Unnatural Helpers: Like Idle Times, with whom they share members, it’s solid, unpretentious garage rock. Dean Whitmore’s vocals sound like a more ragged Craig Finn circa-Lifter Puller, which is a plus; the sole downside was their 7 PM timeslot. I suspect that this band is best appreciated closer to the midnight hour, with whiskey or beers aplenty chalked up and a mood of revelry in the air.

Dum Dum Girls: From what I understand, singer/guitarist Dee Dee is the sole permanent member of this group. And seeing them twice in one day made me curious as to what sort of project this was: a band with a consistent sound and a revolving lineup, or something more nebulous, like Destroyer or Pink Mountaintops, where the songwriter remains the same but the style shifts dramatically depending on who else is in the band. Also worth mentioning is that this particular rhythm section — anchored by drummer Frankie Rose — is spot-on, bringing a Joy Division-like sense of space together with the girl-group melodies coming from the guitars. It’s a much deeper sound than one might initially think, and I’m curious to see what the next step made by this lineup, or this group, or both, happens to be.

Moondoggies: Solid set. “Night & Day” makes for a fine closer.

The Dutchess & The Duke: Here’s the strange thing. The stage banter was wonderfully profane. Jesse Lortz and Kimberly Morrison seemed engaged in a weird game of one-upsmanship through the night, sometimes bleeding into their songs — and yet the songs didn’t sting any less for the fact that their irreverent beginnings left large chunks of the crowd (myself included) laughing. (Example: Morrison naming each chord as she played it, a wicked grin on her face, as Lortz fumed.)

Golden Triangle: Beach-party madness in a rock club in autumn. The most fun live set I’ve seen this side of Les Savy Fav, I’d say.

Pissed Jeans: Yep, dropped the ball in a big way by missing this band since seeing them around the time of Hope For Men. Mr. Weingarten is spot-on, I’d say. In lieu of more pontification, I’ll direct you to Diana Wong’s photos of the set in question.

Obits: A slow-burning set, opened with their cover of “Military Madness.” Fine stuff.

Male Bonding: It’s probably lazy to quote myself, but: “Male Bonding sound like the offspring of aught-six’s Part Chimp/Oxford Collapse tour. Hence: rad.“

This was my first time seeing The Dutchess & The Duke since last year’s CMJ, and it again found them in trio mode. The set was solid — though something about the tone of Jesse Lortz’s guitar seemed a little off — and they did a fine job of evoking the scope of their new Sunset/Sunrise even in a more minimal configuration. (And here’s where I shamelessly link to an interview I conducted with Lortz earlier in the month.)

My first impression of the very buzzed-about Dum Dum Girls hearked back to my impression of Girls At Dawn two nights earlier: that the world of indie-rock seems suddenly abounding with “Girl” bands owing a sonic debt to assorted bands featuring Amy Linton (i.e. Henry’s Dress, The Aislers Set). Abundant reverb, unabashedly retro melodies, and a punk-rooted energy. Admittedly, this is a style I like, so I’m not really complaining. There’s also the matter of their onstage look, which is either the apex of a particular style or a critique of it. It would take until my second time seeing the band for my take on their music to shift — and while I’m tempted to say something like “tune in tomorrow for the senses-shattering conclusion.” Except: no.

The first (and longest) portion of this set involved Califone providing the soundtrack for a Tim Rutili-directed film titled All My Friends Are Funeral Singers — also, you may note, the title of Califone’s new album Some of the songs from the album appear in the film, while others seem to be meditations on it. The film itself is about a psychic living in a house filled with ghosts — the ghosts are the “funeral singers” of the title, and among their number are a band that looks suspiciously like Califone. (There’s also, memorably and hilariously, a priest with distinctly unorthodox views on the afterlife.) The film itself is well-acted, and smartly works around having to use special effects for its supernatural interventions — though the minimal plot at times felt too familiar.

There was a break after the screen was taken away, and the band returned to play a second set that encompassed material old and new. Witty banter was delivered from the stage, and Tim Rutili’s voice was heartbreakingly raw. And I remained perplexed as to why I didn’t embrace this band in 2002.

Seattle’s Idle Times impressed me in part due to their onstage presence: a normal-looking bunch of guys playing straightforward garage-punk. Much like Unnatural Helpers, who I’d see later in the festival (and who share members with Idle Times), there’s something hard to argue with about heartfelt garage rock played with intensity, and that’s what this group brought. (They also do a mean cover.) There was a similar quality afoot in the late-night set from Smith Westerns, if memory serves.

Diehard are friends, so I can’t be all that impartial about their sound. That said, it’s a sound that heavily recalls early-to-mid-90s alt-rock, and thus triggers fits of nostalgia in me for a time when I drove around central New Jersey in a 1985 Chrysler Laser. It’s catchy stuff (a week later, a few of their songs are still in my head), and I’m tempted to revisit the Madder Rose discography to see if the nascent comparison my mind is trying to make is, in fact, accurate.

1. Primarily: the piece is excellent. Dynamic enough for those in the audience who know the Dessners through their work in The National; complex enough so that it didn’t seem out of place in an opera house.

2. I’ve heard music made by the Deal sisters for over fifteen years now, and I had no idea that their vocal range is what it is. For the first part of The Long Count, their vocals are somewhat distorted; in its second half, their vocal appearances hit with a depth and clarity I wouldn’t have imagined.

3. Shara Worden’s vocals mesh with the Dessners’ music scarily well. The Dark Was the Night compilation proved that the Dessners can write well for multiple vocalists, but her approach meshed with their music especially well; it’s a collaboration that I hope extends beyond this piece.

4. I’m pretty sure Antony Hegarty was two people in front of me on line to get in. Dude is tall.

Also worth reading: interviews pertaining to the piece in Pitchfork, Flavorwire, and Brooklyn Vegan. One hopes that an album version will see the light of day before long — this is music I’d welcome the ability to revisit.

I know Broadcast primarily through their first two albums, The Noise Made By People and Work and Non-Work. I knew both to be pop: fractured pop at times, but still…pop. So I wasn’t expecting the set that they had in store, which began with a harsh combination of distorted sounds and a barrage of visuals. The effect was far closer to dälek, or My Bloody Valentine’s “You Made Me Realize.” Disarming? Yes. Though when the group shifted gears into a more pop direction, the effect of relief hit on a physical level.

Screaming Females. The rhythm section starts out by making you recall the Minutemen, and, hey, there’s some precedent for that in terms of New Brunswick trios. (I’m thinking of Stormshadow, who wrote the best Orson Welles-as-punk-metaphor song ever.) And then Marissa Paternoster’s guitar and vocals kick in, and….damn. Paternoster’s voice can go from a soulful croon to a scream that recalls Rick Froberg circa Yank Crime. And while a lot of the press I’ve seen for the band has discussed her guitarwork, it’s worth mentioning that, at their root, they’re a punk band — guitar heroics are on display, but never in a way that threatens to derail the song. I keep thinking of the Zero Boys reissues that Secretly Canadian did a while ago, and how Screaming Females sound like they could be this lost contemporary of any number of SST Records bands — except that there’s something deeply, compellingly, immediate about their sound.

Headliners Dean & Britta were, admittedly, not exactly channeling the early-80s Replacements on stage, but even playing with minimal lighting beneath Andy Warhol’s screen tests, they never ceased to draw attention. The onstage rapport between Britta Philips and Dean Wareham, the drumming of Anthony LaMarca, and Wareham’s tendency to go for the unexpected in his solos all contributed to the group’s ability to be compelling on stage. The set, including covers of Bob Dylan and Lou Reed songs (Reed’s screen test needed no introduction, and got a fair amount of applause from the crowd), never lacked for dynamic range, and the encore of Galaxie 500‘s “Fourth of July” felt spot-on.