As mentioned in a prior post, we ventured up to The City and came back with some musical finds to pass along.  We continue here, starting with some more SF pop-garage-magic (the Magic Bullets) before segueing into the more challenging, but worthy, Bay Area noise-pop bands: Weekend, Thee Oh Sees, Grass Widow and Young Prisms.

The Magic Bullets are foremost great songwriters. We hear, at the forefront, influences of the oft-ignored Orange Juice (where is the justice?) and the followers thereof, namely the Smiths, etc. Magic Bullets take the standard three (maybe four) minutes and fill that span with pop magic. They get in, deliver the jangly goods and get out.  Check ’em out.

Magic Bullets–Lying Around

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/magic-bullets-lying_around.mp3|titles=magic bullets lying_around]

Magic Bullets–The Book is Closed

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/MagicBullet-TheBookIsClosed.mp3|titles=MagicBullet-TheBookIsClosed]

Moving on to the wondrous San Francisco  noise-pop thread, we give you Weekend (who we missed when they opened for The Pains of Being Pure at Heart at Soho recently and wowed the Santa Barbara crowd).  Weekend came out with its first record, “Sports,” on Slumberland this year, managing to perfectly meld the noise and the pop while lyrically shining their shoegaze with the gray fog of San Francisco.  The band falls into the My Bloody Valentine, Jesus and Mary Chain camp, but manages to make the sound and the atmosphere their own.

Check out their songs End Times, Coma Summer and Youth Haunts.

Weekend–End Times

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/WeekendEndTimes.mp3|titles=WeekendEndTimes]

Weekend–Coma Summer

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/weekendcomasummer.mp3|titles=weekendcomasummer]

Weekend–Youth Haunts

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/Weekend-Youth-Haunts1.mp3|titles=Weekend-Youth-Haunts]

Next up is Grass Widow, the all-female band that had its major-indie debut in 2010 on Kill Rock Stars with “Past Time.”  The album is filled with deadpan harmony vocals, while sinewy bass lines and garrulous guitar riffs intertwine and frenzied drumming propels the songs along.  The harmonized vocals remind us at times of the great band Heavenly, and at others of Exene and John of X, while the music is a bit like Pinback at times and like Pavement at others.  And throughout there’s sweetness to go with the sour.

Grass Widow–Shadow

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/Grass-Widow-Shadow.mp3|titles=Grass-Widow-Shadow]

Finally (for now), we give you the Young Prisms, who continue to quickly evolve, age by age.  They have pressed forward to further refine their melodies and musicianship, while building on their noise (and pop).  We expect to hear much more from The City about this band.

Young Prisms–I Don’t Get Much

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/Young-Prisms-I-dont-Get-much.mp3|titles=Young-Prisms-I-dont-Get-much]