The Don Giovanni band’s new album is a huge breakthrough for them and this,the last of 18 songs,sounds like a country waltz without the country, it modulates strongly off the album an hour after it started with no lack of power – A-
American Horror – Speedy Ortiz – This is a quirked out angular wall of guitars broken into from outside by Sadie Dupuis’s off melody singing, and this time at least it works great -like Best Cast meets Pavement, and also not too much like either – B+
A couple of hours later the stoically bemused Dinosaur Jr would be wowing the crowd on the same stage, and a little earlier the angular wit of Mac Demarcos and indie classicism of Speedy Ortiz would have their moment, but for right now the day belongs to the aggravated garage bang of Those Darlins. A quintessentially New York rock and roll moment the day after Tommy Ramone died.
I’ve seen three (Nude Beach, Speedy Ortiz and Dinosaur Jr) amd have heard two others (Mac deMarco and Those Darlins, plus heard of one more (Viet Cong – though less to do with hip underground bands, more to do with hip underground soldiers) and two of them (Radkey and Re-Tros) are a complete mystery to me.
Headlining Laura Stevenson, who I missed, the line up included power poppers the Warriors, the modern world jam of Nude Beach, super-groupish Upset and a band that personifies so many things so significant to Don Giovanni…
