Last night FREEWilliamsburg hosted its Northside Showcase at Brooklyn Bowl featuring Keepaway, Hooray for Earth, Oh Land, Glass Ghost and The Babies! Thanks so much to everyone who came out to celebrate Northside with FREEWilliamsburg and hope you had as much fun as we all did!

Woods and Vivian Girls side project The Babies kicked off jam packed night with their retro-pop and lo-fi sound. Duo Glass Ghost played an engrossing and mildly ambient set and even poked of their sound juxtaposed with the bowling alley setting.

The gorgeous Oh Land danced around on stage in a Christopher Kane for Topshop crocodile printed crop top and a wolf hat (worn especially for the occasion) and enchanted the audience with her catchy electronic drum hooks.

Hooray for Earth (who were recently touring with Indie sweethearts The Pains of Being Pure at Heart and lo-fi Surfer Blood) launched into a killer set that rocked plain and simple. To close the night, Keepaway fresh from opening for Yeasayer at the Gone to Governor’s showcase played an upbeat set of dance fusion music and teased the crowd with the opening beats of their single, “Yellow Wings”– smirking, “Not yeetttt!”

To learn more about the bands that played last night, read their respective FREEWilliamsburg interviews here: Keepaway, Hooray for Earth, Oh Land, Glass Ghost and The Babies. Also, be sure to check out pictures from the night in the gallery below!

Saturday night, Cantora Records hosted their Northside Festival showcase at Brooklyn Bowl with performances by Brahms, Savoir Adore, Tony Castles and Gordon Voidwell.

From behind a plexi-glass podium, lead singer Cale Parks (who twirled his drum sticks like a smoother version of the wedding band drummer on YouTube) commanded the stage with a collected presence and captivated the audience that could not help but start dancing along. As their show continued, Brahms incorporated a light show. Although the extra stimulus was fun, Brahms’ show would have been just as strong without the added bells and whistles as their infectious energy and dance rock.

Indie pop band Savoir Adore played one their best shows Saturday night and have been adding to their repertoire with fun hooks and singalong lyrics. The crowd was especially excited to hear Savoir’s rock ballad, “TCP”– a rock opera for the Hansel and Gretel fable– and their new song, “Loveliest Creature.”

Check out pictures of Brahms and Savoir Adore along with Tony Castles and Gordon Voidwell in the gallery below!

As if our lineup wasn’t stacked enough, starting at midnight tonight you’ll be able to catch Justin Miller of DFA Records killing it on the tables at Brooklyn Bowl. We expect you to bring your very best dance moves, as Miller will be dropping some previously unreleased DFA jams, along with a hand delivered track from Mr. Young Turks himself.

Vinyl, definitely. I work on a computer all day and if I had to use one to DJ I would go blind. I have a visual/audio recognition when looking at the records I’m playing that helps me hear the music in my head. That just doesn’t happen for me on a computer. I think its a disservice to have too much music available to you at any one time. You tend to stick to what you know or what others might want from you. With a bag of records you shape the night into what you want it to be because you’ve already thought about it ahead of time. Oh, and records sound way BETTER!

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First and foremost, take a listen to Twin Shadow’s remix of “Surrounded By Your Friends” to get excited about our Northside Festival showcase TONIGHT AT BROOKLYN BOWL with Keepaway, Glass Ghost, Oh Land, and The Babies (members of Woods and Vivian Girls).

Hooray For Earth’s debut label EP, Momo, was released earlier this month on Dovecote Records to much acclaim on the interwebs. Not to mention the waves they’ve created on their most recent tour with Pains of Being Pure at Heart and Surfer Blood.

We got a chance to catch up with frontman Noel Heroux about cheap beer, almost getting killed by a bunch of teenagers on drugs, and what it is exactly that’s so great about Earth.

I read a review recently that called your music twee– would you agree? What words do you feel describe your music best?

I think someone just said “twee” because we played with The Pains of Being Pure at Heart.  Maybe “Surrounded By Your Friends” seems a bit twee-pop on first listen. Our friend Kurt [Feldman] recently called us “doom pop”.

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