S1: In November of 1969 , a small group of 20 San Diego State students joined together and formed KCR radio.
S2: From take two.
S3: Welcome to Basin beats. KCR Radio's deep dive into the San Diego sound. Each week we bring you live sets and raw conversations with local artists , pushing boundaries and turning up the volume on the city's underground music scene. This week we have three piece girl band The Micro Blades , serving up their signature sound of vintage rock. Join us as they perform a live set from our studio and your radio , and stick around for a 1 to 1 interview with the band. Now on to their performance.
S4: We are the Micro Blades and this song is a song we won a San Diego Music Award for called cowboy.
S5: You're too famous in this town. And ya know which regular have us back to funky. Back in the cowboy hat. Whoa! Hey , there's an old toy we played. This much goes well with vintage dancing at the bottom of the music scene. He's a diamond in the road. And I just can't get enough of that vintage sound. Boy , please keep flying around famous in this town. And I know it's a party boy with a sense of you been around. But I might still. Maybe Silverstone and you know it. Bring it about us down. Keep it in a cowboy hat. Take it back in the wild. Stock. The most important part for the rest. I came to play for the first time. I'll take a back seat for the other fans of his song. When it comes down to brass tacks. It's the way this band is starting. To think of the lines that funky cowboy. Sit back and be. Whoa. Whoa whoa whoa. Maybe there's so. Bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop. One , two. Three four. He was fluent in the vernacular , something that after dancing. For Boys network. And by the time for the rest of the day. And I call on him in the waning days. But then I go running for like a rainy day for me. And I call on the like the rainy day fund and I call back. This is where we need to. And check yourself that. Hemlock comes and goes so easy and fun can come back here. For the undead. And I call on. And by the way , if I can , I go right back there , and I call on the rainy day fund and I go to the state. And I call on in love. I keep arranging for and I call on it , but I really don't want when I call on it. Like a rainy day. For an eye for an. Eye for an eye for an eye. Caught on it. And I thought it would look.
S6: An entire wait for the music on the college radio. To listen to the bands and the vocals sound. And we'll ships at where the The Sugar Road and all the Hammond folks will suck up their cans. And they were all in a funk.
S5: Blowing up steam with the hippies. Rebels.
S6: Rebels. And.
S5: And. Traders breaking out of shaken by the. Where's the freedom? And I'm going to do it all with me.
S6: Let's bring it all.
S5: When the music starts to play I'm getting a little too used to barely make it through the day. But here the soul is alive and you're getting a little bit of love. And to the music , all the things the rebels and fuck. That is. Breaking.
S4: Breaking. Out.
S5: Out. Is shaken by this pain. When in the. Wings the darkness and out shall do the bit of blue I got what I call the future I'm gonna dancing with you. And all the night I'm so impressed by the boys and girls. Like I stuck up the pace for battles and fought. For its brick and ran a quiver and a stick. Bothers me when? They get to bed. Obviously. If something is. Taken.
S4: Taken.
S5: They're winking at me , sticking by nothing. So I'll be sticking with the boys who are. Oh , well , don't know if it's been enough. So you like , keep it quiet when you go. Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa Well , I got the wrong thing. Want to forgive you for that? Yes , Mabel. Oh , well done , Meredith dripping. It's not so easy to keep it quiet when you know. Whoa whoa whoa whoa. Oh , well , I got in the wrong place. What do I do? For you. Get me but I know. Oh , well , the good thing is not so bad. Keep it quiet when you know. Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa oh. Well , I won't say won't do for you. Don't look for me , I'll get me , but And I go.
S4: This next one is called Baby Legs.
S5: It started with Papa and all the reasons that I love someone. Someone who was 25 , said to be the God of the place. What about the day? When? You think of your father. I recall the world. Falling for the boy in your head. But. There is something. For you out of no reason why you love your past. But if they're gonna die. Someone you need. Someone who wants to die. But I will say. It's not a problem to be. No way. If you think you don't mind. I'll be. Calm down. I ain't gonna die here , baby. That's it. There is nothing.
S4: This is our last song. God. King Philip on our EP that was released not too long ago. You should check it out. Called echoes from the Rumour Mill. And we are the Michael Blades.
S5: Always trying to pull something out the rest of my life. Like. Me and me. I just don't know why. Only gone through a door. I don't like April , I don't. Get to spend the money I. Got to pay the And then. And with that. The players went to bed. Yeah. On that forecast. So I got your back to Connecticut once again. I don't give up. But as long as I. Got to be in love with that. Want to make. It into the next event for Kingdom. Keep everything right. Here. King Philip. And.
S4: And. His.
S5: His.
S7: Royal code. Is not subject to revolt.
S8: You are watching Basement Beats , a KCR production I'm Kyler. Today we are joined by the Micro Blades fresh off of their new EP and Rocking the Cash Bar. Welcome in guys. Thank you so much for coming. Would you guys like to introduce yourselves real quick?
S4: I'm Julietta , I'm.
S9: Imogen , I play bass , I'm Lauren , I'm the drummer. Awesome.
S8: Awesome. Well welcome in. Um , that was an awesome set. You guys just performed for us. I was really blown away. Glad I got a chance to fix my hair. Um , I'm just want to start it out with. I have a favorite series called Five Riffs for Your Life. Um , so respective to each of your instruments or three riffs that would really define your lives.
S9: That's a really good question. Day Tripper by the Beatles , schism by tool. Definitely. Moby Dick by LED Zeppelin. Okay , yeah. Bonham I think Magic Bus by the Who? Uh , also LED Zeppelin over the Hills in Far Away.
S8: Okay , that's my parents favorite song. Really? Yeah. My dad played it for my mom on the first day and so they still played all day.
S9: What did he play?
S8: Uh , no. He just. He just played the cassette. Yeah.
S9: Yeah. Okay.
S8: Okay. We're we're a untalented family , but we can play cassettes.
S9: I don't know. Oh , just all of paramours. Well , okay , I can I'll pick an album. Brand New Eyes by Paramore. Okay.
S8: Okay.
S9: I feel like I'm obligated to pick LED Zeppelin , so , uh , like heartbreaker or something. Yeah. Oh. That's good. If only I played guitar , I would pick that riff.
S8: Okay , perfect. Just kind of. You guys are just getting back from rocking the cash bar. Um , how did the micro blades get here?
S9: Well , it started off as , like , I was just in a couple of different bands. It wasn't. Nothing was really sticking. And so I put out an ad to find people who were kind of interested in vintage rock or classic rock , stuff like that. And from there , Lauren actually responded to it. And I knew Imogen from French classes , and she was a lot better at French than I was. But at first she said no , and then she said yes. So then together we just started playing together and it's just been like show after show and it's it's insane how we just started off as just. Like playing together and how it's materialized. It's just it's I sometimes I look back and it really it's just I'm in awe. We've come so far. We have come so far. Awesome.
S8: Awesome. Yeah. And I know you guys won the San Diego Pop Rock Song Award last year. And how how did that happen? Did you guys have a song on lock or.
S9: With that song , we released it. We had been also a lot of our music is inspired by the local scene , so that was just one of those songs that was also inspired by the scene , and we sort of submitted it to be under consideration for any nomination. We didn't really specifically specify any particular category , and they gave us pop song , which they defined as like catchy melodies. So not like as we think of like modern pop or anything like that. And then yeah , it , it won. And I'm still kind of surprised , like I wasn't when I wrote that song. I wasn't thinking like , wow , this can be submitted for like an award or anything like that. But yeah. Okay.
S8: Okay. Yeah , definitely. I love the Lestat reference in that song. Um , great place to study. Um , but yeah , I just also wanted , uh , it was a next door ad too , right?
S9: It was.
S8: Yeah , that's kind of funny. I always kind of , like , associate next door with , like , old people complaining about , like , e-bikes and stuff.
S4: So my mom.
S9: Found the ad for me.
S8: Yeah , okay.
S9: She's like , she's like a next door , like , leader. She like , okay. She's one of the higher ups in the neighborhood , okay?
S8: She's keeping all the e-bikes in check then. Yeah.
S9: Yeah. Oh , yeah. Oh , yeah. She's just cracking down.
S8: All right. Good. I , I've heard they've been running wild , so I'm glad your mom stayed after. That's a good. That's good. Um , but. Yeah , kind of just like general influences. I know you kind of talked a little bit about the San Diego scene , um , influencing what are kind of like your musical influences for your guys's new EP. Does it kind of vary throughout the songs or , uh , come from just like , different influences from each of you and how they kind of play off each other in the new EP.
S9: I would say each song on the EP definitely has a different vibe. Um , so it kind of plays into like the , um , variety you find in the scene. Like you find everything from like the heavier alt bands to , you know , more laid back acoustic stuff. And I think it really speaks to that. Absolutely. And each one of those songs is like a different aspect of the music scene. So trying to have like a different , like mood or ambience for every aspect of it , because it's such an experience and for different people , it's different experiences. If you're in different subcultures , it can make the whole like the biggest difference in like how you interpret that type of community. So yeah , and like each of us individually have a different influences. I'm very interested in like classic rock and like art rock like The Who. I mean , LED Zeppelin's maybe harder for me. Um , but Imogen likes a lot more of the harder stuff.
S10: Yeah , I'm big into , like early 2000 , like metal and emo and stuff like that. But being in this band has definitely challenged me to explore different genres , and I've especially recently been diving deeper into like classic rock and , you know , 60s 70s stuff like that. So I tried to channel as much as that of that as I could with this EP.
S8: Okay , awesome. I really love how kind of like all your different , like influences play off each other. And the new EP , you kind of were talking about this EP being influenced by the scene and more specifically the San Diego scene. Would you guys like to kind of like speak on that and kind of just like the inspiration behind , um , kind of going that direction with your EP?
S9: Oh , yeah. Absolutely. Uh , it started off like after Covid. It's when you have like this absence of community because , you know , safety and all that. Um , there's like these , like incredible moments where I would go to these places and I would see such a vibrant community of just youth culture that it reminded me of , like Bruce Springsteen. Like he was writing all about that in , like , new Jersey and talking about just like these just vibrant youth community , essentially. So when writing this , it was like so much of it was inspired by that. Usually I write like most of the lyrics , but like together we structure it and everything like that. So even in the structure , you'll hear certain references off the lyrics , like a lot of things are very intentional.
S8: Do you guys remember what show it was? Who was playing at the show.
S9: For that one in particular? It's a combination of a lot of different ones because the one in particular was was it Dolphins on acid , I think was playing in corduroy. I think they used to be an Sdsu band. I don't know if they're still around , but they , uh , they played that show and actually ran into someone from KCRW there. And it's just one of those moments that I think I'll remember for the rest of my life. Okay.
S8: Okay. Very , very cool. Um , well , also kind of like outside of the musical influences on the new EP , I know for someone like the promotional pictures. You guys kind of went with , um , like this medieval kind of motif. Um , and especially , like , kind of I liked , like with the first couple , like , or King Philip especially. That was kind of like the song that I was like , okay , this kind of like lines up with it. Um , where were you guys kind of like influences or choices and reasoning behind those individual choices for those characters?
S10: Well , that photo. We have another song on the EP called King Philip , which is sort of inspired by the local scene and like , try about trying to create a band and make music.
S9: And some of the different types of people you might encounter. Yeah.
S10: So we adopted the medieval theme from this , like , like royalty metaphor that was in the song.
S9: And then as far as , like the characters , we kind of based it off of like our personalities , but also like what we had available at the moment. Like Julietta , she made her jester costume that morning , which those were the Waldorf skills coming into play. Some of the other inspirations in the shoot , at least , was trying to match these like power dynamics that the song was talking about. So trying to pull these themes that had been written in but also like represent it visually and then with ourselves. So it was a really incredible process because the photographer who we worked with , excellent photographer , um , their name is um , smiles and they on Instagram go by , uh , strange Exposures. Okay. So yeah. Yeah.
S8: Yeah. Awesome. I love I love how kind of like both kind of like the music. And then the visuals kind of played off each other is really cool. Um , well , now we kind of know how micro blades got here. Where are the micro blades going in an ideal world?
S9: Um , we're kind of looking at , I think , more video work. So just kind of focusing more on the project side of things. But yeah , we also we also should , um , have a new single coming out in like the next couple of months. Hopefully things are on track. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
S8: Okay. And where can people stream that?
S9: That should be everywhere. But it's not. Um. There's no release date yet. Okay. Yeah , it's. It's gonna happen.
S8: Oh , yeah. Eventually. Yeah , exactly. That's that's kind of how it kind of ends up being. Thank you guys so much for joining us. Um. Thank you for listening to Basement Beats. Uh , I'm Kiley Walsh , and this has been the Micro Blades.
S11: Got KCR with another heavy hit.
S3: That's a wrap on this week's Basement Beats. I'm your host , Conor O'Toole. And the interview was done by Kyler Walsh. Sammy Thomas is our producer. Rudy Shroff and Nolan Conrad are recording , mixing and mastering engineers. Caleb is our audio editor and sound designer. The theme is created by Muthoni. Special thanks to Leah Isola on our production team. If you like what you heard , find the full session interview on our website edu or follow us on our socials at Bassman. See you next week with more local music and fresh voices.
