San Francisco Voice

I inserted Bhi Bhiman’s self-titled CD into my computer and was still organizing my notes as the first track began. Immediately upon hearing his voice, I automatically lifted up my head and perked my ears because his vocals sounded so eerily familiar. It took me a minute to identify the musician whose name was coming to the tip of my tongue as sounding so familiar, but it came to me: Phil Ochs. Those who aren’t familiar with Ochs need only know that he wrote intensely socio-political music during the activist era which produced such more-famous singers as Bob Dylan.

Indeed, the first track, Up in Arms (Minister of Defense) strums up the ghost of Phil Ochs in both voice and content. But a further listen to the CD shows off additional sides of Bhiman which make him appear to be a more well-rounded musician than Ochs was. He’s got some blues under his belt, he’s got some classic rock in the strength of his voice and he’s got a strong sense of poetry in his lyrics. In other words, Bhiman takes the politics and poetics of the generations to come before him and uses them as inspiration to act as one of the voices of his generation.

Looking at his MySpace page, I see that I just missed a show of Bhiman’s at Grant and Green. But it turns out that he’ll be back in the city sound, playing Velo Rouge on July 15 as well as a couple of local venues in early August. 3 of the 6 songs on his EP can be found on his MySpace, along with an additional song not on that CD. This is with good timing since Bhi will be putting the final touches on his first full-length CD at the end of the month, to be released in August.

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