Posts Tagged ‘fun’
CD Review: Maldroid’s Oakland Lad’s Club
April 11th, 2008 | 
Author: By Julia Cooper
Maldroid’s history would make any new band jealous: the quick courting by music industry honchos; the backing of local radio; the appearance on Good Morning America — all surfaced without a single recording or live show to speak of. Winning a YouTube music video contest in 2006 propelled the Oakland seven-piece into the national spotlight, leaving behind a trail of listeners eager to see just what these guys are made of.
With the April 15 unveiling of their debut full-length just around the corner, the Oakland Lad’s Club EP, released in September, offers a brief two-song, two-remix appetizer of pop anthems fit for rock airwaves. On “You Wanna Touch It,” Maldroid transforms into sexed-up robots, fusing a soaring Bon Jovi chorus (“Turn off the lights and take off your clothes/ I’ll show you mine if you show me yours”) with spaceship synth sounds and a thick ‘80s hair metal thump of guitars and drums. “Heck No! (I’ll Never Listen to Techno)” continues the band’s let’s-party spirit with a page taken from Devo’s deviant new-wave songbook in, oddly, a Radio Disney-friendly burst of bouncy keyboard blips.
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The Dont’s
MySpace (listen to “Blah Blah Blah,” “Worldview”)
Official site
Hometown: San Francisco
Next local show: 2/7, Bottom of the Hill
Upcoming release: Inner El Camino, 2007
San Francisco quartet the Dont’s are on the verge of releasing the biggest album of their young career. Must be an exciting feeling. The band is barely four years old, and Inner El Camino, due January 30, is a big step forward from its 2005 debut Misc Radio Leakage. Both have been self-released, but this one streamlines and elaborates upon the experimentalism of the first while proving that the Dont’s ability to distill quirky, old-school indie rock was no fluke. Read the rest of this entry »
Still Flyin’
MySpace (listen to “Coupla Smokies,” “Mystery Tent”)
Official site
Hometown: San Francisco
Next local show: 2/18, The Makeout Room
Recent release: Time Wrinkle, 2006
Who said young white dudes and dudettes from San Francisco can’t play real reggae? It was you, wasn’t it? Still Flyin’ aren’t rastas (nor do they pose to be), and their style is more indie-rock-meets-rocksteady-and-dub than straight-up roots, but it’s reggae nonetheless. And boy do they jam it out. So shut it!