useless eaters: live in san francisco

Announcing a white-hot entry into Castle Face’s Live in San Francisco series: Useless Eaters, recorded in the basement of vintage clothing store Vacation. “This show was bananas. When we set up to record a live set, we always hope the band will just murder it and the people will go all crazy. I’d say that crosses over onto the tape and makes the record shine… This was one of those magic moments. All the elements in place for a memorable evening—BYOB, a basement, in the tenderloin of San Francisco, a wicked goddamn band slaying their songs, and a perfect essence in the air. Everyone falling over each other, spilling beer, smiling screaming and sweating. A fucking mess. When everybody leaves and you look at the muddy, hot, trashed, and disgusting room you think, ‘yes, something good happened here tonight.’ “Seth Sutton’s lineup is in peak form here, from touring and being general road-dog bad-asses. His guitar is slanted and choking with intermittent echo—just raw-vibes awesome. Miles Luttrell’s drumming is honed to a point and drunk with hi-hat countdowns. Brendan Hagarty’s bass sounds like it smells bad and is the perfect accompaniment to Seth’s treble-burst guitar, and the at-the-time new edition of Jacob Olsen on keyboard pulls even more of the dystopian spirals from the studio recording out into the live world.” —John Dwyer