| Miles Kurosky returns to the scene of the crime on Thursday at Bottom of the Hill. |
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You can’t go home again, and Miles Kurosky doesn’t want to: It always seemed Beulah was just a break or two away from becoming more than just a San Francisco indie-pop band with a solid following. Former frontman Miles Kurosky has no interest in playing the bitter card six years after the group’s dissolution, though. In fact, he’s been taking Beulah song requests via Facebook for his current tour, which stops at Bottom of the Hill on Thursday, April 8.
“I have nothing but love, admiration, and respect for my former band members — I consider them family,” explains Kurosky, who says he decided to include oldies in the set to honor fans’ wishes, and because he’s not sure how often he plans to tour: “Some folks are lifers and road warriors. I’m neither.” After being sidelined by health problems, he recently returned with his solo debut, The Desert of Shallow Effects, which includes contributions from many former Beulahs. “However, keep in mind I spent hundreds of hours making this record, and each guy showed up for maybe an hour or two,” he clarifies. “Sometimes just to hang out and have a beer, and then maybe play a guitar riff for kicks. Mostly I think they just wanted to hear what I was up to.”
Kurosky’s live band includes familiar faces Eli Crews and Patrick Abernethy, both of whom played with Beulah during the second half of its existence and will be opening with their Pancho-san project. Kurosky now lives in Portland, Ore., but doesn’t expect Thursday’s homecoming show to stir up any uncontrollable emotions. “The real question is: Is San Francisco excited to see me?” he asks, adding that moving back to the city would be like “taking a bath in my own sentimental wash. … I’m excited to see my friends, and maybe visit a favorite restaurant.” Here’s hoping his favorite digs are still in business, and that the Bottom of the Hill crowd treats him like local royalty.
California chuckling: Like a Northern California Henry Rollins, Joe Sib has turned his fully loaded treasure chest of punk-rock memories into a spoken-word event. Sib is the cofounder of SideOneDummy Records who has fronted bands for the past 26 years, most notably Wax, which gained attention in the mid-’90s thanks in part to Spike Jonze’s video for “California.” His one-man show, dubbed California Calling, is funny enough that it’ll be at the Punch Line Comedy Club on Tuesday, April 6.
“The thought never entered my mind when I was growing up about doing comedy,” he says. “My obsession with punk rock began at 13 when my father took me to [San Jose’s] Winchester SkatePark, where I heard the sound of the Ramones, the Buzzcocks, and Black Flag for the first time. Sure, I was always the ‘funny’ guy in my crew of friends, but all I wanted to do was play music and see bands.”
Though Sib, who grew up in the Santa Cruz Mountains and later San Jose, left for L.A. when he was 23, California Calling is dominated by Bay Area tales. “A lot of my memories are about going to the On Broadway in North Beach,” he says. “There was something scary about making the drive from San Jose to San Francisco with a group of friends and never knowing what may happen that night. It was at a time when everything was new and punk rock was both exciting and dangerous.”
 Street smarts: Drawn together by a shared loved of rock, soul, and country’s most dynamic voices (James Brown, Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan), The Ferocious Few decided to take its stripped-down bluesy rock to the streets. Literally. “Our very first show was on the corner of O’Farrell and Powell,” singer-guitarist Francisco Fernandez says. “It is the hub of all consumerism, and a place in need of fresh sounds and good rocking music. Even if it is illegal for us to play in the strip mall on Powell Street, we believe that we have a sound that should not be silenced.”
Technically a ferocious couple — there are only two dudes in the band, the other being drummer Daniel Aguilar — the duo still stages open-air shows. It’s also getting used to playing indoors, though. The band will be at the Uptown in Oakland on Friday, April 2; San Francisco’s Goforaloop Gallery on Saturday, April 3; and at Café Du Nord gig opening for Holly Golightly on Saturday, April 17.
The band's new album, Juices will be issued by local label Birdman in May, and was recorded in four locations in Austin, L.A., and here at home. Its title refers to the band’s outlook. “This album is a snapshot into the many different facets of creative juices that the Ferocious Few have to share,” Fernandez says. “We all need to start stirring things up a little bit more in our daily lives and wake up to see there is still humanity behind all the locked doors, and it is waiting to smile back at you.”
Fun with the Contribution’s supercontributors: Even if you aren’t a fan of the music explored in the jam-band scene, it’s hard not to be impressed by participants’ commitment to building a sense of community. Newly minted supergroup the Contribution — featuring Railroad Earth’s Tim Carbone, the String Cheese Incident’s Keith Moseley and Jason Hann, and locals Jeff Miller and Phil Ferlino from New Monsoon — is a perfect example of kindred spirits finding each other among the patchouli, weed, and Hacky Sacks.
First discussed at a festival in Oregon, the Contribution has come to fruition with an album, Which Way World, and a few shows, including a stop on Saturday, April 3, at the Great American Music Hall. The band “has allowed Phil and I to explore some musical terrain that isn’t under the New Monsoon umbrella,” Miller says. “The Contribution has taken a Beatles-esque approach to writing and recording that has been a lifelong dream come true.
With their respective busy schedules, the members of the Contribution don’t expect to be able to play a ton of shows together — right now they only have two other gigs booked, both in Colorado — but already have plans for a second record. “In New Monsoon, there is kind of an established modus operandi that comes from years of playing together,” Miller says. “Whereas with the Contribution, it’s been a more organic process where someone throws an idea out there and if it catches fire, the creative juices start to flow. Fun is the overriding entity.”
Five Twitter Picks
1. Got plans? Emily Jane White “reminiscent of early Cat Power, mixed with a little doomed elegance” @ Rickshaw Stop http://bit.ly/c8jHqD
2 minutes ago
2. RT @SFWeekly: Nightclub Sues City, Asks for $9 Million in Damages http://bit.ly/aGgWyF about 18 hours ago
3. RT @thebaybridged: Sonny and the Sunsets (100 records project: http://bit.ly/a9Hxg9) getting some love from @pitchforkmedia: http://bit. ...
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| [ WHAT'S NEW ON ALL SHOOK DOWN ]
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1. Oh, you’ve been a Bad Lieutenant! Get your free tickets here: Read more >
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2. Analog mixer at the Make-Out Room: Read more >
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3. This one goes out to all the love junkies, courtesy of Wallpaper. and Donwill: Read more >
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4. Rocking and rolling with Hunx and His Punx: Read more >
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--------------------------------------------
> THIS WEEKEND
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Surfer Blood, Turbo Fruits, Ganglians
Fri., April 2, 10:00pm J.P. Pitts was just a semester shy of a degree in secondary education from Florida Atlantic University when he decided to drop ... Read more >
Zion I, Pep Love, Dublin
Fri., April 2, 9:00pm In action since 1997, Zion I has become one of the Bay Area's finest hip-hop acts, releasing six albums that have ... Read more >
Bardot a Go Go's Serge Gainsbourg Birthday Party
Sat., April 3, 9:00pm Singer Serge Gainsbourg – rake, libertine, lizard king – died when he was 62, young enough for him still to be making ... Read more >
Deadfall, Dean Dirg, Face the Rail
Sat., April 3, 10:00pm Deutschland's Dean Dirg lays waste to the stereotype of Germans as rigid, fastidious followers of strict rules and regulations. This Essen ... Read more >
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> PLAN AHEAD
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Owl City
Mon., April 5, 6:30pm Read more >
Angels & Airwaves, Say Anything
Mon., April 5, 8:00pm Read more >
Adam Green and the Dead Trees
Daily from Tue., April 6 until Wed., April 7, 8:00pm Adam Green has come a long way since sharing the Moldy Peaches with Kimya Dawson. Or has he? The droll New York ... Read more >
The Church
Tue., April 6, 8:00pm Read more >
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WonderCon April 2-4th!
Daily from Fri., April 2 until Sun., April 4
WonderCon, one of America's top comics and pop culture conventions returns to San Francisco Friday through Sunday April 2nd through 4th at Moscone Center. Among the many guests scheduled to appear are Geoff Johns, Darwyn Cooke, Jake Gyllenhaal of PRINCE OF PERSIA, Zachary Levi of TV's CHUCK, Mark Valley of ... Read more >
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Mahatma Comedy Tour
Sat., April 3, Sun., April 4
An Indian, a Jew and an Indian Jew walk onto a stage. Sounds like a set-up for a joke, doesn’t it? Well, it’s no joke, but it does set up a very funny evening of cross-cultural comedy in the multi-ethnic SF Bay Area. Dhaya Lakshminarayanan (an Indian Hindu), Joe Nguyen ... Read more >
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