I knew the Velvet Teen rocked, but I didn’t know the Velvet Teen ROCKED!!!! In fact, they rocked so hard during their show at the Rickshaw Stop that I stayed and missed the last BART home, and I wasn’t even angry. I was humming the tune to “Radiapathy” all the way home on the transbay bus.

There’s something special about the Velvet Teen that’s hard to put your finger on. There’s drummer Casey Deitz’s whirlwind of carefully complex beats, singer Judah Nagler’s baroque-style vocals hitting even the highest of notes, and guitarist Matthew Izen convulsing along with strangely melodic chord progressions from outer space. All three come together to form a triad of awesomeness with far too much energy to contain itself.

The minute Deitz’s glasses came off from wailing too hard on the drums in the second song of the set, I knew I was in for a ride. The band held nothing back, and all the intensity bottled up in Cum Laude, the band’s previous release, was brought with full force live. The entire place was moving in some way, and not even the hippest of the hipsters were able to deny the force. Without even blinking, I would much rather miss the last BART again then miss these guys the next time they come to town.

By Dasha Bulatov

Despite hailing from a suburban outlier, Walnut Creek-based Mister Loveless possesses a sound that is casually and darkly urban. Initially established by morose and reluctantly melodic guitars, the vibe is heightened by guitarist/singer Rob Miller’s Interpol-ish vocals and the sharp outfits that the band often wears onstage. Yes, the undeniable Interpol resemblance had to be mentioned immediately. Just listen, you’ll hear it. More derivative in earlier recordings, their sound has since grown and expanded its range. The tracks on Mister Loveless’ debut full-length album, My Share of Losing, are catchy and dynamic, exhibiting a maturity that previous releases seemed to lack.

Either way, it is heartless to dismiss Mister Loveless on the principle of imitation. Like all bands, even those who vehemently deny it, Mister Loveless falls into a number of closely related genres: post-punk, new wave, indie, and plain old rock ‘n’ roll. If you’re into those styles, or just willing to give them a chance, there is a high probability that Mister Loveless will become a regular on your playlists.

In September of 2006, after the first album had been recorded, principle songwriters Rob and Charlie Koliha (bass) announced a separation from their drummer, which resulted in a nine-month hiatus. During this time, two new members — Sean Gaffney on guitar and Rachael Travers on drums — were added. Work on a second full-length was planned to follow the band’s last show of 2007 on October 27th. However, singer Rob suffered a serious head injury after leaping off the stage and hitting a pipe. Despite postponing the album, the incident seemed to revitalize the band and unify its fans. Now the band is back, playing gigs all over the Bay. And, if they continue to exhibit the same energy (in a safe way, we hope), then the shows are definitely worth attending.

MORE REASONS TO LOVE MISTER LOVELESS:
-Consistently cool and mellow indie rock. You really can’t go wrong with that.
-Members don equally rad threads that seem to pay homage to the mod era (a refreshing break from American Apparel).
-They were so kind as to release the tracklist for their upcoming EP to us: 1) “Hardly Young;” 2) “Good Story;” 3) “Just Thoughts;” and 4) “It’s Missing.”
-Hear them on the radio! Mister Loveless performed live on 90.1 KZSU and has appeared as a guest DJ on Live 105.

By Tyler Corelitz

It seems like only months ago that I first heard about San Francisco duo the Dodos. I felt cool for listening to what I thought was an extremely awesome, but relatively obscure band, that just happened to be playing in my college’s cafeteria. Now, after a year on the road, these Bay Area starlets are gaining national attention on the eve of their sophomore full length release, Visiter, which comes out March 18th on Frenchkiss Records.

The Dodos’ passion for their music is undeniable by the amount of energy they put off in their live shows, which the band has tapped as a major influence for Visiter. Live, it can be hard to tell who is driving who, as the airy vocals and finger-picked guitar of Meric Long mesh with the hyper-rhythmic drumming of Logan Kroeber. Maybe Animal Collective covering Mississippi John Hurt or The Velvet Underground with chops? This formula is showcased on their single “Fools,” as the song alternates between pulsing rim clicks, catchy guitar riffs, and undeniable vocal hooks; all of which can and will be independently stuck in the listener’s head.

As an album, Visiter is truly a nod to the talent of Kroeber, who bills himself as an experimental percussionist. While the experimental nomenclature — for a drummer — can lend itself to self indulgent beats and sounds, Kroeber shows maturity in his ability to play for the song. For the Dodos, this often means creating moments of immense space and tension, by simply alternating accents or textures to highlight Long’s guitar and vocals. This attention to detail can be heard at the end of “Fools,” as Long begins chanting “I’ve been, I’ve been silent,” the listener realizes that the drums have suddenly stopped, only to return in a beautiful pop build that climaxes over Long’s continued chanting.

Through a twist of fate I ran into the Dodos as they were about to film for super-hip French video blog La Blogoteque. As my friends and I followed them through the relatively deserted streets of San Francisco, clapping and singing into a BART station, I realized that I was standing very near to Long; not out of lust or for lack of hearing, but because the Dodos have managed to make music worth getting close to.

Halou’s roots extend back fifteen years to a chance meeting between future husband and wife Ryan (songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist) and Rebecca (vocalist) in a Santa Cruz record store owned by Ryan’s father. The Cosebooms made music making a priority, and soon headed up to San Francisco to develop what we now know as Halou: a down-tempo/electronica trio dubbed “one the of the best bands in America” by Seattle tastemaker KEXP and “one of the most intriguing groups on the modern musical landscape” by the All Music Guide.

Halou’s third record — responsible for the above praise — was released on Vertebrae Records last May, after a five-year gap. Its predecessor, 2001’s Wiser, marked the introduction of Halou’s third member: a skilled drummer and studio whiz known simply as Count. Count’s pedigree is at least on par with the superlatives lavished upon Halou over the years: he has engineered and mixed in the studio for New Order, Blackalicious, Deep Blue Something, Run-D.M.C., No Doubt, Lyrics Born, the Velvet Underground’s John Cale, and more recently, DJ Shadow for the majority of last year’s The Outsider.

Have we earned your attention yet? Despite Halou’s winning formula and adept execution, the group maintains a low profile on the local scene. What a shame that a group of this caliber is resting virtually unnoticed in our backyard while the rest of the world swoons! You’ve always known the Bay Area harbors some of the best music in the world; here’s a chance to put your ears where your mouth is. Check out their MySpace tracks. If you don’t like ‘em, fine. But if you do, let it serve as a reminder to never stop rifling through the Bay’s nascent pockets of musical genius.

HALOU, HALOU:
-Rebecca and Ryan have also recorded under the names R/R Coseboom and Invisible Ballet, most notably during the span between Halou’s second and third records.
-Halou’s video for “Everything is OK,” from the new album, was featured on Good Morning America under coverage of the very same YouTube Underground contest last fall that catapulted Oakland-based grand prize winner Maldroid to national recognition before it had played a show or released a single song for sale.
-Keeping with the eye-candy theme, Halou performed an audio-visual showcase two nights ago at Mighty in SF as part of the San Francisco International Film Festival.

DOWNLOAD CENTER:

Download “Stonefruit” (mp3)
from “Wholeness & Separation”
by Halou
Vertebrae

Buy at iTunes Music Store
Buy at eMusic
Stream from Rhapsody
More On This Album

“Like an open-mouthed kiss from God” is how a friend once described the experience of seeing From Monument to Masses live. Not having ever made out with God, it’s hard for us corroborate that statement. But it’s even harder to dismiss it; From Monument to Masses are unequivocally incredibly fucking awesome.

The backbone of FMTM’s musical style is a compromise between the tranquil beauty of instrumental post-rock and the rhythmic energy of post-punk. This underpinning sound is composed of layered guitar lines (sometimes as many as five at once), relentlessly shifting drums, and warm, lively bass. Branching from here are excursions into dub, hardcore, world, and electronic. The variety never exists for variety’s sake, but rather to serve the purpose of the song. At the beginning of “Sparpshooter,” for example (the first song on the band’s breakthrough, and to date only, full-length, The Impossible Leap in 100 Simple Steps), the trio downshifts from brash, chugging post-hardcore to intricate, hypnotic instrumental rock in order to represent the shock and solemnity of the events of 9/11.

This leads to the other primary element of From Monument to Masses: political and social awareness. All three members — Matthew Solberg (guitar), Sergio Robledo-Maderazo (bass, synth, samples), and Francis Chuong (drums, synth, programming) — are passionate about and actively involved in political activism and social change on various fronts. The band’s name reveals its central philosophy, which played as much of a role as music in bringing the members together in the first place: a conviction that power must be transfered away from figureheads and toward the people. It’s a revolutionary message that, despite the band’s success, Matt, Sergio, and Francis refuse to back away from.

This also explains the motivation behind the band’s decision to weave sound bytes of a political and social nature — culled from a wide variety of sources including news broadcasts, the movie Dr. Strangelove, and speeches by Martin Luther King, Jr., George Bush, and Noam Chomsky — into almost every one of its songs. The samples are not scattershot, but grouped and ordered thematically within and between songs. This approach cements the relationship between From Monument to Masses’ progressive politics and progressive music.

But the real test, the real proof of this band’s success, is that it makes some of the most beautiful and powerful music you will ever hear.

AND WE’RE NOT KIDDING ABOUT THAT
-The group came together in 2001 in Oakland, signing with Los Angeles’ Dim Mak Records shortly thereafter — right around the time it played its first official gig.
-FMTM’s debut release came in 2002, a five-track album on Dim Mak that’s now out of print.
-Its third and latest release was called Schools of Thought Contend, a collaboration in which the band invited other artists to remix a number of its songs. Participants include Thunderbirds Are Now!, Loquat, and Amundsen. The 15-track CD also features two new FMTM songs.
-In October of 2006, drummer Francis Chuong moved to New York City, but the band avowed to continue working as a bicoastal project. A new record and extensive touring are promised in late 2007.

Golden Birds are still the best Bay Area indie rock band no one’s heard of. And the group’s 2005 LP Carrier is one of the best local CDs we’ve heard in years. You can quote us on that. Although the band has kept a low profile through infrequent shows and limited recordings, especially over the past year or so, what it has produced is pure gold — rhythmic, melodic, entrancing gold. The core of the group — singer/guitarist Webster McBride and bassist Karl Tupper — actually formed as Carrier in 2003, changing to Golden Birds upon discovering another indie rock group of the same name in Colorado.

McBride did something last summer that earned the band its biggest bit of press. He completed a road trip across the country where he played an acoustic set on the capitol building grounds of all 50 states, plus Washington, D.C., in 51 days. That means one show a day, for 51 straight days, with all the driving miles in between. He even flew to Juneau, Alaska, and Honolulu, Hawaii, while a friend drove his minivan to the next state on the route. And he did it all without once paying for lodging. Absolutely crazy, if you ask us, but he pulled it off swimmingly.

The band is currently working on a new EP (possibly called Softwar) with producer (and ex-band member) Hrishikesh Hirway, who now plays as The One AM Radio. McBride and Karl Tupper are joined here by Leyna Noel, Matt Brown, and Will Holtz. This lineup is scattered across the Bay Area and the state, but — and this is not a knock at Tupper’s excellent contributions on bass — its heart resides at Fort Oregon, McBride’s house in Berkeley (if you live around here, try driving by it sometime…).

FLY LIKE AN EAGLE:
-In April 2006, Golden Birds flew to Chicago to play the inaugural Mission Creek Music Festival Midwest (an offshoot of the highly successful Mission Creek Music and Arts Festival, which was founded ten years ago in San Francisco). This coming March 30, the band will travel to Iowa City, Iowa, to play year two.
-New Golden Birds member Leyna Noel is a longtime friend of the band. The 25-year-old released her first solo album in 2004 and has a new one coming soon called From the Mouth of the Jar.
-Drummer Matt Brown also plays in the LA-based band Foot Foot, for which his brother Josh sings and plays guitar.

Hometown: San Francisco
Next local show: 10/19, 12 Galaxies
Upcoming release: Trumpery Metier, 2006

[This post originally published 8/22/06.]

Ahhh…beautiful. Instrumental prog-rock. Crime in Choir play it as well as anyone you’re likely to hear — anywhere. NASCENT got its hands on the band’s upcoming 10/31 release, and it’s a doozy: a cinematic, technical, aggressive, utterly imaginative and flawlessly performed doozy. Trumpery Metier is the band’s third full-length in six years and first with Gold Standard Laboratories.

On the surface, Crime in Choir may seem like just one in a gang of instrumental prog/post-rock groups in San Francisco. The passive observer may struggle to avoid pat comparisons to local standouts like Continental, the Ebb and Flow, the Rum Diary, and Audio Out Send. But that’s a big mistake. The new album, which improves upon an already strong formula, contains not a dull moment — a certain accomplishment in the genre, achieved through creativity that knows no limits. Drawing heavily on math-rock and avant-garde jazz, Crime in Choir deftly violate the already broad boundaries of instrumental prog- and post-rock. And they do it with an energy that is instantly contagious. Grand, baroque, and utterly pretentious: we fuckin’ love it.

INCESTUOUS A-LIST LINE-UP:
-Famed Hella drummer Zach Hill co-founded and just recently departed from Crime in Choir.
-New drummer Tim Soete also plays in the equally rad Fucking Champs.
-Pianist/keyboardist Kenny Hopper, the other CiC co-founder, also co-founded At The Drive-In.
-CiC Guitarist Jarrett Wrenn was another founding member of At The Drive-In.
-Fucking Champs guitarist and local studio maven Tim Green produced Trumpery Metier.

Hometown: Oakland
Next local show: 11/28, The Stork Club
Recent release: The Sleepyboy Moe Tapes, 2006

When it comes to homegrown East Bay music, Sleepyboy Moe is the real deal. Shaun Wargowsky, the man behind the name, moved to Oakland in 2005 and immediately became active in the local scene. The singer/bassist/guitarist began performing solo and with drummer Lindsay Cooper (of nicely named Oakland band Espionage a Trios) at small venues including Epic Arts in Berkeley. He recorded his debut CD, The Sleepyboy Moe Tapes, entirely in analog in Oakland and Berkeley. And his CD release party will take place Tuesday at The Stork Club in Oakland.

As for the sound? It’s been called sludge-folk, but that doesn’t begin to convey the hiss, fuzz, and noise captured in songs like “Nice Try, Nice Guy.” Most of the album sounds like a third-generation copy of a lo-fi cassette tape. Wargowsky’s droning (yet enchanting) rhythms and possessed (almost feminine) vocals compliment the recording perfectly (or maybe it’s the other way around), making this release more art than cheap reproduction of a live performance. You can find it at Aquarius Records in San Francisco (22nd and Valencia) and Amoeba Records in Berkeley (Telegraph and Haste), as well as online at CDBaby.com and iTunes.

CLEVELAND ROCKS:
-Before moving to Oakland, Wargowsky sang and played keyboards, bass, and guitar in a number of groups in the Akron/Kent/Cleveland area (Ohio, of course), where he attended school at Kent State University.
-These groups include the Stool Creak Circus (alternative rock), the Flavor Cat Hairparticles (ska, punk, Latin), and the Kent State African Ensemble (gospel choir).

Hometown: Santa Rosa
Next local show: 11/10, Bimbo’s 365
Recent release: Cum Laude, 2006

Maybe you’ve heard of the Velvet Teen. On paper, it’s a small and independent band. But its name certainly gets around. Beyond obvious talent, it’s hard to say why. Coulda been the opening night performance at Noise Pop in 2002 that did it. Or maybe the collaboration with Death Cab for Cutie’s Chris Walla on VT’s debut full-length, 2002’s Out of the Fierce Parade. Or possibly just the band’s refusal to sit still stylistically; it’s moved from baroque pop to elegant IDM to messy rock to something that encompasses all three.

The Velvet Teen’s latest, Cum Laude, released this past July, falls squarely into the latter category. It’s the group’s greatest statement thus far, fearlessly toying with math rock and jazz structures as well as the aforementioned genres. The Velvet Teen seem hard-wired to innovate, and the replacement of original drummer Logan Whitehurst, who’s dealing with health issues, by Casey Deitz (of Chico group the Americas) seems only to reinforce that. His carefully spastic drumming pushes the group into almost experimental territory. Yet the Velvet Teen never loses its sense of songcraft, often burying emotional melodies beneath layers of raw noise much like the Promise Ring or early Thursday.

Cum Laude is a fearless effort that won’t make the band an instant success but should contribute significantly to the mysterious buzz surrounding its name. It’ll also certainly be a late-year addition to many best-of-2006 lists.

PRAY FOR MOJO:
-Velvet Teen founding member and local music vet Logan Whitehurst had to leave the band after being diagnosed with a brain tumor. Keep him in your thoughts.
-The new lineup includes founding member Judah Nagler (vocals/keyboard/guitar), Josh Staples (bass/vocals), and Deitz (drums/vocals).
-Cum Laude is the group’s third full-length, all of which have been with Portland-based indie Slowdance Records. Maybe this’ll be enough to land the group on a bigger label.

Ready for the heavy shit? Totimoshi can bear all manner of sludgy, stoney weight upon you. This despite having only three members and not being the slightest bit Japanese. Maybe the title of the new record (“thief” in Spanish) is a better indicator. Japanese, Latino, or Martian; Totimoshi is for real. The band’s been hand-picked to open for the Melvins and Helmet, godfathers of modern heavy. With nine years and four albums to its name, it’s poised to — any day now — become the next buzz band in the new hipster/indie metal scene led by groups like Mastodon, the Sword, and Isis. To be fair, Totimoshi are much closer stylistically to those indefatigable Melvins, who copped Black Sabbath’s slow chug 20 years ago and never looked back. If there’s any young band ready to introduce that sound to new ears, it’s this one.

Ladrón, which was just released Oct. 24 on Crucial Blast Records, begs to cranked. New drummer Luke Herbst pummels his kit when he plays, but is never overzealous. Lead guitarist Tony Aguilar (who also sings, in a voice that’s sometimes a little more overtly metal than it needs to be) delivers the all-important sludge factor, metal riffage, and psychedelic solos (and even some acoustic in “These Meanings”). Bassist Meg Castellanos keeps the low end heavy and full and steps into the spotlight when called for. Despite having played together as Totimoshi since 1997, Aguilar and Castellanos keep their interplay raw and loose; a little more grooming and tightening would improve their sound and send more fans calling. In the meantime, it’s enough to keep current fans’ heads banging. As well we all know, that’s the peak concern. Lose that and you got nothing.

TOTAL MOSHING:
-A few more heavy bands Totimoshi may call to mind: Clutch, Blue Cheer, High on Fire, Nirvana, Mudhoney.
-Ladrón was produced by Helmet’s Page Hamilton.
-The group is currently on tour on the East Coast. On Nov. 2, for the annual CMJ Festival, they play the Knitting Factory in NYC with a revived Blue Cheer. In December, they head to the UK for a few dates.