San Francisco Music

There are places to go, believe it or not.  The old argument used
to be “the scene is dead, no good clubs” but I think those days are
behind us.  Pehaps the best new clubs to emerge from the ashes of
a bygone era are The Independent, 12 Galaxies, the Hush Hush Lounge on Mondays and Thee Parkside.  The classic spots like Bottom of The Hill, Cafe Du Nord (picking up it up as of late with the Swedish American Hall above), Bimbo’s, The Great American, and the Fillmore
(if you are willing to pay over $20 for a ticket) still continue to
draw class acts, but what’s happened to the local music scene? 
Most bands headlining these clubs are from other places.  Has the
practice space real estate crisis killed the SF rock star?  I hope
not, but it seems that the shortage of garages and tolerant neighbors
continues to kill the bedroom jam sessions.  But here are a few
local folks you may not have heard about who continue to create in
garages:

I hear the Goldenbirds made a living out of playing in their livingroom in Berkeley.  They’ve got a new album coming out called Transamerica
in honor of tall buildings and banks (i’m just guessing here). Their
sound conjures up memories of Kings of Convenience and some Belle and
Sebastian and it seems that Transamerica has a more acoustic feel than
previous recordings. 

The Goldenbirds : Thermometer
The Goldenbirds : Sioux Falls South Dakota
The Goldenbirds : Sugarbears

And a shout out to a great bunch of guys (actually, I only know the
Chulada brothers) who are still playing and loving it.  I used to
play music with Brett and Mike up in Santa Rosa when there really was a
good scene for awhile.  I’ve yet to see their new ban The Love X Nowhere (TLXN) but I’ve been very surprised by just listening to the mp3’s on their site. 

TXLN : Unworthy
TXLN : Song for Carrie
TXLN : Freedom
TXLN : Our Song