Part 1 of my 40 favorite songs of the year, all the songs that saved me. Part 2 next week!
Among them, Al Harper plays Tuesday at the Lost Church with Anna Hillburg.
Blous3 play Wednesday at Kilowatt with Wife, Praying and Inverts.
Christopher Owens plays Saturday at the Chapel with April Magazine.
Also Free Key Choir is Friday through Sunday at First Congregational Church of Oakland.
It's cold outside! And at 3pm on Tuesday, December 10 you can give public comment in support of the repeal of San Francisco MTA's ban on RV's for shelter, at City Hall room 250. Follow @coalitiononhomelessness for more info.
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Playlist
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Flying by Reality TV on Green Figurine EP (self released) Local The drums fall in place, the guitar stirs to lift off, and from there we drift up and up and up until the band sings “I can see my house from here,” clinching the fantasy, taking your breath away because you really are flying. The band is called Reality TV but this is the theme of the wholesome 80’s sitcom of my dreams.
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You Belong With Us by Sad Eyed Beatniks on Ten Brocades (Meritorio) Info Local This was my favorite song over the summer and on my June birthday I was in a coffee shop in Boston and it came on over the speakers and it felt so special-- such are the treasures to be found on album Ten Brocades, an avant menagerie of diy indie, Dunedin sound, and exotic aerophones exemplified in this song’s strolling guitar, melodica reprise, and friendly refrain “you belong with us”, paired with a friend’s resolute truth: “the words the lies the tone that they speak to you, it’s just not right.” Sometimes you just need a song to tell you.
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Is it Me Is it You by Spa on Splitter (self released) Info Local Pop songcraft is often an act of contrast, anticipation, and incident. Far fewer have this song’s quality of the infinite, as if its 1:49 goes on forever. Sometimes we call these anthems.
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Unconditional by SWIFTUMZ on Simply the Best (Empty Cellar) Info Local All my talk about “songs by your neighbors and friends” can be sentimental but sometimes it really is as simple as there’s someone down the street cutting a song as good as “Help!”
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Take 10 by Pork Belly on I'm OK You're OK Everything is OK EP (Discontinuous Innovations Inc./ Popular Affliction) Info Local This band swings like a room of mousetraps wound in coiled spring to release us into an irresistable chorus —“Take 10!”— with zero warning and chops galore.
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Memorial Park by Smile Too Much on EP 2 (Dandy Boy) Info Local There’s such an uncommon balance between Alex’s bright, expressive guitar and the busy horizontalism of the Alyssa/Matt rhythm section, while Louis’ low baritone provides a resonant bass foil for Maggie’s sublimely melancholy high notes. Want the cream of East Bay no pretense guitar pop? I doth think you smile too much.
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Hitherto by Mahawam on Hot Pressed (Molly House/ Walk Cycle) Info Local There's no need to summarize what he says so dazzlingly in a minute plus song, but subjects covered include the experience of death, doing the work of the living with those with whom you may be living, and turning our emotional recursions into the funniest wisdom you’ll never forget.
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Goo Goo by Blous3 on Synchronized Swimming (Cherub Dream) Info Local Blous3 bring on that high voltage Sac intensity, here escalating matters drastically to an epic guitar line that rang in my head for weeks. Opening line “I am a message” manifests in the chorus, directed at Johnson & Johnson for crimes committed with baby formula: “J & J knew for decades/ every breath, blistering pain/ fuck the FDA and the USDA.”
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Chimes by Desiree Cannon on Radio Heat (The Long Road Society) Info Local Wherein Cannon blends rusty parable, deadpan joke, and colorful anecdote of no particular import to make more good sense than anything you learned in school. Recorded in Big Sur, these tales are are often punctuated by the palpable cameos of nature: “the wind blows open the door/ you can see the shoreline.” Cue that guitar solo.
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Bus by Naked Roommate on Pass the Loofa (Trouble in Mind) Info Local In which lead singer Amber Sermeno reminds us that the world awaits our inhabiting it. There’s a whole politics in the line “that’s what I like it about it”: that what our economic system tells us is undesirable or seeks to dismantle is the very stuff that gives life chance, wonder, and spectacle. Musically, the post-Moroder motorik beat takes us to a bridge of plasma bolts before Vangelis layers overtake the outro— just like the bus!
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Tierra by Peña on Para Ti (self released) Info Local Para Ti is an album of inspired ensemble grooves that on “Tierra” reach their climactic reckoning, with insistent rhythm layered under rising horns of intrigue, as Peña seeks understanding, only to be rendered speechless.
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Track 2 by Buddy Junior on RUST (Cherub Dream) Info Local Another monumental Buddy Junior jam has taken me far too into my feelings, this band is so good my stomach hurts and they never stop, I’m like keeling over this song is so enormous.
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One True Light by Silverware on One True Light (Self) Info Local Across new album One True Light Ainsley Wagoner mines an exquisitely mature strain of vocal pop to capture the stakes of self-actualization and its countervailing sacrifices. The band is game for the passion, taking each song to its most urgently necessary heights.
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People Are Sponges by Fog Lamp on Anxious Stargazing (self released) Info Local Not ready for a future that overwhelms on all fronts? Move your body to the power formations of Fog Lamp's Anxious Stargazing—and maybe start lifting.
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We're Lost by Little Oil on Twelve Songs (self released) Info The dulcet chime of acoustic guitar provides a gently rippling plane for the song’s central declaration: that at the end of trying, comes the surrender. Are we ready to start talking about the hits of the North East Bay? From Little Oil to Little Hill Lounge, big things are happening up there.
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Plaster of Paris by Al Harper on The Analemma Observation League (Take a Turn Records) Info Local On The Analemma Observation League Harper has synthesized her seminal influences into something ‘classic’ while increasingly of singular vision: if this album is not exactly conceptual, then it is broadly wise to the world: “free me from filters and effects/ no critics, no regrets and/ no pictures, no please/ makes it feel, makes it feel cheap.” Such gems as these, from this songwriter, are priceless.
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No Good by Christopher Owens on I Wanna Run Barefoot Through Your Hair (True Panther) Info Local Nobody does all-or-nothing, life-or-death open heart surgery quite like Owens, and album I Wanna Run Barefoot Through Your Hair marks the dramatic return of the man who is sticking to his love story, with no compromise.
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Starting Over by Marbled Eye on Read The Air (Summer Shade) Info Local A rubik’s snake of a guitar piece, stalked by drums at every turn, then unraveling with momentum, as they sing the coolest thing.
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Sticky by Lil Flower Nasti on Sticky (self released) Info Local Vivid tales of getting over under city lights — I hear North Beach, personally—while taking stock of one’s triumphs to rise above the mess. My favorite bit is Nasti singing “getting drunk!” and the backing singers responding “fucked up!”
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Always by Nothing Natural on Cold Star (Cherub Dream) Info Local The finale to their relentlessly powerful debut full-length Cold Star, NN here delivers massive peaks with passionate moxie.