These aren’t my favorite photos but I took ‘em and I posted ‘em to flickr so I guess now you gotta look at ‘em.

I was all about The Fresh & Onlys before I saw them. Then I saw ‘em. I dunno if all the reverb impaired my senses or if it was some kind of triggered memory from the last time I was at the Rickshaw Stop, but when they all burst into dance for the end number I decided I might not need to follow them too closely.

Sic Alps weren’t extra good like I thought they were going to be, but they were extra lovable. As tempers flared over equipment failures they endeared themselves to me with every smashed guitar, defective cord thrown into the audince, knocked over microphone, and breath of fresh air grabbed outside. When the equiment cooperated though, all right!

Singer was last and good enough. All of the advanced press was accurate — lots of US Maple moves were copped. The last song was the best. I remember thinking the word pummeling. Thats a trick US Maple never pulled off and probably why I thought it was the best of the bunch.

Okay, maybe you didn’t think we knew there were bands outside of San Francisco (except, for this one time when we let on) but check this out: This thursday there’s a pretty cool show going on at The Rickshaw Stop with Chicago weirdos Singer, as well as San Francisco weirdos Sic Alps, and new to me The Fresh & Onlys.

Ok, so The Fresh & Onlys features “members of Black Fiction, Kelley Stoltz Band” and I’m really into the songs on their myspace page. Sixties, garage worship stuff — Thee Oh Sees are in their top friends, surprise! But so are The Strapping Fieldhands and thats a better reference point. The songs are catchy and a little weird and I’ve played this little ditty called “Nuclear Disaster” a few times already. There’s Harmonica too. Yay, surprise new band to go see!

Sic Alps rule, I know we’ve told you this (they were on our first muxtape). They were supposed to be on tour this summer but then right before their kick off show at the Hemlock, dude broke his wrist. Bummer! I think this is their first show since that mishap and I bet they’re gonna be extra good.

Then Singer. Singer has memebers of Lichens/90 Day Men and Town and Country and Drag City veterans U.S. Maple who were one of my favorite bands at the time. They were total weirdos. The songs would be at odds with themselves, the guitars stumble and then burst into some oddball rock posturing while the singer dude rhasped away. Live they would antogonize each other on stage. One time I saw them, an instrumental intro was stretched out much longer than it could handle because the singer was in the audience talking to somebody like he was totally not in the band. They knew how to make it tense, but after the show they’d be joking with each other and friendly as can be.

So from what I’ve read, Singer’s live show is maybe a bit like the U.S. Maple show. And from what I’ve heard, Singer sounds a lot like U.S. Maple if they were fronted by M. Lamar or something. Ok, maybe not, but these guys sing and harmonize their hearts out. At any rate, it sounds totally absurd and I will be there. Take a listen:

Singer – Dumb Smoke

6/12/2008 @ The Rickshaw Stop
The Fresh & Onlys
Sic Alps
Singer