PARKER STREET CINEMA
FRENCH MIAMI
EXCUSES FOR SKIPPING
The Rickshaw Stop
Dec. 5, 2007

This time, you don’t even have to just take our word for it: Emily over at The Deli SF called the December Wiretap show “one of the best line-ups” she’d seen this year.

Excuses for Skipping started off the night with a ton of energy. Featuring a guest musician on keyboards, the band sounded a bit like a shoegazer version of Sleater-Kinney: interlocking guitar parts threaded their way through deep undercurrents of lush noise and humming bass lines. The Rickshaw Stop was full to the brim with glorious sound.

Vocalists/guitarists Linda Moody and Tammy Fortin are an exciting team as the frontpeople of Excuses for Skipping. Linda is all energy and attitude, while Tammy is more about precision and style. It’s hard to take your eyes off of Linda; she’s more of the lead singer and is constantly dancing and getting into the music, obviously enjoying herself immensely. And it’s hard to take your ears off of Tammy; she’s more of the lead guitarist and her precisely executed riffs and blasts of sheer art noise keep the songs dynamic and unpredictable.

  While the opener could have just as easily headlined the night, French Miami was more than up to the task of following Excuses for Skipping onstage. The three-piece’s sometimes minimal, sometimes massive, but always intriguing take on indie rock is just damned good. They opened, for instance, with “All On Fire,” a song with a guitar intro that is one of the tightest and most effective riffs I’ve heard in a long time.

French Miami’s sound is full of big burping keyboard bass, adroit guitar riffs, and urgent drum beats. Watching them, you could plainly see that singer Jason Heiselmann was feeling his band’s music. At one point when he wasn’t playing his guitar or his keyboards he was doing a dance that looked like he was bent over double, maybe in pain, and the look on his face was totally hurts so good. It’s perhaps trite to say of a three-piece band, but French Miami make an awfully big noise for only three dudes. They put on a damned fine show of undeniably compelling and intense indie rock.

It was not an easy act to follow, but Parker Street Cinema took the stage and owned it. Fresh off a West Coast tour and celebrating the release of their new album, Music, in the Blood, Parker Street Cinema were entirely on top of their game. They delivered a flawless performance that had everyone in the crowd enthralled. You can’t put it better or more simply than Emily does in her Deli SF review : “Their timing was impeccable, and their musicianship was outstanding.”

In true celebratory style, Parker Street Cinema pulled out all the stops. Joining the three-piece, all-instrumental band onstage for various songs were guest horn players and guest singers (including Lindsay Garfield of another stellar SF band, Or, the Whale ). They even had audience participation! That’s right, the fine lads of Parker Street Cinema passed out kudzus to the entire crowd and taught us all the refrain melody that we were supposed to play. Audience participation is always welcome, but audience participation that features kudzus is just sheer brilliance.

Filling in the gaps was Gioia, who spun some fantastic cuts and kept the crowd on its toes.

The show benefited the Boxcar Theatre Group. But really, we all benefited.

[Mike G.]

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Check out our review of French Miami's show at Edinburgh Castle on 09/05/07.


[STREAM] Parker Stree Cinema: Various Tracks

[STREAM] French Miami: "Alibi"

[STREAM] Excuses for Skipping: "Gravity"