The 2nd year of the District’s Awake! Music Festival is making it’s grand sophomore entrance tomorrow night in clubs across town. News about the festival is traveling far and wide, with a sponsorship and podcast from everybody’s favorite online radio station, WOXY, an interview on the local news, and more.
A few last minute changes have been made to the festival — namely the unfortunate cancellation of Cloud Cult’s set, and of the Rock & Roll Lottery, which we interviewed Eric Boucher about in August. But even without those two things, the festival’s still going to give a lot of music-lovers throughout the area enough choices to scratch their chins over this weekend. So to help, we’ve pulled together our venerable music staff’s suggestions for where to spend your DAM! Fest time. The festival’s site is well done and provides a profile and samples of the music of each artist involved, so if our suggestions aren’t enough to help you make your scheduling decisions, take a look around and give these bands a listen.
THURSDAY
>> There’s a lot going on during the festival’s opening night but the double header of Dirty on Purpose and A Place to Bury Strangers at the Rock and Roll Hotel will be hard to beat. Both bands hail from Brooklyn, are surrounded by an almost deafening amount of blogosphere buzz and harbor an affinity for shoegazey guitar tones. Here’s where they differ: Dirty on Purpose channels all that fuzz into sunshiney indie-pop tunes while APTBS assaults the ears with an almost My Bloody Valentine-level wall of noise (they don’t call them “the loudest band in New York” for nothing). Don’t forget to pack the earplugs. 7:30pm, $12.
>> Vandaveer‘s early summer release of Grace and Speed was quite well-received around town, and Mark Charles Heidinger — the man behind the name — has spent most of 2007 on the road supporting it. Also a member of Three Stars alums The Apparitions, Vandaveer is supposed to be Heidinger’s solo, folksy side project, but really its more a blend. At times, it clamors with a kitchen-sink production that recalls Bottom of the Hudson or even the Russian Futurists, while elsewhere it floats along with a pastoral, guy-and-his-acoustic vibe. It’s a bit goofy in parts too, but can likewise be direct and devastating, as on the wonderful “However Many Takes It Takes.” Catch him Thursday at the Red and the Black.
