Will Sheff
December 17th at Herbst Theatre

Right before the holidays, Okkervil River frontman Will Sheff came to San Francisco to take part in an Arts and Lectures series to talk music shop with Andrew Leland, managing editor of The Believer. Sheff is one smart, articulate guy, and his musings and answers to questions both philosophical and deeply exploratory pronounced his understanding of music and the reason he creates it. He makes it look so easy! So deep is his comprehension of the creative process, it’s easy to understand how he is able to craft such poignant literary compositions, as well as why he’s written about music in the past. Offering such insights as to his work with Daniel Johnston (disclosing that the artist was one of the reasons why he moved to Austin), his sheer disbelief as to the greatness of Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks, and the fact that his—and many other’s compositions—are in fact, “a lie” (in that his characters are generally not, in fact, extensions of himself or his own experiences, but rather characters he’s created to explore a situation or a feeling, and in that regard, he throws himself fully, unreservedly into their stories). He also spoke to a few of the real people he’s written songs about, such as the prostitute Savannah (“Savannah Smiles”) and the glam-rock obscurity Jobriath (“Bruce Wayne Campbell”), revealing why he chose to immortalize these particular lives in music. And then, after all the conversation, he played three songs, which included The Stage Names’ “Plus Ones”, The Stand Ins’ lead track “Lost Coastlines”, and “A Stone” from Black Sheep Boy, a song that hits me close to home for a number of reasons, and one that literally brought me to tears, so eloquent was this one-man acoustic version. He put that much soul into it. As soon as the song was over, the lights flicked back on and I sat there alone, blinking away tears, moved by this artist who feels so deeply about the world in which he lives.  – Angela Zimmerman

Watch: Will Sheff [at youtube.com]

Thee Oh Sees
December 18th at Eagle Tavern

As the Thursday night headliners at the Eagle Tavern, Thee Oh Sees didn’t take the stage at the Eagle Tavern until well past 12am, but hell, there’s no better band to rouse you from a sleepy weeknight reverie. Compared to singer/guitarist John Dwyer’s past projects (e.g. Coachwhips, Pink and Brown), the four-piece has a dreamier, more reverb-ed quality, but following last year’s The Master’s Bedroom Is Worth Spending a Night In and a new split 12” with the Intelligence, Thee Oh Sees (whose name has taken on a number of different forms in the last four or five years: OCS, Orinoka Crash Suite, Orange County Sound) have assumed more of the yelping bite that characterized those older group’s sounds. The Eagle, a bear bar that was crowded tonight with hipsters and garage-punk enthusiasts, felt like a sufficiently surreal habitat for the band’s music—Dwyer’s yips would often take on a singsong-y, nonsense quality, punctuating Brigid Dawson’s pretty vocal harmonies with echoed exclamations of “Wawawawawa!” The high register of their shared vocals and the aforementioned abundance of reverb crunch had heads boppin’ throughout tracks like “Block of Ice” and “Visit Colonel”, and the set careened into an eventual drawn-out, amp-buzzin’ instrumental conclusion. Delightful! – Michael Harkin

Watch: Thee Oh Sees [at youtube.com]

Sea of Dreams: Thievery Corporation, Bassnectar, the Mutaytor
December 31st at the Concourse

I’m one of those annoying people who starts thinking about New Year’s Eve in September, so in order to meet the high expectations I put on myself, I’ve learned that it’s best to get tickets to a show—costumed attendees, epic set lists, and drunken dancing is pretty much guaranteed to be a million times better than scouting for cabs for hours or getting puked on at a bar crowded with obnoxious people who can’t hold their booze. Although the Concourse is quite possibly my least favorite venue to see a band, for the spectacle that constitutes NYE, meaning multiple stages and satellite bars and hula hoopers and lots of dancing, I checked my preconceived skepticism at the door and entered Sea of Dreams, which was about to break open at the thumping, electro-lit seams to usher in the impending new year. A trapeze artist backlit by pulsating light was suspended high above the floor up ahead, and to my right a DJ bumping bass was making costumed kids swirl together in a grinding mass of anticipation for the unveiling of 2009.

Soon, the sounds of DC-based Thievery Corporation’s multiethnic electro-ambient ensemble began to rise from the backend of the venue, so I picked my way through the throng and met my friends, who had set up residency with tons of room to dance around a persistently towering pile of coats and bags and glowing parts of costumes. Thievery saturated the crowd that stood before the stage in their eclectically danceable music, and it wasn’t too long into their set that the countdown commenced, the entire mass of people regaling each other in that collective moment of hope… for New Year’s Eve is all about that hope of new beginnings, right? And as always seems to happen at NYE concerts, after that communally shared countdown to a new beginning, something breaks free in both performer and audience, effectively lifting the entirety of the evening in the giddy, celebratory enthusiasm that can only be found on that first day of a brand new year. The rest of the music we shared that night (SF-based Bassnectar and trip-hop outfit BLVD, among others) gave us energy aplenty to keep on going long after the last notes of Thievery’s two-hour set came to rest. Spilling out into the damp pre-dawn air of San Francisco, the exhilaration of such a festive experience literally drove most of us to seek out more of that live music stuff, through the witching hour and well into sunrise. Now that’s a celebration. – AZ

Watch: Thievery Corporation [at youtube.com]

Sex/Vid
January 1st at Villanova, Davis

Whether you’re in a major metropolitan area or a more sparsely populated area, you can likely catch shows by second- and third-rate hardcore groups any night of the week. If Sex/Vid rolls through, however, it’s a goddam event—go see ’em! At the Villanova house in Davis, the Olympia, Washington group set up camp, bearing (among other things) a huge bass amp, a black kick drum with the name of their new 12”, Communal Living, written across it in white Old English typeface, and a sizeable bottle of red wine, held by vocalist Judd until it came time for the group to sound check. If you’ve ever seen a band like the Melvins, you’ll know the feeling of bone-shaking amp crackle that served as an outline throughout for their compelling, unadulterated brand of metalcore. It seemed not to matter that this living room was too small to circle-pit in—the local punks did it anyway, forcing much of the already crowded room to the room’s periphery as the band played a 20-something minute set that threatened to tear down the walls. I could pinpoint a couple of tracks that I recognized from their vinyl releases (at least one came from the Nests 7” and a few from Communal Living), but whether or not certain tracks could be identified didn’t really matter—it was the sheer volume and drunken violence of their sound that left a scorching impression. There was nothing really retro or throwback about it, just unadulterated, ass-kicking, bullshit-free energy: Even the more timid folks present couldn’t help but smile at the proceedings. Don’t let them play at your house, but you’re encouraged to go see them at someone else’s. – MH

Watch: Sex/Vid [at youtube.com]

Read past installments of It Shows:

Blitzen Trapper, maus haus, Wilderness, and Mudhoney

Love Is All, Of Montreal, Deerhunter, the Harbours, and Kami Nixon

Danzig, Robyn Hitchcock, Crooked Fingers, and more