Be there! Be there! Be there!
The North by North Park Music Conference is a one day music event, which will debut on August 2, 2008. Starting at 10am, all conference registrants will learn about the music business during panel discussions, workshops and demo review sessions. NXNP will feature speakers who have been involved in local, regional, and national music. Following the workshops, NXNP will showcase over 100 musical acts from Southern California, in 14 venues in San Diego, California.
It was Sunday night at Canes and indie rock heroes Wolf Parade were about to perform, yet the crowd didn’t seem excited at all. The stripped down guitar and tribal trashcan percussion of opening duo Listening Party had been received with polite but moderate enthusiasm by an audience where those wearing backwards hats and polo shirts vastly outnumbered the people with the tight jeans and flat-ironed hair. As the crowd quietly milled about the venue between sets, it seemed as though Wolf Parade could expect a similarly tepid reaction. But when the Montreal quintet finally took the stage and the first notes rang out from the amps, they were met with a fanatical and frenzied reception that was anything but lukewarm.
Beginning their set with “You Are A Runner And I Am My Father’s Son†and “Soldier’s Grinâ€, the opening tracks off 2005’s Apologies To The Queen Mary and 2008’s At Mount Zoomer, respectively, Wolf Parade were a well-oiled machine, nimbly maneuvering their songs’ wild mood swings and ever-changing time signatures without missing a beat.
Saturday’s “Hipsters Revisited†at Bar Pink Elephant was a ‘60s themed event that promised music of the garage, psychedelic, and freakbeat varieties, all while making assurances that there would be “no weird shit or flutesâ€. They made good on these promises with some trippy mood-lighting and an assortment of DJs spinning appropriately obscure tracks from the period, but the real draw was a live performance by local retro-rock band The Loons.
Long blond hair hanging in his face, Loons lead singer Mike Stax commanded the stage with all the raw power of an anachronistic Iggy Pop as the band blazed through a set that recalled garage acts Love, The Sonics, and The Thirteenth Floor Elevators. After grabbing everyone’s attention with “Red Dissolving Raysâ€, Stax joked that, in honor of Gay Pride week, he was dedicating the song “My Time†to Texas, “the gayest state of allâ€.
Frightened Rabbit is one of the best bands out there that you can still see in a small club. They’re comprised of two brothers and two multi-instrumentalists: singer/songwriter/guitarist/whisky sipper Scott Hutchison, his brother Grant (who destroys drumsticks and provides vocal harmonies), and Billy Kennedy and Andy “Medusa” Monaghan who both alternate on keys, guitar, and bass.
Legend has it that as a kid, Scott was compared to a Frightened Rabbit for his lack of social skills, but you wouldn’t know it from this show. Hutchison’s between-song banter was often hilarious and he showed no shortage of the fabled Scottish charm; he even exuded silliness as he discussed a “plectrum” (pick) that someone had given him.
For a band whose live performances are marked by their theatricality and infectious intensity, The Silent Comedy’s recordings can be surprisingly intimate affairs. Their debut full-length, Sunset Stables, emphasized narrative and restraint over whiskey drinking and foot stomping, and now, on their self-titled EP, they pick up where that record left off.
From the opening moments of maudlin country ballad “Daisyâ€, The Silent Comedy draws you into a rich world of broken bottles and shattered hearts. The song nimbly swells, retreats, then swells again, a ribcage barely containing the heart within. J. John’s vocals intertwine in a tender duet with I. Forbes’ gorgeous violin, and when he begs, “Break me, Daisyâ€, it’s hard to believe that she hasn’t done so already.