Upcoming Event: North Park Music Thing Aug. 7th-9th

This weekend a festival of music/media conferences/ and unparalleled joy will be all over the place in North Park. In a decision remarkbable in its simplicity, the promoters (the San Diego Music Foundation) of this event decided to call it the North Park Music Thing. Even the luddites and morons know what this thing is about just hearing its name . And the inclusion of the word “thing” adds an air of mystery to just what might be going down during NPMT. Its such a great name that a description of what NPMT is about is bound to be redundant, which is nice for me, because thinking and originality hurts.

After an opening show on Friday at the Casbah, North Park Music Thing has its biggest day on Saturday. I’m not sure of the number of the bands, but its like, a lot. Last year the same group of people put on a musical event called North by North Park. Apparently this is a no-no, because some unremarkable musical festival, in Texas of all places, has the name South by Southwest which is confusing to people with poor senses of direction

Last year’s event was quite fun, although I only went one day and for a few hours. The descriptions and promotions I’ve read of NPMT make it sound like it will be more of the same. In 2008 , most of the live music action was taking place in the 3oth st. and university area. This year the promoters seem to be singing a few bigger names, maybe to draw crowds that normally couldn’t give a flying fuck about the indie band playing at the Whistle. If there goal was to get some names that will draw big crowds, I think they failed. The top ranked band of the festival are the Presidents of the United States of America. No, not a duet of Bush and Obama, but that band from the 90′s who scored a novelty hit with a song about peaches. First off, I thought that band ceased to exist over a decade ago. And that other radio single Lump was dreadful, and lead to an even more dreadful parody by annoying-to-everyone but the age 6-12 demographic infamous polka perpatrater Al Yancovic. But let us not dwell on the negative, as there are TONS and TONS of fantastic shows happening at NPMT, and, the President’s “Peaches” is without question the finest musical piece written about a type of fruit.

Now I know what you’re thinking, “oh what a great idea, another fucking music fest” “I just went to Pitchfork and Lollapalooza and my brain isn’t ready for another rollercoaster on hard psychedelics.”  I myself absolutely abhor music festivals no matter how mindblowing the line-up might be. But NPMT is a different beast altogether for many reasons. First off, most the bands are playing in venues that aren’t necessarily right next to each other. You won’t have to deal with the noise of a side stage act flooding into the main performance. While you’re welcome to travel around to all the different venues, my strategy this year is to pick only a few places with the most densely packed quality lineups. Also, don’t forget this is also a conference, so there are panels at Hotel blah discussing the music industry, turutorials for bands who for some reason want take part in the slow death of the Major Label system and other talky talky blah blah boringness. Just kidding, last year I saw the guy who signed NWA back in the day, it was quite interesting hearing an elderly Jewish man explain why the band was so succesful and groundbreaking. This year, I will be avoiding the panels, because at the age of 2,5 I pretty much know everything there is to know about music and music culture. I run a blog for christssakes!

Tomorrow, both as guide to you readers and also as a way to plan my two days, I’ve assembled an itenierary of the bands I will most likely seeing. Because the event is spread out, and packed with some of the prime local bands, getting to every show you want to is an impossible task. I will also note other shows that I think merit, but because I am but one man, I will be unable to attend. My one main piece of advice is please do not go to a coffee house, as the shows will be poor while the bar shows all have at least something worthwhile. My prejudice against the troubadour has reared its beautiful face once again. (Please note, if you are one of my many stalkers, please keep a safe distance. I like the attention, but lets keep a look no touch policy in effect).

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~ by Greg on August 4, 2009.