48 Hills hit up the annual Noise Pop festival (February 19-March 1) to sample the indie music feast. Check out our full coverage here.
I literally got lost among the builder-grade cobalt condos. Taking the 19 Polk to Bottom of the Hill February 28 to see a free show by tenderpunk founder, audio engineer, and all-around badass Sarah Tudzin, aka Illuminati Hotties. I decided to head out to see her after her Noise Pop Festival evening show sold out immediately. This is an artist who sells out auditoriums all over the country, who decided, “yeah, I’ll play a free show in the afternoon at this 246-person-capacity venue because it matters.” She wanted to give love to the ever-giving Bottom of the Hill venue, which will be closing at the end of the year. Sometimes hotties wear capes, too.
But getting off the bus on the opposite side of Thee Parkside, also soon closing (at the end of March), there was just a sea of bland, colorless boxes amidst older homes, fading clues that Anchor Steam Brewery once roamed these lands, a park where on this day, kids and adults were enjoying the shit out of playing some non-league adjudicated softball. Besides said Parkside and Bottom of the Hill, these were the only spots with any type of color or life. They looked, well… kinda lonely.
As Tudzin whizbammed through her addictive shoegaze-y earworms and a few ballads with her three bandmates, Bottom of the Hill made a fine diamond of a weekend afternoon spot, with cold beverages flowing and cool couples of all persuasions cupcakin’. Making use of the tight and sweaty confines, while Tudzin and her bandmembers projected nothing but joy for the special gig. Local heroes Buzzed Lightbeer and Oakland emo outfit Pity Party opened the afternoon show, which, along with Tudzin, which lent the afternooner a precious, insider-only gig feel.
As for night-time Noise Pop festivities further afield, Orcutt Shelley Miller is comprised of three psychedelic heavyweights, who have formed an avant-rock power trio that absolutely goes. Experimental rock icon Bill Orcutt on guitar, Steve Shelley formerly of Sonic Youth on drums, and Ethan Miller Howlin Rain and Comets On Fire on bass—opening for Chicago post-rock band Tortoise at Great American Music Hall on a Saturday night? Well, one glance at the early patrons who formed around the stage, eyeballing all the gear, would have you land on one word: Dudes.
We’re talking a cavalcade of dudes. Bald dudes. Hairy dudes. Straight-edge dudes. Flannel dudes. Beer sippin’ dudes. Longhair dudes. Old dudes. Young dudes. Just frickin dudes, man. I think I saw a couple of women wearing media passes, walking quickly across the room. But yeah, this was a dude-a-palooza show, for sure. Dudes whose partners gave them the night off, just to go graze amongst other dudes.
But all that cutesy stuff ceased as soon as Orcutt Shelly Miller hit the stage at 8:10pm. Even before Shelley got situated behind the kit, he had that perma-grin smile and boyous rambunctious energy he’s known for. A friend of a friend at the show peeped the long beards of Orcutt and Miller, who was in a large-brimmed sunhat, and wondered, “Is this some kind of bluegrass show?” Nah, son. These cats are cutting heads, no peaceful, easy feeling up in here.
Last year’s self-titled, five-song, 30-minute buzzsaw of unrelenting freeform instrumental music—which felt like the ethos of jazz shot through a cannon of feedback resilience—left listeners gleefully holding on at the show for the amusement park ride to, well, slow down. Orcutt, with his famous five-stringed guitar, got right down to jamming work, a space where a young Neil Young might have met and shaken musical hands with the one-of-a-kind, late great Sonny Sharrock. Ripping heads, and then melodically replacing the contents inside. Miller, still with the bluegrass hat and Paul McCartney-looking Rickenbacher bass guitar, fed back stop-and-start rhythms that attempted to keep Orcutt’s fireball squelch guitar lines on a loose pitch count.
And there was Shelly in the middle, just smashing, and bashing with full gobsmacking joy, whizzing his head left to right, clocking and approximating his bandmates on just when to pull this seemingly runaway train into the station. I actually felt bad Tortoise had to follow them.
