
When the psychedelic music movement gyrated in vans and on phonographs across the globe, Scott MacKenzie's "San Francisco" in 1967 highlighted the location of what would become the center of the flower power generation. This harmonizing style backed by a PEACELOVEHOPE mentality still resides in The City by the Bay; namely, with the hometown fivesome of All My Pretty Ones . Much like MacKenzie's influence within The Mama's and the Papa's, lead singer and songwriter Derek Schmidt's direction has become paramount to AMPO's burgeoning success. Although the overall aura of the group doesn't compound such [...]

Here's some stuff that I've been into. Wavves - So Bored : Probably heard about this guy by now. One man band that creates great pop songs and locks them inside a fuzz box. Often associated with skating. Wilco - Heavy Metal Drummer (Swine Forkbeard Remix) : This sounds like something I'd really love to listen to drunk. No idea who this Swine Forkbeard is, but he sounds like a pirate and he put Eminem in a Wilco song, so I support [...]

This Thursday, San Francisco's All My Pretty Ones will hold their CD release at Hotel Utah with The Blank Tapes and Beatbeat Whisper . All My Pretty Ones - "Rest Dream" The band has brought their multi-instrumental folk to willing ears for years now, and are following up their debut EP The Arsonist with this latest release Tone Poems . They [...]

one striking trend that jumped out when endeavoring to put together this compilation of bay area music - of which this post serves as the first of two volumes - was how much of the collective sound reflected what can reasonably be described, i think, as the city's, the region's, dueling ethos: the populist counter-cultural strain, or hippie for short, & the high technology sector. take, for example, the oakland band xiu xiu , who will make an appearance on part 2 (and who, by the way, have a killer promotion tied into their new album, [...]

Another Bay Area band that I've happened upon recently is All My Pretty Ones out of the East Bay. This multi-instrumented band plays some dang fine indie pop, and their live show is quite engaging. Here's a fantastic track off the album I picked up at their DeliSF showcase last week. ::: All My Pretty Ones - In The Arms of the City There's no info on their page about where you can get their album titled "The Arsonist" but I imagine if you message them [...]