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1999 Noise Pop Tip Sheet

Our oddsmaker reads the five-day, seventh annual local
festival lineup and calls 'em like he sees 'em

Your handicapper, Jeff Stark

Legend
1 Managed by Noise Pop co-organizer Jordan Kurland
2 Full disclosure: friend of this handicapper
3 Single on Noise Pop founder Kevin Arnold's Horsebrand Industries record label
4 Band calls Bay Area home

Date	The Band	The Setup	The Punch	The Dirty Little Secret
Tuesday 23 Bottom of the Hill, doors 8pm, show 8:30pm; all ages; $7	Jimmy Eat World	Post-grunge power alternative quartet from Tempe, Arizona, via Capitol Records	Favorite lyric from 1996's Static Prevails: "We'll dance off time to the songs that we've never liked/And sing offkey, thinking it sounds all right"	New album, released this month, produced by the man who unleashed Blink 182 on an unsuspecting public
	Sense Field	SoCal five-piece filters and flattens '80s New York hardcore sounds and ideas with '90s Orange County "punk"	Another painful day on the Vans Warped Tour	Once falsely rumored to be a Christian band
	Crumb1 4	Cute and unabashedly overproduced rockers with chronic record company problems; friends with Jimmy Eat World, Knapsack and That Dog	Last two albums released on two different major labels	No label home for next record
	Gardener	Handicapping info unavailable	Even odds
Wednesday 24 Bottom of the Hill, doors 8pm, show 8:30pm; 21 and over; $7	Imperial Teen4	Cynical pop via S.F. foursome with good scene-making social skills	This handicapper's knee-capping opinion firmly established; reserving further judgment for imminent second record	Dubious local pedigree includes Faith No More and Sister Double Happiness
	Push Kings4	San Francisco--formerly Boston--quartet chews bubble gum for breakfast and sings harmony for the rest of the day	What the Beatles might have sounded like if all four lads were named Paul	The Hanson of indie rock
	Dealership4	Above-average fuzzy-punky-poppy Bay Area trio mining Pixies/Nirvana canon	Vocal melodies even strong enough to cover up clunky lyrics like "Fruition's not the perfect way to end all adolescent crushes"	Too nice for secrets
	Openers TBA
Thursday 25 Bottom of the Hill, doors 8pm, show 8:30pm; all ages; $7	764-Hero	Seattle band's second full-length, Get Here and Stay, swims smooth seas on clever guitar, understated drums and suggestively simple lyrics	Former Built to Spill sound-alikes finally developing unique identity	Named after Seattle phone hotline to report carpool lane violators
	Red Stars Theory	Somnambulant Northwest trio featuring members of semi-hemi-demi stars Modest Mouse, Lync and Statisfact	Long, dreamy songs with more movements than the SF Symphony's fall program	After recent signing to Chicago's Touch & Go, maybe more than just a side project
	The Aislers Set4	Local indie supergroup fronted by ex-Henry's Dress Amy Linton and backed by members of Track Star, Poundsign and Scenic Vermont	Ignore "local indie supergroup" oxymoron; this is insular, Velvety music for long novels and rainy San Francisco days	Way better than the sum of its parts
	Fiver	Modesto indie five-piece (duh) titled first record Eventually Something Cool Will Happen	Still waiting for album's promise to pay off	None
Friday 26 Great American Music Hall, doors 7:30pm, show 8pm; all ages; $10	Creeper Lagoon1 4	Last year's S.F. version of Next Big Thing arrives with I Become Small and Go; christened "best new artist" in Spin's 1998 readers poll	Same readers called Third Eye Blind "most underrated artist"	Used to really suck
	Grandaddy	Small independent label Will released Stockton popster's moody and nostalgic Under the Western Freeway in 1997	Majors V2 deservedly rereleased same record last year	Unnatural affinity for foliage
	Death Cab for Cutie	Pleasantly melancholic songs courtesy electronic piano, organ and cello; singer delivers vocals like folk-pop maestro Elliott Smith	Proof that Bellingham, Washington, produces more than garage rock and rampant alcoholism	Great band name comes from obscure phrase on Magical Mystery Tour
	Rodriguez	Spare, but good, hodgepodge of achy violins, breaky vocals and waltz times	Central Valley trio with a few Parsons- period Byrds records in their collections	California breadbasket good for more than artichokes, garlic and other assorted produce
	Glasstown4	S.F. quintet tenders poppy orchestrations, whiny Neil Young vocals, and killer French horns	Indicative demo tape song title: "You and your potential"	None
Saturday 27 Bottom of the Hill, doors 1:30pm, show 2pm; 21 and over; $7	Murder City Devils	Lead singer Spencer Moody references Night of the Hunter and eulogizes New York Doll Johnny Thunders; once dubbed "The Truman Capote of punk"	Subtle, "subtle like a T-Rex"; Sub Pop record Empty Bottles, Broken Hearts = The Stooges' Fun House with a Farfisa	Hometown Seattle hardly "Murder City"; band members reportedly not "Devils"
	Kingdom First4	San Francisco five-piece making sludgy garage rock with amphetamine tics to Iggy, Angus and the White Panthers	Catharsis on a stage	Ferocious singer Matt Jervis actually a personable fellow
	Magnolia Thunderfinger	Hot-roddin' Sacramento quartet revs well-researched greaser rock	Kinda like Social Distortion: You love it or you don't	Played 72 shows last year
	Me First4	Pop-punk rock foursome with "two chicks, two dicks"	Said chicks sing; said dicks play guitar and drums	Consciously trying to shed "girl band" rep
Saturday 27 Cafe Du Nord, doors 4pm, show 4:30pm; 21 and over; $5	Track Star4	Sensitive S.F. trio hit essence of Sturm und Drang lo-fi on 1995's Sometimes, What's the Difference? EP	Sensitive S.F. trio hit essence of Sturm und Drang lo-fi on 1995's Sometimes, What's the Difference? EP	According to Wyatt Riot fanzine, singer/ guitarist Cusick owns Superman bedsheets
	I Am Spoonbender4	Local four piece's debut Sender/Receiver a pastiche of harsh post-punk guitars, dubby bass and jumpy synthesizers	"Avant-rock" just another way of saying "difficult"	Time keeper Dustin Donaldson published that Metallica Drummer video
	Openers TBA
Saturday 27 Bimbo's, doors 7pm, show 8pm; 18 and over; $15	Guided by Voices	Constantly in flux Dayton, Ohio, group beloved for both inscrutable pop gems and drunken Roger Daltrey-style stage antics	Rare proof that playing in a basement and releasing records to your friends for 10 years will actually get you somewhere	Haven't made a coherent record since 1995's Alien Lanes
	Beulah1 4	First album recorded on four-track by two mail boys and a violinist; soon-to-be released second credits 23 players	Local miners off to see the elephant at the Beach Boys-Beatles Comstock lode	Singer Miles Kurosky2 wants to father "Orch Rock" movement on next record
	Snowmen4	San Francisco sketches on Last Days of the Central Freeway employ a winning combination of washy, open-tuned full-band numbers and weird solo four-track experiments	Quiet, understated production tricks courtesy of the Snowmen and Fuck's Kyle Statham	Frontman Cole Marquis the Methuselah of S.F. scene
	Lunchbox4	San Francisco everyband with jangly oooohs, cool guitars and taut drumming; married couple shares singing duties	Mediocre another word for boring	1,000 bands considered naming selves Lunchbox; 999 reconsidered
Sunday 28 Bottom of the Hill, doors 2pm, show 2:30pm; 21 and over; $8 includes all-you-can-eat barbecue	Fastbacks	Bouncy Seattle trio formed in 1979; still cranks out more hooks than a Cheap Trick cover band	The soul of the Noise Pop Fest seven years running, even though last year's show foolishly ill-attended	Guitarist Kurt Bloch--along with Sub Pop honcho Jonathan Poneman--once played in a Cheap Trick cover band
	Alien Crime Syndicate	Singer Joe Reineke and drummer Shawn Trudeau once comprised two-thirds of early '90s S.F. noise pop über band the Meices	Alien Crime Syndicate in sounds and themes, still the embodiment of the San Francisco sound circa 1993	Hard-drinking Meices once banned from Bottom of the Hill
	Bracket	Handicapping info unavailable	Even odds
	Bitesize	Handicapping info unavailable	Even odds
Sunday 28 Bottom of the Hill, doors 8pm, show 8:30pm; 21 and over; $7	Oranger3	Last year--as a four-piece fashioned from Overwhelming Colorfast leftovers--a banal altrock band	This year--as a trio and on debut record Doorway to Norway--a wonderfully psychedelic rock outfit with overtures toward Flaming Lips, Beach Boys and the Who. Darlings of the San Francisco local band circuit, cf. Creeper Lagoon 1998	Ditched a bassist and got good
	Sixteen Deluxe	Austin, Texas, group traffics boy-girl vox, swirly My Bloody Valentine guitars and stunning film projections at live shows	Great movie, underwhelming soundtrack	Left "live music capital of the world" to record last album in San Francisco
	¡Carlos!4	Noise Pop mainstays played first fest seven years ago	History lesson: A living, breathing band that can actually remember a time when Upper Haight rocked	Thirsty Swede gig in '94 rumored "best show ever"
	The Elevator Drops	Boston pop-psych trio sings about Jackie O., the Unabomber and Gary Newman	Flaming Lips + media culture preoccupations not necessarily a bad thing	"Be a Lemonhead (Beautiful Junkie)," 1996, a more sprightly and sarcastic heroin song than that Dandy Warhols ditty

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From the February 15, 1999 issue of the Metropolitan.

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