Hillstock is in your backyard

by Samuel Hernandez

Hillstock is in your backyard. The bands are immediately in your space and around. In other outer boroughs in New York City, a backyard event, an event that closes off a street is for families. Hillstock festival was happening in Fort Greene Brooklyn, an out of the way neighborhood, where across from town-houses and apartment buildings families are BBQing on a balcony, their Spanish drifting down to the street. If you walk around some more in the neighborhood you find Eastern European Jewish people, taking their kids out on strolls in their deeply conventional dress, and at the fringes housing projects.

The first event of the day is on Emerson place. Upon entering you see food trucks lining one sidewalk, Kimchi tacos the popular item, a blending of Korean and Mexican food that fits well with the attitude of the festival. On the other side of the street you see a group of Hispanics selling freshly grilled corn still in the husks.

The bands are set up in two locations: one is performing on the street, the other in a backyard, reducing the set up time to almost nothing. Pow wow! Is the first band I see. They’re an eclectic group that blends 50s rock with Pacific Northwest grunge. Their vocals are soft under the heavy guitar and floating keyboards. This is their third performance of the day and they are off to one other after finishing up. During the performance and blowing through songs that should be danced to—there is some shuffling, there is some dancing when newcomers and friend approach but only to show appreciation for the music—one of their amps gives up and they fiddle with it trying to bring sound back to the rhythm guitar. The drummer makes small talk, noticing what the audience notices. At Hillstock the performances are intimate and the distance between performer and musician is marginal.

Later in the day, the performances head to an after party at The Bishop, a pop up art space. A unique thing happens during the first set, a band called Slothrust brings their heavier-than-thou punk and Zola Jesus operatic vocals to the space. At first they are illuminated by lights that run along the ground, but as the set begins they quickly wink off and are told by a technician: “you’ll just have to play without lights or vocals.” They trudge along producing their sonic sludge. The lights eventually were regained. The tension in the crowd grows. New Yorkers are generally not a mobile audience, they appreciate the music in their own ways and don’t succumb to mob mentality. (A week earlier in Thompkins Square Park, a place notorious for being a hotbed of punk activity, I stumbled upon an outdoor concert with high mohawked black wearing pierced people standing around. The bands were playing full volume, but they stood. No skanking was had that day.) As the songs grew louder and more discordant, the crowd finally erupted and began moshing, those who were laid back gravitated to the left, the moshers pushed and shoved at the right. And New York City produced the most polite mosh pit I’ve ever seen.

Then came the SPECIAL EVENTS, an enigma. The two hype men started their music on their laptop and began walking through the crowd warming up: “How many raps do you think I’ve done? Just go ahead and say a number… that’s way too low.” They asked the crowd to unlock their butts, pulling people in closer and closer. The SPECIAL EVENTS were certainly the most interesting music event of the festival although their beats were prerecorded and quite possibly not their own. They have elements of Das Racist without the later development of racial conscious. What instead they seem to rely on is appropriating the “bro” culture and putting a spin on it. Their samples include Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus, and Brittney Spears, the first two pop vixen’s songs are spun at an increased tempo and higher tone. The groups antics include bringing a ladder into the dance circle they’d created and shouting “We are America; we do it big.” Humor in hip hop has steadily increased the past few years (Lonely Island, Turquoise Jeep, Childish Gambino) and SPECIAL EVENTS make their own humor without sacrificing the drive to have a party. I’m suspicious of this band, suspicious that what I find as humorous and fun is really just an attention grabbing stunt, but SPECIAL EVENTS for now get credit for re-appropriating pop music and finding small jabs they can get in, all in good fun.

Cover image courtesy of Hillstock Festival