All posts by jake feala

Review: Caribou with Toro y Moi; May 20, 2010; Casbah, San Diego

Photo credit: by Eleanore Park

Though you might find the new Caribou album, Swim, tucked in the indie-electronic aisle, frontman Daniel Snaith samples a much wider buffet of genres in a live setting. As you’d expect, you’ll hear him match up against electronic contemporaries like Vitalic, Animal Collective, and even Paul Van Dyk, but a good portion of the show also has the wider influences featured on earlier albums. His previous album, Andorra, had vintage tributes to The Mamas and The Papas (if backed by the relentless drums of, say, Dave Grohl) as well as indie-style jams that evoke My Morning Jacket or Wilco on an experimental kick. Last Thursday at the Casbah, Snaith tied up this diverse palette with a fat beat and dropped it all over a late-night dance party. Continue reading…

Review: Heartless Bastards; May 1, 2010; Casbah, San Diego

There are bands you passively enjoy, and then there are those whose music, for whatever reason, fits like key to lock in that musical sweet spot deep within your brain. Heartless Bastards have always been the latter type of band for me, and I don’t know whether it’s their gritty Southern influences, lead singer Erika Wennerstrom’s bluesy alto, or some mysterious combination of the two, but I’ve been proselytizing them to the world since I first heard their music. Continue reading…

Review: Cymbals Eat Guitars, Bear In Heaven, and Freelance Whales; March 23, 2010; Casbah

Photo credit: MySpace

Three hot bands, two large mammals, and one cannibalistic instrument converged at the Casbah last Tuesday night, when Freelance Whales, Bear in Heaven, and Cymbals Eat Guitars swung through to represent New York City. Continue reading…

Review: Greg Gibson at The Latent Print Party; March 24th, 2010; Whistle Stop Bar, San Diego

Photo credit: Bre Witte/MySpace

San Diego literary and arts website The Latent Print said goodbye to Publisher/Managing-Editor/Swing-Dancer-Extraordinaire Charlie Yi at a farewell party at the Whistle Stop on Wednesday night. A mixed lineup of music, poetry, and fiction readings entertained the full house that showed up in Yi’s honor, and the night was capped off with a show by Greg Gibson, former guitar player in local favorites Waterline Drift. Read more…