FUCKWOLF
>> Goodbye, Asshole, the first proper studio album by San Francisco scuzz-wave merchants Fuckwolf, took the most meandering and unlikely 19 year journey to get here, a strange length of road for a record that sounds as immediate and visceral as the bleach and booze waft of any good Mission district dive bar.
Fuckwolf has haunted the warehouse shows and dive bar gigs of the Bay Area for almost two decades and traded up a more stilted, typical indie music reality of deadlines, commerce and compulsive documentation for a foggy pursuit of art and sound and more than a few lost years to the endless 7-day weekends of San Francisco’s post-millennium glory days.
The band, Eric Park (bass, vocals), Simon Phillips (drums) and Tomo Yasuda (guitar) sound blazing and scuzzy, a tight low-fi energy blasted onto tape that goes a long way to summarizing the last 20 years of their hometown’s wild artistic soul.
Fuckwolf alumni have co-created (and co-destroyed) bands with the likes of John Dwyer (Osees) and Mike Donovan (Sic Alps/ Peacers) and have shared the stage with Lightning Bolt, Burmese, Black Dice, Intelligence and Wooden Ships to name just a few.
After 19 years of turning on and dropping out Fuckwolf have thrown down a record that is quintessential old weird San Francisco, in a time when it’s tough to find many cultural artifacts of said vibes that still have a pulse. And yet, Goodbye, Asshole avoids wallowing in the depressing cultural sea changes of the band’s creative breeding ground. There is a fierceness of dedication to vibe here. Even hometown cultural apocalypse doesn’t phase Fuckwolf, and they’ve just made the last great SF weirdo rock record of a gone era or the first great SF weirdo rock record of the next one.
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THE WIND UPS
>> Born out of Covid boredom and a freshly acquired TASCAM 388 in Northern California, The Wind-Ups are the fully realized bedroom project of Jake Sprecher (Terry Malts, Smokescreens, Jonathan Richman). The debut LP, Try Not To Think, is a lo-fi punk rock 'n' roll burst that veteran Infrasonic mastering tech Dave Gardner (Black Lips, King Khan) calls "one of the loudest records I've ever worked on." It might quickly remind you of The Saints, The Ramones or The Spits. But listen a little longer and you're certain to pick up on an unabashed power pop backbone, one that sources influence from the Modern Lovers, Paul Collins' Beat, The Shoes, so on and so forth.
Former Terry Malts members and dear friends Phil Benson (Neutrals) and Nathan Sweatt are waiting in the wings to join the live band when life returns, with Try Not To Think set for a late May release on Mt.St.Mtn.
“Northern California (Chico to be exact) veteran musician Jake Sprecher flies the Ramones flag high on a lo-fi, but go-to-11-in-volume album. The dynamic tracks are pure garage rock ‘n’ roll with a hefty helping of punk rock attitude. Sprecher not only features on all instruments and vocals, but he also wrote and recorded the full length. How’s that for one-man-band? And this lone man is also in slew of other outfits, from Smokescreens and Terry Malts to Beehive and as a contributing player for Jonathan Richman. What Sprecher is doing here lines up most closely with Terry Malts, minus the post-punk angle - and extra band members. Sprecher’s cruisin’ for a bruisin’, kicking up a ruckus on driving songs where their sound is compressed to the forefront for maximum amplification.” - Big Takeover
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JULIAN NEVER
>> Julian Never is the recording project of long-time Sacramento CA underground players Julian Elorduy (formerly of Fine Steps) and Mark Kaiser (formerly of Male Gaze, 3 albums on Castle Face Records), both of noise-punk legends Mayyors. A melting pot of influences ranging from 70s-80s U.K./Aussie/Kiwi D.I.Y. & post-punk to American power-pop of the same era colliding to form a punchy, layered web of sound anchored by Elorduy's dreamy tenor.
“Been a while since I’ve heard rumblings from Mayyors’ camp, but this new project from the band’s Julian Elorduy and Mark Kaiser embraces a less gritty vision of pop, setting their sights on the sun-warped jangle of ‘80s Flying Nun this time around. Backed by ethereal synths and beset with jangles, the title track to this single is a bittersweet gem that would fit in well with the acolytes of the Nun that have currently cropped up all over Australia in the last few years. Elorduy and Kaiser have worked out a pretty solid handle on pop here, shedding some of their raucous punk past (Kaiser was also in Male Gaze), and it all comes crashing to a head on “Silver One.” On the flip, the band postures in am more tender vein, opening with the somber strains of piano, given a slight nod to their more lo-fi past before swapping the keys for strums that, like new works from The Tubs, rope in some of the more tender side of the Creation catalog to the mix with touches of Felt and The Sneetches sneaking in. A solid single from the new band and one that gives cause to keep an eye on them. Hoping that this works itself out into something longterm. “ - Raven Sings The Blues
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COLLATE
>> "Shards of glass guitar punctuate a rhythm section that wants you to dance that anxious bedroom dance you did when you first played that Au Pairs mixtape your cousin made. Each song is delivered with minimal fanfare and maximum intent: music by people who know what they're doing and know what they want." (Allan McNaughton)
"These tracks are KILLER. Stylistically, they’re in the same vein as previous releases from Collate. If you haven’t heard those, Collate seem to take a lot of inspiration from the early Rough Trade Records / UK post-punk sound—particularly bass-forward bands like Delta 5, Essential Logic, the Slits, and Gang of Four—but they playing is more aggressive and the production nastier and noisier, more like the DIY hardcore that we focus on at Sorry State rather than the more polished presentation of Lithics or Shopping. These two tracks only add up to about four minutes of music, but no one would call a second of this record filler." (Daniel Lupton / Sorry State Records)"