Siren Music Festival

Seeing that it’s the middle of July means only one thing; The Village Voice will be taking over Coney Island this Saturday to offer us a slew of great music for FREE! Even more spectacular is the fact that this is Siren’s 10 year anniversary and The Village Voice have invited back their and our favorite acts from the past decade. Do NOT miss Apache Beat, Surfer Blood, Harlem and Matt and Kim!

Check out some pictures from last year where Bear Hands introduced the world to Das Racist and The Blue Van taught me how to DRINK! Be sure to come out this Saturday!

Tags: Apache Beat, bear hands, Bear Hands Das Racist, Coney Island, Das Racist, Harlem, Matt and Kim, Siren, Siren Music Festival, Surfer Blood, The Blue Van, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, the village voice, The Village Voice Siren

Siren 2009

Siren 2009 started out with a nice ride from Bushwick to Coney Island in Ben Foxx’s convertible. As we were listening to The Vanguard’s new EP the sun was shinning bright and a nice breeze was coming over the water. We get to Coney Island around 1:30 and unfortunately missed The Blue Van’s set (more about them soon enough) but Ben ran into his good Penthouse Pet friend.

We had a “couple” drinks in the VIP tent at the Main Stage before heading over to the Stillwater Stage to catch my good friends Bear Hands.

These guys have come so far since I smoked with Dylan on the street outside Hugs in Williamsburg three years ago. The set was incredible until…

Not to say Das Racist was “bad” but a soundcheck to make sure the mics were loud enough would have been nice. However, a soundcheck probably would have given the Siren folks the ability to nix the cameo. Regardless, Bear Hands was far and away my favorite set of the day.

After Bear Hands we headed back to the tent for more drinks and elbow rubbing. The next set we caught was Frightened Rabbit.

They may have been a bit more interested in the audience than we were in their set.

After Frightened Rabbit we headed backstage at Stillwater to catch up with Bear Hands. Unfortunately, Bear Hands was not the most popular band due to Das Racist cleaning out everyone’s liquor. Bear Hands was sharing their tent with The Blue Van and this is where things got interesting.

After debating Kings of Leon and the total clusterfuck that is the music industry we started chugging 96 proof rum and Jack Daniels. I ended up giving one of the guys the “Gentrify Your Borough” shirt right off my back and without hesitation he put it right on. Remember, it was 90 degrees all day and I am quite the sweaty guy… hahaha.

If you have not listened to The Blue Van get your head out of your ass. Their new album “Man Up” is incredible guitar rock straight from Denmark. These guys make great music, don’t take themselves too seriously and I can’t wait to catch their live show.

As night fell on Coney Island their was only one more act to see… Built to Spill. While not overly impressive, mostly due to the poor vocal levels on the Main Stage, it was amazing to see such a legendary act from 5 feet away.

Overall, Siren was a blast, Bear Hands played the best set and The Blue Van is my new band to watch. Now I am off to the Jelly Pool Party….

Tags: bear hands, Ben Foxx, Bob Berman, Built to Spill, Coney Island, Das Racist, Frightened Rabbit, Gentrify Your Borough, RethinkPopMusic, Siren Music Festival, The Blue Van