San Francisco Music Blog

Yo, Lyrics Born is so funky that he wears a Pamper. That's just one of the boasts he drops on his latest single, "Oh Baby," where the "funkiest man in new media today" mixes 2 Live Crew with more outrageous claims, all from our own Japanese cat from outer space.

LB broadcasts his raps from his colorful new custom-made online radio player, LBFM (cooler than any boom box we've ever owned) where folks can stream his new songs, remixes and other sonic odds 'n' ends. It's kinda like Pandora for serious LB fanatics.

​I've been taking a lot of road trips this fall--drives out to the ocean, up to the Russian River, basically taking advantage of the sun while we have it and my car while it still has all four wheels. The one constant with all these local treks is having the right soundtrack. And recently that's meant the new self-titled release by Real Estate.

The album, out today on Woodsist, is a beautiful batch of lackadaisical pop. There's an undercurrent of the weird folk thing going on here, with the emphasis on organic percussion, psychedelic melodies, and vocals that hover lightly above the instruments.

The New Jersey band shares a sonic--and label--connection with Woods, whose laid back, ebullient pop has a similarly loose back porch jam vibe. But there's also a sweet dreamy glaze to Real Estate's music, a stoned Yo La Tengo vibe that counters their crunchier bits perfectly.

My favorite song on Real Estate is "Beach Comber", a tune that's sunny and melancholy at once, perfect really for those drives through the trees where that vacation freedom is fleeting and intoxicating all at once. One other thing to note about the new record: Real Estate is up for album art of the year in my book for this one. What the hell is that thing, anyway?

Real Estate comes to the Hemlock on Friday, Nov. 20.

 

​Mason Bates is probably the only DJ who gets props from both the downtown dance community and ritzy classical society. The San Franciscan has an impressive resume fit for both worlds.

He's performed with the San Francisco Symphony and is the current composer-in-residence for the California Symphony (he'll soon be the composer-in-residence for the Chicago Symphony next). But he's also hit the decks with San Francisco DJs in SOMA clubs. In the last couple years he's merged classical and beat culture at Mezzanine and 111 Minna, spreading his Mercury Soul vision across the city.

Mercury Soul hits 111 Minna tonight, Nov. 13, with Mason blending jazzy downtempo with classical music from 20 different musicians (performing live). It's a sonic style cocktail of unusually complimentary tastes, and it goes down at happy hour (5-9 p.m.). Get better acquainted with this high- and low-brow'r below.

Name: Masonic (aka Mason Bates)

Club night(s): The Mercury Lounge at 111 Minna

Style(s) of music you spin: Groovy downtempo & classical music

So what's your story, in 100 words or less? Symphonic composer by day, DJ by night, I found my schizophrenic musical state begging for resolution when I moved to SF in 2001. So I began incorporating live electromica into my orchestral works, as well as adding classical musicians to my DJ sets.

How did you start merging electronic and classical music? A piece called "Omnivorours Furniture," commissioned by the LA Philharmonic, was my first attempt at bringing these two worlds together. The piece exists at the interaction of morphing electronica beats and symphonic textures, a kind of head-banger's portal into the concert hall. But I soon found that the ambient possibilities of electronica offered musical opportunities equally powerful as beats.

What's something the two styles have in common that you wouldn't expect? Despite the gulf between the spaces where these musics exist - concert hall vs club - the ears of both audiences are well-primed for experiencing the other. Electronica's absence of a vocal line requires the music to bump-up other elements to maintain musical interest - intricate rhythms, beautiful sonorities, gems of harmony. This makes electronica heads pretty tolerant of the intense listening experience of classical music.

Matt Reamer

​Mission punks Dead to Me have a new album out on local label Fat Wreck. Today marks the release of African Elephants, the six-year-old band's first record without original guitarist Jack. The single-named ax slinger left the fold to start a family, and Dead to Me is now a trio, comprising the other other first-name-basis dudes Chicken (bass/vocals), Ian (drums) and Nathan (guitar).

Check out a very Clash-inspired, upbeat single off African Elephants, "A Day Without a War." The song uses a pop punk chorus, gruff vocals, and a warning that we'll "never be safe again" so long as the U.S. is engaged in conflicts, calling on the punk community to use its voice to demand an end to war.

Dead to Me's CD release is this Friday, Nov. 13 at Thee Parkside with Hüsker Dü's Grant Hart.

​Local producer/remixer/dancefloor commander Wallpaper. posted a new upbeat number this week. Main man Eric Frederic mashed a little Mariah Carey ("Emotions") into Fools Gold's "Surprise Hotel."

Frederic told Stereogum (which posted the track) that the song is part of a new  "SiSTRS From Different MiSTRS" series. He explained that this track was specifically inspired by the fact that the original songs matched in key--and in exhuberance. Emotional indeed.

​You don't know what you got til it's gone. And if you're a commuter, that mantra holds doubly true for the Bay Bridge. Last week's bridge shutdown caused massive migraines (and prevented us from hitting the Alameda Flea Market!). But difficult times can produce great art.

Local funk/jazz/soul aficionado Kev Choice (who leads the Kev Choice Ensemble) hit the studio to bang out a killer homage, a little anthem called "The Bridge." The tune starts humorously--with a sample of "Bridge Over Troubled Waters." Choice adopts a somber tone and announces, "after being down for nearly a week, the bridge finally opened up yesterday..we couldn't party in The City but we had a good time in The Town, right?"

From there "The Bridge" becomes a love song, with Choice listing off all his good memories with the bridge and all the good things it's brought to his life. "We can't have the bridge falling down," he concludes in the chorus, "This ain't London...There may be other ways, but it ain't no better way to keep us moving through the Bay."

Check out "The Bridge", the fifth entry in Choice's Daily Dosage series.

Local rapper Alexander Spit put a whole batch of remixes from his Beat for the Street album up for grabs today on his Web site. Hear 10 different versions of the title track, from Broken Figures' ominous, bass-heavy version to Taylor P's piano jammin' banger (the last one is my favorite in the collection). They're free for the taking.

Bjarni Grφmsson

​If your creepy dreams don't have the best soundtracks, perhaps you should fall asleep with Ben Frost on your stereo. The Icelandic composer makes eerie, minimalist soundtracks for suspenseful escapades, making excellent use of the tension a string section can evoke in a song.

Frost's new album, The Throat, is only a few weeks old and well worth checking out. Here he's collaborated with Icelandic string quartet Amiina, The Arcade Fire's Jeremy Gara, Swedish metalheads Crowpath, and composer Nico Muhly.

On "The Carpathians," Frost has crafted a track that could easily be used in the old John Carpenter classic The Thing: wild hounds howl and snarl, the threat in their voices building on an electronically-enhanced bed of sprawling synths and strings.

Jern Eye

​San Francisco's BOAC has a number of notable remixes and tracks that he's produced on his Web site. He's tackled hip-hop's titans (his version of Eminem's "Crack a Bottle" sounds so much fiercer than the original) and worked with indie faves (Sunspot Jonz and Luckyiam). I'm really digging BOAC's remix of Oakland rapper Jern Eye, though. Jern's new album Vision is out now, and he teamed with the local producer to spin off a fresh version of "Get Down."

The single has BOAC playing piano, synth, and percussion, adding extra funk to a song that already builds up a serious sweat on its way to the dance floor. The track also includes a verse from Z-Man!, who quips, "I miss Ol' Dirty like I miss Lil' Kim's nose; her first nose..." (If you like Z-Man!'s contribution, the San Francisco rapper is about to drop a free EP, Show Up Shut Up and Rap).

Lilja Birgisdottir

​It's like going to church, without all the praying. Jónsi & Alex, the side project of Sigur Rós' Jon Thor Birgisson, makes good use of angelic choir vocals, which hum warmly over a gradual build of celestial electronics. The group is a partnership between Birgisson and Alex Somers and they released their debut, Riceboy Sleeps, this summer after five years of recording together. 

Check out the song "Boy 1904" posted originally to Gorilla vs. Bear, the site that noted the song features "the only known recording of the last ever castrato singer." It's such a pretty tune it'll evoke a holy music spirit no matter your religious affiliation. 

Metronomy

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The hard electro remix of Metronomy's "Radio Ladio" by Database is one of the strongest shots of pure adrenaline you can order up online. The bass drops like an army of electric bricks, buzzing dance beats bouncing the floorboards inside your brain as Metronomy asks over and over, "See that girl, she's taking my breath away. Yeah, what's her name? She's takin' my breath away."

Eventually the dude's call is responded to by a buildup of fried industrial clamor, and a computerized chant of "R-A-D-I, R-A-D-I, R-A-D-I...R-A-D-I-O," the answers like Justice with a grimier funk going on.

You can hear the remix of this London act by the Brazilian production duo on the blog Cause = Time, which has a bunch of excellent remixes on deck (Lily Allen's "Never Gonna Happen (Dr. Rosen Remix)" is very sweet-sad.)

(c) Christo Geoghegan

​Proof that music can be sexy and subtle at the same time, London's The xx craft wintry, minimalist jams that maximize the hot 'n' heavy. With male-female come-ons slithering over basic drum machine beats, and disco guitar lines made for slow dancing in dark corners, The xx have made a loud buzz based on fairly quiet music.

Check out The XX's "Basic Space" [via Brooklyn Vegan, AOL Radio]. The quartet brings the sultry to San Francisco on Monday, Nov. 23 at the Independent.

​San Francisco's Ring Trick is a very goal-oriented artist. For one month the electronic producer/musician plans on uploading one new demo a day to his blog. "The only rule," he writes, "is that it has to be recorded and produced in the span of 24 hours."

Scroll down the page and you can hear a batch of dreamy, soundtracky tunes influenced by the great minimalist, ambient composers and heavy shoegazer idols. With every new song,  Ring Track also posts a video for the artist who has particularly inspired him that day (Stars of the Lid, Broken Social Scene, Aphex Twin, Flaming Lips).

Our pick of the batch so far: "Puddle Jumping," which builds and breaks like little meteor showers of distorted guitar and synth melodies.
 

Shawn Brackbill

​If you can't get into the free, 'secret' Weezer show at the Regency--or if you just want your tunes a little muddier, a little more dirt under those fret-torn nails--there's another good music gig tonight we can recommend. Lo-fi troubador Kurt Vile brings his Violators to the Hemlock, where he'll headline a show that also includes Wooden Shjips and Young Prisms.

Vile isn't as directly psychedelic as his bill-mates, but there are a couple screws loose in his jangle 'n' echo-laden pop.

Check out "Freeway," a hazy, dazed little number on his MySpace page, or "Overnight Religion,"  a softer hymn that's no less haunting.

Pop folksters Port O'Brien just released a new single,  "My Will Is Good" off their upcoming record Threadbare, which comes out tomorrow. The video hits in a back to school theme, with images of schoolgirls--and one young boy--jumping rope and practicing their athletics to the group's melancholy tune. 

The band, which splits its time between S.F. and Cambria, likewise split its recording time between here and Los Angeles. Threadbare was commited to tape in Jason Quever of Papercuts' living room studio and in Earlimart's studio down south.

Anthony Gordon

​

In the new video for "Big Key, Little Door," Kylee Swenson leads indie poppers Loquat through a typical San Francisco morning. From getting out of bed to hopping in the bath and walking out of a Potrero Hill apartment, the frontwoman dreamily muses her way though this melancholy, keyboard-driven ballad.

Shots of our city abound here, from the details of Swenson's apartment to the cityscapes she passes on the way to work. (Although it's not every day that you see a man having a tea party with stuffed animals on his steps.) The song comes off the most recent Loquat record, Secrets of the Sea. The band opens a sold out show with Miike Snow this Saturday, Oct. 3 at Bottom of the Hill.

Lauren Dukoff

​Devendra Banhart is gearing up to issue his latest, Bolinas-recorded album Oct. 27, but he's making the blog rounds this week for a gorgeous remix he crafted that's being posted for free download. The pop folkster gave Phoenix's "Rome" a "a mellow, meditative ride" with production partners Neighbors. Together, the remixers write, "Let's bring out the candle-lit side, a side of the song suited for lucubration!"

I can't stop replaying this dreamy Devendra vision. Phoenix has been my summer soundtrack (to the point where I have to force myself to take breaks from listening to Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix) but this remix allows me to cheat on my pact for space from the French band. The giddy pop intensity of the original is given a more languid pace here, with brushes of acoustic guitar and hushed vocals floating above a quiet melodic fog.

We're gonna start the week with some thick, gooey cheese: Boys II Men have a new covers album coming out in November, but one deliciously rich single leaked out over the weekend. It's the Boys' tribute to Journey, "Open Arms," produced by former Journey man Randy Jackson. This song is so over the top--there's full emphasis on every. single. word here--you just kinda have to go with the title and fully embrace it.

​This week's cover story is about Wallpaper., a multi-media extravaganza of music, videos, performances, and booty tweets, headed by songwriter/producer/remixer Eric Frederic. He's a one-man symbol of the fracturing music industry--where, even when you have the chops to get ahead, success comes in random spurts.

At its core, Wallpaper. is a very entertaining act, which has helped the duo of Frederic and drummer Arjun Singh sell out clubs in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Sacramento.

They're headlining a show a Rickshaw Stop this Saturday, where you can witness the audio/visual dazzle in person. But we also have here a couple Wallpaper. tracks for the streaming.

Here's Wallpaper. original "I Got Soul, I'm So Wasted" another original, "Gettin Drip," (both off the new album, out yesterday, Doodoo Face), and the remix of Das Racist that became a summer anthem, "Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell."

You can also check out the video for "I Got Soul, I'm So Wasted," which won an mtvU contest and is in rotation on that channel now, below.

Jim Thomson

​While the group isn't quite as excitable-sounding as Animal Collective, Baltimore's Le Loup has a similar passion for giving pop a psychedelic, polyphonic sprawl. The group's second disc, Family is a gleeful mix of unplugged and electronic, the back porch percussion keeping things on the upbeat as the layers of vocals carry these tunes toward ebullient heights.

Check out the single "Forgive Me" here or tune into the whole album (for one week only) over at Spinner.

Hmm...what would a room look like if "This Party Took a Turn for the Douche"?

You'd "get a Chinese tat, don't know what it means, but it makes me look deep to girls in their teens" and hang out with dudes "doing 'roids til [their] balls get teeny like Dennis Quaid in Innerspace--up inside the weenie."

Just one of many funny flicks available from the straight-rapping duo of Garfunkel & Oates, including the pro-gay marriage ditty "Sex with Ducks."

Patrick Swayze at the 61st Academy Awards.

​In honor of actor Patrick Swayze, who died of cancer yesterday at age 57, our track highlights today will take on a special Swayze theme:

Austin, Texas' Dirty Dancing: gutbucket blooze with a psych rock chaser.

Nashville, Tennesee's Point Break: bizarre spoken word bit about ghosts.

Portland, Oregon's Bodhi (Swayze's name in Point Break): weird synth pop.

"She's Like the Wind" video by Lumidee.

"She's Like the Wind" video by Vibekingz feat. Maliq

And last, but not least, Kanye interrupts Patrick Swayze's funeral to set the record straight.

​I spent much of this past rainy weekend under the spell of Canadian Doug Paisley, a singer/songwriter with an old soul voice and a vintage folk pop aesthetic to match.

His new self-titled album is full of melancholy and melody, but I'm particularly fond of the piano ballad "What About Us?" which you can stream (along with the rest of the record) here.

The gentle tunes are the perfect match for Paisley's weathered croon, the singer opening up about the loves and losses implied in the heaviness of his delivery.

Paisley's hitting the road soon too. He'll be in San Francisco at Rickshaw Stop on Wednesday, Sept. 23.  

​There's more than a subtle reference to The Band in Maxim Ludwig & the Santa Fe Seven's lonesome folk ballad "To Be With Sweet Marie." The title alone is a reference to Dylan's "Absolutely Sweet Marie," and Ludwing sings his version with a dusty drawl. There's a lot of depth in this homage, from the cosmic twang of a slide guitar to the melancholy harmonies and organ melodies.

Ludwig brings his lucky Seven to Great American Music Hall on Thursday, Sept. 10, when he opens for Brendan Benson.

Andrew Waits

​Seattle's garage folk due The Dutchess & the Duke claim they wrote their upcoming record, Sunset/Sunrise, with local psych pro Greg Ashley specifically in mind. Ashley produced the follow up to the pair's acclaimed debut, She's the Dutchess, He's the Duke--a raw, honest soundtrack to boozing, brawling, and bawling your way through failed attempts at love.

The first single off Sunset/Sunrise, "Hands," shows how much Jesse Lortz and Kimberly Morrison can do with such a minimalist setup. An acoustic and electric guitar, a tambourine clap, and vocal harmonies that are both sweet and forlorn drive home this beautiful, melancholy ballad of a lost man at stumbling through the sunset of his life and of his connection with a woman in love with another man.

Sunset/Sunrise hits stores Oct. 6. 

​San Francisco is 7 x 7 miles of interlocking music communities, and local label Queer Control Records specifically looks after the LGBTIQQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer, and questioning) segment of the noise-making population--acts based both here and abroad.

Their eclectic roster includes a rough 'n' ready trio from Pennsylvania called Pariah Piranha that hearkens back to the mid-'90s Northwest sound in a very raw, very real way. The group's killer single, "Green Rooms",  is fierce and urgent as the early grunge/riot grrrl days. The song brings up good memories of acts ranging from the Gits to Hammerbox to L7--especially in the kiss-offs ("Here's $20, buy yourself a clue."). Great stuff. It comes off group's brand new group's Queer Control record, People People, out this week.

Excellent new video from local dance/funk/pop outfit Wallpaper.  It's a slick 'n' woozy clubbing clip for a tune off the band's upcoming full-length debut, Doodoo Face, out later this month.

Just add "I Got Soul, I'm So Wasted" to the duo's rapidly growing collection of awesome summer jams. (More Wallpaper. tunes available for streaming at The Culture of Me)

​Locally-based, electronically-friendly music mag XLR8R has a very active music blog, where they post great new tunes on the regular. Today they're featuring S.F. producer Altair Nouveau who hosts a black hole disco in a galaxy far, far away on the track "Sorcerer," which XLR8R has available for download here. It's the perfect song for fantasy nights out wearing platform moon boots and silver glitter shimmering like stars, with a beat that bounces higher than gravity should allow.

Lazer Sword

​Lazer Sword is shaping up to be San Francisco's next hot electronic export. The producing and DJing duo has been invited all over Europe this summer, but they've touched down long enough to craft a remix of Swiss act Larytta.

The revision of the track, "You Got Nothing," is available through RCRD LBL, which claims the tune "sorta sounds like my blender if it ran Ableton." It should also be noted that the bass-first song could vibrate an irregular heartbeat right outta your rib cage at the right volume.

​Stoner humor doesn't just make for excellent summer blockbusters, it also makes for some hilarious band descriptions. To wit, the bio of Oakland doom metalheads Tyrant, who explain themselves thusly:

"We got high and then all these riffs fell out of us and we were all like what the fuck, so we grinded the fuck out of them and slowed em down and got em higher and yeah... weed...."

That ridiculous bio, along with the fact that they use what sounds like a sample of director Werner Herzog speaking in their tune "Wartime in the Heart," has earned the group the honor of being today's "Track of the Day." Listen to what getting high and getting pelted with riffs sounds like here.

(Thanks to clubs editor John Graham for the tip).