Goddamnit, its happening again! Deadline is upon me and I really feel like there’s nothing going on that is screaming to be written about. I know, that’s really really bad but sometimes January is like that, the post holiday blow-out lull in activity, people tend to go out less, shop less, party less, worry more about global warming, wonder how it could possibly make it so bitterly cold outside now as they huddle around $9.99 walgreens heaters and worry about how high the power bill will be or if the circuit breakers will overload if the tv is turned on, contemplate the statistical prevalence of suicide around this time of year and totally get it, and get totally sick of hearing about Dreamgirls, Lindsay Lohan, and the President’s unyielding fondness for feeding more troops to his war machine. There’s lots of possible reasons for a beginning of the year slump actually, I shouldn’t let it get to me so much.
Feeling a bit glum and uninspired by the current month in music here in SF, I took a gander at the future and to be quite honest I saw very few things coming up to be excited about. Others would definitely differ on this opinion because the annual Noisepop festival takes place February 27—March 4. This will be the 14th year for the music festival that I’ve honestly never really understood. It seems to be a music festival that specializes in featuring many different bands throughout all the city’s musical venues on seven consecutive nights. The underlying thread that connects the said bands has always seemed totally vague to me. What is a noisepop band? What isn’t a noisepop band? Taking a glance at featured acts from over the years and the upcoming roster for this year, I could kind of assume that if there were a characteristic or quality linking these bands together it would have to be bands that I think are self-serious, light-pop/rock sounding, pretentious, lots of solo and duo performers, a fair amount of synthesizers, an adopted ethnicity or ancient fundamental instrumentation, they must be deified by countless music bloggers as the second coming of pop-Christ, or a recently reunited band from the late 80’s or finally, wussie-ass sounding crap that couldn’t rock its way out of a wet paper bag. Seriously, out of a hundred or so bands appearing there are maybe four that I’m interested in seeing. The rest are mostly bands I’ve read lots about and I’ve sought them out and listened to them and thought “This is what all those reviewers and bloggers were raving about? I cant believe it because this wanks big time.” These were bands I eagerly downloaded only to quickly free up the space they took on my hard drive with the delete key because it was weak and didn’t move me in the least. This was the sound of indie rock that really started to frighten me and make me wonder what rocked about it and where the guts and backbone and danger and angst had gone. Is this the sound of Noisepop? With the exception of appearances by The Ponys, Clinic, The Donnas, The Coup and Rocky Erikson, the rest of the Noisepop 07 lineup are typically Noisepop bands. Some people try to catch as many of these shows as they can, and are able to get in to all of them with the purchase of a badge for the event at $150. My biggest worry would be trying to not fall asleep through 80% of the shows. It might be fun to watch the crowd and see all the earnest indier-than-thou young hipsters trying to impress each other with their specialized knowledge of alt-everything acts and their vinyl only collections of every Animal Collective side project ever. Oh what fun. Count me out.
What’s even more disheartening is just after the Noisepop thing is over we can anticipate multiple night bookings in March with Bright Eyes and TV on the Radio as well as Bloc Party and Badly Drawn Boy. Good God what is going on here? Luckily there will be three shows in March by The Mountain Goats on the 7,8,and 9th, the first two at the Independent and the third at Bottom of The Hill. The Mountain Goats are always pretty amazing live and this tour will be in support of the most recent release Get Lonely which is a somewhat more somber affair than the three previous records which I think boast some of the finest songwriting of our time. I cant imagine a Mountain Goats show that wouldn’t be totally captivating.
Another show coming up that I want to remind you about is February 1st at The Eagle Tavern when two great bands from canada in the electro/dance/rap vein, Stinkmitt and Procon will be returning to tear it up live in a startlingly sexy and filthy way. I’ve written lots about Stinkmitt before so y’all just better be there to catch this act, they are unforgettable. Procon are also quite good, dishing up sex, danger, synths and rock and locals The Judy Experience featuring former members of Veronica Lipgloss and The Evil Eyes will be opening the show. I believe all three bands are on the fabulous local label Cochon Records who are quickly rising to prominence with some very solid and quality acts making up their roster of talented and edgy bands. This show will be a great scene, all quality no filler…so don’t miss it. February might as well start out with a big bang—we could all use it.