Noise Pop 2015: Who made the ‘most’ of SF’s 12-day indie fest?

Caribou


Caribou at The Fillmore // Photo by Justin Yee

Photos by Justin Yee, Pedro Paredes, Mike Rosati, Alfonso Solis & Nicole Alfaro // Written by Molly Kish //

Noise Pop //
Bay Area venues – San Francisco & Oakland
February 20th-March 1st, 2015 //

2015 marked the Bay Area’s 23rd annual celebration of independent music, art, film and more, affectionately known as Noise Pop. Running 12 full days and taking place at more than 20 different venues throughout SF and the East Bay, this marathon party is best described as the West Coast version of South by Southwest.

Each year, Noise Pop highlights both the biggest stars within the independent music and art industries as well as emerging artists performing at the peak of their games and has always been ahead of the curve when it comes to booking their acts — and this year was no exception. Curating a demographic of music fans with limitless knowledge, expectations and preferential ranges, this festival never fails to create some of the most memorable experiences in live entertainment throughout the Bay Area.

Noise Pop remains one of our favorite times of the year, not only for its amazing lineups and exceptional performances, but also for its genuine ability to bring music and lifestyle connoisseurs from across the globe to extrapolate, communicate and participate in the independent culture of the Bay Area.

Here are some of our favorite moments from Noise Pop 2015.


Most Likely to Have a Hospital Bill: Ben Gibbard

Gibbard enlisted Sun Kill Moon’s Mark Kozelek to play guitar for him after breaking his wrist before his big opening night performance at the Swedish American Music Hall. We’re still surprised the notorious shit talker (Kozelek) didn’t give Gibbard a harder time about it, considering the last song off Kozelek’s Benji is titled “Ben’s My Friend” and is about how Kozelek went to the Greek Theatre in Berkeley to watch Gibbard play with The Postal Service before proceeding to have a mental breakdown.

Runner-up: PPL MVR

This second-place honor goes to SNWBLL after the band had to cancel its performance at Bottom of the Hill due to some unfortunate bladder issues.


The Black Ryder

Most Likely to Inspire 2015 Festival Fashion: The Black Ryder

Dark, brooding and beautifully tragic. Beyond the torrid love affair story and musical diatribe to accompany the duo of Aimee Nash and Scott Van Ryper, the band embodies its self-proclaimed “Rhinestone Drone” sound into a wicked wardrobe, guaranteed to materialize on the proverbial polo fields across the nation this summer.

Runner-up: Bestie

The Vancouver outfit brought some creativity to the merch table with fun and functional band gear, such as koozies and friendship bracelets, as you can see here via Instagram.

https://instagram.com/p/zjwd2OJ5-G/


Kindness

Most Bar-Raising Performance of the Festival: Kindness

“(Adam) Bainbridge grabbed one audience member’s cell phone out of its hands and filmed himself as well as the crowd with it at one point, elevating the crowd-interaction a notch. He sang from on top of the bar at stage left, walked into the crowd with his mic and made a huge lap while singing to individuals in the audience to end the night.”

Read the full review here.


Dan Deacon

Act Most Likely to Prompt a Mind-Altering Freak Out: Dan Deacon

“Layer upon insane layer of sound interprets into harmonious infectiousness, a feat that hints at an intersection of mathematical and creative genius. The guy takes all sorts of frequencies and cross sections of genre elements and composes it all together into a crescendo of weird, atypical pop. And by weird, I mean the very good kind of weird.”

Read the full review here.


Holly Herndon

Runner-up: Holly Herndon

“People laughed nervously as a slow burn of glitch sounds began to emerge, and before you knew it, her browsing gave way to an interactive, virtual world featuring two-dimensional cutouts of people floating about while strategically-placed cameras around the room recorded and projected images of the crowd, usually catching them unexpectedly on their phones, on two adjacent screens.”

Read the full review here.


Surfer Blood

Most Entertaining Attempt at a Cover Song: Surfer Blood

These guys covered “Hey Sandy” by Polaris, aka the theme song for “The Adventures of Pete & Pete.”

Runner-up: Girrafage‘s rendition of Miley Cyrus’ “Party in the USA”


Caribou

Most Likely to Be Headlining Future Festivals: Caribou

Absolutely destroying two back-to-back, sold-out nights at The Fillmore, Caribou’s live show is currently on a world tour, hitting all of the largest festival stages in its wake. We unanimously believe that this act will be one of the biggest of 2015 and are keeping our fingers crossed that they will be filling the empty spot in their August tour schedule with a stop at this year’s Outside Lands Music Festival.


Flight Facilities

Runner-up: Flight Facilities

“… to consider booking this lineup on a ‘school night’ at a venue with a max capacity of 1,424 people was a pretty bold call. Subsequently though, it was also one that paid off in easily the largest dance party of the festival.”

Read the full review here.


Les Sins

Most Likely to Break the “Local Music” Barrier: Les Sins

“Intermingling his own material with disco classics, 90’s pop jams and dirty trap beats, Bundick had the crowd on fire and easily could have prolonged the party well into the after hours had there been the option to do so.”

Read the full review here.

Geographer

Runner-up: Geographer

With a doctored lineup and powerful new songwriting approach, Mike Deni has taken full reign of the band’s beloved history of material and is moving forward into bold, uncharted territory — a leap of faith that just might cover the extra ground needed to penetrate a mainstream audience.


Dan Deacon could be the ideal Noise Pop artist

Dan-Deacon-1_optPhotos by Pedro Paredes // Written by Mike Frash //

Dan Deacon with Running in the Fog, Blackout Make Out, Dutty Wilderness //
The Chapel – San Francisco
February 28th, 2015 //

Dan Deacon might be the ideal Noise Pop artist, both in regard to the Bay Area festival and the subgenre at large. Layer upon insane layer of sound interprets into harmonious infectiousness, a feat that hints at an intersection of mathematical and creative genius. The guy takes all sorts of frequencies and cross sections of genre elements and composes it all together into a crescendo of weird, atypical pop. And by weird, I mean the very good kind of weird.

His “best camp councilor ever” routine and crowd control mindshare through mid-show engagement games didn’t work best in the confined space of this Saturday night Noise Pop show. The “follow the leader dancer games” had Saturday night revelers jumping into the leader circle out of turn, but it didn’t matter much as Deacon sent vibes out in every direction via his finger-maestro “the claw” move.

Dan-Deacon-2_opt

The space restrictions of The Chapel allowed Deacon to focus more on delivering wondrous live versions of songs from his new album Gliss Riffer, which shined brightly throughout the evening. “Feel the Lightning” is a trojan horse synth-pop vehicle that will attract new fans to Deacon in coming months. It worked wonders toward the end of the ecstatic set.

There was some mild crowd surfing in the pit area of the venue, which hints at Deacon’s punk crossover abilities. There was one crowd engagement exercise that really worked though — show goers were invited to dance on the stage, then were instructed to go back into the audience via a methodical, crowd-surfing, rebirthing process. Once that was done, Deacon ironically put a moratorium on crowd surfing “because I don’t like being kicked in the face.”

One of the toughest things to do in the world of electronic music is to sound organic, to imbue a sense of heart into the digitized nature of ones and zeroes. The Baltimore native accomplishes this through his hilarious and improvisational free-form, stand-up comedy, which thrives on wandering non sequiturs. And he mirrors this by adapting his insane-train of sound to meet and exceed the energy in the room. The “America” suite finished off the show with an extended doom metal quality that gave a sense that no aesthetic boundaries can contain Deacon’s sense of musical exploration.