Saket Vora

After spending the afternoon in Dolores Park with Karla and the crew, I stopped by home to freshen up then headed out towards SOMA. Next up for the evening: dinner & a concert by Seryn. Having gone up to Oregon and Washington after their show the previous weekend in Berkeley, they were going to play one more show in San Francisco before heading back home to Texas. As some have inferred by now, I tend to be rather — shall we say — evangelical when it comes to certain new bands I find, and for the show tonight I was able to convince ten people to go, half of them had never heard Seryn before. Woohoo! Gotta show the band some love.

Chrissy, Chad, Troy, and I grabbed a quick dinner of Indian food a few blocks from the venue, the Hotel Utah Saloon. This was my first show here, and it reminded me of the Hemlock Tavern — a bar with a small room attached with a stage. The Hotel Utah has a split level though and is only about nine strides deep, so there were only maybe 35 people in attendance. Our group took over half the balcony, overlooking the band. Also in attendance: Gregg and Sarah (they had been listening to the album all week), Christophe and his friend Paul (who I saw The Low Anthem with a few weeks back), Sean, John Shen, and then Sam, Praveen, and Justin from Karla’s birthday party (they swung by on their way to the Caltrain).

The band put on another terrific live show — loved the extra flourishes and jams they added to their album songs.

Everyone really enjoyed the show. After the show we went downstairs and practically everyone brought some merch. We ran into some of the bandmates outside (it’s hard not to, the venue is so small that Praveen ended up helping them get their drum out the door), and said we couldn’t wait for them to come back and play at a bigger venue. Their sound is so big.

Here is them playing the instrumental second half of On My Knees– watch for the short but sweet jam at 4:10 minute mark.

I can’t wait for this band to blow up. So good.

After dropping Sean and Chrissy off from Jay’s BBQ down in Santa Cruz, I made a pit stop at home and found Troy vegging out on the coach. “Hey T-Bone, you up for doing something tonight?” Twenty minutes later, we were heading across the Bay Bridge to the Starry Plough pub in Berkeley. The occasion: Seryn, the new band I learned about a few weeks ago would be playing their first Bay Area show there. As we rolled up to the pub, I saw the lead singer Trenton outside helping getting their gear. Wished him good luck for the show, and Troy and I headed next door to get a quick bite before the show.

What made the evening even better was that Brock and Heather were going to join us! They met us inside the pub, we got drinks, and had a great time. The opening solo act was a very strange concoction…I’m trying to think of how to describe it but I’ve got nothing now. Anyway:

Being an idiot, I brought my DSLR with the 50mm f/1.8, but forgot the memory card in my computer. D’oh, so all I’ve got is this iPhone photo. There was probably 35 people in attendance, very small and intimate. But Seryn just blew us away. They put on an incredible live show with a sound that can fill much bigger venues. We were amazed at the drummer, who at times also played the xylophone, accordion, and banjo. They aren’t afraid to experiment either — the lead singer at one point hunched over and started singing (yelling?) into the pickups of his ukelele, creating a haunting sound. It kinda looked like he was making out with the ukelele, hehe. At one time the bassist was using a cello bow on his bass guitar but also the xylophone, and at the finale song whipped out a trumpet!

They added to their album songs with flourishes and mini jam sessions that were a delight to hear. This band is going to be big, I just know it. Their sound is just too good!

Hat tip to John for this one. The Antlers, a three piece indie rock band out of Brooklyn, have been around for a few years but recently released their second album, Burst Apart. Their first album, Hospice, gained attention for its emotionally charged songs and unusual setup — it told a story using the analogy of a hospice worker and a terminally-ill patient.

The first thing I thought of when listening through Burst Apart is “wow, this sounds a lot like Radiohead back during Ok Computer and Kid A“. The composition, the shimmery slightly off-kilter effects that round out some of the sounds, the songs that verge into formless structure during the middle of the album, etc. One immediately thinks of the fantastically disquieting “Climbing Up the Walls” when listening to the Antler’s song Parentheses.

It’s definitely an album that deserves a few listens, and some songs in particular definitely start to stick in your ear. Two tracks that did this to me:

The Antlers – I Don’t Want Love

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The Antlers – Putting the Dog to Sleep

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Also worth checking out French Exit.

Here’s a bit of electro-pop fun before diving back into more heady tunes: The Naked and Famous, out of New Zealand. Their recent album is called Passive Me, Aggressive You. Go figure that this band opened for the Freelance Whales show that I did with friends, but we missed the entire opener because we were getting dinner before the show (and we were starving). Electro-pop is a fairly apt way of describing them, and you’ll hear electronic beats and heavy on the synths. I’m sure there are more similar sounding bands out there, but maybe in the vein of a Passion Pit (but without the interested falsetto and newness of sound).

Here are two songs that I liked:

The Naked and Famous – Young Blood

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The Naked and Famous – Punching in a Dream

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I’m getting this quick post off as I head to work in the morning, moving through a fog bank that is blanketing South San Francisco. What I’m listening to is gladly nothing like my surroundings: it’s a remix of Delorean’s Grow by Taragana Pyjarama (what a cool name!).

It’s smooth, warm, and feels like summer never wants to end. As for me, I just want our summer to really start!

Delorean – Grow Taragana Pyjarama remix by Mushroom Pillow

Enjoy.

Here are two remixes of Lord Huron I’ve been listening to quite a bit recently. The first of Into the Sun, done by Teen Daze. It’s an electronic treatment of the original’s tropical, laid back, sunny mood, and I especially like the way the remix not only gives the song a great sense of focus, but it also lifts a particular lyric to greater prominence: listen near the end for “You’re as soft as a feather…you’re as gorgeous as ever” and when the tsst-tsst-tsst of the high hat kicks in. Love that.

Lord Huron – Into the Sun (Teen Daze Remix)

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The second is of Mighty, the great song I’ve written about before. Here, Painted Palms’ interpretation is heavy on the synth, but still retains the tribal sound of the original. I like how how the aaaahhhh backing vocal washes over the melody.

Lord Huron – Mighty (Painted Palms’ Remix)

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This is another hat tip to Paste Magazine, their recent “Best of What’s Next” really meshed with me. The artist is a five-piece called Seryn, from Texas. They are multi-instrumentalists and you’ll hear guitars, banjos, ukelele, viola, and accordions throughout their album, This is Where We Are.

The songs lean towards the long side, with the band showing patience and exploring shifts in key and temp in their songs — which makes sticking with songs the whole way through well worth it. Harmonized vocals, soft guitar and banjo pickings, and orchestral flourishes make this album a treat to listen to. If you’re a fan of Sufjan Stevens, Fleet Foxes, and Mumford & Sons, then I highly highly recommend you give this young new band a try!  Here are two songs to sample:

Seryn – We Will All Be Changed

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Seryn – Our Love

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Bay Area folks – Seryn will be playing a show at the Hotel Utah Saloon on Sunday, June 19th. Tickets are just ~$8, so why not? I’m going. There’s also a Berkeley show at the Starry Plough on Saturday, June 11th. Might go to that too.

An opportunity came up for this past Monday night that was too good to pass up. Patrick, our super intern extraordinaire from NC State, tells us that his (2nd) cousin Peter is the drummer for the band Here We Go Magic, and they were coming to San Francisco and he got backstage passes. Heck yeah! Sean, Joey, Patrick, and I headed up to the Rickshaw Stop, met up with Peter, and ended up hanging out at a bar in Hayes Valley for almost two hours.

It was awesome. We talked about how he got involved with the band, what touring is like — how do you keep things fresh after dozens or hundreds of shows? — and fun moments that happen when you’re in a real bona-fide band. Here We Go Magic was Thom Yorke’s (of Radiohead) favorite band from last year’s Glastonbury Festival, and Peter described having a jam session one night in New York with Yorke himself. Like whoa. Peter is really well read — the conversation drifted deep into music theory, accessibility of music, the feel of music in different cultures and how people connect to it in a very fundamental way, etc.

The show was nice. I was going on just 3 hours of sleep from my flight back to the Bay Area that morning, but I enjoyed it. Many of the songs live get into a nice groove, and there is definitely a jam feel to them, especially near the end. Their music is often described as ‘electro-folk’, with some psychedelia mixed in a few songs. Whatever that means, heh. The band came back on for an encore, and Peter even gave us a shoutout: “Thanks to my cousin Patrick and his friends!” So cool of him!

Check out this song from their latest album, Pigeons.

Here We Go Magic – Collector

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By the way — Here We Go Magic is playing at Schubas on May 9th for you Chicago peeps, and at the Local 506 on May 17th for you Triangle peeps.

Last Friday I was treated to an amazing experience, courtesy of Lost in the Trees, the indie/folk/baroque band from Chapel Hill, NC that released their first full album last year and received lots of blog love from NPR Music. They were playing a show at the Hemlock Tavern, a small venue behind a bar on Polk St. This was the band that Dustin discovered at a concert last year, and it quickly grew esteem amongst some of our friends. This time around, we brought numbers: Dustin, Sean, Joey, Christophe, Chris, Patrick, Rishabh, Chrissy, and me.

We ended up splitting up for dinner after work on Friday; Chrissy and I grabbed a burrito in the Mission before heading north to Polk St. We had about half an hour to kill before the show, and just as we got our drinks I ran into Ari Picker, the lead singer and artist behind the band. Wished him luck for the show, told him how we brought a whole lot of folks, and that I was from Raleigh.

The show’s opener was a singer-songwriter named Sean Rowe. His songs were quite good — nice percussive notes on the body of the guitar, and some songs in particular showed great guitar work. His voice reminded me a lot of Tom Berninger from The National, but Joey said it also reminded him of the Pixies.

Lost in the Trees played a set that drew from their album All Alone in an Empty House and their recent EP, Time Taunts Me. Somehow, they all fit on the small stage — guitar, drums, two cellists, a violinists, a french horn / accordion player, and an electric guitar / tuba / xylophone player. The venue is quite intimate, maybe only 80 to 100 people in a long, narrow room.

One thing that will strike you about their music is how much emotion there is. Many songs deal with sorrow, yearning, longing, and loss. Ari wears this emotion on his sleeve, at one point resting on knees with his eyes closed while the strings carried the melody forward.

The highlight of the night came at the end. The band was battling sound troubles throughout the set — monitor levels not high enough, reverb through the mics, etc. After hinting at it during the show, for the encore Ari stepped off the stage and headed to the center of the small room. The rest of the band followed, and we all made space for them and their instruments. There, in the darkness save for the backlight from a few phones, we were treated to an acoustic set right amongst us. It was amazing.

I could only muster this photo from my phone, but it was really dark in there. The guy in front me held up the xylophone for one song. They called Sean Rowe to join them for one of Sean’s songs that the band had been learning (never before played in public). And at the end, Ari led the crowd to do the backing vocals, telling us that we’re going to overpower the noise from the bar.

I was really pleased to hear that Chrissy, Rishabh, Patrick, and Chris all really enjoyed the show too, even though they hadn’t heard much (or none at all) of the band beforehand. It’s an interesting mix…folk, Americana, indie, with a heavy dose of baroque classical influence. We hung around afterward, and the band members came out to meet the crowd. Almost all of us ended up buying merch, and Ari signed out limited edition tour posters. This is what I love about seeing small, up and coming bands in venues like this.

Definitely looking forward to their next album and their next visit to San Francisco. Triangle folks — Lost in the Trees will be playing at Cat’s Cradle in Carrboro on Friday, May 13th!

This past Saturday night, I saw my first show of the San Francisco Symphony at the beautiful Davies Auditorium, on Van Ness right in front of City Hall. I went with Patrick, who is certainly making the most of his time out here in the Bay Area before returning to Raleigh to finish school, and Chrissy. It was a chance for us to dress up, which was nice too. A big hat tip goes to Rishabh, who told us about a ticket deal the day before during lunch. We met for dinner at Max’s a few blocks from the theater.

First up was a performance of Henri Dutilleux’s cello concerto Tout un monde lointain, a piece which often had the the featured guest cello soloist pitted against the rest of the audience. It felt modern and a little abstract to me, but it was nice to see the cellist furiously play a riff, then to see all the instruments of the orchestra rise up in the ready position and fire back a response.

The second piece was more recognizable to our amateur classical enthusiast ears: Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique. Patrick played the bassoon in band and there is a famous bassoon solo part of the piece, especially in the famous 4th movement of March to the Scaffold. Chrissy has been playing the flute for many many years all the way through college and was very competitive — so good, in fact, that if it wasn’t for engineering she would have gone to music school instead.

The show was really great — I really must come to the symphony more. The night was still young when we left, so we headed to Range, a highly acclaimed cocktail bar in the Mission, and talked the night away.

Last Thursday I did a concert doubleheader — Freelance Whales @ the Great American Music Hall then Delorean @ Slim’s. A few months back I saw the Freelance Whales show pop up and bought tickets for it — I’d miss them twice before in San Francisco. Very soon after, I see a Delorean show appear….on the very same night. Delorean in concert is so incredibly fun, how could I pass that up? The Freewhales Whales were going on as the second of three acts, and their show was starting an hour earlier than the Delorean show, in which they were headlining. So technically, there would be enough time to make it to Slim’s (~15 minutes away) after Freelance Whales finished their set and before Delorean took the stage. I punched my ticket.

I wasn’t the only crazy one, for John, Troy, and Joey jumped in on the idea too. Steve wanted to make it also, but he was stuck out of town on business. Chrissy joined in for Freelance Whales, but not Delorean (she saw them last fall with me and Jared). We grabbed dinner at a Thai restaurant around the corner from the GAMH, and timed our entrance perfectly.

photo by Human Fiction

photo by Natalye

I was impressed — they have a really tight live show. Their album Weathervanes can be pretty mellow at times, but they gave new life to the songs on-stage, adding new dimensions and textures to them. It would have been boring if they just replicated the sound off their album, but they didn’t disappoint. The whole band jumps in for the harmonies, and are switching instruments around throughout the show. The guitarist in particular was intriguing — he played electric guitar, bass, guitar with e-bow, electric mandolin, and xylophone.

After the set we bought some merch (Joey pulled a wildcard and bought a Foals t-shirt, even though we weren’t sticking around to hear them and I don’t think he’s even heard them either). We bid adieu to Chrissy and bounced. John had his car nearby, so we piled in; parking was pretty easy a couple blocks away. About 50 yards from the car, I freeze and ask John to unlock it before sprinting back to drop my jacket off in the car. I had been to Slim’s before to see Two Door Cinema Club (who, in fact, were also playing a show in San Francisco this night). Wasn’t too crowded, and I spotted Jess — slipped my mind she was coming. She had a few people along too, like Kimmie (sp?) who works with her at Arup. Delorean took the stage at eleven and we got up real close.

I had told our group in particular to watch the keyboardist Unai Lazcano — he’s one of my favorite live performers because he gets so into the moment — boogying around, bobbing his head eyes half closed, feet constantly moving, rocking the keyboard dangerously until it almost tips over. You can’t help but grin when you see it. The show was great, the band playing through several songs continuously before slowing it down and building the rhythm up again. Three songs in, Troy leans over and says “I suddenly realize why you had this panicked look on your face before sprinting back to the car to leave your jacket” — it gets really warm when everyone is dancing around.

What a fun night!

Last Wednesday I saw Lord Huron again at Bottom of the Hill. This was the band that John and I discovered when they opened for Tennis a couple of months back, and to support them I wanted to go back and see them even if it was unlikely they’d have new material ready.

Bottom of the Hill has a penchant for cranking up the volume, even for bands that don’t really need it. This time I was sporting a pair of Etymotic ER-20 earplugs, which are designed to provide sound isolation while still preserving the clarity and full range of music. Joseph highly recommended these and wears them to all the shows he goes to. Sure enough, I saw the person next to me holding their ears two songs in.

The show was good, they asked the crowd to indulge them for a cover of Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska that they had been playing the night before. After the show I headed to the back merch table where I met Ben, the band’s front man. He actually recognized me from last time, which was kinda cool. They had run out of EPs on CD, but I did pick up a 12″ vinyl record of the Mighty EP for Joseph — he handed me some money earlier that day to spend at the show to support the artist too.

They’ll be back in San Francisco for the Outside Lands music festival in August.

Typhoon is a band I learned about from scanning the headlines over at Paste Magazine’s website. Their description of this band’s latest EP warranted further exploration:

Music critics throw around adjectives like “orchestral” and “expansive” all the time these days. But here’s a band that actually deserves such labels. Portland’s Typhoon is an indie rock geek’s dream: a dynamic 12-piece with a seemingly unending reservoir of energy, emotive vocals, arpeggiated guitars, horns, multiple drum kits, strings—there are so many sonic details crammed into the five tracks on A New Kind of House, the band’s second official release, that you might need two pairs of headphones to properly connect the dots.

I was pretty impressed — several longform and thoughtful songwriting, varied song structures, and nice instrumentation. They’ll be playing at a few festivals in the coming months, and hopefully do a wider tour as well.

Here are two songs that I especially liked:

Typhoon – Summer Home from A New Kind of House

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Typhoon – Belly of the Cavern from Hunger and Thirst

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Lyrics to Belly of the Cavern:

I was lost out in the mountains
and I had run out of provisions
I had one drop left in my deer-skin
and I had come to my last decision.

Should I lie down
or should I be laid down
I had set out in the first place
from what I gathered from rumored hearsay
I heard of treasure in a high cave
on the northern slopes of the coast range
so I climbed up
but I didn’t know how to climb down

I wandered through the foliage
I came across my own tracks
and i became discouraged
until at long last i found a cavern
I crawled inside and I lit my lantern
and it was all there
just like they told me it would be there

I was lost out in the mountains
I had no water nor food to eat
so i drank the soil from a golden chalice
I gritted precious stones between my teeth
and I regretted my lonesome palace
should have never listened to others tales
all I had left was a priceless ballast
to hold me down from the howling gales.

In my mouth there burned a fire
I was dying of a long long draught
but then a voice whistled across the mouth of my cavern
and it said to me it said that without a doubt
you will settle by the water before this is over.

All my life I’ve spent wasting time,
wasting my time just to forget again
but I don’t mind
I’ll take my medicine and I will be fine.