After I met my friends at Rose Bar, a cute, semi-hidden bar on Grand and Marcy with regular live music, we proceeded to an art gallery I hadn't previously known of, on Marcy Ave and Hooper St., described by my friend as the store-front with an old Coca-Cola banner up top. The gallery, which I later learned is called Dam, Stuhltrager Gallery, consisted of a series of rooms with captivating and well-done -- if generally somewhat generically post-modern and hipster -- sculptural/installation art (see pictures above).
After wandering alone in the inside of the gallery while my friends had made a beeline to the outdoor area where the crowd waited and mingled and the band was preparing to perform, I made my way 20 minutes and several pictures later to find my friends (with some difficulty) outside. The band, Mixel Pixel (www.mixelpixel.com), soon began; and their giant projection onto a brick wall behind them, initially displaying a psychedelic black-and-white spinning image foregrounded by a "LOADING" logo, soon showed similarly psychedelic, avant-garde, disjointed video clips. After a short detour away from the intensity of the scene, which was fun but slightly overwhelmingly crowded, warm and loud, I returned to relax more and absorb -- and appreciate -- the music and video clips. I was taken aback when I realized how intricately the videos were designed to perfectly correspond to and complement each song. While the music was pure pop-fun and somewhat endearing, it was the videos that most blew me away. www.youtube.com/mixelpixelvideos The specific video/song combination that impressed me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wdvU-oPfL8
I asked two friends how they would describe Mixel Pixel's music after having pondered over it for a bit myself and deciding that they sounded like a contemporary, hipsterfied version of the B-52's, with vague hints of similarity to current bands like CSS and Sonic Youth. Without first telling my friends my initial impression of their sound, the first one responded, "Um, electro-pop?," to which I agreed and told him my own analysis. He agreed on the pop-music label but wavered on the B-52's attribute, saying that he would argue that it sounded like something derivative from the Cure. This comment was punctuated with: "But then, doesn't everything?"
A while later, I asked my other friend there the same question; incidentally, she hadn't heard our discussion yet so far. She seemed a little uninterested in answering and then replied, "Um, post-modern?" So, finally: Mixel Pixel is: a post-modern, electro-pop hipster band with hints of the Cure and the B-52's. According to their Myspace profile (www.myspace.com/mixelpixel), their band's style is "freestyle"; and according to their Youtube profile, their style is "mariachi."
I didn't see any of the other bands that performed that night, though after checking out the gallery's website tonight, I learned that the music performances and parties are a regular summer feature there. If you have interest in checking out local, indie and under-the-radar bands and visual artists, as well as enjoying a low-key gallery/outdoor party, I recommend checking out future events at this space. By the way, the title of the summer music series: garden of earthly delights.
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