Randall J. Paske wrote:
... among my new favorites are the Soundtrack of Our Lives' "Origin Vol. 
1" (don't miss their live show)...

Saw TSOOL last night at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco. 
These guys are really entertaining with loud, dirty guitar playing, 
Stones-ish stage antics, lead singer Ebbot Lundberg's "Ian Anderson 
meets chunky-era Brian Wilson" persona, and just really cool songs. 
Soundtrack songs are laden with great riffs---I'd say they're the 
riffiest band around.

As for the opening bands, American Minor, a five piece band from West 
Virginia was making their SF debut. If you take the Spin Doctors and 
Black Crowes, put them in a blender, leave the lid off and turn it on to 
frappe, that's what American Minor sounds like. Just a mess.

The Dears from Montreal started very slowly with a 10 minute drone of a 
song. A woman at the table next to ours screamed at them "Stop it! 
You're killing me!!" That aside, I liked a lot of what came after the 
annoying opening piece. The songs were almost prog-long, the sound is 
big, some songs feature three guitars or three keyboards, plus two youg 
women on b/g vox. Definitely not a band for lovers of three-minute pop 
songs, but there's still some good stuff going on.

Joe Field
http://FlyingColorsComics.com
Free Comic Book Day is May 7
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