Experimenting with Sound: Sis

San Francisco synthesizer band Sis, the brainchild of singer/multi-instrumentalist/lyricist Jenny Gillespie Mason, is classified as an "experimental project", according to their publicity sheet. "Sis has set up shop squarely in the realms of full-hearted poeticism, formulating powerful images focused around feelings over themes, poesy over experience, and experimentation over genre." Her publicity further states that "Mason dove into the new project with nothing but some rough ideas, an OP1 synthesizer, and a personal journal from which to draw ideas at her disposal."

The result was Sis' debut LP, Euphorbia, which was written and recording at Tiny Telephone in San Francisco. Mason works with drummer Joe Adamik (Califone, Iron & Wine), percussionist Andrew Maguire (Mirah, Meernaa), bassist Jamie Riotto (John Vanderslice, red steppes), guitarist Carly Bond (Meernaa, DRMS), and producer/multi-instrumentalist engineer Rob Shelton (John Vanderslice, Mohsen Namjoo). It is a good band and they are coming together for a sophomore LP, expected to be released on Native Cat in spring 2019.

REVIEW NOTES:  This is cool stuff, with a sound and rhythmic quality that feels inspired by the exotic Middle East. Mason has a really satisfying voice. The "experimental" aspect of their music may be in their approach, which seems to be to set up a groove and then to explore, lyrically and melodically. It is a trance-inducing blend of feminine vocal harmonies and synthesized expressions. The attitude is silky and relaxed, even in their upbeat moments. Carly Bonds' guitar work is an understated pleasure, and right on point. Shelton does an excellent job of engineering this band's layered sound. It is hard for me to listen to their tracks and come away feeling like I can remember much about what I heard beyond that it was a pleasurable immersion in a spacious and lush, pop sound. That is not to say that Sis just wanders through a song, in the fashion of a shoegazer act, because compositionally the songs have a strong structure and shape. It is just that the emphasis seems more on creating a mood, or feeling, than it is on telling an individual's story. I am sure they make a really nice night out, in the right venue and in front of the right group of groovers. - RAR

Finish Ticket

A few years back, I thought Finish Ticket was a throwback to an age of introspective songwriters and sweet-voiced acoustic strummers. That was yesterday. Today, Finish Ticket is a pop powerhouse. Brendan Hoye (lead vocals/keyboards), Michael Hoye (bassist), Alex DiDonato (guitarist), all met as students at Alameda High School, with Gabe Stein (drummer) joining later. They have released three EPs and began opening up big name acts in 2010. They have played in Los Angeles on a bill with Miniature Tigers and Griswolds.

Dire Wolves

If sounding like the quintessential "San Francisco" band means San Francisco as it was in 1967, the the relentlessly retro Dire Wolves are probably that. They have a publicist who calls himself Glen Burnout who says this about them: "Recommended to the open minds that celebrate such sounds as the punk-hippie crossover scene of mid ‘80s SST records, as well as listeners of Scandinavian/Teutonic communal motorik vibes. And those into spiritual jazz, meditative and primordial minimalism, and scratched Environments LPs from the dollar bin. For the heads." For the record, Dire Wolves has been making this noise since 2008, and in 2018 they have released Paradisiacal Mind, the group’s tenth LP release, including two simultaneous 2017 releases - on Feeding Tube and Beyond Beyond Is Beyond - that explored out-of-body experience.

If ever you have wondered what is meant by a "radio friendly voice", here is your model. Matt Nathansan is a Lowell, Massachusetts native who went to college in Southern California (Claremont University), before becoming a San Francisco resident.  In all honesty, I'm not sure whether or not the world outside of the San Francisco Bay Area knows Matt Nathansan, and pardon my ignorance if he is a world phenomenon that I happen to know nothing about. I just know that one hears about Nathansan frequently around these parts, and he gets spins on San Francisco's KFOG, which is like a graveyard for folk-rockers, even young ones. Getting airplay on KFOG is almost stigmatizing, if radio play can be that, being that the once-venerable (probably a stretch) Adult Contemporary radio station is now almost entirely a nostalgia offering, so for a young dude or dudette (K.T. Tunstall, Colbie Caillat) to get airplay on that outlet may be perceived as an omen; like maybe these artists are well on their way in their return to dust. (In fact, KFOG at one time felt like an all-Grateful Dead radio station, so there is at least consistency - musical death.) Nathansan gets spins on Sunday's acoustic hours ("Sunrise and Sunset"). But amid all that pain and suffering one does get the occasional bright shiny thing, and here you have Matt Nathansan, who is bright and shiny in an urban sort of way, and San Franicsco urban is what this cute video below is all about. Cute might normally be used semi-derisively, but this video really is cute in a likeable way. Nice work. And while the Nathansan song is not particularly memorable - I just listened to it and I can't remember it - the thing that stays on one's mind (my mind at least, rickety as it is) is the quality of Nathansan's voice, his pitch and timber. Really, really pleasureable. Check it out.-RAR                                              9-6-12       

Nicki Bluhm is the wife of The Mother Hips' producer/musician Tim Bluhm, who is responsible for steering her from an amateur singing enthusiast to a professional on the brink of big-time attention, all of which came pretty quickly. Her 2008 debut album, Toby's Song, gained critical attention. In 2011, Nicki Bluhm & The Gamblers - by this time she had a band consisting of guitarist Deren Ney, bass player Steve Adams, guitarist Dave Mulligan, and drummer Mike Curry - released Driftwood. That sophomore effort has helped establish her as a musical presence, and she has been welcomed to share stages with established stars Chris Robinson, Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks, Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Steve Kimock, Jackie Greene, Pegi Young, and Josh Ritter.

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Fair Warning, Kind Reader: The story below has no purpose or point other than to notice that a bunch of really well-connected high-end professional musicians live in Marin County, California, across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco, and occasionally they get together and play a gig in one combination or another. This is the story of "Mostly Dylan".

By RAR

That is Tim Hockenberry sitting on the running board of his car. He lives out in the scrub brush where he is on a monk-like voyage of inner Alec Baldwinism, and he is damned near there, wherever Alec is at.

If one's interest is in gravelly soulfulness that fits most comfortably into a ballad, then Tim Hockenberry may be your guy. He has an undeniableness, to fester a word; an innate authenticity that injects the requisite belief in the performance of his material. It did not do that much to help the Mostly Dylan album that the "Mostly Inc" operation released a few years back, but the miss did more to force re-examination of the Dylan songbook than to discredit the musicians who made the recording, with vocals by Hockenberry.

Bob Dylan is such an important figure in the history of modern music that it is easy to excuse Dylan's own liberties, with respect to adherence to pop music norms, as a gratis granted to him, but few others, because Dylan's is not standard fare. In fact, viewing Dylan's work through the expectations of music directors of today, it could be considered jaw dropping in its disregard for conformity and compliance. There are way too many words in a Dylan song, the chord structures are repetitive and largely without dynamic tension, and one can almost never dance to anything from Dylan's pen. One is just supposed to listen to it, but the melodies are largely rote and without particular distinction, making them almost impossible to sing. (Just look what singing with Dylan did to poor Emmylou Harris, whose once distinctive wisps of grey in her otherwise black hair gave way to a full-blown Gandalf the White! Seriously, that's just how it happened.) And Dylan hasn't really given a guitar player anything to do since Mike Bloomfield took "Like A Rolling Stone" to the stratosphere and ushered in a brief golden period of really fabulous electric folk. But that was almost fifty years ago!

Mostly Dylan, as a band rather than a recording studio concept, has been playing around Marin County's swanky places of late, in a five-piece arrangement with Tom Corwin, Gawain Mathews, Tal Morris, and David Tucker.  Of that group, Tom Corwin is most notable for being the brainworks behind "Mostly Dylan", which was born of a collaboration with Hockenberry on a demo of "Like A Rolling Stone" for a film version of the Abbie Hoffman autobiography, Steal This Book.

Corwin is a veteran multi-instrumentalist whose resume includes Patti LaBelle, Booker T., Bonnie Raitt, Huey Lewis, The Blind Boys from Alabama, and the House of Blues Band. As a producer, arranger, and engineer, he has recorded fifteen records with Bonnie Raitt, and recently worked with Kris Kristofferson ("Broken Freedom Song").

Corwin is the guy whose idea it was to do rearranged versions of Dylan's most popular work. What emerged from that collaboration with Hockenberry was a lot of altered tempos, added breaks, and melodic shifts. Judge for yourself it it worked by visiting this link to hear the tracks.

Gawain Mathews is another guitarist-keyboards player who worked with Hockenberry in the studio with the Transiberian Orchestra project. He has played with and produced well over a hundred artists, performed with the Utah Symphony, and appeared on the David Letterman Show with Australian indie pop singer Ben Lee. Besides working in Mostly Dylan, Mathews also tours and plays guitar with Grammy-winning world music and jam-band legend Mickey Hart. Gawain’s original compositions have been featured frequently on Fox’s “SoYou Think You Can Dance” and “American Idol”.

Tal Morris is something of a product of San Francisco's Blue Bear School of Music. That is a well-respected training ground for musicians at all levels, but it is probably best known as a place where bands are assembled to learn and perform popular songbooks, such as The Beatles. Morris now teaches at this school, so it seems fitting that his professional experience has included Creedence Clearwater Revisited, another tribute band. But it hasn't stopped there. Morris has worked with The Sons of Champlin, Huey Lewis and the News, Ronnie Montrose, Jeff Watson, and Lone Ranger. Singer Huey Lewis once described Tal as "the quintessential Bay Area guitar prodigy." 

David Tucker is probably a drummer from Santa Cruz, but as of press time we weren't certain.

If we have the correct David Tucker, he must feel like George Gobel in the company of Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. (You may need to be old to get that reference, but Tonight Show fans of the Carson era will recall a classic Gobel line - "Do you ever feel like the world is a tuxedo and you are a pair of brown loafers?" Or words to that effect. Review the tape for the exact quote.) 

One is tempted to mention this inasmuch as the whole Mostly Inc. operation is a Mill Valley-based consortium of elites, that has included George Marinelli (guitarist for Bonnie Raitt, Dixie Chicks, Art Garfunkel, Vince Gil and Peter Cetera); drummer Rickie Fataar, who was "Stig O'Hara" ("The Quiet One") in "The Rutles", Eric Idle's send up of The Beatles; drummer Jimmy Sanchez, who has played with virtually every member of the illustrious inner circle of San Francisco popular music (see sidebar); and Bonnie Raitt herself, among others.

WHO IS IN THE ILLUSTRIOUS INNER CIRCLE OF SAN FRANCISCO POPULAR MUSIC?

More Bhi Bhiman

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Noise Pop Acts

San Francisco's version of SXSW, Noise Pop has been "championing independent culture since 1993"

The Noise Pop Festival is San Francisco’s favorite indie music, arts and film festival. Now in its 20th year, Noise Pop has brought early exposure to many emerging artists in the Bay Area and beyond, many of whom have gone on to widespread acclaim. Some notable acts who have played Noise Pop include the White Stripes, Modest Mouse, The Flaming Lips, Death Cab for Cutie, The Shins, Bright Eyes, Best Coast, Jeff Tweedy, The Dodos, Girls and Antony and The Johnsons. The festival has also featured musical legends such as Yoko Ono and The Plastic Ono Band, Bob Mould, Yo La Tengo, X, Frank Black (of the Pixies), Sleater-Kinney and Television. In addition, the festival boasts a film series that explores the intersection of music and art; Pop-n-Shop, a local designer fair; Culture Club, an interactive workshop exploring DIY culture; Art Gallery Shows; Happy Hours and much more. (from the Noise Pop site)

A sampling of this year's lineup is provided in videos below. Go to the San Francisco Links page for additional Bhi Bhiman video.

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T-Bone Burnett's "Soggy Bottom Boys" got nothing on these guys.

The David Thom Band has been a fixture on the Bay Area Bluegrass scene since they started playing together 15 years ago. David Thom, lead vocals and guitar, is passionate about the traditional sound but allows his band to range out into new musical territory from time to time. For this band, tradition means respecting the intentions of the original artists while maintaining a unique identity. The hard driving 5-string banjo of Andy Shaw and the rock solid foundation and playful highlights of Mary Shaw’s bass round out the band. Everyone contributes to the vocal mix as well, bringing variety and intense, chilling harmonies. David Thom, himself a masterful instrumentalist, is highly regarded as a talented and creative singer. The David Thom Band has played at Strawberry, Grass Valley, The Great American Music Hall, The Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival and a long list of smaller festivals and fairs. The central lineup includes: David Thom – guitar, vocals; Andy Shaw – banjo, vocals; Mary Shaw – bass, vocals.

Amber Rubarth

Singer-songwriter Amber Rubarth is well-known to San Francisco Bay Area music fans, particular those who have followed house concert impresario Drew Pearce over the years. Rubarth is a devoted song stylist, an explorer of the form, and the video presented here does a nice job of exploring her writing process, and her recent recording experience. Her new album "A Common Case of Disappearing" was recorded with Grammy-Award winning producer Jacquire King (Kings of Leon, Norah Jones, Tom Waits) this Spring.

Sal Valentino

Beau Brummels and Isolation

By RAR

The San Francisco Band The Beau Brummels, who scored two hits, "Laugh, Laugh" and "Cry Just A Little", were important to the soundtrack of my youth. Visit this link for more on that... I loved the loneliness of their tremelo-drenched sound, and I loved the voice of their lead singer, Sal Valentino. Valentino was a kid from San Francisco's North Beach neighborhood who took has last name from that of a boxer that his dad liked. Born Salvatore Willard Spampinato in 1942, Sal Valentino achieved success in his early 20s, and then went down hill from there. San Francisco music writer Joel Selvin traced the entire arc in a 2006 piece for the Examiner (read here).

Around 2002, Valentino started a slow comeback playing open mic nights as a solo acoustic act in the Sacramento area. There he met Jackie Greene, a dude in his mid-20s at the time, who has since scored successes as a solo artist (his 2003 Gone Wanderin' CD stayed on the Americana charts for over a year) and been a band member of Phil Lesh and Friends.  Greene, who has modeled himself after a young Bob Dylan, has an affinity for classic rock figures and he has helped champion Valentino's comeback. In fact, he wrote a song for Valentino, a live performance of which is shown in the video in the right column, shot at The Palms venue in Winters, California (Sacramento area).

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Jinx Jones left Colorado years ago for life on the West Coast where he morphed into one of the great Rockabilly players working anywhere today, not that Rockabilly is currently in vogue. Good music played well is always in, witness this video from a recent Rockabilly show in Vegas featuring the subject of our hot roddin' guitar devotions.

German-born Northern California club staple Volker Strifler has a 10-song LP available for free download from his ReverbNation site. Eight of these songs are Strifler originals, ranging in feel from Rag Time Jazz to Caribbean Calypso to Blues, the latter being Volker's main calling card. Strifler, whose musical associations have included Robben Ford, The Ford Blues Band, and Chris Cain, always comes across as a true believer, a guy who grew up listening to American Blues and Americana in general, and incorporated those influences into his being. His authentic American Blues wail always comes across as a surprise, but a good one, and he is a knowledgeable composer, which sometimes seems like the greatest of his considerable skills.