Kevin Bronson on July 30th, 2010

1

[Midweek text message from a friend: “Dude, what’s up with all the folk recently on Buzz Bands?” Noted.]

The Stone Foxes have blasted out of the Bay Area with scuzzy but hooky take on bluesy garage rock – edgy, sometimes twangy stuff that might make you think the these twentysomethings have warrants out for their arrest, if they didn’t look so much like the neighbor kids. The quartet, which originally hails from the Central Valley, earlier this month released their second “Bears & Bulls,” a tightly wound collection of classic licks and requisite snarl – and a fanciful tale about the death of Robert Johnson, who, guitarist/bassist Avi Vinocur says, “is one of the last truly mysterious people who ever [walked] the face of the earth. … I liked the idea that someone living knew the real story of his death, so I tried to give a voice to that character. Wherever he may be.”

||| Download: “I Killed Robert Johnson”

||| Live: The Stone Foxes perform tonight at the Viper Room with fellow Bay Area rockers the Hundred Days, along with the Tender Box, Dirty Sweet and the Diamond Light.