The Morning Benders – “Promises”
“Promises” is the lead single off of the Morning Benders’ forthcoming release, Big Echo. The Berkeley crew co-produced the album with Grizzly Bear’s Chris Taylor, so I have a feeling its going to be nothing short of amazing. Thanks to True Panther and Rough Trade for putting out the [...]

Thanks, Pitchfork. You win this round. The initial lineup for the 2010 Noise Pop Festival is now out in the open: the Magnetic Fields, Atlas Sound, Rogue Wave, Four Tet, the Soundtrack of Our Lives, Mark Kozelek, John Vanderslice (who helped out last year as a bartender at Noise Pop 2009’s Mountain Goats show), Foreign [...]

[Locals Only is a weekly feature where the Stranger Dance staff focus on the best and brightest of the San Francisco Bay Area music scene. Feel free to hit us up with any information on local bands, musicians, shows, and other music-related events and projects.]
It’s show time, friends and foes. Here’s what’s happening this week [...]

Rock and roll? Check. Beautiful festival setting? Check. Theoretically, not much is missing from this combination – in fact, festivals like Monolith, Sasquatch! and our very own Treasure Island and Outside Lands demonstrate that you need not much more than some ace bands and lovely views to make for a good time (well, beer helps [...]

D Tour is a documentary about Rogue Wave drummer Pat Spurgeon’s battle to survive with just one kidney. At the age of 25, his kidney began to fail and he was forced to perform dialysis on himself routinely – yes, even on tour. ipickmynose recently posted some great photos of the San Francisco Film Festival [...]

This month’s mixtape is Part Two of our “Best of the Bay Area” mix that we started last month (find Part One here). We had set out to make a single mix that encapsulated the local scene, but there’s just too much depth of talent in San Francisco to reduce down to an 80-minute primer. [...]

Fellow San Francisco music ‘zine, The Bay Bridged, just released their second compilation featuring exclusive new tracks from Bay Area musicians such as Rogue Wave, Two Sheds and Okay. I particularly like “Lightning” by Birds & Batteries. Purchase it here.

Given our current economic situation, “Bailout Blues” seems like an obvious theme. However, I’m not sure the songs I picked have anything to do with it – although you have to admit that a song named “Crop Circle Jerk ‘94″ may, in some small way, sum up the situation. For those of you who don’t [...]

Fuse.tv’s campaign called “Music is…” gives the site some indie cred with artists like Holy Fuck, Au Revoir Simone and Oakland favorites Rogue Wave. Speaking from an advertising perspective, they also do a great job of highlighting the emotional connection that most people feel with music – “music is a balloon” shows a man getting [...]

It’s finally here. Though the months of anticipation, Outside Lands-related posts and Radiohead worship have been fun here at the Stranger Dance, it’ll be nice to get this bitch done with, so we can have some fun. So, in the spirit of community, good citizenship and milking this high-traffic cow one last time, we present [...]