Pitchfork/Windish Day Party
Emo’s, Friday, March 20
Pitchfork and Windish certainly win the contest for booking the funnest bands for their day party. Kicking things off outside just a hair past lunchtime was the Mae Shi, Los Angeles purveyors of deliciously sloppy power pop, accentuated with a parachute for the audience to play with and the obligatory band member swinging on the main-stage rafters. Inside, Little Boots, the tiny blonde Londoner who got her big break via MySpace, played the role of überfeminine bedtime karaoke princess, now with bonus hairbrush microphone! Here was the finest in gay disco music making the relative dearth of snug trousers and expensive haircuts that much more tragic. Emo’s started to fill up as the buzzier bands took their turns onstage, namely School of Seven Bells, whose Deheza twins contributed their sultry vox to a sound that was both dreamy and pulsing. Wavves and Dirty Projectors both packed ’em in, but damned if you were able to get into either room to appreciate them properly. The most interesting act of the afternoon was Berlin’s King Khan & the Shrines, a cabal of players wedding the MC5 to James Brown, a thundering horn line honking it out, and a meaty cheerleader/dancer brandishing what looked to be black ostrich-feather pom-poms. Hell, I’m breaking a sweat just writing that!
This article appears in March 20 • 2009.