Josh Kmak of The New Kinetics and Shady Francos has a new band, Creepseed. This video is from their debut performance at the Casbah. Joining Josh in Creepseed are O from fluff and the Makeup Sex, Josh from Shady Francos and Sheila & the Rainbow Colored Trash bags, and Ana from The Makeup Sex and Spin Records. Sitting in on this song is Brian Reilly of the New Kinetics on the right.
Tonight was a reverse order concert for me as I came to see the first group up, the debut of Creepseed. My plan was to stay and watch a couple songs by the second group, San Diego’s The Heartaches, and then take off unless they were really good. All I can say is that by the time they got to the chorus of their first song, I knew I wasn’t going anywhere during this set!
Somehow I had never heard of this band of garagey punk rockers who have been around since 2002. Apparently I need to pay better attention to what’s going on, since The Heartaches put on a blistering set full of massive riffs, shouted choruses, endless energy and just enough melody to attract more than just a punk audience. The Heartaches seem like a real throwback group as I could hear influences from throughout punk’s early history – from the early days of The Damned and The Clash overseas to The Ramones and Dead Kennedys on this side of the pond. All of it delivered with a ferocious attack on dual guitars, bass and drums and fronted by a singer with enough energy to power The Casbah’s sound system on his own.
Don’t make the mistake I did – check out The Heartaches – and for god’s sake, don’t look at your cell phone while they’re playing!!
This video is just another reminder of why I love music. A great song played in a unique way in an unusual setting. San Diego’s Birdy Bardot play their song “Possibilities” while riding the trolley (with passengers on board of course!) in San Diego.
Here’s my main collection. I have more in crates and drawers that I’m not sure what to do with – but this is the stuff that matters. I have a lot of music in my iTunes as well (64,377 songs by over 1800 artists). A good part of it are digital copies of my own collection, along with music I’ve purchased, and some that I’ve downloaded that is not available elsewhere. I do admit to going a little crazy back when Napster started, and I feel bad about that, but not enough to delete the files. Any music that I possess – that has any value – I have a physical copy of it. I need something to hold onto and look at. I want to put it into a CD player or onto a turntable. I still enjoy sitting down with a new record or CD, putting it into the player, and listen as I read the lyrics. I’m cool with MP3’s and streaming etc – but they will never replace the sensations I get when I slit open a new LP, take in that new record smell, and drop the needle into a groove I’ve never heard before.
I won’t pretend to understand how all the members of local super-group, Birdy Bardot, are interrelated. It seems that every San Diego musician of note is in at least 3 bands and this group has collected many of them together. I do know that the creative duo in the group are Birdy Bardot, who also sings for of my favorite San Diego bands, The New Kinetics; and the indefatigable Al Howard, who must be in at least 27 bands including: The Heavy Guilt, Midnight Pine, Dani Bell & the Tarantist, Rebecca Jade & the Cold Fact, Cardinal Moon and Black Sands.
I have wanted to catch Birdy Bardot ever since I read a great feature on them late last year in CityBeat magazine. It was only after reading that article that I went to my first New Kinetics shows and I was curious to how the same singer would front both the frenetic garage rock of NK and the retro/psychedelic influence promised in the CityBeat piece.
It turns out that Ms. Bardot handles both styles with ease and though there is not a lot of overlap in sound, she does seem to lose herself in the songs in both configurations. Where the New Kinetics are all about raw, relentless energy, Birdy Bardot is a much more restrained affair. Though the group does let go and rock out, like on the track “Hearts and Smoke”, it’s really just enough to provide a contrast to the soulful, torchy atmosphere created throughout the rest of the set.
The 7 pc band (which is a lot of players on a pretty small stage) creates a sound and mood on stage that mixes a lot of influences without ever camping out in any one style. There’s touches of the blues, hazy psychedelia, retro-60′s pop and even some alt-country. Mixed together, Birdy Bardot – both the band and the singer – put on a fantastic show and will clearly be a mainstay of the resurgent San Diego music scene, and hopefully can find a way to break out and receive more national, and even international, attention.
Check out Birdy Bardot and her label-mates at Redwoods Music/Birdy Bardot
Sometimes I feel like I live in a bit of a musical bubble. Since I don’t listen to the radio and none of my friends listen to the music that I do, I often don’t have a sense of how popular a band is. I remember going to a Portugal. The Man show a few years back at the House of Blues here in San Diego, expecting the place to be about half-full, and instead it was completely sold out.
Metric did one better and not only sold out the 1,100 capacity venue but added another show the previous night. And this crowd really showed their appreciation for this 18 year old band as they sang and danced and responded rapturously throughout the set. And Metric showed the love back, playing a 2 hour set of hits and deep cuts from throughout their history.
And then there’s Emily Haines, proving that age really is just a number (she’s 42!), as she danced and bounced and bounded across the stage from start to finish. She really acknowledged the fans and how far they had all come – both the band and the audience – noting that many in the audience may have become fans back in high school and that by now they all had jobs and many had kids of their own. She talked about what a journey it had been from the old days of arriving in a van and playing the Casbah to playing to a packed house at a great venue like the House of Blues.
Personally, I love the Casbah and I sure wish I had discovered Metric back in those days, but I am also really glad to see talented, ambitious artists achieve this kind of success.
Here’s my video of “Artificial Nocturne” from early in the show.
And here’s the closing number, “Breathing Underwater” (there was a coda where they launched back into the chorus but I didn’t get that).
I still enjoy seeing the big rock shows where bands play long sets with astonishing lights and staging in front of 20,000 fans. I’ve recently seen groups like Rush, Pearl Jam and the Foo Fighters clock in at 3+ hours, all with mesmerizing stage shows.
Yet I have to say that I enjoy a night like this, with 4 bands in just 3 hours, just as much. After local acts Lucky Keith, Big Bloom and Soft Lions warmed us up (with an assist from a bar just steps away!) we got to see New York indie/punk/garage rockers Sharkmuffin. The three-piece features founding members Tarra Thiessen on guitar/vocals and Natalie Kirch on bass, along with new drummer Kim Deuss. Together the band, which released their first EP’s back in 2013, played a propulsive, dynamic set of songs off of their debut long player, Chartreuse.
If you’re a fan of Sleater Kinney, Veruca Salt, Hole, Yeah Yeah Yeahs et al – then you better check out Sharkmuffin.
Here’s my clip of “Tampons Are for Sluts” from this show.
Next up were local favorites, Soft Lions, playing their engaging blend of indie, surf, garage, and girl-group sounds. I’ve seen Soft Lions a half-dozen times now, including their debut performance on the same stage back in 2014, and they always put on a great show. This night was a surprise as I only discovered the day before that they would be opening for Sharkmuffin, who are on a national tour.
If I had a complaint about this band it’s that their sets are too short!! Hopefully that will be solved soon as I spoke with the keyboardist, Ana Ramundo, who told me that the band will be heading up to the Bay Area soon to record more songs.
Soft Lions plays all over town, as headliners and in support of other local and touring bands. Check them out soon!!
Here’s “Earth Energy” from this show.
More Soft Lions from MaxSounds:
This was another night that I was glad that I like to get to shows early to catch the opening acts. You never know what you’ll find and the range is especially wide (wild?) at small venues like the Soda Bar in San Diego. On this night the strategy paid off as I discovered local band, Big Bloom, who were the second to hit the stage (out of four total) in support of the touring Sharkmuffin.
I spoke with the singer, Katie Howard, who said the band had been together about 2 years – but their sound, and especially Howard’s command of the stage, would belie this relative inexperience. The group switches between genres (and really, do bands pay much attention to genres anymore?) easily as they start off playing a souped-up alt-folk before settling into a spirited psych-surf-garage-rock stomp.
I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for more shows of this up-and-coming band. And speaking of eyes, I’ll try to get the story on the pink warpaint worn by Ms. Howard, which looked pretty cool under the blue lights of the Soda Bar stage!
Here’s a video of “Punk Song” that gives a good idea of what this band is all about.
Indie rock stalwarts Built to Spill played back-to-back sold out shows last week at San Diego’s venerable rock club, the Casbah. This quickly became a tough ticket to get as the band typically plays much larger venues when they hit town. The Casbah can fit only 200, and even with two shows, demand easily exceeded supply. The Casbah has a reputation though for punching above its weight and the band apparently likes the venue as they have played there several other times throughout the years.
And really it was great to see a band of such stature in such an intimate setting. The crowd was responsive and enthusiastic throughout the performance and the band responded with a 1:50 set (which is long by Casbah standards) that included at least half of the new album, last year’s excellent Untethered Moon. One of the highlights from that record was “So” which included a typical Doug Martsch guitar freak-out to start the song before settling into a riffy, melodic groove. For an encore – and by encore I mean the band leaves the stage and walks out to the sidewalk until they are called back in – they performed an epic, slow building, version of “Time Trap” off of 1999′s Keep It Like a Secret.
If I were to find fault in the show it is that they performed as a 3-piece with only Martsch on guitar. As good a guitar player as he is, and he is really good, he can’t play two guitars at once. One of the strengths of BTS is the interplay between multiple guitars, both with a lead over the top of a rhythm guitar or with intertwining leads as on the aforementioned “Time Trap”. Hopefully next time around the band will be back to full strength, but either way I’ll be there wherever they decide to play.
MaxSoundsMusic 