Announcing Regional Bias 2010: Thao Nguyen, John Vanderslice, Man/Miracle and Exray’s, live at The Verdi Club, 7/23/10!
June 16, 2010
For the past four and half years, The Bay Bridged has been proud to champion the San Francisco Bay Area indie music scene through an innovative mixture of new media journalism and cutting edge live events. On Friday, July 23rd, 2010, we’re excited to present our second annual fundraiser party, Regional Bias 2010, a celebration of Bay Area music and culture to benefit The Bay Bridged.
This year, we’re returning to the historic Verdi Club in Potrero Hill for a huge celebration of the things that make living in the Bay Area special. There will be musical performances by four of our favorite San Francisco Bay Area artists as well as some great local DJs.
We’ll also be tipping our collective hat to the Bay’s vibrant visual arts and food scenes, with a happy hour art show and tasty bites from local chefs for sale before and during the show. In other words, this isn’t your typical fundraiser event. It’s a celebration of independent music’s vital place in Bay Area culture.
Regional Bias 2010
Thao Nguyen
John Vanderslice
Man/Miracle
Exray’s
With DJ sets by members of Vetiver, Or, the Whale, and The Dont’s
Friday, July 23, 2010
The Verdi Club
Doors open at 7pm for happy hour art show, food, and DJs. Bands start at 8pm.
General Admission tickets: $20/$25 donation (only a limited number of $20 tickets will be available)
VIP tickets: $50 donation (includes free beer, food, hand-screened show poster, and a Bay Bridged t-shirt!)
This event is 21+
Thao with The Get Down Stay Down – “The Give” (New, Improved, LIVE version)
John Vanderslice – “D.I.A.L.O.”
Man/Miracle – “Above the Salon”
About the Bands
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Video: All Saints Day (Vivian Girls/Cat Power) cover New Order at debut show 6/13
June 15, 2010
All Saints Day – “Age of Consent” (New Order cover) at The Independent 6/13 from The Bay Bridged on Vimeo.
All Saints Day, a coterie featuring members of Vivian Girls and Cat Power, squeezed out their first live set ever Sunday night at The Independent, sandwiched between Young Prisms and Real Estate (NJ). This multi-generational project has provoked considerable curiosity around the blogs, based on their personnel and a single mp3, before only recently posting additional tracks on their Bandcamp site.
What comes of the combination of a current garage belle like Vivian Girls’ Katy Goodman, and a seasoned musician who plays in Cat Power? Goodman ended up sounding a lot less like the retro Best Coast-style vocalist I’d heard online, performing as a serene, mature frontwoman. In stark contrast to the overly familiar beach-pop, hazy — however you’d like to call it — sound of the recordings, All Saints Day hinged on Gregg Foreman’s raw onstage decisions. He offered a Stooges-era, Brit-rock guitar tone synced with confident movement. And as if to maintain a classic mystique, All Saints Day wrapped up with the pleasing “Age of Consent” cover above.
There’s not much known about All Saints Day’s plans, apart from Goodman’s recent move to Los Angeles which might have something to do with the project starting its live course. All Saints Day will be playing The Echo/Echoplex tonight with Real Estate, Abe Vigoda, Kurt Vile, Woods and Nodzzz, and tomorrow at The Casbah in San Diego with Jeremy Jay and Heavy Hawaii.
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Sunbeam Rd. releases Turtles, Magnets, Animals EP
June 15, 2010
We’re currently in the middle of this great moment of exciting young SF rock bands that draw on post-punk and/or shoegazer influences without attempting to clone Joy Division, Jesus & Mary Chain, or My Bloody Valentine. I’m thinking of local bands like Weekend, The Baths, Skeletal System, and Young Prisms, and now there’s another name to add to that list: Sunbeam Rd.. Fans of brainy/brawny/synthy rock, take note, the SF/Oakland band has released the Turtles, Magnets, Animals EP today for free download from its Bandcamp page and as a limited edition cassette tape. Check it out:
Sunbeam Rd. is playing at the Hemlock Tavern tonight, June 15th (9pm, $6) with Slowness and Foreign Cinema.
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Live this week: Bay Area shows 6/15-20
June 15, 2010
This week in the Bay Area:
Tuesday, June 15
Foreign Cinema, Sunbeam Rd., Slowness @ Hemlock
Wednesday, June 16
WomenROCK! with Bernadette, Stripmall Architecture, Conspiracy Of Venus, ZIVA, Burlesque performance by The Cheesepuffs @ The Independent
Jay Brannan, Terra Naomi, Jhameel @ Bottom of the Hill
Genius and the Thieves, Victory and Associates, Hi-Nobles @ el Rio
Thursday, June 17
Jeremy Jay, My First Earthquake, The Downer Party, The Attachments @ Rickshaw Stop
Friday, June 18
Chuck Prophet & the Mission Express, Stephanie Finch & the Company Men @ Great American
LSD & The Search For God, The Meek, Fuxa, dj Darragh Skelton @ Hemlock
Shellshag, Grass Widow, Dirty Marquis, Street Eaters @ el Rio
Devon Williams, The Impediments, Haunted Tiger, Blue Jungle, Cum Stain, Cosmonauts @ Pissed Off Pete’s
Saturday, June 19
Younger Lovers, Hawnay Troof, No Babies, Primary Colors @ 21 Grand
The Hot Toddies, The Albert Square, Please Do Not Fight, The Like Me’s @ Homestead Lanes
The Mumlers, The Aerosols, A B & The Sea @ Blank Club
Sunday, June 20
A Place To Bury Strangers, Light Pollution, Weekend @ Rickshaw Stop
The BellRays, Hank IV, Carlos, Dadfag, Ezee Tiger @ Bottom of the Hill
Monday, June 21
Brian Jonestown Massacre, Federale @ The Fillmore
Sunbeam Rd – “Houseboat”
Conspiracy of Venus – “Soldier’s Things”
The Hi-Nobles – “Shake”
The Attachments – “I Wish I Could Be as Excited as I Am Now”
Chuck Prophet – “Let Freedom Ring!”
Hawnay Troof – “And I”
The Mumlers – “Coffin Factory”
Weekend – “All American”
Hank IV – “Dirty Poncho”
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Thursday, 6/17: My First Earthquake release ‘Crush’ @ Rickshaw
June 14, 2010
Thursday night, get crushed: My First Earthquake is releasing a new EP, Crush at the Rickshaw Stop (9pm, $10). The EP was recorded in one day at Hyde Street Studios, and its four songs ring true to MFE’s fun, clever pop with its upbeat rhythms and catchy melodies. The EP is available for free download right now at MFE’s Bandcamp page.
In describing the sound on the EP, the band says they are drawn to Beck and Prince, “who can explore styles and timbres but still keep a recognizable sound.” They added, “two of the songs on the EP are our most stripped down, while the other two have a ton going on: multiple vocal parts, rich synth parts, and a half-drunk mariachi band, for starters.” I’m going to repeat that last part for emphasis: “a half-drunk mariachi band,” hoping that footage of this concept ends up in one of their sweet videos.
In anticipation of releasing a full-length (possibly to be funded through Kickstarter), they’re giving this EP away free to “get the karma tumbleweed rolling,” as frontwoman Rebecca Bortman describes it. You can pick up a copy of Crush at the EP release party, where they’ll be joined by The Downer Party and The Attachments.
While you’re waiting for Thursday to come around, you can also download their album Downstairs, free for this week on Bandcamp.
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Shredification: Washington State of Affairs
June 14, 2010
Music writers are suckers for geography. Tying up groups of bands in neat little localized bows makes for easy copy, with the added benefit that once you pigeonhole a bunch of quasi-related groups — the “Seattle Sound,” say — you have that touchstone to deploy next time you feel like phoning in some cheap comparisons.
Seattle bands are the order of the day today, though the comparisons will hopefully be hewn from finer stuff. Specifically, two Seattle bands that have recently released new records: The Melvins, and Black Breath.
Black Breath – “Children of the Horn”
The traditional route here would be to slap these two groups down side by side and make a bunch of comparisons — to bands they both sound like, or to the way the weather in Seattle (rainy, natch) informs their interpollinated styles. In this case, that’s totally impossible. Though they both fall under the general aegis of metal, and play music that is down-tuned, loud, and heavy, the similarities end there. When you put Black Breath and The Melvins side-by-side, all you see is contrasts.
For one thing, The Melvins are roughly six times older. Formed in the early 80′s, the band is now something of a hard rock institution, weathering a generation of music and still out-rocking many of the bands they influenced. A pre-Nirvana Kurt Cobain famously auditioned on guitar, but botched it — a bad case of nerves made him temporarily forget all the songs. Though generally a trio, in 2006 the band absorbed both members of the cult metal duo Big Business, taking the stage with two drummers (right- and left-handed) and a bolstered vocal attack.
Though the music is still built around muscular, inventive drumming and guitarist Buzz Osbourne’s bottom-heavy riffs, the band’s maturation has seen them become increasingly digressive. More and more, they flex their musical muscle during wild excursions into the bizarre and sometimes borderline self-indulgent outer reaches. New release The Bride Screamed Murder features some plutonium-heavy sections that recall the band’s classic material, along with the ever-listenable percussion prowess of drummers Dale Crover and Jared Coady, but it’s hard to wrap your mind around the drill sergeant chanting in “The Water Glass,” the squeaky balloon solo at the end of “Hospital Up,” or the impressionistic “My Generation” cover.
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The Moanin Dove – “Apartment 14″
June 14, 2010
If you’ve seen James Riotto accompany John Vanderslice, then you know he’s a very talented bass player and vocalist. You may not, however be aware of Riotto’s own band, The Moanin Dove. The Moanin Dove have been in the studio recently, working on a new EP, and they’ll headline at Bottom of the Hill on Thursday, June 17th (9pm, $10, 21+). They’ll be supported by Geographer and Leopold and His Fiction, with a DJ set by John Vanderslice.
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Lady Lazarus: Live on One Night Music, Upcoming Shows
June 11, 2010
Lady Lazarus “Master and Servant” (4 of 4) – Low-Fi Minimalist Folk – ONM#32 from One Night Music on Vimeo.
Lady Lazarus, the musician, not the poem, is San Jose’s Melissa Ann Sweat, and the demos we received earlier this year definitely put her experimental folk-rock on our radar. Last September, Sweat filmed/recorded an intimate solo session for One Night Music in front of a small group of people in a Mission District dining room. The session features songs from Lady Lazarus’ Home Recordings, available on CDBaby, and you can download all four songs (and see more videos) at OneNightMusic.com.
Lady Lazarus has a full length album called Mantic that is scheduled to come out this summer. Here’s a song from that record:
Lady Lazarus – “The Eye in the Eye of the Storm”
Two Lady Lazarus shows this month: one at Rasputin Music in Berkeley on Sunday, June 13th (2pm, Free), the other at Caffe Trieste as part of the Left Coast Live festival in San Jose on June 25th (9pm, $15 for one night/$25 for two nights).
