Local band Vetiver has risen in the folk rock ranks over the past few years, and their latest album, out now on the lovely Sub Pop, is called Tight Knit. We have a video of Vetiver performing May 15, 2008 at Amoeba Berkeley freshly up on the website as well as a video interview which I've included below, conducted by our own Arvel. The songs they play at the instore performance are mostly from their excellent covers album Thing of the Past, and also include one of my personal favorites, "Maureen," originally found on the Between EP. Check out the performance, track by track right here.


Stay tuned for an upcoming interview here in the blogs with Alissa Anderson, formerly of Vetiver, Andy Cabic's other half and a bonafide rock photographer with several album credits to her name, including Devendra Banhart's Cripple Crow.

Click here to read the interview I did with Andy from Vetiver last year.

Also, our website has tons of performance and interview videos and photos with the many artists who have hit the Amoeba stage over the years, such as Devendra Banhart, Band of Horses, Flight of the Conchords, M.I.A, Thurston Moore, Six Organs of Admittance and a zillion more. Just click here to take a peek at the archives.

San Francisco band Vetiver's latest album, consisting entirely of hand-selected covers, Thing of the Past, will be released today, May 6! I spoke to frontman Andy Cabic about the recording of the album, the frustration of his first guitar, and his new obsession with the mushrooms in his backyard.


Miss Ess: What is your first musical memory?

Andy Cabic: I have an odd memory of a large sunlit room with light hardwood floors, very reflective and bright, and a there being a step in front of me, and as I'm crawling towards it, Buddy Holly's "That'll Be The Day" is playing. I grew up listening to a lot of Buddy Holly and the Everly Brothers and stuff like that, so...it's possible this was an early apartment of my parents’ or something, I'm not really sure. It's one of those weird memories that feels like a dream and I'm not really certain of anything solid about it except for its strength in my mind and how vivid the light and the scene are when I remember it.
 
ME: What was the first record that really blew your mind and made you think about making music your life?  What albums formed your young musical mind?

AC: Well, I don't know that any one record made me come to a decision to make music my life. I just sort of played music, and looked back one day and realized music had become my life and there wasn't a whole lot else I seemed able to do. Whoops!

Growing up, the public library near my father's house was very good. I used to visit it every weekend I spent with him and check out cassettes, as many as I could, and a lot of what I found there had a big influence on me. VU by the Velvet Underground and At Yankee Stadium by NRBQ are two albums I remember renewing for months from the library. I grew up in the suburbs with no older siblings, pretty out-of-the-loop from any signposts pointing the way towards what "the good stuff" was, so...I would spend all my allowance on cassettes, read Star Hits magazine and Tower Records' Pulse, watch 120 Minutes every Sunday on MTV and just figure out stuff through trial and error. I loved anything out of Athens, GA and Minneapolis, and bands like Rain Parade, Camper Van Beethoven, Big Star and Fugazi meant a lot to me growing up.

When did you pick up your first instrument?

Continue reading...

Tonight if you are in San Francisco, come on over to Amoeba and check out a DJ set by two musical masters of all things obscure:  Zach Cowie and Andy Cabic!

Andy Cabic you know from his band Vetiver.



Zach Cowie is a member of the LA-based DJ crew Small Town Talk and he is also single handedly responsible for turning me on to so many crazy tunes I never would have heard otherwise. 



In other words, their DJ set is gonna be flawless-- these guys are highly skilled pro-fessionals-- so if you are around, come and listen.  They'll be spinning vinyl from 7-9 pm.