PARANOIDS

I've seen the Paranoids live more than any other band in San Francisco. I've also listened to their CDs more than I have to any other local band's. I don't find myself returning to CDs by local artists the way I do to the Paranoids', and I notice their name on the top of my list whenever it comes to booking bands for local shows. ...

PARANOIDS

I've seen the Paranoids live more than any other band in San Francisco. I've also listened to their CDs more than I have to any other local band's. I don't find myself returning to CDs by local artists the way I do to the Paranoids', and I notice their name on the top of my list whenever it comes to booking bands for local shows.

My fascination with the Paranoids began in 2005, after I purchased their Party's Over EP off their super-stylish pre-Myspace website. I sat around my cheap apartment listening to it over and over, shoving it in my roommates'faces or into the ears of anyone who stepped within ten feet of my room. To me those six songs were like secret instructions on how to live in San Francisco. I would quietly sing "Come meet me at the record store / we'll scowl at the suckers in the pop rock aisle / Spending money on some corporate whores—Not like me or you, we're alright cause we're true / To ourselves you know 'cause we buy records that you've never heard of and that makes us cooler than you" as I flipped through used vinyl at Amoeba. Like any super-fan, I had a unique relationship with those songs that I carried around with me.

Based on their first record, I imagined the Paranoids as mythical heroes from atop some foggy mountain, not born of human flesh, but chiseled from Rock and endowed with the power to write classic sounding yet wild songs. Their combination of familiar sounds and creative song structures made for fresh, energetic, and highly-listenable music. But it turns out they are humans with influences and precedents for the music they make, stuff like Bowie, the Stones, Television, the Stooges, T.Rex, Roxy Music, Bauhaus, and maybe even a little of the Beatles. When Lenin joined the band on guitar in 2006, Damon switched to bass and they took a step away from their scrabbley post-punk late-70s New York vibe and moved towards a heavier psych/blues sound of the 'Zeppelin / Cream variety which you can hear on their Obsessions Delusions and Headtrips EP trilogy set (author's note: when will these be compiled and released as a double LP?).

The Paranoids'live shows are always strong; they play with restraint and good taste so that you can actually hear the vocals, but still give it enough volume so that you know you're having a good time. Sometimes their shows give me a disappointed feeling, like stuffing too many ingredients into a burrito and having the tortilla tear apart. It's all good stuff, but their material is so dense that it can be hard to fully absorb within the constraints of the typical 37 minute live set. This band seems best suited to playing parties, or to having an open-ended set where they can play, take breaks, and return to their songs. Like a jazz group, or a wedding band, or even the Dead. The Paranoids'songs can be strung together to tell elaborate stories of life in the City, with recurring characters and themes. But you only get a taste of the glory when they play six songs and then have to tear down, just as they're getting revved up like a deuce.

This is classic example of a band that I wish to see succeed, but if the success they deserve for their talent ever came to be, I would feel horribly slighted that the Paranoids—no, my Paranoids—were being consumed by the masses. Nonetheless, I keep hoping for the best for my local rock heroes.

[Jeff Bissell]