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Kev Choice
Born in San Francisco and raised in Oakland, Kev Choice has been studying piano for more than a decade, earning music degrees at Xavier University and the University of Southern Illinois. All along, Choice has performed with rap ensembles, composing tunes that draw equally from Bud Powell, McCoy Tyner, EPMD, and Nas. Recently he has been putting the finishing touches on his first full-length, The Broken Mold, which melds the soul-sampling grooves of Kanye West with the conscious rapping of Blackalicious. Live, Choice performs with a six-piece band, offering a genre-busting mix of soul, jazz, and rap, which led to Lauryn Hill requesting his services as musical director for a recent show in New York City.
Jennifer Johns
The music of singer Jennifer Johns reflects teenage years spent falling in love with contemporary hip-hop while cultivating pristine pipes through classical training with the Oakland Youth Chorus. In addition to similar-sounding artists like De La Soul and Lauryn Hill, Johns, who started singing in church at age 3, finds inspiration in influences ranging from Sade, Nina Simone, and Paul Simon to Rudyard Kipling and West Indian music. After forming her own label, Nayo Movement Music, she released the 2004 EP heavyelectromagneticsoularpoeticjunglehop and later shared stages with the likes of Common, Mos Def, Blackalicious, and Mary J. Blige. Her recently released sophomore album, Painting on Wax, features contributions from Panama Kaz Kyzer of the Team, Gift of Gab from Blackalicious, and Zion-I.
Monophonics
Since forming in '05, Monophonics quickly made a name for themselves, keeping the big, horn-driven instrumental funk sound of the '60s and '70s alive with countless gigs around the Bay Area and beyond. The seven-piece released its debut CD, Playin and Simple, in September, a disc that calls to mind Tower of Power, among other greats. Monophonics have played and recorded with members of the Funky Meters, Galactic, and Soulive, and also collaborated with local DJ crew 4One Funk on a side project called 4One Phonics. The band frequently plays at Mojito and the Boom Boom Room in San Francisco.
Indie Rock/Pop
Sponsored by Crunch Fitness
Vetiver
Andy Cabic's rustic folk project Vetiver is touring with the Shins right now, but don't worry — the countrified melancholy that defines this band is far too earthy and subtle to ever end up on a Zach Braff movie soundtrack. The band's most recent release, 2006's To Find Me Gone, was a highlight of the new-folk movement, a collection of wistful, dusty summer evening melodies that evoked traditional Americana, '60s British folk, and West Coast easy listening. The band dreamily follows its musical nostalgia without sounding retro: There's not much freak to its folk, just a warmly off-kilter sensibility that makes Cabic's music a vital continuation of the traditions he invokes.
The Dodos
Throw together a country-blues-loving guitarist and a metalhead drummer and you get the Dodos, a fascinating psych-folktronic duo. On their debut CD, Beware of the Maniacs (released at the end of 2006), guitarist and singer Meric Long layers evocative feedback over pretty acoustic picking, while drummer Logan Kroeber mixes primitive, thumping beats with intricate pitter-patter. The propulsive results recall everything from John Fahey to the Akron/Family (with whom the duo is currently touring). That's not even mentioning Long's voice, a sweet clarion call like Elliott Smith without all the heroin and suicide; or Long's lyrics, which chronicle complex relationships with acuity. Here's hoping these Dodos don't become extinct anytime soon.
Two Gallants
The idiosyncratic indie-rock duo Two Gallants upped the ante this year with the release of the stripped-down The Scenery of Farewell EP as well as their third full-length, Two Gallants (which is the second album for the Omaha wonderlabel Saddle Creek). Too accessible for freak-folk and too innovative to be retro, the band has carved a unique niche in the underground and is finally starting to cross over into the mainstream. San Francisco's best-kept secret is now an internationally renowned touring act — we're just confused as to why it's taken so long.
John Vanderslice
Some of you know him as the former frontman of MK Ultra, others know him as the owner of Tiny Telephone recording studio, and most of you know him from his prolific solo work. No matter which way you're familiar with John Vanderslice, it's hard to deny that he's probably the busiest guy in indie rock. This year he's found time to share the stage with peers like Spoon and Bishop Allen, play live on NPR, and release his latest full-length, Emerald City. Completists should also make sure to check out his cover of Radiohead's "Karma Police," which is available via the Web site Stereogum.com.
Metal/Psych/Punk
Sponsored by Lee and Woo Optometry
Triclops!
Triclops! is a lab experiment gone horribly right, a gene-spliced beast grown in a beer-stained petri dish. With DNA extracted from freako punk bands like Fleshies, Victims Family, and Bottles & Skulls, the Triclops! monstrosity ravages eardrums, PA systems, and anything that gets too close to singer John "Geek" Mink — who spends more time rolling around on the floor than your average stuntman on fire. Triclops! song tempos shift with whiplash quickness, vocals ricochet off the walls, and effects pedals get abused beyond CIA-sanctioned protocols. Meanwhile Geek's microphone cord snakes around your ankles as he flails and shrieks about poisons, toxic sludge ponds, and how Oakland's Lake Merritt is "filled to bursting with dead bodies and goose shit." Need a cure for phony hipster "weirdness"? Triclops! is now offering inoculations.
