Let's Try And Cheat Our Death

Bands play at the Daffodil Festival in Meriden every year, though they're usually just your standard local cover bands, plus every so often someone like The Reducers would sneak in. This year, though, a handful of credible indie bands played, including a few Safety Meeting bands who were given their own stage on Sunday (yup, that's today).

I know it's hard to tell by some of these photos-- which seem to depict the usual bleak New England winter scenery instead of anything resembling spring-- but it was actually 90 friggin' degrees today. The heat took enough out of me where I decided to skip the Box Elders show in Wallingford tonight, which I know I'll end up regretting later. Cherry St. kinda sucks, though, and anyway, I'll get another chance to catch up on my Medication fix (who're opening for Box Elders, along with Estrogen Highs) at the Crappy Dracula show next weekend.

I know I've said it before, but it would be hard for me to imagine a band like The Mountain Movers existing if Wilco hadn't been around first, though that's not necessarily a bad thing. They've added Crooked Hook's Joe Maddalena on guitar, which is great for the little psych freak-outs that populate most Mountain Movers songs. Their set seemed to be all at the same tempo from beginning to end, but "When The Sun Is White" sounded loud and glorious, and Dan Greene's unique singing style (which usually hits me like he's in the wrong key) was actually sort of cool this time. Plus his bone-dry stage patter was completely funny, even if it went over the heads of most of the people there.




Titles' "Up With The Sun" CD made it onto my Fake Best-Of list for 2008, and months later it still hasn't slid back at all with me yet. Sometimes there's nothing better than the warm sound of someone hitting guitar strings, and that's what Titles are all about to me-- plus, they write great songs. Seeing them today really underscored my impression that they're pretty much the best straight-up indie rock band (not lo-fi, not garage-- taking all of that out) that Connecticut has right now.

Titles -

"Coal Mine"

The Mountain Movers -

"Let's Open Up The Chest"

(these files are now listen-only)