​The year in music, circa 2010, started at the Cake Shop, with a shred-down to the New Year courtesy of Siren Festival MVP-to-be Marissa Paternoster and her band Screaming Females. After a tour through the NYE fetes of the Lower East Side and Williamsburg, that night ended amidst a marathon show at Bushwick's Shea Stadium, right around the time the Blastoids' drummer poured paint on his kit and started splattering away.

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Just another relaxing Tuesday evening in the park. Pics by Rebecca Smeyne, way more below.

​DâM-FunK
Fort Greene Park
Tuesday, August 10

Can't believe it's taken me this long to experience an unironic keytar solo. "You know we came to kill this motherfucker for you today!" DâM-FunK announces, and after wailing on that thing for 90 seconds or so you are inclined to believe him. Meanwhile, a concerned-looking woman hurriedly shuffles three children out of the front row, which means they aren't around an hour or so later when our star attraction jumps into the crowd and gives us a chance to lean into the mic and scream, "It's my life, I do what I want!" Too bad.

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"I was tired of seeing the bell-bottomed guy with the rainbow Afro on compilation covers. It made a mockery of what funk is."

Matthew Scott

Dâm-Funk

The last time New York was privy to the backlit neon glow of Los Angeles' Damon Riddick a/k/a Dâm-Funk, he was on a (motherfucking) boat. It was just him, and us, and his silver stallion of a keytar moving along the Hudson. The Stones Throw artist's self-described "modern funk" music works well in front of this kind of murkily sparkling backdrop; synths glide and collide with syncopated drumbeats that simultaneously reach for the stars, as well as the '80s.

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This is extremely well done. Video gets a little hokey after awhile (Gummi Bears, trampolines, numerous emoticons, flaming Oreos, etc.) but this is first-rate robotic new-wave; gotta love the goatee (and the magic carpet).