No Statik at The Acheron

For New Year's I went to The Acheron. I caught six bands and three cans of Coors Light to the head.

The headliner, No Statik, is kind of a supergroup of (SF) East Bay hardcore bands. Some of the other bands on the bill were good, but this is the band which drove the crowd nuts.  And that lead singer of theirs is definitely nuts.  She wore herself out crowdsurfing and moshing but just kept going.  Nobody even noticed when they skipped the New Year's countdown, 'cuz at that point nobody was paying attention to some silly holiday at all.

Posted: 1/1/2014 at 1:57pm     Tags: New Year's Eve  No Statik  The Acheron 

Psychic Ills at Saint Vitus

Psychic Ills are sort of the opposite of the stereotypical New Year's Eve party band. Although they aren't exactly quiet and some of their songs rock they are not the least bit raucous. I wouldn't say that that the music is introspective, but most songs are about one person's state of mind, their place in the world or their relationship with exactly one other person. At the very least I would say that the songs are focused internally and the band's style reflects this.

Perhaps Psychic Ills made a New Year's resolution last year to add some visual spectacle to their shows.  Every time I have seen them lately they have a projector blasting out colors and shapes. So they're certainly more colorful now, though the venue wasn't really helping by keeping the spotlights set to blue-and-only-blue the whole time. Aside from that their style hasn't changed a bit.

As I went through these photos I kept thinking "That would make a nice oil painting". I did not "oilify" a single photo but yes, in case you were wondering, I screwed around with that last shot.

Have an exciting 2013 y'all! I know I will.

Posted: 1/1/2013 at 4:13pm     Tags: New Year's Eve  Psychic Ills  Saint Vitus 

Herbcraft at Saint Vitus

Here is a short photo set of a band which played a short set. Or at least I think they did. Herbcraft's songs flowed so cleanly into one another that I can't even say how many they played. Three? Four?

Herbcraft are a two-piece from Maine who have been around for a couple of years so they've had the time to fine-tune their sound. Their music is mesmerizing, with layers of intriguing rhythms supporting ephemeral vocals and vaguely Eastern guitarwork. Unfortunately this sort of music is not conductive to keeping track of things like song counts or time. Especially when it is done so well.

On a side note the Saint Vitus calendar originally listed the show opener as "Herb Craft". So did this site's calendar because I got the listing from Saint Vitus's website. When I finally got around to checking the band out on Facebook things got interesting. Apparently one Mr. "Herbert Craft" is retired and lives in South Carolina. He probably does not play in a psych-rock band. A second "Herb Crafts" claims to be a shoe designer for Vans (wrong venue!) The third and last Herb Craft has no profile picture and no public info. He (?) is a Facebook ghost.

Posted: 1/1/2013 at 12:12pm     Tags: blue  Herbcraft  New Year's Eve  Saint Vitus