Yes In My Backyard

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

By Christopher Weingarten Thu., Jun. 16 2011 at 8:00 AM
Categories: Arp, Ava Luna, Blondes, Christopher R. Weingarten, Javelin, Lists, Making Friendz, Northside Festival, The Men, White Suns, Wires Under Tension, Xray Eyeballs, Yes In My Backyard, Yvette

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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.

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Yes In My Backyard

The Best Local Music Of 2010: Our Annual Mixtape Starring Sweet Bulbs, Marnie Stern, Sharon Van Etten, and Special Guest Hannibal Buress

By Christopher Weingarten Thu., Dec. 16 2010 at 11:15 AM
Categories: Arp, Austerity Program, Ava Luna, Buke & Gass, Callers, Child Abuse, Featured, Hannibal Buress, Julie Christmas, Marnie Stern, Mixtapes, Red Baraat, Roc Marciano, Sharon Van Etten, Sightings, Skyzoo and !llmind, Sweet Bulbs, Twin Stumps, White Hills, Year In Review, Year of the Tiger, Yes In My Backyard, Zs

Yes In My Backyard is a semiweekly column showcasing MP3s from new and emerging local talent. This is a compilation of 2010's best local music, lovingly curated by YIMBY columnist Christopher R. Weingarten. See last year's tape here.

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R.I.P. Chris Weingarten's old blue trucker hat. Photo by Rebecca Smeyne.
Have you heard the one about how the recession is over? Uh, don't tell it to New York City's musical community. While our center-of-the-universe assembly line of hype puttered on unabated, 2010's biggest up-and-comer success stories were actually beamed from the outer limits of the five boroughs--Titus Andronicus (Glen Rock, NJ), Screaming Females (New Brunswick, NJ), Phantogram (Saratoga Springs, NY), Real Estate (Ridgewood, NJ)--places where money can go to tour vans instead of landlords, where musicians aren't paying $400 a month for the luxury of sharing a practice space with three other bands. The remaining New York City indie-crossovers all benefited from frugal one-man home-recording set-ups (Oneohtrix Point Never, Matthew Dear), stripped down line-ups (the Drums, Sleigh Bells, Matt & Kim) or simply embracing the idea that sounding mushy is smarter than buying new gear (Small Black).

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Yes In My Backyard

Download: Arp, "From A Balcony Overlooking The Sea" (SOTC Premiere)

By Christopher Weingarten Thu., Aug. 26 2010 at 9:00 AM
Categories: Arp, Christopher R. Weingarten, Featured, MP3, Yes In My Backyard

Yes In My Backyard is a semiweekly column showcasing MP3s from new and emerging local talent.

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Sean McFarland
As New York's increasingly chill/dark waves of synths grow colder and more insular, our own Alexis Georgopoulos, a.k.a. one-man bliss machine Arp, holds tight to the Düsseldorf dream of the ethereal, expansive, extroverted and quixotic. Formerly the drummer (then bassist) of San Fran post-punks Tussle, Georgopoulos split the band to create 2007's cult hit In Light, a glowing hot barb of sunset-ready Harmonia synths and hypnotic drone. After a move to New York, he's returned with the follow-up, The Soft Wave (due September 7th, via Smalltown Supersound)--easily one of the best local releases of the year. Though Arp was once a strictly synth affair, The Soft Wave very subtly adds more instruments to Georgopoulos's arsenal of bleary balearics. But the album's most arresting track is a lone vocal song, "From A Balcony Overlooking The Sea," a bittersweet murmur-and-soar inspired by John Cale and director Eric Rohmer. The track is a breezy sandgazer whose most visible influence is the vocal records of Brian Eno (right down to that Frippian guitar solo!), creating a melancholy-yet-hopeful vibe inspired by life changes. "I had just made the decision to leave San Francisco for New York," says Georgopoulos. "I was thinking about my friends. Things ending. Things beginning."

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