Big Sur - Entrance Band, The Ferocious Few
Posted by glen609 on July 30, 2009
Audio of Entrance Band in Big Sur, 07/24/09…
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The Few show up in Santa Cruz
The Ferocious Few are a local San Francisco rock duo that I’m assisting because they’re truly great and are undoubtedly heading to stardom, whatever that means. The frontman and songwriter, Francisco Fernandez is a true rock star in the traditional sense of the word, not the made up, puffed up, commercialized up, bogus modern sense of the term since the death of Curt Cobain. This duo is legit in every sense of the word and they have the goods to deliver. The world has been sadly missing true rock stardom in favor of soundalike one hit wonders backed by phony monied interests and video game / ringtone mentalities since the early 90’s. It’s been a barren landscape of bullshit, if you ask me, pretty maybe and danceable, but empty of true passion caught on tape for all the ages.
Entrance, shredding!
Francisco is assisted on drums by Daniel Aguilar - a truer, nicer, more authentic individual with exacting taste could not be found. His drumming style - using brushes primarily - is so far out of vogue that one wonders where it comes from.
Your mind stops all questions when you hear them live (if they’re given then chance for a good sound check, that is) because they rock and they’ve developed a truly unique sound over the past two or three years of busking in the streets of San Francisco to make a living. They have plenty of help lately, with everyone knocking down their door and they’re ready to explode with a first official record due to be released on Birdman Records sometime this winter.
Paz Lenchantin, Derek James - Entrance Band
Full discosure: I’m not making a dime on this venture nor am I getting paid at any time in the future for this article or any other. I believe in great music and great personality and this is it, folks. Jump on board - this space will continue to follow their ascending progress in pictures, audio and anecdotes. Feel free to drop me a note and I’ll pass it on to the guys.
Now, the first stop on the journey is Big Sur, to go see The Entrance Band at the Henry Miller Library and to tear it up along the way developing our road skills. We recently hooked up a system utilizing the car’s battery to power all the amps and these guys can literally play in the Redwoods - and that’s exactly what they did - but not before a fine roadtrip South along beautiful Highway One, making a stop in Santa Cruz to play on the streets for a little cash (that always seems to be the limiting factor, but they manage to make scads of it because people literally throw money at them all the time) until the got kicked out by “hospitality” and I’d gone ahead on my new KZ650 to scout out future locations and to make sure I didn’t miss the big show.
Pigeon Pt. Lighthouse
I was looking forward to this for three months when I’d bought the tickets. I’d met a girl at Tartine Bakery in the Mission that turned me onto them (Entrance) via her exceptionally cute autoharp Myspace page. The girl wasn’t feeling me ultimately, but I learned about Entrace through her so all was well in the Universe, just about (she and her little doggie were exceptionally cute and lovely in their own right).
Anyway, the Few arrived and Entrance rocked amazingly hard and the venue was sans pareil in the redwoods with a little fog in front of the Memorial Library of one of my heroes and I was pretty much beside myself though I was starting to worry about the guys enjoying themselves because they were busy trying to make a connection with the organizer hoping to play on the grounds between bands or something.
Well, that wasn’t gonna happen so we just set them out in the parking lot, just outside the gate and they collected a nice little crew of new followers who were streaming out of the exit. Stephen Malkmus himself stopped by for a good long while, until they quit and wanted to play a song himself through the gear, until I pointed out the fact that Francisco is left handed and that would certainly pose a huge problem.
Shotgun style, Henry Miller Library parking lot
It was quitting time, the kids had a nice little dance session in the dirt, and it was time to find a camping spot. Some random blond girls were in a similar predicament without reservations and I led the way through the fog to a scary place with crazy weasels at Andrew Molera State park. The girls were fun and we drank their gin and made hand puppets and funny faces and woke up refreshed and went for a walk to the ocean in the morning.
Scary little "mouse"
We were off, though, to breakfast and we chilled our heels in the river and tried to calm down and made it to Nepenthe’s for some more relaxation while we made the next move. I was staying, wouldn’t miss this scenery and environment for anything and the guys peaced out for more feduciary gains and plus, they had an interview at KALX in Berkeley later in the evening.
Camping randoms
I stayed, made friends with the waitress, who told me about the Pink Floyd cover band etc…but first I ran into Paz and chatted her up in a little gift shop, very nice and then after I ate a sandwich in the Spirit Circle I went down the cliff and witnessed the most epic surf day of the year and all the super stoked locals, totally beside themselves. It was pure magic.
Biggest swell of the year
House of Floyd was pretty epic although some of their tones were questionable especially that fake acoustic thing on “Wish you were Here”. What the hell was that? But, it was a nice foggy tripping evening and the Beats would have been proud and so would their spiritual leader, RIP, and it was off to the same scary campground.
House of Floyd, setting up
But first I made a stop at Fernwood where a very good funk band was tearing it up, Naomi Wilder, who was so damn sexy I could barely control myself, but alas she was aloof. To bed.
Next day up at Seven and on the road with nary a stop. The guys were playing a poolside show at the Phoenix Hotel for some fashion show and there was no time to lose. They depended on me for sound, and although it was total crap with more feedback than a dying elephant, good times were had and we met some fascinating people and nobody got hurt.
Kristin
Francisco stayed behind to make some connections and I rode straight home, after saying Hi to one of the models/talent and went directly into the hot tub. Paradise.
