Pitchfork

Just when you need another reminder of how much better your life would be if you lived in the Bay Area (not to mention how much less money you'd have), along comes the 13th installment of San Francisco's well-nigh-legendary Noise Pop Festival. The specific locations and bills for each show remain unannounced-- although you can count on pretty much every SF club getting into the act-- and the bookings are still rolling in, but enough top-drawer acts are already confirmed to get any noise popper's drool flowing. Ted Leo + Pharmacists kick off the opening night, February 22nd, with the Polyphonic Spree wrapping it all up five days later on the 27th.

In between, the festival's official website is promising sets by Joanna Newsom, Rogue Wave, Amon Tobin, Portastatic, Les Georges Leningrad, Nada Surf, High on Fire, The Velvet Teen, Nicolai Dunger, and the proverbial "more". It's like a whole year's worth of Conan O'Brien musical guests in less than a week. The usual carnival of sideshows-- a film festival, a music law seminar, etc.-- will return this year as well.

"Our little Noise Pop is growing up so fast," proud papa Kevin Arnold muses in the advance press release. "It seems like just yesterday she was in diapers, crawling around from club to club. Now we can barely get her to sit down for dinner, she's busy running all over town between 10 different clubs seeing dozens and dozens of bands. But you know teenagers!" Actually, judging by what the kids are wearing, listening to, eating, and first-person-shooting these days, we don't. But we'll assume Noise Pop's organizers lack the self-conscious surliness and microscopic attention span of today's young Americans. Why can't they be like we were: perfect in every way?

Although many acts remain unnanounced, tickets for the festival go on sale this Sunday, December 12, through www.noisepop.com. A festival badge will set you back $125.

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