Best Bay Area Albums Of 2011

1. tUnE-yArDs - W H O K I L L. Merrill Garbus’s second album as tUnE-yArDs is exciting, vibrant, multicultural, and dangerous as the streets of her hometown of Oakland. Though her debut, 2009’s bIrD-bRaInS, was limited by her low recording and instrumental budget, higher-fi production and more musicians at her disposal allow Garbus to realize her wildest musical fantasies--which are very wild. Afropop horns squawk like tropical birds, Merrill Garbus howls like classic Janis, and booming scrapyard drums drive the whole thing along. W H O K I L L is a fun yet avant-garde record that seems ahead of its time both musically and politically--songs like “My Country” and “Doorstep” practically predict the riotous Occupy Oakland that would come later in the year, as do the chaotic arrangements that accompany them.

2. Jack Frank - A Lesson Learned. As frontman of the Piers, Jack Frank rejected San Francisco musical traditions to immerse himself in New York’s underground rock heritage, from the Velvet Underground to the Strokes. On his new, half-hour A Lesson Learned EP, Frank (now a full-time New Yorker) mixes edgy, punky street-rock with complex lyrics and plenty of memorable hooks. This the sort of rock album that stands up to repeated plays in part because of its complexity and in part because of the sheer catchiness of its hooks and melodies--it is the rare album that manages to be emotionally and lyrically complex without sacrificing any memorability or anything that makes it essentially pop music.

3. Girls - Father, Son, Holy Ghost. Girls love classic rock and all its implications--massive arrangements, epic guitar solos, lighters-in-the-air power ballads, polished three-minute singles, and above all, great, timeless songs. On their third album, Father, Son, Holy Ghost, every song, from the surf-rock rave-up “Honey Bunny” to the soulful “Love Like A River,” could be a listener’s favorite with equal probability (my personal pick is “Alex,” which contains the only drum fill that has ever made me burst into tears). While there are better beginning-to-end listens than this album, perhaps no album this year has as many individual great songs.

4. DaVinci - Feast or Famine EP. Feast Or Famine, the latest EP from San Francisco rapper John “DaVinci” DeVore, is a sentimental album. Not sentimental in the mushy, namby-pamby way, but sentimental in that it is driven by nothing if not feeling, and almost fearlessly emotional without losing any of its edge for a millisecond. DaVinci’s raps are permeated with his sheer love of the art form, and even on tracks with names like “Where My Dough At” and “Beer, Bitches, & Bullshit,” he sounds like he’s rapping primarily out of love for doing so. DaVinci’s style is as gritty as the Fillmore District he represents, but just as the Fillmore claims to be the “Heart and Soul of San Francisco,” DaVinci has more heart and soul than just about any other rapper out there.

5. Local Hero - The Aldgate EP. Despite Local Hero’s globetrotting image, this teenage East Bay group’s influences come directly from the Anglophone indieverse--Fleet Foxes’ reverb-drenched harmony folk, Destroyer’s obtuse, psychedelic lyrics, Girls’ repurposing of classic pop motifs, and the Afro-pop glory of Local Natives and Vampire Weekend. Yet on their Aldgate EP, all these different styles meet in the middle, firmly in pop territory with no pretentious avant-gardism or Pitchfork aspirations. Mackay’s raspy, slurred voice sounds intoxicated from life rather than weed or alcohol, and his idiosyncratic, evocative lyrics glisten atop the major-key background like a sauce drizzled artfully on some fancy dish at a Parisian restaurant. Everything boils down to a summertime pop mélange that is sometimes sexy, often quirky, and always fun.

6. Hunx & His Punx - Too Young To Be In Love. Of course Hunx and his Punx are going to be pegged as a novelty act--a skinny young leatherino who stuffs beer cans in his crotch, backed up by a probably-lesbian all-girl backing band and playing trashy, semi-parody, ‘60s-style bubblegum ditties. The thing is, they’re only part novelty, and the rest of them is pure bad-ass rock n’ roll garage band. This is a fantastic pop album from beginning to end, with agreeable melodies, great two-minute songs, and lyrics anyone can associate with whether gay, straight, or bi. And if the whole queercore thing turns you off, remember Bogart’s only flaunting his gayness as much as Elvis used to flaunt his straightness.

7. The SHE’s - Then It Starts To Feel Like Summer. Unlike the vast majority of promising teenage bands I covered during SF Rebirth’s early years, the SHE’s remained together long enough for their sound to grow. Their debut full-length, Then It Starts To Feel Like Summer, has all the attributes of their early recordings--unabashed poppiness, garagey but fuzz-free guitars, simple lyrics that are at least a third nonsense vowel sounds, and, of course, those harmonies. With their combination of influences from girl-group music, beach pop (both classic and contemporary), and garage punk, Summer should be so trendy as to be irritating. But the SHE’s are not an “indie rock” band but a pop band, and the best kind of pop band as well--one that writes timeless songs to go with timeless hooks.

8. Rin Tin Tiger - Rin Tin Tiger EP. The highly anticipated debut EP from Rin Tin Tiger, the new incarnation of the Sullivan Brothers’ Westwood & Willow project, consists of six reworked versions of Westwood & Willow tunes, mostly from last year’s excellent Doorways, Vehicles, & Markets album. While some of the songs merely sound like re-arrangements of Westwood songs with drums (“Ghost Door”), others are drastically improved, with the thickened guitar textures and high-energy drumbeats increasing the emotional power of Kevin Sullivan’s vocals. “Red Pony” is particularly impressive, taking one of the band’s lesser-known songs and fleshing out its full power. Also notable is the addition of ghostly backing vocals and subtly dissonant harmonies on “Sweetest Fruit,” adding tension to the song and making you feel as if Kevin’s pulse truly is beating out of rhythm.

9. Lil B - I’m Gay. Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth once said people go to concerts to watch other people believe in themselves, and nobody has created a greater cult of personality based on unstoppable confidence, or swag, than Lil B. No, the Based God still can’t rap very well, but he’s full of stamina, and he sounds more genuinely happy, or gay, than any musician I’ve heard on record in the past year. This is a man with the freedom not only to say he’s gay but to genuinely be gay and make others feel that way as well (including myself). In addition to how flat-out fierce Lil B sounds, the production is of superior quality, using their esoteric sample sources to create a strange and unique environment. So fierce. So swaggin’.

10. Sonny & the Sunsets - Hit After Hit. Of the countless Bay Area garage-pop bands that have emerged in the last few years, Sonny & the Sunsets are probably the most fun. 38-year-old frontman Sonny Smith (also known for his 100 Records project, in which he created a hundred aliases and made mini-albums for each of them) is not a bitter, cynical philosopher but rather a grown-up stoner with a great sense of humor. If they’re preoccupied with creating high art and pleasing the critics, it doesn’t show--Hit After Hit is nothing but a good time. This a band that delivers lines like “I’m in love with you baby, I’m dumb and so are you” with a chuckle and a grin.

Best Tracks & Singles Of 2011

1. Girls - “Alex.” Only a band with such a love of classic rock as Girls could make “Alex” as effective as it is. Girls (a second-time topper of the Best Singles list) know how to harness the feelings that the best classic rock songs are famous for, and “Alex” epitomizes this by turning the emotional power up to 11 and plugging it in. Even more beautiful than the forlorn, howling guitar fills during the song’s second half is the instrumental breakdown, which begins with an almost homey guitar pattern before ever-so-briefly speeding up and concluding in an impossibly perfect drum fill. But that is not to say the song is without subtlety--above the turbulent background, Christopher Owens’ voice remains as sad, soft, and smooth as tear tracks down a mud-caked face.

2. tUnE-yArDs - “Bizness.” Merrill Garbus means bizness. Less experimental than the songs on bIrD-bRaInS, but miles ahead of anything she’s done before, “Bizness” is an exhilarating blast of rave-up Afro-soul--over African drums, oily bass, and a digitally manipulated scat vocal arpeggio, Garbus roars in a voice that’s half Odetta, half Hugh Masekela, and all wild beast. The background is extremely well-crafted, but it seems to devolve into manic wildness as soon as Garbus lets her voice loose. Organized chaos has never felt this good.

3. Girls - “Vomit.” “Vomit” sounds unmistakably like a Girls song, but at the same time, it sounds like nothing we’ve heard from them. This six-and-a-half-minute, classic-rock-inspired epic starts out as a tender acoustic ballad before exploding into a harmony-driven chorus and climaxing with an organ solo and a full gospel choir--all to satisfyingly un-ironic effect. Though there’s plenty of grandeur to get lost in on this song, the central focus is Chris Owens’ wounded croon, which traverses the wash of sound like a lonely loser wandering the streets of Shibuya at night.

4. Tycho - “Hours.” A thrilling intro segues into a rainstorm of droplet synths that drop out, come back in, and are a bit different each time. The power of “Hours” and its aquatic atmosphere lies in the way it crashes against you rather than enveloping you, carrying you, or setting you afloat. The song never does regain the power of its intro, but that only enhances the song--its atmosphere is about making the listener comfortable, even as it rushes by, and all one needs to do to feel that surge of power again is hit the replay button.

5. DaVinci - “D.R.E.A.M.” 2011 has seen the growth of a new, left-field form of hip-hop, and some of the best new rappers hail from the Bay Area. Though less well-known than Lil B or Main Attrakionz, DaVinci carries in his music a sensitivity that is not uncommon in contemporary hip-hop but is rarely so upfront. On “D.R.E.A.M.,” a reworking of Wu-Tang’s “C.R.E.A.M.,” DaVinci tells a tragic tale of life in the ghetto that manages to be touching without losing any of its grit or razor-sharp edge.

6. tUnE-yArDs - “My Country.” I don’t know if Merrill Garbus actually participated in the mayhem that was Occupy Oakland, but there’s enough riot and political chaos in her music to smash the windows of every building in the country. “My Country,” a highlight of her excellent W H O K I L L album, is a furious protest song that almost predicts Occupy, especially with lines like “We cannot have it/Well then why is there juice dripping under your chin/When they have nothing, why do you have something?”

7. Handshake - “Other Eye (Right).” I admit this one, a radical reworking of an earlier tune, took some time to grow on me, but I can’t deny it’s one of the best songs of the year. The original’s slow build and fancy-restaurant vibe have been replaced with idiosyncratic funk rhythms, swelling guitars, and a riff that stretches out across the surface of the song rather than driving it along. Yet the song’s greatest moment is a truly epic guitar solo which almost seems like a collection of hooks strung together--at least one lick from the solo will stick in your head after the tune is finished.

8. Hunx & His Punx - “If You’re Not Here.” It’s upbeat, it’s silly, it’s goofy, it’s danceable, it’s romantic--it’s a Hunx & his Punx song. “If You’re Not Here” is a swinging highlight of the East Bay bubblegum-punks’ latest album, Too Young To Be In Love, that has everything the best rock songs have--sexual energy, lyrics you can sing along to, a catchy call-and-response chorus, and above all, great guitars.

9. Andrew Campbell - “You Can Count On It.” While Handshake were busy primping their long-awaited debut, former member Andrew Campbell was cranking out solo work at a prodigious rate. He’s slowed down since, but of his singles, “You Can Count On It” is a standout--a slow, jazzy tune as crisp and nostalgic as a walk down an old pier.

10. Sonny & the Sunsets - “Reflections on Youth.” Though Sonny Smith is a veteran of the San Francisco music scene, his music manages to sound more youthful than that of the garage-rocking contemporaries (The Fresh & Onlys, Thee Oh Sees) with whom he is often associated. “Reflections on Youth,” with its upbeat chord progression and affable-stoner vibe, could have easily been written by a teenage garage band. This is the closest the new wave of San Francisco garage rock has gone to capturing being a teen in the grooviest city on Earth.

11. The SHE’s - “Fabian.” With its surf-pop rhythm, flawless vocal harmonies, and lovesick lyrics, “Fabian” is, to date, the ultimate distillation of what the SHE’s do best. Though they certainly sound better than they did when they released their first EP, primarily due to the upgrade in production values and the band members’ technical skills, they still sound as youthful as ever on “Fabian,” and despite having chops that rival those of bands twice their age, they still sound 16 and happy to be so.

12. Eyes Like Oceans - “For What It’s Worth.” Miles Atkins spent the better part of 2011 releasing copious amounts of lo-fi emo that ranged from regrettable to sublime. “For What It’s Worth,” a highlight from his full-length June, is an example of the latter. Atkins pours out his soul to a girl with the same mix of confidence and hesitance as one who has resolved to take a leap of faith. After the second chorus, we hear that gorgeous riff ride onwards into the sunset and wonder how Atkins will resolve the situation. Finally, he drops the question: “Your place or mine?”

13. Sam C. Rocker - “Untitled (Inspired By True Events).” This modest solo demo from former Madders singer Sam Crocker demonstrates the power of simplicity. The lyrics are minimal to the point of being blunt, as is the playing, but Crocker’s voice, a tough yet tender croon with more than a trace of punk awkwardness, gives the lyrics a striking depth. A minute-and-a-half in, an unexpected spasm of echo interrupts Crocker’s voice, like a sob being held back, before the release comes in the form of a painfully beautiful electric-guitar solo.

14. Romance of Thieves - “Closer.” Though his recent work has taken a considerably more pop angle, Nick Martin released quite a bit of quality left-field R&B early in his Romance of Thieves career. “Closer,” his best song, is raw and sensual quiet-storm soul powered by dream-pop organs, creeping drum machines, and a three-pronged vocal attack; a disembodied robot mantra, Martin’s own vocals, and rapper Ea$way. Like the best R&B, it’s steamy, sexy, moody, a bit dark, and infinitely listenable.

15. The Heretics - “Perfect In The End.” “Perfect In The End,” a tune by relatively unknown teenage band The Heretics, is a refreshing throwback to the short-lived wave of laid-back, melancholy garage rock that every teen band in the Bay Area seemed to be making in late 2009 and early 2010. With its major-seven chords, (mostly) steady backbeat, and lo-fi production, “Perfect In The End” is like a romantic stroll through a scrapyard.

16. Comodo Complex - “Night Light/Rain Dance.” One of the stranger recent additions to George Rosenthal’s Complex camp, Comodo Complex can boast to be San Francisco’s only psybient rock band. “Night Light/Rain Dance” could be their definitive track, an ambient, blissed-out tune that makes great background listening but is also hooky enough to stay with you.

17. Tumbleweed Wanderers - “Take It Back.” An update of a solo track by Tumbleweed Wanderer Jeremy Lyon, “Take It Back” finds the Oakland duo drawing on Motown soul and early-‘70s Dead for inspiration, mixing the former’s drive and abundance of hooks and the latter’s laid-back folkiness--while still manage to sound as fresh and modern as anything out there.

18. Rin Tin Tiger - “Ghost Door.” While all the tunes on Rin Tin Tiger’s self-titled debut EP are excellent, “Ghost Door” stands out the most. All the tracks on the EP are reworks of tunes the band’s Sullivan brothers recorded as Westwood & Willow, and “Ghost Door” is the best rework, keeping the original’s folky charm while adding just enough extra spice to make the song sound fresh and exciting.

19. Handshake - “Lemon.” How do these well-dressed Marin kids, who play quietish art rock and never take their shirts off onstage, win battles of the bands? Because while they play emotional music, their songs also satisfying for the listener--not necessarily in a cathartic way so much as on the basis of Handshake and their songs just being really awesome. (Oh yeah, and their voices can probably cure sterility.)

20. Kreayshawn - “Gucci Gucci.” How could we forget “Gucci Gucci?” We heard it everywhere this year--school dances, shops, bar mitzvahs, our own headphones. If you’re from the Bay Area, you felt a sense of pride every time you heard the song, no matter how much you hated it, for the first few months it came out. All that fog in San Francisco? It’s all from Kreayshawn’s swisher blunts.

Last "Real" Post Of 2011

LOCAL HERO

“Lady Wisconsin”

* * * 1/2

“Lady Wisconsin,” the first Local Hero tune to feature their new four-piece lineup (multi-instrumentalist Maya Laner has been added; Max Hirtz-Wolf of Rikoché has stepped in on bass), is an unlikely choice for a single. It’s incredibly simple, consisting of little more than some clacking percussion, gentle piano, a sparse guitar arrangement, and the dual voices of Laner and singer-guitarist Alex MacKay. While much of the appeal of their previous singles came from how the evocative lyrics and the complex musical textures never threatened to overwhelm one another, “Lady Wisconsin” is all about the lyrics--which are, thankfully, more than up to scratch. It’s a neat little love story--boy meets girl, girl isn’t that interesting, boy meets another girl--delivered in uncharacteristically blunt but effective language (“I kissed her once, but it wasn’t that great”). MacKay’s singer-songwriter persona seems capable enough, but by stripping the Local Hero sound down, much of what made the band’s earlier recordings (particularly on their Aldgate EP) so great is also absent. The layers of Afropop guitars, the faint psychedelic tang to their lyrics, their seamless blending of disparate influences--these elements are nowhere to be found on “Lady Wisconsin.” If this is an indication of a new direction for Local Hero, it might take me some time to get used to it, but this is as good a start as any.

THEE OH SEES

Carrion Crawler/The Dream

* * * 1/2

Thee Oh Sees’ previous album, Castlemania, was fun as a avant-rock novelty, but Carrion Crawler/The Dream, the veteran SF garage-rockers’ second album of 2011, is nothing more or less than Thee Oh Sees at the height of their powers. As opposed to his largely solo work Castlemania, John Dwyer has assembled a killer backup band to help realize his songs. This is a great group capable of keeping a solid groove up for however long or at whatever tempo or volume suits Dwyer for maximum yelping-and-shouting potential. However, many the songs on side one of Carrion Crawler are basically really, really long garage-rock songs that remind the listener that most rock actually played in garages does not come in the form of 2-minute pop tunes but rather aimless jams from which effective musical ideas are later cherrypicked. However, this particular garage band is ridiculously skilled and willing to stray outside set grooves and vamps, and were this particular incarnation of Thee Oh Sees any less skilled, Carrion Crawler would be far less effective an album.

FRAK & NICKY C

“White” (feat. Watsky)

* * 1/2

It was destiny that Frak and Watsky would eventually come together and record a song about why God should allow middle-class white people anywhere near a microphone. While there are more skillful or experienced rappers than either of these two, they make a fairly convincing argument with lines like “I love words, I love music, so why the hell can’t I combine ‘em?” or “Maybe I don’t understand Wolf Gang or Wu-Tang/But the spirit of the lyrics made my mood change.” How do they pull this off? Well, “White” is hardly a serious song, rattling off the punchlines one after another and thus falling into the truth-disguised-by-joke category of rap of which Watsky is a proven master. And as a rap song, it’s nothing remarkable--neither really bothers to flow, preferring to focus on the stereotypically “white” voices in which they deliver their verses. Still, one has to give credit to Frak and Watsky for writing what could be a definitive white-privileged-rapper manifesto without tripping over the sociopolitical pitfalls that come with any discussion of the issue. (Oh, and the beat is awesome.)

DaVinci, Handshake, Tycho

DAVINCI

Feast or Famine EP

* * * * 1/2

BEST IN THE WEST

Feast Or Famine, the new EP from Fillmore District rapper John “DaVinci” DeVore, is a sentimental album. Not sentimental in the mushy, namby-pamby way, but sentimental in that it is driven by nothing if not feeling, and almost fearlessly emotional without losing any of its edge for a millisecond. Opening cut “D.R.E.A.M.,” a reworking of Wu-Tang’s “C.R.E.A.M.” and one of the best Bay Area songs of the year in any genre, is a sympathetic depiction of life in the ghetto that finds DaVinci reflecting on the tragic outcomes of his neighbors’ desperation. “Nothing Like Home” is an ode to the Fillmore that extends beyond mindless “repping” and is actually a touching tribute to his home. DaVinci’s raps are permeated with his sheer love of the art form, and even on tracks with names like “Where My Dough At” and “Beer, Bitches, & Bullshit,” he sounds like he’s rapping primarily out of love for doing so. DaVinci’s style is as gritty as the Fillmore itself, but just as the Fillmore claims to be the “Heart and Soul of San Francisco,” DaVinci has more heart and soul than just about any other rapper out there.

HANDSHAKE

“Other Eye (Right)”

* * * *

Handshake’s first single proper from their upcoming album, a remake of an older tune, may come as a shock to longtime Handshake fans who are familiar with the original and its distinctive, classic-film-invoking acapella intro. The original’s slow build and fancy-restaurant vibe have been replaced with idiosyncratic funk rhythms, swelling guitars, and a spidery riff that stretches out across the surface of the song rather than driving it along. Devin Clary’s syllabic yet soulful vocals neither flow with the song nor cut through it, instead merely traversing it like an airplane in turbulent skies. Yet the song’s greatest moment is a truly epic guitar solo from Tyler English, which almost seems like a collection of hooks strung together--at least one lick from the solo will stick in your head after the tune is finished. The only reason “Other Eye” has been denied a Best In The West tag is because the song is a grower, and I enjoy it more every time I hear it.

TYCHO

Dive

* * * *

Tycho is Scott Hansen, a graphic designer who makes accessible, upbeat, aquatic electronic music on the side. His music is not terribly original--the synth presets and smooth hip-hop beats often suggest Boards of Canada, and the tunes on which he pairs synthesizers and acoustic guitars are even reminiscent of Adam Young’s pre-Owl City work as Port Blue. What’s remarkable about his latest album, Dive, is how well everything fits together--Hansen knows when to deploy certain rhythms and presets, and the sequencing of the album allows the tracks to flow together. The music is ambient, but it is neither underwhelming nor overwhelming, and it is suitable for either background ambiance or a focused listen. However, Hansen’s tendency to extend his pieces until they are up to two times too long makes the album generally more suitable for the former.

Holidays Are Here Again

VARIOUS ARTISTS

Local Icicles: A Special Rock Hop Holiday Release

* * 1/2

It’s that time of year when the “nice” contingent of Bay Area musicians comes out with holiday albums (good luck getting Ty Segall to put out Goodbye Gingerbread). So here’s arguably the movement’s four most famous members doing a holiday EP. These musicians clearly understand what makes good holiday music, and there are few moments here that dip into typical holiday-turkey territory. Finish Ticket’s version of “All I Want For Christmas Is You” has Brendan Hoye slurring as if drunk off a bit too much eggnog (or love?) over a background that could have been penned by AB & the Sea; Please Do Not Fight’s “It Never Snows In San Francisco” features some fine guitarwork but some less-than-convincing exhortations of holiday cheer from Zen Zenith; Rin Tin Tiger keep it simple with a 94-second “Let It Snow”; and Picture Atlantic throw a curveball with a cover of one of Nick Drake’s saddest and most beautiful songs, “Place To Be,” which somehow leads into “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas.” The main flaw here is that this is not a very cheerful album. Strangely, Zen Zenith does not make the best Santa, and why Picture Atlantic decided to cover “Place To Be” is beyond me. “Let It Snow” is by far the most satisfying moment here, as expected from a band who released one of the best holiday albums I’ve ever heard as the Sullivan Brothers a few years--it’s warm, comfortable, catchy, and cozy, everything holiday music should be.

BROOKE D.

A Kinder Winter EP

* * *

Here’s another member of the contingent. Brooke D.’s third EP of the year, the three-track A Kinder Winter, is mostly acapella with light percussion. “Hibernating” is a bit too heavy on the sleigh bells, but the vocals balance it out; the title track is almost a jazz ballad; “New Year’s Blues” is one of Brooke’s best tracks yet, a warm bath of lush self-harmonies that is ultimately more tribal chant than blues. If the songs here are “wintery,” they do not evoke the meteorological aspects of the weather so much as the feeling of returning to a warm, quiet, and cozy home after being stuck out in the cold.

The SHE's, Lil B

THE SHE’S

Then It Starts To Feel like Summer

* * * *

BEST IN THE WEST

It’s been over two years since the SHE’s released their self-titled debut EP, and unlike the vast majority of seemingly even more promising teenage bands I covered during SF Rebirth’s early years, they’ve remained together long enough for their sound to grow. Their debut full-length, Then It Starts To Feel Like Summer, has all the attributes of their early recordings--unabashed poppiness, garagey but fuzz-free guitars, simple lyrics that are at least a third nonsense vowel sounds, and, of course, those harmonies. Their production values have skyrocketed, and their chops have improved immensely as well, but they have not exactly “matured”--these songs could have easily been written for either of their previous two EPs, but they sound so much better, and there isn’t a bad song in the set either. The band’s best pre-Summer song, “Kids Of Rock,” finds its place here; live favorite “Hey Boy” is finally recorded; and there is a little tune called “Fabian” that is the perfect distillation of everything great about the SHE’s--lovesick lyrics, rolling guitars, beach references that manage not to bring to mind last year’s slightly annoying surf-pop trend, and awesome vocal harmonies. With this combination of influences from girl-group music, beach pop (both classic and contemporary), and garage punk, Summer should be so trendy as to be irritating. But the SHE’s are not an “indie rock” band but a pop band, and the best kind of pop band as well--one that writes timeless songs to go with timeless hooks.

LIL B

BasedGod Velli/The Silent President

* * * 1/2 / * *

Well, Lil B has released yet another new mixtape, and it’s called, um, BasedGod Velli. The title says pretty much everything about Lil B--not that the new mixtape has anything to do with Makaveli or even Flockaveli, just that it willfully makes absolutely no sense and doesn’t even bother to flow. BasedGod Velli falls into the category of “serious positive” Lil B, much as his unexpectedly brilliant I’m Gay mixtape did (I refuse to refer to it as I’m Gay [I’m Happy], much as I refuse to refer to the Sears Tower as the Willis Tower). It has the half-coherent yet surprisingly powerful rants (the civil rights meditation “King Cotton”), a soon-to-be-controversial anchor track (“I Got Aids”), the why-is-this-so-beautiful piano ballad (“Let Shit Slide”) and a bunch of really good beats. While “King Cotton” certainly achieves the level of outsider-rap glory that made I’m Gay one of the year’s most interesting and bizarre listens, the rest of the album works primarily on the strength of its production, and “I Got Aids” fails nobly but hilariously. The Silent President is nothing special, containing a song called “Beat the Cancer” that’s almost as ridiculous as “I Got Aids” but otherwise containing pedestrian beats and unremarkable ranting.

Tumbleweed Wanderers, the SHE's, Xiu Xiu

TUMBLEWEED WANDERERS

Tumbleweed Wanderers EP

* * * 1/2

Remember that time when the Audiophiles were one of the best bands in the Bay Area? Us too, in part because it’s still more or less ongoing. Tumbleweed Wanderers, the band formed by ex-Audiophiles Jeremy Lyon and Zak Mandel-Romann after that group’s split, are fairly similar in their love of late-sixties/early-seventies Bay Area music, but the main difference between the two bands is that Tumbleweed Wanderers are by no means “alternative” or “indie.” The most noticeable manifestation of this is perhaps in the vocals--while Audiophile Greg Fleischut’s nasal vocals were more John Darnielle than John Fogerty, Lyon’s voice belongs distinctly to the “rock n’ roll” tradition. Their self-titled debut EP is just over fifteen minutes of quality neo-Fillmore West rock that at times recalls Sly (“Roll With The Times”), American Beauty-era Dead (“I Went Away”), or something quite new but with a distinctly vintage sheen (“Take It Back,” which Lyon released as a single about six months or so ago). Hooks and melodies are the Wanderers’ greatest strength, and each song is custom-built with a highly effective earworm. They may not offer the freshest or most musically interesting update on the vintage Bay Area sound, but the Wanderers are not trying by any means to be revolutionary or groundbreaking. They just want to choogle, and who’s to stop you from chooglin’ along?

THE SHE’S

“Jimmy”

* * * 1/2

Sami Perez is the SHE’s’ secret weapon. Though she is hard to notice on many of the band’s recordings, her bass is a formidable force live, and of the band members, she is the most willing to show off her chops. The first single from the San Francisco quartet’s upcoming debut full-length, Then It Starts To Feel Like Summer, is driven by a growling bassline that is nothing short of vicious. The remarkable thing is the way in which it is used--it is not so much joyfully aggressive as aggressively joyful. Like the SHE’s’ best material, “Jimmy” is sweet enough to flirt with the saccharine but manages to deftly avoid it, resulting in a tune with just enough sugar content to be stick to your brain and your teeth without hugging either one tight enough to compress it. When I finally find a boyfriend, this will be song I play while I change my relationship status.

XIU XIU

“Daphny” / “Only Girl (In The World)”

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Another indie band covering a Top 40 hit? Well, here’s San Jose avant-rock crew Xiu Xiu doing Rihanna’s “Only Girl (In The World)," whether you like it or not, and the result is not only effective but completely logical. The song opens brilliantly, with warped, shrieking disco strings that seem to signal something wicked coming your way, before frontman Jamie Stewart commences moaning and gasping the song’s vaguely sadomasochistic lyrics. It’s interesting, but the chilling intro is the high point of the song, and it’s more rewarding to play the first minute and a half on repeat a few times than listen to the whole thing. “Daphny,” the A-side, is less musically interesting but does not even have the benefit of decent lyrics--Xiu Xiu is best known for their often disturbing candidness, and that song’s rape-oriented, pig carcass-referencing lyrics sound more like something Marilyn Manson would write than Xiu Xiu’s erotic-grotesque classics of yore.