As much as we love bashy, loud rock here at Nonstop Sound, we're equal-opportunity rockists -- we realize there are other ways to rock that don't involve brute force and volume. Sometimes, there's jangling. Other times, there's reverb and wordless vocals. Sometimes, there's just plain sunny goodness. And yet another undisclosed third time, there's country-fried twang. Fortunately, you're getting all three of those things tomorrow at Terminal 5.
The evening opens with Brooklyn's very own DIIV. (No, I don't know how to pronounce that -- Deev? Dihv?) They're a quintessentially North Brooklyn-sounding band, by which I mean a couple of acres of reverb and indistinct, occasionally wordless vocals. But their sound is anything but meandering -- everything in this band, from the vocal hooks to the guitar lines seems to have been designed with maximum pop efficiency at heart. The band's driving beats will move your feet, their melodies will soothe your soul, and their guitars will have you floating by the end of the set. Check them out.
The band Those Darlins have a great backstory: they met at the Southern Girls Rock & Roll Camp in Murfreesboro, Tennessee (which I did not know was a thing), and they've been steadily plying their brand of country-fried rock n'roll ever since. Jessi and Nikki (They've all taken the last name of "Darlin" for presumably Ramones-aping purposes) both grew up in the deep country. Jessi is from Ono, Kentucky, a town comprising, she says, of five houses and a church, and Nikki literally grew up on a mountain in Rappahannock County, Virginia. It's this down-home attitude that informs a lot of their music, notably on the anthem "The Whole Damn Thing," which features the following chorus "I got drunk and I ate a chicken / I ate a chicken I found in my kitchen / Not just a leg and not just a wing / I'd like to let you know I ate the whole damn thing."
Closing out the night is a little band you might have heard of: Best Coast. In case the name doesn't strike you, you've probably heard their runaway hit "The Only Place" pretty recently -- it's been nigh on inescapable lately, which probably has something to do with the fact that it's insanely catchy and ludicrously happy and sunny. People do love songs about how great/sad/profound California is, and when they're delivered by a cute girl, well, so much the better. But all snark aside, Bethan Cosentino does have a hell of a way with a hook, and she and Bobb Bruno's surf-tinged fuzz pop is a perfect summer soundtrack. "We were born with sun in our teeth and in our hair" Cosentino sings in "The Only Place," and with music this joyous, it's hard to believe otherwise.
Terminal 5 is located at 610 West 56th street. Tickets are $20 for one more day, and then tomorrow they jump up to $25, so get 'em now!
