Yumi Zouma and the Oceanic Band Blueprint

Destination Dobb’s Ferry for beers, burgers, and four innings of the Giants game prior to a show at The Rickshaw Stop. I was just finishing up explaining to MMJ that I had been remiss, this year, in taking advantage of our local music venues. Rickshaw does such a good job scheduling exciting new talent; their website is detailed and informative; most of their shows are under fifteen bucks. Why don’t I do this more often? In the days before technology made it easy to forget phone numbers, birthdays, and director credits, isn’t this how we all used to discover new bands? Isn’t this more fun than scanning music blogs for free downloads or listening to a tinny podcast through one earbud at our desks?

MH came in and sat down. The first words out of his mouth: “I just walked here. The show’s ten bucks? Why don’t I do this more often?”

Upon this Tidal Wave…

In 2005, I showed up at MI’s Yuba City house in a dress. It was Halloween. His ex was playing Clap Your Hands Say Yeah’s debut album in the living room stereo, and she made him admit – to my face – that he did, indeed, like the album. Not love it, maybe, and he certainly didn’t think it deserved all of the made-up accolades I was trying to bestow upon it. But he liked it. In spite of himself.

Ten years later, Alec Ounsworth is touring with CYHSY 2.0, celebrating that seminal album. And two weeks ago, he brought the party to The Independent.

Everyone Loves a Tournament

MH and I had been debating Sweden vs. Australia again. I continued my decade-long devotion to that magical Nordic cradle of pop perfection, and MH produced one piece of Aussie evidence after another. It’s a pointless argument. Our musical landscape is constantly enriched by both regions.

But it became even more interesting when we continued the discussion at Rickshaw Stop a few Fridays ago when Swedish-Australian disco duo Say Lou Lou were headlining the Popscene event. An argument ender? No. Just a beginning.

MH is a passionate college basketball fan (being the one among us to have attended a school with a decent program), so the idea of co-opting the NCAA tournament format as a successor to the Rock ‘n Roll Roulette ranking process was immediately appealing. The Idle Time Tune Tournament was born.

Then we argued about which Say Lou Lou song should make the cut…

Chair Dancing at the Movies

I’ve never thought dancing in my plush theater recliner during a movie was appropriate. But I’ve also rarely been to a screening where the live musical accompaniment was worth bobbing my head to. Leg shuffling, even less so.

So when I won tickets to see Cibo Matto perform “New Scene” as part of San Francisco Film Festival’s Live and Onstage series, I was pretty excited. I had no idea what to expect beyond the program description: “new musical soundtracks to a number of wild and abstract short movies to be played in this one-time-only performance.”

The wild and abstract almost won out, as I spent more time than expected staring in sheer bewilderment at the screen. Enough with the fly on the naked woman, Yoko Ono. I get it. Or, more precisely, I maybe don’t get it, but I’ve had enough.

My favorite foray into peculiar cinema was the thirty minute version of Oskar Schlemmer’s Triadic Ballet produced by Bavaria Atelier GmbH in 1970. It was like a Jim Woodring comic making love to a De Chirico painting in a candy shop.

Sylvan Esso: Fillmore Part Deux

It’s been a good, better, best kind of week. And it only took through Tuesday.

By the time we were standing downstage right (LDG: “Right? Where are you? That’s left!”) for Sylvan Esso’s return trip to The Fillmore, I had already reevaluated my stance on a previously despised commerce-driven holiday; rekindled a list-driven exploration of Nordic pop; and rediscovered a central coast hideaway, heretofore nothing more than a power plant curiosity, that is home to both a bevy of sea otters and a treasure trove of Shakespeare aficionados.

And then, of course, the show Tuesday night was fantastic.

Peelander Z and the Defiance of SF Audience Stereotypes

I didn’t have my arms folded, not once.

And MH, despite accepting a better offer to feast at The House of Prime Rib after work, made it to The DNA Lounge in time for the second half of the Zoopy Monsters set, and all of the insanity that is Peelander Z.

It helped that DH sent the above photo to MH in response to his “I don’t think I’m going to be able to make it” text.

The Preatures, That One Night…

Blue Planet Eyes, the debut LP from Australia’s The Preatures, spun under my radar in 2014, despite the fact that both MH and RF had it on their year-end lists.

MH likes to tell the story about how he watched Game 7 of the World Series at Fly on Divis, and then, minutes after Salvie Perez’s pop-up landed in What’s-His-Face’s glove, he charged into The Independent to celebrate with The Preatures. Well of course he likes the album. He probably bought the vinyl and a pair of t-shirts while he was at it. I know what a memorable night feels like. I understand the significance of connecting a charged evening to a recording; he’s re-living Bumgarner’s superhuman achievement every time he hears “Is This How You Feel?”

Time Traveling and the Importance of Loving The Y Axes

On their Twitter homepage, locals The Y Axes explain that they “are not the future of pop music, [they] are pop music from the future.” I’ve seen them live a couple times now, and have enjoyed the hell out of Sunglasses & Solar Flares since its release last year. I’m happy to report, then, that the future’s pop music reminds me a lot of Bay Area rock circa 2003.

Or maybe it’s just the venues.

There was something about those Lookout! and Asian Man shows in the East Bay, in the City, and in San Jose a decade ago. I haven’t listened to some of these bands in years, but I can remember seeing Squirtgun spazzing onstage, The Pattern doing their best Hives impersonation, Pretty Girls Make Graves playing almost an entire set in the dark. It was energized and alive, and, for me, just what I needed while I clawed myself free of a crap time in my life, bouncing between woe-is-me emocore and don’t-give-a-shit punk.

New Years, New Seasons

It’s been about a year since I started this blog, and I’m still not entirely sure what I’m doing here.

Jordan and Lauren of SALES

Is it a scrapbook collecting my live music experiences? A digital upgrade of that little ticket stub shoebox that lived in my kitchen drawer for years?

The second Noise Pop show I attended this year was Orlando’s SALES, an act I’d been following and eager to see perform since MMJ expressed her exuberance over “Chinese New Year” one Lunar Year ago. They were fantastic, and cool people to hang out with after the show. So cool in fact, it near made me forget the terrible sonic shitshows that opened the evening. Those bands made me feel old. Older. What are the kids listening to? *

TV Girl and The Center of the Universe

“Hey. Hey. Dude. Dude! This guy? Is a CHODE. But I like it.” – RF

TV Girl’s French Exit was one of my favorite albums of 2014. And their Wednesday night Noise Pop gig at Brick & Mortar Music Hall is now one of my favorite live musical experiences of the new year.

Granted, it’s only the second time I’ve been to a show in twenty-fifteen, and that last one was less than memorable, but still. This one will stand out.

And it wasn’t really because of the band.