Dinosaur Feathers//History Lessons

As promised, babies, it’s Northside Week!

What does that mean? Here’s what: to count down to this weekend’s Northside Fest, we’ll be giving you a daily listing of the shows you CANNOT miss, telling you why you CANNOT miss them and, of course, throwing in a tantalizing track to accompany the selection. After all, a badge to the entire festival costs but $50. This is a serious deal for how many shows you are going to joyfully CRAM into the (long) weekend. Details on how to get badges: here.

Also, if you find yourself sprinting from one venue to the next, pressed for time, consult the Don’t Miss-o-Meter (here-to-for referred to as the DMoM). We’ll tell you on a scale of 1 (Good Distraction) to 10 (MUST SEE) how fast you should run to get in the door.

Let’s kick it off with Thursday, the first day of the fest and just three short days away:

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9:30 PM
Dinosaur Feathers @ Public Assembly
DMoM: 3

Hella smart, harmony-flecked truly unique pop with a beat--do not miss these local good guys.

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10:30 PM
Thao and Mirah w. The Most of All @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
DMoM: 8

Two of my favorite indie rock ladies have apparently joined forces to form a suburb super group.
OSS posts about Mirah.
OSS posts about Thao.

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11:00 PM
Wavves @ The Knitting Factory
DMoM: 6

Wavves, purveyor of perfectly crafted fuzzy surf punk, has a rep for being an unpredictable stage show. Who knows what you might catch. Bonus: if you haven’t been to the new Brooklyn Knitting Factory, now’s your chance.
OSS posts about Wavves.

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11:30 PM
?uestlove DJ Set @ Brooklyn Bowl
DMoM: 6

Legendary Roots drummer ?uestlove rocks a DJ set. No doubt we'll hear all kinds of delicious obscurities from his record collection.


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LATE ADDITION:
12:00 AM
Anni Rossi @ Matchless
DMoM: 6

Quiet Color has been hyping up their secret closer for a bit now. Pleasant surprise: it's friend Anni Rossi.



History Lessons.mp3

There must be something in the story of our history.


OSS has a Northside Showcase!

Mirah//1982

Now, let's travel just a few years into the future, to 1982, where future K Records all star Mirah (who has been mentioned before) is playing Atari in her living room, probably in Bala Cynwyd*, PA, just outside of Philly.
*Sidenote: I really love when people not familiar with the Philadelphia metro area attempt to pronounce "Bala Cynwyd." It's "Ba La Kin Wood," for the record, homies.

A year later, in 1983, THE HUMBLE NARRATOR OF THIS BLOG will be born in Hackensack, NJ. A few years after that, my family would frequently travel to see family friends who had, awesomely, an Atari (ready for home use in, really?, 1977) AND a pinball machine in their basement. Some particularly bright childhood memories for me were the mornings spent in their old Pennsylvania farmhouse in PJs with the family's oldest son and still dear friend Matt, playing Pac Man, Donkey Kong and some military-ish shooting game that I can't remember the name of. Matt?

Old school video games are awesome. Did you know that you can now download emulators for computers and play all your favorite games from childhood. I recently did this at the urging of some friends/bandmates and my life hasn't been the same, not necessarily in a good way. Mostly, I've been glued to a chair listening to the audio version of Game Change (which is completely cheap and salacious) while frantically trying to defeat pixelated viruses with pixelated pills in Dr. Mario.
Also, if you live in NY, you can go play all the arcade versions of these old games in person, while drinking overpriced microbrews, at Barcade in Williamsburg. I have a friend coming to town from LA this weekend and I am thinking about putting this on our list of places to hit up.

Anyway, video game digression aside, the point of this is that if you were a child of the 80s, like I was, life was pretty rad. We had the fun of video games (and, as Mirah points out, the fun drama of destroying our friends and siblings at them), Saturday morning cartoons and the Sunday funnies, but not the electronic time-suck of the internet and cell phones. We played outside a lot and would later be excited by things like snap bracelets. Public Enemy and Faith No More were just forming, while ABBA and The Eagles were breaking up. Life was good.



1982.mp3

Frogger, I'm a frog.
Breakout, you're a dog.
You're a dog for trying to run me over.
1982, I'm playing Atari
In my living room.

Time Travel Prep: Now that we're in 1982, you should probably know some key facts so you can blend in, BTTF style. In the US, we're having a recession and Toyota just came out with a new kind of car. It's called the Camry. Cal Ripken JR. is going to break records, the St. Louis Cardinals are going to win the World Series and Time Magazine's Man of the Year is going to be, for the first time, non-human: the computer. Very interesting, considering that Apple's about to introduce it's much-hyped Tablet-of-the-Future today. 1982, how far we've come.

Mirah//Mt. St. Helens

You know the albums you play so much that you kind of can't even listen to them anymore? These are the ones that are so good, so burned into you, that you just OD on them. This is how I feel about Mirah's Advisory Committee.

I first encountered Mirah on one of my epic roadtrips with Stevie. He described her to me as "your new favorite band." And he was right. It was definitely love at first listen. I kept rewinding the tape and queuing it up again, as Stevie slept in the passenger seat.

After that, I had a number of funny Mirah experiences, including traveling to strange places (like Canada) to see her, friends opening up for her, friends letting her stay in their rooms. Mirah, you are everywhere.

Mt. St. Helens is a beautiful song, which showcases all her talents: great songwriting, beautiful lyrics and amazing Phil Elvrum-produced sounds and builds.



Mt. St.Helens.mp3

I could never come back home again.