San Francisco Voice

LOW RED LAND is just about to release their first acoustic EP. It’s a true DIY project from the linoleum-block cover print to the way that it’s hand-packaged. The five songs that are on it can probably be heard (and can definitely be purchased) at the first show after its release. That show it July 27 at Bottom of the Hill.
Playing with LOW RED LAND on that date will be other local bands Tartufi, Silian Rail and Sky Pilots. This performance is a showcase of Thread Productions, a collective of local bands who work hard to not only promote the …read more

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Take a guy that will tell you he used to busk on the streets of Philadelphia (without getting arrested and without getting rich), give him the experience of playing in a number of bands including one indie rock group that got some recognition and then move him out to the West Coast. What have you got? Chris Stroffolino, a guy who isn’t about to stop making the most of his musical career. He’s currently playing solo (with upcoming shows in the city at City Lights and at The Knockout) making a kind of music that merges instrumentals and emphasizes them …read more

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I always try to do an introduction to the interviews that I post on my site. This is where I pull together what the band has said and summarize it to give it some form. But on occasion, I get an interview back from a band member who has written everything with such flow and summed everything up so concisely that there’s no reason for me to give an introduction. So, I’ll leave it to Aoede to tell you what there is to know. Although I will point out that a band that can write their own interview answers so …read more

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The job of the music review writer is to listen carefully to the tracks on a CD and come up with an original, unique description of the music so that new listeners can gain an understanding of the band’s sound and old fans can gain a new perspective on the music. But, in very rare instances, the band itself does a better job of summarizing the music than the music journalist can do. Such is the case with The Sprial Path, the new CD by Project Greenfield.
As described in the introduction letter by the band, “The Spiral Path is a …read more

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Pants Pants Pants is more than just a fun name for a band, it’s a fun band as well. Playing a kind of music that isn’t easily labeled (called by the band something along the lines of not-pop or electrocknick hip pop), they just released their CD, Ok, Fine. Hopefully you caught it for free when it was available for download on the site (don’t blame us if you didn’t, we told you about it), but if not, you can catch some tracks on their MySpace page. Learn more about their music, the background story of their name and the …read more

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Did you go check out Privies last week when we told you that you should? If not, your chance is coming around again. They’re playing July 8th at The Knockout.  Learn more about them from their recent SFV interview and hear their music on MySpace.
Need a better reason to go check them out? Their musical buddies, The Atomic Love Bombs, are going to be running a contest that night and the winner of the contest wins a new iPod Nano. How does it work? You take your camera and snap away and then submit your amateur photos of any of the three …read more

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Passion. That’s the word that immediately leaps to mind when you hear about The Reaction. Well, that and perhaps, “out of this world”. They’ve quirky, expressive, dynamic, interesting and fun … but at the core of it, they are passionate. Passionate about their playing, passionate about their connection with each other and passionate about the places in the city that they love. They won’t tell you where many of those spots are, but in this SFV interview, they will tell you about their musical history, their soon-to-be-released vinyl record and full album and their upcoming local gigs.
What’s the story on …read more

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Rob Owen is an indie singer/songwriter who creates music that is born from highly personal emotions but which has universal applications. Driven to write by the tumultuous experiences of heartbreak and the loss of his grandmother, Rob has turned his feelings into art. But this isn’t to say that his songs are for the downtrodden. They are uplifting, almost poppy, and they are filled with gems of lyrical insight like these lyrics from the title track to his new CD, Barefoot in the Rain.
Be done with burdens that hold you down to yesterday
Don’t lose sight of
What it means to be …read more

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Fernando Paez is not your average alternative music genre musician. If you saw him walking down the street in his favorite SF neighborhood (North Beach), you probably wouldn’t figure him to be the kind of guy who went from singing in salsa bands to performing internationally as an alternative rock musician. But surprising people is something that this musician isn’t afraid of doing. Having just returned to the Bay Area after time spent in LA and Central America, Fernando is hoping to wrap up some new recordings and then form a local group. You can hear some of …read more

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James Patrick Regan is a Bay Area guitarist who has been leaving his musical fingerprints on the local music scene since his first band, St. Laurent, first got big back in the eighties. Currently, he’s got good gigs going with his low key band, Urban Slack, and is also having a lot of fun with his new surf punk band, The Deadly (or potentially harmful) Surfinatics. But his work with St. Laurent isn’t all in the past; the band has recently come back together and recorded a new CD which James says is reminiscent of the sounds of San Francisco …read more

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