Entries Tagged 'Reviews' ↓

I found out about Son Fish through some variety of Googling, and I was surprised by the fact that he is based out of Ripon, CA. Son Fish is a primarily electronic-based project that also incorporates guitar and acoustic drums. When I caught the live performance of this EP, Dustin Carpenter (Son Fish) was behind the kit, backed by guitarist Travis Miller and keyboard/bassist Ty Wieland. This EP, MMXII, is an audio/visual release, and at the bottom I have linked the Youtube video which contains the full EP with video. Continue reading →

Friday night’s Off the Air show was extra-special because it was also the pre-release show for Travis Vick’s masterpiece, Blavis!, as well as that record’s debut on Off the Air’s boutique  label. As such, the night was Travis Vick’s, who I would have been happy to see for all three hours of that Friday. However, Off the Air is a showcase, and it was also the debut show of a hot new trio from Waterford called The Airlings, as well as Oakland power-pop trio Churches who brought the noise and punk edge to Deva Cafe. Continue reading →

Saturday night I had the opportunity to see my old philosophy professor’s bluegrass band, Red Dog Ash. They were booked to play the West Side Theatre in Newman, and had the luxury of having the stage for the night. They came on stage wearing gigantic cowboy hats that cast shades over their faces, and boots of all colors (I was partial to banjo player Dixon Smith’s sky-blue boots). My fascination with their appearance took a back seat to their domination of the stage when they broke into their first number, and by the end of the night they’d torn the West Side Theatre a couple new holes. Continue reading →

It is common for geography to show up in songs. Lynyrd Skynyrd loves Alabama and the South. The Beach Boys love California. As the geography gets more specific, as in Kid Dakota’s “10,000 Lakes,” or Dylan’s various imagined cities, the songs run the risk of alienating the listener who has never been to Minnesota, and can’t imagine what it means to be “Stuck in Mobile with the Memphis Blues” again. To circumvent this, the land must live in the song beyond the simple reference, and is the difference between showing and telling. Travis Vick’s upcoming album, Blavis!, succeeds at conveying a sense of place, and it is somewhere I want to stay for a while. Continue reading →

It’s nearing midnight, I’m tired and trying to finish a Samuel Smith’s Nut Brown Ale, Mass Effect 3 is woefully unplayed, but then I put on San Francisco’s The She’s and It Starts To Feel Like Summer. I predict that, as The She’s pick up more buzz, this opening reference to the album’s title will be the way to open a review of The She’s. I do think they are buzz-worthy (apart from being decent songwriters), not in the least because of their origin story. Continue reading →

Off the Air showcases are consistently high quality. March 3rd was no exception; there’s something about not knowing which band was the best act that makes me feel all fuzzy. Continue reading →

Bumming around the internet led me to Matt & Rosie’s album (via a link in Matthew Sai’s Twitter). The first listen was awesome, like Carissa’s Wierd but with proximity. This has been on my backlog for a bit, and in the process I deleted three paragraphs of intro involving a feminist reading of the album. I realized I was missing the point, which is actually contained in a small liner note on Matt & Rosie’s Bandcamp:

we keep saying we’ll finish it.

The album takes this up as an ethos. Continue reading →

Oakland-based Kapowski’s official website calls the band a “pop quartet.” The expectation the term creates is subverted by the band’s sound, which is reminiscent of a classy neon sign from the ’50s, plugged in again for the first time. Some of the band members make ‘avant-garde jazz,’ and if you’ve been listening to the most avant of today’s garde jazz, feel free to confirm this. If there is jazz writing happening in Kapowski, it is in the vein of Broadway or vaudeville, though the music never becomes showtune in style. At heart, Kapowski writes pop songs in the sense that the the music serves the song. Click here, receive review.

When I reviewed Pomology, I was struck by the way the band members treated the virtuoso performance. True, the ’70s and ’80s are long past, and opening an album with “Eruption” is no longer interesting. Cursory Youtube surfing reveals, however, that virtuoso note-per-second shitting is still prevalent, and perhaps it seems more so only because it is so accessible these days. Moreover, when it comes to appreciating a decent musical performance, it became easier to watch that one guy play “Guitar Canon Rock” than say, ‘getting’ a Leonard Cohen song. So when Pomology opened up not with a note-flurry, and instead a slow-burning splitting of triplets across different instruments, I was surprised because this is progressive rock we’re talking about! The genre of excess! And so I was hooked. Do not mistake my comments about virtuousity as distaste. It is the case that in reaching for more intense performance and songwriting, it is much easier to fall short. This is not the case with Cave Women.
Click to read on.

Joel Daniel, one of Shayna and the Bulldog’s singers and its bassist, can pull off a mean approximation of Wayne Coyne. Other times the vocals sound like John McCrea, and then Jeff Tweedy. Album opener “Shapes We’ve Made” quotes ’90s emo drumming, though I may be influenced by the Sunny Day Real Estate dual-guitar quilts. The second track hints at Morphine, and leaves me waiting for the saxophone interlude. If these references aren’t making it clear, Shayna and the Bulldog write songs with a debt to the best parts of minoritarian 90s indie.
Click to read on, bro.

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