At the Rickshaw Stop the official motto seems to be, "We bought a smoke machine and by god we're going to use it." There's always a cataract-like haze inside. Interesting fact: half the fog in San Francisco is leaked out of clubs around the city.
The show was presented by Stranger Dance which is described as "a cool new music blog." That's could be true if last night was any indication.
Silian Rail was impressive as usual. It's bracing to see their gently spastic music cranked up for a live set. It's worth seeing just to watch drummer plays guitar and drums at the same.
By Sunlight from Seattle, WA play mathy indie rock reminiscent of "Dream Signals in Full Circles" era Tristeza, with drums that are uptempo to the rest of the band and nodding bass serving as a platform for dreamy guitar. The songs were blended together seamlessly to the point where it became impossible to tell where one began or ended. Despite some mathiness By Sunlight maintain a pretty solid groove throughout, until near the end when they revved up into a faster song full of destabilizing stops and starts before winding down into a slow, thumping finale.
French Miami, band of moustaches. Double-tapping abounds, like a more groove-oriented Don Caballero, with vocals and keys. The guitar is jittery, almost unhinged, as it spirals around the pounding beat. The vocals have that dry, dull (but not in a boring way) quality of Ian McKaye, or Dianogah's Jay Ryan. French Miami announced they'd just been signed to a new label so look for a new cd sometime in the near future.
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