Ian Birnam/Staff

If you would like to see live performances and interviews of the three bands down below, please check out our multimedia page.

Now in its sixth year, the Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival is once again about to take over San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. Much like you don’t need to be reminded about the fog that will roll in around late afternoon, you don’t need a preview guide telling you about how rad Vampire Weekend is or how amazing it is that you have the chance to see Paul McCartney. Rather, this brief preview is meant to bring some smaller bands to your attention, three of which hail from the Bay Area. Try to catch these bands in between chowing down on pastrami cheese fries and dancing to the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

The Soft White Sixties

When you hear the term “Working Class Soul,” what do you think of? Perhaps the funk and jive of soul mixed in with some old-fashioned rock ’n’ roll? This combination in conjunction with a dose of pop sensibility gives an idea of what The Soft White Sixties bring to the table. The San Francisco five-piece have been playing numerous stints, including this year’s SXSW festival, where they’ve been performing tracks from Get Right., their upcoming LP. Album opener “City Lights” melds fuzzy keyboard riffs and guitar licks reminiscent of the Black Keys as vocalist Octavio Genera melts through the wall of sound. If the keys and six-strings make up the wall, though, then Ryan Noble’s bodacious bass is the foundation, fortified by the catchy drum beats from Joey Bustos. Those in need of some gritty pop tunes can catch The Soft White Sixties opening up the Lands End stage on Saturday.

Midi Matilda

If anyone has told you the spirit of the ’80s is dead, tell him or her to listen to the dance-inducing rhythms of Midi Matilda. With a nostalgic flair and silky, smooth beats, the duo of Skyler Kilborn and Logan Grime have formed a partnership made in electro-pop heaven. After they both graduated from Ex’pression College for Digital Arts in Emeryville, Kilborn and Grime released their EP, The Red Light District, and are planning on releasing a debut album in the near future. Tracks like “Ottawa” combine melodious synth riffs with harmonious “ooohs” as Kilborn’s vocals swim gracefully alongside them. Others consist of falsetto swoons and blaring horns mixed with soothing keyboard swells, such as on “Day Dreams.” If you’re an early riser and manage to get to the festival when it begins, the groovy duo will be opening up the Twin Peaks stage this Friday.

The Mother Hips

It is truly a rarity for a band to say they’ve been around for 10 years. It’s even more surprising to hear a band has stayed together for more than 20, such a statement that Bay Area folk-rock band The Mother Hips can confirm with pride. The band released their eighth record, Behind Beyond, this year, continuing their venture through the dusty trails of bluesy California twang. Not all tracks shine bright through the Bay fog, though. “Song For JB” serves as a memorial to friends of the band who have passed away in recent years, including Wilco member Jay Bennett, whom the song is named after. Other tracks have a much lighter tone, such as the hip-swaying narration of “Toughie.” Fans old and new of these veterans of rock can watch them take over the Panhandle stage at 6:05 p.m. this Saturday.

Atlas Genius

Other than porting over the delectable chocolate Tim Tam cookies to the United States. via Pepperidge Farm, Australia has also been successful in popularizing its rock bands in the States. Almost everyone has heard of Jet — you know you remember “Are You Gonna Be My Girl?” — and Powderfinger had their time here as well. However, the latest band to make it from down under are the brothers Keith and Michael Jeffery, better known as Atlas Genius. The duo first hit it big in this hemisphere with the swirling string plucks of “Trojans” but have become increasingly popular this year with their debut album, When It Was Now. Other tracks to watch out for this weekend include the lofty guitar strums and bass-toned synth of “Symptoms” and the blaring high-energy velocity of “Electric.” Sway away with the Aussie duo and their tourmates at the Twin Peaks stage at 2:10 p.m. this Saturday.

Ian Birnam covers music. Contact him at ibirnam@dailycal.org.

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Hieroglyphics Imperium Recordings/Courtesy

After a decade of studio silence, Oakland-based hip-hop ensemble Hieroglyphics have released The Kitchen, an album that serves up a reminder of why the nine-man group has solidified its presence in the underground hip-hop scene and beyond. Though the album boasts a meaty helping of 17 tracks, each one is able to distinguish itself from the others as a sizable portion worthy of fulfilling any fan’s hunger.

While the lyrics and rhymes of the Hiero crew are definitely part of what keeps the album varied, the production is the secret spice to this record’s recipe. Each track offers a beat different from the last, chopping and cutting up a vast array of beats and samples. While Hiero deserve credit for the well-crafted beats, the album’s guest producers were the Sacramento DJs known as the Sleeprockers. Without a doubt, the production wouldn’t be as saucy or diverse if both parties had not collaborated the way that they did. Tracks like “Exciting,” with its synth hook, are reminiscent of an eight-bit video game gone thug with the Hiero crew laying down rhymes sharp enough to slice the track’s beefy bass. “All As Above So Below” uses soulful backing vocals over a thick beat with crisp chimes and a sample of the opening lyric from the Beastie Boys hit “Paul Revere.”

While the album has a variety of flavors, some tracks share a few similar ingredients. “Livin’ It Up” and “Nano Salt” both share a funkalicious groove with the spicy horns on the former complementing the reverb-rich synth on the latter. Much like culinary recipes, though, a few common ingredients don’t necessarily imply identical dishes. Overall, with its smooth rhymes and crunchy beats, The Kitchen is a definitive reminder of Hiero’s stance in the hip-hop world. As the chorus of “Immortals” states, “Hiero ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

Ian Birnam covers music. Contact him at ibirnam@dailycal.org.

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XL Recordings/Courtesy

With their third studio album, Columbia grads Vampire Weekend have solidified a style that they have been perfecting over the course of the last five years. Modern Vampires of the City isn’t so much a departure from Contra and their self-titled album; rather, it builds off of the two albums to get a sound that is refreshingly new yet familiar.

Unlike past efforts, the overall tempo of this album has noticeably decreased. The number of “slow songs” or slow-building songs on the album is much more apparent than it has been before. Opening track “Obvious Bicycle” is one such song, with keyboardist Rostam Batmanglij playing a melancholy piano riff over lead singer Ezra Koenig’s crooning voice as he bounces to and from falsettos. Of all the mellow songs on the album, “Step” stands out, with Koenig’s soothing vocals over a medley of piano and synthesizer progressions. Drummer Chris Tomson keeps the beat so strong and steady throughout the track that head-nodding or foot-tapping is impossible to avoid.

Tomson shifts about five gears up for the following song, “Diane Young” — a track that, along with the speedy rhythm of “Finger Back,” would be easily at home in either of the other VW records. Single “Diane Young” feels like a modern-day adaption of the swingin’ big band songs, with Koenig pitch-shifting the lyric “baby, baby, baby, baby right on time” over groovy guitar riffs and rapid-fire drums. There’s even a “Wipeout”-esque drum and guitar roll thrown in — just in case your head and hips weren’t shaking enough.

Modern Vampires of the City is the album that VW has been building up to. While it’s not always a constant ball of energy, the balance of warm melodies and funky riffs make for an appropriate and satisfying conclusion to the band’s trilogy.

Ian Birnam covers music. Contact him at ibirnam@dailycal.org.

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Sweet HayaH will be at the Boom Boom Room in SF on May 7.

Ian Birnam covers music. Contact him at ibirnam@dailycal.org.

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Michael Zeligs/Courtesy

With a fresh approach to the folk genre, San Francisco composer Michael Zeligs is finding new ways to combine both the modern day digital soundscape of electronica with the classic acoustic guitar strums of folk. Zeligs has been funding his album through Kickstarter, and is nearing his fundraising goal. Zeligs’ songs range from soothing falsetto harmonies coupled with guitar plucks to digital drum beats and synths mixed in with his familiar acoustic rhythms.

Check out his playlist below.

Ian Birnam covers music. Contact him at ibirnam@dailycal.org.

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Outside Lands/Courtesy

Outside Lands is normally known for its stellar lineup of a wide variety of artists, and this year’s is no exception. Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nine Inch Nails, Phoenix and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are heavy hitters this time around. However, this year has arguably the biggest headliner since Radiohead fronted the festival the first year it was offered. The Beatles legend himself Paul McCartney will be gracing Golden Gate park’s stage. Not much more needs to be said about him, other than his performance will most likely garner the largest crowd an Outside Lands performer has ever had.

In addition to the fab Sir Paul, Willie Nelson will be jamming at the festival as well with his family, providing another 70′s legend in the mixture of the modern music giants. In addition to the aforementioned bands, Jurassic 5, Vampire Weekend, The National, Pretty Lights, and The Head and the Heart will all be playing as well.

More recent up and comers will be there as well, such as Tallest Man on Earth, Grizzly Bear and Atlas Genius will all be performing off the coattails of their recent(ish) album releases. The festival will also feature some prominent local acts such as Thao & The Get Down Stay Down.

I could go on for awhile about how incredible this year’s lineup is. I could go on about how producer/DJ legend Zedd will be there to the adoration of electro-junkies, or how Flea will melt the crowd’s faces off with funky bass slaps, or how Trent Reznor will undoubtedly shred the microphone with his voice. But each artist on the bill could have an entire blog post dedicated to them. Instead, if you can’t wait for August to come, you’d be best served to snag the next round of tickets when they go on sale this Thursday.

Ian Birnam covers music. Contact him at ibirnam@dailycal.org.

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Curious Quail/Courtesy

We just can’t get enough of South Bay bands, can we? This week brings us San Jose’s seven-piece electro-wonder Curious Quail. While it’s easy to cast the band as indie or electropop, the sounds combine much more than that. Yes, electronica is a predominant part of their sound, but the violin adds a soothing aspect that isn’t harnessed as frequently with most bands. There is also part folk and part garage rock riffage coinciding with the synth harmonies and violin melodies.

The band has been compared to a combination of the Postal Service and Smashing Pumpkins, though I would throw in vocals and vocal harmonies that are akin to Mumford and Sons. One such track where those particular vocals stand out is in “The GLOW,” which can be heard below:

Ian Birnam covers music. Contact him at ibirnam@dailycal.org.

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March Enrich/Courtesy

I’m going to be completely honest: I never was particularly interested in concerts where DJs were the main act. Granted, my experience in those types of concerts was very limited, I was never as captivated as when seeing what one would call a “traditional band” (guitars, bass, drums, etc.). However, after seeing French turntablists C2C completely wreck the crowd at the Independent in San Francisco last Saturday, I can safely say that my opinion has changed for the better.

The group opened up with “The Cell,” a slow building beat that begins with flutes and a steady beat that eventually drops into a heavy session of scratching synth, vocal and drum sounds. Not only could these guys get the crowd dancing and jumping from the front to the back, but they were active on stage, a key aspect that many DJ/turntablist acts can sometimes miss. They jammed out and rocked with the beat, freestyled some scratching and vocally interacted with the crowd. The scene got even more intense when the four DJs split into opposing pairs to do a crowd-judged DJ battle. The group even stepped in front of their rigs to rap to a cover of the Beastie Boys classic, “Intergalactic” in tribute to the late MCA.

Audio aside, one of the most engaging aspect of C2C’s performance was their use of animations displayed on the front of their rigs. Most of the animations involved the manipulation of geometric shapes that were manipulated in real-time to correspond with the scratching the DJs did with their tracks. In addition to viewing a variety of 2D and 3D geometric movements, the group also had multi-colored cartoon mouths singing the lyrics to their single “Down the Road,” which were again manipulated to correspond to the audio manipulation.

As the crowd left the venue, stumbling into the midnight streets of SF with ears ringing, it was clear that C2C had accomplished their goal. There wasn’t a person who hadn’t jumped, danced, or bobbed to the bombastic beats and mixes from the French scratch-masters, proving that the power of the turntable can stand its own, converting naysayers (like myself) into beat freaks.

Ian Birnam covers music. Contact him at ibirnam@dailycal.org.

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March Enrich/Courtesy

The turntable has been used as an instrument since the early days of hip-hop in the 1970s. The days of analog vinyl scratching have evolved into the digital era, in which physical records are no longer needed. French turntablist group C2C have brought together an eclectic collection of sounds spanning generations of music throughout a variety of cultures with their debut album, Tetra. As they prepare to play a sold-out show at the Independent in San Francisco this Saturday, C2C’s DJ Atom spoke with The Daily Californian about creating their own samples, their scratching of both music and video and how the turntable holds its own as a modern-day instrument.

Daily Californian: Even today, many people don’t see DJs as “real” musicians. How would you defend your case to someone who thinks live guitars and drums are the only way to play music?

DJ Atom: The thing is, you have to make a difference between a DJ spinning tracks, making a DJ set (what we like to do as well) and a turntablist using the turntable as an instrument. What we do with C2C is that we play our own music with our instrument: the turntable. Musically, it’s just like a “real” band: One of us plays the bass, one is on the drums, the other got the guitar and the last one controls the voice. We’re transforming the use of an object which wasn’t made for creating music on the first basis, just as a New Orleans washboard player would do.

DC: You guys move and bounce around at shows. Most DJs aren’t as active onstage as you guys. What inspired you guys to be different in that regard?

DA: It’s just that if you’re on stage, in front of a crowd, it seems obvious to try to entertain and interact with the people. Scratching DJs are normally used to practicing in their bedroom in front of a wall, so I guess the “showmanship” part of the thing doesn’t come first, but it’s so important!

DC: There are mixed feelings about dubstep within your group. From both sides, why or why not do you like dubstep?

DA: Dubstep can be the best and the worst at the same time. Coming from hip-hop, we all love fat beats, big basses and surprising sounds and patterns, and the double-timed groove is so pleasant for scratching practices, but on the other hand, we’re not really digging the eurodance and crappy commercial part of dubstep, as it can sound sometimes. Plus, now in 2013, this style of music has been quite overexposed.

DC: Your beats encompass a wide variety of music and mixes from all over the world. Could you talk about the diversity of your tracks and what influences your creative process?

DA: When we used to enter DJ championships, the only material we had was our record collections. We were digging samples, so it didn’t really matter the style of music; the most important was to find the good sound. We’re also very inspired by the way ’90s hip-hop beatmakers used to work, finding samples from all different kinds of music and mixing it with other ingredients, beats, basses, scratches to create something new. The digging culture is really what opened us to a wide variety of music.

DC: How many of your samples do you make yourself? How do you feel about creating your own samples? Do you feel it adds more personality to the tracks?

DA: On this album, we really wanted to make something personal and original, but the “beatmaking” culture is also fully part of our creative process, so the thing was to create our own music but trying to make it sound like samples. For example, on “Down the Road,” we recorded the guitars and dobro with a very good blues guitarist, using the right guitar with the right amp and playing the right way.

DC: Could you discuss the animations you use during live shows? Who makes them? How do you go about figuring out which animation to use for each song?

DA: We actually scratch and manipulate audio and video simultaneously with our turntables during the live shows. We have animated shapes on the screens which correspond to each sound we use to recreate the song live. At the end of the day, you have a perfect video illustration of the music. We imagined and drew the visuals by ourselves, and we met this amazing motion designer called Remi Paoli who made all the animations. We’re using the video plugin for Serato Scratch Live, which allows us to load not only audio files but audio-video files (.mov, .avi) in the software and scratch and manipulate it as much as we want in real time.

DC: What do you think it means to be a DJ? Is it a matter of choosing vinyl over MP3? What do you think it takes to scratch with the best?

DA: I don’t think vinyl/CD/MP3 is really the point, to me. Being a DJ is all about messing with tracks and real/virtual turntables. Whether you’re doing a DJ set, a DMC routine, a beat or a live show, I guess the main thing is to have fun, be original and do your thing.

Of course, on the technical side, practicing is also the key, as it is to master every instrument.

Ian Birnam covers music. Contact him at ibirnam@dailycal.org.

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Polite Fiction/Courtesy

This week, we take a look at San Jose’s Polite Fiction. The bedroom DJ’s music is reminiscent of Passion Pit records. The San Jose artist has recently released his debut EP Portrait. Check out his album below.

Ian Birnam covers music. Contact him at ibirnam@dailycal.org.

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