Pit Stop Music Marathon: The First Weekend

This last Saturday the evening temperature was breaking 40 degrees for the first time in a few months, and the Bloomington streets were filled weekend revelers. On north Walnut, college kids grooved to the “sublime" sounds of imitation at the Bluebird. A bachelorette and her posse were headed to Brothers Bar and Grill to presumably obtain a stranger's underwear, show her bra to a different stranger, and then down a ton of shots with all the strangers. A drunk guy was being briskly escorted up the street by his friend, as he talked shit to someone in every other group he passed, “nice shirt...” “nice hair...” “hey asshole...” His friend walked him across the street from the Bluebird and next door to Brothers, past the Video Saloon where the very first night of the Pit Stop Music Marathon was taking place inside.

At around 9:30 the first band, Clovers, took the stage to play for a small but developing crowd.

Photo by Liza

The music was a mix of steady, uptempo beats that kept the legs moving, while the sometimes droning and pensive vocals almost forced you to look at the ground. It was a perfect shoe-gaze mixture. The song order formed a nice tempo sandwich, slow song for the base (“Crystal Math”), add a layer of fast beats (“Black Seeds”), spread on some slow spread, a fast cheddar and so on. They at times sounded like The Arcade Fire and at other times similar to The Cure. They turned out to be the perfect appetizer for the rest of the auricular treats to follow.


Free Energy was the second band to play.

Photo by Liza

To look at this band your initial expectation would be something of a flowing, hippie, jam type. They were all lanky individuals, sporting some seriously lengthy locks. However once they got on stage, it was power pop bliss and attitude. Some of their songs were reminiscent of Billy Joel, had elements of Nick Lowe and resembled Material Issue. By the time they got to “Dream City” people were singing and dancing along to the “na, na, na's” and my fellow show-goer Liza described them as “basically everything I fucking love.” It was becoming apparent that these several consecutive days of music were at the very least going to expose some fans to great new bands to follow.

Finally to close the night out, Foreign Born took the stage.

Photo by Liza

This trance-inducing troupe from California got things started right off with some group clapping. This is a feat that is sometimes hard to pull off at these little shows, especially in Bloomington. Most bar patrons would prefer to let the band do all of the heavy percussion lifting and stick to holding their drinks; not the case with Foreign Born fans. Ground lighting and smoke machines created a nice effect of sweaty, disembodied head unity. The crowd clapped them through the first couple songs but then let the band take all of the reigns again, certainly staying no less involved for the rest of the performance. Members of the two opening bands showed their support by getting down with everyone else directly in front of the stage. Everything they played was great, but songs like “Vacationing People” with its use of the cowbell stuck with me for the rest of the evening. We left the Vid excited about what the rest of the weekend would bring.

The weather was a little less friendly to the festival participants on Saturday night. It rained and the temperatures hovered somewhere around 40 degrees, which doesn't feel like a normal 40 on a wet, early, March night. Car windows fogged up with that strange interminable moisture that neither your windshield wipers nor your defrost can quite hit. Smokers hunched under inadequate cover and distracted themselves with friendly conversation. However, despite the elements, Sunday night parking is almost always a guaranteed easy thing and there was an alt-country hoedown to attend at the Bishop.

Bloomington-based Kentucky Nightmare opened for Blue Giant and the Fruit Bats, even though they were left off of the poster due (possibly) to some sort of oversight or miscommunication. Who knows? Did it Matter? No, it didn't.

Photo by Liza

One: They rocked. Two: The frontman of the group, Simon P. Moore created his own facebook event to equalize things a bit and to make sure all their friends and fans were aware. When they started playing they seemed to be a pared down version of the band, so I wasn't sure what to expect. However Simon and the guy from Jenny is a Boy, Bernard Kincius had the banter down well enough with jokes about Bernard being punished for not wearing his official Kentucky Nightmare leg warmers to practice. But most importantly, the music was right. The band seemed to be struggling with musical cohesion for the first couple of songs. I don't have a good enough ear to pick out any actual mistakes. It seemed like maybe all of the different instrumental elements were striving for slightly different goals. By the time they got to their finishing song about making friends they had pulled themselves back into a furiously-strumming, bass-pounding musical whole again. They didn't play any band staples such as “Caroline and I” or “Going Back to Lucy,” but that was okay because the new stuff had some hooks to offer, as well.


It was apparent when the next band took the stage, all wearing cowboy hats but otherwise donning thrift store hipster threads, that some styles and sounds were about to be fused. Once they successfully encouraged the reluctant crowd to break the huge personal space bubble that had been created in front of the stage, Blue Giant started in on their set of country music that ranged from poppy to psychedelic, and back again.

Photo by Liza

“Target Heart” started the set and sounded like a twangy Lou Barlow cut, a pensive and pointedly worded song about a classic country theme of heartbreak. The set continued with haunting female vocals on “Lonely Girl,” to the almost trippy cover of The Byrds “Wasn't Born to Follow,” and closed out with a jam fueled by harmonica, whistling, and “ooo aaah” melodies. Blue Giant seemed to prove to the audience that contemporary country music can actually be really good, regardless of whether the band is or isn't named after the creatures in the movie Avatar.


Finally, the Fruit Bats closed out the first weekend of this Pit Stop and this evening of country and folk inspired, independent music.

Photo by Liza

Now I don't want to make a direct correlation between this band and the late eighties group Drivin-N-Cryin, even though there is something about them that made me think of that band. I believe it's the way the vocals and lyrics hit me in a sincere and rousing way, like gourmet coffee for the ears. They started out early with the classic-bound “The Ruminant Band” swept into the sway-tastic “Feather Bed,” sonically sailed through the “Wind That Blew my Heart Away,” shared the lilting vocals of “Tegucigalpa” and “Singing Joy to the World,” before concluding with “When You Love Somebody.” They ended with a touching encore and dedicated “Beautiful Morning Light” to the late Evan Farrell, the Bloomington musician who once was part of Rogue Wave and several Bloomington Bands. They closed the encore and the evening with “Rainbow Sign.”

This was just the first weekend of the Pit Stop Music Marathon that will be going on until March 13th. Some of the bands left to discover, or just enjoy if you're already familiar, include Times New Viking and Left Lane Cruiser tonight, with local opening acts Half Rats and Jookabox. Local punk legends, Zero Boys play tomorrow night and regional musicians play the rest of the week, including John Wilkes Booze, Husband and Wife, Rodeo Ruby Love and many others until The Coke Dares and Murder by Death close it down on Saturday.

The full line up can be found at pitstopmusicmarathon.com.