Following the release of his debut full-length album Jardín (see our review here) in January, it was only a matter of time before Gabriel Garzón-Montano shared his creation with fans in person. After kicking off his tour to start the month of May, Garzón-Montano introduced himself to San Francisco’s music scene at the Rickshaw Stop this past Saturday. The sold-out crowd enjoyed 75 minutes of passionate soul-baring as Gabriel gave the crowd his all.
With the help of drummer David Frazier, Gabriel Garzón-Montano delivered an incredible musical experience in the intimate, hazy ambiance of the Rickshaw Stop. Highlights included GGM’s sensual crooning on “Six-Eight”, and the funky vibes of popular song “Crawl”. He relied heavily upon a participatory audience during the show, one that was very excited to engage in clapping, snapping, and singing along to Gabriel’s call-and-responses. Furthermore attendees were delightfully treated to a bilingual set. After interlacing a song or two in Spanish throughout his repertoire, Gabriel’s encore was nearly entirely in Spanish with the exception of first track “Bombo Fabrika”.
Garzón-Montano took us through a musical journey of his entire discography, and then some. With his masterfully-crafted music and soulful approach to showmanship, we continue to have high expectations for this artist in the future.
Future tour dates can be found here— don’t miss a chance to see Gabriel Garzón-Montano live!Continue reading →
We’re really excited to be teaming up with the Make It Funky collective for the second installment in a series of California showcases highlighting local talent. This time around, we’ll be at Brick & Mortar Music Hall in San Francisco on Saturday bringing yet another myriad of vibes featuring psychedelic indie-rockers Coyote Trickster with support from the soulful Fire and funktastic Color TV. To get you all familiar with our fantastically quirky headliners, we had a unique interview in which we asked the band members–Terence (bass), Paul (guitar), Eric (guitar and vocals) and Huli (drums)–a few questions and then had them finish ten sentences. Get to know the band through their answers and grab your tickets at the link below.
Eric: There was a big group of meilleur casino en ligne france people at Santa Clara [University] that played music together. Kind of an amorphous group of people playing in a cloudy haze, bumping into each other and hearing things out. And then there was a party that came around and the people who were hosting wanted bands to play. So, the big blob full of people that played music together all kind of formed into different bands for the party and one of the bands was Coyote Trickster. That was our first gig. We played with a different drummer then. We moved up to San Francisco after college and then met Huli up here and started playing with him.
Terence: I think once I started playing with Eric–we lived in the same dorm freshman year– and jamming with these guys, I realized it was something I really want to be a huge part of my life. Long story short we ended up living together in a pretty cool space where we can live and play and create. We’re doing what we can and seeing where it goes.
TMN: Tell us a bit about the recording process behind your debut LP.
Paul: We did all the tracking at our house in San Francisco in our garage. I did guitar parts in my closet. Eric put up a bunch of mattresses for a vocal booth. The most disgusting Craigslist mattresses (laughs). We did all that and mixed at Tiny Telephone here in San Francisco and then we got some guy to master it pretty much because we saw he did something for Jerry Garcia.
TMN: Between the soulful vocals, psychedelic elements and jazzy jams, it’s pretty hard to place your music. How do you think about your sound?
Eric: I think we’ve all grown up in an age where genres are so fluid and changing all the time. We never listened to pure rock or pure soul or pure blues—it was always a mixture of all these things together. So, I think we always just search for a groove in all of the songs. They all have to have some kind of rhythm that hooks us and gets people moving. If you see us on stage we’re always bouncing a bit. That’s the core of anything we’re trying to find that works with the band–that kind of groove or rhythm that we all get locked into and excited by. We’re just looking for something that has that appealing background to it and then we’ll combine all the different pieces to fill around that groove.
FINISH THE SENTENCE…
When I was 13, I couldn’t stop listening to…
Huli: Halfway Between The Gutter And The Stars by Fatboy Slim
Paul: Led Zeppelin.
Terence: The Fugees.
Eric: I have the worst one out of everyone. I was probably rocking Third Eye Blind—the self titled album. That’s a great album.
The first song I ever made…
Huli: …was called “Healthy Gums” and only used FL Studio presets.
Paul: …was in high school, I don’t know what it was called, a country song with very dirty, sexual innuendo in the lyrics.
Eric: I probably stole from someone else and told people I made it. It was probably like a Good Charlotte chord progression that I slowed down.
There’s nothing quite like the sensation of sitting sideways atop the slope of the Gorge Amphitheater’s hill at Sasquatch! Music Festival overlooking the Columbia River Gorge. Add entrancing music to a background that no picture or piece of art could ever do justice; and, at that intersection, you’ll find the happy place Squatchers look forward to all year. The so-far-past picturesque backdrop sets the tone for the festival but, with arguably one of its best lineups yet, was a far cry from Sasquatch’s only attraction this year. Rather, the main stage’s slope served as the much-needed anchor after a dance party at the Chupacabra tent or Big Foot stage—a place to lie, head up or down, and absorb the collective consciousness of thousands of equally inspired concertgoers.
Music festivals have become such chaotic events and Sasquatch! is, certainly not an exception, but it’s that same comfort felt on the hill that permeates throughout the entire campground. No matter what you’re going through or how you’re feeling, the hill will take your emotional state to serenity, where it belongs.
Words, photos and songs really can’t do justice to just how incredible the Squatch is but we’ve done our best to recap, from our perspective, the musical highlights from the 4 days. For those of you who were there, we hope this brings you back even if just a little bit and for those who weren’t, well, you’re going to want to be there next year after peeping our recap.
Over the last five years, Chaz Bundick, as both Toro y Moi and Les Sins, has repeatedly redefined his style bringing refreshing facets of his reserved, enigmatic persona to light all the while maturing with each album. A true musical chameleon, Chaz has worn many hats but, regardless of genre, he maintains his aesthetic always remaining true to himself. This realization couldn’t have been more evident as I watched Toro Y Moi perform a hometown show at The Independentin San Francisco last weekend in which he intertwined his various musical identities into a cohesive and career-spanning set.
Backed by several talented musicians, including ninja-favorite Astronauts, etc. on the keys, Toro y Moi’s countless jams, from hazy bedroom productions to groovy indie rock, were presented in the most vibrant way possible. Almost signifying transitions between old and new, Chaz swapped between MIDI keyboard and guitar through out without losing a beat. As an avid fan, and music geek, I found myself not only dancing steadily through out, but also hit with a flurry of thoughts and emotions inspired by the diverse, yet unified, setlist. To best capture those feelings, I decided to recount the performance in the context of a career retrospective. Flip through the pages and explore the five faces of Toro that I witnessed last Saturday with photos and songs from the set to match.
Toro y Moi’s upcoming album, What for?, drops on April 7th but can be streamed via NPR Music now. You can pre-order on iTunes here and find upcoming tour dates here.
We’re really excited to be teaming up with the Make It Funky SF collective to put on a series of showcases in California highlighting local talent. Launching this Saturday, February 21st at El Rio in San Francisco, the first installment will feature experimental indie band Feed Me Jack and the folky, electronic vibes of Mosaics with support from acoustic soul duo, The Kakaroaches making for an eclectic mix of styles. As part of the series, we’ll be catching up with some of the performers to shed light on up ‘n coming musicians. RSVP at the link below.
The emergence of electronic music has created a fascinating rippling effect across genres as more and more artists find creative ways to combine musicianship with the seemingly limitless capabilities of modern studio technology. San Francisco band, Mosaics, have perhaps one of the most novel fusions we’ve heard yet using unconventional, percussive acoustic guitar to create samples that can be manipulated, arranged and layered with unique vocals into brooding, experimental compositions. Their debut LP, Of Colors, helps establish their forward-thinking sound proving refreshingly original without losing accessibility or catchiness. We had a chance to catch up with Mosaics band members Devon Kelts (guitar, vocals), Tyler Hill (production, keys), Grady Lee (vocals, guitar, bass) and Westin Joy (drum machine, bass) about their collective vision, musical influences and experiences as musicians in SF. Get to know Mosaics below and come out to see them this weekend at our first ever Music Ninja show in the Bay Area!
TMN: Can you tell us a bit about how you all first met?
Devon: Tyler and I went to Loyola Marymount down in Los Angeles to study music and composition. We were best friends from college and decided to move up to San Francisco to try to make it as musicians. We did a couple musical projects that were kind of just our own thing but we didn’t really put out anything. Mosaics was the final iteration of those projects where we felt like we had a sound that was something we could stand behind. We needed a passionate musician and strong vocalist to get our LP Of Colors finished so we brought on Grady. It ended up working out really well and he made some really strong contributions in helping us finish the record. Then we needed someone to help us play live—Wes and I were already friends and he was pretty excited about the opportunity so we brought him in. He already has experience with production and has similar musical tastes so it worked out quite nicely.
TMN: Your music falls at this really interesting intersection of folk/acoustic, experimental and electronic. Can you talk a bit about the vision behind Mosaics?
Tyler: I think that the vision essentially started with Devon and I painting sonic landscapes on the computer. We wanted to create a sound that could be considered pop but still is drawing all of this original material in from things we’ve created. When we did our first EP, we had a concept where all the songs heard were coming from the guitar. So, basically we made an album all from samples created from hitting the guitar for drums, creating pads out of the guitar using production techniques and obviously writing melodies with lyrics. Our goal is to make something that is very authentic and artistic, but can still have that pop catchiness and drive.
Devon: We wanted to unite things. Often times really unique ways of playing the acoustic guitar are kept in a purist category. Meaning that they just play the instrument and nothing else. It’s very seldom that you see people with unique approaches to acoustic guitar uniting with the world of electronic production. Our goal was to find a way to unite the two in a tasteful manner and maybe, in that unification, to create something that’s new and novel.
Upon our first listen of GoldLink’s debut project, The God Complex, we immediately knew he had the potential to change the landscape of hip-hop. From a technical perspective, the DMV-bred emcee has an impressive, quick-hitting flow with an equally adept vocal range making for a versatile, dynamic sound. What really sets him apart, though, is his openness to work with forward-thinking producers and, maybe even more importantly, the connection his unique, unabashed lyrics find with his audience. Whether it be fun tracks like “Ay Ay” or more introspective cuts like “When I Die,” GoldLink very much feels like a genuine voice that can represent his generation for years to come.
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