Ice Cream Man

Since I forgot to bring my camera out to the first pool party we went to, I’m gonna roll the first two into one review. I think that’s allowed in Ice Cream Land.

I arrived in NYC a couple Saturday’s ago from Philly. Since my NYC schedule was a bit open I wasn’t sure if we’d be able to rock the first pool party of summer at McCarren Park. Our local dealer in NYC, Koolman, was open for business on Sunday so we had the cream covered. Normally I’d have to have dry ice on board (which I can’t get on Sundays) but this summer I’ve been lugging around a generator which I hadn’t yet needed to use. The setup was a bit different this year and since we didn’t have enough cream for thousands of people we pulled up in the backstage/VIP area where the traffic was more in line with our pace for the day.

The lineup for the Pool Parties this summer is top notch. The first party featured Superchunk, Oakley Hall, +/-, and some steel drummers. The second was Man Man, Illinois, Dengue Fever, and a marching band. Throughout the rest of the summer TV on the Radio, Blonde Redhead, Ghostland Observatory, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, and over a dozen more bands will be rocking the main stage for the FREE Sunday shows. Thanks to Helio for jumping on board this year as the main sponsor to help keep the shows free for everyone.

+/- kicked off the day to a crowd of a couple thousand folks enjoying the nice sunny day. It sounded good from backstage but I’ll have to plead ignorance due to the fact I was slinging cream throughout their entire set. Actually, I ended up missing most of the Oakley Hall set too. I have their latest release Gypsum Strings and recognized a few tracks off that but didn’t escape Bessie to really see what was going on – d’oh.

I wasn’t going to make the same mistake three times in a row though, especially not with Superchunk. I think it’d be hard to find another band more responsible for the birth of Indie Rock than Superchunk. Their music has that catchy, poopy, high energy feeling that might loosely be associated with Indie Rock, but more importantly, they started their own independent label, MERGE, which truly set them apart from numerous other bands that jumped ship to major labels as soon as they could. The song selection was right up my alley. Not only did they play “Hyper Enough” but they dug deep into the vaults for two of my favorites, “Seed Toss” and “Slack Motherf_cker”.

The attendance at the pool parties this year is probably double what it was last. I’d say there were twice as many people there for the Man Man, Illinois, Dengue Fever show this year than for our Les Savy Fav curated show last year. I guess the word is out and it’s a good thing because the McCarren Pool is huge and can hold at least 5000 people.

Illinois is one of my favorite new bands and I lucked out and caught them a few times during SXSW. They started the day off with “Oh Asia” and I positioned myself right up front so I could jump around and sing along. It worked out great because all the songs I wanted to hear most they played in the beginning. “One on One”, “Screendoor”, and “Headphones” all sounded great from the extra large stage. It’s good to know they can get a crowd fired up in a small club as well as an outdoor stage during the day. Check them out if you’re going to
Lollapalooza.

While we were at the party Kelly from Gothamist was filming a bunch of stuff and the final version has some ICM goodness in it. There’s also some live clips of Dengue Fever from the pool. They went on after Illinois to a packed house that probably wasn’t too familiar with their music. They were in for a pleasant surprise because lead singer Chhom Nimol sings in Cambodian over a backdrop of grooving psychedelic tunes mixed with Cambodian pop music. Check out the video to get a better idea of how well this actually works.

Man Man are from Philly and have a huge fanbase around these parts. I guess the best way to explain what Man Man sounds like is, imagine Tom Waits writing music for a bunch of guys performing music at a circus. The band dresses in all white with face paint and they huddle close together in the center of the stage so they can all feed off each other as they bang out high energy songs that take you to space and back. The crowd was freaking out and chanting along to numerous tracks. It’s easy to get sucked in and I was glad I snuck away from the truck for a while to get my fill. Keep your ears peeled for a new album on the way soon too.

We’ve got another review on the way for out third and last pool party with Octopus Project, Erase Eratta, and Dan Deacon so stay tuned.