On Friday, Music Hall of Williamsburg hosted a stellar set of indie rock with legendary local icons Vivian Girls (their first NY show since 2011!) and Widowspeak, along with the up-and-coming Brooklyn bands Eternal Summers and Heliotropes.
Everybody's favorite shoe—that would be Converse of course—sponsored the free-with-RSVP event. I'm not exactly sure if it was required of performers to don the shoes, but it was probably mere coincidence that I caught Vivian Girls bassist Katy Goodman wearing a pair of ankle-high all-black converse. Sweet. I'm sure she was not the only one wearing them too, but I've always felt that winter is not the best time to wear my pair.
But I digress. It was a night of memorable performances, start to finish, although I missed most of the Heliotropes so I guess I can't really say that, but I'm sure they were great too! I've been a fan of them since discovering their cover of Roky Erickson's "I Walked with a Zombie." Oh well. Red Bull is apparently curating a new monthly showcase on trending local bands, and Heliotropes will be playing the inaugural event at the Bowery Electric this Tuesday for only $3—count me in.
For the performances I did see in full, all were pleasantly excellent and unique, I guess a little paradoxically, like every band in Brooklyn these days. And that's a compliment to the fact that I am fortunate to see so many great bands in one music scene. But because there's so much greatness going on at once, I was actually not too familiar with most of the acts, so I saw this show as an opportunity to see bands I have heard good things about across the blogosphere. In fact it was this very blog that named "You Kill" by Eternal Summers its favorite song of 2012. And I did know a lot of about Vivian Girls from a peripheral standpoint, enjoying associated acts like The Babies and the work of former bandmates Frankie Rose and Ali Koehler, who drummed for a bit with Best Coast.
I won't bore you with my vapid observations, but here were two noteworthy things: two of the bands were entirely female, and all leading vocalists were women. I really hope that we're at a time in music where no one will think twice about that, because this wasn't a showcase of great female musicians. This was awesome rock, period.
The second observation is that the drummer for Eternal Summers looks like he could play Sabretooth in an X-Men movie, and I'm very jealous about that. Check out my photos if you don't believe me.
And don't forget to check out my photos of Vivian Girls and WIDOWSPEAK too!
-Photos and Story by Joe Waslin
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