Best of 2009: Anna Gazdowicz of Stranger Dance on Grand Lake
December 22, 2009
For me, 2009 revolved mostly around a new home and new life in the City of San Francisco. Before that, I lived across the Bay in Oakland, and while it was time to move, it was sad to say goodbye to the Oak after two very fun and enlightening years. Grand Lake will always represent Oakland to me: a local band named “after a theater that named itself after a lake, that named itself after a man,” all touchstones in Oakland’s past and present.
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Grand Lake – “Concrete Blonde On Blonde”
Grand Lake released Nevermint in 2009, a debut record that takes minimalist boundaries and makes serene, textured indie pop. Elegant guitar work kicks around this album with slightly dissonant chords and dynamic vocals, at times paying homage to the band’s rustic folk roots (frontman Caleb Nichols used to play with Port O’Brien), and otherwise crafting curiously ethereal jams. Created within a loving reference to a Bay Area city, Grand Lake’s debut and subsequent work is yet another excellent example of our unique and vibrant local music scene.
Anna Gazdowicz is the local music editor at Stranger Dance. You can follow her on twitter at @annagaz. Stranger Dance also just released their best of 2009 list which you can read here.
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Best of 2009: Odawas on darwinsbitch and Birds & Batteries
December 22, 2009
Michael:
Earlier this year, with no more than a handful of months in the Bay Area, a group called darwinsbitch asked us to play a show with them at the Totally Intense Fractal Mindgaze Hut in Oakland. The legend and mystery of time, place and person have severely affected the direction I see the music in my head turning. darwinsbitch turned out to be a person, a one Marielle Jakobson, playing a heady violin accompanied by some sort of digital drone device.
darwinsbitch - Iron Lake
darwinsbitch – “Iron Lake”
The impact of her performance that night was devastating, making my own accomplishments seem minimal and trite to this scale of high art. It felt like Backstreet Boys versus Messiaen. What was I doing here? We have since made amends and friends and even tried to incorporate darwinsbitch herself into the sound of Odawas. The resulting sound revolution has yet to happen, but the depth of her own material will surely grow in scope and brilliance.
Isaac:
This will be the first article in a series of two concerning the fever dreams of me, your humbly esteemed narrator, and the particular way they inform the music I busy myself with in leisure time. Let’s get down to brass tacks. First and foremost, let’s get this straight: I am no supporter of non-consensual domestic abuse. However, if Birds & Batteries continue to kick ass with their devil-may-care, post-mod, roots-rock synth pummeling, there could be some black-eyed beauties bumbling about the Bay Area soon. And I for one am in fool-support of these two being tossed in a ring together. But I digress. Now. Have you ever wondered what would have happened to the 80′s American cinema-slasher scene if John Carpenter had come around just a little bit later? Maybe got his hands on a certain machete-wielding hockey mask hacker abstinence propaganda film? Chose a different date, both more and less ambiguous, for his title? And, he decided Tom Petty and Dennis Wilson would do the opening/ending credits songs, collaborating with him on the OST?
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Birds & Batteries – “The Villain”
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Best of 2009: Jennifer Maerz of SF Weekly on Wallpaper.
December 21, 2009
It’s a tough gig, narrowing all the good music produced locally into one artist of the year. But my final pick is an act that stands alone in the region, in its gene, and in its taste for sparkly jackets: Wallpaper., the Bay’s Lady Gaga on a budget.
Like Gaga, Wallpaper. is an over-the-top dance act that’s equal parts crafty songwriting and visual fantasy. Both artists blatantly homage their predecessors — in Wallpaper.’s case, that’s Bel Biv DeVoe, Michael Jackson, and Prince — while infecting pop fans with bubblegum tunes about celebrity, excess, and sex. These singers flagrantly use trendy tools in their songwriting: Wallpaper.’s 2009 release, Doodoo Face, is an unrepentant celebration of voice-alteration software Auto-Tune. And the songwriters hide their private selves behind outrageous, Macy’s-parade-float-sized alter egos. Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta has Gaga, the platinum-coiffed princess of pop, and Wallpaper. frontman Eric Frederic has Ricky Reed, the comedic dollar store douchebag. Live, they pull out all the stops at putting on multi-media extravaganzas — which, let’s face it, is a huge plus when money’s tight for concertgoers.
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Wallpaper. – “Doodoo Face”
Of course, there are also glaring differences between Gaga and Wallpaper. Like Gaga’s a glammed out art school kabillionare by now, while Wallpaper. exists on something lower than a burrito-a-week budget. And, while Gaga’s a work of slick, gorgeous pretension, Wallpaper. is super silly, with the occasional endearing fumble in the delivery. But the bedroom music videos, the threads hanging off Ricky’s sleeves, those little details only fuel the power Wallpaper. has at dance clubs around the city, momentum that should carry this duo even further in 2010. The world needs more artful pop that doesn’t take itself too seriously, and Wallpaper.’s the Bay’s best shot at loosening up from the thrift store to the dancefloor.
Jennifer Maerz is the Music Editor of the SF Weekly and All Shook Down music blog. You can follow her on twitter at @SFAllShookDown.
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Guest Blogging the Best of ’09
December 21, 2009
For the second year in a row, we’ve invited some of our favorite folks in the local music community to tell us about their favorite local releases from the past year. Over the next two weeks, we’ll be posting all of the responses here on the site.
Other local music news blogging will be at a minimum until the new year, but we’ll be back in 2010 rested and recharged (or something like that).
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Media Monday: Papercuts, The Fresh & Onlys, Social Studies
December 21, 2009
Collecting some Bay Area tracks from around the web:
Via Pitchfork, here’s the A-side from Papercuts’ latest 7″, White are the Waves, out now on Gnomonsong. The B-side is a Neighbors (Andy Cabic/Thom Monahan) remix of You Can Have What You Want‘s “A Dictator’s Lament”.
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Papercuts – “White are the Waves”
The Fresh & Onlys‘ latest 7″ revives a track from the band’s sold out Bomb Wombs cassette. Out on Woodsist, “Second One to Know” is the latest hit from this unstoppable group.
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The Fresh & Onlys – Second One to Know (via gorilla vs bear)
Tokion posted a new track from Social Studies, noting that “this isn’t for you to listen to as you frown your way home on the subway. Save it for the soundtrack to your first snowball fight of the season.”
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Social Studies – “Weathered White”
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Video: Sholi – “All That We Can See”
December 18, 2009
Sholi – All That We Can See from Zeek Earl on Vimeo.
Sholi remains one of 2009′s best albums, even if Sholi has been quiet for some time. The band just sent over a video for “All That We Can See,” a song that remains as potent as when I first heard it several years ago. It feels a little cyclical to once again discover the song in a new form, and there’s something in the mix of new and familiar that makes me optimistic about the band’s next chapter.
Director Zeek Earl is also an aquarium videographer, who approached the band with the idea of using urchins as a theme. Says the director:
To pay my way through college, I got a job teaching classes about echinoderms (starfish, sea urchins, etc..) to visiting school groups at the Seattle Aquarium. The creatures constantly fascinated me both biologically and visually. Somewhere between plant and animal, they changed the way I think about what it is to be a living thing. Before leaving, I shot a bunch of random footage of these creatures which I been staring at and explaining for several years. I sent some of the clips over to Payam of Sholi and he enthusiastically agreed to a full music video. The link between the creatures and the song (“All That We Can See”) was intuitive. Starting with a few shots of the urchins floating over the rocks I let the music direct the “plot,” never knowing what would happen thirty seconds later.
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Tonight: KFJC 50th Anniversary Party
December 18, 2009
On October 20th, 1959 at 8pm, from a broom closet on the old Foothill College campus in Mountain View, California, KFJC began its very first broadcast on frequency 88.5 MHz FM. In the past 50 years KFJC has pushed the boundaries, ushered in the eras of punk, industrial, experimental, and noise, continued our commitment to genre specific specialty programming, and broadcasted from all over the world. KFJC has a long and fascinating history…Thanks for listening!
KFJC celebrates 50 years of broadcasting with a free all ages show tonight at Cafe Du Nord (8pm). Seven Lies About Girls, Al Qaeda, Pink Canoes, WORK, Arrington De Dionyso, T.I.T.S. and Pink Mountain perform.
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Pink Mountain – “Ditch Witch”
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Video: Two Sheds’ Yuletide Fireplace
December 17, 2009
Two Sheds Yuletide Fireplace from Two Sheds on Vimeo.
Why didn’t somebody think of this before? (If somebody did, please let me know in the comments.) You can’t beat the combination of great Two Sheds music with the warm glow of a fireplace on your computer screen. I was having a particularly stressful time yesterday, and boy did zoning out to a few minutes of this thing help.
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Two Sheds – “To Be Alive”
