Harry the Nightgown on debut album, cringy influences and analog purists
Photo: Courtney Melahn LA/San Francisco-based Harry the Nightgown is the creative union between Spencer Harting and Cherry Glazerr bassist Sami Perez. Both producer-musicians worked at San Francisco’s Tiny Telephone— it’s no surprise that their technical skill as producers are immediately obvious. Even across the three singles, there’s a ton of variation in the sonic palette and plenty of interesting production choices for the listener to pick through. In a feat that speaks to their talent as both producers and musicians, Perez and Harting are able to draw from all kinds of sounds and styles and still end up [...]
Ultra Q’s Jakob Armstrong talks ‘In a Cave in a Video Game’ long distance recording, inspirations
Photo by Andrew Diaz Oakland’s own Ultra Q are back with a quick 15-minute EP, entitled In a Cave in a Video Game. The band, featuring Jakob Armstrong on guitar and vocals, Enzo Malaspina on guitar, Kevin Judd on bass, and Chris Malaspina on drums, picks up where their debut EP We’re Starting to Get Along (2019) left off. With their hyper-compressed drums and riff-driven guitar leads, the band captures a lot of the same deadpan, contrarian energy from the early 2000's post punk revival movement and injects it with speed and moshability. Malaspina and Armstrong’s guitars are [...]
‘Murder in the Front Row’: An interview with director Adam Dubin
When Adam Dubin set out to film Murder in the Front Row, a documentary about the beginnings of the Bay Area thrash metal scene, it wasn’t supposed to be through the eyes of a musicologist &mdsah; which he admits he is not. “I’m interested in how people felt,” Dubin says. “What was going on at the time and what people were responding to — the musicians themselves and their fans.” Dubin — well-known director of many Beastie Boys music videos, including the hilarious “Fight for your Right” — had worked with Metallica for over 25 years before he approached them [...]
Half Stack’s Pete Kegler talks ‘Wings of Love,’ quarantine music and country roots
Photo by James Juarez Cowboys have long sat at the center of the mythos of colonized America, serving simultaneously as a relic of the past and a potent symbol of self-reliance. In a chaotic time, it would seem that the collective consciousness has also sought refuge in the dusty past. Even five years ago, the general wisdom was that cowboys were a conservative symbol. But in recent years those judgements have softened, and with them the animosity towards country music. I spoke with Pete Kegler, the lead singer of Oakland’s Half Stack, who agrees that country music is [...]
If we were at SXSW, here’s who we would have seen
In times of excitement or exhaustion; happiness or sadness, one of the most powerful saviors of a mood, a day, or even a life, is music. Before things shut down and the world took a collective pause, we were all geared up to head over to SXSW to see some of our favorite bands from the Bay Area and beyond. Obviously that didn’t happen, but we’d like to still see them in our dreams. And in the spirit of supporting struggling musicians whose work we need so much, we’d like to offer some insights into some of the artists who [...]
The folksy, jazzy, gentle pop of the Saxophones’ ‘Eternity Bay’
(photo: Connor Sorenson) When Alexi Erenkov and Alison Alderdice got married, Erenkov’s vows weren’t your typical declarations. “They were about our mortality,” says The Saxophones’ drummer Alison Alderdice with a bit of a grin. “The light and the dark and how this marriage will end when one of us dies...It was really romantic, though.” The couple laugh. The Saxophones — vocalist and lyricist Alexi Erenkov, drummer Alison Alderdice and bassist Richard Laws — create music that is gentle and ethereal, layered with woodwinds and rich, serenading vocals. Alderdice shifts their 3-month old on her chest, who looks in my direction [...]
The Seshen dive into ‘CYAN’ in time for Noise Pop
(photo: Brittany Powers) Synthesizers, drum machines, and live percussion blend with the cool, soulful voice of the Seshen’s Lalin St. Juste to create a harmonious combination of synth-pop and electronic R&B. On their newest album, CYAN (February 28), we hear influences the band didn’t previously engage with. There’s a little bit of indie rock, touches of folk, neo-soul, and hip-hop. We sat down with the band to talk about the release of their third album, their award-winning music video and upcoming short film, and the excitement around playing as part of Noise Pop. In the creation of their third album, [...]
Fast Times! at the Chapel: An Interview with Andrew St. James
My dad grew up in Oakland and is always telling me about rock shows in the '60s and '70s in San Francisco. At a lot of these intimate concerts, you’d see the bands grabbing a whiskey after the show, mingling with folks. Hittin’ on your chicks. It was a scene, man. And not that this is a major news flash, but it’s just not like that anymore. Even a few years ago it was a different feel at these smaller shows. But now bands are usually back in the green room, or don’t show up until they’re nearly on. There’s [...]
Band Art with Megan Badilla
We’re always interested in artists whose collaboration with the music industry goes beyond the realm of typical. Artist Megan Badilla has had her hands in a lot of different projects in the Bay Area and we had the pleasure of sitting down and speaking with her. Badilla is a California-raised (shout out to Salinas!) and USF-educated lady who has lived in San Francisco the past several years. She feels very enamored with the music and arts scene here, and it shows through the many connections she’s made throughout the music and arts world. We chatted about the types of work [...]
Band Art with Annie Bacon
“This album was all about centering connection, which is what I see as my purpose as an artist.” Annie Bacon’s folk rock has touches of Ani DiFranco and Joan Osborne but with more twang and the power of modern messages. Bacon wrote the songs off her second album, Nothing Stays the Same, over the course of a couple of years. Much of this album was created in 2016 after having visited Nashville for the first time. “It’s like I got a shot,” she says. Nashville was a place where everyone was writing and playing music; the industry felt like such [...]