Mission Mission

So, just in case you were wondering: the gentleman decked out in festive attire made from chicken feet and tinfoil wandering last Sunday’s Noise Pop & Shop at Public Works wasn’t some derelict who wandered in from under the overpass completely crazy. That was none other than visionary artist Jason Jaworski, fresh from the scene of his latest performance. See? Art – the more you know!

Via Arrested Motion

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The day after having our minds and eardrums blown by No Age (and company), we got to see them talk with designer Brian Roettinger of Hand Held Heart at Noise Pop’s Culture Club at Public Works. They went into detail on their album art design process, including a history of record covers through the ages and lots of stories about their time growing up in the LA punk scene, and then they showed us this great slide of David Letterman holding their album:

We think Noise Pop should host Culture Club more often! What better way to recover from a show than seeing your favorite artists up close talking about their work? Allan’s first Culture Club suggestion was a panel of all those new bands with “surfer” in their name, or who use surfing and hanging at the beach in their music and imagery. Are they really all surfers? Do they listen to Dick Dale and the Del-Tones? We want to know!

So, Noise Pop, can you guys make this happen? Invite every cool band that plays in town to hang out the next day and talk about their process or their extracurricular activities or whatever? Hey readers, what do you guys want to see and hear?

In other news, my bike’s brake was stolen while parked on Mission outside of Public Works! It wouldn’t have saved my brake (who steals a used brake?), but Public Works would really benefit from more bike parking. So, Public Works, can you get some bike racks?

Oh and if you want to watch No Age’s rad performance on Letterman, check it out.

[Photo by Honey Jets]

This band No Age played at that sweet Grass Widow show the other night, and they were pretty amazing too. Drum-playing frontman Dean here charmed the crowd all night with a lot of cute banter. Before one song he exclaimed, “I love playing this song!” How cute!

At one point, he mentioned that the night before they’d opened for the Foo Fighters at Wembley Stadium in London. (Wow, right? From Wembley to the Rickshaw Stop in the space of 24 hours?) He said the crowd there sort of looked at them blankly the whole time, “like we were the weirdest band in the world.” The crowd at the Rickshaw Stop booed and hissed and shouted that this was lame, but Dean offered a word of caution, and a life lesson to an all-ages roomful of impressionable punk rock youth and snooty punk rock elders. “No, no, it’s not lame, it’s just how it is,” he said, “They just don’t know. They don’t know what you know.”

I thought that was nice. People need to be more accepting of different tastes. I’m tired of people getting all bent out of shape when I say I like Lady Gaga. But it’s great that he imparts that wisdom while also acknowledging that punks do in fact know a little something extra about the world, because we do, and that’s important.

Grass Widow were one of the openers for No Age the other night at the Rickshaw Stop. They totally held their own playing in between two more aggro bands (Rank/Xerox and No Age), and won me over forever by covering Mannequin by Wire. Here they are playing the same cover at Bottom of the Hill a few months ago:

Seriously, check them out next time they’re playing San Francisco (they’re locals!), before everyone discovers them and they blow up or something. Hey Noise Pop, thanks for putting together such an awesome line up.

I guess that sold-out Wavves show on Saturday was a tad bit sloppy. David Downs reports:

By the closing track, Cooper was so frustrated with his own playing he knocked over his cymbals early. He finished without them, at which point he chucked his sticks into the crowd, and stormed off. Williams yanked off his guitar, hurled it through the drum kit, stalked off and punched Cooper in the back. None of this looked rehearsed.

Whoa! I’m sorry I missed out. I thought that backing band had decided to go straight and act more professional after working with Jay Reatard for so long. Read on for more Wavves antics, and some Best Coast problems too.

[Fast forward to 1:40 or so in the above video for an explanation of why there's 1:40 of Marilyn Manson's "Beautiful People." And for another two minutes after that you can watch a black screen as Wavves plays in total darkness while begging for the stage lights to come on.]

This was one of the few Noise Pop 2011 shows we missed. Luckily The Bay Bridged had our back, and it seems the Ferocious Few, that band you love running into on street corners, is possibly even more badass onstage with real amps and shit:

Seeing them indoors, playing out of full size amps, in a room with natural reverb, had an interesting effect on their music. The increased size and scope makes everything sound infinitely more serious then it does on a street corner. Their songs are transformed from playful rave-ups to something bordering on the biblical. In this setting, songs are based more on their almost Gothic atmosphere than they are on the band’s blistering live energy. A lot of that comes from the drums. When the Few busk, their drummer plays with brushes but at this show he used sticks. Brushes, when played hard and fast on a snare (which is the FF’s drummer’s busking M.O) fills the sonic space around the kit with a dirty, skittering energy. In the setting of the Independent, the drumming was much more spacious—letting a near-constant four-on-the-floor kick drum do most of the percussive work.

Dang. Can’t wait to see it. Read on.

[Photo by Agata Kamler]

Previously:

Increased Demand for Rad Ferocious Few T-Shirts Leads to Barroom Brawl

Ferocious Few Rock Treasure Island

Ferocious in the Streets

Remember this girl shredding down the interstate last summer? That was badass.

Get this: I’m pretty sure she’s in this band Crazy Band that’s opening for No Age tonight as part of Noise Pop 2011. If their music is anywhere near as good as their blog, Crazy Band should rule. The show is sold out, but if you’ve already got tickets or a badge, be sure to show up right on time.

Previously:

Why You Should See the Opening Act

Noise Pop 2011 has been going strong for a few days now, but today marks the beginning of what they’re calling their flagship event. It takes place at Public Works right here in the Mission, and it’s an all-day affair featuring workshops and readings and a four-hour interactive drawing session. Here are details on a couple highlights:

REBAR is the organization behind Park(ing) Day, and my favorite parklet. Today, they host a brainstorming session:

All cities contain voids, loopholes, and niche spaces: pockets of unscripted wilderness that can be explored for their creative potential. Join Matthew Passmore, cofounder and principal of Rebar, for a brief overview of Rebar’s work followed by a workshop that invites participants to bring a photograph or description of a niche space from their own environment, whether urban, suburban, or rural. We will collectively brainstorm ways to occupy these niches in ways that fulfil unmet social needs and improve the quality of our shared habitat.

This will be a hands-on workshop of drawing, thinking, and discussion.

I mentioned this next item before, but just to recap, Nick Zinner (of Yeah Yeah Yeahs) is performing with some friends:

Please Take Me Off the Guest List is a multi-media presentation of the new book by Nick Zinner (of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs), Zachary Lipez, and Stacy Wakefield. A slideshow of Nick’s photos from the book is accompanied by ambient music played by Nick and Stacy while Zachary reads stories.

Culture Club continues into Sunday as well. See here for the complete schedule and descriptions of every event.

I caught two nights of Noise Pop at Bottom of the Hill. Those are a lot of Bottom of the Hill hours. So it was pretty cool when Typhoon, a band I knew nothing about, was the most memorable. They had 11 people on stage — two full drum kits! The Tens noticed some other details as well:

The keyboardist dressed up as the internet. One drummer had a ponytail.

Read on.

Remember, there are still three days of Noise Pop so don’t miss out. I hear there are like, ten people in Battlehooch so maybe you can see a bunch of musicians crammed onto the Bottom of the Hill stage, too.

Some fetishists next to me in line for food at last night’s SFMOMA/Noise Pop event were real excited:

“Dude, check out the way she’s stirring the fondue.”

“I know. Dude, check out her ergonomic elbow sleeve.”

“Dude, I know.”

“Oh man.”

Wild stuff, right? Maybe it was all part of the art.