In the world of garage rock, it’s expected for bands to put out material quickly and furiously. Bands like Thee Oh Sees and Ty Segall have set the bar so high that one record a year comes off as “slow.” When Habibi didn’t follow up their 2014 debut – a delicious blend of garage crunch, 60’s girl group harmonies, and Iranian melodies – right away, people just assumed they called it quits. It wasn’t until 2018, when they put out a short EP, that I thought they were even still a unit. However, it took six long years before we got a proper follow up. It also meant six years without a proper visit to SF. I’m glad that 2020 gave us both.
Opener Babewatch is, arguably, about as bad a band name as you can get. I even spoke to the drummer’s dad after their set, and he jokingly gave them the ultimatum early on of, “If you want to practice in my garage, you gotta change the name.” Well, they didn’t change the name, and clearly found a place to rehearse, because they sounded great. Just a simple 3-piece rock trio with a lot of falsetto and a Dinosaur Jr-esque sludgy heaviness to them. They actually gave themselves the best description for their sound by playing a song early in the set called “Country Pavement,” oftentimes sounding like what would happen if Pavement attempted country music. Babewatch were also adored by the audience, which had a trickling of folks throughout the room bobbing around. They even managed the rare feet of being an opener that was coerced into an encore, prompting the band to stop tearing down their gear and fly through a quick and dirty cover of “Cut Your Heart” by the aforementioned heroes of Stockton rock, Pavement.
Rudy De Anda.
Remember that name.
Rudy De Anda.
Sometimes you go to a show, and you get there early enough for the opener, but just early enough to ensure a good spot, and hope they are entertaining enough to bide your time. And, sometimes, you are rewarded for your early arrival by experiencing an otherworldly performance by a master performer that wasn’t just there to win over new fans, but was on a mission to rewrite the playbook entirely!
De Anda’s band played him on with a solid, latin soul / psych groove. De Anda proceeded to dance around the stage before casually picking up his guitar, and then proceeded to play the room like it was both a massive stadium and his own, personal studio. He shredded. He danced. He flirted. He created a barrage of noise. Rudy De Anda is what you got if Tom Jones and Jimi Hendrix became one person, and his backup band was The Mars Volta sight reading the War songbook. Only with his own special something that’s unlike anyone or anything else.
Habibi opened up with the 60’s girl group inspired “Detroit Baby,” a track of their self-titled debut. Their haunting, minor key harmonies were pitch perfect. They segued straight into three songs from the psychedelic new record, Anywhere But Here: “Hate Everyone But You,” – later refered to as the only love song with hate in the title – “Bad News,” and “Angel Eyes” after which, singer Rahill Jamalifard confessed that the band had only slept an hour the night before. If they didn’t tell us this, no one would never have known. Everything was locked in and sounded nearly perfect. Although, immediately after this confession, Jamalifard and guitarist Lenaya Lynch had a brief laughter attack onstage! So, yeah, maybe the tired was expressing itself a little? Either way, the performance was unaffected by it.
It would be easy to take each song and claim it to be a highlight. Pulling out key moments is much harder. The older songs benefited nicely from the acid rock tinged style of the new record. The more delicate songs punched much harder in this setting, too. Their cover of The Green Fuz’s “Green Fuz,” only translated into Farsi, was garage rock gold. Their intensely graphic “Siin” was delivered with such raw, emotional intensity that it almost felt like the audience was invading something personal. Their set closer, the five minute psychedelic journey “Come My Habibi” was a rare song that felt all too short. This number also gave drummer Karen Isabel an opportunity to really show off her skills.
Habibi’s triumphant return to San Francisco was well worth the wait. Now hopefully we won’t have to wait another six years to see them again!
Babewatch:
