8pm doors. $12 adv., $15 door. 21+
Album release show for SPIRAL DUB!
“Bringing together members of bands like Life Stinks, Diiv, and Mane, San Francisco six-piece Spiral Dub is an expansive psych-punk act. Conjuring the eclectic glam of Flower Forever or PPM66-era Gen Pop, this is punk deserving of Bandcamp’s devotional tag, with esoteric lyrics and group singalongs. (There’s also the ‘70s rock track with the appropriate title “High as Fuck.”) The euphoric “Top of the World,” the upbeat “Hang From the Line,” and the funky closing track “Knockin’ on My Head”—which stretches into a noodly jam complete with skronky sax—are some of the brightest offerings here.” - Bandcamp’s Best Punk of August 2023
”Spiral Dub’s self-titled debut album, out via Sanctuary Moon, is a lively bunch of sugar-spun swarmers and high-octane proto-punk, built on the strength of three guitars and plenty of psychedelic heft. They arrive fully formed, the songs are spiky but hooky, there’s an effortless cool and endlessly warbling distortion. The texture of the record feels in constant motion, the lush psychedelic nature of it becoming the constant thread as they roar between barn-burners and sun-spotted pop.” - Post-Trash
"Whether it was fear of the trademark bogeyman emerging from small-hours infomercial hell or it was just time for a change, but the artist(s) formally known as Thigh Master is now Dippers. As they put singles and an album or two behind them, most guitar pop groups tend to shed any rough edges, exuberance, energy, propulsion and other associated special elements in the name of 'maturity,' 'increased focus on songwriting,' and other concerns that basically translate to a prolonged yawn. Thigh Master was always a strident, more rambunctious proposition, and this is carried over 150% to Dippers. Dippers' 2023 full-length, Clastic Rock for Goner Records, doubles down on Ford and crew's supernatural skill at something possessed by only a tiny handful of very special entities that exist under the voluminous banner of indie-jangle/pop: immediacy. The album is filled with stop-start dynamics that work to create hooks within hooks (a trick at which this band excels). Like a lot of new favorite albums, this one was recorded and conceived of (at least partially so) during the pandemic lockdowns. Though, if one sifts through the Thigh Master discography, one might notice that sporadic home recording sessions are not a new concept to the group. The intervals of ragged, jangly guitar riffs interspersed with waves of sonic mischief pulls from the sounds of stylistic historical royalty such as Television Personalities, pre-bizarro Wedding Present and the scrappier of C86/Rough Trade/Postcard Records quantities, classic Flying Nun (namely The Verlaines, The Bats, The Chills, 3Ds, Look Blue Go Purple) and the '80s/'90s groundwork laid by fellow Aussies The Go-Betweens, The Moles, The Cannanes, and the early years of Half-A-Cow Records (Smudge, Sneeze, The Plunderers, etc)."
Katsy Pline “has made a folk album for the apocalypse. Or, more accurately, a folk-rock-syth album for the apocalypse, like Pline was watching fiery destruction from on high, fingers smashing the keys of an electric piano while warbling over a lost love.” - Audiofemme.com