MML: More Love From The West Coast

I hardly spend enough time searching for and featuring music from the west coast these days. It's gotten to the point where there was even a suggestion made that we rename our blog Brooklyn, Sweden. Nice one but no thank you. Since we finally made it back out to Portland, Oregon with our last post, we figured it would be a good idea to stick around a bit longer. For our first submission, The Olive League, we actually get to stay in PDX for a dose good lo-fi rock. From there, we travel (musically speaking) south down the coast to San,Francisco, California for Bellavista, another good shoegaze-infused rock band some of you are probably more familiar with. In any case, I have been listening to both of these artists recently and wanted to share the love. I hope you enjoy.


The Olive League






















The Olive League is a musical duo consisting of multi-instrumentalists Matthew Murphy and Elizabeth Sarp of Portland, Oregon. They have been creating music together as TOL since 2004 when they met while residing in Austin, Texas. What impresses me most about this band is that they do not attempt to mask that they are only a two piece with what could otherwise be an infinite (and unfortunate) number of sound layers. Instead, what you get is a raw, less than polished invitation into their home studio recordings. Both of today's featured songs belong to the upcoming self released full length CD titled Vagrants. You will be able to get your hands on a copy this June to coincide with the band's limited tour kicking off June 13 at local arcade/music venue Ground Kontrol. For more information, visit the The Olive League Myspace as well as another link below to view the artwork of Elizabeth Sarp. All good stuff to investigate.

The Olive League Myspace Page
Art by Elizabeth Sarp

MP3: Island To City
Bonus MP3: Our Demon Authors Rendered


Bellavista
















Assuming the number of friends on any given myspace music profile is a semi-accurate indication of popularity, quite a few of you will have at least heard of this San Francisco outfit. Formerly known as Vue, re-formed members Rex Shelverton (guitar, vocals), Jeremy Bringetto (bass) and Cary LaScala (drums) are back with a droning reverb-a-billy classic in Temptation By Your Side, which is the first of today's featured tracks. The second song Put It On, although more subdued, might give you an equal idea of what you can expect within the complete body of music from this band. Both of these songs will be a part of the forthcoming self titled LP which should be available through Take Root Records soon after the CD release party April 25th @ local venue The Rickshaw Stop. Check the links below for more details. Thanks once again to my cat Robbie over at Musebox Marketing for the heads up on this one.

Bellavista Myspace Page
Bellavista Website
Take Root Records

MP3: Temptation By Your Side
Bonus MP3: Put It On