Cruel Summer - 2011-12-04 - TKT004, Oakland CA

Cruel Summer

2011-12-04

TKT004 

Oakland CA

Equipment used:  Olympus LS-5 (w/built-ins)

Setlist 

As reproduced below, but for those who are sight-impaired.  Titles given were what the songs were called at the time.

Skinwalker

Venetian Blinds

Silent Star

untitled new song

White Flag

Carquinez

Recording (FLACs in a zipfile))

The lineup:  Josh Yule - guitar, Thea Chacamaty - voice & guitar, Chani Hawthorne - bass, Sean Mosley - drums

Here were my right-after-the-show impressions to my friends: 

"For me, the standout was the first band, Cruel Summer, who were from SF.  If you have heard of or liked Cold Showers or Dunes [look for some upcoming writeups!], these guys had the same sort of thing going.  

Apparently, it's a new band who have been around for several months...the bassist is gorgeous...and they sing about the Carquinez Bridge, so what's not to love?   A giddy mix of swirlcore and shoegaze, *definitely* worth keeping an eye out on.  As you can tell, I'm a sucker for this stuff, and I'm sure y'all the same way.  Yes, that's me being asked what was the name of the band, right before they play their new song they don't have a title.  [Of course, I answer wrongly with 'Manatee', who are the next group on, stay tuned!]  I had no clue, who do people think I look like I know anything?"

Okay, I better head this off at the pass...

"The bassist is gorgeous" comment is going to get me into trouble in certain quarters...like my wife, the bassist herself, any self-styled moralists agog at my objectification, etc., so at some point I should learn how to better self-edit, but I really can't go back on what I said without feeling deceitful, and it truly is symptomatic about how the deck is stacked when you're a female musician, so I left that in there to prove a point, which is...well...I'm not sure now.  Help?

Back to the music, and here's where I get myself in even more trouble.  I didn't want to mention certain bands, but 'Skinwalker' reminds me of a particular 90s UK group whose name rhymes with "mush", which is probably your brains at the point having to contend with all of my needless verbiage, the folks at Bay Bridged have a much more informed article which you can read instead of any further stupidity from me.

One of my fellow contributors has already made the band aware of this recording and has passed it along to them.  Which is good since I'm not sure if they'll want to hear from me now.

More photos in my Fickr set

Listen to their FREE EP on Bandcamp