Good news for fans of noise and the shrill! Later this month railcars will be releasing an EP with a number of equally talented noise artists’ remixes of the title track, from their latest album, "Cathedral With No Eyes". San Francisco’s own (or at least formerly so) Xiu Xiu  is providing one of the remixes, making a lovely scrambled version of an already chaotic song, with Portland’s White Rainbow and Massachusetts’ Truman Peyote also contributing their own versions. Other’s promised to appear on the EP include Lucky Dragon and Neon Navajo with more still to be announced.  While the Truman Peyote version can be heard here and the White Rainbow remix can be previewed over at XLR8R, the patient will get to hear the Xiu Xiu adaptation, as well as the others, when the EP is released for free from Aria’s website.

In the meantime, as railcars finish up their European tour, Aria has been soliciting donations through Kickstarter so that he can do a full cover of the Kate Bush album Hounds of Love. So, if you’re curious to see how Aria Jalali’s imagination will render this album, drop him a few dimes and wait for the copy he will send. For a hint of how he might be inclined to interpret it check out his cover of the Cranberries’ song “Linger” here.

-Ada Lann

The Deli SF’s Best Emerging Artist of 2008, Maus Haus, will release a new 7" single "Winter"/"Zig Zag" at their Noise Pop 2010 show. This is Maus Haus’s first release since 2008’s Lark Marvels and includes an additional digital only 4 track EP Sea-Sides.

The February 27th show at the Mezzanine features My First Earthquake, Sugar & Gold, Maus Haus and Brooklyn’s !!! – a lineup that promises a lot of energy and a lot of dancing. It will undoubtedly be one of the many highlights of the festival.

-Nicole Leigh

If, in the coming months, you realize that the availible selections on your ipod have become cumbersome or uninteresting, consider giving some of the artists from the upcoming 3rd annual Switchboard Music Festival a listen. Since 2007, the Switchboard Music Festival has aimed to create a "marathon concert featuring artists, primarily from the San Francisco Bay Area, whose music challenges traditional genre distinctions."  At this years 8 hour marathon concert you’ll experience such Bay Area artists as the black metal bossa nova fusion band Thorny Brocky, the experimental cello arrangements of Zoe Keating [above], and the prog rock classical thrash metal of miRthkon.

If you can find a Bay Area music festival with a more eccentric lineup, tell me about it and I’ll give you $5 dollars from my own pocket*.

The Switchboard Music Festival takes place on March 28th and tickets range from $10-40.

-Nicole Leigh
photo by Lane Hartwell

*5 (five) United States Dollars will be awarded to 1 (one), only 1 (one) winner who can give me the name of a Bay Area music festival with a lineup in greater anomalus nature to the Switchboard Music Festival. This contest is in no way sponsored by the Switchboard Music Festival and is void where prohibited by law. Ps, the $5 bill I just pulled out of my wallet and set aside for this contest reads "I love you Jesus!! Thank you for provisions!!" – consider that a bonus.

As if they haven’t given enough reason to draw worship to their alter, it seems the ever fantastic and often dangerous (at least financially) Amoeba Music has taken it upon themselves to become part of the fast growing list of organizations raising money for relief in Haiti. Amoeba will match dollar for dollar and contribute all the proceeds garnered through a special online store to the organization Doctors with out Boarders, currently providing much needed medical care in Haiti.  If you haven’t picked up your copy of the Girls self titled album (The Deli SF’s CD of the month) or would like to pick up a fancy new Blu Ray copy of the wonderful Talking Heads tour film Stop Making Sense, the click on over to their website and snatch yourself one.

Of course if you can’t find what you’d like on the site, apparently Amoeba will also be collecting donations in their stores coinciding perfectly with this weekends pet adoption day at the San Francisco location. Music, homes for pets, humanitarian aid – surely Amoeba you have performed enough miracles in your lifetime to warrant becoming the first inanimate saint. So this weekend throw caution to the wind and hop down to the store knowing that you may leave sans your next months rent, but at least you’ll have supported a worth while cause… and of course boosted your record collection.

-Ada Lann

After having gone into a brief period of dormancy, the Deli SF will be resurrecting it’s weekly recommendations of happenings around the Bay Area so you can plan your time accordingly. With that in mind we encourage bands to post their shows on our DIY Live Show Listings as you never know if yours could be the one featured.

Though surely many people’s plans this weekend involve evenings by candlelight and something lacy from Good Vibrations, for those who dare to break the mold and treat their date to a different hot and sweaty environment, or just don’t give a rat’s arse about Hallmark holidays, here are a few show highlights for this weekend.

For a down-tempo night out Il Gato are giving a folky kick off to the weekend at The Blue Macaw in the Mission this Thursday the 11th at 8:30.

On Friday night Grand Lake (who took second place in the reader’s poll this year for the Deli’s best emerging artist) are opening for Alec Ounsworth (of Clap Your Hands a Say Yeah) at Cafe Du Nord.

If an excuse to have a goofy dance party is the impetus you need to get out Saturday night Super Adventure Club will be performing the second show of their four week residency at the Hotel Utah. One the other hand if your looking for something a bit rockier, Paranoids and Tokyo Raid will be playing on the other side of town at Kimo’s somewhere around 10pm.

That’s all for this week. Remember to keep us updated on the calender and we’ll do our best to disseminate the word.

-Ada Lann

Dragon Chinese Cocktail Horoscope, the 2009 release from Michael Zapruder was recently awarded the Best Folk/Singer Songwriter album of 2009 by The Independent Music Awards.  Now in its 9th year, the Independent Music Awards has been recognizing self-released and independent music from around the globe. This is the 3rd full length album from Micheal since he earned notoriety in 1999 by releasing a new track every week throughout the year – the collection has been archived on The 52 Songs Project website. Fans can still vote for their favorite nominated ‘People’s Voice’ Independent Music Awards artists here.

Monday, February 8th at 8pm, Amoeba Music presents 2 music documentaries at a tucked away little venue on 37th and MLK in Oakland – Eli’s Mile High Club. This hidden staple in the Bay Area became semi-famous in the 70’s for being one of the few venues on the West Coast to exclusively feature local and national blues artists. The club struggled financially over the years, exchanged hands a few times and was resurrected in 2008. Today the bar has a divey feel, serves food until midnight and when the myriad of rock, punk, metal and experimental acts play a set, they’re standing on the same small Oakland stage that has been graced by James Brown, Etta James and Jimmy McCracklin.

Monday night features documentaries on the All Tomorrow’s Parties music festival and "My Fleeting House," a look at the music of Tim Buckley. The films are free and if you purchase a $5 food ticket you get food [duh] and a $5 Amoeba coupon.

The Hundred Days have released their first video, an acoustic version of the single "Out Of Nowhere." The video was directed by Angelo Ibanez and filmed at Gadgetbox Studios in Santa Cruz.

The Hundred Days play Bottom of the Hill tonight as part of the SF Winter Film & Music Festival with Please Do Not Fight, Luke Franks or the Federalists and Scene of Action. $10 8pm

Last week Daytrotter released four free downloads from San Francisco’s Social Studies. The collection in includes an exclusive track, "Mad Decent", a cover of The Grass Roots song "Lets Live for Today" as well as tracks from their upcoming album, Wind-Up Wooden Heart and their previous album This Is The World’s Biggest Hammer.

Indie folk duo Beatbeat Whisper play a free show Thursday January 28th [thats tonight] at the SF Underground Farmers Market. 199 Capp St. at 17th, San Francisco. 5-11pm

Farmers markets start to darn early sometimes. Finally, someone came up with the idea to have one, not just at night but, at night combined with other evening activities like drinking and listening to live music. Behold the SF Underground Farmers Market where for hefty fee of nada you can graze and purchase wild mushroom spreads, pies, acorn fudge and sarasparilla while listening to a live band.

We’re happy to be finally closing the book on 2009 and wanted to take a moment to congratulate the winners of our Best Emerging Artist of 2009.

First, the Readers Poll where San Francisco’s Orchestra of Antlers (in the picture) reached the top spot in a heated race with Oakland’s Grand Lake. Both bands made major waves in the Bay Area music scene throughout 2009 and since the bands were only 2% apart in the total number of votes, we decided to split the banner up top to recognize everyone’s hard work. You can catch Orchestra of Antlers at the Retox Lounge on January 30 and Grand Lake on February 2nd at Thee Parkside as part of SF Winterfest. In third place was Bay Area Hip Hop artists Le Vice who played the West Beach Music & Arts Festival last year along side Ben Harper and Ozomatli. Thier debut release is due in March and they play El Rio on March 11th. See the full Top 10 of our Readers Poll here.

The top winner in our overall Best Emerging Artist of 2009 was San Francisco’s Girls. The band seemed to blow up in the second half of the year and their debut release Album, was widely reviewed and talked about on music sites throughout the country. Girls will be playing the Great American Music Hall on February 14th. The second spot went to another band with a lot of buzz last year, Oakland’s Man/Miracle. Their LP The Shape of Things quickly sold through the first pressing and is expected to be re-released this year on Third Culture Records. Man/Miracle are playing a FREE show tonight at The Speakeasy [604 56th St., Oakland] and at Bottom of the Hill with Rogue Wave on February 24th. The third spot went to a a staple in the Bay Area music scene, Or, the Whale. This year saw them recording for Daytrotter and their self titled second release made a couple "Best Of" lists for 2009. Or, the Whale’s next local show is in March at The Independent. You can see the full list of nominees and their standings here.

A big thanks goes out to all of the readers that voted, The Deli staff that helped compile and vote on the nominees an the local bloggers, engineers and musicians who acted as jurors to help deliberate over a years worth of fantastic Bay Area music! Our jurors this year were: John Flores [owner of Studio SQ] Christian Cunningham [The Bay Bridged], Nate Seltenrich [East Bay Express], Anna Gazdowicz [Stranger Dance] , John Vanderslice [musician and owner of Tiny Telephone], Mark Taylor [KQED], Ted Leibowitz [Bagel Radio] and Peter Arko [Ears of the Beholder].

The Deli SF is looking forward to lots of amazing music from Bay Area artists in 2010!

-Nicole Leigh