In just a few years, San Jose reggae/pop quartet the Holdup went from playing skate parks for 10 people to headlining—and selling out—the Catalyst in Santa Cruz.    

Forming in 2009, the Holdup’s laidback vibe and Sublime-inspired genre bending arrived at the perfect time, as other California bands found success with a similar sound.

“It all snowballed at the same time,” says Clev Stiles, who managed the Holdup before joining as the band’s DJ. “I literally had this plan of attack to contact all the promoters, all the venues and all the managers that I knew that were booking Rebelution or Iration, and at the same time, reach out to the radio stations. It was a massive 360 attack. And that’s kind of why everything happened so fast, which was good.”

The Holdup built an audience that skewed young, between 13 and 19 years old. Though reggae was a main component, their music was really closer to pop than traditional reggae from Jamaica. The younger crowd also related to lead singer Mike Garmany’s lyrics, which discussed everything from partying and relationships to general turmoil in life.

“Everything I write is very personal,” Garmany says. “It’s first person. Every song I write is basically me just documenting my life.”

By the release of their second album, Confidence, in 2009, the Holdup was able to get more radio play, not just on LIVE 105, but on college radio stations and a couple other major stations in California. They were touring successfully up and down the West Coast and even finding fans in parts of the country the had not yet visited.

They have continued to release a new album every year since, including last year’s Consequence—a departure, in that there was barely any reggae on the album.

“When we started out, we were a lot younger and reggae was prominently what I was listening to,” Garmany says. “I grew up and my taste became more eclectic and it was recreating what I was into at the moment. It wasn’t conscious.”

The Holdup is finishing the final touches on their fifth album, Fools Gold Part 1, which they hope to have out this fall.

“We’ll definitely be revisiting our roots a little more on this album, but there’s also a lot songs that really don’t have any reggae influence whatsoever,” Garmany says. “I know some fans feel a little betrayed because they were so in to the sound and then we changed pretty quickly. You definitely have to take that into consideration, I think, because the fans are what make us.”
            
Fri 23
The Holdup
Milano, San Jose
Fri, 7pm, $20

The Morgan Hill mafia will invade BFD this year, when Mike Garmany and James Mellow (better known to many of his early fans by his real name, Grant Averill) will both be playing the Local Band Stage at Live 105’s annual music festival.

Garmany will be performing with the Holdup, whose first two records both debuted at #1 on iTunes’ reggae chart, and who have been in rotation on Live 105 with “Young Fools,” their sorta-cover of Peter Bjorn and John’s “Young Folks.” Mellow will lead his electro-pop group Young Science, who got onto the airwaves last year with “Liquor Store,” the single from their debut EP. Both do production at Garmany’s Morgan Hill studio, where Mellow just completed the first Young Science album.

“We’ve been super good friends since we met in junior high,” says Mellow, taking a break from work at the studio. In fact, he says he picked up his first instrument back then, the bass, just so they could be in a band together. That one never went anywhere, but they do have a hip-hop/R&B collaboration now called Twin City, for which they released a free 17-song mix tape.

In light of all that, it’s a little remarkable that neither their professional collaboration or personal connection has anything to do with the fact that they’re the sole representatives of the South Bay on the BFD lineup this year.

“It was absolute coincidence,” says Mellow. He knows dozens of band are vying for the attention of Aaron Axelsen, the Live 105 DJ who picks the lineup for the Local Band stage, and who first played both Young Science and the Holdup on his Soundcheck show. Many seem to try to figure an angle that will get them noticed, but Mellow thinks Axelsen’s continued success comes from his straightforward approach: “He just has to like your music. That’s it.”

Axelsen says both Young Science and the Holdup are hard-working bands with great songs, who embody what he wants to showcase in the Bay Area scene. “People ask me all the time, ‘How do I get on the radio, Aaron?’” says Axelsen. “I just say ‘look at what Young Science is doing.’”

If it weren’t for recent alternative hitmakers The Naked and the Famous and Silversun Pickups, the main stage at BFD 2012 on June 2 at Shoreline Amphitheater would feel like a 1990s time machine. Jane’s Addiction, Garbage and Cake will headline the festival, Live 105 has announced.

Jane’s Addiction originally broke up in 1991 at the height of their popularity, They have reunited, broken up and reunited again since then, with no letup in the accompanying drama. Last year, they released just their fourth album in the over 25 years since the band was founded, The Great Escape Artist.

Garbage peaked in the mid-’90s with hits like “Stupid Girl” and “Only Happy When It Rains”; they never officially broke up, but have gone on “hiatus” several times. They are set to release their fifth album, Not Your Kind of People, next month.

Of the returning ’90s alt-rock soldiers, only Cake has been active continuously since they formed in 1991. Best known for their 1996 hit “The Distance,” their sixth record Showroom of Compassion debuted at #1 on the Billboard charts in 2011.

New Zealand’s the Naked and the Famous formed in 2008, the same year Jane’s Addiction reunited for the second time. Sounding eerily like Passion Pit’s long-lost twin band, they made the alt-radio Top 10 in 2010 with “Young Blood.” Fellow indie rockers Silversun Pickups, best known for “Lazy Eye” and “Well Thought Out Twinkies,” will release their new album, Neck of the Woods, next month.

Some of the festival’s coolest offerings are in the Subsonic Tent, which has become a magnet for up-and-coming, electro-friendly acts. This year Oakland’s Wallpaper, who are suddenly all over the late-night-television circuit and even have a song in the Top 40 despite an expletive in its title, will play there, as well as San Francisco’s budding girlrap star K. Flay, who killed last year on the local stage. Subsonic Tent mainstays the Limousines will do something slightly different this summer, spinning a DJ set. Other tent acts include Knife Party, Dragonette, and AmpLive of the Oakland duo Zion I performing with Eligh.

On the Soundcheck Local Band Stage this year are two South Bay bands, The Holdup and Young Science. The Stone Foxes, A B & The Sea, New Diplomat, Dirty Ghosts and more will also perform on the local band stage.