So tomorrow the SF based jazz / soul band, Con Brio, headed by the powerful vocals of Xandra Corpora is releasing their second album at The Independent in San Francisco. The album balks from the the text-book progression for a band and is unconventionally a live album. Let me address the thoughts that probably popped into your head when you read the preceding sentence

That’s ballsy and almost hubris for an emerging band to do a live album.

Yes, yes it is ballsy. But hubris it is not (so quit being such a pretentious asshole). If you’ve ever seen Con Brio live it becomes immediately evident that the stage is where that band is in it’s element. The energy is off the charts, and there’s a lock-step groove that emerges out of their deep arrangements that takes a very saturated genre of music and gives it a spin that is easy to recognize as one word: special.

Yeah, ok, but live recordings usually don’t translate onto record…

Damn, you’re a doubter. It was recorded at the legendary Great American Music Hall in SF with a ton of special guests, and was very carefully engineered, recorded and mixed. You can easily slip away into a song and not even realize that it’s a live album (the band is that dead-on most of the time) but the tracks capture just enough of the energy and crowd that you seriously start to believe you are there.

Alright, fine, so where do I get this album?

Thought you’d come around. Step 1) Go to the Independent tomorrow night (tix are going fast so get yours here). Step 2) Pick up the album at the show. Boom.

Here’s a sample of what you’d see there:

From The Citrus Report

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Don’t know much about the artist known as Lauren Francescone, but what we do know is that these travel posters led us into a full look into her website, and we love everything in its simplicity.

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From one of the more underrated indie pop albums of recent memory, this is the New Pornographers lead man’s 2004 solo album, The Slow Wonder, and it sounds very Canadian.

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You are never a celebrity unless unless Taiwan’s Next Media Animation does a recap of your famous deeds. So David Choe got this before-mentioned treatment, and NMA.tv documents David’s crazy media blitz in NYC.

Main website: www.nma.tv

Facebook:  www.facebook.com/nmatv

Studio Visit is a unique exhibition featuring both the works and studio practice of Chicago-based artists Stephen Eichhorn, Cody Hudson, and Chad Kouri, curated by Purdue MFA candidate Garet Martin at Purdue University’s Patti and Rusty Rueff West Gallery. The exhibition will conclude with an evening lecture by the artists, as presented through generous support from the Dr. Barbara Walker Visiting Artist Series.

On Display: Through February 17th, 2012
Artists in Studio: February 13th – 17th
Closing Reception: February 17th, 6-9pm

Just looking through our notes and image folders, and we came across this gem from Spanish artist, SAN, who has shown with us a few times over the years. This was from 2009, and that red is just bloody…

Just a shot.

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Talking to an old friend last night about the perfect suit, and wearing one whenever we go out… kind of the ideal in our book. Although this wasn’t the Brooks Brothers look we were chatting about, we love this style.

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We don’t normally make Paul our go to, but we are glad that he decided that they should close-out their final recording session, Abbey Road, with a medley. And this is his crowning bit of pop gem on Side B of that epic album.

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A little PEZ gem… from our friends at Battle At 3AM….