After three years in the making, the indie rocker couple from British Columbia return with the their ground-shaking fifth studio album, Paul’s Tomb: A Triumph, their first on the Dead Oceans label. The Frog Eyes line-up has previously included Spencer Krug of Wolf Parade and Sunset Rubdown, and its members previously played in Swan Lake, a project with with Krug and Dan Bejar of The New Pornographers and Destroyer. Whether as a result of their history of collaboration or both rooting from an uncannily common vision, Krug and Frog Eyes’ singer/guitarist, Carey Mercer, steadily draw from a similar playbook. Mercer and Krug share an affinity for fantasty story telling, their songs often taking on a shape of their own. This tradition continues on Paul’s Tomb with some of Frog Eyes’ most foreboding and tumultuous work to date.
Where Krug carefully constructs dramatic and untraditional transitions and key changes, Mercer instead focuses on a looser experimentation full of crunching, gauzy guitar attacks, with no shortage of instrumental breaks. Meanwhile his wife and drummer, Melanie Campbell, provides a base of noisy rock beats. Outside of these two permanent fixtures of the band, guitarist Ryan Beattie joins for some buzzy rupturing guitar solos and Megan Boddy layers some chilling back-up vocals. In keeping with the distinctly live sound of the album, all of the vocals were recorded live off the floor, producing a raw and free-form result, to no loss of quality.
There is big space to explore on Paul’s Tomb, which builds with tension that bursts open and unravels with equal grace. On “Rebel Horn,” Mercer yips and toggles his vocals, exasperating himself even on this more upbeat track, with its rhythmic syncopations and major key progressions. They rock out on “Lear in Love,” which begins with Brit-punk attitude and snarl but quickly transcends into reverb soaked and ethereal guitar tremolo picking. Whatever the backdrop, Mercer lets forth his howl.
Mercer again proves an limber, erratic lyricist on Paul’s Tomb. While his admonishing fables can get washed out by the larger sound of the instrumentation or lost in his frenetic delivery, when the thunderous sky parts, his emphatic sermons demand our mindful reception. He shines through clear and solemn on “Violent Psalms,” the album’s centerpiece, which begins, “Silhouettes/dreaded swamps/oil baths from the factory he laid/I am dreaming of a painting from the Spring of my mind/I have defined the lines and now I shake.” Boddy accompanies Mercer’s baritone with an airy counterpart to create a dark reality that shivers your skin. Everywhere his vocals shake with a sense of real horror. Take warning.
Get ready for sexual therapy by way of massive collaboration project. What I mean is, sometimes it takes a team of +20 dudes to get that old love off your chest. Ok, ok, thats enough… You’ve maybe by now heard the soulful singles, “Gaudy Side of Town” or “Faded High” on the forth coming LP from GAYNGS, Relayted (Jagjaguwar), due out May 11. As arguably the best tracks on the album, when heard in isolation, these singles are certainly intriguing, but they don’t provide the firepower to completely entrance you, especially if heard on indie radio followed by cheerful bubblegum punk, uncomfortably snapping you out of their paralysis. Let us be the first to tell you, Relayted fully envelops you in its seductive trip. The GAYNGS collaboration was sparked by Minneapolis’s Ryan Olson, along with Zack Coulter and Adam Hurlburt of Solid Gold. What followed was a 25 head collaboration not limited to Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, P.O.S., and Megafaun. Throw some druggy effects and bassy rhythms into the onslaught of bluesy vocal contributions, and you arrive at some seriously sensual arrangements.
Yet for all of its recording artist credits, perhaps the most prevalent aspect of Relayted’s composition is the lack there of. That is not to say there is minimal production (it quite quality actually) or poorly constructed songs, but there is huge amount of white space on these songs, much as on last year’s the xx. On “The Walker” which begins with such space, even after the lyrics “Baby I’m on my way” and the gun shot that follows, both of which beg for the song to tear apart, the build comes slowly and subtly, if at all. It leaves you wanting, and instead of fulfilling your carnal desires, it ends with a bizarre transition. Many of the songs do.
The album hits its most unadulterated R&B moment on “No sweat” complete with organ vibrations, sax solo (nothing says sexy tune like a sax solo), porn guitar riffs, and the opening line “Who knows how low a man’s soul can go?/I wish I could’ve made ammends/back when we were barely friends.” The heartbreak morphs into the tense but resistantly steady frenzy of “False Bottom,” an experimental, effect-heavy track with Bitches Brew type dissonance. While R&B is championed through the album’s entirety, it hits these experimental passing moments, where the soulful vocals are roped in as mere accents to some weirder, overpowering force.
These tangents and the white spaces are vital to the desire this album extracts. Sure, a rolodex of sexy-voiced friends helps. But even with their assistance, the department-store R&B synth parts or the more modern employment of auto-tuning, may have felt cheesy in another context. At times, such as “The Last Prom On Earth,” it really does. But then Vernon comes in with the Bone Thugs bounce in his falsetto and all is redeemed!
The side story of this album is Justin Vernon, whose use of auto-tuning on Bon Iver’s “Woods” seemed to run counter to his folk music. It now feels more like a stage setter for what would have felt a very unlikely direction. Needless to say, the dude is out of the cabin, singing those bendy notes and getting his swerve on. Emma who?
“I’ll be here until I’m not… My life just went by/well alright/I guess it was fine,” is the chorus that Ben Barnett screeches out on “Aluminum and Light.” The single is an upstanding representation of Blunt Mechanic’s debut album, world record (Barsuk), which runs thick with riffs and lethargic messages. This is far from Barnett’s first time hitting the record press, having previously released eight albums, six singles, and five splits under the moniker Kind of Like Spitting. But he returns with his new Seattle-based group to put forth some of his most compelling work to date.
There is a Stephen Malkmus carelessness to Barnett’s vocals. While cracking, dragging out of tune or flattening into monotone, they convey a similar message of somethingness though on the surface sound to be rambling about nothingness. The vocals on the album are consistently tracked with a home-recording rawness. Despite all of its memorable guitar tangents and feedback, this is a very lyrical album. Perhaps as the best example, Barnett takes a number without the rest of the group on “Pop Song” in which he reveals, “Every Pop song tells you one or two things/its gonna be alright or its nothing at all.” Its an undistorted window into the song writing that exists underneath the harmonized, buzzing riffs throughout the album. If there’s a lyrical hole in the album, its the jammy “Why Can’t This Be Canada,” a token fuck you to the scenesters, “hello bright and friendly hippie kids/who cast themselves as cast-off bohemians/I love you all/ya’ll fucking destroy me.” There’s plenty more tongue-in-cheek where that came from! While I side with Barnett and its worth a laugh, it loses its stay power after the first listen or two.
world record draws from 90s rock; the kind when it was still called “alternative.” Its steeped in a familiar, cheerful whatever. Musically there are enough fun and effective melodies to draw parallels to The Blue Album, but its far less geared toward mindless pop-radio sing-alongs. But the drums hit hard and the bass drives through this album, thickening the catchy, Built to Spill-influenced guitar riffs. Moments (the best ones I believe) like the breakdowns in “Proof” and “Enough” cruise like a cool and thoughtful Fugazi instrumental. “Our First Brains” is the most uplifting track on the album, which chugs along with group vocals and an open high hat chorus. This is where Blunt Mechanic sounds most unified and celebratory, joining in as bachelors with, “I won’t get married/love is just so scary/she’s my blah blah blah!/shakes hands with ha ha ha!”
If you missed out on Pavement, Built to Spill, and Dinosaur Jr. the first time around because you were too stoned to skate to the record store, this is a fresh and current chance to understand what they were getting at. The entire album is a time warp. Or if you are just looking for a soundtrack to your apathy, let Barnett join you on that disgusting couch in your basement and drop some knowledge on your blown out eardrums, “shut that creaky door/trying to prove to the world you’re sure/and you’re not sure.”
On his sophomore album, The Wild Hunt (Dead Oceans), Kristian Matsson, better known as The Tallest Man on Earth, tells a well-constructed collection of intimate and emotional acoustic tales. While this description might bring a knee-jerk recollection of derivative rubbish, these are masterfully crafted songs that tear your heart out, only to mend it anew. Having tightened up his song writing and vocal capabilities, the Swedish one man act delivers this modest yet triumphant return to his debut LP, Shallow Grave (Gravitation). Matsson first started turning heads during his support for the 2008 tour of Bon Iver, who was riding high on the success of his cathartic winter masterpiece, For Emma Forever Ago. Some of the unshackling, drowsy warmth of Justin Vernon’s song writing has seeped its way into Matsson’s repertoire of scuttling finger-picking and clever, rustic lyrics. Bring in Matsson’s unique, nasally vocals and you have one hell of a folk album.
There is, as with his debut, an unmistakable influence of Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan (circa Freewheelin’ and The Time’s They Are A-Changin’) in much of Matsson’s music. You can imagine a young Matsson huddled next to the speakers in his home in Dalarna, Sweden pouring over his parents’ dusty copy of the Smithsonian’s Anthology of American Folk Music. He channels this style on tracks like “Troubles Will Be Gone” which gracefully carries a bittersweet melody through a fervor of string plucking. He shares with his great predecessors a youthful hopefulness while acknowledging a world of darkness: “Still the day is never done but there’s a light on where you’re sleeping/so I hope somewhere that troubles will be gone.” Its a very visual album, referring to glaciers, country houses, or the blurring open plains from a car window that he has tastefully selected for the album cover. And much like early Dylan, there is a sincerity and humbleness that meets worldly wisdom in little lyrical gems. Verses come at times in gusts of rambling story telling that are riddled with little glimpses of universal contemplation such as, “and I plan to be forgotten when I’m gone.” Its this rare combination of lyrical wit, picking capability, fervent energy, and vocal uniqueness that sets Matsson apart from an endless list of mediocre imitators.
Yet, Matsson’s time with Justin Vernon has clearly extracted a common thread of catharsis. While the songs tower in their Dylan-esque earnestness, The Wild Hunt shares the same effusing power of For Emma. He shows us a rupturing, open-heart on “You’re Going Back,” in which he breaks through the gentleness of his music, “you said driver please don’t go that FUCKING way/you said just let it go away.” He hits another breaking point on “Kids on the Run,” the album’s piano ballad closer, when he lays into, “Ohhhh lets break some hearts,” as if Springsteen were playing to a mourning barn church. He peters to these cracking moments with laboriously sung vocals, often falling in the upper half of his range, which impresses upon the listener a vigorous passion that validates his songs’ honesty. Yet where Vernon reaches wallowing levels, Matsson keeps a chipper pace while melodies remain spirited. He takes his troubles in stride with a skip in his step, appreciating their gravity but allowing them to pass and moves on like a rolling train, as only the Nordic can. And through all his rasp, croaking, and acquired country twang, Matsson displays an impressive range and tonality on The Wild Hunt.
While there is a solitude to the music, much like with Vernon’s, if there is Americana country sorrow, its with the promise of a new dawn. Whether set to open strumming on capoed chords or gently finger-picked chords, The Wild Hunt feels full of wondrous possibility, even if its through a rear-view reflection that leaves behind safety and love. Seemingly simplistic in their stripped nature, these ten heart-warming folk songs are built on more lyrical, vocal and structural complexity than they lead on, which will undoubtedly allow them to age well.
The visual representation on The Bitters new album is a blood spattered, faded blue drawing of a fetus curled in an amputated body. Needless to say, brace yourself for some gritty rock & roll. East General (Mexican Summer) is the ruckus debut LP from Toronto-based duo, Aerin Fogel and Ben Cook. The band had previously released Wooden Glove, a well received EP from Captured Tracks. For those familiar with Ben Cook’s (or his moniker “Young Governor’s”) work with punk-enthusiasts, Fucked Up, the name immediately cues hardcore. The surprise in The Bitters music comes from Fogel who finds a strikingly melodic puzzle piece to fit with Cook’s half, which is typically accompanied by the guttural growlings of Fucked Up front man and occasional Fox News guest speaker, Damian Abraham (or “Pink Eyes”).
Like headlights in a blizzard, Fogel broadcasts 50’s pop-influenced melodies through the relentless crashing and crunching of heavily distorted guitars and piercing crash cymbals. The familiarity of her tunes struggle through the downpour of Cook’s post-punk instrumentation. Competing with the volume, Fogel’s vocals come predominantly as shouts that screech out of range or bend between notes, but at times also reach a cool relaxation and hang in an impressive vibrato, likening her to Debbie Harry. The Bitters first received considerable attention for their single “Warrior” later in 2009, as one of the catchiest tunes of the year. Fogel produces a similar set of cracking, pop battle cries on East General, including the infectious “Travelin’ Girl” and “Wild Beast.” Her imagery at times borders on down-right pestilent, which can be gathered from a read through of the track list: Nurtured Disease, Nails In the Coffin, No Anchor… you get the idea. Lyrics like “And then this animal/inside takes hold of me/the restless feeling of/the beast I’ve known to be” further legitimize the clamorous sound of the music. The double tracked vocals, occasionally mismatched in the timing of when they drag on the pitch, manage to even create tension in otherwise harmonious refrains.
Cook’s guitar work upholds a fairly steady level of blistering distortion throughout the album, though it can range in shades of destruction. Often there is an obvious Pixies flavor to his sound in the simplicity of his distorted riffs that rupture into fields of static and feedback on choruses, only to recede back to the original cooler riffs. He selects only the ugliest, crunchiest distortion, and only the grungiest of supplementary chorus and flange effects. While his selections tend to lean toward his roots in post-punk, there does exist some gauziness on the verses of “Impatient as Can Be.” Meanwhile, the outro track, “I’m Feeling Good” sludges along chillingly with a dark groove, which if it “feels good” at all, is due to a drug score.
East General is an interesting meeting of planes. The divergence of influences in Fogel and Cook’s contributions is clear, but they achieve a unique symbiosis. Though unsettling and conflicting, this is exactly the type of music Cook has been making throughout his career. The addition of Fogel enables his music with a rare opening of accessibility. There’s a pop sensibility to it but the modern violence of it suffocates any anachronistic label that plenty of modern lo-fi bands are boxed by. The album tops out at blinking red levels and is heedless through its duration, pulling back only to a canter on “Beggar.” The duo has self-proclaimed their sound as “cave pop,” describing the music as “murky” and “filfthy,” reaching a tone they’ve arguably called “mid-fi.” A reasonable statement, given East General is comparatively an upfront rock delivery against today’s reverb-soaked trends. For those already restless with modern lo-fi and Brian Wilson-borrowing garage rock, here begins your exit point.
Formed in 2009 by Sanae Yamada and Erik Johnson (Wooden Shjips), Moon Duo is the latest shade of San Francisco noise. Much like Johnson’s work with Wooden Shjips, Escape is full of thick, fuzzing jams. Supported by Yamada on organ and keyboard, Johnson manages to fill the remaining void of would-be Shjips’s backing with a massive presence from his guitar. The album runs for an ethereal 30 minutes, each of the songs totaling greater than 6 minutes. The duo previously released Killing Time, an EP on Sacred Bones Records in 2009, and returns with a four song LP on Woodsist.
While many of their California rock contemporaries consume themselves with garage rock and 60’s pop influenced lo-fi, Moon Duo replaces catchy hooks with piercing guitar improvisations and Yamada’s dazing rhythms. Escape’s psychedelic rock entrances with its heavy guitar jaunts. The band’s website references Silver Apples, Royal Trux, Moolah, Suicide, and Cluster as influences, adding that Moon Duo “plays space against form to create a primeval sound experience.” These early experimental electronic and synthpunk influences contribute to the band’s wanderings in the fields of noise. But there also persists a thick, jamming rock element to the music that places Jesus & Mary Chain in that mix, an influence that’s getting plenty of current dosage.
On “Stumbling 22nd St.” the minimalistic drum machine beats along with simple, repetitive beats. Representative of the album, the focus of the music leans largely instead on the deafening guitar parts with trancey synth samples laying the groundwork. While the modes explored by Johnson fashion a seriousness on Escape, there is a sensuality in the grooves throughout the album. The band best captured this concept on the video from “Ripples” on Killing Time. Similarly, Escape invites you to loose yourself in its carnality. Its a liquid experience that flows with repetitive riffs and libidinous vocal stylings likened to Jim Morrison, minus the self-righteous poeticism, or any vocal decipherability for that matter. If you thirst for a heavy rock trance, there is a lot to be experienced with this album.
When I saw Harlem earlier this year, Michael Coomer stepped away from his mic between songs to sloppily tie a bandana on as a headband, during which he spilt a full beer on his amp. When he returned to the mic after leaving the spilt beer to soak and laughing with Curtis O’Mara, whom he splits drum/guitar duties with, he demanded a new one and picked up where he left off: harassing the crowd and his tour-mates. There was a fine balance of good fun, sarcasm at the expense of the crowd, and self-loathing at the expense of the band that was unsettling to decipher. Meanwhile, they lost track of the setlist, howled in unison to each of the songs and seemed uncertain about when the set would end. The whole performance felt very impromptu.
Its the looseness of their raucous performances and stage banter, mixed with highly memorable melodies that has catapulted the Austin-based trio to their current success. The 16 recordings on their second release, Hippies (Matador Records), play like a live album with peaking vocals and crudely recorded drums. This “live” approach to the record attempts to most purely capture the spontaneity and energy of their performances. Though somehow it plays cleaner than their prior release, Free Drugs LP (Female Fantasy), for which they had received considerable local attention. Since the release of their more recent singles “Friendly Ghost” and “Gay Human Bones,” the band has reached new levels of acclaim.
There’s an infectious pop charm that accompanies the recklessness in Harlem’s music, which is the axel that keeps the wheels from flying. This can best be heard on “Be Your Baby,” which demands a go-go sideways head bob or the swim. But paid closer attention, even these seeming love ballads come with a contrasting wry smile, “If I could be your darlin’/You just gotta stop ballin’/ for all the bullshit I give you.”
Perhaps most notable is the fun-loving, anarchistic attitude throughout Hippies, revealed from the very beginning, “Someday soon you’ll be on fire/and you’ll ask me for a glass of water/and I’ll say no/you can just let that shit burn/and you’ll say please please please put me out…” When the whole band hits “Pleeeeease” in unity on the chorus, you can’t help but join the fun and let that sucker burn. In similar rebellious fashion, “Stripped Sunset” cranks and cuts like a Pogues or Clash blues track. The Pixies can be heard on tracks like “Torture Me,” which enters with a sketchy guitar solo and ensues with a raw and simple rock melody, falsetto backups included. But always the footloose humor plays: “My basketball team’s name is Gay Human Bones.”
If there is one thing to be learned from Hippies, its that this Austin trio can write a damn good song. And they make it memorable by delivering it with an insane casualness that begs intrigue, as if the band is just a big inside joke. But with tongues this sharp, try not to yell anything at the band, less you become a target for relentless ridicule.
TheBloodBeat.com is proud to debut our feature section with SF locals, The Young Prisms. If you haven’t heard these guys yet, you probably will. They’ve recently played with Best Coast, Harlem, The Sandwitches, Washed Out, Small Black, along with many others at SXSW including Real Estate, Dum Dum Girls, jj, and Woodsman. I spoke with the Bay Area shoegazers from their practice space in SOMA, where they have been working on some new songs.
TheBloodBeat: Hey guys. So tell me how you all got together? You all grew up in the Bay Area mostly? Gio: Yea, 4 out of the 5 of us. Jordan is from…
Jordan: I’m from Detroit. Well… not really Detroit
G: He’s from suburban Michigan. We all went to high school together.
TBB: Got it. And I read you all live together? G: We did until recently, while kinda. Stef, myself, Jason and Matt lived on an apartment on Mission St and we shared it with Jordan’s girlfriend for a while. So it was kinda all of us living together for a while, but we recently moved out. We had to get somewhat temporary situations because its expensive to live here and tour.
TBB: So I take it you haven’t officially quit your day jobs yet? G: We’re still doing the day jobs.
J: We’re hard working Americans.
TBB: Can you tell me a little bit about the song writing process? Is that pretty spontaneous? G: For the most part we’re usually all together. Its been kinda different every time. Every song has had a different approach or technique I guess. Some of them have been written individually. The majority of the newer stuff has been written all together though.
TBB: So its a pretty open atmosphere for you guys?
G: Yea, yea definitely.
TBB: How’d you get in with the guys at Mexican Summer? G: Well, I’m kind of a computer nerd, so I was just emailing Keith for a while. He was really into it from the start, so got the relationship going in the cyber world. And then they were super awesome, pressed the record, invited us to New York for CMJ, so it was like cool introduction to them. We kinda found them because I was really stoked off this Ariel Pink 7” they did and Matt was really into this Wooden Shjips 12” that they did. So we found them through other musicians and then decided to hit them up.
TBB: They’ve got great taste over there.
TBB: So I know that you and some other California lo-fi bands, not to lump you in with them, are getting the My Bloody Valentine comparison. But your music is a lot sunnier and groovier than that. Can you break me out of that comparison and share a little bit about what kind of sound you guys are aiming for? G: We’re definitely all really big My Bloody Valentine fans so its true to an extent. They’re definitely a big influence for us. You mind if I ask who else you think has that going?
TBB: You know who I saw who kinda has that thing going the other night with Surfer Blood is those guys Ganglians from Sacramento.
G: Oh yea, those guys are totally awesome. We were just talking about them before this.
TBB: It was a wacky show.
G: Those guys are fun to watch man… anyway what were we talking about?
TBB: Oh yea, your influences, what kinda sound you’re thinking about when you’re getting equipment. That kinda shit.
G: I don’t know. What kinda tone we’re looking for?
TBB: Yea sure.
J: We’re just trying to trip people out.
G: Yea you know… weird, fuzzy, tremolo, noisy… There’s definitely not one specific sound. Its kinda multiple sounds. And once we land on it when we’re fooling around, we’ll just get stoked and way into it.
TBB: You guys put out a 5 song EP towards the end of 2009 through Mexican Summer. And looking at your Myspace you have split release coming out on May 30? G: Yea that’s with the dudes we share the practice space with who we were just on tour with. They’re kinda that My Bloody Valentine, shoegaze thing too from San Francisco. They’re called Weekend.
TBB: Cool, so how many new songs are on the split? G: Its actually just going to be one song from our upcoming LP. Same with them. Its like a split single that this label in the U.K. is going to do. Its a really small run for kids out there to check us out.
TBB: And you have an LP coming out later this year you said?
G: Yea, hopefully sometime this summer. We’re just trying to finish it up. That’s what we’re doing in here now actually. Working on some new stuff that we’re going to try to record this week.
TBB: I saw you guys in SF earlier this year at Cafe du Nord with Harlem, Best Coast and The Sandwitches. And then you guys came back to the Rickshaw Stop with Washed Out and Small Black. Seems like you’ve been lumped in with some pretty fast growing artists, which is awesome and deserved. It must have been a really fast year for you guys, huh? G: Yea, we’ve definitely done a lot this year. Its kinda cool to be able to play those shows with bands that started relatively around the same time we had. Its been somewhat comfortable since they’ve been doing the same type of thing around the same time. Obviously all those bands have kinda blown way more than we have. But for instance the Washed Out dude, Ernest, just did his first stuff with them like a year ago, about the same time we started.
TBB: Seems like you guys are due?
G: Ha! Yea, hopefully.
TBB: And you just got back from your first time playing SXSW. How was that? G: Oh yea, we just got back from that trip this week. It was fun. There was a lot of alcohol consumed. A lot of hazy memories. But it was awesome. We got to meet a lot of cool people and meet up with a lot of our friends that we’ve made over the year. It was kinda like a weird reunion you know? You tour and meet all these awesome bands. And then they’d all come through here and we’d play together in San Francisco. So it was great to hang out with them all again there.
TBB: Totally. I was thinking that lineup looked like a tour reunion for you guys.
TBB: Even back here, it seems the SF music scene is in a really good place these days. It must be a very cool thing to be a part of. G: Oh yea, we were just talking about that a few days ago. How there’s all this attention back on California and San Francisco. Its cool that we’re getting in with these awesome bands and labels, and to be part of a San Francisco scene that is just really growing. Like when we got hooked up with Mexican Summer, they were growing really fast too.
TBB: So as far as touring goes, sounds like in the near term you’re just working to get the LP out? G: Yea, for the next couple months we’re really just locking down on it. But then we’ll do some traveling later this summer.
TBB: Do you know who that’ll be with at this point?
G: Nah, we have some ideas but nothing solid yet.
TBB: Well if you could tour with anyone, who would it be?
G: Ha! That’s kind of an awkward question to answer… Stef says Pure Ecstacy. Matt says Ganglians. I’d liked to tour with our friends in Dominant Legs. We’ve been listening to their stuff a lot and they’re good friends of ours. They were good friends of ours when we were on Mission Street.
TBB: Oh yea, they’ve had a pretty good year too.
TBB: Well I don’t want to take up any more of your practice time. Anything else I haven’t asked you about that you’d like to add? Jason: Grip it, rip it and shred hard.
TBB: Ha! Good advice. Thanks again guys. I’ll catch you at Hemlock for the split.
Friday night at Bottom of the Hill was a Fender tube amp convention, opening with Ganglians (Woodsist) from Sacramento. As fine representatives of the California psychedelic lo-fi gaining traction these days, the lyrics were indecipherable, the toms on the drum kit got a lot of attention, a Fender Jazzmaster was part of the arrangement, and reverb was set to 10. The reverb was so high that at one point lead singer, Ryan Grubbs, asked the sound board for more and couldn’t help but laugh to himself. Grubbs gave some torturous synth solos, often tapping the delay pedal sitting atop the keys stand with his hand and then banging at the board limply and haphazardly. The performance was loosely styled, which the long hair, saggy jeans, grizzly beards, and damaged guitars easily gave away. The quartet was a bright entry to the show, melodic and twisted in their own way, like an out of focus and twisted Beach Boys with the occasional heavy hitting breakdown.
Enter Turbo Fruits (Fat Possum Records). Reverb and bizarre: down. Volume, pace, and mustache: way up. The Nashville trio came in hard, chugging through tight rock songs like Black Sabbath. Everything about the band was louder and edgier. In fact, lead singer, Jonas Stein (formerly of Be Your Own Pet), mentioned that one of their microphones was stolen at their concert in Oakland the prior the night, mid set. Now that’s edgy! Stein gave his Danelectro some screaming solos, the bass lead straight ahead, and the drumming was explosive. There were elements of straight punk rock in the music, channeling Ramones-like melodies. But the sound was distinctly heavier. One you might hear from a band like Fu Manchu. By the end of the set, after Stein had jumped into the crowd for one last solo and subsequently headlong into the drum set to hit his last chord, he was tomato red, having expending the last of his energy. While drummer, Matt Hearn, didn’t seem too pleased with this result, the crowd clearly enjoyed their full throttle performance.
The headliner, Surfer Blood (Kanine Records), provided another dramatic change in facial hair. The young and predominantly baby faced boys from West Palm Beach, Florida, made their way onto the stage in hooded sweatshirts for the cool SF evening. While they weren’t the strangest or most theatrical, the quintet played what couldn’t be denied as the catchiest, most memorable melodies of the night. The performance was largely true to the album, though a little grittier and spitting at moments. The most noticeable distinction from the album was lead guitarist Tom Fekete, breaking his timid presence to unleash some Ira Kaplan-influenced guitar solos, which ranged from teeth picking, drum stick sliding to an array of pedal effects, thrashing around throughout. The display nearly sent his microphone launching into the crowd, which kept the remainder of the performance interesting for everybody front stage. The band encored with a new song, “I’m Not Ready,” which was cooler and more reflective than their spirited debut tracks. A promising future to close a fine night at Bottom of the Hill.
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