Yesterday I had the pleasure of checking out the Carlsbad Music Festival's (Facebook - Official) little side-festival called Village Music Walk. Village Music Walk featured 44 performances by 30 bands at 13 locations around the downtown Carlsbad area. I had only heard of one of the bands on the docket and I hadn't heard them, just heard of them, so I knew I was in for a treat of new music, I was just hoping that it would be good music... turns out it was... mostly! I started off the early evening (the festival lasted from 5pm-12am) at Magee Park, where I saw a children's Balinese Gamelan group called Giri Nata who put on a spectacular performance. Here's a little video of a similar group from the Center For World Music here in San Diego. This is not the same group of children, but the same program.
After that I wandered around for a bit and ended up heading back to Magee Park for Trouble in the Wind, a band described as "A multi-intrumental collective able to spin larger than life, rich cinematic talks and to pain movie-like pictures on stage full of drama and imagery." I don't get the pretty talk, here's some real talk. It was a folk-rock band. They were good. Here's a video of them:
After their little set I made my way over to Spin Records (Facebook) to see Nathan Hubbard perform. Nathan put on a great show with a makeshift thumb organ type instrument, a glockenspiel, and some other seemingly homemade instruments which he looped and altered through use of an effects pedal. I couldn't find a video of the same setup he used, but here's a video of another performance from him.
Nathan Hubbard (Official)
After Nathan finished his set I made my way over to the It's a Grind coffee shop and checked out MandoBasso, a Mandolin/Stand-Up Bass duo. They played some some nice little tunes, including a song written to one of their Dogs, and another song I really enjoyed called Solstice Jig. Here they are performing their track 'Bill's Blues.'
MandoBasso (Facebook)
After relaxing to their tunes for a bit and buying an iced mocha (it was pretty hot out!) I made my way over to the old Carlsbad Train Station, now a museum called "Visit Carlsbad!" where I saw Freako Suave. Freako Suave is a band that I had heard of before, and I'd seen two of their members perform before, in different bands, but I hadn't ever seen them together. They put on a great little bluegrass/folk show. Here they are performing "I'll Be Alright" at the Boar's Crossin' sometime last year.
From there I made my way over to the Foundry @ New Village Arts Theater to check out the Teeny-Tiny Pit Orchestra (Official). On my way there I ran into a friend who joined me on our quest for good music. However, neither of us were very impressed with the Teeny-Tiny Pit Orchestra and ended up heading back over to Spin Records where we saw the indie/folk-rock band Second Cousins. They sounded great, wish I had heard their whole set instead of wasting the first half on the previous band. Here's Second Cousins performing 'Royal Blu.'
When Second Cousins finished their set we made our way over to Viz Art Ink Gallery to check out no know (sound band) self described as "Unknowing sound band approach is well known: walk thin lines, reject ideas that thinking thoughts think, proceed to create a sound sound." I'd describe the duo as speaking in tongues through instruments. Here they are performing at the San Diego Museum of Art, July of last year.
no know (sound band) (Official)
After checking them out for a bit, we made our way to the Boar's Crossin' where we saw the end of another set by Freako Suave, and hung around for the next performance by a straight up rock band called The Paragraphs. The Paragraphs seemed pretty predictable, despite their description in the festival's handout saying "You never know what to expect from their live show- since lead singer/guitarist Jesse Lee Hofbauer is as unpredictable as a seasonal tornado." I thought they were good musicians, but they didn't stand out to me as almost all the rest of the performances I had seen that night. Here they are at a performance last November.
After The Paragraphs finished up we made our way back to The Foundry and hung out while DJ Lexicon Devil spun some old vinyl and we socialized. I got a chance to talk to Colin from Freako Suave for quite a bit. We chatted about experiences at music festivals like Bonnaroo and Sasquatch and how superior they are to Coachella. Haha. I also ran into Sean and Andrew from no know (sound band) and got a chance to talk to them about their show and thanked them for playing for us North County folk (they're from San Diego). I'm really glad to see more action in the music scene up here in North County besides just bar shows. I travel down to San Diego quite a bit for music and having events like this up here is really nice. All in all it was a great little event and it definitely has me looking forward to the actual festival in September.
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