Fresh out of doors

thanks are due to Aa members both permanent and auxiliary for a great time at Sunday's Roosevelt Island event. above is pretty much what it was like if you weren't there.

saw many awesome bands thriving sans electricity--including the impeccably harmonious Dirty Projectors and Vampire Weekend, one of the wittiest and most sheerly enjoyable bands in recent memory (and subjects of a (!) New York Times profile today)--but i gotta say that the award for Best of Island goes to the Fugue.

you familiar with them? perhaps the best noise-rock or post-Jesus Lizard or what-have-you band in the city. lurching brutality of the raunchiest, most perverse sort. anyway, not the kind of thing you'd expect to translate to the nonamplified setting, but damn, did it ever. two acoustic guitars (Tia and a dude whose name i don't know), plus a glockenspielist, plus (of course) front-madman Joe Somar, standing in his Dark Side of the Moon T, sans mike, and just shouting out the words. it was truly courageous i tell you and the songs really held up. the whole thing (just two songs, but really powerful and extended ones) flew awesomely in the face of the feel-good nature of the proceedings at large, but using mood rather than volume.

Somar's lyrics were for once starkly clear and they were as gross, confrontational and sordid as you'd want, but somehow poetic too. best line: "you're just a little Scorpio / it'll never work out / i'm a water sign / and you're an asshole." by that time the crowd was rapt and everyone laughed and cheered at that line. it sounds dumb to say so, but this was a fucking brave performance, esp. coming right after something so straightforwardly tuneful as Vampire Weekend. long live Die Fugue. and Todd P's Springtime Roosevelt Island BBQ as well.