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A sovereign nation of drum-toting, megaphone-wielding musical savages
BY L.C. MASON
As if it were a sovereign nation of drum-toting, megaphone-wielding musical savages, Foot Village bears its own two-pronged manifesto, stating “Our national language is drumming, our national pass-time is screaming.” This declaration aptly sums up the Los Angeles group’s polyrhythmic sonic attack, which is studded with explosions of feral hoots and hollers, and three drum sets’ worth of cataclysmic crashing, hissing, and banging.
The band’s witch-doctor blend of hardcore punk and noise rock is at its best on “Bones”: visions of bloodthirsty, amphetamine-fueled jungle warriors out to collect heads come to mind via Grace Lee’s wild yawps over the rest of the Village’s battle cries and death-drum rolls. Foot Village’s forthcoming album of “drum essays,” titled Anti-Magic (Upset the Rhythm) and out June 2009, will be the young collective’s blueprint for its war upon the ethereal as its avows to “embrace the physical and the physical alone.” Considering the group’s aggressively carnal approach to music, god help anyone who gets in its way.
The ensemble will perform with the Drums — a new project with John Dwyer, ex of the Coachwhips and currently of Thee Oh Sees — at Bottom of the Hill, making it a blitzkrieg of eardrum assault with no electric guitars or bass in sight. This isn’t the usual clamor we San Franciscans are fed, but the citizens of Foot Village are clearly ready to shovel their bristling wall of sound down our hungry throats.

Show Review 1:
Treasure Island fest – another view
By Steven Touchton
Foot Village are a vocals-and-percussion-only quartet who stole the show, in my opinion, with a sweat-drenched set of primal energy. Captain Ahab (winner of the Snakes on a Plane-song competition) closed it out, rave style. He brought along a fancy sound system and a dancer guy whose job is to “sexually harass” dudes in the crowd while singing along sans microphone. The dance-party covers included a Vocoder-soaked version of Avril Lavigne’s “Sk8ter Boy.”

Show Review 2:
It takes a Foot Village – and the Drums and T.I.T.S. to make a glorious noise at Bottom of the Hill
By L.C. Mason
The drum gods were smiling down on Bottom of the Hill Feb. 18 as drum-centric bands Foot Village and the Drums pounded out thunderous reveries that undoubtedly had even the stars in the sky dancing to their rhythm.
Heating things up good and hot was psychedelic noise outfit T.I.T.S., an all-girl ensemble that definitely brought the ruckus down on an unsuspecting crowd. Their deafening, doom metal-tinged jams would have made Metal Machine Music-era Lou Reed proud and filled the space with minor key dirges and menacing, monotone lyrics about the void and phantom animals. Bassist Mary “Elizabreast” Yarbrough dazzled as she punched her guitar strings in an attempt to make the ceiling fall, while the rest of the girls, dressed in mismatched flower-print housewife garb, maintained professional poker faces as they laid down riffs so heavy you couldn’t get under them if you tried.
As eager audience members climbed onstage for Los Angeles drum quartet Foot Village’s set, the band broke into one of the most frenzied, in-your-face performances I have ever witnessed. Choosing to forgo any method of ear protection, I experienced the group’s tidal wave of war cries and throbbing drum cadences in full force. I don’t think my eardrums have recovered yet, but perhaps they’ll thank me in the future because Foot Village’s stage show is like watching – and hearing – a coup-d’etat unfold before you. Main megaphone-wielder Grace Lee barreled impressively through the delighted crowd both onstage and off and crawled on all fours, howling like a black-haired banshee.
Foot Village were so convincing as pied pipers that even bellowed lines like “I like pee pee in my Coke / I’m not afraid to eat my greens” sounded less absurd and more like a staunch proclamation of the group’s preferred eating habits. The culmination of their set was the slow-building “Protective Nourishment,” which simmered and then erupted as Lee continually screamed, “There lies the low hanging fruit / Give us the fruit,” like a woman taunted by some ever-elusive dream or destiny, her face contorted by the sheer force of sound coming from her tiny body.
Their set was meticulous yet wildly uninhibited, a call to arms enveloped in the spirit of spontaneity as drumsticks shattered and megaphones squealed.
Not a moment after Foot Village relinquished the audience’s attention, John Dwyer’s new side project the Drums began their kamikaze takeover. Launching headlong into the sparse, midtempo “Oh Catamaran,” Dwyer’s bandmate Anthony Petrovic (also of Ezeetiger) set forth clanging, feedback-laced falsetto wails, which established the mood for an eerily captivating set performed on a Siamese drum set near the venue’s door.
“I Want Candy” was given a nervy, Dwyeristic makeover. The duo rendered the song with crisp beats and punctuated it with an echoing haze of vocals proclaiming an impervious desire for sweets.
Cacophonous, brutal and brain-rattling, the spellbinding mire of noise created by last night’s connoisseurs of commotion was a magnificent beast to behold – a true and welcome departure from San Francisco’s usual indie fare.