Mission Mission

Let’s party! RSVP and invite your friends!

This is a still from a Vine by our pal Jeff Seal, who will be doing seven minutes of standup at the Dark Room on Wednesday. Jeff is gonna be in town to attend a wedding, a wedding which is the theme of the following podcast. (Also, watch the Vine in its entirety after the jump.)

Discussed:

• Old 97’s
• Port Costa
• Friendster
• Red’s Java House
• Clump of fried false eyelashes
• Panko
• Swedish American Hall
• Mother’s Day
• Cafe du Nord
• Readyville
• Spotify/Pandora/AMI Internet Jukeboxes
• Comedian Jeff Seal
• Miming
• Clown school
• Vine
• Converse All-Stars
• Club Deluxe
• Comedian Sean Keane
• The Business
• The Dark Room/Balazo/Mission Records
• Haunted brothel
• Strippers
• Are You Afraid of the Dark?
• Ghostbusters
• The Hi-Dive
• Ping pong/Ping Pong Gallery in the Dogpatch/Joey Piziali
• Non-alcoholic beers
• The Bay Bridge Lights and how long they’ll be there
• Warriors’ new arena
• “San Francisco Warriors”
• The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
• Burgers/cheeseburgers/fries at Red’s Java House
• Girls (band)
• Hot girls from Santa Rosa
• People from Florida
• Rent is too high
• Josh Yule
• Thee Oh Sees
• “Naked, Spitting, Pissing Dude”
• Butts
• The splits
• The Ferocious Few
• Unhinged woman in the park
• Quevanzhane Wallis
• Unfit mothers
• Child Protective Services
• Chris Brown
• The Mint
• The Tenderloin
• Podcasts

(more…)

Watch:

The Ferocious Few, everybody’s favorite rock ‘n’ roll buskers, just had everything in the world taken from them, and right before they were about to head to Austin for SXSW. Frontman Francisco tells the tale:

The incident occured on Saturday February 25th between 5-7 pm. My girlfriend and I had gone to a Noise Pop Happy hour at Bender’s Bar to support a local band called Hot Fog, and meet with some friends. I had just returned from Haight st. where we had been kicked off the stoop of a friend’s house by SFPD for playing music for passersby on that beautiful sunny day. I had parked my car outside of an apartment building at 772 South Van Ness at about 5:15. We left Bender’s shortly thereafter only to find that my red 1995 Nissan Pathfinder, license plate 3SNY839 was gone.

I called all the tow companies, no sign of it. I continued calling them every day and I still try.

I called the cops. I filed a report, they said no sign of it. They kept me waiting at the scene of the crime (in one of the most heavily policed areas in the entire city) for so long I felt compelled to go into the station myself. They said an inspector would be put on the case by this past Monday. They said that there was a good chance the car would turn up…but obviously everything else would be gone.

Everything I own, give or take a sock or two, was stolen that day. There were 3 guitars worth a total 7k in there! Worth way more to me than the money. One of them, a brand new Gibson I had just spent months transforming into the most ferocious music making machine. All my busking equipment, batteries, cables, amps, my clothes, my book collection, everything I need to do my job basically, and the car, GONE.

If you’d like to help out, keep your eyes peeled — but also there’s a benefit show this Sunday at the Rock Loft in North Beach. RSVP and invite your friends!

Can’t wait! Ferocious Few and B. Hamilton have both been longtime faves. Together on one bill, Amnesia should be worried its foundations might be rocked to rubble.

Here’s what head Hamilton Ryan C. Parks had to say about tonight’s event this morning on Facebook:

Get your ass to Mars! RSVP and invite your friends!

Watch an epic Ferocious Few video here. Read all about B. Hamilton (and download their debut album for FREE) here.

This Thursday, Noise Pop presents a special party at the Cal Academy featuring The Ferocious Few. Here’s the deal:

Noise Pop is proud to announce our partnership with Nightlife at California Academy of Sciences. Every couple months we’ll join forces with Nightlife to bring unique and exciting programming to this beautiful and living space. On December 8th, we’re bringing The Ferocious Few to the museum so they can pummel their way through a powerhouse set of pop gems.

Having mostly seen these guys playing on dirty Mission street corners, it’ll be extra special to see them in a world-class science museum. To win tickets, tell us your best Ferocious Few-related anecdote in the comments section below. A winner will be chosen based on merit. Contest ends at noon this coming Wednesday.

Buy tickets here.

This fellow set up shop on the corner on both Saturday and Sunday this past weekend playing his amplified lute for all to hear.  The music seemed to captivate all who heard it, as passers-by would stop for a few moments to listen to the eerie progressions.  Rather than the go-to “Play some Skynyrd” that usually accompanies loosely-organized performances, inebriated patrons instead compelled to “Play some Greensleeves, bro!”

While not as furious as the Ferocious Few, for instance, you’ve got to hand it to this busker for his resilience.  Perhaps there’s a Renaissance Fair nearby where he can find his soul mate.  In the meantime, I’m gonna go and listen to some Dragon Warrior NES music.

UPDATE!!!! I am an “expert” at world music and this a West African Kora, not a medieval lute.

The song is an instant classic though:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpJQWGA1O8s

Instant classic! Doesn’t it make you want to ditch the office and head for the park?

Watch the Ferocious Few video in question here. Stream the entire new Cars album here (though it’s not all this good).

You’ve seen them in the streets, you’ve seen them in the park, you’ve seen them get busted in the park, you’ve seen them rock Bay 2 Breakers, you’ve seen them in weird little festival sideshows, and you’ve even seen them onstage at a proper rock club.

Today, you get to see the Ferocious Few in their very own official music video. And it looks gooood:

This was one of the few Noise Pop 2011 shows we missed. Luckily The Bay Bridged had our back, and it seems the Ferocious Few, that band you love running into on street corners, is possibly even more badass onstage with real amps and shit:

Seeing them indoors, playing out of full size amps, in a room with natural reverb, had an interesting effect on their music. The increased size and scope makes everything sound infinitely more serious then it does on a street corner. Their songs are transformed from playful rave-ups to something bordering on the biblical. In this setting, songs are based more on their almost Gothic atmosphere than they are on the band’s blistering live energy. A lot of that comes from the drums. When the Few busk, their drummer plays with brushes but at this show he used sticks. Brushes, when played hard and fast on a snare (which is the FF’s drummer’s busking M.O) fills the sonic space around the kit with a dirty, skittering energy. In the setting of the Independent, the drumming was much more spacious—letting a near-constant four-on-the-floor kick drum do most of the percussive work.

Dang. Can’t wait to see it. Read on.

[Photo by Agata Kamler]

Previously:

Increased Demand for Rad Ferocious Few T-Shirts Leads to Barroom Brawl

Ferocious Few Rock Treasure Island

Ferocious in the Streets