Review: Miserable, Super Unison, Same Girls at Bottom of the Hill
Tuesday night at Bottom of the Hill kicked off this week's Noise Pop festival with an all-local showcase with impressive performances from Miserable, Super Unison, and Same Girls, all currently or formerly based in Oakland. Pllush, representing San Francisco, were also set to perform, but unfortunately had to cancel due to illness (Get well soon, Karli!). For fans who were sad to miss them, Pllush will return to play the Chapel in April. Thankfully, I was able to catch one of their sets at the same venue last year, with their live renditions of Stranger to the Pain singles "Big [...]
What’s Happening This Week? A Guide To Shows Around The Bay, Feb 20 ― Feb 23
Diet Cig is set to play Brick & Mortar this Wednesday night. Monday, February 20 Cloud Nothings, Kid Trails @ The Independent Start your Noise Pop week off strong with extraordinarily loud garage punk band Cloud Nothings. Tuesday, February 21 Weyes Blood @ Swedish American Music Hall Weyes Blood: mournful instrumentation, vocals drenched in a blue hue, and a name derived from the Flannery O'Connor novel Wise Blood. Tino Drima, Spooky Mansion @ Bender's Bar and Grill TBB writer Hailey Simposon explains Tino Drima "is a six-piece super-group of sorts, featuring members of O (fka Black Cobra Vibers), French Cassettes, and [...]
What’s Happening This Weekend? A Guide To Shows Around The Bay, Feb 3 ― Feb 5
Fully enjoy Miserable's moodiness this Sunday Night at The Make-Out Room. Friday, February 3 Tom Chaplin @ Great American Music Hall Former frontman of Keane returns after an uphill battle and recovery from drug addiction. Come out for a night of "extreme emotion and complete honesty," according to TBB writer Carla Bova. Hibbity Dibbity @ The Chapel Catch the swamp funk masters themselves immediately after the release of Hibbity Dibbity singles "Touchy Feely," "Wildflower Honey," and "Born To Ride." The Gaslamp Killer @ The New Parish Intricate globally influenced psychedelia, The Gaslamp Killer is on Flying Lotus' label, Brainfeeder. Saturday, February [...]
Mixtape: New Alternative — The Bay Area’s emerging noisy rock sound
http://media.libsyn.com/media/thebaybridged/Alternative_Rock_Mixtape.mp3 Download: New Alternative: The Bay Area's emerging noisy rock sound (Podcast #390) The post first ran on KQED.org. The dream of the '90s may be, as the TV show says, alive in Portland, but the sounds of the '90s are finding new vitality in the San Francisco Bay Area indie music scene. In recent years, a significant number of new bands have emerged citing alt-rock leaders like Sonic Youth and My Bloody Valentine, and the grunge scene as inspiration for their noisy indie rock. The stellar local label Father/Daughter Records has released a number of albums by local alternative-inspired [...]
Interview: King Woman on creating, mental illness, and feminism
King Woman (photo: Mary Manning) I was having a slight panic attack while waiting, in a fancy cafe that I’ve previously ignored, for Kristina Esfandiari of King Woman and Miserable. The night before had been a little harsh on my sleep. It was also the hottest day of the year so far, so my whole being was a little out of whack. I even got to the cafe early to prepare my thoughts and try to mentally wake up. I had met Kristina at a house show a couple weeks before. Before this, however, I had already decided that [...]
Miserable on the verge of releasing first LP “Uncontrollable”
In what I think is the prettiest and saddest part of Miserable’s song “Oven,” the first single off her forthcoming LP Uncontrollable, Kristina Esfandiari sings “I shouldn’t be ashamed to feel this strange, I know that you used to love me," and with that line the otherwise sad song flashes a quick smile. Something about this emotional traversing, the distance between the song’s lyrical sadness and its eventually-beautiful melody, seems so essential for coping with loss. The song’s range of emotional articulation, the way it makes one feeling from its opposite, feels like its only help. Miserable is Esfandiari’s solo project, [...]
Mixtape: New SF Bands with Great Musical Resumes
http://media.libsyn.com/media/thebaybridged/Musical_Resumes_Mix.mp3 Download: Mixtape: New SF Bands with Great Musical Resumes (Podcast #344) In a scene as active as the San Francisco Bay Area, it's not uncommon to learn that the members of your favorite band are also involved in other musical projects. It's also not surprising to see bands break up, burn out or go through significant lineup changes, enabling former players to explore new terrain on their own. All of this means that a number of newer bands with unfamiliar names might have some familiar faces -- or, perhaps more appropriately, voices -- involved. It also means that if [...]
Kristina Esfandiari announces debut EP as Miserable
Souls with a hollow void that can only be filled with dark and heavy shoegaze will be relieved to hear that San Francisco local Kristina Esfandiari has announced the release of her debut solo EP as Miserable, a most welcome late-winter surprise. The Halloween Dream 7-inch EP is due out February 18 on NYC-based boutique record label The Native Sound. The gorgeously eerie solo effort from the former Whirr vocalist bleeds velvety, disembodied vocals into a stormy wash of acoustic and electric guitar reverb, percussion, and drone. The crescendo on "Bell Jar", the opening track, is particularly startling in its climactic [...]