Simple. Support your neighborhood and your neighborhood will support you.
DJ Nylon’s partial Contribution to Pirate Cat Radio this Month in no particular order:
Tomihira – Big clean and slightly overdriven guitars, lots and lots of melody, laid back vocals and even more driving beats and guitars. Indicative of a certain subsection of the San Francisco, Bay Area the Indie pop scene. These are children of the 80s who listened to alternative bands from that era and are reinterpreting the music they love. Imagine if the Cure rocked hard.
Elephone – See Tomihira
Terese Taylor – She catagorizes her music as “Folk”, but don’t expect to hear strumming on an acoustic guitar and mandolins and violins all day long. This body of work is a fuzzed out rocking jaunt into the backyards and back woods that is at times dark and beautiful. Terese’s voice can be delicate enought to convey loss, longing and hurt, but never do you get the sense that it overwhelms. In fact these songs are a testiment to someone who survived.
Koozito – One of my Favorite CDs to come out in 2004. I found myself listening all the way through. This is what Album Oriented Rock was all about. Letting the artists creative a body of work that not only gave you some solid songs but also too you to places you never thought you wanted to go. Some songs are free form, almost improvised on the spot, yet other’s like Hindsight is a fused with melody and drips with sustained angst.
Black Bird Stitches – Another standout CD that came out in 2004. This is what attracts people to Heavy Metal. The “darkness” of it all. But make no mistake, this is not a Metal album. Black Bird Stitches is a one woman jaugernautt with a voice that can peel paint and can wail as much as it can whisper. Percussive, melodic, aggressive, detuned and exotic. At once the voice stands out, then the guitars, all acoustic and sometimes even service as percussion. Castanets, hand drums and other found sounds sometime act as rythmn section.
Andalusia – Shoegazing is alive and well in the Bay Area. Big, lush guitars and slow grooves that swell and swoon while a female singer wails.
Astral – Part of the Shoegazer revolution, but very reminiscent of Echo and the Bunnymen, but with just guitar bass and drums. See also Tomihira and Elephone.
J. Neo Marvin and the Content Providers – What happens when a Punk grows up, grows old and chronicles the lives of the people and the world around him? J. Neo Marvin. This is music that tells stories good and bad. Not folky at all but matter of fact. Gone are the cranked up amps, the wailing drums and wall of angst ridden youth. What is left is a lifetime of living, sometimes out living your friends, but optimism abounds.
The Harbours – More along the Indie pop side but also, see Tomihira, Elephone and Astral.
Petracovich (2 CDs) – Music for a quiet rainy day. Delicate vocals and piano with fleshed out orchestration. Each song is never too much or too little. Electronic as much as it is acoustic.
Lisa Dewey And the Lotus Life – The high priestess of the Bay Area Shoegazer movement. A cross between Everything But the Girl and Cocteau Twins, but rocking like neither of those bands ever did. See Tomihira, Elephone, Astral, The Harbours.
Marc Moreland – What happens when a Punk grows old but does not grow up? Marc Moreland has a way to go but his songs are still bitter. See J. Neo Marvin.
Bethany Curve – Could I please have more echo in my delay. As if to say, make no mistake, we are a Shoegazer band and that is that, Bethany Curve’s CD sounds like the speakers, no matter where you place them, are down the street and around the corner. Lush, indecipherable. If they were confessing to something you wouldn’t know what it was. Beautiful and lush, all the same. See, Astral, Andalusia, Lisa Dewey.
Angst Mute Envy – Part of the Shoegazer movement with one exception. They are angry and so is the music. Up front and not at all trying to be lush or beautiful. It it happens great, but don’t count on it.
Scrabbel – Indie pop at it’s best. See also The Harbours, Tomihira.
Ellis Eddy O’Farrel/Michael Mathias – Quirky and fun but unlike say Frank Zappa, accessible.
Ultralash – Acoustic, urban, electronic Blues.
