A Tale of Two New York Cities - Swans and Grizzly Bear

As Will Hermes documented so vividly in his account of it's music scene in the mid 1970's, "Love Goes To Buildings On Fire", even in it's bleakest moments, New York City's musical community is arguably one of the most diverse and vibrant on Earth.  While the city ailed from near financial collapse, blackouts, and the Son of Sam,  Kool Herc was inventing hip-hop in the rec room of a South Bronx housing project, Jeffrey Hyman and John Cummings became Joey and Johnny Ramone and spent the next three decades extracting more value out of three chords than humanly possible, and a strange new form of dance music called disco wafted from old churches and warehouses in Chelsea.

As the 70's moved on, a group of artists and musicians moved into the lofts of the Lower East Side which was an urban wasteland.  Many of these musicians abandoned the traditional verse - chorus - verse song structure and created an extreme type of underground music called "No Wave".   No Wave probably had more in common with minimalist and underground composers than the blues with songs that were short, very loud and very unstructured and tended to veer on the edge of chaos with each chord. Among No Wave's most notable acts included Teenage Jesus and the Jerks featuring Lydia Lunch, Glenn Branca's Theoretical Girls, and DNA.  While achieving any kind of commercial success, the scene attracted and embraced young musicians including Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo who went on to form Sonic Youth, Helmet's Page Hamilton, and Michael Gira who went on to form the over the top act Swans.

The explosion of hip - hop notwithstanding, the New York music scene went into a semi state of hibernation throughout the 80's and 90'.  Punk had become new wave or morphed into a meaner, far more evil twin called hardcore, Saturday Night Fever and Dance Fever helped facilitate disco's early demise, and even the Ramones moved to California.  At the end of the 90's, as the city was going through a renaissance of mammoth proportions, just across the Williamsburg bridge from the Lower East Side, a new generation of bands came unexpected from an unlikely place - Brooklyn.  Bands such as the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs, TV on the Radio, and Clap Your Say Yeah suddenly sprang up and made Brooklyn a hot bed for independent music.  While other indie scenes such as Seattle or Minneapolis experienced a relatively rapid rise and fall, the Brooklyn scene - while occasionally suffering from being almost too hip - has continued to attract vital indie acts such as Yeasayer, Dirty Projectors, and lo-fi pop masters Grizzly Bear.

Over the past few weeks, both Swans and Grizzly Bear, representing the old and new guard of the New York indie music scene released extremely powerful new albums. Grizzly Bear's latest "Shields" continues it run of pop gems while the new Swans release "The Seer" is an over the top, two plus hour album of pure insanity.

During it's initial run from the early 80's through 1997, Swans built a reputation for being loud, abrasive, and being just a bit on intense side.  Gira and crew's antics inspired bands such as Tool, Neurosis, and Godflesh.  On it's newest release and second since reforming a few years back, Swans have created an epic 2 hour plus masterpiece.  Nearly every song is a roller-coaster ride with slow moments building up to mammoth crescendos on a dime or vice versa.  The centerpiece of the record is the 32 minute (not a typo) title track.  Beginning with a barrage of electronically processed horns and percussion, "The Seer" becomes an intense evolving jam after an abrupt climax before finishing as a twisted Middle Eastern style jam.  By then end of the 32 minute experience, you feel like you're in another world.  A complete change of pace from the mammoth title track, Karen O from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs makes a cameo appearance on the folkish sounding "Song For A Warrior".  Throughout the record, Gira allows the band to teeter on the edge of chaos without ever falling off - finishing with, of all things, a two minute, over the top percussion solo.  Gira doesn't sing much on the record but when he does, it almost serves a means to pull the band from the brink.

Grizzly Bear has made reputation for itself for making smart, layered, powerful pop records with an low-fi feel to them.  The hype behind Grizzly Bear was so huge that their 2009 release, Veckatimest, debuted in the top 10 - something unheard of for an Indie Band.  The hype was well worth it with tracks such as the bouncy pop gem "Two Weeks" and the gorgeous, atmospheric finale "Foreground".  "Shields" takes the formula from Veckatimest and takes it one step further.  The opener "Sleeping Ute" is a jangly tune that starts with a very intense first half then fading to a subdued acoustic part driven by a great Spanish guitar piece.  Throughout the album, songwriter Ed Droste creates a layered lo-fi sound to match the mammoth size hooks that dominate.  "The Hunt" uses a sparse drum beat over a gently strummed acoustic part.  gun-shy's multi-layered vocals bring back memories of XTC's finer moments while Sun in Your Eyes is  a dramatic 7 minute finale starting with a simple piano section but peaking at the chorus with a horn section and clanging percussion.  "Shields" takes the formula from the first few Grizzly Bear albums to new levels.

Regardless of the time frame, New York City  has been the launching pad for many types of music no matter how obscure.  Grizzly Bear and Swans reinforce the fact with two powerful releases that are among the best, if not the best of 2012.

Riot Fest Chicago - An slightly abbreviated review

"Loud Fast Rules"

As a punk fan - those three words are all that matters. Starting back in 2005, Riot Fest was a totally independent, grass roots weekend embracing punk music of all generations featuring local Chicago products such as Naked Raygun and The Effigies to punk stalwarts such as Bad Brains and the Mighty, Mighty Bosstones. Originally anchored at the Congress Theater in Chicago (a few short blocks from the Blogmaster general's house), the festival eventually grew into a multi-venue event culminating in 2011 with a 4 night residence with Weezer(??) headlining the final night.

Having outgrown it's initial locations, the organizers of Riot Fest (with assistance from a few corporate sponsors - a necessary evil) went all in and moved the event a mile southwest from the Congress to Humboldt Park. While generally thought of in a more dubious light because of the high crime rate and gang activity in the neighborhoods that surround it, Humboldt Park is breathtaking 200 plus acre piece of urban landscaping similar to Brooklyn's Prospect Park.

The move allowed the organizers to set up four stages, a carnival (yes - a tilt a whirl, ferris wheel and everything), and a food row with samplings from a number of local establishments. From a music perspective, the bands covered everything from the legends (Iggy and the Stooges, The Descendents, Elvis Costello) to the established (Dropkick Murphys, NOFX, Rise Against, to younger acts (Gogol Bordello, Gaslight Anthem). This was an extremely well organized, well executed two day festival that immediately put it in the same league as Pitchfork and Lollapalooza but keeping a local, independent vibe to it. We can only hope that spirit remains

Now to the bands - I was able to see a ton of bands over the course of the weekend and to prevent this from becoming a PhD dissertation length post, I'm keeping my review of each band to no more than three sentences max. Here we go:

Friday Night - Congress:
 Neon Trees: Bad, worse, worst
The Offspring: More of a metal band than a punk band, they had a solid set that focused on the hits. 

Saturday - Humboldt Park/Congress 
GWAR: Their lead signer wore a codpiece that shot out fake blood. They sounded a bit like Slipknot but lacking one critical ingredient - good songs.
Andrew W.K. The great party set of the festival. Andrew W.K. specializes in brilliantly stupid music. "Party Hard" is a classic.
Gaslight Anthem: If Bruce Springsteen had given birth to a punk band, this would be it. A great, fast moving set from Jersey's finest - they will become huge soon. Bonus points for playing Fugazi's Waiting Room for their intro and covering Nirvana's "Silver"
Dropkick Murphys: They made the most of their short set time with a fast paced, blistering set that mixed the hits with a couple of new songs. It was great to hear "The Gauntlet" live for the first time plus adding AC/DC's "TNT" to the end of "I'm Shipping Out To Boston" was a great twist. Can't wait for the new album.
The Descendents: The inventors of pop punk - if they don't make Milo Goes To College, Green Day, Less Than Jake, etc do not exist. They were simply amazing playing all of their classics plus having punk kids read the All - o - gistics. Thou shalt not commit hygiene.
NOFX: After several opening bands at the Congress, Fat Mike and company rolled onto stage at 1:00 for the aftershow. I've developed a fondness for their un-orthodox live set. Despite Fat Mike's cold (and subsequent hot whiskey cure), they played a quick, great set.

Sunday - Humboldt Park/Cobra Lounge
 Reverend Horton Heat: After making it to 9:45 mass (impressive after a very late show), made it to the Church o' Punk for a forty minute blast of psycho-billy with the Rev. An impressive set playing songs from each album his of 20 plus year catalog.
Less Than Jake: Full disclosure - they are one of my favorite live acts ever and have seen them 10 plus times.  LTJ never fails to disappoint live with their intense mix of ska, punk, and occasional speed metal and smoked again today. Really liked their new songs.
Promise Ring: I was thrilled to see the godfathers of emo come back this year after a lengthy absence. Only saw their first couple of songs "Happiness is All the Rage" and "Very Emergency" but they were fantastic. Hope I get to catch them later this year.
NOFX (again): You know it's a good day when you get to see NOFX twice in 13 hours. Fat Mike's cold really hampered his vocals but still a great, fast set of the hits. Great cameo from Angelo from Fishbone.
Jesus and Mary Chain : They sounded great, played the hits, but had the stage presence of a box of rocks. Am now reminded of why I hated their performance at Lollapalooza 1994.
 Elvis Costello and the Imposters: It was so cool to see Elvis play his classics with most of the Attractions. Turned into a bit of a jam version which showed off his chops as a guitarist but did get a little long winded (a 10 minute version of "Clubland" bordered on overkill). His closing versions of "Pump It Up" and "Peace, Love, and Understanding" atoned for his foray into Dead-land.
Gogol Bordello: Didn't see much of the set but it was like an Eastern European style version of P-Funk,
Iggy and The Stooges: Apparently someone forgot to tell Iggy that he's 65 years old, jumping into the audience, running all over the place. An monster set by the band who started it all 40 years ago. The one two punch of "I Got A Right" and "I Wanna Be Your Dog" still gives me chills a week later
Fishbone (at Cobra Lounge): I got to see Fishbone in a small room no more than 20 feet away from the stage at any given moment. Took me three days to get my voice back. My life is complete.

That's it - my abbreviated (well, not really) review of Riot Fest. While there a couple of bands touring that would have been great to see on the bill such as Refused and OFF!, it was a great start on such a large stage. Can't wait to go back next year.

Neurosis - "At The Well": Folksy Metal

In the 25 + years since their debut Pain of Mind, if anything can be said about uber, uber heavy metal kings Neurosis is that they are very much their own band and do things when they want. Five plus years removed from their last album, the skull crushing Given To The Rising, Neurosis returns next month with "Honor Found In Decay". In advance of the new album, the Bay Area legends have posted a track "At The Well" on NPR's website . Produced by longtime partner in crime Steve Albini, "At The Well" has all the elements of classic Neurosis but also finds them embracing the folky/Americana influences that frontmen Scott Kelly and Steve Van Till have become fond of during their break. It also reminds me quite a bit of the material on the awesome new album by Swans called the Seer. So can't wait for this one to come out. In the meantime, here's the link to "At The Well". Enjoy http://www.npr.org/blogs/allsongs/2012/09/20/161430939/song-premiere-neurosis-at-the-well