The Boulevard Ear – 1/13/12: Of Bohemians and Bon Vivants
January 19, 2012
Welcome back to the Boulevard Ear, a regular feature on The Bay Bridged, where our man about town examines a community’s live music offerings over the course of one evening. What is it like to be a show-goer whose experiences are dictated entirely by location? Follow Todd as he explores Bay Area music venues by neighborhood, finding a variety of independent music along the way.
The Boulevard Ear ~ Of Bohemians and Bon Vivants
While the widespread indignation over gentrification and economic pressure on local artists may be somewhat overwrought (since there is such a lively music scene going on after all), who among us would question that making a life of music here has become ever more challenging? Are we nostalgic, or was the local music community once more rife with veterans of five, ten, fifteen or more years tenure, faithfully plying their trade in a network of small, fraternal venues?
It is thus the sincere aim of the Bon Vivant – who, distinct from the committed Bohemian, has stable sources of capital and only visits the demi-monde – to devote our humble pulpit to heralding the music makers and inform you of their nature and achievements.
And we will presently address this, but let us not to haste. We are not poised to hear the troubadours until we survey leisurely the firmament of which they sing. This is, in modern parlance, how we roll. [More...]
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The Boulevard Ear – 9/1/11: Day Gig
September 8, 2011
Welcome back to the Boulevard Ear, a regular feature on The Bay Bridged, where our man about town examines a community’s live music offerings over the course of one evening. What is it like to be a show-goer whose experiences are dictated entirely by location? Follow Todd as he explores Bay Area music venues by neighborhood, finding a variety of independent music along the way.
The Boulevard Ear ~ Day Gig
In our free and democratic society, there comes a time when every young person faces a choice: give up a life of art and start logging 40 hours a week, or keep pursuing the dream, supplemented with the day gig.
But there is a third way, one that possibly represents the pinnacle of our hopes for freedom and fulfillment: get a day job that supports and/or involves your art. Living an artful life is, in the final tally, remarkably similar to being an artist – indistinguishable if one is lucky.
Let us endeavor to remember, then, that among the faces behind the counter at the record shops, discotheques, and instrument rental outlets, are some of our finest rising musicians. Our hometown, despite a somewhat deserved reputation for being prohibitively expensive for artists, still draws the talented and passionate like a tractor beam, and these street level muses must eat. We believe it was Willy Wonka who said, “We are the music makers. And we are the dreamers of dreams.”
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The Boulevard Ear: All About Michael McIntosh
June 24, 2011
Welcome back to the Boulevard Ear, a regular feature on The Bay Bridged, where our man about town examines a community’s live music offerings over the course of one evening. What is it like to be a show-goer whose experiences are dictated entirely by location? Follow Todd as he explores Bay Area music venues by neighborhood, finding a variety of independent music along the way.
The Boulevard Ear ~ All About Michael McIntosh
The shadows grow long over the lawn at Park Chalet, the lower back half of the historic Beach Chalet on the Great Highway. The band has packed up and gone. The first wave of evening diners – showered, tidy in their khakis and black linen shirts – are tucking in napkins on the patio. But the afternoon revelers cannot bring themselves to go home. They linger over pints on the Adirondack chairs, or with bottles of white wine in the surrounding shrubbery.
It is magic hour in the Sunset, on one of those rare days when the last 10 blocks of the western continental United States are the most comfortable place to be in the entire Bay Area. The fates who conjure up high barometric pressure have granted us a stay, perhaps to repay us for those three extra months of spring rain.
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A Sunday evening in the Sunset turns out to be a strange proposition on a day such as this, when that last bottle of wine or pint of beer is all it takes to convince you that such a glorious day need never end. Mollusk Surf Shop, Outerlands, General Store, Trouble Coffee — landmarks of the neighborhood’s revival — are shuttered. (One should put in a word for Mollusk, however – besides winning best surf shop/art gallery honors by a mile, they also host the occasional live set from, say, Sonny and the Sunsets).
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The Boulevard Ear: Whither Valencia?
April 28, 2011
Welcome back to the Boulevard Ear, a regular feature on The Bay Bridged, where our man about town examines a community’s live music offerings over the course of one evening. What is it like to be a show-goer whose experiences are dictated entirely by location? Follow Todd as he explores Bay Area music venues by neighborhood, finding a variety of independent music along the way. First installment: In the Nethers.
The Boulevard Ear ~ Whither Valencia?
We flanneurs make a point of wandering many paths – both beaten and neglected – in search of excitement and edification, and we are fortunate indeed that our benighted burg offers an infinite variety.
However, even in such a honeycomb of possibilities, the connoisseur of fine living finds oneself drawn repeatedly to certain stretches of pavement where culture is robustly served at all hours. Let us not beat around the boulevard, then. Tonight’s topic: Valencia, the Champs Elysees of the hipoisie.
The Mission is, of course, full of many boulevards, and we intend to report on each corner in detail. But Valencia itself is many boulevards, not just across space, but, more to our current point, over time. We have left particles of our soles along this stretch since it housed such long-gone establishments as The Chameleon and The Crystal Pistol (now Amnesia and Range, respectively).
As captured in Camper Van Beethoven’s classic “Down and Out,” the neighborhood was even then decades into its cycle of being embraced for new energy, and reviled for slipping into the clutches of arriviste financiers and self-appointed tastemakers. The past several years has seen a burst of musical activity here, with our finest – Thee Oh Sees, Sonny and the Sunsets, Grass Widow, Fresh and Onlys – holding court on small stages.
And yet lately, our local punditry has sniffed a change in the air, the inevitable hangover that follows a period of creative fecundity. Valencia, one scribe asserts in the latest parlance, has “jumped the shark.”
And so, as your Boswell of bonhomie it is my duty to survey the question first hand: Valencia – in, out, or back in again?
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Sade Sundays: That’s How I Remember It, Season Finale (Best of 2010).
December 26, 2010
Part One: Michael Tapscott
1. Kanye West – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (DefJam)
Kanye West - 'Runaway'The most controversial and real public figure almost caused a fist fight between Joshua and I at this year’s Thanksgiving. While Josh contended, correctly so, that Kanye’s public persona ruins his art, I contended, also correctly, that it heightens his palette and that the persona is in and of itself a fine work of art. We worked it out, but I was prepared to never speak to one of my best friends again for the cause.
2. Jerry Lewis – Cracking Up (1983)/Tex Avery Cartoons
In one willful and lonely Saturday this year, I went too far in my quest for entertainment and am now a great believer that the French were right all along about Jerry Lewis. His comedy is just as fascinating and mind-blowing as Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton or Jaques Tati, if you’re in to that sort of thing. Watching old MGM and Warners Bros. cartoon shorts by Tex Avery that same day, I realized these guys are human cartoons. I sort of like the cartoons better though.
3. Deep Magic/Deep Tapes/Dreamcolour
One of my favorite collectives of the new age/experimental/ambient scene is the Bay Area label Deep Tapes. The Deep Tapes producers released or were connected in someway to some heavy classics out of this increasingly rich and expansive field in 2010. Deep Magic’s Planetary Roots and Soul Vibrations were favorites, as well as work by uber-group Dreamcolour, Olympus Mons and Psychic Handbook. I’m a Facebook fan….
4. Donovan Quinn & The 13th Month – Your Wicked Man (Soft Abuse)
San Francisco’s Donovan Quinn is weathering a moment in time when his music is a little out of fashion, and we are all at a loss for this. In my year, it was the best singer-songwriter record I’d listened to and had an urgent poignancy for my own lost generation. I hear all the bad and lovable things about my friends in this area of the world throughout this record. It comes on a real healthy slab of vinyl too.
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Sade Sundays: To The Ends of Bear Gulch Road and Back, Year 0.
October 31, 2010
Part One: Joshua Rampage
This thing could write itself; last weekend Mike and I went to find Neil Young’s house. It was a little too easy to track down the latitude and longitude coordinates of his compound, but with no GPS device we’d have to do it like gentlemen. Using a crumpled Google map I assumed the role of navigator as Mike steered us into the dark blue beyond of the Santa Cruz mountains.
Rounding the steep switchbacks and overgrown hillsides of the Land That Time Forgot, it occurred to me that this might be the last and only place on earth where Neil Young would dig in and stake his rock + roll camp of unrequited love. Besides, where else would he have this much room to set up all his model trains?
As we passed an imaginary waterfall of natural spring water, Mike says he’d love to palm some into his mouth, maybe even take a bath; and with this bizarre imagery in mind, I began to contemplate Neil Young as an artist. Personally, I feel his defining moment came when he was sued by his record label for not sounding like himself. God bless that rickety old hatchet of a man, I think I’d like to shake his hand.
When Mike first told me about Le Noise, Young’s new solo record featuring the production of sound manipulator Daniel Lanois, it seemed as if it was to be the heir apparent to Trans, Neil’s 1982 electronic album that buzzed with vocoders and digital trickery. However, when I sat down for a first listen I got bummed – it was as if he and Lanois got high, but not high enough to make the far-out statement they really wanted – or did they? Shit man, I don’t know – we were lost in the woods and Neil Young’s house was beginning to feel like a figment of our damaged imaginations.
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Sade Sundays: Post-Apocalyptic American Pastimes v.9.21.10
September 26, 2010
Part One: Joshua Rampage
When I think of attending baseball games I picture Indian Summer nights, patterned green grass under bright lights, hotdogs + beer + peanuts, and thousands upon thousands of rabid fans cheering for their respective teams. Not anymore. Those memories were obliterated this past Tuesday when Michael and I attended the A’s vs. White Sox game in Oakland.
The wind was ripping off the bay at a chilly 20 knots while we attempted our own version of tailgating, Mike leaving his party-ready station wagon at home, opting for his wife’s 4-door sedan instead. Brilliant. Popping the trunk, it just wasn’t the same as lining the bed of a pickup truck with plastic and filling it with water while floating on a Budweiser raft. We drank bottled Pacificos and lamented the fact we had no available entertainment at our disposal. No baseball gloves, no football, and Mike knew it was too windy for Frisbee, but complained we didn’t have one anyway.
Mike goes, “don’t worry, it’ll be warmer insideâ€. Lies. Upon entering the park, I noticed the frigid continuity in temperature as well as a distinct lack of electricity in the air; games I had attended in the past were veritable bee hives of activity while this one appeared to epitomize the impending doom our honey-making friends are currently facing. In one sweeping observation, I discovered that out of the 1000 or so people in attendance, (Oakland Coliseum baseball capacity: 35,067) no one appeared to give a shit whatsoever.
This all-encompassing indifference seemed to sharply reflect my feelings towards contemporary music at the moment – I hadn’t found anything to pique my ear’s interest in months. I felt like one of those bees you see on a cold day right after a heat wave; slowly moving around on the ground, waiting on eternity.
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Shredification: Sleep at the Regency Ballroom 9/12, 9/13
September 10, 2010
I always thought Sleep was one of those bands that I would just never get to see, like Zeppelin, or the real Guns ‘n’ Roses. The members disbanded in 1995, fed up with the intractability of their label, London Records, which refused to release Dopesmoker, the band’s hour-long stoner metal odyssey of an album — the sort of artistic endeavor that the phrase “magnum opus” was invented to describe.
The members moved on to other projects — guitarist Matt Pike to High on Fire; bassist/vocalist Al Cisneros and drummer Chris Haikus to Om. For fans of the doom genre, even for those who had the opportunity to see the band in its heyday, Sleep entered the realm of myth, its progress hastened by a brief lifespan and the mind-bending, uncompromising nature of its final creative act. Exerting a powerful influence from beyond the grave, its specter hung benevolently over future fuzzed-out efforts like a particularly tenacious bong hit. Acolytes were initiated into the cult, their ignorance of the band’s seminal work greeted with innumerable half-exasperated, half-excited shouts of “Duuuuuude!”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkFs9_kytAg
Sleep began in the garages of Silicon Valley, lurching out of San Jose with two albums (Volume One and Volume Two) that pre-dated their classic trio line-up. 1992′s Holy Mountain was a triumph of demented Sabbath-worship and St. Vitus-style madness, establishing the band’s burgeoning renown and greasing the wheels for their ultimately unsuccessful deal with London. Combining Pike’s explosive riffing, Cisneros’ hypnotic bass lines and incantatory vocals, and Haikus behind-the-beat stomp, the album was praised to the rafters. A cover of “Snowblind” for an Earache Records Sabbath tribute album won opprobrium from the Prince of Fuckin’ Darkness himself.
