Nashville Music Blog

This year, we've already seen the scheduled lineups for all sorts of indie rock music festivals: Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, Pitchfork. The blogosphere was abuzz, and why not? There are so many things to love about an indie rock festival. It's like a vacation where you get to see a lot of bands for a (relatively) cheap price, get drunk during the day and meet new people who might turn out to be hot. But there's one fact about indie rock festivals that you just can't avoid: They have indie rock bands at them. For some of us, that precludes the sort of joyous exuberance that should be the province of music fandom.

I know, I know, they're not all bad. But what if instead, you could see a bunch of garage, weirdo-punk, shit-fi, power-pop and budget-rock bands? Wouldn't that be even better? I think so, at least, so I was pleased to see that Goner Records just posted a partial list of who will be playing this year at Gonerfest 6. The event, "three nights of rock & roll insanity," will take place in Memphis Sept. 24 through 26, and the site vaguely assures us
that tickets go on sale "soon." Doesn't say how much passes will cost, but they were $50 last year, I think?

The biggest news is that influential Kiwi-pop/first-wave punk band The Clean will be there. Whoa! Other than that, a few I'm looking forward to seeing are: Nobunny, who play Ramones-derived loud, scuzzy bubblegum with tons of energy, wit and fresh ideas (and made No. 1 on Jay Reatard's best of 2008 list); beloved Columbus garage-punk institution Cheater Slicks; and Memphis up-and-comers Useless Eaters, who have yet to release an LP, but have already impressed me with their paranoid, raw-sound first single "Agoraphobic."

But I haven't heard all the bands on this list, so what do you think, readers? Also, this list is only partial, and Goner will probably add about 15-ish more bands by the time they're done. Watch this space for further updates! Whom else would you like to see?