MP3: Birds & Batteries – “Squeeze Box” (The Who cover)
MP3: Birds & Batteries – “Strange Kind of Mirror”
Last year, San Francisco’s Birds & Batteries released Panorama, quite possibly their best album yet. Continue reading…
Tag Archives: Talking Heads
Poetic Memory: Luke Rathborne (List)
MP3: Luke Rathborne – “I Can Be One”
MP3: Luke Rathborne – “You Let Me In”
MP3: Mrs. Magician – “Tabloids”
Like clockwork, the Rumble— the monthly musical roadshow that takes place in nine U.S. cities every month — returns to San Diego’s Bar Pink tomorrow.
This month’s event features San Diego surf popsters Mrs. Magician, sludgy shoegazers Colony, and superb singer/songwriter Luke Rathborne. (DJs Pet Rock and Rob Dylan will spin vinyl between sets.)
We at O&B are especially excited to see Luke Rathborne, whose The Dog Years and I Can Be One EPs show a songwriter with a true artistic vision — one that (unlike many of his peers) is not overly fixated on the meaning of life, but about telling its stories.
In anticipation of the show, we asked Mr. Rathborne to provide us with a list of influences. He kindly obliged, and you may find his “10 favorite records of 1977” below. Continue reading…
Live Review: Local Natives and The Love Language at the Belly Up Tavern, September 20, 2010
Sunday’s lineup at the Belly Up boasted not one but two noteworthy bands: North Carolina’s The Love Language and LA’s fast-rising Local Natives. The Love Language and Local Natives aren’t exactly kindred spirits; the former is known for brittle tavern rock, the latter for catchy, world music-inspired compositions. Despite these differences, both bands suffered from excessively uniform sets. Continue reading…
Coachella 2010: An O&B How-To
As it does every year, the Coachella Music Festival is about to descend upon Indio, California. From April 16 – 18, the one-horse town will be transformed into an indie music mecca, with hipsters converging from far and wide to soak up the tunes and 115-degree heat.
Coachella can be a terrific time but also a taxing one, so you’ll want to get your mandatory three-day ticket’s worth. To help ensure that you don’t risk all that dehydration and sunstroke for nothing, your friendly neighborhood Owl and Bear have compiled a list of this year’s must-see bands. Continue reading
Review: MAN/MIRACLE – THE SHAPE OF THINGS
On their LP, THE SHAPE OF THINGS, MAN/MIRACLE have done away with minuscule letters and churned out a solid thirty minutes of all-caps, genre-hopping power pop.
The first half of the album is catchy as hell. The lo-fi, major-key island hook and afrobeat of album opener “ABOVE THE SALON” sounds like Vampire Weekend playing inside a sealed U-Haul trailer.
“HOT SPRAWL” and “UP” maintain that energy, with toms like a locomotive driving hollering, energetic sing-alongs (provided you don’t mind making up words to approximate the mostly unintelligible lyrics). Continue reading…