The Impediments are four young rockers from Berkeley (High School that is). Their debut self-titled CD holds nothing back, furiously pumping their punky garage rock from beginning to end almost sounding like a reissue of a forgotten record from the late 70s punk rock scene, but not quite. Which is a good thing! The production of Greg Ashley fits the music well without sounding like a complete copy of the music that it was influenced by. A heavy bed of murky bass and drums and the occasional piano leave room for a complete onslaught of rock guitar riffs and solos as well as some exceptionally humorous and sometimes crude lyrics.

There is an undeniable and unrelenting energy to the eleven songs found on Impediments. If you don’t find yourself tapping along to every part of “Violence” with its, well, badass guitar solo or the simpleness of “You Want a Square” then you probably have no rock and roll in you. This record is way cooler than the music most of us made in high school and the aesthetic sense and musicianship are rather impressive. A great CD from four young guys with probably the coolest record collections at Berkeley High.

Impediments is out now on Happy Parts Recordings.

-Glenn Jackson

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Noah from Blisses B is under the microscope this week. The San Francisco folk rockers fist LP You Should was released earlier this year.

What food item best describes your music?
Macaroni and Cheese. It’s something we can all eat and agree on, random cheeses too please.

What instrument have you wanted to include but have yet to find a way to fit into your sound?
Pedal Steel Guitar. I own one but we haven’t incorporated it into any songs yet. Nick, Ben and I were fiddling with it last practice and it is coming off the bench soon.

Embarrassing childhood memory?
Fracturing my elbow chasing Rod the Ice Cream Man. People get such a kick out of the story, all I got was a scar on my right arm that grew with me into adulthood.

What musical artist would you like to grab a beer with?
Bill Withers. He has been an integral part of my whole life, some of my first memories were bobbing my head to his cassette tapes in the backseat of my parents car.

And finally, time travel or space travel?
Space travel. Any direction/length of time is fine. I get the feeling the take off part would be my favorite part…

If your band has answers to The Deli’s Five Questions forward them to sfeditor@thedelimagazine.com.

-Nicole

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The Deli SF has received a transmission from the San Francisco band Railcars. Transmission can be seen below:

railcars has a show @ thee parkside, which is a super rare ALL AGES show @ thee parkside (that hardly ever happens there.) and its on nov 19th. its @ the end of our 8 week US tour.

this will be railcars, ONLY show in san francisco for all of 2009 AND 2010.

::end of transmission::

You heard it here folks, an all ages show and the last one the band will be doing in SF until 2011.Samuelroy, Pregnant and Felt Drawings also play. 6 bucks. Consider your calenders informed.

-Nicole

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This Saturday, November 21st at El Rio The Deli SF is proud to sponsor SFxSD!

SFxSD was created to put a spotlight on the indie bands from San Francisco and San Diego that are constantly touring to each others cities. The 2nd annual SFxSD features some of the top bands from both cities playing together all day long at a festival with an outdoor and indoor stage, free BBQ, drink specials, live silkscreening (Studio Nico) with BYOS (bring your own shirt) grab bag give-aways and tons of good music. The lineup features Music For Animals (SF) Transfer (SD) Lilofee (SF)Butterfly Bones (SF) Long Live Logos (SD) Lucky Jesus (SF) and DJ X Boyfriend – Presented by SF Pubcrawl and sponsored by the Deli SF, Littlebook, SF Intercom, Studio Nico, San Franpsycho and Kung Fu Tacos.

See you there!

-Nicole

If schizophrenia had a sound it might well be said that 60-Watt Kid’s We Came From the Bright Sidecomes close to capturing it. Perhaps that is too loaded of a term, but listening to the album as it wanders through a soundscape with no clear referents to time and space, ebbing and flowing in erratic changes, the cavernous sound definitely culls a certain sense of madness. This can be a dangerous attribute for music but 60-Watt Kid implores this dissonance very effectively throughout this album.

Music such as this conjures up distinct similarities to the sonic experimentations of bands such as Animal Collective (a band I personally take issue with). Experimentation in this vein can be a precarious place for musicians to stand. On the one hand there is the experimentation that is far to readily granted a band (such as Animal Collective) that ventures into the territory of weird for the sake of being weird; the function being a means to garner credential in a community that desires to define itself as an opposition to a mainstream sound, forsaking musical communication for a chance to be an avant-garde that in reality generates nothing newer than a desire to be an unqualifiable outsider. In the other there is a genuine use of complexity that doesn’t revel in it’s own quirkiness but actually pushes the boundaries of sound while still being able to reach a listener using something of the conventional. The tension between these two really begs the question of how as musicians can we strive towards the avant-garde without the pretension of forsaking association with the audience for the ideologically pure weird?

We Came From the Bright Side sits in a comfortable balance in this spectrum. It embodies it’s own complexity but still holds on to a sense of melody and convention. Divorcing itself certainly from one convention, 60-Watt Kid’s music is mostly not centered around the lyrics. The narrative of the music is conveyed primarily through the feeling and tenor, with the lyrics taking more of a secondary role as yet another instrument and sound. With that in mind it seems more appropriate to discuss and understand We Came From the Bright Side through it’s movements. Opening with “2012,” the album launches itself into its ethereal tonality and lays out what is perhaps one of the likely recurrent themes of the album: the warmth of connection amidst the cold repetitive of the sound of technology… well maybe.

The album continues from here ascending in a scattered meteoric rise into it’s eerie outsider sound with the title track “We Came From the Bright Side.” The driving guitar line and explosive bursts of electronic accents lurch the listener upward and onward on this chaotic voyage.

Following the somewhat glorious sounding ascension, the album takes a disturbing turn into tension with the aptly title track “Pressure.” Whatever levity the beginning of the journey may have had becomes tainted with a tangible amount of awkwardness and the weight of the album’s own madness becomes disconcerting. There is some tenderness in this discomfort but a certain menace lingers about the middle of the album, breaking for it’s inevitable crash with the equally appropriately named “2012 Breakdown.” The frenzied journey comes crashing down like a space ship rapidly descending from orbit, and we are left stranded somewhere tranquil, far from the lunacy that brought us here.

All in all I’d say We Came From the Bright Side is a remarkable success. It’s thoroughly engaging and a real pleasure to listen to from beginning to end. It is engaging enough to engender something of a cosmic and conflicted adventure burdened by the insanity of technology. Take some time to yourself to sit down with this album and listen to the celestial madness of the space it drags you to.

-Ada Lann

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