Grizzly Bear? More like Fizzly Bear.

It's okay, Grizzly Bear. I didn't really want to see you anyway, and neither did the roughly 400 or so other eager young faces who came from all over the city to find the line already mincing along 5 city blocks, including down one side of N. 11th St. and up the other, and those who'd already been in line for an hour before being told the park was over capacity. And neither did the two girls behind me who accidentally got into the "VIP" line and after being told so, scratched their heads and asked -- "But I thought it was free!" And neither did the four Magic Hat summer beers I had folded so lovingly into my knitted cowichan sweater and stuffed into my tote bag, to be saved for at-home drinking. And neither did June and Laura with whom I went and bought some jumbo-sized styrofoam cups of "soda" from the Turkey's Nest in McCarren Park, watching a bunch of punks play softball. And neither did the sunset (which isn't really visible in the below photo but whatever). And neither did the guy naked except for a flesh-colored Speedo merrily greeting concertgoers on N. 7th. Actually he probably did.

This week's Chikpiks

Hate to break it to everybody but summer is (yes, I'm about to say it) almost (here it comes) over. (There. See that wasn't so bad.) As a wise friend of mine once said, summer means nothing more to him than unfulfilled promise. When certain people go on and on about their idyllic beachfront romances and wistful summer memories, I blink and go "Yeah. Am I supposed to have some of those?" To be honest really seem to recall about this particular summer at least right now, with my heat-melted brain, is taking a bath on a steel tub on the roof. And sticking a spoon into my fan blade to get a face full of dust. But the optimist in me says the shows coming up this week will do nothing less than fulfill the promises of all the summers past.

Tuesday, August 25

My Teenage Stride

Appropriate from a show curated by Brooklyn DIY up-and-comer PopJew, Jed Smith's My Teenage Stride are poppy and earnest and oh-so-much-fun. Their latest EP, Lesser Demons, though, is a little on the serious side. It's nice to know he also has feelings. Oh yeah, and I just noticed there's an upside-down guy in the photo above. Massive. With Bright Lights, Surfer Blood and I'm Turning Into.

Silent Barn
8 PM
All Ages
$7

MP3 - My Teenage Stride - Theme from Teenage Suicide


Friday, August 28

Terror Pigeon Dance Revolt


It's easy to say "the picture says it all," but when it comes to this electronic dance-rock "band" (and even that term is used with the loosest possible definition) it kind of doesn't. These are a bunch of kids from SUNY-Purchase (holla!) with a single-minded goal -- to do everything within their power to get you to dance, even it means dressing up as a gigantic foam slice of pepperoni pizza. They apparently have songs, but who cares? It's the "New Saturday Night." New York Magazine said so. With True Womanhood, French Miami and Santino Santino.

Death By Audio
8 PM
All Ages
Price TBA

Saturday, August 29

Psychic Ills, Screaming Females, Sharon Van Etten (Impose Magazine Party with Tables)


Have I written about Sharon Van Etten yet? I haven't? That's...that's unbelievable. Okay, well, I guess it's okay because on Saturday you'll have a chance to go see her in person, which you absolutely should do because her songs are so beautiful I spent a clear 45 minutes one night in February, listening to her play in a liquid trance, falling in love with the guitar-playing boy sitting across from me at a table at Zebulon because her music entranced me into thinking I should. Later we left together and sat on his guitar case and kissed on a deserted north Williamsburg street. (I got my heart broken eventually, of course, but that has nothing to do with Sharon). If you like Vashti Bunyan, Ani DiFranco, or any chick singer who puts every ounce of herself into her music every time she plays, go and maybe her magic will happen for you, too. With Zs, Silver Summit, Future Islands, Air Waves, Boogie Boarder, plus local vendors and a performance by Julianna Barwick to projections of Joel Schlemowitz’ 1734 and Francis Thompson’s NY NY.

MP3 - Sharon Van Etten - For You

Brooklyn Yard
1 PM
All Ages
$10

Sunday, August 30

Grizzly Bear, Beach House

Well, this is it: the last JellyNYC Pool Party and your last chance to seize the infinite but elusive promise of Summer 2009, before it's gone, gone forever and you can never get it back. These two summer-perfect bands offer a particularly lovely way to sit back and let the whole season slip from your grasp. Beach House's oceany vocals are beautifully self-explanatory, and GB delivered more of their unpindownable, idiosyncratic folkish music with this year's Veckatimest. Now hurry, start relaxing before it's too late!

Williamsburg Waterfront
2 PM
All Ages
Free

MP3 - Grizzly Bear - Cheerleader

Can they still call them pool parties?

The announcement took forever, but the Summer 2009 schedule of Jelly NYC Pool Parties is set to kick off July 12, despite, you know, no longer being in an actual pool. (Come to think of it, the title was misleading even before, but we're not here to point fingers.) Relocated from the McCarren pool in Williamsburg to East River State Park, the first installment will feature reunited post-punkers Mission of Burma, with Fucked Up, Ponytail and Jemina Pearl of Be your Own Pet.

I'm in the minority in this, I've never been a fan of sweaty outdoor summer shows where you have to stand elbow-to-elbow with every poor college undergrad in the city who's decided being hip for the evening by smuggling in warm bottles of Corona in their underwear.

But New York offers so many outrageously good free offerings in the summer that it feels foolish sometimes not to go to these shows, and get in your requisite Summer Fun (TM).

So for sure, I'll be at August 30 grand finale, which features the dazed, summer-perfect beauty of Beach House and next-Fleet-Foxes-I'm-sure-of-it retro rockers Grizzly Bear. But I'd also recommend checking out the August 2 Round Robin show of Deerhunter, No Age and Dan Deacon, if only because it's the perfect triage of Brooklyn ambient-noise-punk genre we're just going to call, for convenience's sake, That Sound (TM). For free. God bless summer.

Southern Point - Grizzly Bear

Gila - Beach House

cover me (slowly) - Deerhunter