Part Time Punks’ shoegaze fest is a noisy way to end the week
This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.
For L.A. devotees of the mid-’90s, noisy-pretty British rock known as shoegaze, Sunday is the equivalent of Christmas, a birthday and an unexpected inheritance check arriving all at once.
Park Time Punks, the Echo’s Sunday night institution that would be called a dance party if the music wasn’t so deliciously morose, has corralled some shoegaze staples and some inspired young distortion-slingers for an all-night mini-festival on Sunday. Topping the bill is a curious but welcome live incarnation of Mark Gardener’s pioneering Oxford, UK, band Ride, where the local acolytes Sky Parade will back him up for a set celebrating the 20-year anniversary of Ride’s ‘Going Blank Again’ album.
The undercard is strong as well -- Sky Parade gets their own set alongside rougher San Francisco peers Weekend, the goth-tinged and very promising locals Tropic of Cancer and a slate of others who draw connections between the guitar-heavy ‘90s style and an electronics-doused contemporary take. Tickets are $18, and though everything gets underway at the very un-shoegazery hour of 4:30 p.m., you can just close your eyes and pretend you’re in some abandoned East End warehouse in the very early days of John Major as prime minister.
RELATED:
SF’s Weekend brings British Isles gloom to Echo
Slices of life from Fiona Apple’s new album ‘The Idler Wheel ...’
-- August Brown