“Cat Stevens, Go to Hell” (Siren Music Festival 2006, Coney Island)

You know how, back when I saw Art Brut for the second time, I decided everyone clambering over other people to take photos of the band was a douchebag?  Well, this concert had an entire Douchebag Section... and I GOT TO BE IN IT!

The Village Voice Siren Music Festival features two stages, fourteen bands, roughly eight-and-a-half hours of music.  There’s an estimated crowd of 100,000 people.  You can pay twenty-five cents to pee.  Saturday, there was a thirty percent chance of rain (and it did, briefly).  The admission price is exactly zero dollars, so bitching about lackluster line-ups and uncomfortable circumstances is a bit silly.

Something does upset me, though, and I’m not sure what number to put on it:  There’s 10? 15?  20? feet separating the stage from the crowd, a chest-high barricade reserving a whole Mercury Lounge’s worth of space for press and FOBs and VIPs.  It’s the Douchebag Section.  Don’t get me wrong – the people themselves aren’t necessarily douchebags.  I know some of them, a bit, and have now met some others, and they’re lovely folks, really.  But there are no P’s I enough to come between a band and its fans.

Don’t care if you’re the bassist’s mistress and his three-year-old son; Daddy’s gotta go to work, now.  Don’t care if you’ve organized this whole event; sit back, be happy with a job well done.  Don’t care if you’re the East Coast Vice President in Charge of Budweiser PR and you’ve decided to sponsor the show solely because your boyfriend (who’s young enough to be your son, you should be ashamed of yourself) is a huuuuuge She Wants Revenge fan (this week) and wants easy access (This is, by the way, the only logical reason for that band’s inclusion on this bill.); stay back in the comfortable backstage VIP area, drink your free drinks, hobnob, have the members of SWR (OMG!) sign your CD and peel you grapes and grant you sexual favors (or whatever happens, back there; I was only granted Low-Level Douchebag Clearance).

None of you deserve to be closer than that girl who has been listening to Set Yourself on Fire three times a day for the better part of a year because it perfectly describes her life, who showed up seven hours before Her Favorite Band was scheduled to go on because she has to be so close to the music it’s inside her, who doesn’t notice that her skin is starting to peel, or that someone’s spilled beer on her, or that she’s mildly dehydrated, who is going to have marks on her skin straight through to next Thursday from being squashed against a grated black metal security fence for half a day.  None of you.

So when, at the last minute, I somehow got offered a photo pass for the show of course I said... YES.  Yesyesyessssssss.  The power is mine.  Bouahahahaahahahaha!  I would be Douchebag for a Day!

Et cetera.

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I embraced my inner- (and outer- and upside-downer-) hypocrite for a few selfish reasons.  The first is that the way Siren is set up – the two stages are a few packed blocks apart – makes it almost impossible to navigate between them (at least as the day wears on) without missing most of a set and ceding further and further away from the performers.  This was my fourth year at the festival, and I’ve learned that if you’re in the crowd for a long haul, it’s best to stake some territory out and sit on it.

With a pass, you get to shimmy up the boardwalk, tralala (really, skipping is an underrated form of travel) a few blocks over and, hey, you’re right up front, again.  For people like me who don’t like to choose, you can have it all, sort of.  I caught at least part of eleven bands’ sets, and I left before the two headliners.

Normally, catching a half-set would drive me nuts – I’m sort of a completist, in that respect – but seven of these bands I’d seen before, and I had only passing interest in checking out the others.  There was one must-see; we’ll get to them, later.

Otherwise, I really was here for the photos.  I do enjoy taking concert pics – sometimes one or two even come out – and strive to take them as unobnoxiously as possible.  Shy away from the flash, almost never hold the camera above my head, don’t use the LCD screen to frame shots.  Outdoor daytime shows are perfect ops because my camera is nothing special (but don’t tell it I said that, please).  The pros whipped out SLRs with more bells and whistles than Man Man; I was wielding the smallest dick in the locker-room.  But with enough light and time, a five year-old with a cel phone can take a decent picture.

And you should as many pictures as you can, at Siren.  Because it’s a radically underdocumented event, what with only 100,000 other people doing exactly the same thing you are.

I’m glad I wasn’t there to listen – not big on both walking and chewing gum – as everything was thudthudthud, close up.  Siren’s known for lousy sound, but this went beyond that; I witnessed a good part of The Celebration’s set, but have almost no idea what their music’s like.  Beyond the hardworking, mouths-to-feed shutterbugs who need the unobstructed view, I can’t imagine any self-respecting music journalist would want to be up that close, not if they want to do their job well.

A shame:  A free show’s the perfect opportunity to check out bands you’d otherwise not see, but these conditions aren’t really those under which you’d want to form an opinion of a band.

Perhaps the Douchebag Section really serves as a protective sound buffer for the rest of the crowd.  Whatever.  Because all of the above reasons are pretty pathetic and self-serving, I certainly should not have ever been ten feet closer than Little Miss Set Yourself on Fire.

Huh?  Bands?  Okay...

Third time seeing deadboy & the Elephantmen (myspace), and I was wondering if Dax’ dark, often spare stuff would survive a sunny day; it did quite well, actually, and I happily stayed for the whole set.  I’ve a feeling he’d probably always wear sunglasses, if he could.  He was wearing the same Syd Barrett T he had at their Mercury Lounge show, so don’t accuse him of jumping on the hearsewagon.

I hope they haven’t stopped performing “Walking Stick,” live; it’s my favorite of theirs, perhaps too quiet for a festival situation like this one.  They didn’t play their Pixies cover, either.  I’m surprised bands at Siren don’t do more of that – playing covers – to ingratiate themselves with new audiences.

Made a point to take ten billion pictures of Tessie Brunet, because the few pics I had from their Northsix show were blurry.  Because she’s, y’know, drumming.  Naturally, my favorite picture this time was a bit blurry...

...though I like this one, too.  Peaceful.

Sorry, boys, I didn’t get a picture of her dumping her water bottle over her head.

Riggs has a following from his Acid Bath days, so it’s a shame the schedule overlapped deadboy’s set with the only other metal act on the bill, Montreal’s Priestess (myspace).  I’m no metal fan, though, so I didn’t mind missing most of their set.

Three notable things:

• The lead singer/guitarist had a Tales from Topographic Oceans t-shirt.


• I got there just in time for a lengthy drum solo.


• They have a lot of hair.

Last time I saw The Rogers Sisters (myspace), they completely took me by surprise with all sorts of energy and great gobs of guitar noisiness.  This time they seemed both a little less patient to let things build and a little less energetic.  The opening song was awesome, tension-filled, explosive; I stayed for the full set, figuring they'd bookend with an equally intense closer.  The middle songs, though, were kind of meh.

Because I stayed for that whole set, I missed the first half of Man Man (myspace) – a shame, as I hadn’t seen them for a little over a year and had really fond memories.  This time – perhaps because I came in late – I couldn’t really get into Honus Honus’ little junkyard world mindset.  It made sense to me, that first show; this felt like too much random nonsense.

It was also pretty bad for picture-taking.  When I saw them at the Mercury Lounge, the stage was full-to-bursting with odds-n-ends and Man Man men.  Here, they had a wide platform but stayed clustered together at center stage.  Perhaps that’s how they best communicate.  But there were too many people in the pit and too few good angles.  The sightlines were, more or less, like the music:  With so much bric-a-brac in the way, I couldn’t find a way in.

According to The Celebration’s myspace page, they’re from Baltimore; I’d thought they were a Brooklyn band... and not in a good way.  Only one song – a new one, according to frontwoman Katrina Ford – made any impression on me; it had a nice groove, and a nice riff, and I’ve no idea what it was called.  The rest seemed pretty formless, and though Ford is certainly animated, she’s not really engaging.

Stayed all of two songs of Dirty on Purpose’s (myspace) set; they had a longish gap due to technical problems.  Saw them a year ago, and though they’ve gotten some love in reviews, can’t say I’m really interested.  Can’t stand that falsetto, and there are three zillion shoegaze/drone groups out there, right now.

Was looking forward to Tapes ’n Tapes’ (myspace) set; I hadn’t seen them since their four-date NYC club tour in January, and a lot (Pitchfork, SXSW, backlash) has happened since.  Too much, maybe.  I was never in love with their live show, but liked The Loon and wanted to see how they’d grown.

It was mostly a pretty dull set, the energy not even at the level of their old club shows; as soon as I remarked, “They don’t seem to be having fun, anymore,” frontman Josh Grier asked the crowd, “Is everyone having as much fun as we are?!”

We made our own fun jumping up and down, down in the Douchebag Pit, yelling out “I will be your badger!” during “Insistor.”  Still a great song.

A much better time to be had with Norwegian psychedelic shoegazers Serena-Maneesh (myspace).  Quite frankly, they scare me a little.  Emil Nikolaisen seems like he should be running a sometimes-there-sometimes-not carnival in the middle of nowhere, and I don’t think that bassist has had anything to eat since... well, since food was invented.

They did a lot of kinetic, photogenic, ear-bursting things, dragging guitars over monitors, tackling each other and fighting in fields of feedback.  They’re the only act I saw for the first time, here, that I look forward to seeing again.  Serena-Maneesh will be at the Bowery on 9/8 (tix are here) and back in Brooklyn come October (tix for their 10/6 Warsaw show are not yet on sale).

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Didn’t The Stills (myspace) used to sound like The Cure?  I only stayed for a few songs of their set, but a lot more smiles from them than you’d expect.

The Cribs (myspace) are three Brit brothers who make okay-enough indie rock.  I should be thankful it’s not Britpop or post-punk.  Something turned me off, though, and it might have been simple aesthetics.  The cheap pink belt and dumpster-dug shirt sort of screamed faux-po’.

By the end of the set, there was real blood:  Guitarist Ryan Jarman apparently opened up his lip when he banged into his mic too hard, too often.

That’s not good punk; that’s poor depth perception.

Yes!  I finally have that Douche-badge of honor:  My own photo of Eddie Argos pointing.

You know how one of Crest’s ten billion varieties is rather nebulously called “Rejuvenating Effects?”  Art Brut (myspace) is that toothpaste in living, breathing, pointing, four-colored, three-dimensional, two-chord band form.

I went into their set a photo-taking, space-taking-upping, participle-hyphenating douchebag.  When I came out I had whiter, stronger teeth, less grey in my hair, a firmer handshake.  I lost weight, I gained muscle, my IQ went up twenty points.  This is the – count ‘em! – 1-2-3-4th time I’ve seen this band do the same damned act, and it’s the 4th time they’ve made me love life, and love music, all over again.

Late in the day the Douche Pit was as packed as the rest of Stillwell Avenue.  And who should I happen to see in there?  The V’est I.P. of them all:  The diminutive, Mohawked guy from that first Mercury Lounge show.  He wasn’t taking pictures, or notes.  He was jumping around and loving life, and music.  It works, it really does.

“Modern Art” made Argos want to rock, in his stocking feet, all the way over that security barrier (The African-American gentleman in the center is quite clearly more of a classicist).  That song could go on forever, and should have.  Eddie should have rocked back to Stillwell Station, on to the F train, at least as far along as Avenue X.

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The rest of my pics are in this Flickr set.

Others’ photos are gathered in this Flickr cluster.

Videos on YouTube.

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18,000 Blogs:

Brooklyn Vegan-1 2, Central Village, C-wod.com, Daily Refill, Don’t Get Nervous, Ear Farm, Fashion Binge, Fresh Bread, Gothamist, I Don’t Need a Tuxedo, indie-licious, Invisible Man (designer of the Siren logo), Ms. Modern Age, Music Slut-1 2, OneLouder, Pop-Tarts Suck Toasted, Tripwire, Village Indian, YawnYawnYawn, Yeti Don't Dance, You Are What You Watch, Zerfman’s Zoo, and Stereogum (who, of course, won’t bother to link to anyone else’s coverage).

tags: siren music festival  rogers sisters  siren  coney island  man man  priestess  serena maneesh  stills  deadboy and the elephantment  celebration  village voice  dirty on purpose  eddie argos  art brut  cribs  siren festival  tapes n tapes  

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