My introduction to the Sermon was through an e-mail I received from a friend this June asking if I wanted to see "San Francisco's rockingest band" at the Hemlock Tavern. I, always down for rockin', said, "Hell yeah!," and fortunately for me, my friend was right on. The band? They were rockin'. The crowd? Rockin'. The bar's furniture? Rockin'! My eardrums at the end of the night? RRRRrockin'! That said, it's no surprise Volume, the band's full-length debut is, well, rockin' too. You might think, on listening to Volume, that you've discovered some vintage band from the Stooges era. They've got the same high-amplified, hard-hitting, in-your-face, overenergetic guitar riffs in two-chord parts. And the Sermon's garage rock is dead-on tinkering in the shed with little distortion, no samples, and no chainsaws to place their sound anywhere near post-'80s rock. The five-piece San Francisco band – featuring past members of the Fells, Mount McKinleys, and the Dukes of Hamburg – formed in 2000, but their music most relates to the '60s Detroit rock circuit, stripped of any blues affiliation, and remains a flashback to a time when rock music was simple, loud, and fun. (Stephanie Laemoa)

Craig Horton
Touch of the Bluesman (Bad Daddy)

"If a man'll walk a mile for a cigarette, I'll walk a thousand miles for you," Craig Horton declares on "Elizabeth," an original, slow blues tune from his latest CD, Touch of the Bluesman. That's some pretty intense love, and the rest of the disc's music – most of it penned by Horton and his bandmates – is just as powerful. "You got me reachin' for shadows, chasin' ghosts up and down the hall," the 64-year-old Arkansas-born, Oakland-based musician cries out on a number by bassist Randy Bermudes. Horton's slightly nasal tenor voice at times brings Lowell Fulson to mind, and his rhythmically incisive guitar lines often suggest T-Bone Walker's, but Horton is essentially an original stylist who's finally beginning to find recognition beyond the Bay Area blues underground, thanks to this release and his previous album, In My Spirit, also on SoCal's Bad Daddy label. Both were produced by Horton fan Rusty Zinn, a young guitarist of considerable note who chose to leave his axe at home and let his hero do the talking. The conversation becomes especially strong on the tracks where background singers Angila Witherspoon and Tori Baker inject some church into the proceedings. Craig Horton plays the "Art and Soul" festival, Sat/4, 12th and Jefferson Sts., Oakl. www.artandsouloakland.com. (Lee Hildebrand)

Mail stuff for review to Sarah Han, Bay Guardian Building, 135 Mississippi St., S.F. CA 94107.