Saturday Night in San Diego: Roybot & Gamma Gamma @ Habitat; Sess & Red Feathers @ Casbah

Oh the delights of a show at The Habitat house. Mellow vibe, interesting music & typically a small selection of baked goods to go with the strict "BYOB" policy. Can't ask for anything more. The first act last night was house engineer Roy Silverstein's own project: Roybot. Roybot features Roy himself and then three other Roy's which are projected via DVD onto a vertical installation of three television screens. It's kind of a half quirky indie pop/half performance art-comedy thing. There is banter between the four Roy's, some sly gags and songs in between the jokes. The songs deal with life & technology. One song is called "AOLHell" and its about how slow AOL service is. Not sure if supposed to be kind of retro on purpose or whether it's just an "old song." My take is that the whole set up is a commentary on the local music scene, in addition to being an exploration of artist identity in the video age

In between sets had a chance to chat with Preston of the Habitat Sound System. He's djing at the Kava Lounge tonight, but more importantly he's playing the Roots and DanceHall Festival is Sao Paulo Brazil with the Mad Professor. He's also playing San Francisco in June (Dub Mission) & both Mexico City & NYC in July. Straight fire!

The second act at habitat house was a new group called Gamma Gamma(ex-Airport 81). They are a two piece- one piece on synths the other on live drums, and they already have a CD out called "I Want Your Baud" on Three Ring Records. You can even buy it on I Tunes already. They had a video backdrop of old 80s home computer/video game footage that went well with the music which is best described as indietronica w/ a heavy video game influence. Think: Dan Deacon, Ratatat, Daft Punk, etc. Solid. There's room for growth in the song writing, but the over all impact was impressive and for the first and only time at the Habitat, I was kind of bummed that the crowd was so mellow. These guys should be playing Whistle Stop on Gabe Vega's night, or U31 or even the Casbah. Def a band that those in the know are going to want to book/see live before long. As it turns out, they have zero shows lined up, so if you book them let me know because I will come and blog about how awesome you are for booking them first! I'll be reviewing the compact disc shortly.

After the Habitat show wrapped up we gave Dialed In Rosey a ride to the Casbah. She had some pretty amazing "NFB" (Not for blog) stories that I totally want to share but can't. She loaned us her copy of the new Nortec Collective cd, which based on a brief listen on the 10 min drive to the Casbah doesn't fucking suck like their last record.

We got to the Casbah in time to watch Red Feathers. "Not My Cup of Tea" though for the record they had a huge crowd, many of whom left before and during the Sess's set. They have a mopey San Diego country/twang rock sound. The Sess were dispensing free copies of their new compact disc: Agendumb. I'm very excited for this record and I can't wait to listen to it while I'm working out at the gym tomorrow. Ha. Watching the Sess live, I reflected on how much they have grown as a band, both in terms of sound and "tightness." My fear is that the Sess are wasted on San Diego, but what can I do about that? I think a prerequisite to continued blogging is to set aside the imploring of people to like bands or go to shows, and just write about what I see.

The Sess CD was put out on Single Screen Records, which is co-operated by Craig from the Power Chords & Action Jackson of Vision of a Dying World. Those guys did a great job- the record sounds and looks great, and I can't wait to see what they cook up next.

Tomorrow (Monday) night is the Muslims doing their live recording thing at the casbah. They are back from tour with the Night Marchers, and I'm told things went pretty well. After basically not going out for six months or so, I was comforted by the fact that everything has stayed exactly the same.