The Desdemona Festival: A Recap.

Some initial notes about the first Desdemona Music Festival, which took place this past weekend in Cincinnati:

It was a not-for-profit venture by a first time concert organizer (a little dude named Nick Spencer) relying exclusively on volunteer help, and it went off, at least to me, without a hitch, which is an extremely impressive feat. Only one band dropped out (The Sundresses, who I’ve never heard of anyway), and everyone hit the stage on time. The venue, Sawyer Point Park, is right on the Ohio River (Kentucky’s on the other side), which made the whole thing incredibly scenic (the main stage was bordered by a huge yellow overpass bridge--above). It’s also a massively huge park, which meant that the stages were far enough apart to prevent any bleed-through during sets. Another really cool thing was that this is the first year for the festival, so Spencer was giving press passes to anyone with a blog, which means that I (and like every blogger from the tri-state area) got basically free access to anywhere we wanted, including standing right in front of the stage and sometimes on the stage. Security was nearly non-existent, which was a little strange at a festival of this size, but I suppose it was a combination of the money factor (I think they just barely broke even) and the fact that they hoped indie rock kids would behave themselves, which they did. The crowd was pretty thin, although it seemed to double each day. The lineup was nicely varied—the coups of Ghostface and Annie balancing out the indie-tastic rest of the players—and while the first day probably could have been swallowed by the other two, leaving it a two-day event instead of three, the sheer amount of bands was really impressive. And I have to give a quick shout to the city of Cincinnati, which managed to entertain Forrest and I until 4pm each day, when the shows started. We hung out in the historic, pretty Over the Rhine part of town (part of which has been gentrified and gallery-ed, part of which hasn’t) and took a day trip to the Cincinnati Art Museum (which, by the way, is great to do when one’s significant other goes to art museums all the time), where we saw the amazing texture of Anselm Kiefer and also Frank Duveneck’s “The Whistling Boy.”

Margot and the Nuclear So & So’s. We arrived at the park during their set, and after watching them, I can agree that they’re much, much more impressive on stage than on record, where I’ve never been able to get into them, even slightly. There are like a hundred of them (as you probably know) playing cellos and guitars and horns and one of them banging away on any piece of percussion he can find. Actually, that guy’s name is Casey, and I met him after the set, at which time I for some reason I can’t remember, I offered to dub him a live Elvis/Attractions set from 1979 I have. So, please remind me to do that.

The Apples in Stereo. I’d never seen this band live, nor really listened to them on record, but they marked the point in the afternoon when I decided that every concert ever should be held outside. Their Saturday Morning Cartoon Indie Rock© sounded great when it was allowed to spread itself through the air and hit my ears softly, and I imagine it would sound really bad in a small club. And I also came to the conclusion that lead singer Robert Schneider looks like Frank Black’s younger brother.

Ghostface Killah. It’s an understatement to say that Ghost was my most anticipated performance of the first day. He was who I wanted to see most, by far, of any of the festival’s performers. I was curious how he’d interact with the wide-open venue and if he’d be able to motivate about 3-400 pretty tired and sweaty indie-rock kids. After a blissfully brief hypey intro by two guys I think from Theodore Unit (including a riff on Pete Rock and C.L. Smooth’s “T.R.O.Y.”), Ghost walked out and my worries were immediately ameloriated. Sporting sweats and an oversized white t-shirt airbrushed on the front with a Tony Starks cartoon and the back with one for Fishscale, he proved himself to be as charismatic and talented as I’ve heard he is live. I had to scribble notes down back at the hotel, but I remember him doing most of “Ice Cream,” the astounding first verse from Supreme Clientele’s “Nutmeg,” and ODB’s “Shimmy Shimmy Ya,” with which an amazing amount of the crowd rapped along, which pleased me to no end and actually caused Ghost himself to drop his mic for the second half of the first verse. The rest of the set was a medley of stuff from the new one, including “Be Easy,” “Back Like That” and “Jellyfish,” the latter serving as a transitional moment where the stage turned into a club, Ghost inviting all females present (including the cute chick from Northern State, who snapped a cell phone pic) to come up and make with the white girl dancing to what was basically a progression of old obscure soul songs, and, of course, part of “Strawberry.” Most of the girls had little to no idea what rhythm was, but Ghost and his two hypemen didn’t mind at all.

Apollo Up. The first show I caught on Day Two was also my first at Stage Two, which was impressively set in the middle of three tunnel-things from some old-ass water conduit. It framed the band nicely, and gave us some very desirable shade, given that the sun was on blast and it felt like it was 2,000 degrees at 5pm. Apollo Up has been blanketing music blogs with their debut CD, the lamely titled Chariots of Fire, and I managed to take a listen to it about a week before the show, and I knew I wanted to catch them. Lead singer Jay Leo Phillips sounds almost identical to This Year’s Model-era Elvis Costello, and the chugging rhythm of the bass and drums gives it a hot-rod punk-ish feel, which somehow fits well with the fact that Phillips also likes to shred off some metal guitar solos. The song “Even if You Don’t Die” (mp3) was especially great, with the Get Happy-esque lyrics “The damage is done/there’s nowhere to run/we're tapping the phone lines/we're tapping the phone lines when you're gone.” And I stood next to the bass player during Ghostface and watched him rap the entire first verse of “Shimmy Shimmy Ya,” so that counts for a lot.

Mates of State. They’re just as cute and amiable as they sound on record. Kori Gardner’s unique, buzzy organ fills in any acoustic holes leftover by the fact that there are only two instruments in the band, and Jason Hammel is a crack drummer, which is good, because there’s no bass player. Some girl yelled out for “Think Long,” and it was cute because Gardner couldn’t tell what she was saying at all at first, but got an idea and started into the song, asking “is this it?” and then playing the rest of the song. They also played “Ha Ha” (mp3), which is far and away my favorite song by the band and, if this blog would have existed in 2003, would have been prominently featured in a year-end singles roundup. They also took another request, this one I think birthday-related, for the Randy Newman song “Beehive State” that they released on a now out of print 7” a million years ago. They were impressed enough by the request to attempt it, but with a caveat from Gardner that if they started screwing up, they’d stop halfway. They finished it.

Stellastarr*. Stellastarr bores me on record and they bored me live. Shawn Christensen sounds just as dreadful in person as he does coming from my stereo—like a lame, macho Robert Smith.

Enon. (setlist: Ah Ha/Green T(?)/Salty/Old Dominion/Starcastic/Kanon/Knock That Door/In This City/Ashish/Rat A Tat/Sabina’s(?)/Nightmare of Atomic Men/(encore) Pleasure and Privilege) (new songs in italics)

After Ghostface, Enon was my most anticipated part of the festival. I’ve never seen them live before, and I know they’ve been working on some new material. I booked ass over to see them after I peed, and I got there in the middle of the first song, which was, I’m pretty sure, new. They’re pretty great live, with the very photogenic Toko Yasuda gracefully rocking a denim one-piece miniskirt while nailing “Kanon,” “In This City” and an intense “Knock that Door.” Schmersal took the lead on marathonpacks all-time favorite bloody rockers “Old Dominion” (mp3), “Pleasure and Privilege” and most of the (I think) five new songs, perhaps because they’re in their early stages, or perhaps because they’re reverting back to High Society mode. Either way, their set was, to that point, the highlight of the festival.

Annie. (setlist: Always Too Late/The Wedding/Chewing Gum/The Crush/Come Together/Heartbeats/(encore)Kiss Me/Me Plus One)

Until Annie came on stage, that is. Spencer was bold to book her as the headliner of the second evening, instead of, say, the more popular We Are Scientists or something. The sparseness of the crowd demonstrated their general ignorance of her existence (perhaps they were expecting some sort of Broadway revue or Annie Lennox or something), but she seemed blissfully unaware of pretty much everything anyway, and played like she was dancing in her bedroom or some shit, which was just great. She was backed by a drummer/guitarist with blond dreadlocks and a rockabilly Norwegian Giorgio Moroder, but she naturally commanded the attention of everyone in attendance. Every movement was perfectly choreographed, and she’d do this little marching thing around the stage like a little pixie soldier, pointing at the crowd at the proper times and making sure to point at each half equally so as to include everyone (above). The songs were interpreted interestingly, with “Chewing Gum” a duet with her vocodered DJ, new song “The Crush,” a searing, propulsive slice of sleek dance rock, and set highlight “Come Together” as dramatic (and even longer) as it is on record, proceeding through three sections like a disco opera. Annie even faked passing out during the middle, before rising and finishing the song. It was a great way to end the night.

Rogue Wave. We got to the park on Sunday in time to get up front for Rogue Wave (1/2 of whom is above), who braved really shitty sound to put on a pretty good set of workman-like rock and roll. They’ve always completely put me to sleep on record, but the live setting (on the tunnel stage) brought out their best, which is basically a light-rock Built to Spill with some grunge dynamics thrown in.

The Stills. For a while, I thought that The Stills were in fact The Thrills, the Irish Beach Boys band from a few years back, and I was excited to sit in the lawn in the sun and listen to them. But they were the Stills, and they were as blah as they are on their two CDs. Someone buy these guys a hook to hang a song on, please. I drank a lot of beer during this time.

We Are Scientists. These guys packed the bridge stage (see above) more than any other band, and it’s not surprising in the slightest. If you’re not familiar with them, they’re basically the new Blink-182 (goofy, cute pop-punk three piece with vanilla melodies and sappy obnoxious sentiment). They were telling jokes in between songs and making the crowd laugh. Get ready to never hear the end of them for the next few years.

The Fiery Furnaces. (setlist: Chris Michaels/Crystal Clear/Straight Street/Police Sweater Blood Vow/My Dog Was Lost But Now He’s Found/Asthma Attack/Benton Harbor Blues/Quay Cur/The Garfield El/A Candymaker’s Knife in My Handbag/Evergreen/Teach Me Sweetheart/In My Little Thatched Hut/Black Hearted Boy/Leaky Tunnel>Tropical Ice-Land/Single Again/Blueberry Boat)

Easily the best set of the festival. Easily. It was essentially the same format I saw in Indianapolis and wrote about here, but this one was much tighter, more assured, louder, and just fucking amazingly great. Where Matthew seemed to be just pissed off for the majority of the former set, he was nearly giddy here, never casting a glare at Eleanor or seeming visibly dissatisfied with how the interpretations were proceeding. If you don’t know the Fiery Furnaces, they like to make their live shows as challenging as possible, both for the fans and themselves, by deconstructing the recorded versions and (on this tour) elimnating the keyboards in favor of a thunderous, complex Fun House full-on attack. They overcame some initial sound problems (Eleanor’s mic was buried) to rip through their hour set, with the highlights being the the interplay between bassist Jason Lowenstein and drummer Bob D’Amico (pictured above) on “Straight Street”—just when they sounded like they were on different planets, they’d sync up with Matthew for a few seconds and it was riveting. He then peppered “Blood Vow” with a Stax/Volt-ish funk pattern, “Asthma Attack” with a jazzy hi-hat, “Garfield El” with a Bo Diddley Beat, and “Black-Hearted Boy” with a militaristic march rhythm. But the highlight for me was “Benton Harbor Blues” (mp3), the best track off Bitter Tea and one of the best things the Furnaces have ever done. The mid-verse key changes from the album’s second version were heightened and vacillated between furious metal and a moodier, vampy part and then back again. They played the sun down, and they were riveting.

Radio 4. Sucks. I accidentally went to their stage thinking Richard Swift was going to be there, and I missed the first half of his set as a result. I resent Radio 4 even more now.

Richard Swift. He was the only one I saw at Stage Three, a little mini-ampitheatre on the east side of the park. I really, really wish I could have caught his entire set, because what I did see was really great. He played “Sad Song Street” (mp3) and new song “Atlantic Ocean,” which is jaunty and poppy. I wish I had more to say about him.

The Walkmen. They were chosen to close the festival, and really, why not? Their live shows are fiery, triumphant celebrations of sheer, monochromatic volume that is still settling down when your head hits the pillow, and they ended the three-day event with a prolonged bang. It’s been a longstanding personal axiom I deliver to anyone who cares and many who don’t that a live setting serves as a great equalizer for bands with sonically diverse back catalogs. Guided By Voices is the example I offer most—anyone who knows the band knows that the best way to experience them was live, where the hissy stuff from Alien Lanes sounded just as majestic as the cavernous sounds from Isolation Drills. Now I can add the Walkmen to that list. The songs from the new one, A Hundred Miles Off, sound positively sunny and langorous next to their predecessors, but last night they fit with the previous catalog surprisingly well, even creating parallels I wouldn't have otherwise noticed. Early in the set, “Danny’s at the Wedding” followed “Wake Up” perfectly, echoing the latter’s buoyant, off-kilter rhythm. Then, “Thinking of a Dream I Had,” from Bows and Arrows, made me realize that, oh yeah, it’s pretty much straight-up referencing Another Side of Bob Dylan. But the highlight for me was the one-two punch of “Another One Goes By” into the early cut “We’ve Been Had,” each one sounding as if it were written for the dusty, cobweb-populated pianos on which they were played. “Another” in particular was fantastic, and gave me pause to consider that the Walkmen’s version blows away Mazarin’s original (from last year’s We’re Almost There, the title of which sounds like a corollary to that of the Walkmen’s current one). They hit the biggies, too, including “The Rat,” which if you haven’t seen it live, you must to truly appreciate it—Leithauser prowls around the stage with the mic cord wrapped around his fist, leaning back to shred his larynx—and “Louisiana,” the divisive first single from Hundred. It ended the show loudly (the great thing about the Walkmen live is that loud is the only setting they know) and featured a great trumpet part by unfazeable guitarist Paul Maroon (below), who was forced to lose his breath and almost pass out as the band ended the set, and the festival, with an extended cymbal-crashing guitar-pounding climax.