Mmmm, Miette.

I have passed Miette in San Francisco's Ferry Building numerous times and today I stopped for a cupcake. All of the charming cakes and confections on display at the traditionally American pastry shoppe look like petite pieces of art; I ordered then enjoyed the vanilla cupcake with strawberry buttercream.

The cake itself was pleasantly dosed with butter rather than  saturated with it as some French confections tend to be, the strawberry buttercream was so light and airy more like butter-whipped-cream and I could see the flecks of actual strawberries in it before the delicate flavor tickled my taste buds. The cake complimented the cream and the chocolate counter part of this cupcake will be my reason to stop at Miette again.

Ava Luna at Bottom of the Hill July 24th, 2012

Bottom of the Hill in San Francisco was filled with striking soul encouraged, underlying indie-punk music from the Brooklyn based band, Ava Luna on Tuesday night.

The bass was booming during Water Duct their first song of the night practically engulfing the vocals emitted by lead vocalist Carlos Hernandez however glowing in illuminating hues of blue and red the band was unfazed as they submerged their audience in a musical daze.

With an almost effortless eclectic sound the harmonized hums from female bandmates  Becca Kauffman and Felicia Douglass paired with Hernandez's falsetto on lead vocals on the song No F  it was crystal clear why Ava Luna is wildly compared to Dirty Projectors and as they played on into the night the set list consisted mostly of songs off of Ice Level and 3rd Avenue Island  their respective 2012 and 2011 LP's.

Balancing humble harmonies with arrogant guitar riffs layered with a sense of shy serenading Ava Luna is a band I believe in and hope that you will too. 

Photos by: Marc Fong 

www.marcfongphoto.com

Passion Pit: Gossamer out TODAY!

After three long awaited years, Gossamer the third album from Passion Pit has finally arrived! 

 Passion Pit offers an optimistic outlook as Gossamer treads through  the tretrous termoils of withdrawls and what could be life altering loses while maintaining their dance inducing Ora.

 Take A Walk, the catchy attention grabbing first single which also happens to be the first track off the album, has been buzzing around for a few weeks with remixes by Sinden and Gold Fields already in circulation along with an innovative birds eye-view music video presented by The Creators Project.

 Unlike their 2009 hit single Little Secrets Passion Pit bring their vices to the surface throughout Gossamer:  "And now i’m drunker then before they/Told me drinking doesn’t make me nice" heard on Constant Conversations; "And yes, I drink all those drinks on my own" from the song Cry Like a Ghost.  I'll Be Alright starts off with samples similar to those heard on the album Manners creating a familiar, play-full sound and you may even find yourself thinking of Silvia by Miike Snow when listening to Cry Like a Ghost or maybe that's just me. 

They may be down but the boys of Passion Pit collectively hold their head up on this album which is sure to show up on many top ten lists this year.

SF's Dirty Ghosts play in SF

Popscene was poppin' with new music Thursday night spinning  Settle Down by Kimbra, Secrets by Silver Swans, Take a Walk by Passion Pit and Let's Go by Matt & Kim before San Francisco's own Dirty Ghosts dominated the pint sized stage.

 

Singer-Guitarist Allyson Baker's virile vocals kick started the show belting out  Pretty Face, the ninth song on Dirty Ghosts' debut LP Metal Moon.With out brushing her bangs out of her eyes the Joan Jett protégé rocked on with the riff heavy indie-rock song Ropes that Way, had fun with bassist Erin McDermott during the new wave-ish track Shout It In and seemed to find their groove during the post garage rock song 19 in '71.

 

 

Dirty Ghosts might be wet behind the ears but they have a polished grunge sound you'll want to hear and you'll be able to at this year's Treasure Island Music Festival!

Photos by: Nikki DeMartini

Welcome Young Empires!

Young Empires brought their charismatic charm all the way from Canada to the stage at Thee Parkside just after 10:45pm Tuesday night!

White Doves, the first song of the set blew a circuit disabling microphones and though the crowd was happy to fill the position by singing the humbly virtuous lyrics  the Canadian foursome moved the party along with  Enter Through the Sun promising to revisit the interrupted introduction. The solid track Rain of Gold had the crowd dancing, Beaches seduced shouts of admiration and the boys kept their word playing White Doves in full before calling it a night.

Wake All My Youth, the 2012 EP from Young Empires is fresh, upbeat, youthful in an un naive way and their live performance carries the same refreshing feel even when it is littered with technical hiccups.
I got a chance to catch up with Matt (keyboardist/vocalist) and Aaron (guitarist) before the show. Here's what they had to say:

Me: Thanks so much for talking with me before your show tonight, is this your first time in San Francisco?
Aaron: Yeah it is, first time. 
Matt: Yeah it's my first time on the West Coast.

Me: How are you liking it? The West coast?
Matt: I mean, I think there's a lot of variation between cities, I would say that you know Portland feels worlds away from here, um Portland almost felt like the end of the world, it was a little strange.

Me: Portland felt like the end of the world?  because of the difference in the weather? the vibe?
Matt: Culturally it feels very different, yeah.
Aaron: I liked Portland, I thought it was cool.
 Matt: I'm not gonna say I didn't like it, it was just, it was strange. I think people in California are just so laid back and friendly to begin with that you know, it doesn't feel out of place. 

Me: You guys are from Canada, correct?
Aaron & Matt: Yep.

Me: What part of Canada are you from?
Aaron: We live in Toronto now but we're all kind of from different parts.
I'm originally from Edmunson which is kind of in the west, so coming out west is nice for me because this is more like where I grew up than Toronto.  Toronto is a little more like New York. Matt's from Ottawa and the other two guys are from a city close to Toronto.

Me: I read that you  toured with Girl Talk last summer, is that accurate? 
Matt: Not accurate.
Aaron: We did two big shows with him (Girl Talk) back in Toronto, back to back.
Matt: We've toured with Chromeo before and with Dragonette.

Me: The music video for your single, White Doves is  inovatively spectacular. What was it about that track that made you choose to make this type of music video to go along with it?
Aaron: Initially, the director (Miles Jay) who did the video really liked that track, he kind of picked it out. At the time when we had the whole EP done, he was someone who we really wanted to work with cause he's a young talent and we were really excited to work with him.He said, that's the song I wanna do a video for, he had the whole idea and based it on that song. It was more like the director picked the song as oppose to us saying here's the song make a video, we almost did the reverse of what you normally do because we basically found the director we wanted to work with  and said hey what song do you want to make a video for?

Me: Well that worked out! The outcome is awesome!
Any particular meaning behind the title of the EP Wake All My Youth?
Matt: Well, the lyric comes up a few times in the song Rain of Gold so it's connected lyrically to the album but also I think it is in someway symbolic for what music is all about reconnecting with your youthfulness. You don't have to grow up, you can still be young, you can still have fun it doesn't matter what age you are.
Aaron: It's an introduction of the band, it's the first release we've done so it's kind of like waking the youth to Young Empires for the first time.

Me: What bands/artists inspire your music?
Aaron: We all listen to totally different stuff. When  I really got into music being  a suburban kid growing up in the 90's I was into Nirvana, Pearl Jam all the grunge stuff  but I was also really into gangster rap; NWA, Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre all that kind of stuff so, there's a really weird mix of stuff growing up a suburban kid in Canada. We're the kind of band that's more a product of those influences and it wouldn't be as obvious. I don't think there's one band who we can all say we listen to, you'd have a real hard time finding a band that all four of us actually like, we all bring different influences and different things to the table.
Matt: I think also, as a concert goer when you walk into a room for the first time and you see a band that you've never heard of and they blow you away, that can be very influential and inspiring, the unknown of what you are going to hear that night.

Me: I bet I can name one band you guys would all agree that you like [pause] Young Empires!
Aaron: I hate that band! [laughing]

Me: The EP, Wake All My Youth is already out, when can we expect the LP?
Matt: I think we're looking at 2013, early 2013.

There you have it, something brand new to look forward to!

Be sure to  check out the White Doves music video by director  Miles Jay! You can enjoy it as is or choose to be a part of the vision with Young Empires!



Photos by: Nikki DeMartini