted to leading up to their first ever gig, the closing night slot of Noise Pop 2008.
Their story, (that is, of course, M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel) is quaint: he’s a renowned left-of-center songwriter; she’s a left-of-center actress and a closeted songwriter, “hoarding her home demos like acorns in the winter.” They share a love for the California AM radio stations of their youth and, during the making of a film called “The Go-Getter” in 2006, record a duet. As these things do, it leads to talks and plans for an album. Enter a host of great musicians and producers, like Mike Mogis, who flesh out the tunes. It gets the stamp from Merge Records and away they go, chug-a-lugging toward their date with history, March 3 at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco.
Live music diehards know that festivals can be a test of will and endurance and for many it had been a long week of shows. Though the sold-out crowd seemed a tad knackered, it was the kind of glad exhaustion that accompanies a runner’s high. Sweating booze from a week’s worth of hangovers and still standing!
A healthy buzz communicated through the hall during what seemed an excruciatingly long change-over from Whispertown 2000’s set. Finally the doors opened and out they walked, Deschanel deferring to Ward for first out, and thus they took the stage as Him and She. Her trepidation can be forgiven; she may be a star of the independent lens but indie rock shows are, afterall, Ward’s bag.
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Noise Pop 2008: Blitzen Trapper, Fleet Foxes, Here Here, Sholi
March 13, 2008
Sholi
Festival bills, for good or worse, often feature classic mismatches of genres owing to the sheer task of scheduling between the various committees, bands and venues on any given night. While many people attend an event with their beloved band in mind already, others certainly embrace the expanded bills hoping to stumble upon a new love. Thursday’s show at the Bottom of the Hill paired two openers rising on the local radar (Sholi and Here Here) with two of Sub Pop’s most recent buzz boomers, Blitzen Trapper and touring mates Fleet Foxes.
Sholi opened the evening with the night’s most experimental bent, alternating between their Blonde Redhead inspired melancholic but unconventional pop phrasing and fragmented free jazzy interludes led by drummer Jonathon Bafus. Featuring a new contributor on cello, the band was able to balance Bafus’ polyrhythmic meanderings more noticeably than in past performances. Singer/Guitarist Payam Bavafa led the band seamlessly through its set without gaps between tunes, showing more confidence and pronouncement in his vocals, especially on the closer “Hejrat”, originally by Iranian pop-diva Googoosh.
Noise Pop 2008: Blitzen Trapper, Fleet Foxes, Here Here, Sholi
March 13, 2008
Noise Pop 2008: February 28th @ Bottom of the Hill
Photos by: Joshua Uziel
You can read a review of this show here.
Blitzen Trapper
Noise Pop 2008: The Dodos, Or, the Whale, Bodies of Water
March 12, 2008
Last Thursday’s Noise Pop show at Cafe du Nord was beyond sold out, with even badge-holders being turned away at the door. What could possibly explain such an avalanche of buzz? The shocking answer at the end of this article… but first, LA’s Bodies of Water, whose set I came away from not remembering much of the music but still being oddly thrilled by the performance. It’s weird to say that the hallmark of the band’s sound is their group vocals, because that seems like such a thin premise on which to establish a distinctive musical vision.
But they themselves claim gospel and musical theatre among their influences, and indeed they have internalized the primal power of a group of people singing in unison. Add to that some heavy religious overtones in the lyrics, and the comparisons to Danielson and The Polyphonic Spree start flying around, but Bodies of Water really sound nothing like either one. Anyway, it’s not the gospel part of their music that stands out for me as much as the musical theatre part; I don’t envision Bodies of Water playing in a revival tent, but rather in an orchestra pit, as dozens of chorus members sing along while leaping about on stage.
Noise Pop 2008: Holy Fuck, A Place to Bury Strangers, White Denim, Veil Veil Vanish
March 11, 2008
Noise Pop 2008: February 29th @ Bottom of the Hill
Photos by: Joshua Uziel
Holy Fuck
Noise Pop 2008: Tilly and the Wall, Capgun Coup, Tally Hall and Little Teeth
March 10, 2008
Little Teeth
Little Teeth started off this 6pm Noise Pop show at the Rickshaw Stop. This local band consists of three members that switch from one eclectic instrument to the next, playing mandolins, cellos and random percussion attached to microphones. Their sound is experimental, making good use of a loop station, as well as off-beat and very loud (I seriously thought my ears where bleeding at one point).
Dannie Murrie, the lead singer, had an eccentric personality that reminded me of a modern Janis Joplin, using every sound her throat could make and belting it out. The band plans on releasing a full-length album on Absolutely Kosher Records sometime later this year.
Up next came Tally Hall, five guys from Ann Arbor, Michigan wearing white dress shirts and different colored ties. Before the first song started, their music video “Good Day” played, which showed each member intertwined with random images, such as kids going down slides, television screens inside of television screens and words flashing back and forth like a flipbook.
The band’s sound was solid geek rock, a mixture of Weezer and the Beastie Boys. The members were very witty on stage and even sang a whole song in Jamaican accents about bananas. Tally Hall’s set peeked with a cover of “Praise You” that the crowd went crazy for.
Noise Pop 2008: Minipop, West Indian Girl, Two Sheds, Trophy Fire
March 9, 2008
Photos by: Joshua Uziel
Minipop
