Episode 49: Tartufi

 

 Episode 49: Tartufi [39:50m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Welcome back,

Last week we spoke with Tartufi, the San Francisco-based rock duo of Lynne Angel and Brian Gorman who crafted one of last year’s best records in Us Upon Buildings Upon Us. The ambitious album is structured as four lengthy songs with multiple movements, an idea inspired by the band’s love of instrumental music as well as its desire to challenge its songwriting prowess.

The record is simply remarkable, as rewarding as it is challenging, and full of delightful unexpected turns. Although songs start and end at different musical places, delightfully hummable moments emerge throughout. Perhaps most striking is that although the music is frequently without vocals, this record bleeds emotion, evocative of the difficult times the band faced during its songwriting.

East Bay residents can check out Tartufi on February 9th at The Starry Plough in Berkeley, but we recommend that everyone come see them headline the next The Bay Bridged Presents show, co-presented by Mesh Magazine:

Saturday, February 10th
The Knockout
w/ Moggs, Sholi
$8, 10pm

More details about the show can be found here.

In the meantime, we highly recommend that you pick up Us Upon Buildings Upon Us here. To hear more from Tartufi, head to their web site or MySpace page.

Thanks again for listening and we’ll see you at the show!

The Bay Bridged and Mesh Magazine Present: Rock Out at The Knockout!

TheBayBridged.com is proud to announce our latest show, a collaboration with Mesh Magazine, one of the Bay Area’s preeminent publications, covering independent music, art, culture, food and more. This show spotlights some of the best in Bay Area rock bands, featuring three groups that create smart, challenging rock music that neatly straddles the line between pop and progressive elements. In short, it should be one hell of a party:

Tartufi headlines the show with their dynamic and explosive sound. As Aquarius Records remarked, “Singer and guitarist, Lynne Angel and drummer, Brian Gorman with the help from Tim Green (of The Fucking Champs) have crafted a mathy stew of beauty and noise with vocals that are at times both angelic and damning with turn-on-a-dime changes, majestic sweeps, soft interludes, and only a touch of over-indulgence. The acrobatics that Angel brings doubly to the guitar and her voice have to be seen live to be believed, where they seriously sound like a four piece with a choir.” Our interview with Tartufi can be found here.

Moggs recently made our list of our favorite episodes of 2006. Our colleagues at Playing in Fog once wrote, “To many of us in the Bay Area, Moggs have been one of the greatest local bands to grace a stage … if you can catch them. Irregular shows and no product to rely on meant that a live performance by them was your only chance for hearing their angular-yet beautiful sounds, and it was like striking gold - better jump on it because you never know when it might happen again.” To hear our interview with Moggs and some songs from their excellent album The White Belt Is Not Enough, head here.

Sholi, another Bay Bridged favorite, is opening the show. To quote the Bay Guardian, “Blonde Redhead met the Dirty Three, had a fight, then had a baby with King Crimson contributing ancillary sperm. The bundle of noise was named Sholi and was greeted with oohs and aahs from psych-heads, prog-maniacs, and cut-the-BS rock and rollers, all frozen in unison to take in the babe’s darkly romantic and roomy wails… What meets your ear should be mathematically ethereal and strangely danceable – the group hides its pop-imp self under a trench coat festooned with knives and chain saws, like that of the woman in the Far Side who told her date she was going to slip into something more comfortable.” Check out our interview with Sholi and some of their music here.

Mark your calendars now and we’ll see you at the show!

Episode 48: The Finches

 

 Episode 48: The Finches [30:21m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Hello again,

A few weeks ago we spoke with The Finches, a folk-rock duo consisting of Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs and Aaron Morgan. The band was first recommended to us by Petracovich and we featured one of the songs from their Six Songs EP on our October Monthly Mix. We sat down with Carolyn and Aaron to discuss Human Like a House, their brand new full-length debut CD, and their upcoming CD release party.

With a sonic palette focused on two guitars and two voices, the emphasis in Human Like a House is on melody and lyricism. This is an album full of wonderful little details–an unexpected bridge, a flourish of pedal steel guitar, a harmony capturing a beautiful moment. Rightly, the band is proud of this album, which boasts contributions from both members’ biological and musical family and friends and yet never feels like anything less than a personal collection of songs.

The Finches celebrate the release of their new album with a show at the end of the month:

Wednesday, January 31st
Cafe du Nord
with The Moore Brothers, Colossal Yes, The Mantles
$8, 8pm

You can also catch them at Amoeba Music in San Francisco on Saturday, January 27th at 2pm. More details can be found here.

Human Like a House will be released on Dulc-I-Tone Records on January 30th. Information about how to order the CD can be found here. To hear more and get their full list of tour dates, head over to their web site and MySpace page.

Thanks again for listening and we’ll see you back here next Tuesday!

Episode 47: Volunteer Pioneer

 

 Episode 47: Volunteer Pioneer [27:59m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

On Monday night, we learned of the passing of Sabrina Duim, harpist and vocalist of Volunteer Pioneer, who were scheduled to be this week’s featured band. When we spoke to Sabrina, Kyle Williams and Jason Byers last Tuesday in our studio, we learned that they were a sweet, funny group of people who have created some fantastic pop music. In our one conversation with her, we were struck by Sabrina’s humility, warmth and her talent. The original draft of this post contained the following remarks:

The harp work (and absence of low-end) isn’t a novelty thing. Not only is Sabrina a terrifically-skilled musician, but, like the rest of the instrumentation, her role just makes sense. The sound is sometimes sparse, with the vocals up front to drive some very compelling, sometimes very funny narratives, but the music fits in in just the right way to create a wonderfully unique and catchy sound.

We spoke to Volunteer Pioneer with Deb Zeller to discuss their now-cancelled performance at the next Playing in Fog concert. The band is on hiatus in light of this tragedy. Please head to their MySpace page here, both to give them your condolences and to hear more of their great music.

We wish Sabrina’s family and friends our deepest condolences. We hope you enjoy this episode as a tribute to this great band and their excellent music.

Update (1/18): For more information about this tragedy please see this article.

Episode 46: Honeycut

 

 Episode 46: Honeycut [36:34m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Hello again,

Late last year, Honeycut released their debut album The Day I Turned to Glass, a fantastic record that found them on year-end “best of” lists from a variety of publications. It’s easy to understand why the album has caught so many ears, thanks to their catchy mixture of pop, hip-hop and soul music filtered through analogue keyboards, live bass and an MPC. What makes this album so rewarding on subsequent listens, though, is the quality of the songwriting, which is attributable to the caliber of the musicians behind it.

A few weeks ago we were fortunate enough to spend some time with Bart, Herve, Tony and Etienne to discuss the project’s origins and how it evolved from some studio experimentation by three talented veterans into a full-fledged band with a great record and a fantastic live show. We interviewed the guys at Annie’s Social Club before their show in late December. We recorded their performance that night and have included a live version of “Exodus Honey” in this week’s episode.

As we announced previously, we’re pleased that Honeycut will be headlining the next The Bay Bridged Presents concert, a benefit show next Thursday:

To purchase advance tickets, click here!

It will be a great night of music for a terrific cause. Plus, we expect there will be a raffle and other fun stuff too!

While you’re waiting for the show, head on over to Insound and pick up The Day I Turned to Glass or grab it on iTunes. Trust us, you won’t be disappointed. For more information about the band, head over to their MySpace page or their web site.

Thanks again for listening and thanks for helping to spread the word about The Bay Bridged! We’ll be back next Tuesday with another great local band!

Episode 45: Monthly Local Mix for January 2007

 

 Episode 45: Monthly Local Mix for January 2007 [32:04m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Happy New Year!

We hope you enjoyed the holidays however you chose to celebrate them. While we appreciated the break last week, we’re excited to be back with a batch of new songs from some great Bay Area bands. A bunch of them are playing live in the near future and we encourage you to check them out. And while we’re on the subject of live concerts, we hope you saw our latest announcement…

About this week’s bands:

We start this week’s episode with a beautiful song from The Harbours‘ excellent debut album Second Story Maker, released late last year. They have an upcoming show at the Make-Out Room on Saturday, January 27th with Fits. Find out more about them and pick up their record at their web site and hear some more songs at their MySpace page.

Roommates caught our ear recently and we’ve been playing the hell out of the songs on their MySpace page. The duo promises that they will be releasing a 7″ in the near future and they will be playing Pacific Noise’s one year anniversary show on February 8th at the Balazo Gallery. Check them out at their MySpace page.

Birds & Batteries caught our attention through their membership in the Thread Productions collective, which also includes Silian Rail and Bay Bridged almuni Tartufi and Low Red Land. We included a track from their album Selections from… “Nature vs. Nature” which displays their excellent blending of electronic and acoustic sounds. You can catch all of the Thread Productions bands at the El Rio on Saturday, January 13th. To find out more, head to Birds & Batteries’ web site and MySpace page.

Black Fiction has gained deserved praise for their release Ghost Ride. They will be playing at Cafe du Nord on Friday, January 19th with Citay, heard here on The Bay Bridged, and T.I.T.S. More information about them can be found at their MySpace page and web site. You can dowload their track “Magic Hands” here or purchase Ghost Ride on iTunes.

The Graves Brothers Deluxe, who we included in last year’s South by Southwest mix, just sent us their brand new EP, a split with Boxcar Satan entitled Black Water Rising, and their track in this mix is a cover of Boxcar Satan’s “Shoot Down the Sun.” Proceeds from sales of the record will be donated to groups providing free mental health services to people impacted by Hurricane Katrina. More information about the CD and this very worthy cause can be found at the Graves Brothers’ web site and MySpace page.

The Makes Nice brought us an awesome track from their brand new album Candy Wrapper and 12 Other Songs. They are celebrating the CD’s release at the Rickshaw Stop on Wednesday, January 17th. More information can be found at the band’s MySpace page.

We also heard a great song from Crime in Choir, off of their latest album Trumpery Metier which was released late last year on the Gold Standard Laboratories label. Catch them this Thursday, January 4th with Tussle and Ascended Master at Bottom of the Hill. To hear more from them, visit their web site and MySpace page.

Tommy Guerrero’s latest album is the much-acclaimed From The Soil to the Soul, released in October on Quannum Projects. This record mixes elements of a whole lot of sounds, including rock, hip-hop and soul, to produce a really interesting and diverse set of songs. More information can be found at Tommy’s website and at Quannum’s web site. You can download “War No More” here or purchase From The Soil to the Soul on iTunes.

We hope you enjoy the mix and can get a chance to check out more from these bands. Be sure to come back next week for our first feature episode of 2007, dedicated to one of the best new bands in the Bay Area. They will become the one-hundredth band to have music played on The Bay Bridged and we are excited to have them on the show!

See you then!