Last year’s Siren Music Festival was the reason I started writing about music. So blame or thank that at your leisure.
In DC, where I’m from, free music festivals are limited to things like the Fourth of July, where you’ll get family friendly entertainment singing all the hits from thirty years ago surrounded by marching bands playing the hits from one hundred years ago. Though, one especially hip year, Will Smith played.
Which isn’t to say there aren’t free events all the time, just nothing on the scale to which New Yorkers would feel accustomed. Different times, different places, though. I come here not to bury DC but to praise Sirenfest.
Let me set the stages (a-HA!) for Sirenfest. Each year, The Village Voice thanks to the support of sponsors and the magnanimous nature of Coney Island, Brooklyn and The City stages a free all ages, all day long, two area outdoor concert and has been doing so since 2001. The stages are defined as The Main Stage, for headliners and the Stillwell Stage (as it’s on Stillwell Avenue) for secondary acts. Though even this can call up the wrong idea.
The Stillwell stage isn’t packed with bands who got their slot because they’re the intern’s band that hasn’t actually played live, but if you get us a booking you’ll see that we’re really, really cool in that Ramones meets Cannibal Corpse kind of way. In 2003; Ted Leo was on Stillwell, 2004; Mission of Burma, 2006; Art Brut. And on, anon.
The scheduling is so that both last year and this year had us making the horrible choice to cut out the ends of acts we wanted to see in order to try and catch at least the opening acts of others. We would hustle back and forth avoiding the families, the couples, the old people, the recycling gleaners, dog walkers, cops, people who really shouldn’t be wearing THAT in public, roving bands of journalists covering the event and crowds beget by the festival crowds praying that acts were on time. The stage managers this were on top of things as everyone was on stage at their designated times.
Thanks to a combination dodgy breakfast bagel and Weekend Enhanced track work, we ended up at Coney Island around 1:15; sunscreened, fed, frozen ice water in our bags plotting out the various strategies to try and catch as much of the show as humanly possible while trying to coordinate petty human needs like “food” and “water” and “rest.” We checked in and immediately went and to go see some bands.
Apache Beat- This Brooklyn based five-piece makes music in the kind of urgent, up tempo, slightly arty slightly soulful but with epic tendencies that stretch bars of music like some escaping gorilla whose sick of everyone pointing at it. It’s not a subtle band, but Apache Beat is not obnoxious in its directness. More nod along music than dance music but not to say that it’s music for the dead.
Screaming Females- New Jersey’s Screaming Females play tightly woven technically difficult punk rock, fast and loud with guitar solos that last longer than four bars and incorporate more than three songs. It’s the sound boredom makes as it dies beneath the feet of Screaming Females. I don’t understand how Marissa doesn’t fall over dead after playing a full show in those outfits, especially in the heat we had yesterday. Their set pulled from the full range of their material, with a slight emphasis on newer material. We stayed until the end for this set. How could you not?
Wye Oak- After Screaming Females, this two-piece Baltimore band was like an elusive breeze on a hot summer day. Blissful, beautiful structure which caught a bit of caustic modern drone that was spiked by great drumming and a beautiful voice that carried each song into that breeze, washing over the crowd in sweet relief to the brutal weather. Absolutely wonderful to turn your face to the speaker and close your eyes and allow yourself to drift along.
Surfer Blood- This band’s damaged melodies and harmonies were dangerous like an undertow and as easy to get lost in, churning just beneath the surface of calm appearing waves. I was eager to see this band perform to see if live they could capture any of the album, and while it wasn’t thrashing around as much, they were able to reel it in, and proudly display it for the collected onlookers. It was a good updating of surf while sounding nothing like Dick Dale.
Ponytail- The second Baltimore band of the day plays very technical pop rock with complex structure and melodies with nonsensical babbling from their diminutive lead singer. Their second album had songs that featured actual words, and was as shocking as when Bob Dylan went speed thrash. Dustin Wong’s guitar sounds like a contented kitten making noise for the joy of it operating on scales most musicians wouldn’t even dare. Like EULA, Ponytail seems never content to play songs the same way twice as they constantly add new flourishes to old material making each set more like jazz in its explorations of theme.
The Night Marchers- Think of this band as the Swami Records All-Stars as John Reis(Rocket From the Crypt, Drive Like Jehu, Hot Snakes) teams up with Gar Wood (Hot Snakes), and Tommy Kitsos and Jason Kourkounis (CPC Gangbangs. You don’t know this band. Go LEARN about this, the most dangerous garage rock you’ll ever hear). The Night Marchers sounds like Rock N Roll, in its chrome plated, finned, souped up, sock hop fashion. When you see those guys in pork pie hats, Doc Martins, rolled up blue jeans and a permanent sneer with headphones on the subway, this is what they’ve got playing and if they could, they’d hit you in the mouth with a bike chain. It’s old fashioned, but it’s not retro, it’s CLASSIC and there is a difference.
Earl Greyhound- This band sounds like the Psychedelicapolcalypse. Imagine if Charlie Manson was able to get his music career off the ground and had to put his stabbing career in the background, and then imagine that kind of dark insanity mixed with the epic nature of bands hidden on the Nuggets collections, acting as an intermediary between say, Killed by Death and Back from the Grave. It’s like an ever-expanding conversation between old and new musical traditions, as they shy away from neither but never so obscure that a newcomer would be intimidated. Earl Greyhound is, for lack of better terminology, the REAL DEAL. See them.
Harlem- This Austin Texas three-piece tried to be the Spankrock of 2010 by inciting the packed sweltering crowd to jump the barricade and riot because “they can’t stop all of you.” Unfortunately, the security learned from last year and immediately stepped forward to control the crowd. The pop garage outfit shook the stunned audience out of the stupor of Earl Greyhound and inspired the most dancing I saw. The band traded instruments and banter in equal amounts as they came out with no set list and essentially just played whatever took them in the moment. It was a lot of fun, and a little weird to see their notoriously strange twitter feed come to life with a mixture of crude humor, boasts and bullshit. The music was sloppy tight and the audience was sloppy wet.
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists- I almost feel kind of bad for not liking his music, as on stage, the man was amazingly gracious and engaged with the audience, interacting and charming between songs. Marissa of Screaming Females joined him on stage, though we weren’t there, taking a much-needed break for the final push.
Matt and Kim- What could you possibly say about Matt and Kim? The cutest couple in Indie Rock put on probably the best show in Indie Rock with an unbridled enthusiasm that if could be tapped would end our country’s dependence on oil. The excitement on stage fueled the excitement in the audience in a cycle that caused Kim to keep slipping beats as she played faster and faster. Matt’s onstage gymnastics were impressive as was his ability to play in time, jump up and down, sing and banter at the same time. Seeing Matt and Kim play is always a warm experience and it always feels like you’re watching your two best friends make music, even if you’ve never met them. Interjecting Hip Hop, Baltimore Club, 70s rock and more into their songs seemingly on the fly just makes you wonder, why have we not gotten a live album from them yet? I would love to see them try to capture this energy.
Holy Fuck- the five-piece Toronto improvised electronic music group closed out the night with a high energy, high funk set playing replicating modern dance music without any of the conveniences that allows a dude with a laptop to claim he’s an artist. Pulling tracks from both Latin and earlier works, Holy Fuck’s set was both nostalgic and new as like Ponytail the constant shifting of recorded music into the live area provides new opportunities to riff on the established themes which anchor the tracks. The sun had gone down, the winds off the water had cooled the evening and the propulsion and rhythm was an excellent way to end another beautiful Siren Music Festival.
Now begins the hard part. The waiting for next year…
Huge thanks to Jo Murray of FleckPR and Diane Perini of The Village Voice for making this post possible!