LoveLikeFire, Sholi, Finest Dearest January 18, 2007

- Love Like Fire
www.lovelikefire.com
Heres an SF band to watch. LoveLikeFires mix of radio-ready hooks, Brit-pop inflections, and ber-stylish presentation...If you havent heard of them yet, youll likely be hearing much more from them in the future. Theyre submitting this newly re-recorded version of & Wish You Dead from their Bed of Gold EP for Live 105s Not So Silent Night contest.

- Sholi
www.sholi.com
Sholi is a San Francisco Bay Area alternative/experimental band consisting of guitarist/singer Payam Bavafa, drummer Jonathon Bafus, bassist Eric Ruud, and multi-instrumentalist Greg Hagel, who contributes layers of rhodes piano, lo-fi organ, and various percussion. Payam and Jon originally formed the band in Davis, CA. The duo took to developing their unique brand of cerebral yet catchy indie-rock in the basements of the college town with the help of bassist Danny Milks (who formerly played with Bavafa in Maxwell's Demon). Their sound spanned a wide range of territory, garnering comparisons to King Crimson for their intricate song structures and dense rhythm section, The Beatles for their impressionistic-pop and catchy melodies, and also Unwound for their visceral, wall-of-sound delivery and subtle political undertones. The current lineup, based in San Francisco, was solidified in October 2005 and has made leaps forward in 2006.

- Finest Dearest
www.finestdearest.com
Listening to the San Francisco quintent reminds me of the late 90's, before iPods and Myspace, when K Records meant something and "indie pop" was still a phrase in my vocabulary...the band takes me back to a time when indie rock was more about earnestness than irony.