Holy Fuck @ The Siren Music Festival 7.17.10

The only times I have ever traveled to Coney Island have  been for concerts. I’ve never ridden the rides or played on the beach. For me, Coney Island means getting a corn-dog and then going to hear some music.

This past Saturday was no different when I attended the 10th annual Siren Music Festival hosted by the Village Voice. If you have never had the privilege I highly recommend it but with some properly adjusted expectations. Due to the free nature of this event, a lot of people come out and many of them are the ones you don’t want at concerts. Keeping that in mind, as well as the stifling summer temperatures here in the northeast, I chose to wait and only catch the end of the show.

Here’s a rundown of the few bands I did catch. I arrived to see the tail end of Harlem’s set. I can’t say I was familiar with the band but they were loud, sloppy, barely coherent, and fun as hell. Isn’t that precisely what one looks for in an outdoor festival? They definitely enjoyed themselves on stage as they coached the circle pit on being more circular.             Up next was Cymbals Eat Guitars. I am not a fan of CEG’s albums but I will say they sound better live than on their albums, which are a bit too neat.  They graced the crowd with a healthy amount of new songs. The songs were too angsty for my taste, and the rest of the crowd wasn’t fully embracing them either as someone behind me offered, “why don’t you play some old songs.”

On to the headliners. At the Main Stage one could spend the evening bopping to some pop tunes by Matt and Kim, but I was at the Stillwell Stage where a completely different dance party was going on.

Holy Fuck, an experimental quartet from Toronto, took the stage despite technical difficulties that threatened  their low end. A quick amp switch and they started their set and sounded incredible. The albums are great but Holy Fuck is meant to be heard live.  Watching how they create the ambient textures and funky sounds heard on the album adds a whole new layer to the music.

The band’s goal is to make electronic music in a live, analog fashion (i.e. without samples and pre-recorded sequences). This includes the use of cheap keyboards, toy keyboards, and honest to goodness toys. Most intriguing is the 35mm film synchronizer that Graham Walsh feeds and pulls or the V-Tech alphabet toy that Brian Borcherdt uses to call out letters in “SHT MTN” off their May release, Latin.

Holy Fuck kept the crowd dancing with a great mix of songs such as “Stay Lit” and “Red Lights” as well as old favorite “Lovely Allen.” This was yet another of my successful musical adventures at Coney Island. If you haven’t seen Holy Fuck live yet, what are you waiting for? They are Canadian, after all, and they won’t always be down here.