It’s our ninth Snob Theater and it’s time to take part in some insane music and stand-up comedy. In case you’re not familiar with Snob Theater, Snob Theater is a show that features the best in the Bay Area’s indie rock bands and stand-up comedians. The small 60+ seat Dark Room Theater makes for the most intimate of performances and provides a unique and exciting atmosphere. Snob Theater is an event that showcases the comfort of the performers as they take chances in a stripped-down setting.
Our musical guests this month include Foxtails Brigade and The Shants.
THE SHANTS
The Shants: Please Come Home For Christmas from skip on Vimeo.
First up will be Oakland’s folk-rock darlings, The Shants. The group’s EP debut, Russian River Songs, offers an elegant sort of Americana. Its songs about long-ago travels and romantic travails, eternal longing and inevitable leaving are often hushed, dreamy and mysterious. Simple folk-song structures are uplifted by hymn-like, chamber music arrangements. The four young multi-instrumentalists Skip Allums, Sam Tokheim, Carver Cordes, and Adam Burstein recorded the album in the most remote place they could find in the redwoods north of San Francisco, near the Russian River. The intimacy of the cabin they rented in their chilly off-season environs is palpable. This group of Oaklnad up-and-comers knows how to break your heart and make you smile at the same time.
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[mp3] The Shants – My Town Is Underwater from Russian River Songs (2010)
FOXTAILS BRIGADE
Foxtails Brigade @ Chasing The Moon 8.06.09 from Scott McDowell on Vimeo.
Crafted with care and covered in Victorian influence, Foxtails Brigade will also grace the stage of Snob Theater this Thursday. Fronted by guitarist/lyricist Laura Weinbach, her charm is not nearly as impenetrable as her cosmic poetry or, for that matter, the band’s baroque-like music. The young Californian guitarist’s latest album is an eight-track piece that includes lush string arrangements by fellow band-member Anton Pazner (Judgement Day, The Devontionals) that drift nicely with Laura’s combination of undeniable eloquence & flawless harmony. The result is an album that sounds unlike anything else. Entitled Reverie (essentially a Laura and Anton album), the band will bring the album’s magic to the Snob Theater stage this Thursday. Be there to catch it.
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[mp3] Foxtails Brigade – Chat With Sivan from Chat With Sivan 7″ (2010)
Last Comic Standing 2 semifinalist from vladimir khlynin on Vimeo.
This month’s stand-up comedians include Kristee Ono (SF Punchline, Host of Ladies Comedy Night at The Brainwash), Jeff Reitman (Creator of Cross Platform Comedy, Wacky Gamer Podcast), Vladimir Khlynin (Last Comic Standing Semi-Finalist), and Kevin Camia (Comedy Central’s “Live at Gotham”, Aspen Rooftop Comedy Festival, AZN’s Asia Street Comedy, San Francisco Sketchfest).
Also we have a number of special comedian guests showing up like last month’s Snob Theater favorite Kevin Avery (Thugs: The Musical with David Alan Grier and Margaret Cho) among many others that cannot be mentioned as of yet.
So come out, invite friends, and spread the word. It’s going to be a good night.