The Bay Bridged – San Francisco Bay Area Indie Music

This Week in SF: Picks and a Mix for 5/20-5/26/13

First City Festival: Modest Mouse, Passion Pit, Beach House lead 30+ bands performing at new summer fest in Monterey

Ticket Giveaway Thursday: Sea Wolf, Savoir Adore @ Great American, 5/21/13

Celebrate the Phono del Sol lineup with us at the ‘MishiPot’ Microhood this Thursday, 5/16/13!

Ticket Giveaway Wednesday (Part 2 of 2): Cracker, Tortoise, LUCE

July 8, 2009 by Ben Van Houten · Leave a Comment »
Filed Under Giveaway, Mp3, News, Video

You know the drill already…Plenty of great shows coming up and plenty of tickets to score!

Friday, July 10th – Cracker @ The Independent

Cracker - Photo by Jason Thrasher

David Lowery and Cracker head to The Independent this Friday in support of the band’s first album in three years, Sunrise In The Land Of Milk And Honey. A recent recording by NYCTaper confirms that the band has maintained both its wit and its blend of American rock sounds in the interim. Lowery’s Camper Van Beethoven cohort Victor Krummenacher opens. 9pm, $20/22.

To win tickets to this show, be the first person to respond to @thebaybridged with the sentence “I want those Cracker tickets!” and your full name.

Monday, July 13th – Tortoise @ Great American Music Hall

Tortoise

Tortoise-Prepare_Your_Coffin.mp3
Tortoise – “Prepare Your Coffin”

Tortoise, Chicago’s elder statesmen of experimental-/post-rock, just released their first new album in five years, Beacons of Ancestorship, on Thrill Jockey. The label describes the album as “a document of where musical intersections and dialogue are occurring at a given moment in time…with nods to techno, punk, electro, lo-fi noise, cut-up beats, heavily processed synths, and mournful, elegiac dirges.” They’ll be at the Great American Music Hall with labelmates Pit Er Pat next Monday. 8pm, $25.

To win tickets to this show be the third person to send an E-mail to contest@thebaybridged.com with your full name, “I want to see Tortoise!” in the subject line, and the completed sentence, “Tortoises are better than sea turtles because _________.”

Saturday, July 11th – LUCE, The Gun & Doll Show, Pollux @ Great American Music Hall

LUCE – “Acid Rain” (Live at the Little Fox)

There’s an all-local triple CD release show going on this Saturday night at the Great American Music Hall. San Francisco’s LUCE have a hard road to the release of their new album Corner of the World (including a house burning down and complete gear/van theft). The Gun & Doll Show are a SF institution and their latest album American Radio Two is their second take on musical styles across the radio spectrum. Pollux opens the show. 9pm, $20.

The second person to send an e-mail to contest@thebaybridged.com with their full name and the subject line “Take me to Luce!” will win a pair of tickets to the show!

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The Rural Alberta Advantage at Bottom of the Hill this Thursday

July 8, 2009 by Ben Van Houten · Leave a Comment »
Filed Under Mp3, News, Video

the_RAA-frank_ab.mp3
The Rural Alberta Advantage – “Frank, AB”

As I mentioned in the notes for this week’s podcast, The Rural Alberta Advantage were a SXSW highlight, with an amazing set full of emotion and energy that reached a cathartic apex in the trio’s in-the-audience performance of the song “Goodnight” (video here). The trio’s stripped-down rock is built around insistent melodies, and the songs capitalize by being short and to-the-point. Hometowns, the group’s debut album, was re-released yesterday on Saddle Creek, and it’s quite good, although I’d still give the advantage to the live show, which you can see when the group stops in SF this Thursday night for a show at Bottom of the Hill.

The Rural Alberta Advantage – “In The Summertime”

The Bay Bridged, Volume 2 contributor Okay and Asthmatic Kitty artist Half-Handed Cloud round out the show, which is presented by ipickmynose. 9pm, $10, All Ages. Recommended!

Ticket Giveaway Wednesday (Part 1 of 2): Rubies, Bray, The Veils

July 8, 2009 by Christian Cunningham · Leave a Comment »
Filed Under Giveaway, Mp3, News, Video

Thursday, July 9th – Rubies @ Rickshaw Stop

Rubies will be celebrating the US release of their album, Explode from the Center, with a dance party at the Rickshaw Stop tomorrow. Indie folk artist Little Wings and local disco-electro group Windsurf will be supporting.

The third person to send an E-mail to contest@thebaybridged.com with their full name and the subject line “I want to see Rubies!” will win a pair of tickets to the show!

Saturday, July 11th – Bray @ The Independent

Bray
Another album release hits The Independent on Saturday with Bray releasing their new full-length @mphibian. Also performing are locals RubberSideDown who are in the midst of quite the street festival circuit here in Bay Area having played the Haight Street Fair and SF Pride earlier this summer and have a scheduled performance at the Festa Italiana Street Fair later in the month. All attendees to this show will receive a copy of Bray’s latest album!

Bray - Only the Brave
Bray – “Only the Brave”

To win tickets to this show be the 5th person to send an E-mail to contest@thebaybridged.com with your full name and “I want to see Bray!” in the subject line.

Monday, July 13th – The Veils @ Bottom of the Hill

The Veils will start their North American tour tomorrow and will be stopping by Bottom of the Hill on Monday in support of their recently released Rough Trade album, Sun Gangs. They put together an informative video of sorts all about them which you can watch here:

The Veils will be playing with Secretly Canadian’s Foreign Born for most of their tour dates, except for Los Angeles where they’ll be headlining their own show at Spaceland. Opening the show is Cleveland based Other Girls.

To win tickets to this show, be the first person to respond to @thebaybridged with the phrase “I want to go see The Veils” and include your full name.

Thursday’s show at The Rickshaw Stop is $10, starts at 8pm, and is 18+.
Saturday’s show at The Independent is $12/$15, starts at 8pm, and is 21+.
Monday’s show at Bottom of the Hill is $10/$12, starts at 9pm, and is all ages.

Are You Ready For Some Phoenix? Too bad…but the night was salvaged anyway

July 8, 2009 by Jake Butler · 1 Comment »
Filed Under Feature Article, News

Boyz Noize
Being a huge fan of Daft Punk, I was stoked to see that Phoenix was coming to SF for the Spectrum Festival (author’s note: guitarist Laurent Brancowitz was in the group Darlin’ with Guy Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter,who, after being described as a “bunch of daft punk” by a reviewer went on to start Daft Punk while Brancowitz joined forces with Phoenix).Â I knew many of the other artists in the lineup, but it was Phoenix that brought me, a half dozen of my friends, and many others to the show.Â As fate would have it, lead singer Thomas Mars contracted a viral infection affecting his vocals and Phoenix dropped out of the lineup hours before the show.

Never one to let my parade be rained upon, I pushed forward with fervor…as did the now closer Boyz Noize, who brought the house down with rockstar spinning and hours of pounding fists with the most ardent of fans amidst his techno wizardry.

The day was met with the somber note of Phoenix’s absence, only to be followed by my entry to the Regency around 9pm, which revealed a lackluster turnout.Â The organizers not only had to battle a missing headliner, but also had to compete with the Pride Parade festivities happening to fall on the same date.Â Despite the slim pickens early on, those present were very evidently enjoying themselves and the staff were great about dealing with ticket issues.

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Photos: Spectrum Festival @ The Regency

A reconfigured Grand Lake headlines “OMFG Oakland”

July 7, 2009 by Ben Van Houten · Leave a Comment »
Filed Under Mp3, News, Video

Grand Lake - "Concrete Blonde On Blonde'>01-Concrete-Blonde-On-Blonde.mp3'>Grand Lake - "Concrete Blonde On Blonde
Grand Lake – “Concrete Blonde On Blonde”

“OMFG Oakland!,” indeed. The 2009 Mission Creek Music Festival kicks off this weekend with a couple of Oakland shows, before heading back across the Bay for next week’s festivities. Saturday’s show is a great lineup of local folks at Rooz Cafe in Oakland. The full lineup includes Grand Lake, Make Me, White Cloud, The Blank Tapes, Colossal Yes, The Splinters, Ghost and the City, The Dashing Suns and The Double U.

Grand Lake – “This City” (via Hippies Are Dead)

Headliners Grand Lake passed along some big news yesterday regarding lineup changes and new sounds. From the group: [More...]

Black Muddle: Until The Light Takes Us @ YBCA

July 7, 2009 by Ben Richardson · 3 Comments »
Filed Under Feature Article, Film Review, News

Photo courtesy of Until the Light Productions
Making a documentary is a delicate balancing act, and the inexperience of first-time filmmakers Aaron Aites and Audrey Ewell is palpable as they attempt the definitive black metal doc. The story of Norway’s fratricidal, arson-happy music scene is well known to some, and Aites and Ewell were wise to go right to the source, relocating to Oslo and securing unprecedented access to the genre’s major players. They decided to let their subjects do the talking, weaving the harrowing story through accented anecdotes and cobbled-together footage, avoiding heavy-handed voiceover. For veteran directors, this might well have been the right choice, but Until the Light Takes Us is frustratingly uneven, abdicating the responsibility of theme and narrative in favor of reverent, scattershot sense-impressions that are as unsatisfying as they are thought-provoking.

The film is arranged around interviews with Gylve “Fenriz” Nagell, drummer and mastermind behind the influential band Darkthrone, and Varg “Count Grishnackh” Vikernes, creator of Burzum and perpetrator of many of the heinous crimes that make black metal’s early-90′s milieu so infamous. Fenriz is an affable misanthrope, articulate if digressive, and he is the source of the best interview fodder, though his most piquant observations are given no more weight than interminable shots of him reflectively sipping beer. Vikernes, interviewed in his stunningly commodious Norwegian prison cell, has the clear-eyed surety of a sociopath, expounding eloquently on the alienation and crackpot philosophy that drove him to create jarring, lo-fi heavy metal, then burn down irreplaceable 11th century churches, then stab his friend in the skull.

[More...]

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Live This Month: July 2009 (Podcast #171)

July 7, 2009 by The Bay Bridged · Leave a Comment »
Filed Under Live This Month, News, Podcast

Flipper

Stream the episode:

Download

Every month, we dedicate a week of our podcast to highlighting some of the great local and out-of-town bands performing soon in the San Francisco Bay Area. We’ve got a dozen great bands playing some excellent shows this month, so head out and see some live music!

Subscribe to The Bay Bridged’s podcast to get each week’s new episode downloaded free to your iTunes!

About the bands:

French Miami (“Multi-Caliber Rifles”) headline Regional Bias, our first fundraiser, which also features performances by the also-amazing Adam Stephens and the Finite Plain, Or, the Whale, and Leopold and his Fiction. The event, which also features a local art show and local food tasting, is Friday, July 31st at The Verdi Club, and you can find out all about it here.

Los Angeles psych-rock band Dead Meadow (“I’m Gone”) headline the Mission Creek Music Festival’s free day show at McLaren Park on Saturday, July 18th. According to the Bay Guardian, the show also features the ridiculously good lineup of Kelley Stoltz, Persephone’s Bees, Rubies, Bart Davenport, Xoel Lopez (Spain), Leopold and His Fiction, Devon Williams (LA), The Moore Brothers, Brian Glaze & The Night Shift and Coatsie & Mellows.

The Skygreen Leopards‘ (“Dixie Cups in the Dead Grass”) new album Gorgeous Johnny comes out on 7/21, but the band will be celebrating the record’s release on Saturday, July 11th at Amnesia. Pumice and Ignot Rot join them at the show.

Santa Rosa’s That Ghost (“Open Windows”), who we recently wrote about, headlines at the Rickshaw Stop on Thursday, July 16th. It’s a quality all-local bill with No One & the Nobodies and The Dry Spells along for the ride.

San Francisco’s Rubies (“Stand in a Line”) celebrate the US release of their debut Explode from the Center with an album release party this Thursday, July 9th at the Rickshaw Stop. The excellent lineup is rounded out by Little Wings, Windsurf, and DJ Safety Scissors.

One of my highlights of SXSW, The Rural Alberta Advantage (“Don’t Haunt This Place”) re-released their album Hometowns today on Saddle Creek Records. ipickmynose presents their show at Bottom of the Hill on Thursday, July 9th. Okay and Half-handed Cloud support.

Salvation Is A Deep Dark Well is the new album from Alaska-to-Portland band The Builders and the Butchers (“Barcelona”). They are currently on tour with Illinois, and the two bands will be joined by The Ferocious Few at Bottom of the Hill on Wednesday, July 15th.

Echo Park-based husband-and-wife duo Rainbow^Arabia (“Haunted Hall”) release Kabukimono this month on Manimal Vinyl. Maus Haus and Pierre Le Robot perform with the band on Saturday, July 25th at Bottom of the Hill.

In addition to being a great live band, The Fresh & Onlys (“Peacock and Wing”) are building a large buzz with their Castle Face-released self-titled LP. Before a national tour and another LP later this year, they’ll be at El Rio on July 11th and The Eagle on July 16th.

Featuring members of Mclusky, Welsh rock band Future of the Left (“The Hope That House Built”) just put out their second album Travels With Myself And Another on 4AD. The critically-acclaimed group is at Bottom of the Hill on Tuesday, July 28th with Disastroid and Make Me.

Amidst releasing two new albums and reissuing their back catalog, San Francisco punk legends Flipper (“Get Away”) celebrate their thirtieth anniversary this month with a show on Friday, July 17th at Cafe Du Nord. Supporting are Toiling Midgets and Savage Republic.

Rated O, Oneida‘s (“What’s Up, Jackal?”) brand new triple-LP, is out today on Jagjaguwar. They headline a psychy show at Bottom of the Hill on Saturday, July 11th, with locals Wooden Shjips and Jonas Reinhardt.