​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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Get as close to the drummer as you possibly can

​Oneida/Golden Triangle/Etc.
Monster Island Block Party
Saturday, September 4

Better than: Whatever other show I was actually trying to go to.

It was ludicrously beautiful in Brooklyn on Saturday (some hurricane), and thus the perfect time to, in the course of walking to a free outdoor Williamsburg show, inadvertently stumble upon a far superior outdoor Williamsburg show. A word of advice: If you're ever walking along and you see Oneida setting up on the street -- any street -- stop.

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Golden Triangle take it off. All photos by birthday girl Rebecca Smeyne.

​So Saturday night's secret post-Siren, post-South Street Seaport party was drunken bikini bash out in Bed-Stuy, where Golden Triangle's O.J. San Felipe managed to electrocute himself via the deadly combination of crowd surfing, Christmas lights, and a healthy puddle of beer on the floor. Fellow Seaport refugees Thee Oh-Sees joined in the fun, as did Frankie Rose and the Outs, and a whole host of people in their underwear. At the center of it all was intrepid SOTC photographer Rebecca Smeyne, who just happened to be celebrating her birthday that night. Of course she managed to get photos of the chaos, in between spraying the crowd with handfuls of birthday cake:

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John Dwyer of Thee Oh Sees, pick in mouth. All photos by Georgia Kral.

​Thee Oh Sees, Golden Triangle, and So Cow
South Street Seaport
Friday, July 16

Well, it wasn't a Drake show: Friday's free South Street Seaport indie-garage line-up--Thee Oh Sees, Golden Triangle, So Cow--had a noticeable absence of thrown chairs, flying potted plants, and tear gas. Set against the backdrop of the Seaport, with its ironic juxtaposition of Goonies-style ships and mall-style restaurants, the three bands contended not with riot police but the sun, which was brutal. Ireland's finest, So Cow, took the stage first; following the fast-paced and tightly wound threesome was Brooklyn's Golden Triangle, a six-piece with a penchant for tambourines and dramatic dancing. Thee Oh Sees, from San Francisco, closed the night with their particular brand of spastic, experimental rock.

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Pic by Sebastian Mlynarski

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

Brooklyn's Golden Triangle are an art-dance wet-dream-turned-night-terror. They're less a band and more like what John Waters would imagine a band to be--shimmy and grind, Crampsian slither and caveman stomp, kitsch and kiss, probably a lot of alcohol. It's no joke that audience members sometimes find themselves dizzy and out of their clothes, because this is the colorful, trashy vintage-shop soundtrack to your summer of abandon. Their debut album, Double Jointer, was released back in March on Sub Pop offshoot Hardly Art, and is standing strong as one of the best local releases of the year. They're back with a just-released split seven-inch--limited to 1,000 copies--with their labelmates the Fresh and Onlys, featuring a pair of brand new pounders. A-side "Cold Bones" is a little more windswept and dreamy then their glitter-meets-gutter full-length, and it looks beautiful on them, a damn-near-optimistic mix of X-Ray Spex, Jesus and Mary Chain, and half an ecstasy pill shared at Death by Audio.

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