Posts Tagged ‘rock’
Single Review: Geographer’s “Can’t You Wait”/”Rushing In, Rushing Out”
July 29th, 2008 | 
Author: By Glenn Jackson
The amount of indie rock groups in the Bay Area music scene can be overwhelming at times. For some reason there is an unbelievable amount of 20- and 30-somethings who somehow find their way to starting an indie rock band. With this in mind, I swallowed my prejudices towards the genre and gave Geographer an honest chance. Fortunately for me, Geographer is great.
Geographer delivers two wonderfully indie songs with a level of musicianship that is scarcely found in the Bay Area indie rock scene. The first track, “Can’t You Wait,” begins with a four-on-the-floor kick pattern and an unbelievably catchy guitar melody. Shortly into the song come the lyrics. A sweet, full voice begins to tell a story with an engaging personal tone. The track builds, adding cello, keys, and layers of vocals which lead up to an incredibly catchy synth line/disco beat chorus. In indie fashion the song builds up and down on this same theme returning at the end for one last disco beat chorus. “Rushing In, Rushing Out”, the second track on the single, slows down the tempo slightly but continues on the same general path laid out by the first song. A sweet synth melody leads you through another personal and powerful vocal, filled out nicely by a steady and lush cello performance.
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CD Review: The Bad Hand’s This Is No Time for Modesty
By Julia Cooper
San Francisco experimental trio the Bad Hand seems like the kind of group that’ll try anything once. On This Is No Time for Modesty, the band’s staple rock instrumental base of guitar, Rhodes piano, and drums gets invaded by a gaggle of other genres and sounds, resulting in an ambitious mix of kitchen-sink sonic collages with varying degrees of success.
The band certainly offers enough surprises to satisfy anyone bored with the verse-chorus-verse same-old same-old, as the musicians follow a slew of paths within the album and on the songs themselves. Just when you begin to brace yourself for an all-instrumental record, “Hell Bent” drops in soft, girly vocals; or dirgy grunge falls into good ol’ Southern blues on “Then He Tried to Kiss Me”; or an interlude of fart-like kazoo sounds (“Short Door”) creeps into the batch.
Montage
MySpace (listen to “Daydream,” “Get at Me”)
Official site
Hometown: San Jose
Next local show: None planned
Recent release: The M Album, 2008
By Stamati Horiates
Born and raised in the South Bay, Montage is a rising young artist you’d better get to know soon. Currently in the midst of recording his second album, The O Album, Montage has performed in clubs throughout the Bay Area as well as at the ESPN Summer X-Games, and has made an appearance on The World Famous Wake up Show with Sway and Tech. He’s also in the process of shooting a music video for the song “Get at Me.” There’s no question this rapper’s journey has taken flight. But how has he come this far? If you ask him, he will tell you straight up: “Persistence.”
CD Review: Battlehooch's Unabashed Nonsense
By Tyler Corelitz
Battlehooch’s debut EP OOF OWF has already garnered much-deserved respect within the Bay Area and beyond. It is a self-made wonder-work of psychedelic rock, funk, and unabashed nonsense. All four of the disc’s creations are heavily orchestrated movements featuring all manner of percussion, guitars, and driving bass, with some classy Zappa-inspired horns popping up whenever necessary. Vocals are present but one gets the feeling that the listener is less expected to sing along than they are to dance.