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West Coast Kingdom
CD LP (TRR058)
Downloads:
Millions of Brazilians (mp3)
I Love You More Than
You Love Me (mp3)
PURCHASE CD - $12 (shipping not included)
PURCHASE FROM THREE RING DIGITAL
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Amores
Vigilantes Myspace
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Delfin Vigil and K.C. Staubach have been known to
lose their car keys and things, not to mention every once in a while,
their minds. Wasn't too much of a surprise then, when one of them
forgot where the other said they'd store the mastertapes to their
album. Fortunately, the recordings were found - along with the key
to a place called "West Coast Kingdom" - the name of the
Amores Vigilantes debut album.
Parts of the Amores
Vigilantes album, which has hints of the Beach Boys hanging out
with The Stone Roses with a little bit of Lou Reed loitering around,
was secretly recorded in the basement of the San Francisco Chronicle,
where former reporter Delfin Vigil used to smuggle instruments
and musicians past security guards.
"We really wanted this album to feel like
a melodic San Francisco post card," says Delfin who spent
more than ten years at the paper reporting on film, music, as
well as tragic shootings and stabbings around the city. He wrote
and recorded several parts of the songs in an abandoned room in
the Chronicle's basement, near where old printing presses still
stand. "I loved the idea that we recorded in a kind of clandestine
atmosphere, yet still right smack in the middle of downtown San
Francisco - and literally underground."
Amores Vigilantes sounds the way San Francisco
feels. Not necessarily Tony Bennett's cable cars climbing halfway
to the stars or Otis Redding's lazy day on the dock of the Bay
- although those classic city soul feelings can be felt in their
songs too. Amores Vigilantes taps more into the imperfect parts
of town where the Barbary Coast ghosts linger outside a hundred-year
old saloon, still housing lonely but content souls. Or out at
the foggy ocean where the broken hearted people try and learn
how to fall in love again.
Delfin Vigil and K.C. Staubach began writing songs
together in tenth grade English class, which they often skipped
to go guitar and record shopping together on Haight Street and
Telegraph Avenue during the early 1990s. They spent the rest of
that decade playing dive bars around the city -- like Tommy Guido's
Purple Onion and the long defunct Cocodrie around the corner.
In 2004 they released a Three Ring Records 7" under the name
Love Vigilante. K.C. Staubach soon after retreated to the "Island
of Incognito." Upon recent return they changed the band name
to Amores Vigilantes, mainly because "everything just sounds
cooler in Spanish," says K.C. The full Amores Vigilantes
lineup now includes two other former high school friends, Jacob
Schroth (keyboards) and Jason McCrarey (bass) - along with former
Seventeen Evergreen and current HotTub member, Mark Gregory.
Reviews for West Coast Kingdom:
"All influences aside, West Coast Kingdom stands on its
own as one of the finest debut albums of the year. Get it. Play
it. Let your imagination play along."
- All
Voices
"West Coast Kingdom, the debut CD by Amores Vigilantes,
will hypnotize you from the first chord on the first song. This
is chill music. Makeout music. Take the hat off your buddy and
chase each other down the street, then laugh at an inside joke
until your stomach cramps up music. The love songs are right up
there with '80s Echo & the Bunnymen and The Cure, including
the tracks Urayasu Girl and Perfect World."
- Tony
DuShane, SF Gate
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