San Francisco-based quintet Film School released hands-down one of my favorite discs of the year in the form of "Hideout", which showed up back in September. It's their third album, and first after a tumultuous 2006 that saw them not only get all their gear stolen, but brought a major lineup change, with three out of five players being replaced. And after all that, they went and crushed the already-high expectations that their 2006 self-titled sophomore album had fostered for me. What does not kill us, etc. Why this album hasn't ended up on many more year-end lists is an absolute mystery to me.
The supporting tour for "Hideout" brought the band to many a city over the past few months, including our own Cambridge, Mass. in late October for a show at TT the Bears. Here's a recording of the gig, along with some extra mp3s and links down below...
Additional Audio: On October 10th, Film School played a small show at the Triple Door in Seattle for KEXP, a station that has been longtime supporters of the band. The concert was streamed live, and here are a couple songs from the set...
Supposedly it's archived on KEXP somewhere, but I'm having trouble finding it. See some pictures from that show here. The band just performed a few songs for Spinner, so check out either the video or audio from that right here. You can stream a few songs from their self-titled second album here, and download one of those songs here...
Video: A six-minute Film School documentary from a couple years back (pre-lineup changes). The video for "11:11", and one for "Like You Know". A fan-shot live clip of "Breet", performed at the Mercury Lounge last year.
Photos: My Flickr-hosted shots are here. A full Film School Flickr tag search is tough, but try this.
Aversion has an excellent new feature story on Film School, focusing on the tough times the band went through last year, and how front man Greg Bertens came through it with such songwriting success.
the fine print... If anyone has an issue with these Mp3s being made available, just let me know (my contact info in the 'nac faq). Live sets recorded with a Sony ECM-719 mic and a Sony MZ-RH10 minidisc, converted to .wav and then edited to 192kbps Mp3s. Files are made available for a limited time, and are not reposted once removed.
