— The 2014 Music Video Race, the competition that pairs local bands with filmmakers for the 48-hour speed-creation of music video magic, is now accepting applications from musicians and filmmakers. The filmmaking weekend is July 11-13, and the screening/party, due to popular demand, has been upgraded to The Independent on July 20. Yours truly will be one of the judges, so, er, make this tough for me.
— The Stern Grove Festival, AKA one of the few summer festivals that delivers killer live performances without killing your hopes of ever sending your unborn kids to college, announced this year’s lineup of Sunday afternoon shows. For the low price of zero dollars, you’ll get such heavy hitters as Smokey Robinson, Rufus Wainwright, Andrew Bird, Darlene Love, Allen Stone, and plenty of other local stars, like LoCura, Vetiver, and, of course, the SF Symphony. Pack a picnic, bring a jacket (this is summer in San Francisco, after all) and get there early if you actually want to see the stage.
— The women of Warpaint stuck their feet in their pretty mouths, calling out Beyoncé and Rihanna for dressing like “sluts,” then they apologized. Some people had some smart things to say about it.
LEFT OF THE DIAL Any musician who’s just released an album will tell you that a little bit of attention is never a bad thing. But a strongly worded cease-and-desist attorney’s letter from the daughter of Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler wasn’t exactly what the dudes in bAd bAd had in mind when they put out their first, self-titled full-length last month. With a shiny new cassette (!) for sale and a release show at Amnesia May 3, members of the lo-fi mariachi-surf-punk band had good reason to be in high spirits. And then, April 22…
“It’s an aggressive letter,” said singer Christian Zamora, one half of a pair of brothers who, in turn, make up half of the four-piece. “Like, a really, really aggressive letter. We’re supposed to cease and desist within 48 hours, and remove all signs of our existence as bAd bAd online, in fliers, everywhere.” Meaning, of course, that the band wouldn’t be able to sell its brand-new pride and joy, bAd bAd’s debut album.
The accusers in question were badbad, an electro-pop duo out of LA that consists of Chelsea Tylerand her fiance, actor Jon Foster. According to a letter from the duo’s attorney, the San Francisco band has been “capitaliz[ing] on the goodwill and reputation” of the other band. The problem, as far as Zamora saw it? Though the duo’s online bio states that they formed in 2011, they played their first-ever show — “a Tommy Hilfiger party…yeah, I know” — in the spring of 2013, the same year they released their first and only song, and, from what Zamora can tell, the same year they actually trademarked the name. Whereas bAd bAd has been at a sort of low-profile hustle since forming in early 2012, playing regular shows at spots like El Rio and Brick and Mortar Music Hall.
“Why do they even care?” said Zamora by phone on April 23, just after word began spreading amongst Bay Area friend-bands thanks to a Facebook post he’d written. “We play modest shows, and I think we’re good, but it’s nowhere near their scene.” The two bands wouldn’t have even been aware of one another’s existence were it not for a Spotify snafu that ignored their stylization differences and lumped their music together.
The singer, who said his and his brother’s love for mariachi music comes in part from their Spanish roots, decided to have a lawyer friend look into their options and legal obligations, while staring down the prospect of having to give away their debut album for free.
Less a week later? Don’t say social media never did anything for you. Friday, April 25, after the story had been picked up by websites like PandoDaily, Zamora received an email from the other badbad, which had abruptly changed their tune. Explaining that “If there is anything we stand for, it’s fair business,” Foster and Tyler said they had looked “deep within [them]selves” and decided to change their own band name. Zamora and his bandmates wrote back thanking them, adding that “&ldots;this week and the threat of losing our alias has been enlightening in helping us realize just how much we have grown to love the bAd bAd name over the years.”
Long story short: Spirits should be pretty high at this party.
With Cruel Summer, Male Gaze, and Bob Thayer
7pm, $7-$10
Amnesia
853 Valencia, SF
ww.amnesiathebar.com
OTHER RELEASES
Springtime in the Bay Area is beautiful — but if we’re being honest, to the casual observer, it doesn’t look all that different from any other season. Unlike on the East Coast, where the appearance of blossoms and warmer weather serves as sweet, necessary, not-a-moment-too-soon relief from the tyranny of extremity-numbing slush and sleet and monochromatic down-stuffed outfits, the arrival of spring in Northern California is more or less marked by temperatures maybe 5 to 10 degrees warmer than the ones January brought us.
So what sets spring apart? The shit-ton of stuff going on. Restaurant openings, film festivals, museum parties galore. And judging by my overflowing mailbox (yes, the physical, snail-mail one, though my email inbox is similarly bulging), it’s a very popular time for record releases. Here’s a sampling of other new releases from local bands to look for in the next month:
Future Twin
Future Twin have the distinction of being the only band I can think of that could get away with describing their sound as “punkadelic farmageddon moongayz,” and have a first-time listener go “Oh yeah, that pretty much makes sense.” The synthed-out, cinematic vocals-led three-piece has made a name for itself with energetic live shows over the last three years, but 2014 is shaping up to be the year they invade your living room. They’re in the middle of shopping their full-length debut, Wavelength Sovereignty, around to different labels, but in the meantime they’ve decided to reward loyal fans with a very hearty aperitif: Chillality, a five-song “cassingle” the band recorded at Fantasy in Berkeley, out Tue/29; they’re celebrating with a release show Wed/30.
With The Spyrails and What Fun Life Was
8pm, $7
El Rio
3158 Mission, SF
Annie Girl & the Flight
Remember way back in March, when our On the Rise issue told you about the irresistible It Factor in singer Annie Girl‘s stage presence? No? That’s ok, it’s been a rough few weeks for me too. Besides, I have a feeling that with the release of this band’s new EP, Pilot Electric, theirs is a name you’ll have a hard time avoiding in these parts; you might as well catch their spaced-out, hypnotic art-rock at this Fri/2 EP release/tour kickoff show, while tickets to their gigs are still cheap.
Oakland’s Whiskerman is another band that seems like it should be bigger given the affinity our current pop culture zeitgeist seems to have for smoky, Southern-flecked soul-rock. Graham Patzner is a natural frontman if there ever was one, the younger brother of Anton and Lewis Patzner (better known as the mind-blowing, metal-accompanying string duo Judgement Day), born to a symphony violinist and a symphony trombonist. Setting aside how unfair that seems for a minute, Whiskerman isn’t riding anyone’s coattails. Patzner’s clear vocals move fluidly through blues, gospel, and straight-ahead rock ‘n’ roll, accompanied by bass, guitar and drums, as well as his own talents on guitar, keys, and violin. Serious dance parties have been known to ensue; the new EP, Bad News, suggests this could be a continuing problem.
Of all the new releases that have come across my desk over the past month, none has made me feel quite so much like ditching work and taking a drive down 101-south with the top rolled down and the wind in my hair as Adult Life, the debut full-length from SF’s own garage-fuzz-pop five-piece Cocktails. Of course, I drive an ’88 Volvo with very few moveable parts, and wind’s never been very kind to my hair, but you get the idea. Unabashedly catchy and, in places, perfectly snotty odes to summer and relationships are delivered through sonic nods to our ’70s power-pop and classic punk heroes. The album’s not out ’til mid-June, but you can catch new songs at shows throughout May, like at the Make-Out Room May 12.
If there were any doubt that Oakland’s most loveable weirdos had staying power, last week’s firework-filled free Converse Rubber Tracks show at the Chapel — just before tUnE-yArDs took off on tour opening for the Arcade Fire — should have laid that to rest. Nikki Nack, out May 6, is full of R&B grooves and plenty of synthed-out weirdness, lest anyone was worried that singer Merill Garbus would get boring as she achieved more mainstream success. The band won’t be back in the Bay until a two-night stand at the Fillmore June 6 and 7 (with openers Sylvan Esso and Goldie winner The Seshen, respectively) but check this space next week — we’ll be checking in with Garbus from the road in the days before the album officially drops.
Emily Ritz and Kacey Johansing aren’t exactly strangers to the Bay’s indie-folk scene — Johansing’s second solo LP, 2013’s Ghosts, has spread like lush acoustic pop wildfire around the city since its release, while Ritz is part of the Oakland-based experimental “noir pop” outfit DRMS, which put out the ambitious American 707 earlier this year, a hypnotically weird and weirdly delightful short film and accompanying soundtrack.
But together, they make something else entirely: Dreamy harmonies layered with guitar are shaped by odd time signatures, beats that sound like they’ve stopped by to visit from the electronic/chillwave world, and vibraphone apperances (they’re often accompanied by Andrew Maguire, who also backs Thao Nguyen); it’s music for the last hazy hour of a party, when the stragglers decide to watch the sunrise, or a long slightly stoned solo walk with a lot of things to think about, maybe, or if you have the technology to listen to music underwater, it’s also be great for a swim. The duo’s debut album’s not out until June 3, but this single should tide you over.
I was 12 years old in 1996, which is the year Jawbreaker, the punk band that’s been (somewhat controversially) called “the sound of the Mission,” disbanded for good. I started listening to them about four years later, and really only started listening-listening to them, in the way that Jawbreaker fans listen to Jawbreaker — obsessively, open-veined, with every part of your body engaged — a few years after that, when I was in college in San Diego, 500 miles from the ’90s Bay Area punk scene that I had only just begun to realize was special once it (and I) was all but gone.
I suspect, however, and a few friends’ Jawbreaker-love stories have confirmed this, that it doesn’t matter how old you are when you start listening to Jawbreaker, because Jawbreaker songs — in the universality of their lyrical angst, wedged as they are in that the puzzle-piece-shaped sweet spot between well-crafted pop and sore throat-inducing (in singer Blake Schwarzenbach’s case, throat polyp-causing) punk rock — will make you feel like a teenager. And not in the hopeful, peppy way people usually mean when they say something “made them feel like a teenager.” I mean, really, confused, hormonal, nostalgic, angry, in love, frustrated, drunk, fist-in-air triumphant, wistful about something you can’t quite place, and generally just fucking waterlogged with feeling.
The band’s enduring popularity and the reverence with which it’s still treated among the ’90s punk/emo-loving population — Google image-search “Jawbreaker tattoo” if you don’t believe me — is certainly, in large part, thanks to that: As an adult, that mood gets harder to access; you don’t often stumble onto art which opens a portal into that level of emotion. Jawbreaker picks you up and hurls you down it before you know what’s happening.
Drummer Adam Pfahler, the driving force behind the past few years of remastered re-issues of Jawbreaker’s iconic albums (on his own label, Blackball Records) has been plenty busy since that band met its demise. He opened Lost Weekend Video on Valencia, and still works there a few days a week. He lives in Bernal Heights; he has two teenage daughters. He’s played in at least a dozen other bands, including J Church and Whysall Lane. So does it bug him that people still mainly associate him with Jawbreaker, some 18 years after they broke up?
“Not at all — I’m totally grateful for that band, and the fact that people still feel that strongly about it is insane,” says the drummer, during a phone interview in which he multi-tasks impressively: He has about 20 minutes before it’s time to run to an evening practice with his new band, California, and he’s making pasta for his kids while answering questions.
“I’m definitely not running from that legacy. I love it, and so do Blake [Schwarzenbach] and Chris [Bauermeister, Jawbreaker’s bassist],” he says. “It is a little funny because I’ve been playing all along…it’s just that certain things take hold or get seen better than others.”
Of course, certain things, like this new project, have the benefit of being able to attach the words “Ex-Jawbreaker/Green Day” to a flier or listing, as the Rickshaw Stop has advertised California’s April 24 show — the band’s third official outing — though Pfahler’s a bit uncomfortable with using his star power that way. Hopefully, he says, the band will be earning that buzz on its own soon enough.
After all, California, a three-piece, is something of a Bay Area punk supergroup: On guitar and vocals you have Green Day‘s Jason White, who, despite having played lead guitar on the band’s tours for the past decade or so, only “officially” became a member in 2012; he also shares guitar and vocal duties with Billie Joe Armstrong in the long-running side project (and supergroup of its own, in a way) Pinhead Gunpowder. Bass and backup vocals are courtesy of Dustin Clark of TheInsides; Pfahler is on drums.
“I’d kind of been starting to do stuff under my own name in 2011, just to try writing my own songs again,” says White, noting that Green Day is on an “indefinite break” — though he did just get off the phone with Armstrong, who called to tell him about how crazy it was to play with the Replacements at Coachella the previous night. (White, with a laugh: “I hadn’t wanted to go at all but now I’m super jealous, and bummed that I wasn’t there.”)
White started playing out acoustically about three years ago, at places like the Hotel Utah. When he was asked to play a friend’s 40th birthday party, he invited Clark to play bass; Clark asked Pfahler, whom he’d been playing with (they’re old friends — also SF experimental rockers Erase Errata, featuring Clark’s wife, Bianca Sparta, on drums, used to play in the basement of Lost Weekend). All three are veterans of the scene; all three were excited about trying something new.
“I’m at a place where I just want to try any and everything, stretch out on my own, experiment with some different ideas,” says White, who says he’s also a huge Jawbreaker fan. “And all three of us have pretty distinct individual tastes, which has made for a really nice mix of the three, I think.”
California at the Hemlock Tavern earlier this month. Photo by Greg Schneider.
There’s no music online for fans to listen to or buy just yet — and thanks to a name cribbed from a novella by Pfahler’s friend, the writer Amra Brooks, the band’s virtually un-Googlable — but a handful of demos they’ve recorded suggest a leaning toward the poppier end of the spectrum than you might expect from these three. White’s vocals are clean, earnest, not trying too hard to be too much, reminiscent of the Promise Ring, or of the days (day?) before “emo” became code for whiny and tossed around like a dirty word; tight, punchy, early Green Day-esque bridges and hooks are grounded, kept from being overly sugary by the heft of the rhythm section.
“This is very much a new band, in the garage band sense of the word — I’m happy to pester people with texts and emails to get them to come see our shows, because I’m really proud of this one,” says Pfahler. It’s an especially collaborative band, he says, which tend to be the kind he enjoys — as opposed to “just being the guy back there, being told to count to four.” They have plans to record in the next few months, but right now is the best part, says Pfahler: seeing what works and what doesn’t after hours of practicing, seeing how people react at live shows, when the songs are still malleable. “It’s a little like the early, fun part of a relationship,” is how White puts it. Pfahler: “If you’re fortunate enough to have the opportunity to play them out this early on in the process, once you record it’s almost like the death of those songs.”
Pfahler does feel fortunate, in a number of ways. As a longtime Mission District resident and business owner, he’s had a front-row seat for the neighborhood’s drastic changes over the past two decades. Is he tired of the conversation about gentrification?
“I am a little tired of it, but I’m no less passionate about how I feel,” he says. “It’s harsh. It limits things. We’re feeling that in the shop in a very real way, and certainly people are buying fewer records — but they’re paying for high cuisine, organic wine, you know. There’s no shortage of new bands screaming about this stuff, and they definitely have something to be mad about. It’s good fodder for angry music. When Jawbreaker settled here it was a pretty fertile time; you could get things going back then. I mean, the practice space I use now is shared between 13 people, and it costs more than my first apartment did. And there’s no bathroom! It would definitely be tough to be a kid trying to make music here.”
“At the same time, I think my kids are lucky to be here,” he says, as he beckons one of them to the stove to test the pasta. “Even with this craziness going on. They get around on public transportation, they go to shows. They’re going to be the backlash. They’re smart kids and they have really good bullshit detectors.
“That generation, I have a lot of hope for.”
CALIFORNIA With El Terrible and Vela Eyes Thu/24, 8pm, $10 Rickshaw Stop 155 Fell, SF www.rickshawstop.com
Also: We’d be remiss to not mention the musical offerings the SFIFF has planned this year: Thao and the Get Down Stay Down and Stephen Merritt of the Magnetic Fields will each be performing live original scores during film festival offerings, on Tue/29 and Tue/6, respectively, at the Castro Theatre. Cross-media creative pollination never sounded so sweet. For tickets: http://tinyurl.com/l8srz9j
This weekend will see a convergence of two holidays that, come to think of it, overlap rather nicely given their impact on chocolate sales. Whether you’re celebrating the resurrection of Christ by donning an elaborate hat for church or the recent renewal of your medical marijuana card by finding new and creative ways to mainline THC (word to the wise: be careful in public this year), Sunday, April 20 is shaping up to be a fine day for people-watching in this city.
But hey, fellow music nerds: We all know both of those pale in comparison to what’s going down on Saturday. Yes, like the first esoteric, vinyl-collection obsessed, possibly slightly-condescending-at-times robin of Spring, Record Store Day is upon us once again. Tomorrow, Sat/19, will be a pretty good day to visit just about any (actual, brick-and-mortar, non-Internet-based) record store in the Bay Area. Now in its seventh year, the holiday — which, its website notes, was kicked off in 2008 at San Francisco’s Rasputin, by none other than the boys from Metallica — is celebrated at stores on every continent except Antarctica.
No need to pack your bags though: Here’s what’s going down at a few Bay Area establishments that sell music in all its excellent tangible, physical forms.
From the Mission’s Aquarius Records, owner (and Minor Forest drummer) Andee Connors wrote us the following when we asked what he was stoked on this year:
1. A Minor Forest, Flemish Altruism / Inindependence, 4 LP reissue on Thrill Jockey, both albums from this nineties math/post/noise rock band [acknowledgement of personal bias here]
1. The Ghostbusters‘ glow-in-the dark 10″
3. Ron Jeremy,Understanding and Appreciating Classical Music With Ron Jeremy, 7″ (only a 7″??)
4. Cardinal 2/t LP, vinyl reissue of this seminal baroque indie-pop classic
5. Scharpling & Wurster, Rock, Rot & Rule LP, vinyl reissue of maybe the funniest record ever, especially for music nerds
I think our customers are probably excited for those, but they’re / we’re also looking forward to the Heatmiser (Elliott Smith’s old band) LP reissues, the four soundtrack LPs on Death Waltz, Pussy Galore reissue, Rodion G.A. reissue, the Space Project compilation…also, we have a new release from local band Twin Trilogy, featuring Sean Smith, the first in a series, ONLY available at aQ on RSD, and on Sunday, Twin Trilogy will be playing a special in-store at aQ. Record store day part 2!!! [Ed. note: Should pair well with your other Sunday celebrations].
Across the Bay at Oakland’s 1-2-3-4 Go!, a full-day party will kick off when the store opens at 8am. “Last year people started lining up around 4:30am, to give you a heads-up if you plan on coming for the opening,” advised owner Steve Stevenson, adding that they’ll have coffee from SubRosa and donuts from Pepples (while supplies last) for those of you who line up early.
Giveaway: A test pressing of the Green DayDemolicious 2xLP, autographed by Berkeley boy Billie Joe Armstrong. The first 100 people in line will get a raffle ticket; once the 100th person has handed in their ticket, the drawing will commence.
James Williamson of The Stooges will be doing a signing and chatting with fans from 10am to 11ish. (Ed. note: !!!!)
Hella Vegan Eats will be on hand making breakfast and lunch throughout the day. “Not free, but well worth it even if you’re not vegan,” says Steve. They’ll also have a couple of kegs from Linden Street Brewery for over-21 folks, for free, after noon.
Bands: Ghoul will be playing a very special “surf” set from their RSD Hang Ten 10″ out on Tank Crimes at 3pm, with Occultist opening.
An entirely non-comprehensive list of what’s happening at other stores:
Amoeba Berkeley — In-store DJ sets from Jonah Nice and DJ Inti; 20 percent off all turntables, posters, and some other accessories; giveaways TBA.
Amoeba SF — Same sales as above, plus live silk-screening from 11am to 2pm with special RSD 2014 designs, one by Zach of Saintseneca; t-shirts and totes available for purchase, with all proceeds going tothe San Francisco Rock Project. Plus a full day of guest DJs, including folks like Andy Cabic of Vetiver and Ezana Edwards and Ryan Grubbs from Blood Sister.
Groove Merchant Records (Haight): Cool Chris’ hand-picked “batch of 300+ Rock, Soul, Jazz, Italo Disco, and Post-Punk records (LP’s, 12”s, & 7”s),” selected especially for RSD.
And now a word from your Record Store Day 2014 ambassador, Public Enemy’s Chuck D, whose duties coincide with an RSD reissue of a very fine 1988 album. Happy crate-digging!
Hiatus, schmiatus:Thee Oh Sees have been added to an already-dreamy Burger Boogaloo lineup. Catch ’em alongside OFF!, Shannon and the Clams, Nobunny, Terry Malts, and of course the inimitable Miss Ronnie Spector herself, July 5-6 at Mosswood Park in Oakland.
Who needs Coachella anyway? In between their two weekend stints at that shitshow of a music festival down south, Waxahatchee is playing a free show at UC Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza today at 5pm. Are you in Berkeley? It’s goddamn beautiful out. You should go.
Start your itinerizing: Outsidelands just announced each day’s lineup and put single-day tickets on sale. Are you in more of a Kanye-Disclosure-Warpaint-Mikal Cronin kind of mood? Or a Tom Petty-Tycho-Big Freedia head space? These are the tough questions.
Cocktails grow up: Don’t worry, one of SF’s favorite fuzz-power-pop bands hasn’t gone and gotten lame, though. This new track, “Tough Love,” off Adult Life, suggests the five-piece has gotten a little tighter and just a little slicker, in a good way. That record won’t be out until June 17, but you can probably hear a lot of it at the Rickshaw Stop this Fri/18, when they open at the EP release party for The She’s.
In case you were on some kind of self-imposed social media hiatus last weekend (early, tech-centered Lent ritual?), you’re probably aware of a little music festival called Coachella that comes around this time of year like a bass-thumping, hashtag-happy harbinger of Spring.
The festival’s first weekend (Fri/11 through Sun/13) wasn’t short on memorable moments: Solange bringing big sister Beyonce onstage for a choreographed dance routine on Saturday; Arcade Fire’s Win Butler putting the festival grounds’ VIP section and increasingly moneyed atmosphere on blast — before being joined by Debbie Harry, Pharrell and his hat seemingly welcoming the years 1998 through 2002 onstage on Sunday, by way of guests Gwen Stefani, Nelly, and Snoop Dogg. Then again, we hear OutKast’s reunion was met with an underwhelming response from the audience — we’ll have to wait for BottleRock Napa in May to find out for ourselves if that’s on them, or had more to do with an overheated, EDM-leaning crowd.
As is often the case with big festivals like this one, a lot of the best sets came from smaller acts whose names you’re not likely to see in the tabloids anytime soon. We sent photographer Eric Lynch to capture some impressions of everyone’s favorite hot, dusty, celebrity-filled, dance-until-you-can’t-feel-your-feet-oh-wait-maybe-that’s-the-drugs party, and boy did he deliver. Check ’em out, and feel free to send us your own snaps and stories if you’ve got something cool to share: esilvers@sfbg.com.
LEFT OF THE DIAL Dayvid Michael, a West Oakland native and member of the CaliMade hip-hop crew, clearly has some mixed feelings about his debut record, Frienemy.
“I mean, I wrote those songs when I was 18,” says the rapper, drinking boba milk tea during an interview in downtown Oakland. “I’m still proud of them, but I’ve learned so much since then.”
That album dropped the last week of December 2012 — which means Michael’s reminiscing at the ripe old age of 21. But, to be fair, the past couple years have been big ones for someone who calls himself a “reluctant rapper” (until about age 17, he mostly wanted to sing and play guitar).
With CaliMade, a loose collective of Oakland-born guys who’ve been friends from elementary school, as well as other young DJs and producers, he performed at Hiero Day, steps away from Bay Area hip-hop legends. He’s guested on a few songs by Iamsu, a rapper whom, Michael rightly notes, you will hear if you put on 106.1 KMEL for more than 15 minutes right now; CaliMade is now working closely with the (slightly) elder rapper’s own crew, the HBK Gang. And 2014’s shaping up to be a big one: He just got done recording a new project with Azure, an Oakland rapper poised for big things in his own right as well as being Iamsu’s DJ, and Clyde Shankle, another member of CaliMade. Michael’s also working on his sophomore solo album, which will be out by the end of the year.
In other words, he’s an Oakland kid to keep your eye on — which makes him a perfect selection for Oakland Drops Beats, a new free, all-ages, quarterly music festival that features some 30-plus East Bay artists, spread out over 10 different stages and venues in downtown Oakland; the kickoff festival is April 19.
Its lineup is, in and of itself, a testament to the range of music coming out of Oakland right now: From the jazz-hip-hop blend of the Kev Choice Ensemble to the underrated indie rock of Oakland mainstays B. Hamilton to the funk-soul dance party music of Sal’s Greenhouse — not to mention a distinctly family-friendly vibe courtesy of Bay Area Girls Rock Camp and the presence of Youth Radio — the music “crawl,” as organizers are billing it, aims to serve as both a celebration of the city’s established artists and a new platform through which up-and-coming musicians can get some stage time.
Inspired by the Venice Music Crawl in LA, musician-organizer-founder Angelica Tavella first began reaching out to Oakland event producers over the summer, with the idea in mind that there are lots of community organizers and promoters “already doing cool stuff in other parts of Oakland, but really doing their own thing,” she says.
“This was, here’s a space where we could all do that together, for a couple hours, on this one day. And I really had in mind that it should be downtown Oakland — specifically not in Uptown, which already has the Art Murmur…there are a lot of great small shop owners, a lot of great energy, and cool new things going on downtown. But there aren’t a lot of venues for something like a public music performance to happen.”
Tavella was quickly overwhelmed by the level of interest and enthusiasm from business owners and event producers — especially considering that the festival is all volunteer-run for now (including pro bono performances by musicians). The goal for the next one, which will take place in the last week of July or the first week of August, is to fundraise enough to pay musicians for their performances, while keeping admission free to the public.
Eventually, Tavella hopes to have the free daytime performances segue into a nighttime music crawl that would bring business to the venues in downtown Oakland. And with more and more musicians and artists getting priced out of San Francisco and heading East, organizers shouldn’t have too hard a time finding fresh talent to fill a bill every three months.
Dayvid Michael will be performing in the afternoon with the CaliMade crew at Le Qui Vive, a gallery at 15th and Webster. He feels at home there — it’s one of the first venues where CaliMade began performing a few years ago, and he says the folks behind it are part of the community that makes him feel so lucky to be calling Oakland home.
“When people from outside the Bay Area think about the Bay Area, they think of two things — we’re hyphy, we know how to have fun; and also the diversity of the city,” says Michael, who also does graphics work for Youth Radio (he basically “hung around” until they let him). “I feel like as representatives, the HBK Gang and Cali Made can fulfill both of those perceptions. And my personal goal is to show the world that we’re more than just party music. We can do that too — but we want to offer more than that.”
“This place is so rich in culture, intelligence, legacy. I love it here,” he says, and thinks for a minute. “If Oakland had waterfalls, I would never go anywhere else.” Fair enough.
Oakland Drops Beats Sat/19, 2pm (all day), free 10 venues between Broadway and Harrison/14th and 19th St, Oak. www.oaklanddropsbeats.com
ONLY YOU CAN SAVE COLLEGE RADIO
Talk about “left of the dial.” If you’ve only been in the city a couple years, you might not be aware that there was a time when KUSF — that’s the student-run radio station of the University of San Francisco — wasn’t in exile. It’s been over three years since the university sold the station (which had been broadcasting since 1963 at 90.3 FM) without public input or comment, for $3.75 million, to the Classical Public Radio Network, aka CPRN, via a complex three-way deal between the University of Southern California, that station, and the corporate broadcasting giant Entercom.
Since that time, KUSF DJs and friends of the station have been operating the station online, 24 hours a day, from the Lightrail Studios, growing a registered nonprofit arm with a new name: San Francisco Community Radio. All the while, those who love the station have been embroiled in — to use the technical legal terminology — a bureaucratic shitshow, as they try to prove that the sale was illegal. They’ve had some small successes in proving certain aspects of the transaction were unlawful, and currently have an appeal before the FCC.
Then, at the end of 2013, the FCC began issuing low-power FM licenses for the first time in about a decade. KUSF-In-Exile has an application in for 102.5 — but they’re up against at least seven other groups, including, as KUSF members understand it, a mega-church. The central goal, say organizers, is simply to get back on the (non-internet based) airwaves, one way or another. But “It’s a lot of hurry up and wait,” says SFCR board member and treasurer Damin Esper of the situation. “Which, obviously, isn’t very satisfying to us or to our supporters.”
In the meantime, the station has been throwing fundraiser shows to help pay for ongoing legal fees, and the one this April 20, naturally, is the third incarnation of their annual stoner-rama affair. Oakland punks Violence Creeps, who’ll be opening for the current incarnation of Black Flag at Brick & Mortar in May, will be headlining, alongside psych-rockers Mondo Drag and plenty of other wild, weird, woolly favorites; visuals, should you happen to have ingested anything that would make you want to look at cool visuals, will be provided by veteran stock-footage auteurs Oddball Films. All of the funds raised will go to SFCR’s legal fight; there will also be members on hand to talk volunteer opportunities — college radio-loving grantwriters, are you out there?
When it comes to the original sale, Esper says, “It’s clear that laws were broken. It could be found to be illegal in court…but one of the reasons the big guys always win in situations like this is it’s hard to keep people engaged, reminded of the situation. This is bigger than just KUSF. This is happening all over the country. College radio is under attack.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0MiS923Jfo
SFCR’s Blown-Out, Blowout Benefit III Sun/20, 8pm, $7 Thee Parkside 1600 17th St, SF www.theeparkside.com
Oh, one last thing: There’s also a little event called Record Store Daycoming up, so get out that piggy bank — this is what people mean when they talk about having an “emergency fund,” right? Anyway: So much going on, so little space. Check the Bay Guardian’s Noise blog this week for special in-store events and one-day-only releases.
Okay, so maybe I’m a little biased because how often does a music video shoot take place in yours truly’s little podunk hometown of Albany, California — which is where the dollar-beer-covered racetrack glory that is Golden Gate Fields technically lies, friends, not Berkeley — but this new Atmosphere video for the song “Kanye West,” which the hip-hop duo premiered today on Noisey, does feel a little like a “spot the East Bay shooting location” rendition of Where’s Waldo.
There’s plenty else to like, though: That’s also Oakland writer-superstar Chinaka Hodge in the role of leading lady, and local comedian/erstwhile Guardian opiner Nato Green as a scared-shitless corner store worker. Check it out below.
The duo’s new album Southsiders drops May 6 on Rhymesayers; this song will also be on The Lake Nokomis Maxi Single, released exclusively on vinyl for Record Store Day (that’s next Saturday, April 19, kiddos). They’ll be in town in August for Outsidelands.
Fun fact: I’m bad at festivals. It’s not that I don’t enjoy them, per se: there’s live music, the outdoors, fried food, great people-watching.
It’s just that — well, okay, I lied, I usually don’t enjoy them. I’m not 22 anymore. I don’t like waiting in long lines for disgusting Port-a-Potties. The sound is often unpreventably terrible. Trying to see all the bands you really care about becomes a headache-inducing feat of scheduling Sudoku. And the people-watching, while entertaining, often devolves into being so annoyed at/dismayed by the people around me that I’m too distracted to enjoy the music.
I’m great at parties, I promise!
Here’s the thing: I truly love a lot of the acts on the lineup at Coachella this year. OutKast, The Dismemberment Plan, come on. And the fact that I’m not going to see the Replacements tonight makes me feel all kinds of superfan failure feelings (see: the name of my column).
I can’t be alone in my competing excitement about this year’s artists and total lack of desire to physically be on the hot, crowded premises for their shows. Thus, without further ado — before your social networks start blowing up with pictures of your friends having The Time of Their Lives there — a step-by-step guide to doing Coachella this weekend from the comfort of your own home.
Step 1:Get dressed. Ladies, you’re gonna want one of these.
On the bottom, go for the timeless, comfortable class of cutoff shorts that let the entire bottom half of your ass hang out the leg holes (you can Google image-search that one yourself). Pair with tall, furry boots. If you’ve been working out lately — or even following the Coachella diet — and really want to show off your complete lack of self-awareness, try appropriating the rich, storied culture of a persecuted people with your headgear. Guys, you can do this one too.
Step 2. Hit the hardware store and garden supply center. You want a high-powered space heater and several bags of very dry dirt — we’re in a drought here, after all. On the way home, collect a full trash bag of empty beer bottles, used condoms, and other detritus from the street. (Optional, depending on personal preference: Buy drugs.) When you get home, turn the heater on full blast and close the windows; then scatter dirt and garbage everywhere.
Step 3. Invite some friends over. You’re not into big crowds, but come on, you’re not anti-social. Bonus points if you can get a local celebrity, like John Waters, Rider Strong, or the Tamale Lady. Instagram the shit out of everything they do, such as taking selfies, taking more selfies, and sitting on their bodyguards’ shoulders, smoking blunts.
Step 4. Put on some tunes. To get that special “festival” sound, try turning the volume and bass up until every single element is distorted, then wrap your speakers in heavy blankets. Follow up by either standing with your ear smashed against them or walking half a mile away. Here’s a playlist featuring all of Friday, to get you started:
Step 5. Sometime around 5am (your mileage may very depending on drugs of choice), try going to sleep. Hey, look at that — you’re in your own bed! If you want to get that authentic camping feeling, make your friends stay over and sleep in super-cramped positions next to you. Ideally, you’ll wake up to the sound of someone vomiting five feet away from your head. I’m lucky enough to have a bedroom window facing 16th Street; again, YMMV.
But don’t think about that now. Get a little bit of rest. Drink some water. Tomorrow’s another long, glorious day of the best music festival you’ve ever been to, and if you want to have document the Time of Your Life, you’re gonna need your energy.
[More seriously — we do have a photographer at Coachella this weekend, check back here for cool photos that are not the result of me gleefully Google image-searching “Coachella headdress terrible.”]
San Francisco songwriter Dylan Shearer has been kicking around the Bay Area since 2005, but something in his voice sounds like he just arrived here in a time machine from London in 1965. Like a less-buoyant Ray Davies (or a less-suicidal Nick Drake?) there’s an impressive authentic, cozily British gloom to the California-born singer’s work.
His new LP garragearray, out April 15 through a collaboration between Castle Face and Empty Cellar Records, expands on the immersive, melodic, rainy-day moods of his last couple efforts, 2012’s Porchpuddles and 2009’s critic favorite Planted/Plans.
New for this record are some rather heavy-hitting collaborators: On bass you have Petey Dammit from Thee Oh Sees (who, if you have no Facebook friends freaking out and posting about it every 10 minutes, seem to have officially ended their much-bemoaned hiatus with the announcement of a few shows in London and LA), and Comets on Fire‘s Noel von Harmonson on drums, with production by Eric Bauer (Mikal Cronin, Ty Segall, Sic Alps, a shit ton of others).
Here’s our favorite of the two advance tracks he’s put out — beautiful, sunshiney day outside be damned.
Check with Empty Cellar for show dates around the LP release.
LEFT OF THE DIAL It’s a question most musicians are all too familiar with. If you tell someone at a party that you’re a working musician, that person is inevitably going to ask — after a few polite questions about your hardcore band/classical jazz quartet/street-corner performance art where you alternate reading Blake passages with playing the accordion — “So, you have a day job?”
In a city like San Francisco, especially, the answer is almost always “yes.” And there’s no shame in that! Bartender, barista, Whole Foods cashier, teacher, graphic designer, marijuana dispensary employee — I’ve heard all of these in just the last month or so of musician interviews. A person’s gotta eat.
And then there’s Tim Marcus. On a recent, rainy Tuesday afternoon, the guitarist was hunkered down in a small bedroom-turned-electrical engineering workshop in the Lower Haight apartment he shares with his girlfriend. Marcus, 35, is one of the most sought after steel guitar players in the Bay Area. He spent the latter half of the aughts with the now-defunct (but much loved) San Francisco Americana band Or, the Whale. A few hours after this interview, he’ll be playing Amnesia with alt-country rocker Tom Rhodes; two days later he’s heading out on the road for a three-week East Coast tour with San Francisco folk songstress Kelly McFarling. But right now he’s at his day job: Flanked by stacks of glass tubes, fuses, and various tiny metal parts whose purpose we can only guess at, he’s building an amplifier. And not just any amplifier. An amplifier of pedal steel dreams.
As the founder, owner, and sole employee of Milkman Sound, Marcus has created a living from building toys — and he’s the first to call them that — for musicians who are just as choosy as he is.
“I started playing guitar when I was 10, and played in bands all through middle school, high school, college,” says Marcus. “I started doing it professionally in the early 2000s. And there just wasn’t what I’d consider to be a boutique option [for amplifiers] for pedal steel guitars. If you drive a car, most people buy a Ford or a Subaru, but you have the option to buy a Ferrari. As a pedal steel player, in particular, you really wound up shoehorned into buying Fords and Chevrolets, things that are made for [regular] guitar players.”
He gained the technical know-how required to build amplifiers from a couple places. Back East, he worked for a company that did repairs on audio-visual equipment, where he’d hand off old or unused parts to a friend who built amps in exchange for his tutelage. After moving out to San Francisco, Marcus went to work for BBI Engineering, an SF company that installs AV and theatrical systems for museums “and other places that use automated amps, where you walk in, push a button and everything happens,” he says. “I learned a lot about making things that work well, that aren’t going to break if they’re subjected to kids poking at them day, in day out.”
Frustrated at being unable to get the clarity and quality of sound he wanted out of his guitar, Marcus started small, ordering the best parts he could find — some vintage, some new, with a priority on materials made in America — to build one amplifier for himself. He still has it (it’s sitting in a custom Milkman slipcover in the corner of the workshop, which, Marcus notes, is more easily navigated than usual — he just shipped out a bunch of amps) but he’s revamped that first one more times than he can count.
He’s an admitted perfectionist as well as a workaholic, he says, but it runs in the family: the name “Milkman” is a nod to his longstanding family business in Connecticut, starting with a small dairy farm his great-grandfather bought and built out. “The spirit of my great-grandfather was like ‘I’m going to sell something that I make,’ and my family’s always continued that,” says Marcus. “That definitely plays a role in my work ethic.”
Since he built that first amp four years ago, he’s been crafting custom amps for guitar and steel players all over the country. He does every part of production himself — friends have asked to help so they can learn, but he’s “crazy OCD about doing everything” with his own hands — and he builds each amp to a customer’s specifications, one at a time. He’s branched out into amplifiers for regular guitarists, and for bass players. Each amp takes him a couple of days to build, and then he tests it meticulously by (someone’s gotta do it) playing guitar through it lots of different ways.
Marcus still buys parts from small US-based companies where possible, including many in California, which he says is expensive but worth it for the quality. They don’t manufacture the glass tubes that go into amplifiers in the US at all, anymore, he explains, which is a shame, because the ones produced here in the ’50s and ’60s were great — they played an unsung role in creating what we think of as the early American rock ‘n’ roll sound. (Marcus can and will explain the history of amplifiers to you, as well as the differences between every iteration of each part that goes into them, at the drop of a hat.) The majority of his cabinets come from a revered one-man shop in Nashville, though Marcus has just begun working with a family business in Oakland to try to make the operation even more local.
The price for all this care and OCD-level handiwork? Milkman amps run from $900 for a five-watt “half pint” amp to $3000 for the more powerful models. But for the musicians Marcus is catering to, that’s well worth it — last year, he sold 40 amplifiers; this year, by the end of March, he’d already shipped 20. Milkman amps have been out on tour in Eric Clapton’s band, thanks to acclaimed steel player and producer Greg Leisz taking a liking to Marcus’ simple, vintage rock ‘n’ roll aesthetic and careful technical work; they can also be heard on the most recent Daft Punk and Norah Jones records.
Maybe most impressively: Marcus seems to have cracked a code. He’s surviving in San Francisco by doing something he loves — and something that allows him to stay here as a working musician. He stopped working for his old audio-visual company about a year ago.
“I know I’m extraordinarily lucky that I’ve figured out a way to have music be something I can make a living off of,” he says. “I mean, I don’t get rich playing pedal steel. I wouldn’t be able to pay my rent playing pedal steel. If I lived in Nashville, or even LA, maybe; not here.
“But there’s also pride in that,” he says. “That’s why it says ‘Made in San Francisco, USA’ on the front. It’s not easy to do things in San Francisco, so when you do I think it’s just that much more awesome. I kind of got into the pirate ship mentality, and working for myself is great. I get up early — but I haven’t set an alarm clock in a long time.”
Well that’s…an interesting bunch. Another Planet Entertainment just announced the lineup for Outside Lands, set for Aug. 8 through 10 this year in Golden Gate Park (as per usual). The heavy-hitters include Kanye West, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, the Killers, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, Arctic Monkeys, Death Cab for Cutie, Flaming Lips, Ray Lamontagne, and Atmosphere, with local faves Nicki Bluhm and the Gramblers, Tumbleweed Wanderers and Trails and Ways as supporting acts. The full lineup’s here — but why just read it when you can have Huey Lewis tell you all about it?
Oh, Merrill Garbus. Remember the days when the endearingly weird, weirdly endearing, predictably unpredictable tUnE-yArDs felt like an open Oakland secret, an East Bay girl (by way of the East Coast) who slowly but surely started to outgrow us?
Well, it’s official, she has — but in a good way. If the first couple singles off Nikki Nack are any indication, the album (out May 6 on 4AD) will be more slick, more produced, and just a little less all-over-the-place than her previous two records, 2009’s lo-fi debut Bird Brains and the album that launched her onto the national stage, 2011’s excellent Whokill.
But that’s not to say the new direction sounds boring — far from it. With dancefloor-ready synths front and center and a Janet Jackson-like callback, “Wait For A Minute,” which 4AD released today, sounds like Garbus has been listening to some ’90s R&B, which is (duh) always a choice we endorse. Give it a listen below .
She also just announced tour dates — catch her at the Fillmore June 6 with the Durham, NC-based Sylvan Esso.
If the music industry gave out awards for patience or persistence, Bevan Herbekian would have a healthy handful of trophies to his name. The multi-instrumentalist has lent his songwriting and frontman skills to everything from loose punk bands to a highly orchestrated indie pop quartet over the course of the past decade and a half, in addition to playing bass on other people’s songs — at the moment, he’s part of fellow Berkeleyite M. Lockwood Porter‘s band — so he’s no stranger to the realities of trying to “make it” as a musician. But Teenager, the moniker under which Herbekian has decided to release his first truly solo album, represents something new for the songwriter: A chance to blend every genre he’s ever loved, to talk about his travels to New York and subsequent, requisite disllusionment with it, a musical space where he doesn’t have to bend to anyone else’s desires.
The resulting joy is contagious — The Magic of True Love, which comes out April 29, is full of unabashedly earnest, tightly crafted pop songs with seriously big instrumentation. There are head-bobbers, there’s high-flying falsetto, there are shout-along soul choruses. His voice carries the energy of someone very young, but these aren’t songs written by a newbie. Herbekian decided to realease one new song off the album each week leading up to the release, which means you can listen to quite a bit of it online. To be real, though, you should probably buy it. It’s catchy as shit, and the guy’s been at it long enough.
We caught up with him this week to hear about songwriting influences, going solo, and exactly how much time he spent listening to Nevermind.
San Francisco Bay Guardian Your bio says you’re from a small Northern California town. Where, exactly?
Bevan Herbekian I was born in Bennett Valley and raised there until I was 13. It’s that small stretch of countryside/small town between Petaluma & Santa Rosa proper that hides behind the hills off the 101. When I was in junior high, my family moved to Avila Beach, which is a tiny beach town on the central coast. It’s got two streets and a population of a few hundred. It made Bennett Valley look like a real urban center.
SFBG When and how did you first start playing music? What instrument was the first? How many do you play now?
BH I started playing music when I was about 12. My dad taught me the riff to Nirvana’s “Come As You Are” and I urgently learned the rest of the album on an acoustic guitar. It was one of those aha! moments for me. I was totally hooked and immediately wanted to start a punk band, but everyone I knew played guitar, so I hopped over to bass. Since then I’ve taken to the other rock ‘n’ roll instruments — piano, organ/keyboards, simple synth stuff, various percussion — I humor myself on drums and basically anything else I can get my hands on.
SFBGWhat’s the first record you really remember loving?
BH Unquestionably, Nirvana’s Nevermind. Around the same time I picked up the guitar, I borrowed a cassette of Guns & Roses’ Use Your Illusion from a friend’s ‘cool’ older brother — he was in high school so he was automatically cool. My dad caught me walking through the front door with it and said something along the lines of ‘you don’t want to listen to that garbage’ and took the tape, but not in the normal parents-are-a-drag sort of way. An hour later he gave it back to me having recorded Nevermind over it. I remember sitting on the floor of my room hearing those drums kick in and thinking what is this?! It was so loud and aggressive and passionate and vulnerable and somehow just as catchy as the early Beatles stuff that I loved as a little kid. Overnight, I became obsessed. I couldn’t stop listening to it. I literally listened to it every day before school for a year.
SFBG Can you name some of the bands you’ve been in before? The last time the Bay Guardian checked in with you, you were in The 21st Century.
BH Yeah, I’ve spent much of the last 15 years playing in bands. Prior to Teenager I was leading The 21st Century which was this highly orchestrated Indie-Pop/Rock octet with horns and harmonies and big songs in general. Before that I was working on solo stuff similar to what I’m doing now and playing in a fun experimental art-rock(?) band called The Tea Set and of a band/friendship club called World’s Best Dad. Right now, I’m also playing bass in M. Lockwood Porter which is a really sweet Americana/rock ‘n’ roll band led by fellow 21st Centurier Max Porter.
SFBGHow was making an album on your own different from with a group? What made it feel like time to do that? It’s interesting, because so many people, when they decide to “go solo,” put out a really stark and stripped-down album, but this record sounds really BIG on all levels, in the best possible dramatic power-pop sense….got some ’70s arena-rock guitar riffs, soul jams with big backup vocals, some choruses that sound like younger (less cheesy) Billy Joel stuff.
BH Ha, that’s funny and pretty true! Yeah, this album came on the heels of being in a band with a lot of people. As is the case whenever working with a large group, there are many competing ideas and opinions. This can be a tremendous strength, but the songs that became this record were incredibly personal and I just found myself wanting to work on them in a solitary way. I had a strong sense of where I wanted to take them — kind of a ‘more is more’ philosophy — and when you have that sort of clarity, it’s best to do it yourself. It’s true, many of these songs are BIG and that’s been something I’ve been chasing for a few years. These songs grew out of some very big feelings so it seemed like the right way to bring them to life. There’s love and loss and desire and deep disappointment running through them so I wanted them to sound as large as it all felt.
SFBGOn that note — how would you describe your genre on this album? Who would you point to as your biggest influences?
BH I love so much music and I like trying my hand at a lot of different types, so there’s a handful of genres represented here. I see this album almost like a mixtape of my life. There’s nods to many of my musical loves. There’s some rock ‘n’ roll, ’60s soul, indie pop, folk, and ’90s alternative (do people still say that?). In terms of musical influences, I gravitate towards songwriting. I love the melodies and arrangements of Brian Wilson and Motown. The literary and lyrical precision of Leonard Cohen and Belle & Sebastian blow my mind. Bands like The Pixies, Big Star, Harry Nilsson, and Beck — they’re all staples too…and like many of us, I was indoctrinated at an early age into the ultimate Beatles fan club by my dad so that’s a part of my musical DNA too.
SFBG Where does the moniker Teenager come from?
BH With The 21st Century, I was unapologetically ambitious. Even the band name was a kind of over-the-top statement of bravado and staking claim on something bold and large. Coming out of that, I veered the opposite direction. I thought, what’s one of the more misunderstood, under-appreciated, and generally dismissed groups around? And I arrived at Teenager. I think it was also a chance to acknowledge how long I’ve been writing and recording music at home. In a lot of ways, I’ve been doing the same thing for about 16 years so I thought in a way, my time as a musician and songwriter is dead center in those teenager years. Given the pair of meanings, it somehow felt strangely appropriate.
SFBG Plans for the next year?
BH Well, I’ve been putting together a new lineup to play these songs out. I’m quite excited about that. I’m eager to tour come early Fall. Also, because this album was such a labor of love and took such a long time, I’m sitting on a lot of backlogged material. My hope is to get into the studio and cut it all by the end of the year and then whittle it down — maybe to a double album. I’ve never made one and have always been a bit against them in principle — I like editing – -but I think it might be time to give it a try.
SFBGWhere do you live in the Bay Area? How does being from Northern California/living here influence your music?
BH I lived in San Francisco for a few years and had a stint in Oakland, and now I’m living in Berkeley. Honestly, I’m not sure how Northern California plays a part in my music. To me, it’s home and sometimes it’s hard to see your home for what it really is. But I love the city and the redwoods and the ocean and the mountains. Being surrounded by all that beauty can really instigate some large dreams and make you feel like the world is an astounding place.
SFBGBay Area meal/restaurant/food item you couldn’t, hypothetically, live without?
BH Without hesitation, La Taqueria followed by banana cream pie and a cup of coffee from Mission Pie. I’ve dubbed it the ‘double threat’ and there are times when I do it twice a week. No joke, I did it today.
Remember when we told you about Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne’s East Coast-only “Record Store tour,” during which he was selling a signed, limited-edition, 12-inch, 20th anniversary reissue of the band’s deliciously scruffy debut EP, packaged with a life-sized, anatomically correct, “hand-crafted, custom-made chocolate skull”? And the skull also contains a special gold coin that gains the bearer entry to any Flaming Lips show in the world? Of course you do.
Well, he was lying — it’s not East Coast-only. He added a few West Coast dates this week, including an appearance tomorrow [Thu/3] at 5pm, at the Mission’s own Aquarius Records. Which is a pretty tiny space for a Flaming Lips(-esque) show. And pretty early in the evening to be taking hallucinogens. Oh, the sacrifices we make for rock ‘n’ roll.
Here’s a good one off that 1984 EP to get you warmed up.
LEFT OF THE DIAL Setting aside the darkly ear-wormy melodies, haunting vocals, and refreshingly crisp grunge-pop that goes into Everyone Is Dirty‘s sound, it’s singer Sivan Gur-Arieh’s violin — slicing sweetly above the chaos of a final chorus, adding a heightened sense of gothic romance to a bridge — that sets the Oakland art-rock quartet apart from the current fuzzy, grungey masses.
Good thing Gur-Arieh’s come to peace with the fact that she plays it.
“I’ve had a love-hate relationship with my violin since I was a kid,” says the singer, an Oakland native whose father taught her play when she was in elementary school. “I mean, growing up, you don’t always want to be staying home standing in front of a music stand, playing scales for two hours at a time. I’ve definitely put my violin under the bed and not played it…but it always came back out.
“I’m at a point where I realize it’s a tool, and it’s a tool I know how to use, and you don’t always get to choose that,” she says, earnestly, like someone speaking about a handicap. “Now, I’m just at, I play the violin. Whether it’s a nerdy instrument or not, I do it and it’s a part of me.”
It’s also a big part of the band’s charisma, an invitingness coming through music that technically should feel cold — sure, Gur-Arieh’s distinctive whisper-wail would be at home providing the soundtrack to an artsy vampire flick, but you also trust her, and the weirdness, in the same way you trust the Pixies‘ or Sonic Youth‘s weirdness; it doesn’t seem to be an affectation.
Then there’s a very ’90s sensibility about pop’s borders, reminiscent of SF’s own Imperial Teen, maybe Sleater-Kinney, and I want to say a more jagged Veruca Salt but maybe I’m just ridiculously excited that they’re reuniting so I’m hearing them everywhere? Regardless: Add in psyched-out guitar riffs from Christopher Daddio, a super warm, strong rhythm section courtesy of Tony Sales on drums and Tyler English on bass, and you start to understand why the four-piece, at just a year and a few months old, has earned serious devotees around the Bay Area as well as highly coveted free studio time at Different Fur via Converse’s Rubber Tracks pop-up — all before releasing a full-length record.
That’s in the works, Gur-Arieh assures me. This January marked both the band’s one-year anniversary (its first show as a four-piece rocked Cafe Du Nord, sigh) and another major milestone: They signed with Breakup Records, the husband-and-wife-run label, formerly out of Oakland (now out of Portland but with a heavy bias toward bands from their former hometown); the label will be producing EID’s first full-length at the end of May.
In the meantime, the band has been releasing teasers of what we can expect, like “California” — a full psych-rock sprint that gets undeniably reminiscent of the Dead Kennedys‘ “California Uber Alles” in its chorus, when the layers of sci-fi guitar drop out for Gur-Arieh to admonish “California, put your pants on/you’ve had too much to drink.” They just re-recorded that one for the full-length, at Daddio’s home studio, where they do most of their recording. “He’s an engineer, and he’s a perfectionist,” says the singer. “The fact that he’s able to make everything sound so good just using mic placement…it’s incredible to me.” On “Mama, No!!!” things take a turn for the Nirvana-esque, though the band keeps it dynamic by playing expertly with contrasts — the sing-song of Gur-Arieh’s voice with unrestrained drum crashes, the urgent peal of violin over fuzzed-out guitar.
She and Daddio, who met when Gur-Arieh was in film school in Chicago and New York (he did sound design for her thesis film), share primary songwriting duties; when the singer moved back to the Bay Area, they started seeking out the band’s rhythm section. Film still plays a big part in how the singer thinks about music, she says. “I make our videos for the most part,” she says. “They’re very connected to me. I’ve always been a musician, but I’ve also always been painting, writing poetry&ldots;film is kind of an extension of music, to me.”
Everyone Is Dirty will be sharing a bill on April 5 with a pair of similarly dramatic, cinematic, female-fronted bands: Rich Girls, the new(ish) gothy garage project from Luisa Black (formerly of The Blacks) opens, and Happy Fangs, whose contrasting male-female vocal dynamic, courtesy of Rebecca Bortman and Mike Cobra, has just been supplemented by the addition of Sacramento drummer Jess Gowrie. It’s the kind of lineup that has the potential to kick your ass, then wrap it up and hand it back to you with a sweet smile as an experimental art project. I mean this in an entirely positive way.
“I’ve been really into this violin player from Chicago named Leroy Jenkins lately,” says Gur-Arieh, when asked what she’s been listening to. “If you look him up on YouTube, his playing was so weird and messy and imperfect, and that’s super inspirational to me. That’s unique especially for violin players, because they tend to be so focused on perfection, on playing other peoples’ music perfectly, and he was an emotional player — not afraid to make the violin sound piercing,” she says, “and dirty.”
Happy Fangs w/ Everyone Is Dirty and Rich Girls Sat/5, 8pm, $10 Bottom of the Hill 1233 17th St, SF www.bottomofthehill.com
While we’re riding high on the female-fronted band kick, a few other kick-ass ladies to look out for this month:
Given the current classic funk-soul revival — see Sharon Jones‘ sold-out stint at the Fillmore last week — there’s just no good reason why Wicked Mercies hasn’t blown up yet. Fronted by three seriously talented female vocalists, with a brass section that culls from the best of the old-school San Francisco soul scene, the band – which bills itself as “working class talent” that brings “the sound of San Francisco street soul to the people” — has been a dance party-starting staple at funk-friendly venues like the Boom Boom Room for a few years now, so there’s little doubt that a room as small as Amnesia is going to get sweaty very quickly. Remember to drink water.
Wicked Mercies With the Go Ahead Sat/5, 9pm, $8-$10 Amnesia 853 Valencia, SF www.amnesiathebar.com
Forming a band when you’re in middle school that actually goes on to critical praise and some commercial success before you’ve graduated from high school means a few things. For The She’s, which the Bay Guardian ever-so-aptly identified as a band On the Rise in 2013, one thing it means is giving interviews about your upcoming second EP that involves quotes like this one, from singer-guitarist Hannah Valente in a recent Bay Bridged interview: “It’s going to sound a lot different. On our first album, there are songs that we wrote in eighth grade.”
All good-natured (and, let’s be real, envious) ribbing aside, there’s no question that The She’s have pretty much won the hearts of any red-blooded San Franciscan with an affinity for summery dream-pop; they’re also entering a stage of band-life reserved for artists who achieve a certain level of success while so young that their age becomes part of the shtick. This next stage is when they’re going to have to prove that they’re talented songwriters and performers, period, as opposed to being really, really good for a band made up of high school kids. For the record, I think the former is true, but their sophomore EP, Dreamers, due out April 15, will have to do the talking. Catch ’em for free at Amoeba on April 12, or the official (all ages!) release show at the Rickshaw Stop.
The She’s With TV Girl, Lemme Adams, and Cocktails April 18, 9pm, $10-$12 Rickshaw Stop 155 Fell, SF www.rickshawstop.com
So this is a pretty great way to start a Monday morning. Via Jawbreaker’s Facebook page, run by drummer Adam Pfahler:
Me and my daughter Mimi are driving down Valencia street. At Mission, we notice the car in front of us has a Jawbreaker sticker on the bumper. Mimi gets a kick out of this and says, “Pull up and say hi!” I figure it’s someone from the neighborhood who I know who’s en route to Thrillhouse Records. We pull up but I don’t know the kid. I happen to have some one of a kind glittery Jawbreaker buttons that Busy Beaver sent me, so Mimi rolls down the window and gives him one. He says, “Cool. Thanks.” Then he looks at me and I make a gesture — the international symbol of air drumming. He goes, “What?” I say, “That’s my band. I’m the drummer.” He’s totally shocked. “NO FUCKING WAY!” Then he pulls up his sleeve to reveal a Dear You tattoo on his arm. I give him a round of applause, adding, “Thanks. That made my day.” And it really did.
Relatedly, Pfahler is in a new band called California, which also features Green Day touring guitarist Jason White. They played at Hemlock on Saturday and I didn’t go and I kind of hate myself for it. They don’t have any music online yet and, as others have noted, the band is virtually un-Googlable. Will be tracking Pfahler down to ask him questions about it soon, but in the meantime — were you there? I wanna hear about it, get in touch.
Hey, did you hear that Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin, lead singer of Coldplay, are splitting up? Of course you did. Did you actually read through an entire news item about it before remembering that Gwyneth Paltrow is the most insufferable actress you can think of, and that’s really saying something because there are a lot of them? Then there’s the fact that Coldplay is, without exaggeration, one of the most boring bands that currently exists in the vast, vast landscape of offensively boring, mall-friendly, easily digested pop-rock music. It’s the musical equivalent of an unsalted rice cake.
The idea that any music fan is spending any amount of time today reading clickbait about this topic hurts us. It hurts our hearts. With that in mind: Here are seven good music-related things to do on the Internet today, none of which are trying desperately to sound like a watered-down version of Radiohead and failing.
1. Read our feature on Sharon Jones kicking cancer’s ass and coming back stronger and sassier than ever before — with a brand-new album and an indignant stance on American healthcare.
4. Read our interview with Stephen Malkmus, in which he discusses the Jicks’ new album, name-checks Ty Segall and tUnE-yArDs, and advises teens to stop sexting and start a band.
6. Check out LA-based funksters Vulfpeck‘s highly creative use of Spotify to simultaneously fund a bunch of free shows and call out Spotify for not supporting musicians more, with a full album of silent songs that clock in at just over 30 seconds each, the length of time after which Spotify pays bands whopping royalties. Just kidding about the whopping part.
7. Pay your respects: Today, March 26, is both Steven Tyler’s and Diana Ross’ birthday. Tyler, 66, is celebrating by advocating for copyright protections in our nation’s capital. Ross, 70, appears to be doing a lot of casino shows throughout the Midwest, and also still looks goddamn fabulous in a sparkly gown. It’s also the 17th anniversary of the Heaven’s Gate mass suicide.
Sorry. Um. Celebrate/mourn that one however you will. We’ll be over here with Alicia Silverstone.
LEFT OF THE DIAL Stephen Malkmus’ 17-year-old cat, Juanita, has been peeing outside the catbox lately.
He’s been assuming it’s just stress from the new additions to the household — two kittens recently joined the Portland home Malkmus shares with his wife, artist Jessica Jackson Hutchins, and their two young daughters. But he took her (the cat) to the vet today, and it turns out she needed a couple of back teeth extracted, plus they did blood work, the whole nine yards, he says, by way of explanation about why we’re starting this phone interview with him sitting in a veterinary office waiting room, and why, beginning about five minutes later, as they leave, the guttural moans of which only an unhappy cat is capable will serve as the soundtrack for the bulk of our conversation.
“That’s really terrible, isn’t it?” says the Stockton native, thoughtfully, of Juanita’s misery, before insisting that he’s perfectly happy to talk with her wailing in the background. “Got some Exorcist, Linda Blair sounds going on.”
As a guy who’s still best known as a touchstone for (if not the founder of) mid-’90s indie slacker-rock — Pavement’s mainstream breakthrough Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, which came out 20 years ago last month, and which got the deluxe reissue treatment 10 years later, was arguably one of the defining albums of that decade — Stephen Malkmus seems to understand that it’s tough for people to reconcile the skinny, casually bratty, frozen-in-time Pavement frontman with the current Stephen Malkmus: A 47-year-old suburban dad who cares a lot about his fantasy basketball league, and who’s currently trying to figure out if his sick cat is capable of eating yet.
And yet: His solo career, at the helm of Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks, has actually outlasted Pavement’s at this point. The band’s sixth album, Wig Out at Jagbags, out this January, is full of the wry, observational comedy and narrative wordplay that have come to constitute the Malkmus trademark. (The band’s tour for the album brings them to Slim’s this Thursday, March 27.) And while it’s easy to romanticize the golden days of lo-fi lullabies about young love and record label angst and being so drunk in the August sun — hell, those songs sounded nostalgic about those days while they were happening — the truth is that it was in the years that followed, with the Jicks’ more simplified and twang-ified tunes increasingly showing his ’70s classic rock influences and allowing the lyrics to come front and center, that Malkmus went and became one of the best songwriters we have right now.
Maybe even more sneakily: He seems like he’s figured out how to (gasp) have fun.
“Come and join us in this punk rock tomb, come slam dancing with some ancient dudes/We are returning, returning to our roots, no new material, just cowboy boots,” begins Malkmus, through a nearly audible smirk, on an upbeat ditty called “Rumble at the Rainbo”; at one point, the song devolves goofily into a full-on ska breakdown.
“I was thinking about somewhere like [924] Gilman, full of people skanking, but with old people, because it’s just funny to see senior citizens doing anything that youthful,” says Malkmus of the track. “But it’s also bit of commentary about how, if you go so far as to really be into a subculture of music, whatever it is, heavy metal, or punk, or reggae, you always have a home there, and that’s nice. It doesn’t matter if you’re depressed, or way overweight, or you’ve been divorced five times; you can go to the show and feel safe and see your people and get lost in the music.”
If he’s at his best as a songwriter when he takes on the point of view of other characters — I fell hard for this tendency with his first post-Pavement album, a Jicks record on which he sings story-songs from the perspectives of, among others, a bloodthirsty pirate, an Alaskan dog sled driver, and Yul Brynner — then part of what makes Wig Out such an enjoyable in-joke is the sense that Malkmus is writing songs while “in character as” an aging rock star who’s looking back on his career with a mix of sentimentality and cynicism, fondness and detachment, á la Don Henley circa The End of the Innocence.
“That [Pavement reunion] tour was kind of like reliving an old play, or something,” says Malkmus of the cross-country jaunt his old band took in 2010, to the fever-pitch-level delight of virtually everyone who came of age listening to indie rock in the ’90s. “It was fun being back with the same dudes, and there were some really cool shows — especially playing hometown shows in Berkeley, Stockton, meeting people my age who were road-tripping to see Pavement twice.”
The songs don’t quite feel like him anymore, he says, though The Jicks are known to play a handful of Pavement songs during some sets — toward the end, when they’re playing other covers. “We mix them in like they’re part of some canon, which is a little cheeky,” he says. “You know, play a Steve Miller song, some Roxy Music, Pavement, then Wire. And yeah, it’s my song, I wrote it, but it’s mostly just feels like we’re playing a song.”
After that reunion tour, something started to feel a little claustrophobic upon returning to Portland. “There was a neurotic, kind of fishbowl feeling,” is how he puts it. So in 2011, the family picked up and moved to Berlin for two years, (“a big giant place where no one cares about you too much”), put the girls in an international school, and reveled in the apparently productive anonymity — Malkmus proceeded to write most of Wig Out there.
The family moved back to Portland in 2013, but the expat’s sense of liberation comes through in free-wheeling tracks like the Billy Joel-ish, Steely Dan-esque rocker “Chartjunk,” complete with horns, shout-along choruses, and a buttery guitar riff, over which Malkmus channels the singing style of the sun-bleached, coked-out ’70s guitar gods he grew up with. “In one ear and out of the other, if you feel the urge to share/think again cause you’re not my mother, actually I’m not contractually obliged to care,” he cautions, happily, but also sounding like he means it. (Acknowledging its Joel-like sonic landscape, Malkmus recently told a Detroit publication that the track, in which he plays both roles of a mentor/mentee dispute, was inspired by the relationship between Detroit Pistons point guard Brandon Jennings and his coach Scott Skiles, back when Jennings played for the Milwaukee Bucks. Dude’s serious about basketball.)
The only thing that will seem, to Pavement fans, to be conspicuously missing from the record: That old Malkmus sneer (or full on flipped-bird) in the direction of the record industry, and the accompanying, all-too-self-aware ambivalence about his role in it. This, from the former frontman of a band whose biggest mainstream radio single called out the entire record industry for, more or less, the concept behind mainstream radio singles.
“We were coming from a DIY scene, and we wanted to control our own destiny, start our own label, be our own boss. We were about artists’ rights,” he says, while noting that he doesn’t begrudge anyone who goes the corporate route. “I mean, Beck [recently] signed to Capitol, but I’m sure he just did it because he was taking advantage of them as much as he could, because he’s in a position of power. A lot of bands weren’t back then.”
In terms of newer music, Malkmus names SF “neo-psychedelia” bands like Thee Oh Sees and Ty Segall as recent favorites, as well as Oakland’s own tUnE-yArDs, Sic Alps, Purling Hiss, Kurt Vile, and The War on Drugs. He thinks a minute. “I like Beyoncé,” he says, like it’s a challenge. “And Jay-Z. And Justin Timberlake; the kids really like him. We listen to a lot of Justin Timberlake in the car.”
Looking back, I ask him — in the minute before he has to go, some other dude is supposed to be calling him soon, and he’s trying to get Juanita to eat some food — can he imagine being 20, and starting a band right now? With the way the record industry is, with everything he knows about what happens after you “make it” — or even if you never do? He sounds relatively at peace on this album, to be sure, but it’s taken long enough.
“Sure!” he replies, without hesitation. “I mean, I think everyone should start a band. It’s really low-stakes, and it’s fun. If you like music, start a band, and just mess around with your friends. It’s better than a lot of things you could be doing, like wasting time on Facebook. Or playing video games. Or…what are kids even doing these days? Snapchat? Sexting on Snapchat?
“Stop sexting on Snapchat and start a band.”
Stephen Malkmus With Speedy Ortiz Thu/27, 8pm, $21 Slim’s 333 11th St, SF www.slimspresents.com
Spring has sprung, kiddos, and you know what that means: Rebirth. Renewal. Easter, or Passover, or your special garden ritual where you fashion yourself a bedsheet-toga and weave plant wreaths to celebrate the Roman goddess of flowers while chanting for rain (keep doing it! It’s working!). Kate Bush is touring for the first time in 35 years, Veruca Salt is getting back together, and the Pixies are putting out their first new full-length since 1991. By happy coincidence, most of the shows our Guardian music writers recommended this week are in the same boisterous, rejuvenating spirit. Get out there and dance until you’ve sweated out the winter’s whiskey consumption, and let the rain wash you clean on your way home.
WED/26
Linda Perhacs In 1970 a dental hygienist living in LA’s Topanga Valley cut a record called Parallelograms. This album, Linda Perhac’s debut, went on virtually unlistened-to for the next 35 years. Dug up by diligent audiophiles, the record was passed around, becoming a cult-classic gem of hippie-era folk. One of these newfound fans was indie musician Devandra Banhart, who coaxed Perhacs into the studio with him in 2003. Seven years later, she would play her first live show…ever. Now Perhacs has been sampled by Daft Punk, covered by Opeth, and adored by many more fans than anyone could have predicted. This year, the 44-years-in-the-making follow-up to Parallelograms has finally been released of Sufjan Stevens’ Asthmatic Kitty label, and Perhacs is hitting the road, finally getting the recognition her deeply resonant and ethereally beautiful songwriting deserves. — Haley Zaremba
[Check out our 2010 feature on Parallelogramshere for more.]
Carcass For nearly 30 years now, British metal titans Carcass have been a pioneer in the grindcore and melodic death metal genres, from their musical style and sound to lyrical content and artwork. After releasing a slew of records now considered classics, including 1993’s landmark Heartwork (Earache) the band eventually called it quits for 10 years before reforming in 2007. With original members Jeff Walker and Bill Steer still bashing out vocals, guitar, and bass, the foursome released Surgical Steel (Nuclear Blast) last year, their first new record in a decade and a half. The Black Dahlia Murder, Repulsion, Gorguts and Noisem also appear tonight, as part of the Decibel Magazine Tour. — Sean McCourt 6:30pm, $28.50-$30 Regency Ballroom 1300 Van Ness, SF www.theregencyballroom.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wevkyUlwFFg
THU/27
Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings Last year, just three months before the Dap-Kings’ fifth studio album was slated for release, frontwoman Sharon Jones was diagnosed with stage two pancreatic cancer. But Jones is a fighter. A former bank security guard, corrections officer, and starving artist, Jones is no delicate flower. Now, after surgery and chemo, Jones and company are back on the road to support the rip-roaring Give the People What They Want, the most unintentionally aptly titled album ever. For those who have never seen Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings in their 12-year career, know this: they are inhuman. Their musicianship is impeccable, their energy unstoppable, their groove makes it impossible to stand still. And then there’s Jones. She didn’t achieve commercial success until middle age, and she dances like she’s been storing up energy and radiance for her entire life. As she’s proven through her career and in her battle with cancer, she is a force of nature — wild, unflappable, and unbeatable. — Haley Zaremba With Valerie June 8pm, $35 Fillmore 1805 Geary, SF (415) 346-3000 www.thefillmore.com
FRI/28
Sheila E. Behind every Prince — not to mention Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross, Herbie Hancock, Lionel Richie, Stevie Nicks, Beyoncé, J-Lo, and a relatively insane list of other pop and R&B mega-stars — there’s been Sheila E. The Oakland native and indisputable queen of drummers, so well-known for lending her percussion and sass to support some of the great vocalists and guitarists of the past three decades, has put out her first solo album in 12 years, the aptly titled Icon. She’s celebrating with three consecutive nights at Yoshi’s (Oakland, of course); each includes a meet-and-greet portion of the evening in the club, as well. If you can think of anything to say other than “UM HI DID YOU KNOW THAT YOU’RE THE COOLEST LADY EVER” — we can’t — you should probably hit that, too. — Emma Silvers 8pm and 10pm, $33 Yoshi’s Oakland 510 Embarcadero West, Oak. (510) 238-9200 www.yoshis.com
SAT/29
The Apache Relay Since getting their start just a few short years ago, Nashville-based band The Apache Relay have come a long way — they’ve released several well-received albums, and toured with acts such as Mumford and Sons. Mixing Springsteen-esque rock with the sweet country sounds of their adopted hometown, the band’s new, self-titled album, out on So Recordings, was put to tape at Fairfax Recordings — the former location of legendary Sound City Studios. The first single from the record (which hits stores April 22), “Katie Queen of Tennessee,” takes inspiration from another icon of the recording industry, namely Phil Spector and his “Wall of Sound.” — Sean McCourt With The Lonely Wild and The Soil & The Sun 9pm, $12 The Chapel 777 Valencia, SF (415) 551-5157 www.thechapelsf.com
There’s kind of no non-awkward way to say this, but: We like you. A lot.
In honor of this week’s On the Rise issue, which celebrates the diversity and energy and inspirations and favorite sandwiches of some of the Bay Area’s most promising bands, we crafted this mix that’s rife with coded messages about our true feelings for you made up of songs by this year’s OTR artists.
Surefire way to stand out in the musical landscape right now: Have an obviously playful, self-aware, lyrical sense of humor about your music, and also be exceedingly good musicians, songwriters and entertaining live performers — i.e., take it seriously without taking it too seriously. It’s not easy to do, but man, do Major Powers & the Lo-Fi Symphony make it look fun.
Pianist Nick Powers and brothers Kevin and Dylan Gautschi, on guitar and drums respectively (they all sing), are from the North-East Bay towns of Crockett and Port Costa, where they all grew up playing in bands from a young age. But it wasn’t until the trio formed in 2011 that the Major Powers sound emerged, fully formed, ready to conquer the world — or, at least, the eardrums of anyone who assumed there’d never be an heir to Queen’s glam-rock throne. When pressed, Powers says the band’s genre could be described as “Adventure Rock™” or “Mary Poppins meets Weezer” or “Freddie Mercury and Tom Waits in a cliff-diving competition” or “Danny Elfman making out with Indiana Jones while they play Dungeons & Dragons.”
Throw in an educated series of jokes about Russian history, sweeping musical theater-style choruses, They Might Be Giants-esque verbal gymnastics, and serious piano chops, and you get a grin-inducing live show, to say the least. The band gained traction with a few singles and a 7-inch last year, but they’re currently in the studio, hammering away on a full-length that they hope to tour with by the end of 2014 (working title: Now This Is Happening). In the meantime, you should catch them on March 26 at Slim’s and/or at BottleRock Napa at the end of May.
Where does the name come from?
Nick: I woke up from sleeping on the couch one night after my wife kicked me out of bed for snoring too loud. And I sat up and said, “the Lo-Fi Symphony.” The band was tossing that one around along with some other options. Then a week or two later Dylan (the drummer’s) girlfriend Alana says, “name it Major Powers & The Lo-Fi Symphony.” I like to make it clear to people that I didn’t name the band after myself. I think I’m awesome, but not that awesome. But what am I supposed to do, turn down a band name with my last name in it?
Weirdest thing that’s happened at a show?
I have a half-sister who likes to come to shows sometimes and yell at me that I’m fatter than Zach Galifianakis in between songs. I love her dearly. Also when we did a release at Slim’s last year, and another one at Bottom of the Hill before that, the front 10 or 15 rows were singing along with every lyric. That’s fucking awesome as fuck, and super-duper surreal.
Everyone loves Queen. Why aren’t there more Queen-inspired bands right now?
I think every music epoch has a zeitgeist. Musicians see some A-wave band hitting it big, so it behooves them to emulate that band. It makes financial sense. Nirvana starts blowing up, and then bands all around the world start getting their grunge on…the Lumineers play the Grammys with a two-minute hey-ho bridgeless Nu-folk anthem, and then like 600,000 Nu-folk urban prairie bands start storming the scene. There’s certainly a ’70s-blues-rock-swamp revival going pretty strong right now that was spurred on by some popular A-wavers. Right?
I think it’s great. It’d be easy to lament some ostensible groupthink mentality, but I don’t…also, whatever kind of music a band is playing is just basically the kind of music they like the most. It moves them.
Part 2 of the answer: Theatrical-style stuff is a little more dorky than your average whatever. It’s not as sexy or cool as a lot of genres, and the road to Cleveland is littered with the bones of sexy, dangerous band corpses. Singing about dorky shit for five minutes with intricate Disney melodies isn’t really a recipe for getting laid (a lot).
