LIVE 105 has been on the forefront of the EDM movement for years, promoting it even back when it was still a niche genre. In recent years at the BDF festival, the Subsonic Tent—an extension of Aaron Axelsen’s electronic music show—has become a bigger part of the festival, encompassing a bulk of the festival’s more interesting bookings.

In fact, even on the other stages this year, the strongest bands were the ones who stylistically could just as easily fit on the Subsonic Tent. Below are some of the highlights from this year:

Capital Cities
By far the strongest act to play the Festival Stage this year. Capital Cities, a new duo from LA, brought disco-infused synth-pop beats to BFD with a live guitarist, bassist and a trumpet player. Two vocalists, one tall with a mustache and the other short with a bushy beard, both equally shared vocal duties with a fun, somewhat goofy stage presence.

Midway through their set they taught the audience the “Capital Cities Shuffle,” which was simple enough for anyone to execute. They played a bizarre, slow-downed rendition of the Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive” and an upbeat dance-version of Sinead O’Conner’s Prince-penned “Nothing Compares 2 U.” They closed with their buzz single, “Safe and Sound,” a catchy dance-pop song.

PHOTOS: Check out the Metroactive photo gallery.

Wallpaper
It’s incredible the attention Wallpaper have been getting the past year considering that it’s basically an ironic pop act with elements of R&B, hip-hop, all done through a weird performance-art lens. But now it seems the ridiculous character known as Ricky Reed is becoming an actual pop star. What has been their biggest selling point is how strong of a performer Reed is and his ability to engage the audience and get them moving, but the entire band has become a theatrical spectacle.

At the Subsonic Tent, where they played this year, their three drummers pulled out some amazing synchronized moves, including the final breakdown of “Fucking Best Song Everrr” when the drummers stood up, shook the audience’s hands and returned to their kits at the same moment and jumped back in on the beat. They are one of the best live acts going right now.

Passion Pit
LIVE 105 couldn’t have booked a better main stage headliner this year. Passion Pit have really blown up this past year with the success of their brilliant sophomore release, Gossamer, which infuses synth-pop with elements of indie rock. At BFD, they played cuts from their debut, but the highlights were the tracks from Gossamer, including “Carried Away,” “It’s not my fault, I’m Happy,” “Cry Like a Ghost” and the breakout single “Take a Walk.” The evening was particularly special for Passion Pit as lead singer Michael Angelakos celebrated his 26th birthday.

DJ Shadow
DJ Shadow’s set at BFD featured obscure and often brand new tracks that he continued to assure the audience they’d probably never heard before. It was a strange, mind-melting juxtaposation of songs, mixed and blended by the iconic Bay Area producer. Every once and a while he’d lower the music and make a comment, like, “Just to let you know, there’s no laptop on stage with me” or “If you’re confused about what’s going on, look at your neighbor and do what they’re doing.” Some of the beats we danceable, others were just weird, slow trance beats, while others were loud, bass-filled outer space soundscapes. He cut songs together so fast, and with so much skill, it was hard to do anything but stare, amazed.

San Jose
This was the year for San Jose at BFD. There were more bands from the South Bay to play BFD than probably any year before with four bands on the Soundcheck Stage and the Limousines on the Subsonic Stage. Over on the Soundcheck stage, the Trims, Anya and the Getdown and Picture Atlantic all played excellent sets, but it was a particular pleasure watching Curious Quail’s set. Their music probably least resembles LIVE 105’s format of all the local bands, but they fought hard to get there with an online vote.

Their excitement of being on stage at Shoreline was palatable, understandably so. Over at Subsonic, the Limousines put on an intense, mostly serious set that, with the exception of two songs, were all tracks off their new album, Hush.

It’s official. South Bay locals Curious Quail have won the last remaining spot on Live 105’s Soundcheck local band stage at BFD 2013. They will share the stage with nine other bay area bands, three of which are also from the South Bay—Picture Atlantic, Anya and the Getdown, and the Trims. Not only did Curious Quail win, but they did so by a sizable margin, earning a whopping 39% of the vote, with twenty bands total in the running.

“We’ve been working really hard as a band to get our name out there; the community support we got was tremendous. Being in a local band working your way up, you have this series of milestones of people taking you seriously. For a while it was the iTunes factor, then it was Spotify, or Pandora. Well, you namedrop Shoreline Amphitheatre as someplace you played and then that person you’ve known for ten years that knows you’re in a band might actually go and listen to your music and enjoy what you’re doing,” says Mike Shirley-Donnelly, lead singer and guitarist for Curious Quail.

Even though every member of Curious Quail worked hard to encourage people to vote for them, their friends and fans it seemed, were excited to help out. Even Dogcatcher, who were also in the running, told their fans to vote for Curious Quail.

“We threw up a few posts on twitter, Facebook and instagram and like everyone shared them. Everyone! It just kept going. One of the pictures had over 60 shares on Facebook and the Facebook “insights” said “11,000 people saw this post”. That’s insanity,” Says Shirley-Donnelly.

The fact that nearly half of the bands playing BFD’s local band stage this year are from the South Bay reflects well on the scene here, especially considering the degree that the rest of the bay area has long since written off any band that hails from San Jose.

“The South Bay has always felt like the bastard child of the bay area when it comes to the music scene, and rightfully so: our 2000’s era metal/hardcore scene that thrived was not something to be proud of. I should know, I was a part of it. Having so many south bay bands not only on the bill already for the local stage, but also in the contest was encouraging. It’s showing that we as a community down here are actually doing something of note,” says Shirley Donnelly

Another South Bay band could be joining locals, Picture Atlantic, Anya and the Getdown and the Trims on the Soundcheck Local Band Stage at BFD this May.

Live 105 has opened up one additional slot, and the San Francisco radio station is letting its listeners vote on who it should fill it. There are 19 bands in the running and six are from the South Bay: 1989 (from Gilroy), Dogcatcher (from Mountain View) and San Jose bands All City Elite, Conversions, Curious Quail and Sweet HayaH.

Voting continues until 3pm on May 3. The winning band will be announced on air at 7pm on May 5th. Visit the voting page for more info.

More info on BFD 2013.

PHOTOS: Images from BFD 2012

More than half of the 20 Bay Area bands competing for an opening slot at Live 105’s Not So Silent Night, featuring Jack Whit, the Shins, the Killers,  M83, Tegan & Sara, Passion Pit and more on December 7 and December 8 at the Oracle Arena, are from the South Bay.

As of this this posting, Curious Quail and Light the Rocket are the two South Bay bands with the most votes. They are neck and neck for 3rd and 4th place. The first place position belongs to Livermore group Hear The Sirens. To win, some of the bands are finding creative ways to motivate their fans to vote. Dogcatcher, for instance, is offering all their albums for free online until the voting ends. Curious Quail uploaded a video explaining to their fans all the reasons why they should vote for them.

Other South bay bands in the running include Drop Dead Sixty, Fossil Tree, INFM, Pounders, Touch My Rash, The Mess, The Oarsmen and UP&GO.

More than half of the 20 Bay Area bands competing for an opening slot at Live 105’s Not So Silent Night, featuring Jack Whit, the Shins, the Killers,  M83, Tegan & Sara, Passion Pit and more on December 7 and December 8 at the Oracle Arena, are from the South Bay.

Voting is still open, HERE.

There’s such a thing as being a diverse band—then there’s Curious Quail, whose members don’t seem to know what kind of music they play.

“People ask me what the band sounds like, and I say it depends on the album—or whether it’s live,” singer/songwriter Mike-Shirley Donnelly says.

Initially, that live sound was Shirley-Donnelly playing solo—a sort of weird, one-man acoustic-guitar-meets-laptop project, which eventually morphed into a six-piece indie-folk jamboree. Yet Shirley-Donnelly does still play some shows solo as an electronic-folk singer.

The first EP, The Glow, reflected that one-man sound. Then there was the long awaited full-length debut, Instant Gratification, which was released in June of 2012. It represents the full band’s live sound yet is loaded with electronic sounds and drum machines—unlike the live sound.

It’s no wonder it took Shirley-Donnelly so long to finish an album that was already half-written nearly two years ago—there are so many options for how to execute each song. With each passing year, he only adds more possibilities to his styles.

Shirley-Donnelly started out by demo-ing every song on Instant Gratification himself, thinking he would release these recordings. As people joined the band, he add their parts to the mix. In several instances, he even scrapped entire versions of songs and started over. “Survivor’s Guilt,” for instance, went from being an electronic-pop number to a power-pop indie-rock song with heavy guitars and lightly textured pianos.

“When you’re doing stuff with yourself, it’s a totally different experience,” Shirley-Donnelly explains. “Joey’s drum parts really helped shape what the song turned into. It needed Joey’s drums. It needed the fuzzy guitars.”

When Shirley-Donnelly started Curious Quail in 2008, the songs weren’t as fluid. Shirley-Donnelly would play an acoustic guitar, keyboards and effects on his loop pedals, all while performing over backing tracks on his laptop. Everything had to be very precise, or it would all fall apart.

“It was super neat, but it was super stressful,” Shirley-Donnelly says. “If you hit the wrong pedal, then suddenly you’re in the verse.”

The Glow, which was released in 2009, matched his live shows exactly, which Shirley-Donnelly thought took some of the steam out of his performances.

“If you’d heard the album, there wasn’t too much to gain from seeing it live,” he says. “It was a lot of the same sound effects. It was kind of static audio-wise. There was no real room for fluctuation or improvisation. That aspect of it was frustrating.”
The band came together almost by accident. Joey Guthrie, a friend, asked if he could sit in on drums during a set. He was quickly followed by Sean Nolen (guitar) and Alan Chen (violin). Greg Keeney (keyboards) later joined the band, followed by Steve Garber (bass).

“The band happened to me. It all sort of crept up on me,” Shirley-Donnelly says.

As Shirley-Donnelly wrote Instant Gratification, he not only allowed himself to make a full-band album, he completely changed his sound. Instant Gratification is upbeat and fun, while The Glow is downright somber and depressing. But both albums evince equally dark lyrics. Shirley-Donnelly liked the unpredictability of having the music and words not match in an obvious way.

“It catches you off-guard,” Shirley-Donnelly says. “Anytime you’re not prepared for something, it’s going to hit you a little harder. You listen to it, and you’re like, ‘This is really fucking sad, but musically it’s trying to tell me something different.'”

One song, “Something Under the Bed Is Drooling,” for instance, is about suicide. Musically, however, it is a bouncy rocker offset with a pretty violin part.

Shirley-Donnelly has always been drawn to dark lyrics, despite being a generally upbeat person. “It’s not like I’m necessarily a very dark person, but I’ve seen some pretty horrific stuff,” he says. “I try to be positive no matter what. It’s not like I’m at home cutting myself in a bathtub. Bad shit happens, and there’s no reason to cover it up.”

Just as Shirley-Donnelly mixes lots of competing elements in his instrumentation, the juxtaposition of the music and lyrics helps to create a more complex experience. The result, according to Shirley-Donnelly, is ultimately better than a singular, overt mood.

“The concept of the album is ‘Things can get really bad, but they also can get better.’ The underlying aspect of the whole album is hope,” Shirley-Donnelly says.

After a summer schedule full of interesting bookings, Naglee Park Garage will host two more concerts before ending its live music season for the year. Doctor Nurse brings atmospheric indie rock on October 17 and the Golden State Ramblers close the season October 24 with folk, Irish and novelty tunes from the 20s-40s.

The shows are always free at Naglee Park Garage and are held every Wednesday during the extended summer season outside on the patio. The lineup this year included young indie-rock acts (Curious Quail, Orangutang), alt-folk artists (The Wild Reeds, Will Sprott), roots-rock groups (Careless Hearts) and reggae-world beat fusions (Los Hot Boxers, The Champions, inc).

According to owner Chris Esparza, the weekly Wednesday shows were consistently successful. People enjoyed the combination of good live music and outdoor dining. He plans to have live music return in 2013 every Wednesday, most likely beginning in May.

Doctor Nurse play Naglee Park Garage on Wednesday October 17th at 7pm. The Golden State Ramblers play Naglee Park Garage on Wednesday on October 24th. Both shows are free.

An organization calling itself Make a Scene San Jose recently formed with the intention of promoting an all-ages music scene in San Jose.

The idea behind the group is to get bands and music fans to work together more for the overall benefit of everybody in San Jose that loves live music. Though, they are still working out the details of how they want to do that, they are starting with the release of a free compilation of San Jose bands.

The compilation features 10 San Jose bands, providing a nice reference point for people unfamiliar with the diverse talent that San Jose has to offer. Some of the bands on the compilation include Curious Quail, San Francesca, the Trims and Corpus Callosum.

“The compilation we put together is a quick resource we can point people to if they’re in the dark about what goes on here musically, and hopefully it will influence them to come out with us to see some of these bands play live,” says Kendall Sallay, who plays in Cartoon Bar Fight and is a member of Make a Scene San Jose. Sallay is one of several other local musicians that are members of the group. There is no established leader.

To help bring more people to the all-ages shows already being booked in San Jose, “Make a Scene San Jose” lists several upcoming all-ages shows on its Facebook page. They hope for starters to get more bands to support each other by passing out flyers for each other’s shows, promoting each other online and making an effort to go to more shows here in San Jose. View the page HERE.

The Silicon Valley Sound eXperience (SVSX) arrives in San Jose on Saturday with more than 20 local bands at nine venues throughout the city. Leading up to the event, we’re showcasing the bands involved, starting with Curious Quail and ColorScout at Old Wagon Saloon.

Curious Quail
11pm, Old Wagon Saloon
Curious Quail started off as a guitar/electro project by Mike Shirley-Donnelly but quickly grew to feature members with their own eclectic tastes and backgrounds in music. Curious Quail released its first EP, The Glow, in 2009, before all the current members were officially in the sextet. The band’s latest album, Instant Gratification, features guest vocalist Erin Whitworth of the San Francisco band Please Do Not Fight and other guest appearances by CQ’s extended family: Nicole Garber, Jessica Shirley-Donnelly and Magdalena Trenkner.

Mike Shirley-Donnelly deserves thanks for taking back clever titles from the emo and math bands. The San Jose singer/songwriter started Curious Quail as a channel for solo acoustic songs, but what it’s become is infinitely more bizarre—and fascinating. Now songs like “Secret Lives of Retail Monkeys” and “Yesterday, I Watched the World End” are wrapped in electro beats that may spin off into unexpected, soaring directions at any time.

Color Scout. Photo by Jessica Shirley-Donnelly.

ColorScout
10pm, Old Wagon Saloon
Relatively new ColorScout have already carved out an unmistakable sound. They combine the very personal, intimate quality of a folk musician singing on a mountaintop, with the collaborative joy of an old-timey country ensemble—not that they play country.

They fall more into the introspective category of brainy indie-folk. Despite how quirky they seem, they have the sincerity of an open-mic coffee shop singer/songwriter with a sound that reminds you of They Might Be Giants, the Weakerthans, Feist and the Decembrists. Despite only technically forming last year, they aren’t really new to the local scene. Tim Smudski and Rosa Leonardo emerged from the San Jose group Emerald Hill, who at the time were one of only a handful of bands locally mixing folk, Americana and indie rock. ColorScout expands Emerald Hill’s sound by jumping from three members to five. They have guitars, drums, keys and a violin. Additionally, they rely on a mixture of male and female vocals, sometimes taking turns on leads, but often blending them together to create a wall of harmonies.

The Silicon Valley Sound eXperience highlights more than 20 local bands at nine venues in downtown San Jose starting at 3pm on September 22. Purchase tickets HERE.

Daydream Nation, a series of free shows at San Pedro Square Market was back for its third installment Saturday. The show featured local bands Cartoon Bar Fight, Curious Quail, Shuteye Unison and ColorScout.

The show was also served as the CD Release Party for Curious Quail’s debut album, .:Instant Gratification:.

Photos by Jessica Shirley-Donnelly, JRSD Photography for MetroActive.

Dirk Milotz of Cartoon Bar Fight

Joel Zelaya's expanding pedalboard of Cartoon Bar Fight

Joel Zelaya of Cartoon Bar Fight

Michael Shumway, drummer for Cartoon Bar Fight