The San Francisco based singer/songwriter, indie pop musician Luke Sweeney will be completing his residency with Miller Carr at the Make Out Room in San Francisco on Sunday, July 26th.

For the final event, Tim Cohen of Magic Trick and The Fresh & Onlys will be performing a solo set. The Chico, California based soul singer/songwriter Pat Hull will be playing the line up with musician Nicholas Campbell. This is going to be a very intimate event, showcasing some of the Bay Area's best male vocalists and guitar players.

In this rocky time in the San Francisco's arts and music scene, we should certainly pull together and support our hard working local musicians! Artists like Luke Sweeney and Tim Cohen have had staying power in the Bay Area over the years, surviving venues getting shut down, neighborhoods morphing and the depletion of resources for independent local musicians.

The best we can do for our community is show up, have fun, encourage our local artists and buy drinks and merch!

Last month, I had the pleasure of reviewing The Foresters' latest single, "Machines." This month, I have the greater pleasure of premiering their album, Sun Songs. The record, released through Dord Music Group, reveals a wide array of 90s rock influences - Built to Spill being the strongest comparison that comes to mind. Energetic guitar riffs run rampant through these tracks, my favorite being those on "How the World." The lone opening riff immediately caught my attention, before hitting a feedback swell and launching into raucous guitar revelry. Summer is the perfect time to open up your windows and blow out your speakers, and Sun Songs is the perfect soundtrack to help you achieve maximum aural satisfaction. 

In addition to the record release this week, Mother Brother Studios will be posting a Salon Sessions video of The Foresters this Friday, July 24. For more info about the band, check out their Facebook page.

-Dan McMahon (@dmcmhn) 
 

Goddamnit kids, there's just somethin' about truly earnest music that hits a chord deep within' yer chesty bits where the soul feels like it lives, and you just can't fake that shit no matter how hard you try. Twee and cutesy pop were like scientifically condensed versions of cute, yeah, but they really never got away from the saccharine nature that comes with something so deliberately boiled down. It might be cute, but it's like callin' one of those whipped cream injected whippersnapper cupcakes at Hey Cupcake! sweet: yeah we all get it, but it's not the kinda complicated and sticking sweetness-based revelations that, say, your mom's apricot cake baked in her small town home's old-ass oven will ever get ya.

All that's a very complex way to explain somethin' pretty damn simple, which is that Les Zombies makes music that is just real goddamn cute and entirely earnest-feelin', and that newest track "Unravel" is without question the most authentically un-heavy and adorable American love song we've heard in a damn long time. It's like a soundtrack for a kind of indie romance film set in the beige-and-green-washed suburbs with a lot of 80s clothes and cars that just doesn't exist anymore, and which would probably feel real put-on if it was made these days. Somehow this band keeps nailing this sound and sentiment in a pitch-perfect way that makes it feel like you can just go live in that kinda smaller, simpler, cuter world for a while. That ain't a bad thing in these angry, immediate days, in my opinion. Listen below, and let's give the past and the idea of love a bit of time to play around in our heads again as a less public, cuter, more personal thing that's still confusing but maybe more for the simple human parts and less for the whole mess of new problems that a social media, contemporary bae-infused narrative life has put onto shit. It's cute music that sounds great y'all, get up on it and let it get you feelin' some good, possibly bygone way.

The idea that "indie rock" actually defines a specific sound is one that wavers back and forth throughout the years from being somewhat reasonable to entirely ridiculous, and right now in this age of the Internet giving us umpteen different subgenres that have merged to some degree or another with that concept, we're definitely in the "indie rock is a concept not a sound" end of the pendulum swing. However, there've been some times when indie rock meant somethin' that was fairly specific, and one of those was when the term re-broke onto the mass consciousness in the early 2000s with bands like The White Stripes and The Strokes et al., who took a very pared down classic-rock-based-on-blues-guitar unpretentious sound and made it big. Local act Good Field channels the goddamn hell out of this sound, which ditches a lot of the contemporary contrivances (nice as those can sometimes be) of the indie sound and goes much for something that, now almost 14 years from The Strokes' seminal This Is It, could almost be called "traditional" indie rock in a way that we mean to be quite positive. It's all jangles on guitars and Reed/Dylan inherited vocalizing that goes great with jeans and flannels and which appeals to most any ear that isn't exclusively turned off to summer-day guitar rock. The video here is pretty fun too, and of definite high production value, focusing on a robbery a la Funny Games, but with an interesting little 2015 twist where the girls get the upper hand and the guys just kinda shrug it off. This isn't music that's gonna blow minds, but it definitely will please ears and snag some hearts, especially if you have a soft spot for that stuff that's gettin' closer to being two decades old every day (Jesus Christ, that's fucking odd). Watch belowgor some good old fashioned indie rock and roll.

We’re so into Laying Down Rock, the new single from the art rock duo, DRINKS, a new music project consisting of the San Francisco based musician, Tim Presley also known as White Fence and the lovely, Wales native Cate Le Bon. If you like Violent Femmes, the Magnetic Fields, Talking Heads and oddly composed art rock in general, DRINKS’ sense of humor and quirkiness is going to quickly earn your admiration.

Presley and Le Bon switch duties as lead vocalists from one track to another. Their previous single, the title track of their upcoming album, Hermits on Holiday had Le Bon sharing her angelic voice without any presence of Presley's vocal talents.

The tongue and cheek-ness of Laying Down Rock is only appropriately enjoyed with a slightly sadistic grin drawn across your cheeks, as Tim Presley’s off putting, slightly dark confidence and vocal expression is funny, but also a bit sinister. That said, if you listen closely you'll hear a glimmer of hope and a moral in Presley's troubadour-esque declaration that affirms that true love does exist. Take a listen and look out for DRINKS’ upcoming album, Hermits On Holiday, which is due out on August 21st through Birth Records & Heavenly Recordings.