Ganglians photo by Devin Woolf
I’ve been severely neglecting writing about San Francisco’s increasingly great garage and rock scene. Whether it be catching a Sic Alps show at the Sutros Baths, seeing Girls play some run down night club, seeing a Bridez show in someones backyard, or seeing the Ganglians play one of their extremely rare Bay Area appearances it’s becoming more apparent each week here that there’s some very real momentum and talent to the unfairly under the radar musicians here. First off, to call any of the artists garage is to oversimplify, to my ears they’re the same music obsessive multi-genre interested music fans that are creating the music and thusly their music doesn’t boil down to 60′s garage derivatives but incorporates just about any genres influence they fancy into some great new fashioned rock n’ roll.
I can’t shake the feeling that it feels like the music scene here is about to boil over soon beginning with Girls new album Album, combined with the fantastic 7″ by Ganglians and a slew of other amazing San Francisco artists releases and singles that I will run through some of right now. To be honest it’s refreshingly difficult to classify in any way many of these artists into one specific genre and that is truly what is making their music so interesting and making them more intriguing than the well worn derivative paths so many have taken in garage and rock influenced music.
First, go check out the Ganglians tracks “Make it up” and “Blood on the Sand” from their most recent 7.” For now that’s the best glimpse you can get into their ever increasingly great mostly new songs live set. Also, if you ever can get the chance to see them live DO IT, I was unsure of how their sounds would translate live and I walked away stunned at how amazing they were live, easily one of the best shows I’ve caught in San Francisco. Apparently Monster Headroom was recorded over a year ago and their new unreleased stuff is insanely good live.
The Mantles – Don’t Lie
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Byrds meets the Chills with a little bit of Echo and the Bunnymen thrown in. What better a way to have your garage served?
Grass Widow – Lulu’s Lips
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Easily the best newish girl group I’ve seen live here in a long time. Their mult-part harmonies are beautifully done and every show they play here seems to get that much better.
Sic Alps - L’s Mansion
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This is Sic Alps newest single and it’s great. It can be be found on their new 7″ titled L’s. I like the direction they’re headed on this acoustic stripped down song.
Fresh & Onlys – Invisible Forces
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I love this single of theirs, it sounds like some lost The Church b-side, only a bit grittier. I’m not that big on their live set, or even the rest of this album…but what a great single.
Ganglians
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Watch them play at a recent performance in Portland. Their guitar player just kills it.
This next video showcases their ability effortlessly shift from harder garage/surf songs to warped sunshiney California 60′s tinged pop.
Bridez are in my opinion really underrated and more deserving of some attention. This new video really captures their catchy rock n’ roll bravado pretty perfectly.
Ty Segall - Universal Momma
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Sweet tunes, cool dude.
Devin