Posts by: Mike G.
Save The Amanda! compilations out now (support a good cause while rocking out)
May 13, 2013
Amanda McCabe is a big music fan. In fact, she’s more than a fan – she interned at Sub Pop Records, was a VP at Buried Treasure Records, and created album artwork for Birds & Batteries, Garrett Pierce, and David Dondero.
So when she came down with a rare form of scoliosis, the musicians she has worked with over the years decided they had to help. And thus was born the Save The Amanda! compilations: 40 tracks by some of the best bands from the Bay Area and beyond, including Tartufi, Radiation City, Mike Sempert (of Birds & Batteries), John Vanderslice, Future Twin, and many more.
Amanda is about to begin a new course of treatment at the Mayo Clinic Spine Center in Florida, and 100 percent of the proceeds from these comps will be going to help her cover the cost. So this is a win/win/win: Amanda gets help with her medical expenses, the bands get their new, unreleased, or live tracks out there, and you get 40 killer tunes for just $10 for each volume (or more, if you’re feeling generous).
Steam and buy the Save The Amanda! comps right here:
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Interview: Bleeding Rainbow on playing in SF and unexpected influences (playing Great American, 4/28/13)
April 19, 2013
In its relatively short existence, Philadelphia’s Bleeding Rainbow has gone through quite the evolution. Originally a duo named Reading Rainbow consisting of spouses Rob Garcia on vocals and guitar and Sarah Everton on vocals and drums, the band is now a full-fledged, hard rocking four-piece (legend has it that indie punk goddess Carrie Brownstein told them Reading Rainbow was a weak name—and when Carrie Brownstein says some shit like that, YOU CHANGE YOUR NAME).
The band released two albums as Reading Rainbow: 2010′s Prism Eyes, in which the duo explored pop song structures; and, prior to that, the self-released Mystical Participation, which is composed of more amorphous, droning numbers.
But now Sarah is out front, playing bass and properly showing off her vocal chops, while full-time drummer Greg Frantz and lead guitarist Al Creedon have been added to the lineup. With the new name and new personnel came a new album: January’s Yeah Right, which takes all of the lo-fi noise of Reading Rainbow’s first album and does a mighty fine job of amping it up before cramming it into the more pop-oriented song structures of Prism Eyes.
That isn’t to say Bleeding Rainbow is experimenting any less with its sound. Rolling Stone recently premiered Yeah Right cut “Oblivion”, and Everton told the magazine that the song was their attempt to incorporate Everly Brothers-style vocal harmonies into their music.
You can hear some of those harmonies at work in the video for “Waking Dream,” which Everton directed herself:
Bleeding Rainbow is currently on tour with The Cave Singers and will be making a stop at Great American Music Hall (which got its own shout out from Rolling Stone recently) on April 28.
I recently spoke with singer/guitarist Rob Garcia about how Yeah Right is holding up on the road, what less-than-obvious influences (other than the Everly Brothers) went into the album, and what’s next for Bleeding Rainbow.
The Bay Bridged: How’s the tour going?
Rob Garcia: The tour is going great! We all love going out on tour. We start feeling really frantic if we are at home in Philly for too long. The current tour is extra special for us because it is the first national tour since our album came out.
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Video: Luke Sweeney – “The Marrow” (plus tour dates with Garrett Pierce)
April 11, 2013
Luke Sweeney (of Wet Dreams Dry Magic and VOWS fame) released the second video from his new solo album, Ether Ore (read my interview with Luke about the album). The video, which Luke directed himself, features the lo-fi folk track “The Marrow” and seems to be a commentary of sorts on the perilous state of the American dream: with a montage of haunting images of poverty in San Francisco as a backdrop, Luke panhandles for “dreams” and plays a song to his real-life (and really adorable) baby girl, Pele.
“I never really thought about the song’s meaning until I started conceptualizing the video,” Luke says. “But I would say that the song is about the corruption that corrodes our purest intentions in pursuit of love, liberty & happiness…. The song has a clash of beauty and ugliness in the lyrics, of despair and hope, so the video is portraying a healthy dose of both sides of the coin throughout San Francisco in the context of a personal story.”
Recognizable San Francisco landmarks also feature prominently in the video, almost making the city another character in the tale he’s telling. That is no accident. “I think, as San Franciscans, our assumptions about the local quality of life are being constantly challenged,” Luke says. “I just wanted to depict a side of our reality that many often shove under the rug.”
Luke is about to take his tunes on the road, along with fellow itinerant troubadour Garrett Pierce. The “Ether Toure”, as he’s calling it, kicks off April 18 at the newly re-opened Eagle Tavern. Anna Hillburg, who just released a solo album of her own, opens that show. Full tour dates after the jump.
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TBB Premiere: Social Studies – “Away for the Weekend (Painless remix)”
April 10, 2013
Local indie rock heroes Social Studies are releasing their Away For The Weekend EP, which includes a handful of remixes, and we’ve got the exclusive premiere of the title track as reworked by Painless (a.k.a. Nicolas Dobbratz from of Montreal, Yip Deceiver, and Sugar & Gold). The original, off of 2012′s excellent Developer (Antenna Farm Records), is a catchy-as-hell mid-tempo rocker. Painless turns it into a bass-heavy slow burner, mainly using Natalia Rogovin’s vocal hiccups as the melody draped over the drums and low end.
In addition to the original and remix of the title track, the EP also includes two remixes of another standout cut from Developer, “Terracur”, done by Ellie Herring and Skeleton Hands. You can grab a copy over on iTunes.
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Music Video Race returns for its second year
April 8, 2013
The Music Video Race is back for its second year, and they need you…if you’re a film whiz or in a band, that is.
I wrote about the MVR last time around, but since it’s been a year, let me refresh your memory: MVR randomly pairs 20 filmmakers with 20 bands and gives them a weekend to conceive, shoot, and edit a music video (this year, that weekend is June 7–9). The following Saturday (June 15) there is a big party at Rickshaw Stop at which all 20 videos are screened and a panel of music industry professionals pick the best video, best song, best concept, best cinematography, etc. Aside from bragging rights and a fancy new video to show off, the winners get some pretty great prizes, like free studio time, free film equipment rentals, and more.
Interested parties can apply now at www.musicvideorace.com, and be sure to watch this year’s MVR video announcement, above.
Here’s last year’s big winner, a song called “Cobra” by a band called doppio who were teamed up with production crew The Outer Avenues.
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Win tickets to see Tinariwen, Warpaint, Chelsea Wolfe, and more at Desert Daze, 4/20/13
April 5, 2013
The good folks who put on the annual Moon Block Party in Pomona, CA are once again hosting Desert Daze—a psych fest out in the desert, where shit gets real trippy. The festival happens around the same time as Coachella, and is meant as a much more affordable way to see some killer bands under the Southern California sun without all the hassle.
As you can tell from the pics I posted from last year’s Moon Block Party, these people know how to throw one hell of a show. This year, the Desert Daze lineup is absolutely mindblowing: Tuareg psych rockers from the Sahara Tinariwen headline, with dreamscape artists Warpaint and goth-folk queen Chelsea Wolfe supporting, plus a whole bunch of other rad bands.
Want to get in for free? Be the fifth person to email me at mike.g@thebaybridged.com and I’ll get you on the list.
And if you aren’t acquainted, here’s Tinariwen doing their thing:
Desert Daze featuring Tinariwen, Warpaint, Chelsea Wolfe, and more
Sunset Ranch Oasis
April 20, 2013
$35–65
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Review & Photos: Caspian, Native, Boyfrndz, The Dandelion War @ Bottom of the Hill, 3/3/13 (Noise Pop 2013)
March 5, 2013
Caspian (Photo: Mike G.)
Photo Gallery: Emily Turner
Noise Pop 2013 has come and gone, and it ended on an epically high note. Post-rock mainstays Caspian were towering and majestic, a thing of primal beauty, on Sunday night at Bottom of the Hill, but that being said, supporting act Native was the real story of the night for me, if only because I knew nothing about them going in, and they officially earned my “best new discovery” award for the whole festival.
Oakland’s The Dandelion War opened, and they were the sole local band on the bill. It was an early show, so I missed the first half of their set. I walked in on a hard driving post-rock tune featuring a xylophone. The band’s take on post-rock is pretty standard as far as post-rock goes, except they throw in quite a bit of vocals (for a genre known mostly for instrumentals), maracas, and of course that xylophone (which actually is kind of a post-rock staple—Caspian had one too).
Boyfrndz flew out from their hometown, Austin, just for the show, so they were playing on borrowed gear, which probably contributed to the technical difficulties they experienced early in the set. But once they got it together, they locked into their groove. Their sound leans more toward pure noise rock than the rest of the bands on the bill, but the live loops laid down on almost every song by their guitarist gave their set an experimental vibe. They were also insanely loud. Last time I saw them they were on tour with their own gear, and they were pretty damn loud then too, so I don’t think that was another side effect of playing on someone else’s gear. That’s just how they like it.
Still, Boyfrndz wasn’t the loudest band of the night. I’d say Native takes that title. The band, which hails from Indiana, plays music that is equally influenced by hardcore and post-metal, to my ears. It’s a pretty original formula, and a pretty damn thrilling one, too. It helps that the band has the chops to pull off some wicked rhythmic interplay between the bass and drums, and to lay intricately arranged guitars on top with some extremely tight starts and stops. That’s where the hardcore comes in—abrupt changes not being a common feature of the post-metal genre, which typically moves at a more glacial pace—in addition to the vocals, which were exclusively shouted in a hardcore punk snarl. Apparently Native were playing mostly new material from an album they plan to release in July, and the band told me it’s all darker than their old stuff. It’s a pretty safe bet I’ll be writing about this band again come the summer.
It’s been over three years since Caspian made the trek from their home base in Boston to play San Francisco, and the band seemed as stoked to be back as their fans were to see them. Caspian is one of the main bands that gets name-dropped whenever the topic of post-rock comes up, along with the likes of Explosions in the Sky and Mogwai, but their music is decidedly more ambient than those two. It’s so ambient, in fact, that there’s very little in the way of melody, and certainly nothing you’d really call a hook (not that Explosions or Mogwai are at all incorporating pop hooks, but they generally have something a little more catchy going on). Caspian still achieves the mountainous walls of delay and reverb that is a staple of their genre, but they do it in a more subtle, creeping kind of way. One minute it’s all calm and serene, and before you even realize what’s going on, the band is wailing away on some of the most epic, monolithic music you’ve ever heard.
Thanks for lots more fun this year, Noise Pop. ‘Til next time…
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Review & Photos: Toro y Moi, Sinkane, Dog Bite, James & Evander @ The Independent, 3/2/13 (Noise Pop 2013)
March 5, 2013
Toro y Moi (Photo: Mike G.)
James & Evander kicked off a night of chill electro/rock at The Independent on Saturday, and they did it with their characteristic laid-back vibe. I love these guys and their house-inspired indie rock tunes. What else can I say that we here at The Bay Bridged haven’t already said about James & Evander a million times over the course of the band’s incredible past couple of years? It’s almost criminal that they were the openers and played to a fraction of the number of people who rolled through The Independent for the second of Toro y Moi‘s two sold out Noise Pop shows. But James & Evander, I have a feeling, will be headlining Noise Pop themselves soon enough, so. All in good time.
I had never heard of Atlanta’s Dog Bite or Brooklyn’s Sinkane before I saw their names on the bill, but both bands fit the night’s theme well while bringing their own thing to the mix. Dog Bite, which is Washed Out keyboardist Phil Jones’ solo project, had kind of a strummy, shoegaze sound going on. The music just washed over me. No song really stood out, and the vocals lacked any and all dynamics, so I wouldn’t go beyond calling their set “pleasant.” I don’t really mean to damn them with that faint praise, though. It’s just that it was all so even keeled that that’s about all I have to say.
Sinkane was also exploring sonic territory that tended to bleed together from one song to the next, but they threw in plenty of dub bass lines and reggae vocal harmonies and rhythms, giving their take on chilled-out indie rock a distinct flavor. On its Facebook page, the band describes themselves as “feel good music,” and I’d bet that isn’t meant ironically. I feel pretty good about any band that uses a talk box as effectively as Sinkane.
Toro y Moi was, of course, the main attraction, and there was no mistaking that fact if you were part of the packed-in, sweaty, dancing crowd crushed up against the stage. I really can’t say enough about how awesome their set was. I am a fan of Chaz Bundick’s recorded output thus far, but I had not seen him play live with his band, and I gotta say, that took my appreciation of Toro y Moi to a whole new level.
There was just something almost heavy about the way the band interprets the material. Adding a guitarist, bassist, and drummer to the mix is going to beef up your sound, sure. But this was something else. The synths seemed thicker, the rhythms more intense. The music hit you in the gut and the head, in a way the cool production on the albums doesn’t. The band approached Spector-ian “wall of sound” status on many tracks. “High Living”, a standout track from Toro y Moi’s newest album, Anything in Return, which marked the first time Bundick took his recording process outside of a wholly contained laptop universe, sounded particularly majestic, gorgeous, and just thoroughly entrancing. Toro y Moi has been absolutely killing the game lately, and this show was no exception.
