How do you kick-off a week-long music festival serving San Franciscans indie rock gumbo?
"I don't know about you, but there are two things in this world that I care most about: noise and pop," Bradford Cox declared before a phalanx of gushing Deerhunter fans, packed elbow-to-elbow at Mezzanine Tuesday night.
That's how.
Deerhunter is a band of outsiders with a front-man who seems desperate to achieve It Boy status. Cox is a fascinating character study. On the one hand, he’s notorious for his confrontational (and dress-wearing) behavior at shows. The last time he and his mates were in San Francisco, for example, he reprimanded his drummer and fellow guitarist–for all the world to see during, and between, songs. I refrain from mentioning their names because Cox’s stage presence is negligent, discomfiting, and yet self-consciously endearing; he’d much rather gawkily blab about himself than create an esprit du cour on stage..he's just SO AWKWARD, you know? The band responds aptly: whereas Cox plays like a fever dream, the other hunters are practically asleep during performance. It works. Regardless of chemistry, what sweet music these fellas do make.
On Tuesday, Deerhunter tunneled and burrowed into the shapes and color formations of sound. Echoing some of Cox’s musical touchstones, from the Breeders, to Sonic Youth, to Krautrock, to Radiohead (and a touch of Stereolab for good measure), the rousing structures of melodies and counter-melodies bent and swelled, with hairpin rhythm changes. I don’t have to tell you that Cox chooses to emulate this music–he’ll tell you himself on the band’s blog.
Since their album Cryptograms in 2007, Deerhunter has been harboring attention for their dreamy, asymmetrical shoegaze stylings. That was before Cox knew how to warm up (in his way) to a crowd. By the time 2008's Microcastle was released, his mark was indelible. This performance was no exception.
Before the opening warbly strums of "Hazel St.," Cox preened, "This song is for Harvey Milk." That oughtta get the home crowd cheering. When he suggested he might start removing his clothes during the performance, he got an even more vociferous reaction (the lead singer of opening act Lilofee, who also threatened a striptease, was less enthusiastically received–more on them later).
On "Never Stops" the vulpine Cox crescendoed into what could very possibly be considered an aria: "I had dreams/That frightened me awake/I happened to escape/But my escape/Would never come." Feelings of beautiful isolation and glamorous despair–made sonic–washed over a crowd undulating like moths around a candle. Also exciting about the songs chosen for this show (with nearly obsessive compulsion) was the vaporous, mottled feedback layering under synths and white noise. Cox has a wispy voice that hangs and drags on the downbeat, which gave the psychedelic digital effects an ideal dance partner. It was pretty when it was supposed to be; it was atonal when it needed to be. Cast under a halo of smoke embellished by seizure-inducing strobes, the experience was–dare I say–ethereal.
But that’s not all. Deerhunter’s reverb-heavy, ambient post-punk, droppin’-acid-like-dippin’-dots noise rock, got a 60s-era roll.
One newer song, "Famous Last Words," took with general ease among the if-it’s-popular-I-don’t-like-it holdouts, and (worse) the if-it-gets-more-mainstream-I-won’t-like-it kids. Cox and co. have an affinity for girl-group pop and 80s guitar rock, so they performed such new work with requisite bounce and catchiness. You can’t have shadows without light, Deerhunter suggests. I heartily agree.
Oh, and that was Moses Archuleta on drums, Josh Fauver on bass, and Whitney Petty and Lockett Pundt on guitars. If Cox isn’t going to introduce them to us, I’ll do it for him–gladly. He and his (not so) merry men are welcome at our table any time they feel the urge to pop into town. Just wake them up when they get here.
You've got to give it to San Francisco band Lilofee for showing up in the first place. Under the Noise Pop gonfalon (read: FREE BEER AND FREE DEERHUNTER PERFORMANCE), lead singer Kimi Recor and band mates Rob Easson, Dan Aquino, and Cyrus Etemad put on a show–a damned good one. Recor fawned over the crowd, perhaps too much so. She belted, she bleated, she bullied her way around an auditorium no larger than a high school gymnasium, to get the attention of people who attended Mezzanine for a different reason entirely. (See previous comment about the gratis libations and headliner.)
So what–let’s see. Lilofee’s oeuvre (such that it is at this early stage in the duo’s career) covers industrial beats, power-pop, New Wave, turn of this century electro, and 80s glam rock. So you can see why Recor performs with the gusto of a bull in a china shop. In fact, an argument could be made that she and her band were the most alive performers of the night.
“I feel like I should be in a hair band,” she pealed between stomps and shouts. Eventually, she shed her tights and tossed them into the crowd. Thanks, but no thanks. Just play. People will listen.
And so it went. Noise Pop glittered, buzzed, and hurtled—and that was just opening night. Talk about a gregarious host: lucky early RSVPers gained early entry and were plied with the aforementioned complimentary booze, in addition to Argentinian Hot Pockets (aka empanadas) courtesy of ¡Venga! Empanadas, made-to-order silkscreen t-shirts, and skateboards.
Check out the rest of the festival here. Catch a show!
