“Is Steampunk the Next Big Fashion Trend?” asked Time today. LOL-choke. Let’s just tune up our corsets and revel all weekend in burner-tinged retro-futurism at the Edwardian Ball (Fri/18 and Sat/19 at the Regency).
To wet your steamwhistle, here are pics from last year and an interview with founder Justin Katz.
Localized Appreesh is our thank-you column to the musicians that make the Bay. To be considered, contact emilysavage@sfbg.com.
What began life as a side-project for Il Gato drummer Johnny Major has grown into a hyper melodic, can’t-miss, feel-good group to know. Or as I breathlessly wrote after catching an early show at the Hemlock: Adios Amigo is pure indie-pop bliss, in the vein of Broken Social Scene and the Shins.
In this one, Major leads as singer-songwriter-guitarist, backed by guitarist Rahi Kumar, bassist Alex Coehn, drummer Stephen Wills, Claire Grinton on keys and fiddle, and percussionist Catalina Atria – along with warm multi-part harmonies put forth by all those involved.
The band released Dos last year, and starts 2013 off right with a headlining gig at Cafe Du Nord. Learn more about Adios Amigo below, but first check out the video for plucky “Chicken” and see how long you can hold out without cracking a grin.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4X7QxfE2jw
Video Credit: Caitlyn Adkins
Year and location of origin: 2011, San Francisco
Band name origin: Sitting in a cubicle in SOMA, dreaming of escaping to South America, I came up with the name. It means ‘Goodbye Friend’.
Band motto: “¡Hasta la victoria siempre!” – “Until victory, always!”
Description of sound in 10 words or less: Grandiose, jangly, guitar-driven, harmonic psych-pop
Instrumentation: Two Guitars, one bass, one keyboard, one drum set.
Most recent release: Dos EP – June, 2012.
Best part about life as a Bay Area band: Living in one of the most beautiful cities in the world, being a part of one of the best music scenes in the world, playing awesome venues, great food, liberals.
Worst part about life as a Bay Area band: The rent. Too high.
First album ever purchased: Green Day’s Dookie, or the Forrest Gump soundtrack.
Most recent album purchased/downloaded: Tame Impala, Lonerism.
Favorite local eatery and dish: The Little Chihuahua — Garlic Shrimp Burrito. Everyday.
Adios Amigo
With City Tribe, Ghost Tiger
Thu/17, 9pm, $10
Cafe Du Nord
2170 Market, SF
www.cafedunord.com
More than a year ago, in his rundown on “top substances that have influenced music,” promoter-DJ Marco De La Vega said this: “I…raid my own medicine cabinet, take a couple Vicodin, and listen to a stack of records including [Girls],Tamaryn, King Dude, Chelsea Wolfe, and Zola Jesus.”
Already a fan of the others mentioned in that paragraph, I sought out King Dude (a.k.a T.J. Cowgill) and found that I’d already known his previous work, intimately. I’d seen his black metal band Teen Cthulhu in high school, and for many years had the band’s sticker plastered on my black Nissan Maxima, later discovering his band that rose from the ashes of Teen Cthulhu: Book of Black Earth.
It was his turns as founder-creative director of his own clothing label, Actual Pain (Kanye has worn it, OK?), and solo “darkly spiritual acoustic-folk” singer-songwriter that have been the most surprising. Like previous King Dude releases, 2012’s Burning Daylight (Dais) is a desolate affair, with subtle plucking and Cowgill’s darkly raspy vocals meditating on death, murder, spirituality, and love – or as I wrote in this week’s Tofu and Whiskey print music column (Jan. 9 issue), it sounds like “a gravelly demon inside, clawing to get out.”
Yet, behind that gloomy facade, Cowgill was friendly as hell during our phone call, even in the face of adversity. While his beloved dog was going through tests at the vet, he chatted about the occult, personal influences (John Lomax, prison songs, Death in June), his musical relationship with tour-mate Chelsea Wolfe (they arrive at the Great American Music Hall this Fri/11), the differences between his many bands, and deep-seated psychological fears:
San Francisco Bay Guardian Where are you right now?
T.J. Cowgill I’m at the vet with my dog, everything’s OK. She’s been dog aggressive a little lately, so we’re just making sure. Dogs don’t have a way to tell you when they’re sick. My dog is really nice. She’s a big black lab, and she’s usually nice but she tried to bite a dog yesterday. She’s seven, and hasn’t been to the vet in a long time, but I’m about to leave on tour, so I want to make sure she’s OK before I go.
SFBG What’s her name?
Cowgill Her name’s Pagan.
SFBG OK, so that leads into my first real question: where did you find this interest in the occult?
Cowgill It’s just how I was raised. My dad and his wife were Born Again Christians – they got saved at this church in a small town in Oregon, and that was probably when I was six or seven. Before that they were basically atheists. My mom though has always been a neo-Pagan Witch, her own breed or religion. She would teach me how to meditate, she had healing crystals. So my mother taught me that stuff sometimes out of the year, and then my dad would be telling me that it’s all devil worship. It was back and forth.
I just had to figure out why all these adults in my life were crazy. And I just had a profound interest in the history of religion in general, because of it. Where do these beliefs come from? How are people so fractured when it comes to spirituality?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiSnI8vyxx0
SFBG Can you tell me about the process for ‘Burning Daylight?’ What was influencing you at the time you were making it?
Cowgill That record in particular, I was listening to a bunch of early field recordings, by like, John Lomax, a lot of prison songs, and a lot of early American country-blues. But it’s across the board; some of it is influenced by country stars like Roy Orbison and Johnny Cash. John Lee Hooker, a lot of his guitar playing influenced how I played guitar on that record. In all, I was just going for an early American, turn of the century vibe. An alternate score to maybe There Will Be Blood.
SFBG It does have a little bit of a darker feel to it…
Cowgill Totally, it’s really dark. I thought when I recorded like, ‘this isn’t that dark.’ But then I play it and some songs are the darkest, most depressing shit. When I was writing it, it didn’t feel like that at all. Then of course you send it off to press, to the labels, and you don’t think about it anymore, because you’re sick [of hearing it]..I record, mix, and master everything that I release, or I have so far. And so it’s like, I don’t want to hear those fucking songs for a good amount of time. It was almost three months before I listened to it again, and I was like, ‘Jesus Christ, this is the darkest fucking record.’ Who wants to sit around and listen to this?
SFBG People are drawn to the darker stuff.
Cowgill Definitely. It represents a side of every single human being. The themes were like, love causing people to murder, the need to accomplish something, preventing your own death by any means necessary. And while working on the record, I was going to this incredibly dark place. My wife noticed, everybody noticed. I would get into arguments with people, or fistfights, I got arrested, you know? I’m like, how bad am I trying to get myself into trouble to understand this, or to get this narrative correct. I’m not normally like that.
SFBG Each song does feel like its own narrative, a vignette with a scene of specific characters, like in ‘Barbara Ann,’ there’s a story of murdering for love, but is it really a love song?
Cowgill I think it’s probably the best love song I’ve ever written. Just simply because it is this character, this young kid. It’s from the perspective of this 12-year-old kid singing to another 12-year-old, this girl Barbara Anne. In my mind it takes place in a small town in the ’40s and it’s this kid who’s wildly in love but doesn’t really even know what love is.
He’s more in love than anybody has been in love before, and is willing to do anything for Barbara Anne, who’s not even a bad person but she has had some bad things happen to her in the town. So the kid is like: I’ll kill everybody in the town for you, if that’s alright with you. That’s the most loving thing I think anybody can say for somebody else.
To get into a character, if you’re trying to tell a story – and all my songs have a fairly strong narrative – it helps to give some life to the characters that you might not even talk about in the song.
SFBG How different is that from the way you’d write for your other bands like Teen Cthulhu and Book of Black Earth?
Cowgill Completely different. I have to take into consideration the feelings and religious or political stances of the people I’m in a band with. I don’t feel, in the past, that I’ve ever been able to just write whatever I wanted; there was a bit of a filter – and it’s not like they were asking me, don’t write songs about this or censoring, but I was sort of self-censoring, to not associate them with something they didn’t want to affiliate with.
SFBG Is this the first time then that you’ve really been able to write exactly how you wanted?
Cowgill Exactly. I realized early on the power of that for me, and how much I liked it. I love it. My creativity or output is much higher than it is in other bands. It’s a far more difficult process with a band. I’m in another band called CROSS with Travis [Namamura] from Teen Cthulhu and my friend Larry [Perrigo], who was in Wormwood, and that’s a collaborative band. It’ll take us months to write a single song and with King Dude, I could do a song a day.
Granted, the songs are completely fucking different. My songs are blues and folk-influenced, so the framework’s already there. In CROSS, it’s inspired a lot by Finnish black metal, so it’s a weirder process. Everybody in that band CROSS looks at it as a different band. I look at it as complete Bathory worship as a guitar player, the bass player [Perrigo] listens to Finnish Black Metal, and then [drummer Namamura] listens to hardcore and heavy metal.
SFBG So how did you choose folk and blues as the direction for your personal project?
Cowgill It just kind of came out that way, I think. I have a strange guitar tuning I use, it’s just a little different than a normal tuning and it forces everything into a minor key, and it makes the song sound sadder, somber, with a sense of longing. When you strum an acoustic guitar with a C chord, it just sounds kind of folky.
Plus I was listening to like, a lot of British folk at the time when I started it. I listened to bands like Trees and Fairport Convention and even Krautrock too. Death in June obviously, and all the neofolk stuff was greatly influential on me.
Although, I didn’t ever really consider myself part of that scene, I just knew a little bit about. I just started discovering it around that time. Actually, I started King Dude before I heard Death in June. My friend Mary – who is a lifelong goth [laughs] – heard the recording I did and said, ‘This sounds like Current 93 and Death in June.’ And I was like, ‘what are those bands?’ And just dived in and fell in love with both of those bands and it really influenced what I was writing.
SFBG How did you end up working with Chelsea Wolfe? This is your first tour together, but you’ve also recorded together in the past?
Cowgill We recorded a split seven-inch, we wrote two songs together and performed on each other’s material. My wife, Emily, played drums on both of the songs. And Ben Chisholm, her boyfriend who plays bass in the band, played on both songs. So it was very collaborative. That was a year and a half or two years ago. We’ve only done a couple of shows together in our lives. That’s so weird, I’ve known them for so long.
SFBG How did you first meet?
Cowgill There’s this guy Todd Pendu, Pendu Sound Recordings. He put out her early stuff. He also was a big King Dude fan. He thought I should met Chelsea and that we should do a split together. It was weird, meeting Chelsea with a pretense. It was that awkward moment when your friend is trying to set you up with someone.
I was like, I don’t know if she’s an asshole, I don’t know if she’s on heroin. I don’t know anything about her. There’s all kinds of things that would make me not want to work with someone. But as luck would have it, we got on like a house on fire. We’re similar in a lot of aesthetics and things, and Tom was right.
SFBG For the record, she’s not an asshole or a heroin addict...
Cowgill It’s really good that’s she’s not. It’s beyond just, ‘oh she’s cool.’ We’re friends. Ben wrote the intro for my last record, Love. We share music with each other before it comes out. It’s a great friendship. We’re really stoked [for the tour].
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bP-MBHdka90
SFBG What else do you have planned for 2013?
Cowgill I have a record called Fear. It’s a lot different than Burning Daylight. The songs are a lot more ’60s pop rock, British Invasion type of stuff. But lyrically it’s much much darker.
Burning Daylight is about death, an angry emotion, but Fear is about your deepest, darkest fears – the things that keep you awake at night; I’m exploring deep-seated psychological stuff. It’s been enlightening. The lyrics are more personal, maybe not such fictional characters. So that’s a huge step for me, I’ve never done that before. Lyrically and musically, I think it’s the best stuff I’ve written.
I’m about to tour for two months, so it’ll probably be a fall release. About a record a year is what I aim for.
SFBG And you’re still doing the Actual Pain [clothing line]?
Cowgill That’s a full-time operation as well. Luckily, [Emily] helps so much. We’re partners in the business as well as in life. And we have a couple of employees now. So it’s a little easier for me to leave and tour. For the past couple of years, it’s been too hard for me to leave for more than a week. Actual Pain is doing really well and growing a lot, and in that growth I experience a little more freedom.
King Dude
With Chelsea Wolfe
Fri/11, 9pm, $15
Great American Music Hall
859 O’Farrell, SF
www.slimspresents.com
It’s likely your first full week back to work after the holidays – and just how does that feel? Painful? Like a dull, numbing pain creeping up your neck? Fix it with fun, like the kind you’ll have seeing former Das Racist, Kool A.D. at Elbo Room, doom folk friends Chelsea Wolfe and King Dude at the Great American Music Hall, or producer Jerome LOL at Rickshaw Stop, punk act Kicker at Bender’s, or club night Push the Feeling’s one-year anniversary show at Underground SF.
Cheer up, Bay Area. There’s plenty to hear in 2013.
Here are your must-see Bay Area concerts this week/end:
Kool A.D.
Fresh off that announcement that his group, Das Racist, broke up (though it technically fizzled months earlier), Kool A.D., a.k.a Victor Vazquez, seems to be reinvesting himself in Bay life. The rapper-producer grew up here, and in 2012, he reconnected with his roots: releasing a mixtape (51) recorded in Oakland, littered with Bay notables and local references. Here’s to new projects on 2013.
With Safe, Trill Team 6, Trackademicks
Wed/9, 9pm, $10
Elbo Room
647 Valencia, SF
www.elbo.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycPbYqLDq4w
Jerome LOL
Remember when Rihanna played SNL and transformed the stage into an IRL URL with a green screen of floating GIFs and animated graphics while singing “Diamonds?” And around the same time Azealia Banks (recently involved in more controversy) released a ’90s-copping video for “Atlantis” as a seapunk mermaid priestess riding a Lisa Frank-like digital dolphin? Those aesthetics were largely reminiscent of LA’s Jerome LOL and his kind of early web archeologist-producers. Jerome has since come out as saying those takes on his flashy style were complimentary, though perhaps not the right formats, as they are void of substance and context. If you want to see the cursor starting point, you’ll make it to his show tonight. Plus, he does a chirpy club remix of “Diamonds.”
With RL Grime, popscene DJs
Thu/10, 9:30pm, $13-$15
Rickshaw Stop
155 Fell, SF
www.rickshawstop.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCxkuoRPQJA
Chelsea Wolfe
Ah, the tormented love song. Chelsea Wolfe does it well. Vocally, she transfixes, sometimes sounding like she’s calmly wringing every ounce of blood from a relationship totem, at other points whispering cries of help from a enveloping darkness, the vibrations of the plucked-hard guitar strings reverberating in the distance. This rush of gloom and pain, in a genre she’s past described as “doom folk,” came forth in a fierce package in 2011’s electric Apokalypsis, and steadily zigzags beautifully through 2012’s meandering Unknown Rooms: A Collection of Acoustic Songs.
With King Dude
Fri/11, 9pm, $15
Great American Music Hall
859 O’Farrell, SF
www.slimspresents.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgWb1d001FI
Push the Feeling with Yacht (DJ set)
Push the Feeling, Kevin “epicsauce” Meenan’s affordable dance night at Underground SF – which I profiled in last year’s “Post-Everything” cover story – is turning one-year-old this weekend. Over the past 12 months the Lower Haight party has seen live performances and DJ sets from the likes of Les Sins (Toro Y Moi), High Places, Shock, Blackbird Blackbird, Heathered Pearls, Silver Hands, Yalls, and Chautauqua. This time, there’s a Yacht DJ set, and a live Jeffrey Jerusalem along with resident DJs YR SKULL and epicsauce.
Fri/11, 9pm, $5-$8
Underground SF
424 Haight, SF
facebook.com/pushthefeeling
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHNtMWKqMeg
Mister Lies
“Nick Zanca played in several punk bands in high school until he was introduced to electronic music and production in college. This happened about a year ago. Since then he’s caused quite the stir, catching a record deal and tour as Mister Lies. The deep, almost spiritual electronica, or “experimental avant-garde pop” as he prefers, draws inspiration from diverse artists — spanning Steve Reich to Missy Elliot.“ — Molly Champlin
With Some Ember
Fri/11, 9:30pm, $12
Bottom of the Hill
1233 17th St., SF
(415) 621-4455
www.bottomofthehill.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xc1u9X4HFAE
Kicker
Newish Bay Area band Kicker features members of Neurosis, Filth, and Dystopia, and sounds like late ’70s anarcho-punk à la Subhumans. Which makes perfect sense, really, as lead vocalist Pete the Roadie grew up in England, went to the same school as Subhumans and Organized Chaos, and has been a part of the worldwide punk scene since that formative year of ’77. Really need another reason to go to this $5 Bender’s show? OK: Bad Cop/Bad Cop — the LA rock’n’roll band with members of Cocksparrer tribute act Cunt Sparrer — opens the whole thing up.
With Pang!
Sat/12, 10pm, $5
Bender’s
800 S. Van Ness, SF
(415) 824-1800
www.bendersbar.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MPFQE5h-lE
Anybody can go out to any fabulous party on New Year’s Eve. But how long can you survive into the dawning of 2k13? Below are the best parties happening on Tuesday, New Year’s Day — how low can you go! (It’s kind sad that we now only have one day a year that’s like SF nightlife in the 90s, sigh.)
But first, here’s the exact chill-before-thrill mix I want to hear at 7am rolling up to the venue with my girls, blunt smoke pouring from the cracked window:
OK Lets Do This. Click in the names for Facebook invite link thingie.
Features: Hot queers, bedazzled club kids and dragged-out drag queens, leftover horny bears from the Bearracuda NYE party in the same venue, gorgeous early risers.
Music: Post-disco disco, acidy house, kiss-kiss techno with DJs Stanley Frank, Robert Jeffrey, Doc Sleep, Steve Fabus, Sergio Fedasz, P-Play, M*J*R, Trevor Sigler
4am-10am, $10. Beatbox, 314 11th St., SF.
Features: Supperclub’s athletic blend of acrobatic burlesquers, cool characters, old school partiers, and feather-bedecked smilers.
Music: Lovely, pumping soulful house and tech plus a dose of psychedelia with DJs David Harness, Galen, Rrooz, Andrew Phelan, Alain Octavo, Cosmic Selector, Michael Anthony, Meikee Magnetic, Marija Dunn
4am-?, $15-$20. Supperclub, 657 Harrison, SF.
Features: This party at Monarch was THE party last year, a blurred and delirious intersection of dancefloor mavens and fabulous personages (a few of whom had lost their shoes somewhere along the night’s way, ahem.) Good times.
Music: Straight up house-y (and disco edit) goodness from special NYC guest Justin Vandervolgen, Solar, Conor, 40 Thieves, James Glass, Junior, Dewey Chan, Jdisco, Soft Soil.
6am-?, $10-$20. Monarch, 101 Sixth St., SF.
Features: Weekend mornings at the lovely Monroe in North Beach have become the new End Up for those of us into great music and meeting up with other adventurous souls. I was tickled pink to hear there’s a New Year’s Day party there — it’ll be cute-bananas.
Music: Techno! Lots of techno. I bet I know what huge name DJ will be the special surprise guest (ahem, Bee Lurridge?) — but that person will have great backing from DJs Nikita, Rooz, Bo, Nikola Baytala, MossMoss, Pete Fraiser, and Francesco Signorile.
Features: Tons and tons of Burning Man fun, including a lot of runny neon mascara and sequined cowboy hats — now even bigger since this party has moved to Mighty and taken over the whole block.
Music: Funky techno with a little acid-crunk craziness from the Space Cowboys camp DJs and friends.
6am-?, $15-$20. Mighty, 119 Utah, SF.
Features: Starts at 2pm, so you’ll get a bit of everything at this beloved party teaming up two legendary SF house crews at the well-patioed, great sounding Club Cocomo.
Music: Sooo yummy house with deep international flavor from special Mexican guest Daniel Maloso plus breakout local duo Tone of Arc and DJs Tasho, Solar, Deron, Galen, Sweet P, J-Bird
2pm-2am, $10-$20. Club Cocomo, 650 Indiana, SF.
BRASS TAX: SUPPER OF SURVIVORS
Features: More kooky, cray-cray, superfunky Burning Man-based goodness from the infamous Brass Tax afterhours crew at this gonzo annual affair at Public Works.
Music: Funky house, alien techno, and straight-up funk from DJs JoeJoe, Ding Dong, Mace, Ernie Trevino, Haute Mess, Ethan Miller, MoPo, and TophOne
3pm-midnite, $5-$10. Public Works, 161 Erie, SF.
If you are still party-functional and looking for some awesome parties to go to around 11pm, might I suggest the bass-head Icee Hott DJs guesting at the ever-amazing High Fantasy at Aunt Charlie’s and the friendly, dance-crazed future bass shenanigans of Soundpieces at Monarch.
For our annual Year in Music issue, I asked local musicians, rappers, producers, and music writers to sound off on the year’s best songs, album releases, shows – pretty much anything they wanted, music-wise. For the next few days, I’ll be posting them up individually on the Noise blog. You can also check the full list here.
Haley Zaremba, Guardian
Top 10 Concerts of 2012
1. El Ten Eleven at the New Parish
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltdqEoyjnz0
2. Good Old War at Slim’s
3. Girls at Bimbo’s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxHZ63dr0aI
4. St. Vincent and Tune-Yards at The Fox
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Et2IOb5HpaA
5. Bomb the Music Industry! at Bottom of the Hill
6. Fucked Up at Slim’s
7. Amanda Palmer and the Grand Theft Orchestra at the Fillmore
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AyAmSBQscI
8. Ariel Pink at Bimbo’s
9. Conor Oberst at the Fillmore
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzUhb_QI6kA
10. Titus Andronicus at the Great American Music Hall
For our annual Year in Music issue, I asked local musicians, rappers, producers, and music writers to sound off on the year’s best songs, album releases, shows – pretty much anything they wanted, music-wise. For the next few days, I’ll be posting them up individually on the Noise blog. You can also check the full list here.
So, I (Emily Savage, Guardian music editor) included my top albums list in my Ty Segall cover story (also a part of the Year in Music issue). For easier access, here’s that list below, along with my “Top Live Shows That Created The Most Post Memories in 2012” list. Whew, what a year:
Emily Savage, Guardian
New Albums I Listened to Endlessly in 2012
1. Grass Widow, Internal Logic (HLR)
2. Cloud Nothings, Attack on Memory (Carpark)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6X1URP5eg6I
3. Ty Segall, Slaughterhouse (In the Red)
4. Dum Dum Girls, End of Daze EP (Sub Pop)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3f9ZiH6Euw
5. Frankie Rose, Interstellar (Slumberland)
6. Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Alleluja! Don’t Bend! Ascend! (Constellation)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEsdiiYkhT8
7. The Fresh and Onlys, Long Slow Dance (Mexican Summer)
8. THEESatisfaction, awE naturalE (Sub Pop)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGWFBt_IPOg
9. Terry Malts, Killing Time (Slumberland)
10. Guantanamo Baywatch, Chest Crawl (Dirtnap Records)
Live Shows that Created the Most Posi Memories in 2012
1. Feb. 14: Black Cobra, Walken, Yob at New Parish
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33TPqjurEsE
2. Feb. 23: Budos Band and Allah-Lahs at the Independent
3. March 30: Hot Snakes at Bottom of the Hill
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOj3sW6Tm38
4. April 10: Jeff Mangum at the Fox Theater
5. July 21: Fresh and Onlys and La Sera at Phono Del Sol Music Fest
6. July 28: Total Trash BBQ Weekend at the Continental Club
7. Aug. 11: Metallica at Outside Lands
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjfpBPItgoM
8. Aug. 31: Eyehategod at Oakland Metro
9. Oct. 9: Saint Vitus at the Independent
10. Oct. 27: Coachwhips and Traditional Fools at Verdi Club
For our annual Year in Music issue, I asked local musicians, rappers, producers, and music writers to sound off on the year’s best songs, album releases, shows – pretty much anything they wanted, music-wise. For the next few days, I’ll be posting them up individually on the Noise blog. You can also check the full list here.
Grass Widow‘s Internal Logic was one of my favorite albums of the year. Post-punk at its finest with hypnotic layers of three-part harmonies, and cosmic lyrics. Really just a perfect package. When I spoke to bassist-vocalist Hannah Lew around the release of the album, she was filled with great songwriting and inspiration quotes, including this one: “Sometimes when I’m feeling down I’ll go online and check what NASA’s doing. I follow them on Twitter. It just, for some reason, makes me feel hopeful when there are things out there that people are doing that make me feel like an ant.”
I loved chatting with her, so I asked her for a top 10 list for the Year in Music issue. She was the first to reply, and sent back a list of all her favorites:
Hannah Lew, Grass Widow
Top 10 of 2012
1. Starting our own label HLR and releasing our own record (Internal Logic)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFJazD46uvA
2. Total Control‘s LP
3. Touring with the Raincoats and singing “Lola” with them every night
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QufDdHzWhgw
4. Getting obsessed with Silver Apples
5. Hollywood Nailz
6. Wymond Miles LP
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1h4tX-H0qUA
7. Scrapers (band)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWU3aPpvGdk
8. Sacred Paws (band)
9. Making eight music videos and losing my mind
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXtWWT1fz8Q
10. Wet Hair’s LP
By Greg Weissel
All photos by Matthew Reamer
A half hardcore, half hip-hop bill at 6pm on a Monday in San Francisco. What could possibly go wrong? Nothing, in fact, did go wrong – and the writhing masses wreathed in weed smoke hovering over the concrete dance floor at DNA Lounge proved that mixed bills can make for the most energetic live shows.
The mood for the night was one of joyful irreverence, marked by the line of young men and women lined up on 11th Street, holding their skateboards, wearing Odd Future or punk rock shirts, cutting in line and hassling the strict bouncers.
Antwon, from San Jose, appeared on stage by 6:30pm, just himself in a black metal Deafheaven shirt , and his DJ in front of the anxious mass. His dark lyrics and threatening instrumentation inspired the crowd to start moving early. The first pit of the night broke out during “40 Bag” as Antwon asked if anyone had 20 on a 40 bag.
Sabertooth Zombie hit the stage next, playing the familiar opening chords of the Monday Night Football theme song before launching into its mix of thrash, psychedelia, and heavy metal riffs. The North Bay quintet played ragers from its earlier, punker releases and mixed in the more intellectual compositions from its Human Performance series of seven-inches.
STZ gave way to MellowHype, the LA-based duo made up of Odd Future members rapper Hodgy Beats and producer Left Brain. The stage grew crowded with dudes lighting joints and then with kids from the crowd stage driving. Enthusiastic nihilism that had everyone chanting “Fuck The Police.” The two behind MellowHype bounced around between songs, throwing themselves into the crowd and hitting blunts in between verses.
As MellowHype was leading the crowd through its last hit, Trash Talk was setting up behind them. Time was growing short, DNA Lounge had another event booked for 9pm and it was already past 8. The now-LA, formerly-Sacramento foursome wasted no time, charging into a set that featured tracks from all its releases, including its new 119 full-length, recently released on Odd Future Records.
But there was no hip-hop here, just pure aggression funneled into the maelstrom of the pit. By the end of the set, frontperson Lee Spielman had relocated to a structure in the middle of the crowd and was spitting venom directly in the faces of the frenzied crowd.
By the time the audience had gathered in the Fillmore on Friday night to see the Mountain Goats, news of the school shooting in Connecticut had jarred people across the country and incited countless conversations about gun regulation and mental health resources. Tragedy can spur these important discussions, but the events of Friday morning called for something else as well. John Darnielle, the man behind the Mountain Goats, opened by recognizing the tragedy as a huge disappointment — another thorn in our hope for humanity – but more importantly, as a reason for us to get together, make music, and spread joy.
Darnielle’s ability to empathize with the dark side of life made him a perfect candidate to guide us through mourning with understanding and empathy. About half the set was from the new album, Transcendental Youth. About problematic youth and self-destructive tendencies, this couldn’t have felt more pertinent.
The songs took on new meaning in light of that morning’s events. “Amy aka Spent Gladiator 1” is supposedly about Amy Winehouse (or alternatively: all the not-Amy Winehouses who died and no one knew about). But on Friday it was equally about Adam Lanza. The song encourages recklessness so long as it’s not at the cost of your life. The lines, “find where the heat’s unbearable and stay there if you have to/don’t hurt anybody on your way up to the light,” made me think about the thin line between deciding to hurt someone else or hurting yourself.
The evening was much more than psychological investigations though: Darnielle brought home the loss of the families of the children and teachers with a story about his 15-month-old son. “When you are far from your child and you hear that something terrible has happened to children,” he said, “there is this indescribable horror that descends on you – that I think is understandable by anyone – but at the same time it does sort of feel like it belongs to you.”
He played two lullabies he sings for his son which were both mature enough to reach to the most cynical and life-worn audience member: the crowd was pleased with “Ripples” by the Grateful Dead which he followed with Johnny Cash’s “Dark is the Dungeon”. (In case you worrying that a song about the dark of coal mines might be depressing for a 15-month-old, Darnielle assured us that his son loves it, recounting how the boy’s face looks as though “you destroyed everything that brought him joy in this world” the moment the guitar goes back on the rack).
Throughout the evening, Darnielle played many of his older songs, solo on acoustic guitar, like the calm reflection on the power of inspiration, “Love Love Love.” The rest of the Mountain Goats joined him with the aggressive drumming and steady bass on the Transendental Youth songs as well as old favorites like “Up the Wolves.” Occasionally, the brass from Matthew E. White’s band would fill in on the new numbers while Darnielle transitioned to the keyboard.
In addition to the horn contribution, White’s opening set added complexity to the show, but still fit in with the reflective mood of the evening. Often, the rich lyrics from his studio album, Big Inner, were hard to make out against the orchestrated upbeat keyboard, guitar, percussion, and punctuating brass.
As the lyrical meanings were scaled back though, the simultaneously symphonic and psychedelic builds and breakdowns were brought to the front. But, White did become selectively audible, and the message came out crisp and clear on the song “Gone Away” which he dedicated to the children who lost their lives at Sandy Hook Elementary. He explained that he had written the hauntingly beautiful song the night his 4-year-old cousin died in a car crash.
After the moments of sadness and reflection were over, everyone turned their comforted hearts into a unified chorus, singing along for the Mountain Goats’ encore: including the angry number, “No Children” and the defiant anthem, “This Year.” I thought about the time I sang both songs driving home with my best friend, the songs almost demand it.
The joined voices made clear how many people in the audience had also used those songs to get through a hard time. This sense of shared perseverance despite our private struggles was the perfect note to end the trying day, bringing everyone together to take back the hope we might have lost earlier.
For our annual Year in Music issue, I asked local musicians, rappers, producers, and music writers to sound off on the year’s best songs, album releases, shows – pretty much anything they wanted, music-wise. For the next few days, I’ll be posting them up individually on the Noise blog. You can also check the full list here. – Ed. note.
Michael Krimper, Guardian
The Endless Desire List
(in no particular order, or, out of order)
1. Les Sins/”Fetch”/12″ (Jiaolong)
Run, fall, catch your desire.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlkjFHk_9ms
2. The Soft Moon/”Want”/Zeros (Captured Tracks)
Infinite want, can’t have it. O, ye of bad faith.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCJ_wVvo2yY
3. Frank Ocean/”Pyramids”/channel ORANGE (Def Jam)
Pimping Cleopatra, whoring the pyramids.
4. Daphni aka Caribou/”Ye ye”/Jiaolong (Jiaolong)
Affirmation on repeat.
5. Grimes/”Genesis”/Visions (4AD)
Whatever, you know you like it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FH-q0I1fJY
6. Todd Terje/”Inspector Norse”/It’s the Arps (Olsen/Smalltown Supersound)
Inspecting never felt so good.
7. Burial/”Kindred”/Kindred (Hyperdub)
Kindred outcasts, jealously desiring their solitude.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJBx_sR9Arc
8.John Talabot/”Estiu”/Fin (Permanent Vacation)
If a permanent vacation wasn’t hell, this might be its soundtrack.
9. Purity Ring/”Obedear”/Shrines (4AD)
Nothing pure in this abject need.
10. Kendrick Lamar/”A.D.H.D.”/good kid m.A.A.d city (Interscope)
Crack babies: she says, distracted, endless desire.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjlFqgRbICY
For our annual Year in Music issue, I asked local musicians, rappers, producers, and music writers to sound off on the year’s best songs, album releases, shows – pretty much anything they wanted, music-wise. For the next few days, I’ll be posting them up individually on the Noise blog. You can also check the full list here.
Tycho deals in vivid imagery. From blustery waves and bleached sands below orange sunsets to retro film cells, the graphic designer-producer blends sight and sound in mesmerizing live shows – two of which he’ll perform next month at the Independent (Jan. 18 and 19). This year, he gained fans touring the world thanks to shows built on 2011’s Dive (Ghostly International). This winter, he began work on a followup record.
I picked him as a one of 12 Bay Area acts On the Rise in a special issue at the start of 2012, so I asked him back as the year came to a close:
Tycho, aka Scott Hansen
Favorite Bay Area and Bay Area-Affiliated Music Acts
1. Toro Y Moi
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0_ardwzTrA
2. Christopher Willits
3. Blackbird Blackbird
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyHG_CPOqnw
4. Jessica Pratt
5. Sam Flax
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7NhHbREvoI
6. Ty Segall
7. Yalls
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOpnOgaomOk
8. Doombird
9. Little Foxes
10. Dusty Brown
And here’s a video from Tycho’s Dive:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m94Dhu8gUDw
For our annual Year in Music issue, I asked local musicians, rappers, producers, and music writers to sound off on the year’s best songs, album releases, shows – pretty much anything they wanted, music-wise. For the next few days, I’ll be posting them up individually on the Noise blog. You can also check the full list here.
If you’ve somehow been off the web all year, you might have missed San Jose rapper, Antwon. I certainly didn’t – I blogged about his awesome “Helicopter” video when it first went up in February, caught him live at Public Works, handed him a Best of the Bay award this summer, and wrote a print feature on his mixtapes, all in 2012. So naturally, I begged him to contribute to the Top 10s.
At first he wrote back “wait i have no idea to do these things haha cuz i dont really remember 2012 haha,” but then he sent in this:
ANTWON, RAPPER
TOP 10 2012 RAP JAMZ
1. DJ Nate, “Gucci Gogglez”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0vebi56kRQ
2. Chief Keef, “Ballin”
3. French Montana, “Shot Coller”
4. Chippy Nonstop, “Money Dance” DJ Two Stacks remix
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Np0FW2gsVnA
5. Cash Out, “Cashin’ Out”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9mfuifkZgc
6. Future, “Turn on the Lights”
7. Gucci Mane, “Bussin Juggs”
8. Juicy J, “Drugged Out”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6a70sCCTYU
9. Lil Mouse, “Don’t Get Smoked”
10. Lil Reese, “Traffic” feat. Chief Keef
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeSizftVHBk
And for good measure, here’s one of Antwon’s killer vids from this year:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXmo0zsG3q0
For those of you who haven’t been listening: Ana Sia is kind of a big deal. One of those quaintly San Francisco nightlife things — you blink for a hot minute, and someone familiar on the scene blows up, their hard work rewarded with major festival gigs, a large and growing following, and DJ sets being featured on NPR. Heeeey.
I’ve been a fan of the poised yet energetic Ana for a long while, and I must say I’m pleased as punch for her continued success — and to see what she’s got in store for us as she plays again in SF. (She’s one of the headliners, along with the UK’s excellently house and techy Ben UFO, at Friday night’s As You Like It party at Beat Box.) Onstage, the local Frite Nite label head quickly pulls you into her zone, tempering a concentration born of pure appreciation of the music with some playful bouncing and disarming charm. “I’m having a shit-ton of fun!” you can hear her shouting from the decks.
Categorizing her actual sound, however, can prove challenging.
Ana’s been through a few transfomations. I first became aware of her as a member of the underground techno scene, then as a part of the crunk-meets-dubstep-meets-Burning Man Bassnectar touring juggernaut — at one point pimping herself with a wink as playing “global slut psy-hop,” a moniker which went well with the gaudy scene of the late ’00s. Then, as part of Frite Nite, she became a brainier glitch advocate, delving into more adventurous realms of broken bass. But she’s always been courageous, forceful, and fun — even now, when she’s adding full-on house and ravier techno to the mix, as you can hear below.
Love it. She took a minute to email me the answers to some questions in anticipation of her Friday gig. Welcome back, Ana.
SFBG You’ve been playing all over lately — how does it feel when you come back to San Francisco?
ANA SIAReturning home and playing shows with my peers and in front of what very much feels like family is the greatest part of my schedule. What makes San Francisco so tight is the diversity and multi-cultural melange of the people, and those acknowledgments certainly carry through to the art scene. Connecting with listeners is easier on the home court — I feel much more safe and secure introducing more challenging music and unfamiliar sounds because everyone is so open here, They genuinely understand and love music. Ask any touring artist this question and I bet they say the same about our community here!
SFBGYour sound has really evolved since you were playing here regularly. Can you tell me where you’re at now, and what we can expect?
ANA SIA I think the one thing that has not changed about my sound is that it’s always different than the last time — whether that’s a yay or nay thing is another issue though. But right now, people can expect the agenda i’ve been pushing for a minute now; classy yet ratchet bass music, stepping on the toes of techno-house. And yeah, i’ve always tried to stay ahead of the curve for DJ sets, but honestly all the latest trends and best music out right now is re-introducing fundamental dance music. It’s nothing really super-shiny and new. It’s all slightly more modernized revisions of classic sounds which i’m grateful for. Because for me, my young rave days began with house.
SFBG What equipment are you using lately — and can you tell us about some of your recent or upcoming releases?
ANA SIA Ableton Live is still my bandmate, but I have this new bossy future-midi controller, the QuNeo. I’m working on an EP right now, probably music that no ones’ expecting but all the tunes are in the territory of the above mentioned.
SFBG In my mind, your sound is always evolving, you’ve always been on the cutting edge — it’s hard for a writer like me to keep up with you! Who are you listening to now? And since you travel so much, do you have any good stories from the road?
ANA SIA Such a loaded question! Presently in my playlist of the last few months : Kendrick Lamar, Detroit Swindle, Bambounou, George Fitzgerald, Bach, 2 Chains, Dj Spinn, Lukid. And road stories? that’s classified information. Mostly because i fear self-incrimination. But i will say that it is shocking how many really great sushi restaurants there are in the most unsuspected of places in the middle of America.
AS YOU LIKE IT with ANA SIA and BEN UFO
Fri/14, 10pm-4am, $15, $10 before 10pm, $20 after
Beatbox
314 11th St., SF.
Santigold was barely a full song into her sold-out performance at the Fox Theater Wednesday night when she began to stoke the lovefest with her Bay Area fans. “You know you’re my favorite place to perform…you guys have so much energy!” In a different room to a different crowd it may have come off as a cheaply-pedaled stage sentiment, but the show that ensued lived up to her assessment: the crowd never stopped dancing and Santigold never stopped smiling.
At just 80 minutes, the show was short but sweaty…a scorcher of a live performance that rendered the ornate theater a tightly packed dance party well into the upper reaches of the balcony.
Working through her two albums of material, the Brooklyn-based singer showed off her vocal range as she was backed by a trio of Devo-looking musicians who kept the sound beat-heavy in one instant, loose and textured in the next. More notably (and often scene-stealing) was Santiold’s stage dancing duo: a matching pair of hype women gracing the stage with all sorts of rump shaking antics and too-cool-for school posturing (complementing Santigold’s ear-to-ear Cheshire stage presence to a ying yang-like perfection).
“L.E.S. Artistes” and “Hold the Line,” (her collaboration with Major Lazer) proved crowd-pleasers early in the set. Later, the stage was swarmed with fans as Santigold worked through “Creator” amid an ecstatic bustle of concertgoers.
Santigold had scarcely left the stage for an encore break before the crowd responded with a foundation-rattling ovation. They kept dancing as she returned for two more songs, and then, as she said farewell with the house lights coming up and Prince beginning to blare through the speakers, they just kept dancing. Santigold was no longer in view, but I’d have guessed that somewhere backstage she was still smiling.
SCOTT WALKER
BISH BOSCH
(4AD)
When pop crooner Scott Walker plunged into the abyss on 1995’s Tilt, he initiated one of the most radical transformations in the history of recorded music, rejecting the tuneful chamber pop of his ’60s-’70s output for a pitch-black sludge of musique concrète, avant-classical, and industrial art-rock. Walker hasn’t looked back since, doubling down with 2005’s The Drift, and now Bish Bosch: an album as erratic, scary, unhinged, darkly hilarious, and wildly imaginative as any in recent memory.
Replacing The Drift’s murky, viscous slog with rapid-fire sequences of tension and release, Bish Bosch is defined by its jarring contrasts between musical extremes. Ominous electronic and orchestral drones barely establish themselves, before giving way to noisy, abrasive blocks of punishing drums and brawny guitar stabs.
Exotic instrumentation (harpsichords, Samba percussion, zithers, ukuleles), textural shifts, and lyrical themes (Julius Caesar, fart noises, Polynesia, Yo Mama jokes) pop up and recede impulsively, building an array of musical possibilities as dense, thorny, and encyclopedic as a Pynchon novel, with Walker’s quivering, operatic baritone as its sole, anchoring force.
Difficult as it is to proclaim Bish Bosch 2012’s best album, (its hulking weight and unyielding grimness renders casual listening a near impossibility) no LP this year has matched its gutsiness and sonic adventurousness, or consolidated so many ideas into a single musical statement.
With everyone from from McCartney to Rod Stewart sacrificing their integrity to fill arenas and Christmas stockings, Walker remains an anomaly among 70-year-olds in the music biz. May he continue on his long, strange trip down the rabbit hole.
Call it the influence of witch house on the folk scene, or don’t – those involved would probably hate that. But it does feel like there have been more and more “darkly spiritual acoustic-folk” acts of late, in the vein of Chelsea Wolfe and Father John Misty (albeit, on opposite ends of the spectrum), and in particular, King Dude, who returns to the Bay for a set of Oakland shows this weekend. There’ll also be live sets this week by Lavender Diamond, less moody but certainly as spiritual and folk-infused, and the legendary, if snappier Mountain Goats.
Unrelated, but also performing in the Bay these next few days: Roy Loney and the Phantom Movers, Overwhelming Colorfast, and the Chuckleberries; Dee Dee from the Dum Dum Girls with her boo, Brandon from the Crocodiles; Wooden Shjips, Liturgy, and Barn Owl, at the same show. Plus, it’s Chanukah, and the Subterranean Arthouse is celebrating with Yiddish bands and live klezmer. I hope for your sake you get some latkes this holiday season, my first batch was oily, crispy, and vegan – perfect.
Here are your must-see Bay Area concerts this week/end:
Lavender Diamond
You know Lavender Diamond, right? The whimsical LA-based electro-folk band fronted by crystal-clear vocalist/tree fairy Becky Stark? The group plays SF’s newest venue, the Chapel, this week. And as I hinted and posted about last week, Lavender Diamond will be joined on stage by actor-musician-superhuman John C. Reilly.
With Jessica Pratt
Tue/11, 9pm, $10-$12
Chapel
777 Valencia, SF
www.thechapelsf.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPHZY8IOgIc
Thrill Jockey 20th Anniversary
It’s finally here, the showcase I was blathering on about in the Tofu and Whiskey music column last week. Here are the specifics: awesomely independent Chicago label Thrill Jockey is celebrating 20 years of existence with showcases in towns they love, including ours. This was includes performances by Wooden Shjips, Liturgy, Barn Owl, Trans Am, Man Forever, and Eternal Tapestry. Thrilling.
Thu/13, 8pm, $18
Independent
628 Divisadero, SF
www.theindependentsf.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2iwAAaEZvE
Subterranean Arthouse’s Chanukah Party
The Subterranean Arthouse’s Chanukah Party is part of Heather Klein‘s “Hungry for Yiddish: A Mitzvah Project” concert series, which donates proceeds from events to the Berkeley Food Pantry and similar organizations; and the event is co-presented by KlezCalifornia and the Jewish Music Festival. Acts include Klein’s Inextinguishable Trio, Anthony Mordechai-Tzvi Russell, noted Yiddish dance instructor Bruce Bierman, and Saul Goodman’s Klezmer Band. With instructions from Bierman, the lovely Yiddish songs of both Klein and Russell, and Goodman’s brassy klezmer, this should make for a fun, frenzied mid-point party during the festival of lights — and yes, they’ll light the menorah.
Thu/13, 9pm, $10-$20 donation
Subterranean Arthouse
2169 Bancroft, Berk.
Klezmer.brownpapertickets.com
The Mountain Goats
“The Mountain Goat’s dynamic leader, John Darnielle, has been writing songs about addiction, infidelity, and more sensitive subjects for the last 20 years. The group’s new album, Transcendental Youth, has been an excuse for Darnielle to branch out, inviting avant-symphonic rocker, Matthew E. White, to write horns for the album and working with Owen Pallett to arrange the songs for a collaboration with the a cappella quartet, Anonymous 4.” — Molly Champlin
With Matthew E. White
Fri/14, 9pm, $28
Fillmore
1805 Geary, SF
(415) 346-6000
www.thefillmore.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6RQwx3r1BU
King Dude
If you missed King Dude – the “darkly spiritual acoustic-folk” side project of gravelly TJ Cowgill of Teen Cthulu and Book of Black Earth – at Elbo Room last month, chin up. Dude/Cowgil is playing two shows at the Uptown this weekend, opening for Psychic TV. So no more tears, except possibly for those drawn from King Dude’s bleak, dance-with-the-devil, Johnny Cash straining to meet Tom Waits ballads.
With Lumerians, Youth Code
Fri/14-Sat/15, 9pm, $23
Uptown
1928 Telegraph, Oakl.
www.uptownnightclub.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bP-MBHdka90
Roy Loney and the Phantom Movers, Overwhelming Colorfast, the Chuckleberries
This is an early show, and it’s a benefit to help rebuild wild rock purveyor Norton Records (its warehouse was demolished in Hurricane Sandy) so it’s already a win-win situation: donate to a worthy cause, catch every band, and still have time for an early dinner. But the lineup is even better; it’s packed with classic Bay Area musicians: roots rock’n’rollers Roy Loney and the Phantom Movers – featuring hiccuping, rockabilly star Loney, of Flamin’ Groovies fame – along with ’90s pop-punk band Overwhelming Colorfast, the Chuckleberries featuring Russell Quan of the Mummies and Phantom Surfers, and more.
With the Tomorrowmen, Dirty Robbers, Rue 66, the Devil-Ettes, DJs Ruby White and Sid Presley
Sun/16, 2-7pm, $7-$10
Elbo Room
647 Valencia, SF
www.elbo.com
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/301250
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRD2IADQsrs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DH276SrfG-M
Dee Dee and Brandon
OK, technically this is next week, but it’s a Monday so I’m letting it slide: Dee Dee from the Dum Dum Girls and Brandon from the Crocodiles are in love — married, in fact, and make a rather swoon-worthy couple. Listen to Dee Dee’s crooning on “Bedroom Eyes” off 2011’s Only In Dreams, in which she repeats “fear I’ll never sleep again” and you start to get a sense of their connection, and the pain they feel apart on separate tours. To view said connection live, in all its gushy splendor, be the voyeur at their joint Rickshaw Stop show tonight; a very special showcase, indeed, where both will perform songs from their respective catalogs and — as I can only imagine — harmonize like old lovers do.
With Gio and Stef (Young Prisms)
Mon/17, 8pm, $15
Rickshaw Stop
155 Fell, SF
(415) 861-2011
www.rickshawstop.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysk55bI5E0U
When I walked into the Great American Music Hall on Wednesday night, I was handed a Christ-Mess Sing-a-Long booklet with a unicorn on the cover. While I had already gathered from the name of the event — Surfjohn Stevens’ Christmas Sing-A-Long: Seasonal Affective Disorder Yuletide Disaster Pageant on Ice — that it wasn’t going to be a standard holiday concert, I wasn’t quite prepared for the awesome eccentricities that awaited me.
The Great American, which is already one of the Bay’s most gorgeous venues, was literally aglow with strings of Christmas lights reflecting off bows and baubles attached to headbands, elf ears, vests, and ugly sweaters throughout the dedicated audience. On stage, incense was burning and guitar techs were wading through piles of inflatable Santas and unicorns.
Sufjan Stevens and his band, decked out in capes, chicken suits, sombreros, nun’s habits, and so much more, opened with a few Christmas originals off the new Silver & Gold — Stevens’ second (!) extensive collection of holiday Eps — before letting providence take the wheel — literally. “They said it couldn’t be done,” Stevens shouted, “but we brought the Wheel of Christmas into the Great American! It was an engineering feat!”
The enormous, Wheel-of-Fortune-style disc had a different carol brightly painted on each of its wedges. Fate decided that “Joy To the World” should begin the sing-a-long. Stevens smiled. “It’s a Christmas miracle!” The band launched in, and we opened our songbooks. The sound of 500 voices, alive with the Christmas spirit and mulled wine, is a truly incredible thing.
What we lacked in pitch, we made up in gusto. As we worked out way through the carols, our small hearts each grew three sizes.
“We had some really weird Christmas traditions growing up” Stevens divulged between songs. “I used to think my parents were like, bohemian and New Age and crazy, but I’ve come to realize that they were actually kind of socially inept. I actually just realized that this year.” As Stevens told us about one year’s tree of healing crystals and another year’s 12 trees for each of the 12 steps, thought up by his recovering alcoholic father, the Christmas madness on stage started to make more sense — that is, if he wasn’t just messing with us.
As the show built to it’s climax, the stage and some of the audience grew awash in bubbles, confetti, silly string, and streamers. For the big finale, Stevens transformed himself into the Christmas unicorn, dressed in a repurposed bike helmet and an impressive amount of balloons, singing over a frenzy of instrumentation, “I’m a Christmas unicorn/Find the Christmas unicorn/You’re a Christmas unicorn/It’s alright I love you!” as confetti and giant balloons rained down on everyone.
Despite the undeniably enjoyable bravado and theatrics, those rare, quiet moments with Stevens and his banjo are what make his music magical. The hushed simplicity of “Concerning The UFO Sighting Near Highland, Illinois” was the highlight of the performance. By the end, the entire audience had joined in with his soft croon. “As we sing together it’s a very powerful thing,” Stevens reflected. “I think it’s very important that we do this more often.” Here, here.
Five years ago the local nightlife scene was broadening its scope in a multitude of awe-inspiring musical directions, from contemporary Afrobeat and baile funk to experimental global indie. In that atmosphere of diverse ferment, a couple of super-talented kids, recently returned from Argentina, started Tormenta Tropical (along with label Bersa Discos), a monthly at the Elbo Room dedicated to the electronic spin many Latin American artists were putting on the traditional cumbia sound.
The sound centered around club Zizek in Buenos Aires and its ZZK label — but it also found a home, strangely enough, in the tropical-hungry underground clubs of Montreal. Tormenta Tropical provided a third leg of the nu-cumbia triangle, and has been known ever since as a go-to for cutting edge global bass and electro-Latin tracks. There were also a lot of glowing Virgin Marys on the DJ booth and a taco truck parked outside.
This Saturday, oro11 and Shawn Reynaldo (formerly Disco Shawn), celebrate the fifth anniversary of the club, and it’s gonna be a humdinger, chicas.
Even though the party has become known for its insane roster of guest performers — including Buraka Som Sistema, El Guincho, Toy Selectah, DJ Rupture, Maluca, L-Vis 1990 and Bok Bok, Matias Aguayo, Kingdom, Uproot Andy, South Rakkas Crew, Chancha Via Circuito, Sinden, Schlachthofbronx, Roska, Los Rakas, Very Be Careful, and my secret byfirend Ghislain Poirier — this party will feature Shawn and oro tag-teaming on the decks, giving us a full five years’ (and four hours’) worth of pure TT gold. I emailed oro11 and Shawn (who’s also one of the Bay’s best dance music writers) to give us a little update about it all.
SFBG In the past five years, and in the wake of moombahton, Diplo, and everything else Latin- and tropical-electronic obsessed — how has the nu-cumbia scene changed, are you finding new directions for the music? Will there be a trap hybrid soon? (I AM KIND OF KIDDING.)
TORMENTA TROPICAL When we started the party, there was definitely a sort of bloggy buzz around cumbia and the idea of tropical bass. Between Diplo, Mad Decent, and the attention our friends from ZZK in Buenos Aires were getting, it did feel like some of the crowd was coming out to check out this “new” sound, just because it was fashionable. Over time, that has totally changed. Five years later, it doesn’t feel like Tormenta Tropical is a party for the “cool” kids at all. At this point, it’s just for people who love the music and the vibe, and most importantly, want to dance. Also, it’s totally mixed, which is great, especially when so much of San Francisco nightlife is hopelessly segregated.
As for the music, we’ve seen so many trends and sounds come and go over the past five years, and the SoundCloud generation of producers is totally prone to hopping on whatever new sound they come across, only to abandon it just as quickly. It’s led to a lot of dodgy music, along with artists who fleetingly pass through the scene, but that’s why it’s our job to find the good stuff. Thankfully, even though cumbia and other sounds may not be as trendy as they once were, we still come across great music all the time. If anything, the most interesting producers are the ones operating out of their bedrooms in a virtual vacuum, just creating weird hybrids of Latin music or dancehall or African rhythms or whatever else because they have a passion for it, not because they’re trying to get posted on a blog.
And it’s funny that you mention trap. As cringe-inducing as that world has become, this kid DJ Quality in Chicago has been sending us some amazing cumbia and bachata tunes with trap beats. You never know…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLfNTztmSXU
SFBG How many people have you had to kick out due to over-cumbiaing?
TT Thankfully, the crowd at Tormenta Tropical has always been well-behaved. We’ve both been DJing and throwing parties for a long time, and it’s honestly hard to imagine another party where so many people are just dancing and having fun. There’s nothing pretentious about Tormenta Tropical, even when we’re playing totally obscure music or someone from South America is performing live on stage. That’s maybe the most amazing thing about Tormenta Tropical — the vast majority of the people don’t know the vast majority of the songs, but people still show up every month, pack the dancefloor, and get wild.
SFBG How’s the label doing? Any news?
TT Bersa Discos is still happening, although it’s admittedly been a little while since we’ve had a release. At this point, we’re just trying to promote quality over quantity, and it’s not like there’s any profit in putting out limited-run vinyl releases, so we’re just waiting for the right tunes to come in. It also doesn’t help that some of our favorite artists have a tendency to never finish their tracks. [There will be cool Bersa Discos t-shirts for sale at the party.]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZOaSX1uT_A
SFBG Should I wear booty shorts to the anniversary and shower myself with cheap champagne?
TT Marke, that sounds fine to us. There has never been dress code at Tormenta Tropical, and we’re not going to start one now. Back in 2008, Buraka Som Sistema played their very first San Francisco show at our party. In the middle of the set, this girl hopped on stage, took her shirt off, and kept right on dancing with her boobs out and her sunglasses on. No one seemed to mind.
TOP 11 TORMENTA TROPICAL TRACKS OF ALL TIME
Casa de Leones “No Te Veo”
Chancha Via Circuito “Cumbia Malembe”
DJ Dus “Cuando Lo Negro Sea Bello”
DJ Negro “Sabor a Gaita Remix”
DJ Panik “Pintura de Nieve”
El Hijo de la Cumbia “La Mara Tomaza”
Erick Rincon “Cumbia de Nuevo Leon”
Los Rakas “Abrazame (Uproot Andy Remix)”
Mr. Vegas “Certain Law (Murlo Remix)”
Omega “Si Tú Queres, Tú No Queres (DJ K-Ber Extended Reggaeton Mix)”
Sabo and Cassady “La Curura”
TORMENTA TROPICAL 5-YEAR ANNIVERSARY
Sat/8, 10pm, $5 before 10pm, $10 after.
Elbo Room
647 Valencia, SF.
When I first saw Sacramento’s Death Grips — about a year or so ago at 1015 Folsom — they had to work especially hard. The room was half full and Stefan Burnett made up the difference, jumping down into the crowd and taunting it into action. The intervening time before a repeat performance was longer than expected (Death Grips suddenly canceled their last scheduled tour to finish their second album of the year) and at Slim’s Monday the crowd seemed prewound, eager to see the sold-out show, jockeying for position near the front, and admiring freshly purchased t-shirts showcasing the attention-baiting cover art for No Love Deep Web.
“This is a dick,” said one guy who looked older than he sounded. “It’s actually a dude’s dick. And I know whose it is.” For the uninitiated (or at work – don’t Google it), the cover is a photo of drummer Zach Hill’s erection, on which the title is scrawled with a Sharpie marker. The guy finished his observation by pointing to the part of the shaft nearest to the testicles and saying, “That’s like, the grossest part.”
Death Grips came on about two hours later, launching into No Love album opener “Come Up and Get Me,” and I didn’t last particularly long up front. Burnett released a lyrical tide of amped aggression, the feeling of being backed into a corner too many times, and the crowds answered in kind. A wave of people swelled across the pit and I ended up beneath half a dozen other people, desperately attempting to hold onto a shoe, a camera, and my default unflappable expression. But clearly I’d been flapped, and having spent a long time between sets staring at the vertical gashes on the wrists of the 15-year-old cutter in front of me, was fairly relieved to head to the back of the room as the band went into “Little Boy.”
Three albums in, I would still describe my interest in Death Grips’s brand of angst-ridden hybrid punk-rap as morbid curiosity. “Ruthless and free, it’s all suicide to me,” Stefan intoned on “Black Dice,” with the same sense of nihlism that elsewhere says “Fuck this world, fuck this body.” Since the only time I cut myself was slicing a grapefruit with a dull knife, the lyrical nihilism only goes so far. But that doesn’t diminish Death Grips as a live band. Burnett, Hill, and a backing production track layer feed into each other, forming a feedback loop of hype.
When “Guillotine” – the best song off their first album – came on, it was instantly recognizable from the clicking hi-hat that continually rides through the song. The programmed hi-hat is one of the band’s most constant features, freeing up Hill to go wild with complicated syncopated snare beats over his doubling kicks. His kit was little more than a three piece setup, and while the broken assortment of cymbals from his Hella days were noticeably absent, he bought the same furious intensity, rising out of his chair and smashing down onto the snare for full intensity.
The production track set the pace for the night. It was nonstop, peaking with “I’ve Seen Footage.” From the band’s other, slightly neglected album this year, The Money Store, the song showcases the playful variety that’s beneath the the Death Grips’ borderline single minded thematics. When the ’80s guitar riff, played out over a sped up “Push It” beat came on, a few people in the back ran forward, clearly wanting to get in on the action.
The end of the set snuck up on me. Burnett spoke for the first time outside of a song: “Thank you,” he said, and walked off. Maybe sensing that Death Grips isn’t much of an encore band — or just exhausted — the room began to file out. But one guy stood by the bar, holding a beer in is hand and noticeably not clapping. “That’s it?” he asked his friends, more of a statement than a question. “That was only a 30-minute set. That’s some bullshit.” A line from “Lock Your Doors” is stuck in my head: “I’ve got some shit to say, just for the fuck of it. Don’t even ask me.”
Opener: “Life is real, life is real,” Cities Aviv said over and over, pacing the stage as a DJ modulated some noise on a laptop, with just the hint of a beat behind the noise. As it went on, puzzled over what I was seeing and hearing, more like a performance art piece than what was billed (probably at this point more for convenience than anything else) as a hip-hop show.
Distracted, I hardly noticed building bass until I was struck by the Memphis performer dropping off the stage next to me, signaling a slam of the audience.“It’s not that I’m anywhere,” Cities Aviv continued to say in his set, toying with contradictions and asking, “Are you real or a simulation?” Could have asked him the same thing.
You know Lavender Diamond, right? The whimsical LA-based electro-folk band fronted by crystal-clear vocalist/tree fairy Becky Stark? The group plays SF’s newest venue, the Chapel, Tues/11. Turns out, there’s a super-secret surprise guest set to appear, and I’ve got a solid guess now we can announce who it is: John C. Reilly.
The rumored surprise guest (Reilly) is, of course, best known as the curly-haired character actor with a wide range (Magnolia to Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job!, Boogie Nights to Chicago to Step-Brothers). But he’s also a pretty solid singer and musician, who played Bimbo’s earlier this year alongside Lavender Diamond’s Stark as John Reilly and Friends.
The duo previously collaborated on a duet covering “I’ll Be There (If You Ever Want Me),” made famous by Ray Price, for Jack White’s Third Man Records, and have played together since. Reilly and Friends also popped up at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass this year.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JSqN1ROUpo
If you hadn’t already guessed, we’re big fans of the actor-musician.
But we’re also fans of Lavender Diamond, so either way, the show should be a good one. The band released its second full-length, Incorruptible Heart, in September, and a small batch was pressed on lavender vinyl. Amazing. It’s a lush break-up record full of subtle melancholy, torch songs, and chamber pop, with contributions from M. Ward and the Calder Quartet on strings.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPHZY8IOgIc
Plus, local wonder Jessica Pratt was recently added to the bill.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF1lESEpYrc
Alright, here’s one more of Stark and John C. Reilly together from when Reilly recently stopped by Stark’s web series, We Can Do It.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWcEvXWtfvY
Again, it’s rumored he’ll show up. Oh, he’ll be there!
Lavender Diamond
With Jessica Pratt
Tue/11, 9pm, $10-$12
Chapel
777 Valencia, SF
www.thechapelsf.com
Any time a band breaks up, the beef rumors immediately start to swirl. Throw in Twitter and Facebook, and that rumor tornado can spin quickly out of control – as it did within minutes thanks to the #dasracistbreakup hashtag this past weekend when rapper Heems, on a drunken whim, announced the group’s break up during a show in Berlin.
Interestingly, Das Racist had actually broken up back in September, which means Victor Vazquez aka KOOL A.D. wasn’t actually a part of Das Racist when I interviewed him right before the group’s show at the DNA lounge in October. I should probably go back and correct that.
As for the beef rumors, I don’t mean to disappoint, but when I contacted Vazquez he reassured me that nothing of that sort exists among him, Heems, and/or hypeman Dapwell. It seems the the break-up was a professional parting of ways and will go probably go down as one of the least dramatic endings in the history of hip-hop.
However, this certainly does not mean KOOL A.D. is done with the rap game. During these past couple months when he wasn’t doing Das Racist shows, Vazquez has been a complete studio denizen, working on a new mixtape with Seattle rapper and former Das Racist collaborator Kassa Overall called Peaceful Solutions which will be released early next year.
He also has three other albums in the works, all tentatively titled after AC transit buses just like his mixtape 51. And he co-wrote and executive-produced an EP for local post-poppers Cult Days. Can’t stop, won’t stop.
In addition, Vazquez also plans to return to his punk roots too. He’s reuniting with his old hardcore group Party Animal, for which he plays drums, for a new record that should come out sometime in 2013.
AC transit riders should keep an eye out for Vazquez because he plans to be here for another month. After that, he’ll be heading back to New York for a bit. Then what? Vazquez says, “I don’t know.”
BRIAN ENO
LUX
(WARP)
The liner notes to Brian Eno’s Music for Airports (1978) act as a veritable Ambient Manifesto, outlining the philosophy of a genre he developed as an alternative to Muzak, and other background fluff. In the final sentence, he asserted, “Ambient Music must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting.” By that count, Eno’s solo Warp debut, LUX, is his most successful foray into ambient territory in quite some time.
A fluid composition presented in four parts, LUX recalls the aesthetic consistency of other protracted works (namely 1985’s Thursday Afternoon and 1993’s Neroli) while employing the broader tonal palette, and diversified instrumentation (guitar, bass, piano and violin, united by lingering, electronic drones) that defined his Ambient 1-4 series.
The result is a remarkably versatile album, shapeless and unobtrusive enough to float in the background and shade the atmosphere, yet dynamic and mutative enough to reward the scrutiny of active listening. Surely, Eno has a number of stronger albums under his belt, but never has he explored the grey area between “ignorable” and “interesting” so delicately.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVeoiv4rhM0
Localized Appreesh is our thank-you column to the musicians that make the Bay. To be considered, contact emilysavage@sfbg.com.
Music should be fun. We forget that little factor, those of us drenched in so many layers of irony we can no longer differentiate between sounds. Lest we draw another blank, I present Coo Coo Birds.
The band – made up of singer-guitarist Jonny Cat, producer-bassist Charles James Gonzalez, and singer-drummer Ryan Zweng – is connected to the Convent arts collective (hence the song, “Convent Girl”), and seems to have a real good time making music together. It dropped full-length debut, Don’t Bring You Boyfriends, in September, quickly followed that up with the forthcoming Psychedelic Warrior, and have another release already on the horizon: Sultan of Cats, due February 2013.
So far, the tracks have been about things like rock and roll animals, sake babies, and marshmallow pies, sonically mixing in swishy psychedelia, swinging 1960s pop, and the band’s professed love of rock’n’roller Link Wrap, and the Kinks.
And the Birds have some pretty fun musician friends too: Steve Mackay of Iggy Pop and the Stooges, who lent some tenor sax to Coo Coo Birds’ first release; fellow locals and Localized Appreeshers Brand New Trash, and legendary song-man/ex-Modern Lover Jonathan Richman, who recently gave them a Big Star boxset, and invited them to open for him at the Great American Music Hall this weekend.
Also, a note for the not-so-distant future: the band will perform as the Order of the Holy Coo at the First Church of Sacred Silversexual’s Very Bowie Glampocalypse blowout Dec. 21 at Cafe Du Nord. So you’ll be able to spend the last night on earth in style.
First, get to know the Coo Coo Birds, the rarest of the species:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xT6srRZcEiE
Year and location of origin: November 2011 at the Condor Strip Club in San Francisco. That was when we first played together and felt something extraordinary. At that moment Coo Coo Birds were born.
Band name origin: A film maker who now lives in New York named the band after who knows what. We just like the sound of it so we kept the name.
Band motto: Don’t Bring Your Boyfriends.
Description of sound in 10 words or less: The Sound of Coo Coo Birds is 1 part LINK WRAY, 1 Part KISS, and 1 part T-REX.
Instrumentation: All band members sing behind a wall of guitar, bass, and drums.
Most recent release: Our first LP, entitled Don’t Bring Your Boyfriends was released in Sept. 2012.
Best part about life as a Bay Area band: Girls, drugs, fun and very loud music.
Worst part about life as a Bay Area band: Girls, drugs, fun and very loud music.
First album ever purchased: KISS ALIVE II with the cutout corner. Things were never the same afterwards.
Most recent album purchased/downloaded: BIG STAR box set on vinyl. Jonathan Richman gave us a copy a couple weeks ago. I guess that counts.
Favorite local eatery and dish: Coo Coo Birds have regular band meetings at Da’ Pitt BBQ on Divisadero and Grove in SF. We usually order a rack of Ribs, with mac & cheese, collared greens, white bread and hot sauce on the side. We always wash it down with 32oz bottles of Coors (Banquet) beer.
Coo Coo Birds
With Jonathan Richman
Sun/2, 8pm, $16
Great American Music Hall
859 O’Farrell, SF
www.slimspresents.com
