Northside Festival has come a long way since its founding almost a decade ago, L Magazine’s sub-CMJ (or sub-sub-SXSW) music fest taking place in venues in Williamsburg & Greenpoint (QRO recap of inaugural year). L Magazine and CMJ are no more, but Northside has since expanded significantly with its Innovation portion, featuring talks on the music industry, tech, and much more.
However, Innovation has come to overshadow Music more & more (such as a music badge costing around $70 – Innovation around $1,000). This year also didn’t see any of the big outdoor McCarren Park shows of years past, either free or ticketed, a major loss on the big-name front. But the festival was still a chance to scour the streets of Brooklyn (and stops on the L train) for new music in small places.
THURSDAY, JUNE 7th
Maybe the biggest name at Northside ’18 was Liz Phair, who was playing the twenty-fifth anniversary of her seminal nineties alt-woman release, Exile In Guyville, at National Sawdust. Unfortunately, that draw meant a huge line, with particular limits on press, and no photos anyway. But that also meant missing buzzed about opener Soccer Mommy.
Northside showcase @ Music Hall of Williamsburg – Ted Chase
Corridor
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So instead headed a few doors down to Music Hall of Williamsburg (QRO venue review). While not every Northside venue was right next to each other, a number were, making it easy to bounce over to Music Hall for Montreal’s Corridor, making their first ever visit to New York City. They had some nice indie-pop with just the right level of airiness, and while there were only a handful catching them at their start, Music Hall started to fill as they played.
Lionlimb
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Unfortunately, the following Lionlimb was not as gripping. That often comes when the lead singer/frontman is also playing keys, and is seated at his board, perpendicular to the audience – a trio that also had a drummer, that meant only one standing member. Given how popular synthesizers have become, maybe it’s time for the return of the keytar (Belle & Sebastian’s Stuart Murdoch rocked it the following day to the big Forest Hills Stadium crowd – QRO photos).
Snail Mail
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But these were distinctly the openers running up to the headliner of the night, Snail Mail. It was a pseudo-release party for the group, as their album Lush was coming out the following day. Like Soccer Mommy, Snail Mail came into Northside with some serious indie-buzz (including a New York Times piece on frontwoman Lindsey Jordan), and largely seemed to deserve it. The pleading indie-rock was the right sort of pleading indie-rock, with Jordan & co. reminiscent of Elizabeth Powell (QRO interview) and her Land of Talk (QRO spotlight on) – a major compliment from this reviewer.
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FRIDAY, JUNE 8th
AWAL talks @ Brooklyn Brewery
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It was really impossible to avoid the Innovation talks at Northside ’18, considering that’s where the money was, but at least this one was about the music industry – and free beer & pizza, which was what was most important.
These talks at Brooklyn Brewery, sponsored by AWAL, including ‘I’m My Own Label’ by independent artists such as VERITE, but also YouTube introducing their new music streaming service. While the talk seemed to treat this new competitor to the likes of Pandora and Spotify as the second coming, that’s to be expected, and it does actually seem to be pretty impressive, utilizing YouTube’s vast catalogue of content. The Q&A portion seemed to all be self-described “independent artists” asking how to get their music noticed.
The free beer stopped during the talk, prompting your correspondent to want it all to hurry up, but afterwards was not only more beer, but also tons of free pizza.
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SATURDAY, JUNE 9th
Noise Love showcase @ Two Boots Pizza
Terry Edelman
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Saturday had a full afternoon schedule of mostly free events. Headed to the Williamsburg location of Two Boots Pizza (the hipster one with pie names like ‘V is for Vegan’) for the pizza, but also some acoustic music in the backyard. After navigating through the families with kids (though the place does also serve beer), got the acoustic emotion of Terry Edelman and Jordyn Blakely in the brick ruins of the backyard.
Jordyn Blakely
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Unit J showcase @ Gold Sounds
Unit J is a massive loft in Bushwick that was converted into an arts space, and organizes periodic shows, like at Northside. With that kind of backstory, I was kind of expecting hipster avant-garde at Gold Sounds Bar (which apparently is named after the classic Pavement song – QRO video – though without the “z” at the end of “Soundz”…).
Instead, it was a relief to find some honest-to-god authentic twenty-first century country/folk in Brooklyn. It was so authentic one couldn’t get a phone signal – thankfully the bartender shared the Wi-Fi.
Kate Vargas
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The event, which featured over twenty acts, started in the bar with country twang girls Kate Vargas and Martina San Diego.
Martina San Diego
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DOUGMORE
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The concert extended into the back stage area for the full bands, beginning with DOUGMORE. He had strong country-folk sounds with his banjo – and guitar for his new, jokingly described “edgier” material. Definite bonus points for humorous on stage presence, he felt reminiscent of Paul Simon.
Olivia George
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The bar stage became more and more limited as more and more people showed up, literally walking past the performer when entering, and talking with their drinks. That hurt the sweet songstress folk of Olivia George and the grittier, Joan Jett-esque rock of Meghan Rose.
Meghan Rose
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Pale Ramon
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Back in the main stage area was Pale Ramon, actual indie-rock, including a keyboard singer (who was a bit in the dark in terms of lighting), energetic guitarist, and a pressing sound. Meanwhile, Marcus Jade brought his solo bluesman to the bar stage.
Marcus Jade
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Dru Cutler
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The co-founder of Unit J & the whole event was Dru Cutler, who actually opened it solo in the bar area (where he mentioned making it through three callbacks to play Johnny Cash role on Broadway, when not knowing anything about him), and then his full band later on. Much more mainstream and polished country-rock than expected from a Brooklyn art collective – and way more enjoyable & certainly less self-important than most Brooklyn art collectives.
[also bonus points for introducing himself, unprompted, to your correspondent later on]
Belle-Skinner
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Belle-Skinner was a jazzy singer, including upright bass, but it was too late in the evening for people in the bar not to be talking over (or playing pool).
Megg Farrell
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“Let’s play a Gram Parsons song!” Outright country lives in Brooklyn with Megg Farrell and her band, which is refreshing amid all the synth hipsters. Meanwhile, Bryan Dunn played to the bar with his piece where, “I was gonna write you a love song,” but got alcohol instead.
Bryan Dunn
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Pete Lanctot & The Stray Dogs
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There was country honky-tonk in Pete Lanctot & The Stray Dogs, without going over-tonk. Meanwhile, it was country-twang authenticity with Taylor Plas.
Taylor Plas
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MAMA JUKE
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Even more unexpected than what came before was MAMA JUKE, fronted by Unit J co-founder Eli Bridges, who brought Louisiana country-zydeco (and do a weekly residency at East Village Social). Closing the bar stage was Conor Grant, who had more a performance at the bar stage than had a right to expect.
Conor Grant
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Olu Bliss
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And closing out the whole event was Olu Bliss, with easy listening writ large.
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So Northside 2018 wasn’t exactly the biggest event, and once again the Music part felt rather like the add-on to the Innovation portion. But it’s still a great chance to see a ton of small acts in small places, from the buzzed-about now to the buzzed-about in the future.
-words & photos: Ted Chase
