Chasing Fridays: Slide Away 2025 recap + Parquet Courts

I'll keep this intro short and sweet since the rest of this newsletter is uncharacteristically long, even by my own rambly standards. I went to Slide Away in New York City last weekend, and that's what I spent the vast majority of this edition of Chasing Fridays recapping. I have loads of thoughts on the many shoegaze bands I saw there (from underground up-and-comers to storied veterans) as well as some broader takeaways about where the genre currently stands and what it means when a dead band comes back to life.

I also wrote about Parquet Courts's 2012 album, Light Up Gold, which is a record I've loved for many years and always associate with hanging in New York City. So, in a way, that segment is a continuation of my reporting from The Big Apple. As always, the final section of this newsletter, in which I go in on an older record I've been spending time with, is for paying subscribers only, so you can toss me $5/month to read that and any other paywalled content on my site. Thanks to everyone who supports me monetarily, as I wouldn't be able to dedicate as much time as I do to this site without your generosity. Alright, now continue 'gazin down below.

My 8 favorite Slide Away moments

For the woefully uninformed, Slide Away is a shoegaze festival created by Nothing frontman Domenic Palermo. Last year, the inaugural Slide Away went down in Philadelphia and L.A., and I was at the Philly date soaking in all the amazing sets by shoegaze vets and current-day trailblazers alike. This year, Slide Away expanded into a three-city affair: Brooklyn, Philly, and L.A., with stacked pre-shows for the BK and L.A. iterations. This past weekend (April 25th and 26th), I was at both nights of Slide Away Brooklyn, standing front-row for a stacked Market Hotel bill on Friday night and then bopping around the regal Brooklyn Paramount theater for the historic main event on Saturday.

I say "historic" because it was. The piece de resistance of this year's lineup, and the reason it drew more than twice the number of bodies than last year's fest (a 2,800-person sold-out Paramount crowd, to be exact), is because Whirr were playing. It was their first show in a decade, and I was staying in an Airbnb with a couple people from Pittsburgh who wouldn't have missed their return for the world. Most people at the festival this year wouldn't have missed it for the world, and later this month, 4,000 more Whirr fans will congregate to L.A. to experience their long-awaited home-state return. My Bloody Valentine are gearing up to play their first shows in seven years later this fall, and the magnitude of that occasion feels comparable to Whirr's comeback. That's how much Whirr matter to people who care about shoegaze in 2025, and I knew I had to be there to experience that monumental occasion – and see a shit-ton of other awesome shoegaze bands in the process.

While I enjoyed every band I saw last weekend, I decided to highlight eight particular moments that stood out most to me: whether it was seeing a certain song live, the vibe of a specific band, or simply getting to experience something that I never thought I would. Next week, I'll be publishing a Q&A on Chasing Sundays with Palermo himself, and we'll touch on Slide Away, Whirr, Nothing, and other shoegaze-related subjects. But below, you can read my personal thoughts on one of the most special weekends I've had in a long time.

All photos by Luke Ivanovich

Western Haikus scratching heads

The first band to open the weekend's festivities were Western Haikus, an Omaha, Nebraska three-piece who had just dropped their debut single (below) the week prior. They played to about 50 people at Market Hotel and it seemed like half the crowd was vibing with their deconstructed noise-gaze while the other half zoned out listlessly. I was mostly in the former camp. I liked that they had no bassist, and the guitarists had their backup Jazzmasters lying flat on the stage behind them, scooping them up to plug in and out between songs. I also liked that they eschewed the baggy clothes zoomer-gaze uniform and instead rocked shabby suits and loosely-fitting ties, evoking a long-lost band from the first few chapters of Meet Me in the Bathroom – before the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and The Strokes came into the picture.

While the first half of their set was more...songy, the last composition was a 10-minute noise improvisation in which the guitarists scraped the heads of their instruments into the stage as if they were tracing the sand lines of a Zen garden. After about six minutes, the indulgent, Swans-esque clanging didn't sound as cool as the band thought it did, but it was still cool enough to win me over. I'm charmed by noise-rock pretension when the musicians doing it are visibly under the age of 23, and I liked hearing a shoegaze band go against the grunge-gaze grain and make something that feels like the next iteration of the Julia's War milieu. Definitely a band to keep an eye on.

High.'s swag

High. – who I wrote about earlier this year – were one of the bands I was most excited to see at this festival. Even so, I didn't expect them to be that good. On recording, the New Jersey group are straddling two different styles of shoegaze: one foot in the Nothing heavy-gaze lane and another in the TAGABOW noise-gaze stream. Live, though, their music coheres into one bludgeoning blur of sound that Febreze's away the stench of their influences and melts down any of their uneven stylistic divisions. They just sounded like High., and I was fucking smitten the whole way through. My friend and I both agreed that Bridget Bakie had the best bass tone of the weekend, and the guitars also sounded utterly massive, drowning out the vocals in the way all great shoegaze should in the live setting.

They also look the part of a band called High. The guitarists wore sunglasses onstage and stumbled around in a tipsy stupor. The band's stances and outfits were trendy without coming off as try-hard. Their playing was looser than the uber-tight band who took the stage before them, Magic America, but it was actually an asset that they almost sounded out of sync with the beat at a couple moments. It accentuated the "we're the shit" swag they were giving off, which wouldn't have landed well at all if they didn't sound so fucking richly textured and lustily assertive. Indie-rock bands with swag are always liable to rub some people the wrong way, but when a band look as cool as they sound – and know they look as cool as they sound, as High. do – that's just rock 'n' roll, baby.

Luster's sheer power

I learned a couple things about the L.A. shoegaze band Luster this weekend that took me aback. One is that their lineup features members of the hardcore bands Human Garbage and Clique, and their drummer played on the Trapped Under Ice demo, which is fucking insane lore that I was totally unaware of. The other thing I learned about Luster is that they're fucking crushing live, which isn't an adjective I'd typically use to describe a shoegaze band, but it's the most apt way of condensing their deafening Market Hotel set to one word. Seriously, I have not heard a shoegaze set this loud and enveloping since the first time I saw Nothing play a tiny club in 2016. I couldn't hear a word Luster's singer sung the whole set, and when Whirr frontman Loren Rivera hopped onstage for a guest verse, his croons were entirely inaudible against the backdrop of avalanching glide-guitar strokes.

Out of every band that played this weekend, Luster were the most My Bloody Valentine-esque. Their songwriting isn't totally remarkable, but they have their sound dialed in so precisely that it didn't really matter what they were playing because I was just mesmerized by sheer weight of their riffs and genuinely concerned for the well-being of my eardrums. I don't know if they'd ever played the East Coast before this, but they're very much an L.A. institution at this point and I was stoked to check them off the list of must-see acts from the 2020s 'gaze wave. If you play their new single "Sunday" loud enough in your bedroom, it almost sounds as good as they did in the Market Hotel monitors. But not quite.

Knifeplay's 4AD-ness

When people think of the legacy of 4AD Records, there're two primary strains that come to mind. The gothic art-rock of 1980s bands like Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance, and This Mortal Coil, and the primordial alt-rock of the Pixies, Throwing Muses, and The Breeders. However, another pocket of 4AD that's equally compelling is the twangy slowcore throughline that was led by Red House Painters and Mojave 3. That's the vein that Knifeplay are tapping into in their current iteration, and I think it's a really good fit for the Philly band, who've firmly left the scuzz-gaze of Pearlty and dream-psych of Animal Drowning in the past and are now on a totally different tip.

Singer-songwriter TJ Strohmer was rocking cowboy boots and staring bug-eyed into the distance while he crooned, lending the performance a subtle intensity that otherwise only peaked through their veil of wounded stoicism during the one or two ripping guitar solos. Like their set at last year's Slide Away, the power Knifeplay currently wield comes from their restraint. They carry loping ballads onward for eight minutes of rigid strumming, so precise and orderly that the mere addition of a steady tambourine shake has the same climactic effect as a bulbous burst of guitar distortion. Not that they're a quiet band, but compared to everyone else who played this weekend, they were the sparsest musically. Emotionally and atmospherically, though, they were heavier than anyone who took the stage.

Her New Knife's closing song

Her New Knife, who opened Slide Away's main showcase on Saturday, are at an interesting crossroads right now. The Philly-via-Florida band gained their legs as one of the best lo-fi pedal-stompers in the Julia's War multiverse, and then right as they were having their breakout moment in 2024, they dropped an EP, chrome is lullaby, that introduced their spikier, spookier turn away from shoegaze's 2020s locus. Drummer Elijah Ford told me before they played that they were debuting some unreleased stuff that's inspired by noisy dance bands like Model/Actriz, which definitely corroborates with how they've sounded the last couple times I've seen them live.

Whereas shoegaze typically has a soothing effect on the mind and psyche, Her New Knife's new material induces creeping unease. The sound of being overly caffeinated in a bus station, or higher than you thought that one hit would make you in a crowded bar full of strangers. I think they're still working out the kinks of this new direction, and at some points during their set, I internally wished that they'd go back to writing songs that are a little more linear and dynamically generous. Then they closed with an unreleased track that's basically Her New Knife's "Death Valley '69" – a roaring, squealing, rollicking noise-rock burner with a fake-out ending that made me bang my head and crinkle my face into a satisfied grimace. I don't know what that song is called or when I'll be able to hear it in my headphones, but when I do, I'll make the same stupid face. I can't wait.

Swervedriver playing "Duel"

Last year's Slide Away featured sets from veteran acts like Swirlies, Lovesliescrushing, and Astrobrite – three of the most important American shoegaze bands of all time. This year's lineup was centered around the long-awaited return of Whirr, which understandably overshadowed one of the first sets Swervedriver have played since 2019. The U.K. group should be mentioned in the same breath as Ride, Lush, Slowdive, and Chapterhouse – the first-wave pioneers of shoegaze. But of all those English bands, Swervedriver were then, and are now, the most connected to the genre's American identity.

Their 1991 debut, Raise, was more overtly indebted to the noisy, psychy squalls of My Bloody Valentine, but on 1993's Mezcal Head (a crucial shoegaze gateway for yours truly) they basically sounded like Dinosaur Jr. crossed with Sonic Youth's Dirty. It was grungey without aping Nirvana; muscular and metallic without the tough-guy bravado. The best song on Mezcal Head might be "Duel," and seeing Swervedriver close their set with those pulverizing riffs and brain-scalpeling leads was magical. The vast majority of the audience were there for Whirr and Nothing, but I hope a good chunk of those people went home realizing – if they didn't already know – that neither group would exist without Swervedriver.

Nothing with three guitarists

Nothing had three guitarists onstage for portions of their set at last year's Slide Away, but this year they had three axmen up there the whole time, and it sounded positively glorious. At this point in the festival, I had been on my feet for so long, seen so much shoegaze, and met so many people that everything was starting to blur together (in a good way), and Nothing's performance kind of feels like something that may or may not have happened. It did, though. The part that most sticks out in mind is the second half of "Somersault," when the jagged distortion cuts through the dreaminess and I feel like I'm floating backwards into the sunken place from Get Out. Hearing Nothing play that with an extra guitar's worth of heft made all the expensive Ubers I took over the weekend well worth it.

Whirr playing "Collect Sadness"

It's funny. One of the first things I published on this blog was a long essay about Whirr. Many of you are subscribed to this newsletter because of my 2024 interview with Whirr guitarist Nick Bassett, which remains the best, most meaningful interview I've ever done. Late last year, I reviewed Whirr's surprise comeback album Raw Blue, dubbing it my favorite thing they've ever released – by far. I would've traveled to Slide Away no matter what, but when people asked who I was most excited to see, the obvious answer was Whirr. Not so much because I wanted to hear their songs, because I've never been very interested in Whirr's music. But to witness a live performance that so many shoegaze fans in my age cohort never thought we'd see. The band's first show in 10 years. Their first post-"cancelation." Their first public appearance as one of the most popular and influential shoegaze bands ever, because over the last five years, they've become one of the most popular and influential shoegaze bands ever. That's just a fact.

It's funny, though, because Whirr's set wasn't my favorite of the weekend. I had more fun seeing High., Luster, and Knifeplay at the pre-show than any of the sets at the main show. Mostly because I prefer shows in smaller rooms, but also because I was distracted by other people and goings-ons at the main show and only felt half-present for most of the performances that evening. I wasn't in the pit for Whirr's set. I didn't wait on their hour-long merch line to scoop up limited edition vinyl pressings and "Eyes Wide Shut"-themed shirts. I didn't have a list of songs in my head that I needed to see them play. I was just there, off to the side, watching a band with my arms crossed while thousands of people 20 feet to my right absorbed every note in a state of spiritual and psychological ecstasy.

What I will say about Whirr's set is that it sounded very good. The band who are famous for not taking themselves seriously took this reunion very seriously. They sounded well-rehearsed but not stiff. Rivera's vocals were indeed audible, and the three guitars were mixed perfectly evenly so nothing sounded out of place or wonky. I don't really remember any of the particulars of the set besides when they played "Collect Sadness," the second track from Raw Blue that stands as my favorite Whirr song. Even if you don't like any of Whirr's other songs, I can't imagine a shoegaze fan who dislikes "Collect Sadness." The drum intro, the deluge of distortion that follows, the wobbly glide-guitar during the verses, the way the volume gets cranked back up during the chorus. This is superior rock songcraft channeled through a shoegaze filter, and watching them play it in a theater of 2,800 people who were losing their minds was fucking cool. Even the Whirr skeptic standing next to me was won over by "Collect Sadness."

When Whirr stepped offstage in Brooklyn, they embraced their partners and snapped photos behind the curtain while the crowd roared for an encore. The band didn't budge. Whirr didn't play any of their internet hits ("Leave" and "Ease" were both absent from the setlist) and they weren't about to cede any power to their fans and waltz back onstage for another song or two. The house lights came on and people started filing toward the exit while a 500-strong clutch of diehards chanted for one more song. Whirr's members smirked indifferently, giggling with each other and taking in the moment on their own terms. For me, that was the coolest part of their set. A clarification that this isn't about them cashing in on their TikTok hype and reducing themselves to shoegaze show ponies. It takes a lot of integrity and willpower to navigate this industry without sacrificing your DIY ethos, and I have a lot of respect for they way Whirr have conducted this comeback.

The following night, Whirr played the Philly date of Slide Away. Later this month, they'll play the L.A. version of the fest to a whopping 4,000 people at the Hollywood Palladium. Then, who knows. Maybe they'll announce more shows, or maybe they'll go away for another few years. Now that Whirr are back, a lot of the mystique around the band has vanished. They're no longer a band that was, but a band that actively are. I wonder how that will impact the way people interact with their music. I wonder how much of their appeal stemmed from the fact that they were inaccessible and intangible for so many years. This specter of a shoegaze band haunting the genre with a legacy that was so intrinsically tied to their quasi-posthumous state. What happens when a band who are famous for being dead come back to life? I'm not sure, but witnessing their rise from the tomb was pretty surreal.

Subscribe to Chasing Sundays for $5/month to continue reading the final segment of each Chasing Fridays column, where I go in on an older record that I've recently been spending time with.

Parquet Courts - Light Up Gold