Down Is Up 16: Don Giovanni Records Showcase

Down Is Up discusses music that falls slightly under the radar of our usual coverage: demos and self-releases, as well as output from small or overlooked labels and communities. This week, Jenn Pelly highlights her favorite moments from last weekend's Don Giovanni Records showcase in Brooklyn.

I have associated February with the Don Giovanni Records showcase for the last few years, but only recently have I come to appreciate how quaint and cool it is to have a label showing detached from the headache of the annual corporate marathons. To experience the New Brunswick, N.J.-focused label for a weekend is to be immersed in a chapter of the future sequel to Our Band Could Be Your Life—a deeply inspiring, self-built punk community focused primarily on one geographic area, which understands that its records can be gifts to outsiders and weapons against assembly-line music industry monotony. There are wake-up calls coded into all of these songs that say, "You can do this, too."

At these shows, I've seen masses of Garden-State-dwellers freak out to a reunion set from local hardcore heroes Stormshadow; Amy Klein rip with her overlooked noise-rock duo Hilly Eye; Jawbreaker's Blake Schwarzenbach play with his new band, forgetters; Waxahatchee's Katie Crutchfield strum her blues to a buzzing crowd like a young Chan Marshall; Jersey punk-pop power trio Black Wine deliver sugary mini-anthems; and label fixtures Shellshag, the grunge-pop lifer duo active since the 90s, and one of my favorite bands in Brooklyn, who I first heard at a DG showcase years ago.

Screaming Females: "Bell" on SoundCloud.

Each year brings a set from the label's most celebrated export, Screaming Females, a trio that has given this generation a legitimate guitar hero in Marissa Paternoster. Fresh off recording their first live album in Chicago with Steve Albini, this set exploded with cuts from across their five records. (Their nonstop schedule seemed easy to take for granted until Paternoster got sick in 2012 and the band hit pause for a bit; see her comic about it here.) It ended with Paternoster curled up in a ball on the ground, her guitar floating away in a sea of outstretched hands, while bassist King Mike strapped his instrument onto a blue-haired fan who'd invaded the stage and then hopped down into the crowd to rage. One day people will lie about being at Screaming Females shows.

Priests: "Personal Planes" on Bandcamp

Last weekend's showcase also featured Washington, D.C. post-punk band Priests, who seem to time-warp any setting into an 80s punk show; frontwoman Katie Alice Greer's unhinged personality consumed the room. Priests share a political streak with Worriers, the excellent, lyrical new punk band from Lauren Denitzio, who opened the night. Later came the East Coast debut of Upset, the Hatfield-reminiscent guitar pop group fronted by Ali Koehler (ex-Vivian Girls/Best Coast) with Hole's Patty Schemel on drums and Swearin's Kyle Gilbride on bass. Near the front of the crowd, contributing his own harmonies, was a wide-eyed Peter Stampfel, the 75-year-old string-player active in the downtown New York scene since the 60s and 70s, a vet of the Fugs and Holy Modal Rounders who is now working with Don Giovanni. And at the back of the venue, Lookout Records founder Larry Livermore was signing copies of his memoir, the first book published by the label.

Vacation: "Pyro Hippies" on SoundCloud.

Tenement: "Stupid Werld" on Bandcamp

Until last weekend, I was not fully convinced by two Don Giovanni newcomers: Tenement, the gruff, melodic punk fixtures from the small Wisconsin town of Appleton, and Vacation, a thrashing punk-pop band from Cincinnati (members of which have recently gained some attention for their other project, Tweens). I liked their recent records—2011's Napalm Dream and 2013's Candy Waves, respectively—but knew I had to see them play. They were two of the weekend's best sets: Both made Brooklyn venue Death by Audio feel like a lawless, off-the-grid basement. During an intensely peculiar interlude, Tenement frontman Amos Pitsch rang church bells until they began to fall apart; later, the crowd demanded an encore ("Stupid Werld").

Shellshag: "1984" on SoundCloud.

Vacation covered Shellshag's "Crashing Rockets" with Shellshag on stage, shouting along before the songwriters dove into the pit of kids. It was a great teaser for the following night's rapturous set from Shellshag—whose best songs (of which there are many) crunch, soar, and smile with an ethos of resilience and emotional sincerity, oriented towards where things are going rather than where they've been. "Those kids will go the distance/ Teach you about resistance," Jen Shag sings on "1984", from 2010's Rumors in Disguise, in a nod to the younger people in the scene who began to inspire her in her 30s. It is my favorite track Don Giovanni has released. "This song is a tribute to all of these young people we've met, who inspire us, who I believe are going to save the world," Shag said in 2010. "It's just this giant song of hope for the future."

Watch the first episode of Shellshag's new internet T.V. show, "Shellshonic Shag-o-Vision", featuring Marissa Paternoster covering Sinéad O'Connor and Liz Phair: