A Bay Area music / urban planning blog
OK, so you might argue the Oakland alt-rock quartet is overplaying the “endearingly awkward” schtick. But those melodic riffs? The casual Teenage Fanclub mention in album PR write-up? The goofy DIY music videos? That genuinely funny bio (“internationally ignored song stylists”)? Objection overruled!
It can be time consuming to hunt for actual new releases by actual East Bay musicians. Is anyone crazy enough to do all that work and blog about it once a month for a non-existent readership and zero compensation from Bandcamp? We shall see!
If you’re a Dad Rock and ’90s Nostalgia aficionado, have I got 30 tunes for you to check out.
Diverse influences mix together to create genre-defying sounds, particularly laid-back grooves that conjure up carefree summer afternoons hanging with friends? That’s the Oakland sound in 2022.
Across the Bay Area, swarms of drivers are popping up twice a day or more. Police say these “flash mobs” are dangerous to everyone and prevent virtually any other uses of the public right of way.
A plodding piano ballad about abortion was being played on mainstream radio stations across the country. Only in 1997 could something like this happen. It seemed weird at the time. But so did the Spice Girls.
I miiiiight have mentioned it before, but Bandcamp Fridays have been a great excuse for me to reconnect with local music over the last 22…
On the whole, I’d say these songs are a hopeful bunch, rooted in the possibility of muddling through somehow and reclaiming a semblance of fellowship, cohesion, progress, and well-being. Perhaps 2022 will deliver on that promise.
Being There still feels monumental 25 years later. It also announced the arrival of Wilco: The Band That Jams and Takes Risks. Risks like recording a double album, opening it with a 45-second drums-and-feedback freakout, and then spending the next 76 minutes alternating between ennui-filled ballads and surreal-nonsense-filled bangers.
On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of its release The details of that night are fuzzy, but I remember it was bitter cold. I…