Photos: Holy Fuck, Ghosts on Tape, City Light @ The Independent
August 31, 2009
Photos by: Rachel Keenan
Holy Fuck
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The Hundred Days’ Knockout Residency
August 31, 2009
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The Hundred Days – “Out Of Nowhere”
SF quartet The Hundred Days will be holding down The Knockout every Thursday in September. The band’s got a little bit of a post-punky edge, but songs like “Out of Nowhere” are more uber-catchy pop than brooding shoegaze and (quite understandably) get the kids dancing.
The Hundred Days – “Out of Nowhere” (Soundcheck In-Studio Session)
The residency features a bunch of other local bands over the month. Joining them at each date are:
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Media Monday: locals on Daytrotter + new Still Flyin’ track
August 31, 2009
Those behind on their Daytrotter sessions should be aware that a few hometown heroes were recently featured on the website. Two new sessions from Still Flyin’ and Deerhoof were released in August, and Still Flyin’ offered an unreleased track, “Runaway Train II.” Be sure to check out the rest of the session, and as always, the tracks are available for download.
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Still Flyin’ – “Runaway Train II”
Also, I came across some San Francisco show footage on Daytrotter’s front page, including a clip of Bob Mould with No Age (Bottom of the Hill, Noise Pop 2009) and an intense Dodos performance of “Men” (Cafe du Nord, 2008).
And soon enough, Rubies will be yet another Bay Area rep on Daytrotter — they’re wrapping up their mini-tour with a visit to the Horse Shack in Illinois on October 5. Send your east coast friends out to one of their shows:
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Musical Pairings: The Weird Bay Area – Maus Haus and Casy & Brian
August 30, 2009
If you are a Bay Area resident or watch a little television, you’ve probably noticed that the Bay Area is a place that embraces the eccentric and unusual. Even our oddness is somewhat peculiar in its diversity. This unique offbeat nature plays out in some interesting ways in Bay Area culture. You see it at elaborately whimsical house parties thrown by tech-industry residents. You see it in the diverse range of punks, hipsters, and unclassifiables hanging out in Delores Park on pretty much any day of the week. You taste it when you order creme brulee from a cart or puffed escargo from a truck parked on the side of the street. For many of the Bay Area’s culinary enthusiast’s this embrace of the eccentric finds its way into home-kitchen experimentation. Kasey’s watermelon gazpacho and the unique banana bread recipe that includes ginger and chocolate chips that she prepared are perfect examples of this phenomenon. And you can hear our love of the fringes in the music from the Bay too. After all, the same geographical area that served as the launching pad for Green Day was also called home by Joanna Newsom, Devendra Banhart, hyphy music, and the Dead Kennedys. Of course, in that light, bands like the duo Casy & Brian and San Francisco’s Maus Haus are really pretty normal – at least depending on what side of the looking glass you find yourself on.
Maus Haus – Lark Marvels (paired with watermelon gazpacho)
This watermelon gazpacho recipe is a personal favorite. It is unique in concept, but pleasingly familiar to taste. Because the primary ingredient is watermelon, it is sweet, but the mint and jalapeno add complexity and spice to it. Ultimately, it is playful, spicy and a little off-center. For this reason, it serves as a good companion recipe to San Francisco’s equally “off-center” band: Maus Haus.
When asked by the San Francisco Guardian to identify a film soundtrack that Maus Haus’ music would best match, Maus Haus’ Joshua Rampage suggested the following: “If Wes Anderson had written and directed ‘Alien,’ starring Bill Murray instead of Sigourney Weaver, and turned it into a social-political jag on how we’ve got to find a medium ground, how we’ve been eating too much and thinking too much (or not enough) and getting ready to become puddles of ourselves.” Although one would rightfully suspect that Rampage’s answer isn’t meant entirely in earnest, it isn’t as off the mark as you might imagine.
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Maus Haus – Reaction
Lark Marvels draws to mind bands Self, Grandaddy, the Silver Apples, Soul Coughting (minus Mike Doughty), and on tracks “Rigid Breakfast,” “Secret Deals,” and “Reaction,” there are even hints of Dayton, Ohio 1990′s style avant punk a la Brainiac. Opening track “Rigid Breakfast” starts with a fantastic sonic freak-out featuring squealing, ominously-spacey synth and warmly tonal and repetitive keyboard rhythm. The second cut on Lark Marvels, “Secret Deals,” is light-heartedly dark and slightly off-kilter, primarily sounding like a sci-fi homage to jazz and 60′s era psychedelic pop both as a result of the instrumentation and lyrics: “stop being a robot, be a regular man.” They are both excellent tracks, and combined they provide a perfect set-up for the rest of the album. Relying on an assortment of drums, synthesizers, electronic toys, flutes, saxophones, bass guitar, and flute, Maus Haus craft a wonderful debut that is sonically compelling and playfully paranoid. Lark Marvels is definitely recommended. Other highlights on the album include “We Used Technology (But Technology Let Us Down),” “Reaction,” “Irregular Hearts,” and “Dead Keys Drop.” Head over to the band’s MySpace page to order a copy of Lark Marvels or to stream more tracks from the album.
Casy & Brian – Catbees LP and Non-Fiction 7″ (paired with banana bread w/ chocolate & ginger)
I associate banana bread with childhood. I still have lots of great memories of mom’s banana bread, which of course for many years was the only “good” banana bread. This recipe probably succeeded in convincing me of the merit of other banana breads precisely because it is so different from traditional banana breads. In other words, by veering sharply away from tradition, it managed to avoid competition with “mom’s” banana bread, and by doing so won me over. Casy & Brian take a similar course around traditional punk or rock ‘n roll, and manage to succeed in creating some pretty unique and exciting music for that same reason.
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Casy & Brian – Rumble in the Jungle 1974
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Leopold & His Fiction to work with producer of Vetiver, Banhart
August 28, 2009
Ever listen to Vetiver’s To Find Me Gone or Devendra’s Cripple Crow and wonder what magical thing these albums have in common, aside from being pioneering works of the contemporary San Francisco folk sound? It’s Thom Monahan, producer out of The Hangar Studios in Sacramento. There’s soon to be a new addition to Monahan’s list of endemic masterpieces – he’s been trusted by Leopold & His Fiction with the task of recording their next full-length.
As if Leopold & His Fiction isn’t already well-established, seeping rock-hard melody and gritty psychedelia, the band has really upped the ante in anticipation of their third record with new members. Those at Regional Bias witnessed what’s to come in the near future of the band, regenerated with Micayla Grace (bass) and Jon Sortland (drums), both pictured above. The pair further electrify the overall stage presence and solidify the blend of “Detroit garage rock, Grass Valley folk and Western darkness.”
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Leopold & His Fiction – “Come Back”
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Photos: 2009 Rock Make Street Festival
August 28, 2009
Photos by: Charlie Homo
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The Two Sides of Tim Cohen
August 28, 2009
Tim Cohen is something of an unstoppable songwriting machine, and now he’s added solo artist to the list of projects he’s been involved with recently. The Two Sides of Tim Cohen was written and recorded by Tim at home during the time between Black Fiction and The Fresh & Onlys, and it’s rich in wonderfully skewed lo-fi psych-pop.
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Tim Cohen – “Haunted Hymns”
Released by Secret Seven Records and Empty Cellar Records, the album’s vinyl-only and the first pressing is now sold-out (although you can currently still pick up a copy from Aquarius Records, Amoeba or Insound).
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Ty Segall @ Amoeba SF today, touring forever w/ The Mantles
August 28, 2009
Make a bee-line from your day job up to Haight Street for a free Ty Segall performance at Amoeba, 6pm today.
For the previously uninformed, Ty Segall blows even more wind into the hurricane of garage pop, a genre on heavy rotation in the blogosphere as of late. The combination of crude and unabashedly catchy has pulled in much local support, and he (correction, now a trio including Emily Rose and Shayde Sartin) regularly plays with Nodzzz and Thee Oh Sees.
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Ty Segall – “The Lovely One”
Just after Amoeba and the Rickshaw on Saturday with The Dirtbombs, Ty Segall’s off on a hefty national and Canada tour, playing some dates with hometown pals The Mantles!
Dates are after the jump.
