LCD Soundsystem and Justice headline the McDowell Mountain Music Festival, with supporting acts including Alvvays, Slow Pulp, Confidence Man, Summer Salt, and Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs.
Phoenix band Playboy Manbaby headline this indie punk roundup with their chaotic, absurdist garage rock, wearing satirical punk influences like The Dead Kennedys on their sleeves. Fellow ironists Dune Rats and Boy Wonder open the show.
The Rebel Lounge hosts this roundup of local female-fronted bands. sarah june. headlines with soft, introspective acoustic pop that evokes modern sadgirls like Phoebe Bridgers. Incongruously, Maeby appears to perform some kind of electroclash technopop. Many of these other bands don't even have an Internet presence! So underground!
Saint Motel's perky indie pop sounds suspiciously like it might be used to advertise a Target summer sale, but it's poppy and fun and maybe we don't have to think about this stuff quite so much and are allowed to just dance occasionally. Great Good Fine OK take this sound in more of a dreampop, indie-electro, MGMT direction. Falsetto abounds.
Sir Woman's bouncy bedroom pop rests on a foundation of synths and drum machines and borrows more liberally from funk, soul, R&B, and disco than her sadgirl peers, with a sound closer to smoothcore, ready-for-NPR contemporaries like Lake Street Dive and easy-listening forebears like Hall and Oates.
Neo-bluesman Pokey LaFarge brings indie rock sensibilities to bayou roots-rock instrumentation. One nerd who spent his childhood listening to Dr. John, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and Donovan can recognize another. Cicada Rhythm's backwoods harmonies evoke a similar slew of Americana revivalist influences.
Destroy Boys interpolate grunge, punk, and metal into a modern mélange of tough-girl rock and roll, with vocals reminiscent of bands like French Vanilla, Cherry Glazerr, and Cry Babe. Farmer's Wife similarly evokes predecessors like Nirvana and the Meat Puppets; Deux Visages is no less aggressive but occasionally reveals a softer, sweeter vocal delivery.
Los Angeles garage wunderkinds The Linda Lindas formed at a music camp for girls and hit it big quick, opening for Bikini Kill and recording a soundtrack for the film "Moxie" while still in their teens. I think they're still in their teens. Former high school prodigy garage band Be Your Own Pet reunites to open the show.
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Dream-pop-rockers Cryogeyser return to the Rebel Lounge with their spaced-out, depressive guitar jams; juxtaposed against the sweet, clear vocals of lead singer Shawn Marom. Starling frontwoman Kasha Willett's reedy, slightly nasal voice soars over the heavy, distorted guitar chords and lugubrious basslines of the band, clear descendants of shoegaze pioneers like Sonic Youth and My Bloody Valentine.