A little birdie beckoned me the other day to tell me that Bright Blues, the up-and-coming garage-rock quartet Vagabond Music told you kids about eons ago, have recorded a collection of songs in Don Johnson’s former spread and are now mixing said songs in Janis Joplin’s old digs. With heritage like that, they can’t possibly go wrong. Stay tuned for the final pressing.

In related news, Kelley Stoltz has informed VM that a new album is forthcoming from Sub Pop Records. In the meantime he’s keeping himself busy as the drummer for Sonny and the Sunsets, whom also have an album coming out soon and are a Bay Area must see. With so much good music in the pipeline how will we contain the anticipation? Probably with an ice-cold Deschutes Brewery Green Lakes Organic Ale and a nostalgic re-play of some select well-worn records.

Or, The Whale. Fight Song: Treading water, heeding signs; we just never knew enough to prosper.

These United States. Honor Amongst Thieves: These 21st-century prospectors are welcome in our town, as long as they post bail in a timely fashion.

Cotton Jones. Blood Red Sentimental Blues: And you’ll sip that beverage slowly, assiduously contemplating ways to maim.

Roadside Graves. Wooden Walls: While i disassemble my home and use the scraps as kindling for a fire that may never ignite.

Frazey Ford. Firecracker: They say redemption is fickle, that we ned to chase its tendrils with consumptive fury.

Dewi Sant. Forks: So I’ll pack my dear old steamer trunk and float until the tide resigns.

HORSE FEATHERS. Cascades: She let the sand run through her hand as though she might own Time.

THE OKMONIKS. It’s Not You: Maybe this isn’t what I imagined it to be, but we can synthesize it anew made with particles from the old.

DAVE SMALLEN. America: We’ve been anywhere and everywhere. Do we still have time to go?

THE AIMLESS NEVER MISS. Signal: Sarah says stay. Stop. The weather turned. Stop. Travel when it clears. Stop.

OH CAPTAIN, MY CAPTAIN. Beneath the Sea: When things have sifted, shaken out, we’ll walk a little farther and find a way to be.

Music is a barometer of the present. The present is an epoch we should know. Knowledge is the burden of the receptive. Reception is what the exchange of music relies on. Reliance is based on retention. We mainly retain the postscript to every philosophical entry. We have entered an era that scoffs at its thinkers. Thought is our only reprieve from the perpetual prison of the aged. Music lives in perpetuity, weighted with democratizing impulses. And in pulsation we find freedoms, both physical and metaphysical. Meta is the sum of our minds. Music is the voice of that sum.

One standout was The French Cassettes, who played Anu on Thursday night with Endroit, Wonderland PD and Throwknives.

This band offers you a genuinely new sound: authentic garage rock that incorporates a trombone and saxophone, and imploring vocals that will make you an addict. Located in one of the city’s seedier parts of town, the venue  wasn’t ideal for showcasing music since there was a support beam located smack-dab in them middle of the”stage.” And by “stage” I mean an area near the bathrooms at the back of the bar which Anu’s own website calls a dance floor. Apparently live music is a relatively new concept there. One perk to this, however, is that the bands seemed to treat the show as more of a jam-session and less as a performance, which, ironically, tends to draw out better performances and most certainly did on this occasion. Instead of facing the crowd, the French Cassettes faced one another much like San Francisco bands notoriously did in the 1960′s before psych-rock and The Haight became viable commodities. Could this be the beginning of yet another retro trend? Maybe coinciding with the resurrection of Seymour Locks’s light shows? Let’s hope so. I highly recommend seeing this innovative band live, especially since they’ll give you an EP for free if you inquire about their music. A+.

Friday night was spent at Brainwash Cafe with newcomers Bright Blues, in conjunction with Hello Evening, and  Sioux City Kid and the Revolutionary Ramblers.

If Conor Oberst wore gold jewelry and was happier, he’d play garage rock like these kids. But he doesn’t (that I’m aware of) and isn’t, so it’s a damn good thing San Francisco’s thriving music scene birthed this indie quartet. Defined by solid musicianship, this band offers shamelessly hummable tunes that are equally impressive whether played in their sweetly acoustic or bombastically electric formats. Andrew Skewes-Cox’s off-kilter animations are mesmerizing, and any man who willingly draws his own blood (literally) with a broken slide for the good of the show certainly has my respect. Jared  Cohen has a performative softness that balances Andrew well, and his introspective lyrics bring the audience in without seeming contrived. Anchoring the band is Erik Roget on a vintage 1960′s drum kit, and its ripe percussion in his quietly able hands rounds out the Bright Blues sound while William Skewes-Cox (yes, Andrew’s younger brother) keeps it rolling forward with a solid, uncomplicated bass line and an impenetrable poker face.  This was their third live show and things are really starting to come together for them; I suggest you attend a show and maybe buy them a beer before radio picks them up and they’re untouchable.

Saturday I had the pleasure of seeing Wolf Larsen play Blue Six with Moller and South China.

Although I’d seen Wolf play a few times previous to this performance, Blue Six really allowed her to shine. The venue, located in the Mission on 24th and Treat, feels like the living room of those impossibly cool married-couple friends everyone seems to have: vintage, type-written pages hung from the ceiling, every piece of the place made of original wood, a stack of records and a weathered upright grand piano lining adjacent walls. It felt and smelled of home. The acoustics were perfect and for the first time, that I’ve witnessed, she had an audience that was dead-silent respectful so you could ACTUALLY hear every chord and breath. Wolf manages to give folk music, on often effete genre, soul. Dominated by a steady temperance and defined by intelligent lyrics, her music is commanding yet peaceful, wistfully serious and genuinely emotive; authenticity is unfolding sonorously before you. Plus, she has an epic cover of Billie Jean that has to be seen to be believed. And as a local artist, you have ample opportunities to experience her first hand.

When adversity strikes, we turn to a higher power; it’s human to do as such. For many that means a reliance on their god or gods, but where do you turn when religion isn’t your cup of tea? Drugs, sex, alcohol, or work? Maybe an In ‘n’ Out cheeseburger followed by a carton of  ice cream topped with an entire plate of double fudge brownies? You know…hypothetically speaking, of course.

The problem with all of these, however, is the issue of displacement and disassociation. When trauma hits us with the weight of a tsunami, it’s OUR bodies, OUR minds, and OUR hearts which are wounded. And seeing as the blow came from an outside source, why would we want to look outward for a remedy? The way I see it, we can either curl into the fetal position and hope our favored deity rights the grievous wrong that’s been leveraged against us, or we can darn ourselves anew from the shreds that remain because nothing is more infuriating to the evils at hand than a success story. And no one will knit us whole but ourselves.

Personally, the Bible shows me nothing but fables and I’m not familiar enough with any other religious texts to proffer an opinion either way. Drugs are reserved as a celebratory phenomenon. The bottom of an empty bottle serves as an impotent and temporary ether. Sex brings more complications than clarity. Work, well…exhaustion helps but doesn’t last.

In place of all the aforementioned usual suspects, I find reading Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself helps me find the strength to love whatever I have left of myself. Sounds cheesey, but you’ll get what I’m talking about after you read these passages.

Why should I pray? why should I venerate and be

          ceremonious?

Having pried through the strata, analyzed to a hari,

          counsel’d with doctors and calculated close,

I find no sweeter fat than sticks to my own bones.

In all people I see myself, none more and not one a

          barley-corn less,

And the good or bad I say of myself I say of them.

I know I am solid and sound,

To me the converging objects of the universe perpetually flow,

All are written to me, and I must get what the writing

          means.

I already know what you’re thinking: what’s the difference between being inspired by secular poetry and seeking salvation through theology? My preferred coping mechanism reminds me that no one is more important than myself in terms of searching for fulfillment and prosperity (prosperity as a larger concept, beyond material prospects or conquests); I work hardest to appease my Self, and not an imagined god I know only through scriptures and chastisement. It also reminds me that my world is concomitantly written for and by me, all I have to do to experience it fully is pick up my pen and don my bifocals. 

But, then again, this is just how I operate, how I manage to pull myself out of this sick sad place of degenerative greed and mindless progression. To each his own. But I’ll tell you one thing: once you go Whitman you never go back…

Show is a mere $10 and all ages are welcome. Doors open at 8:30 pm, but the music shall begin around 10:00 pm. Magic Bullets represents the best of the re-imagined 1980s musical lingo that’s been so popular over the last five years, and since the 90s Grunge scene ended actually. Speaking of the 90s, Bridez has a definitively Courtney Love ambience that cannot be denied; man I miss Hole. And give your specially attuned attention to Shannon and the Clams if and when they play Trouble Maker, which is a magically delicious garage girl romp.  See you at the show, kiddies…

A liberal consumer of language, she was a thief among phrases.

Callous but tender, she was occasionally graceful; generally she was not.

Acutely thoughtful if not absent minded, she was perpetually aware.

               A mindful tutor to imagined pupils.

Always thinking, never thought of.

Near-sighted, far-sighted, all-sighted: she experienced problems with seeing.

For she was a junkyard mutt guarding scavenged treasures too outdated to matter.

              Meaningless matter given weight.

And perpetually in a haze of confession.

As she fought the pull to his saintless stables

              And his sinnerman shoes.

Johnny Cash has been a hip topic ever since the man in black found his face in the big screen features thanks to an impeccable performance by that little live-wire, Joaquin Phoenix. And because of that movie we’re probably all familiar with his songs Walk the Line, Ring of Fire, and my own personal favorite Rusty Cage. Addiction, depression, and a whole host of personal demons spawned brilliantly sincere pieces of musical Americana, even if some of his biographical facts were stretched during the making of his mystique. He was tireless and prolific during his heyday, and we most certainly have his wife, June Carter, to thank for the longevity of his creative process. In light of that, what I find most compelling is what he did musically after June left him for those big rock candy mountains in the sky.  In the final album released during his lifetime, American IV: The Man Comes Around, you mostly find covers with appearances by notables such as Fiona Apple, Nick Cave, and Don Henley assisting the legendary musical giant. And did I mention it was produced by the accomplished Rick Rubin? Johnny and his talented cast of contributors took music that was already adored, stripped it down to its bare bones, and gave it a sentimentality rarely seen in pop music with any authenticity behind it. Granted, Reznor’s original version of Hurt has soul to spare, but the fragility in Cash’s version is what reinvents the song and makes it more real: reality that can only be conjured by a widower approaching his deathbed, reality that has no home in the hearts of youth no matter the amount of emotional trauma those young years have endured. Gut wrenching blues drip out of every pore in this man’s body and drip all over everything: covering the instruments and their manipulators. 

For instance, The Man in Black’s Personal Jesus with acoustic guitar riffs provided by The Red Hot Chili Peppers‘ John Frusciante:

Versus Depeche Mode‘s original:

Or how about his version of Hurt 

Versus Trent Reznor‘s NIN original:

But why covers? That question has stuck in my mind ever since I bought the album when I was a senior in high school. Why not pen odes to your beloved wife’s departure? My guess is that he just couldn’t produce the words to make it right, but knew them when they crossed his path. And maybe, just maybe, he learned a few more things about himself at the end of his life (without the steady, reassuring hand of his wife by his side) by taking the creative output of others and making it his own; not a bad way to leave this life behind, when you think about it. Regardless, it was a hell of a high note on which to end a stellar career.

Go buy this album immediately if you haven’t already done so, and break your own rusty cage.