EXTRA SPECIAL GOOD

The Biddy Bums,
The Biddy Bums,
thebiddybums.com
An acoustic quartet-wanna stab yourself just at the thought of it? I'd join your suicide pact if The Biddy Bums didn't have such a contagious sense of groove and great voices. These aren't songs as much as they are six-string jam-duets, with the my-nuts-are-pinched dude soaring over the throatier one who's at least got two chest hairs. As the opener “Blue Light” suggests, these are harmonic partners in ESP-duck and jabbing, hide and seeking, drop and rolling with each other's voices. Acrobatics of the mouth, they do-like twin Jason Mraz's trying to honor their idols in Rusted Root. Only dissenting opinion is that these guys need to feed their jams some TrimSpa and bottle this talent into what approximates actual songs. That said, definitely check them out at their standing engagement at Lestat's every Thursday.-Troy Johnson

Matt Curreri and The Ex-Friends,
How to Play the Songs of Matt
Curreri, mattcurreri.com
Don't tell my boss. Props to competitors doesn't get you alt-weekly bonus checks-but this is one of those cases where other local music fans beat us to the punch. Matt Curreri and The Ex-Friends kick some serious off-kilter, lo-fi booty, and Fahrenheit first dug this dude out of the demo pile and wrote about him. And wrote about him. And wrote about him. And man, this kid deserves it. The Bright Eyes comparisons have been bandied about, and they're not far off, but Curreri is way too playful and sweet to join Conor Oberst in the depression ward. Or maybe it's just a front-but he masks the pain well within a deadpan sense of humor. When a duet starts out “Sweet Matthew, you smell like a man,” it nails the emotional nexus where our inner child competes with our ego-constructed Manly Man for the affections of a girl. His voice is off-kilter, imperfect and totally endearing. Absolutely one of the musicians to watch closely in the next year.-Troy Johnson

Dreaming of Tanks,
Demo
These guys have potential. Although they could use some pedals and a little sonic something, every song has a familiar rickety boat sway to it, as if you've heard it on the radio before. The lovely “One Time” is a striking example of where their sound should head. Keep your eyes open and your ears to the ground.-Seth Henry-Combs

Gasoline Please,
Demo,
gasolineplease.com
If for no other reason than they let the imperfect guitar squalls bleed through so loud it would make the members of Hot Snakes call the cops. Yeah, they've also got a good sense of Jehu-like song, but their socio-political shout-outs and violent guitar-rock can't be bottled by a recording-even a good one like this. Listening to this demo, one thinks, “these guys would scorch my inner child alive and take pictures.”-Troy Johnson

Holiday and the Adventure Pop Collective,
Potential is a Dangerous Thing,
adventurepop.com
Despite an awkward name, Holiday's music is thankfully nothing of the sort. The album's namesake is a gloriously unhurried pop sidestep. “Am I Wrong?” takes nicely placed piano keys and pairs them with the chug of acoustic guitar. Holiday can intricately weave harmony into their tunes and what comes out is a vision of old-timey American cowboys drinking Starbucks, or the lonesome city slicker pacing the Old West in an Armani. Potential is a dangerous thing, but they've got it. This is how displaced and countrified pop should sound.-Caley Cook

Nihilist, Demo,
Nihilistmetal.com
Without a doubt, the best one-liner on their press materials: “Metal up your ass! Thank you.” Violent metalheads with manners. If you're digging the retro-metal cat-yowling of The Darkness right now, you must absolutely, positively check out Nihilist. Not nearly as preoccupied with melody, the trio hammer guitar, drums and bass like good Slayer spawn, annihilating every mullet in their way. The musicianship is lock-step assault, but what makes this band great is vocalist Loren Tipton. Just wait until you hear him growl “Hessian Mercenary, back from hell to collect severed heads!” If he weren't so goddamn good, it would be the funniest shit you heard all year-a more violent Spinal Tap serving as the repo man for Lucifer's soul service.-Troy Johnson

Out Brief Candle,
Out Brief Candle,
outbriefcandle.com
One of the most beautiful albums we were sent for this issue, Out Brief Candle is a duo-Alex Delanda (vocals, acoustic guitar) and Karl Husoe (electric guitar)-that could easily emerge as San Diego's own version of Songs: Ohia. Or possibly they're the Mars to Cat Power's Venus. The 9-song album has a dreamy, opiate feel, with Delanda's whispery, feminine croon drifting through astute lyrics that make sense of the Shakespeare reference in their name. Delicate acoustic guitar anchors the bent-note dreaminess of Husoe's electric guitar-the sort of space-folk balladry that My Morning Jacket has perfected. It's sad and forlorn, but Delanda even sifts the beauty out of a crushing truth of an unfulfilled scene-gal when he sings, “she's cooked enough dinners, for enough rock stars to know.” What she knows can't be good, but it's worth swooning over.-Troy Johnson

The Q,
seven-song demo,
theqmusic.com
This is the band that every teenage emo-punk girl in San Diego will fall madly in love with. Their website is down so no info's available, but The Q's post-teen vocalist can yelp and squeal and hit a fine pop-punk melody with the best of them. He's unpredictable, even warbly like a Red-Bulled, TRL version of Bright Eyes, but every utterance has that infectious sense of urgency, as though his seedy new gal pal just stole his parents' car, which he borrowed in a desperate effort to make good on puberty's promise. They've got songs about insecurity, high school rocker-girl crushes, about building emotional prisons, etc. The instrumentation is standard-guitar, drums, bass, yadayada-but their combination of emo's ringing exigency, Edge-of-U2 epic melodies and chugga-chugga mall-punk punch makes them the most marketable young band in town. A smart manager would pick these kids up now, ‘cause time's tickin' ‘til they sell out Soma. The indie snobs might even make ‘em a guilty pleasure.-Troy Johnson

Rayleigh Scattering, Demo,
rayleighscattering.com
Rayleigh Scattering's two-song debut single is everything that's great about music in San Diego. Produced by Pinback's Armistead Burwell Smith IV, the record is reminiscent of a time when Headhunter was the label for San Diego bands. Some obvious reference points would be Three Mile Pilot and the aforementioned Pinback, but Rayleigh's music is at once moodier and more incendiary. Like No Knife mating with The Black Heart Procession, it's built around chiming guitars and lyrics of lost love and family feuds. Dark, intriguing, mysterious and strangely alluring, Rayleigh Scattering will easily become your new favorite band.-Jeff Terich

Rebar & Plums,
Live At Lestat's
Although they now have a drummer, these guys still made a splendid noise for only being a duo at the time of this recording. As bold as they're being, one can't help but be reminded of Jeff Buckley's Live At Sin-e. The dual guitars are terse and sweet. The lyrics are nonsensical yet introspective, like Michael Stipe back when he had something to say. With the most obvious influences here being Sigur Ros and Modest Mouse (the latter's “Bankrupt On Selling” being covered), Rebar & Plums are offering what few San Diego bands can: laconic, dense and emotional tunes that are real and not pushed. Now if only they would do something about that name.-Seth Henry-Combs

Remedy Motel,
A Better Life,
remedymotel.com
A luscious mix of Americana and jangled road-trip pop, A Better Life showcases unyielding vocal harmonies and thick guitar production. Echoes of Tom Petty cross over with lines of Ryan Adams or the Counting Crows to produce an immediately likable string of tunes. This is the sound of polished troubadours. Slipping in little luscious slices of piano here and there makes it all the more tasty.-Caley Cook

The Shrines,
Demo,
theshrines.net
A sure-shot candidate as a Casbah regular, The Shrines produce air you can croon to. This despondent and melancholic band has the right to be heard by anyone who needs a daily dose of Radiohead to cure the down in the dumps blues.-Melissa Edwards

The Wreck,
Demo,
thewreck.net
Goddamn these guys are ready for the big-time. Rarely do you get a 3-song demo that sounds like a supergroup formed from the ashes of Soundgarden who somehow convinced Rick Rubin to produce. Someone call Chris Cornell-vocalist Clifford Lawrence found his pretty, pretty angst in a Seattle garbage bin and is using it for the evil sound of good. It's rock-metal that, while well produced, manages to keep the edge of thudding, ominous guitars and a seedy undertow. The band itself is top-notch, but Lawrence is phenomenal, like Marcy Playground's John Wazniak after a shot of bull testosterone. “Sun Ti” is an epic metal ballad that could take over the world if radio programmers still had freedom of choice. In the metal's-cool-again ethos of The Darkness, these guys should easily be one of San Diego's top bands within months.-Troy Johnson

The West Coast Pinups,
Caution: Swinging Doors,
thewestcoastpinups.com
Jump-jiving fun for the rougher folk down at the saloon, The West Coast Pinups play country the way that Dolly would have if she had had some sense of modern cool. Heavy on the misery jigs (“Better Things to Do,” “Playing the Odds on Misery”) but just as heavy on the fast-paced don't-need-you declarations of independence (“Tennessee Hustler”), this is country as hipsters translate it. Long live hot jivin' good country drinking songs!-Caley Cook

Yovee: City Strollin',
yovee.com
Where did this come from? An epic release from some of the Kut U Up boys who decided to go yang to their punk roots. Maybe this is where they should have been the whole time, because the edge and melody they bring to a folk-rock effort is nothing short of beautiful.-Loren Graves