Dirty Impound

We set the timer and snuggle in with our favorite new bands in the Impound’s version of speed dating with a killer-diller soundtrack.

Papa Bear and the Easy Love headline at San Francisco’s fabulous Great American Music Hall on Saturday, June 15th, sharing the stage with Big Tree, Song Preservation Society and City Tribe. Pick up tickets here.

There’s a crucial difference between being emotionally open & celestially switched on and being a patchouli scented hippy dip. The distinction can be subtle to casual observers, but in the modern era one is usually a bohemian seeming consumer with dreadlocks and a patron/trust fund and the other is a pilgrim on a path less taken in an increasingly capitalist world, waving a divining rod in search of things more meaningful than a dollar or fancy title. San Francisco’s Papa Bear and the Easy Love are music makers of the latter variety, explorers of how love and compassion can be puzzled over and communicated in song. But just based on their name and the tie-dye ready cover art for their sweetly swaying debut album, For The Wild, one might confuse Aaron Glass (Papa Bear) and his collaborative cubs for the former sort, and that’s a mistake.

What’s stirring in this shifting, vibrant band/collective is closer to the communal happening surrounding Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros (though the songwriting and playing is stronger and more seductive with Papa Bear) or perhaps a more pastoral, long-haired cousin to the Akron/Family experience. A spirit flies from this music that curls around one, embracing and uplifting, a positive shiver that reminds us we are made from love, and thus, able to give love if we’ll only surrender to this notion. None of this is easily accomplished with the tool of music but Papa Bear and the Easy Love are so sincere, so utterly joyous in their pursuit of this idea that one needs to be a serious grump to resist the warm, friendly hand they extend.

Musically, there’s pinches of vintage Greenwich Village folk, 60s pop craftsmanship, California canyon People’s Rock, and all stitched together by a delicate balance of instruments that move so smoothly one may miss how well arranged and neatly embellished they are. All in all, a fine first step into the world for a bunch of kind-hearted travelers dedicated to wrapping their arms around a love starved planet.

Papa Bear emerged from his winter slumbers to chat with DI about the band’s evolution and underlying philosophy.

hug it out!