Ticket Giveaway Wednesday: Christopher Owens, Hot Flash Heat Wave, and more
To enter for a chance to win tickets to any show below, email contest@thebaybridged.com with the name of the band and the date of the show you’re entering in the subject line and your full name in the body of the email. Winners will be selected at random and notified via email. Friday, December 11th Christopher Owens plus Matthew Baldwin @ The Swedish American Hall 8pm, $18, all ages. Buy advance tickets here. Saturday, December 12th Sun Kil Moon, Neil Halstead from Slowdive @ Great American Music Hall 9pm, $26, all ages. Buy advance tickets here. Wednesday, December 16th Fritz [...]
Mixtape: San Francisco Songs for Summer
http://media.libsyn.com/media/thebaybridged/Summer_2015_Mixtape.mp3 Download: Mixtape: San Francisco Summer Songs (Podcast #365) Even though San Francisco's summers get an unfairly bad rap, that doesn't prevent us locals from enjoying many of the best parts of the season. Days at the beach, barbecues, road trips, street fairs and festivals: sure, you might need to carry a light sweater on some of your summer excursions, but the long days can't be beat for outdoor fun. With the solstice kicking off summer earlier this week, we've compiled this mixtape of songs for the season, collecting new and recent releases by San Francisco Bay Area bands that [...]
Interview: Christopher Owens presents a new, familiar testament
Those who know Christopher Owens’ story know it well. From his vagabond childhood in The Children of God to his street punk phase in Texas, his decisive move to San Francisco and his drug-fueled days as the chief songwriter and frontman of Girls, the details of his past are well-documented in the modern history of rock and roll. He’s come a long way, farther perhaps than most people would go in several lifetimes, and despite the thousands of physical and mental miles he’s traveled, he has maintained a consistent songwriting style: accessible, un-ironic, and colored by his audacity to remain honest. Established with Girls’ first LP, 2009’s Album, and [...]
Outside Lands 2014: Your Guide to SF’s Biggest Summer Musical Experience
Outside Lands 2014 show poster (DKNG Studios) It's that time of year again – the yearning masses will descend upon San Francisco this weekend for the City's now hallmark summer musical experience Outside Lands. Yep, the seventh edition of the gigantic gig in Golden Gate Park kicks off Friday at noon and, as you've undoubtedly learned by now, it will be headlined by none other than Kanye, Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, and The Killers. Headliners can be hit-or-miss, but the strength of Outside Lands (or any festival, for that matter) typically lies in the undercard. Sure, you may get [...]
Christopher Owens announces new album ‘A New Testament’
A year and a half after former Girls frontman Christopher Owens released Lysandre, he's offering up another album. A New Testament, Owens' second solo effort, is due out September 30 via Turnstile and was produced by the same Doug Bouehm who worked on his solo premiere. In Owens' own words, Testament will feature "honest, earnest, simple songwriting," and is "inspired by the fundamentals of American music — Gospel, Country, R&B." The songs are deeply personal as well, and Owens had a tough time picking which tracks went on the record. The cuts he chose were the ones that "[spoke] to me the most, of my [...]
Christopher Owens drops a lovely new tune
Christopher Owens just dropped a sonic bomb in the form of "It Comes Back to You". A cut from his upcoming album, the song is a stunning balance of his familiar Girls material--complete with understated psych guitar and a gospel-powered backup vocalist who drives it home--and the tasteful urban folk of his first solo effort. The tune drips with Christopher's distinctive songwriting style, lyrically packaging an age-old idea of love into a fresh, accessible four-and-a-half-minute bundle. It is a seasoned offering that demonstrates how far he has come as an artist while also serving as a reminder of why he [...]
Christopher Owens drops acoustic remake of 'Lysandre', announces tour
Just three months after releasing his debut solo effort Lysandre to much critical acclaim, San Francisco's own Christopher Owens has a new release ready for his legions of doting fans. No, it's not necessarily new material, but it's most definitely a treat – he unplugged and redid eight of the tracks from that debut album acoustically. Lysandre – Acoustic Album was released digitally yesterday and will be available on a numbered, limited edition 10-inch vinyl on May 20. The acoustic release was done in conjunction with Owens' announcement of a solo acoustic tour in June, stretching from Salt Lake City [...]
Ticket Giveaway: Christopher Owens at The Palace of Fine Arts, 3/23/2013
In just a few short weeks, San Francisco will be welcoming home one of it's most beloved local artists: Christopher Owens. After burrowing himself into the city's music landscape with his former band Girls, Owens stepped away from the project to pursue a solo career, simultaneously breaking the hearts of rock and roll fans everywhere and cementing Girls as an indie rock legend. Within months of the band's 2012 breakup, while his fans were still licking their wounds, he announced his debut solo effort, Lysandre. Released in January of this year, the album chronicles his experiences on the first Girls [...]
Live This Month: March 2013 — an audio guide through SF concerts this month (Podcast #301)
Live This Month: March 2013 — an audio guide through SF concerts this month (Podcast #301) In Live This Month, we sample some of the great local and out-of-town bands performing in the coming month in the San Francisco Bay Area. With South by Southwest leading much of independent music to converge in Austin later this month, tons of bands are hitting the road. All of them, it would seem, are playing in the San Francisco Bay Area in March. Even if you aren't going to SXSW this year, you can still catch plenty of buzzed-about acts, like Thurston Moore's [...]
Christopher Owens adds West Coast dates to solo tour
Fresh from the infamous Girls break-up of 2012, Christopher Owens' newest project and solo debut, Lysandre, dropped last week (1/14/13) on Turnstile/Fat Possum. The candid, more poppy release was met with a resounding chorus of critic approval, as Drowned in Sound writes: These songs marry the simplicity of the debut’s structures with the overarching consistency and ornamentation of record three (on this go round, adding a good deal of rasping sax and wistful flute), and it’s fun to hear how the two disparate periods of Owens’ trajectory meld together. Songs like ‘Here We Go Again’ and ‘New York City’ account for [...]