Matt CrawfordSF Station Writer |
|
 | Goin’ Big With Mr. Ricky Reed Armed with a gold dookie chain and an 80s thrift store wardrobe, those nifty sunglasses with the green arm bands that you see everywhere these days, and vicious auto-tune vocals, Wallpaper’s Eric Frederic embodies the 'me generation' with his alter ego Ricky Reed. The singer doesn’t start the party with jams about going big on the weekends and textual romance -- he is the party. Frederic spoke with SF Station during a break from working on the Bay Area-based group’s debut LP, which he says will build off of the electro funk of the recent [b]T Rex[/b] EP, with a more expansive, band-oriented sound. More » |  |  | Do Your Little Dance on the Catwalk If CSS doesn’t make you dance, you might need to see a doctor. The band from Sao Paulo has been doing laps around the globe nearly nonstop since its 2006 debut on Sup Pop. It stops in San Francisco in support of its second LP on the label [b]Donkey[/b] for a Show at Bimbo’s on December 12th. Luiza Sa (guitar/keyboards) spoke with SF Station during a phone interview from London between the European and Japanese legs of the tour. More » | |  | Many Gays a Singin’, a Vampire Weekend and George Clinton Brings in 2009 Christmas is almost here. It’s cold and dreary and the economy sucks. Not the best combination for peace and happiness, right? But there’s at least one silver lining for the Bay Area holiday season: an end-of-year concert lineup that offers plenty of opportunity for at least a few hours of holiday cheer. Check out the highlights. More » | |  | Let’s Talk About Sex Sebastien Tellier could very well be France’s new sexual ambassador to the United States. For his third LP [b]Sexuality[/b], the Parisian enlisted Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, one half of Daft Punk, for production help and a willing girlfriend to provide the requisite moans over his musical interpretation of sexual bliss. Tellier spoke with SF Station during a phone interview from his Los Angeles hotel on a rainy morning before starting his North American tour. He performs at Mezzanine on December 4th. More » | |  | A Stroke Strums Little Joy, the latest project to come out of The Strokes camp during a two-year hiatus, pairs the band’s drummer Fabrizio Moretti with Rodrigo Amarante, of Brazilian rock outfit Los Hermanos, and mystery L.A. belle Binki Shapiro. The trio, named after a bar near its shared L.A. home, has a few subtle similarities with the Strokes -- mainly treble-heavy, crooning vocals -- with doses of Sam Cooke, Brazilian guitar and surf music. Little Joy performs December 9th at Slim’s. Moretti spoke with SF Station from the road en route to Atlanta after the East Coast leg of his tour. More » | |  | An Ill Collaboration Underdog status is nothing new for Gift of Gab, Lateef the Truth Speaker and Headnodic, the Bay Area hip hop fixtures that joined forces to create the Mighty Underdogs. Although all three have seen various degrees of success, easy money is rare in the underground hip hop game. More » | |  | Eclectic Trio Shines on in SF Apollo Sunshine’s latest genre-bending LP [b]Shall Noise Upon[/b] fuses 60s psychedelia with dusty steel guitar licks, ornate string arrangements, Spanish horns, distorted harmonica voodoo and pretty acoustic ditties to bond equally disparate moods in a common universe. The trio, which formed on the East Coast and released its first album 2003, opens for Dead Confederated on November 16th at The Independent. San Francisco-based drummer Jeremy Black, who also co-founded Black and Green Records and a new recording studio in Oakland, spoke with SF Station during a phone interview from the road. More » | |  | The Deal From the Buckeye State Whether she likes it or not, Kim Deal finds herself at the epicenter of U.S. politics as all eyes look to swinging Ohio during the presidential election. The Breeders frontwoman, also a member of a little indie band you might have heard of called The Pixies, has lived in the Buckeye state for the last five years. Deal spoke with SF Station during a phone interview from her home. She performs with The Breeders on November 13th and 14th at Slim’s. More » | |  | A Dangerous Show for Dangerous People Riding on the crest of recent mainstream and independent successes, Diplo returns to San Francisco for a show at Great American Music Hall on November 3rd. The DJ/producer is behind M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes,” which found 11th-hour success on iTunes a year after its release when it was featured on the Pineapple Express trailer, and he recently released the excellent Santogold mixtape that pairs the emerging artist with some of her reggae, punk, rap and new wave influences. Diplo spoke with SF Station during a phone interview while wandering lost through the streets of Salt Lake City in search of his tour bus. More » | |  | Making the Crowd Hype The three core members of the UK’s Friendly Fires have collaborated musically for nearly 10 years, but it was only after the band adopted a dance-friendly rock beat over the past few years -- all the rage in these parts and abroad -- that it started gaining attention on this side of the Atlantic. After recently wrapping up its first headlining tour in the UK, the band is testing the U.S. market with an opening slot on Lykke Li’s tour, which stops in San Francisco for a sold-out show at the Independent on November 1st. Friendly Fires vocalist Ed Macfarlane spoke with SF Station during a phone interview from a New York gig. More » | |
|
