Ten New York Bands You Should See At This Weekend's Northside Festival

Making Friendz (aka Tami Hart) plays Shea Stadium tonight.

​Northside Festival starts tonight! Finally, your very own chance to see the best emerging local bands taking over Brooklyn bars for four nights... or as we like to call it, "pretty much every weekend in New York ever." We here at Sound Of The City are ecstatic about this weekend because we know that nothing lures music fans out to an $8 night at Glasslands like the privilege of piggybacking onto $200 "preferred seating" for a Wavves show.

Excuse the snark, but seeing local bands should be your hustle year 'round. But if you need a goofy wristband and a bag full of worthless promotional swag to do it, here are 10 YIMBY-endorsed local bands you should catch at Northside (or, uh, anytime, really), with handy links to interviews and MP3s.

MAKING FRIENDZ
Thursday, 9:30 @ Shea Stadium
Making Friendz makes "punk 'n' b" dance floor mutations that combines the blown-out chugstep of Sleigh Bells with some Justin Timberlake-gone-four-track 'tude that's basically the farthest cry possible from frontwoman Tami Hart's previous career as a tender folkster. Their track "Situation" is our leading choice for "summer jam of 2011."

YVETTE
Thursday, 10:45 @ The Charleston; Friday, 8pm @ Bruar Falls
The noise-fucked duo behind of 2010's illest local 7", Yvette make rubbed-raw, texture-based, quasi-industrial post-punk like This Heat taking their happy pills. What will they affix a contact mic to this week?

WHITE SUNS
Thursday, 11 @ Glasslands
The gnarliest, ugliest crew from Death By Audio's scum-sucking nu-pigfuck scene, White Suns make hypnotic lurch that splits the difference between Jesus Lizard sleaze, Lightning Bolt squeal and abyss-staring wallops of pure noise, often made into glorious chaos thanks to Rick Visser's sundial-turned-cymbal and various other metal things that look like they could legitimately electrocute these dudes at any moment.

XRAY EYEBALLS
Thursday, 11:30 @ Shea Stadium; Friday, 9pm @ Knitting Factory; Saturday, 8:30 @ Union Pool
You'll have three chances(!) to catch this cheerful side project of Golden Triangle guitarist O.J. San Felipe, which has bright, bubblehummy Descendents/Wipers-fueled melodies coming at a rapid clip.

BLONDES
Friday, 10 @ Cameo Gallery; Saturday, 12:35 @ 285 Kent
With the release of a few well-received 12"s and an appearance at the Primavera Festival this year, this krauty, synthy duo is going to be the band to beat when its full-length drops this fall. This is your last chance to say you saw Blondes before the hype machine ruined them for everyone.