Let us take a moment to discuss a frequently maligned band. After their amelodic left turn of a sophomore album, Vivian Girls returned this year with Share the Joy, which is varied and energetic and most importantly full of earworms. It's also a pretty nice marriage of its member's side-projects, The Babies and La Series (who in fact have released better albums than their main gig's in 2011). They're also cool: They were the weirdest thing in a bar full of douchebags when the Bruise Cruise stopped by Nassau shithole Senor Frogs back in February, and still delivered a killer set. Way after they were well-known, they played a relatively obscure D.C. DIY space. Stuff like that. With Widowspeak at 8:30 p.m. at Rock & Roll Hotel.

MORE MUSIC

Classical folks: The BSO is previewing its season tonight at Strathmore. Copland! Debussy! Strauss! But most importantly: Marin Alsop, the orchestra's charismatic leader. I went to one of these preview shows a few years back, and the tone was cool and conversational. Excerpts of pieces for the attention-deficit; smart explanations from Alsop. I'll be back there tonight. 8 p.m. at Strathmore.

FILM

The short film may seem like an archaic form, an early-20th-century relic typified on one hand by arty experiments like Manhatta and Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis and on the other by slapsticky series like The Three Stooges and Our Gang. But the Internet has made shorts relevant again, and growing attention to the form gives the DC Shorts Film Festival a little extra rub in its eighth year. The festival groups films into 90-minute screenings during its opening weekend, tallies votes for the best of the shorts, and then shows the winners on Sept. 17 and 18 at the Atlas Performing Arts Center. Between those bookends, all of the movies are rescreened, which means you have plenty of opportunities to take in the 145 films submitted from 23 countries. Not surprisingly, comedies dominate the docket—though eye-gouges, bowl haircuts, and lovable l’il scamps will probably be in short supply. (Chris Porter) MORE ON WCP''S COVERAGE HERE.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

We’ve been on a boat all weekend—it begs constant acknowledgement. And to be sure, there is plenty meta-commentary. Ian Svenonius is almost nothing but.

My favorite such moment comes Saturday night, midway through the Bruise Cruise’s stop at Señor Frog’s, the garish cancer of a tourist destination that is host to the weekend’s biggest musical showcase. Vivian Girls take the stage. They mention they’ve learned a cover. In come Cassie Ramone’s plangent, surfy guitar strums—at this point I’m expecting “Don’t Worry Baby”—and then a familiar line: "Every night in my dreams/I see you, I feel you/that is how I know you go on..." The crowd—Bruisers, to be sure, and the douchebags and fratgirls that are Señor Frog’s regulars—flips out. The band is fucking wailing. It’s sweet. It’s sweetly cinematic. It's a reminder that large sea vessels sometimes split in half and are later made into abhorrently lucrative films by James Cameron. It should be grating but I’m smiling.

The first thing you smell in Señor Frog’s is ass. The first thing you see is a conga line, in which men are groping women and women are groping men. The procession passes under a Señor Frog’s waiter, who pours liquor down people’s throats.

In other words, Señor Frog’s is a boil that ought to be lanced off of the earth. Svenonius takes the stage in a red suit. “All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Mr. Frog’s,” he says, and rattles off the slate of performers. “This is a very historic occasion. They’re here on a mission of liberation, They’re here to liberate you from that frog and replace it with a Taco Bell.” Later in the evening, a Señor Frog’s hypeman who sings along to the Top 40 played between rock sets and liberally pours shots for front-of-the-crowd revelers, replaces Svenonius on MC duties.

Still, the sets are solid: Turbo Fruits’ four-person take on the ‘60s power trio, The Strange Boys’ degraded art-glam, Vivian Girls’ playful garage pop, The Black Lips’ lumbering, sing-along acid punk. One note, to be expanded upon later: The crowd in Señor Frog’s, on the whole, seems a lot more taken aback by the Bruisers than the crowd on the Imagination, even though most of tonight’s acts are actually fairly conservative: They all trade in variations of primitivist rock ‘n’ roll.

I strike up a conversation with two Dutch seamen who work on an industrial tugboat. They’re standed in Nassau while they wait for more work, and have been coming to Señor Frog’s almost every evening for close to two weeks. Tonight is different.

I ask them if they like the music. “It sucks,” says one, quickly adding a caveat: He enjoyed “the band with the chicks.”

He mentions their boat has lots of Russian crew. “The Russian are very melodramatic. They’re kind of like indie people.”

Photos by Darrow Montgomery

When the Carnival Imagination departs from the Port of Miami this afternoon, it will hold as many as 2,052 passengers. Four hundred of them are here for the Bruise Cruise, a "3 day rock'n'roll vacation" starring some of America's loudest, dankest garage rock bands. The other 1,600 guests? They're your typical cruise-goers, base tans and buffet bellies and khaki conformity and all.

That's what we're here to see. Not just the performances from buzzy acts like The Black Lips, Surfer Blood, Thee Oh Sees, Ty Segall, The Strange Boys, Turbo Fruits—and those sirens of hiss and jangle, Vivien Girls. And not just for the color commentary of "cruise director" Ian Svenonius, the jester laureate of D.C. punk rock. Not just the 24/7 ice cream machine.

No, what interests us is the absurdity of dropping all of the above into the gauzy, humdrum hedonism of a Carnival cruise ship. "Music's not for everyone," goes a doom mantra on Svenonius' latest musical project. It certainly ain't.

So Darrow Montgomery and I will be here all weekend, live-blogging and photo-snapping and buffet-plundering as our indie-rock cruise ship makes its way to Nassau, Bahamas, and back. What will we learn? The medium is the message—but in this case, the medium happens to be a giant-ass boat.

Vivian Girls

Perhaps it's unfair to pile on Ramone's limited vocal range. Vivian Girls weathered a predictable backlash after the surprising success of their self-titled album in 2008. Naysayers said that they couldn’t properly play their instruments, that their style borrowed too much from superior C-86 bands, and that Ramone had flatter harmonies than Linda McCartney. The band went through more drummers than Spinal Tap. Ramone deservedly built up some stature in the Brooklyn scene and should be admired for her stick-to-itiveness, not only for persevering with Vivian Girls (whose third album is due this April) but also for starting The Babies. Admired, sure, but not lauded: The Babies is a ramshackle, tossed-off affair, full of listless girl-group choruses (“All Things Come to Pass”) and enervating arrangements (“Wild 1”).

Morby deserves to bear a share of the blame for The Babies. His own lack of imagination leads to the choral repetition on “Breakin’ the Law,” in which the pair sings the phrase “Breakin’ the law/We used to break the law” 17 times. (To be fair, Rob Halford sang the chorus of Judas Priest’s completely different, better song “Breaking the Law” 32 times.)  Morby's talk-singing on “Wild 2,” meanwhile, sounds bored and uninspired. The melodies are only memorable in the way that certain headaches remind us of previous headaches.

Funds are tight these days. The Babies are charging as much for their debut as, say, Black Tambourine’s self-titled album or Wings' greatest hits. As musical consumers must limit their consumption budgets, musicians should display similar restraint in expending their credibility and talents.

Neon Hates You/Smell Anniversary Fest: The Smell is the sort of DIY space that makes a scene. All ages, with a bent toward the experimental and interesting, this L.A. spot is about to mark its 12th anniversary with a weekend festival (Jan. 22 and 23) that seems heavy on the stuff it trades in: Participants include Mi Ami, Lucky Dragons, Foot Village, and Robin Williams on Fire. $10 (we repeat: $10) gets you in for both days.

Sounds Like Brooklyn Festival: We here at Festival Watch can kind of feel the Brooklyn hate. Being based, as we are, in the self-proclaimed “Live Music Capital of the World,” we've seen for ourselves what happens when every honky with a tonk feels like they have a right to be a rock musician. Brooklyn, we think, suffers from a similar sort of self-assuredness. Except there, the obnoxious proliferation of honest-to-God musical goodness almost seems to justify that sentiment. Which makes it all the worse.

As if to drive this point home, even academe has embraced the whole Brooklyn-as-the-edgy-Mecca thing—well, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, to be exact. Over the last weekend of January and the first weekend pf February, the residents of Williamsburg and Greenpoint (and at least some portions of Bed-Stuy) will, for the third time, presumably decamp and witness what BAM believes is a representative cross-section of their borough's sonic creativity. What, exactly, that means is a little unclear. Says press: “BAM's Sounds Like Brooklyn Music Festival celebrates some of the best music from the borough with two weekends packed with concerts at BAM and at clubs all over Brooklyn.” But the organization lists only the shows it plans to host at its own facilities. Performers there include Les Savy Fav, Vivian Girls, and the reunited Anti-Pop Consortium. Tickets for those performances are still available—and will be for the foreseeable future. Unless, of course, any of those bands can actually sell out the multitiered opera house that will host their performances.

As for the rest of the weekend, your guess is as good as ours. But if you should find yourself in Brooklyn, upset at the lack of shows that appeal to you, we’d remind you that there’s plenty of other stuff to do.

Noise Pop 2010: OK, so we realize that the last time we did one of these, we told you all about Noise Pop 2010. But that was before we found out that Yoko Ono’s Plastic Ono Band would be playing. And despite the hit-or-miss craziness associated therewith, we still feel like that experience is probably worth the $39.50 admission price. Of course, if you’re planning to be out there anyway (reminder: Four Tet, two nights of Magnetic Fields, and assorted other awesomeness is included), you could just get a badge.

Brooklyn-based trio Vivian Girls opened the show, throwing most of the crowd for a loop–the love-child-band of the Jesus and Mary Chain and the Shangri-Las is an interesting tour mate for a vintage Americana act. But after charming the crowd with awkward between-song banter (would “Obummer” or “Obomber” make a better New York Post headline?) people of the pews loosened up and went along for the shoegaze/surf punk ride.

But when Ward took center stage, acoustic guitar in hand, harmonica in mouth, the crowd tightened up, listened up and sat rapt as he played a few songs before addressing them, thanking them for being there. When he did, they exploded until Ward’s restless digits returned to their strings and frets, wasting little time on monologue and polite conversation.

Instead, Ward looked at his fans, scanned the synagogue, and made all eyes who stared back feel his haunting cover of David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance” like no album version ever could. So too with a more lilting than shuffling “Fuel For Fire.” Ward seemed as invested in his D.C. fans as they were in him.

Ward played fan favorites from all four albums of his pre-Deschanel duo days, the most audience-appreciated being “Chinese Translation,” “Poison Cup” and concert-closer “Magic Trick” from his 2006 album Post-War. But compositions from Ward’s recent release Hold Time held their own among the favorites, and in comparison Ward played them with all the fervor of a gifted musician somewhat bored with playing the same old songs from his past tours. “Never Had Nobody Like You,” the reinvigorated Buddy Holly tune, “Rave On,” and “Fisher of Men” (which Ward, beaming at the crowd, seemed most pleased to play) were as well received as the “classics,” even if the applause followed the song instead of kicked it off.

Of course, Ward’s prolific plucking shone in a requisite cover from his personal guitar hero, John Fahey. And of course, fans had to peel themselves off the floor, after the encore, before exiting Sixth & I. But quite surprisingly, for such realizations are most always so, Ward solidified himself on stage Saturday night as this generation’s folk-guitar icon.

D.C. rediscovered its love for vinyl (the story of the year is the resurgence of the mom-and-pop record store). A neighborhood—Mount Pleasant—stood up against anti-live-music NIMBYs. Even a local band or two seemed to surprise all of us (Deleted Scenes).

There's a new underground, a real underground, working overtime in a group house in the District, and Iowa City, and every place in between. This new underground doesn't have much of an Internet presence (no standard wiki page, packages sold via checks-in-the-mail). This underground has started releasing hand-made tapes (again). Its fuzzy folky CD-Rs were this year's mix tapes.

Some of the year's best music couldn't be labeled. Some of the year's best music couldn't be found on Pitchfork. I wish I could have digested all of it. I wish I could have given a deeper listen to Wet Hair, Children's Hospital, Kria Brekkan, Ducktails, Mark McGuire, and so on. But here's my favorite indie releases of the year so far:

1. Ruby Suns: Sea Lion (Sub Pop)

In a year where everyone copied a bit from the New Zealand sound all over again—kiwi pop was almost as big as afropop as a selling point this year—the Ruby Suns are one of the few who didn’t fall for either the tribute to Paul Simon (Vampire Weekend) or plunder the Flying Nun catalog. Leader Ryan McPhun, a Californian who has made New Zealand his home for years, combines Afropop congas, ‘80s dance beats, and even a tribute to the Mojave Desert (now, well, a tribute to Mojave, some new Microsoft thing). It’s what Neutral Milk Hotel would sound like now. I wrote about the band's live show at the Black Cat a while ago and filmed a bit of its performance.

Listen to "Tane Mahuta"

2. The Woods: Some Shame [Tour-Only Cassette]

Here is a band that scores zero mentions on Metacritic, has gotten no reviews on Pitchfork. They release cassettes, CD-Rs and limited runs of vinyl. They put so much stuff out, they seem like an empire. They are a band for message boards and word-of-mouth. None of this means anything except that these Brooklyn DIY tapeheads aspire to real-not-virtual audiences, not hegemony or to be heard on a Gossip Girls episode. The Woods produce music that actually feels personal, and maybe even truly free sounding. Listening to Some Shame is like what it felt like to discover Weed Forestin’: ­woozy psych, bursts of noise, secret knowledge. It's a feel-good weirdness you decode only when you can’t sleep. (For me, that’s a lot of the time.)

Listen to "Military Madness"

3. Yoro Sidibe: Yoro Sidibe (Yaala Yaala)

A Towson professor, Jack Carneal, finds himself mesmerized by the plunky, preachy sounds of ancient Malian hunters music. So he seeks out the master. What he brings back is trance music, story songs for the dance floor whether centuries ago or right now. You’ll want to crank this up. I wrote about the record for the Post.

Listen to "Track 3"

4. Crystal Stilts: Alright of Night (Slumberland)

The debate of the year for nerds—at least myself and a few friends—seemed to come down to how you felt about your Brooklyn-based C86 tributes: Crystal Stilts vs. Vivian Girls. Both revived indie pop, both had a lot of hype, and both released some super-rare vinyl that had to be reissued before the year was out.

I pick the Crystal Stilts.

The band’s songs just a bit more vulnerable—they can go down bittersweet, nailing the early-morning-VU-comedown or detail the 2 a.m. walk home as girl-group tribute. Buried under reverb, Brad Hargett’s deep wallow is just twee enough. “The City in the Sea” may be the most beautiful indie -pop song I heard in 2008. Any band that could revive the beloved, one-time local Slumberland label has to be doing something right. This was the record that became part of my morning routine. Coffee. Grits. And the Crystal Stilts.

Listen to "Prismatic Room"

5. Arthur Russell: Love Is Overtaking Me (Audika)

Over smokes, a colleague dismissed this latest edition to the Arthur Russell cult by saying this isn’t what he wants out of Russell. He wants quirky dance beats, some avant cello, and some really smart, warped disco. But damn—who knew Russell could do country tunes as simple-memorable as lullabies? Russell does Drag City before Drag City. His songs are just as intimate and bracing (“Eli”), beautifully rambling (“I Couldn’t Say it to Your Face”) and free of Nashville’s sheen. You may want to join the cult.

Listen to "I Couldn't Say It To Your Face"

6. Flying Lotus: Los Angeles (Warp)

One of the coolest things about the Stones Throw label is that it has never stopped memorializing producer J Dilla. Since his death in February 2006, Stones Throw has supported mixes, concerts, T-shirts, and reissues in his honor. Hip-hop is a forward moving beast, but it has never stopped paying its respects to the fallen. There may still be Dilla beats yet to make it to wax. But eventually, those beats are gonna run out. Someone’s going to have to take the Dilla sound to the next realm. I vote for Flying Lotus, the Winnetka, California producer. His Los Angeles is the kind of spaced-out place Dilla would have loved.

Listen to "Breathe. Something/Stellar STar"

7. Woods Family Creeps: Woods Family Creeps (Time-Lag)

Weird folk finally gets weird. Songs included here do not directly reference old hippie styles (OK, maybe a little). The tunes shudder with seemingly found sounds, and find their grip by the strum of a guitar, a sustained piano chord, or Jeremy Earl’s loneliest falsetto. Sometimes you can almost dance to it (“Twisted Tongue”), sometimes you will be frozen by its bizarro blues (“Howling on Howling”). It sounds like they’ve found Tom Waits’ old toy chest. And pillaged it (“Sleep Sleep Sleep”). These are the same misfits that constitute Woods and Meneguar. They’re busy.

Listen to "Twisted Tongue"

8. Wavves: Wavves (Woodsist)

Wavves is Nathan Williams. He is from San Diego. Comparisons to No Age aside (both share an affinity for fuzz pedals and loud drums and reside in the same state), Wavves takes his cues from less abstract sources like Beat Happening and the Ramones, and really likes dropping the word “goth” in his song titles. Sure, he can play with noise, but then he’ll drop the sweetest, fuzziest pop nugget you’ll hear all year (“The Boys Will Love Us”).

Listen to "California Goth"

9. She & Him: Volume One (Merge)

Zooey Deschanel can sing. She can write real good, too. She also knows how to make talented friends (M. Ward) and find a respected label (Merge) to do her songs justice. While indie boys continued to toy with fuzz pedals and grow beards and practice CSNY harmonies (yuck), this actress went ahead and made the best tribute to ‘70s AM radio you never realized you really wanted to hear.

Listen to "This Is Not A Test"

10. Blank Dogs: The Fields CS (Woodsist)

I’m kind of a wuss when it comes to the growing basement doom scene. A lot of the Sacred Bones roster is too brittle, too gloomy, too damn scary for repeat listens (still, Sacred Bones could be the label of the year). The demented whimsy of Pink Noise? The hellraisin' industrial clang of the Factums? It’s some of the coldest music coming up from the underground. Blank Dogs certainly comes from that place, but his songs don’t sound like androids covering Bauhaus.

Blank Dogs sounds like a kid enthralled with Joy Division and the sound of old Nintendo games. I have not heard all of the recordings of Blank Dogs. Not even close. But what I do know is that this mysterious Brooklynite–who obscures his face for photos, doesn’t play out much at all, produced a compilation of his works, and gives his stuff away for free on his blog—won’t be a mystery for long. With music like this, he’ll eventually have to come up from the basement.

Listen to "Now Signals"

11) Department of Eagles: In Ear Park (4AD)

Not quite a side project, this Grizzly Bear outpost goes lush with the finger picking, orch-pop, and glam tributes. The songs are just invented enough to not tire out—they thump, sway, and swagger. The most complete, fully realized album I heard all year. In this case, professionalism is no diss.

Listen to "No One Does It Like You"

12) Dodos: Visitor (French Kiss)

Animal Collective may have not produced an album this year for review. But was their a band mentioned more on other people’s album reviews? The band may have evolved away from their campfire psych, but that hasn’t stopped the rest of indie rock from playing catch up. Although Dodos got the AC-tag, it didn’t need the help.

Listen to "Walking"

Josh Harkavy, owner of the record/book store Red Onion, e-mailed me this: his favorite, or some of his favorite records of the year.

Josh explains: "This is by no means a top 11 list, just 11 albums I listened to a lot in 2008.
Let me know if you need more info or anything. I hope you don't mind that I went to 11."

We don't mind at all.

Irma Thomas: Irma Thomas Sings (Mississippi Records)
While it's tough to choose one favorite Mississippi Records release, this is probably the one I play the most, especially in the store. It seems that whenever this album starts up, somebody ends up buying it.

Cotton Jones Basket Ride: The River Strumming (St. Ives Records)
This is truly my favorite discovery of the year. 300 pressed and I am so happy that I own one. Funky, folky psych from Maryland. More people need to hear this album.

Eddy Current Suppression Ring: Primary Colours (Goner Records)
I know the lead singer kinda sounds just like Mark E. Smith from the Fall, but that's ok.

Gary Higgins: Red Hash (Drag City)
Since I'll probably never find an original, I was happy when this was properly reissued by Drag City. And it came with a bumper sticker!

Cold Sun: Dark Shadows (World In Sound)
Quite possibly the most expensive new record I have ever bought, but worth every penny. Twisted Texas psych fronted by autoharp wizard Bill Miller. This band later went on to back Roky Erickson. Sooo good.

Monotonix: Body Language (Drag City)
I still have not seen Monotonix live even though it seems they have played DC about 6 times this year. I have listened to the 6 songs on their first release way too many times this year. Phil Lynott lives!

Crystal Stilts: Crystal Stilts (Woodsist)
I like this creepy Brooklyn band's self-titled EP a bit more than their Alight of Night LP. It's just the right amount of songs. Whenever I hear this EP, it makes me want to make music like this. It seems so easy.

Hear, O Israel: A Prayer Ceremony in Jazz (Trunk Records)
How this recording came to be I will never know. Herbie Hancock, Grady Tate, Ron Carter and others perform a Sabbath prayer concert written by 17 year old Jonathan Klein for his synogogue in 1968. Maybe it is best not to ask why, just to enjoy the sounds.

Atlas Sound: Let the Blind Lead..... (Kranky Records)
Creepy techno bedroom recordings from Deerhunter's Bradford Cox, and you can dance to it!

Relatively Clean Rivers: Relatively Clean Rivers (Phoenix Records)
The description of this lost early 70's west coast trip referenced both the Grateful Dead and the Velvet Undergound. I didn't believe it to be possible, but this might be the long lost love-child of those two groups.

Vivian Girls: Vivian Girls (In The Red)
I'm a little biased on this one since I used to go to garage sales with one of the members. It's a little uneven, but this is another one of those albums that I wish I could have made.