Friday July 17 7:00 PM
South Street Seaport Music Festival
South St New York, NY 10038
Perhaps no band was more emblematic of the true spirit of American indie rock during the 1990s than Superchunk, the pride of Chapel Hill, NC. Following the D.I.Y. ethic to the letter, the group operated solely by their own rules, ignoring all passing trends by sticking to their trademark sound — typified by the buzzing guitars and high, impassioned vocals of frontman Mac McCaughan — and rejecting all major-label advances in favor of the unlimited freedom afforded by owning their own company, the highly successful Merge Records. Although Superchunk’s resistance to the overtures of the music industry may have deprived them of the wider audience their work clearly deserved, perhaps their greatest legacy remains their unwavering dedication to the indie tradition, a model which all up-and-coming bands should strive to emulate.
Versus, an indie rock band formed in 1990 by Richard Baluyut, Fontaine Toups and Edward Baluyut in NYC. the band were noted for their marriage of Indy Pop songwriting and vocal harmonies to the “loud-soft” dynamics of grunge and alternative rock. they were also noted for their proficient and disciplined musicianship and for their credo of “meat, sports and rock”, neither of which had much currency in the early 1990s American Indy scene. versus has counted at least one, usually two and sometimes three of the Filipino-American Baluyut brothers as members throughout its existence, and was perhaps the most prominent example of a wave of American Indy bands emerging in the early 1990s which featured Asian-American members.
FREE!