The Fucking Ocean
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The Fucking Ocean

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Band Rock Punk

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This band has not uploaded any videos

Music

The best kept secret in music

Press


"The Fucking Ocean generate delightfully angular and beautiful songs"

San Francisco post-punkers the Fucking Ocean generate delightfully angular and beautiful songs to transform their audience into a sea of head-nodding, knee-shaking clones. Marcella Gries, Matthew Swagler, Elias Spiliotis, and John Nguyen rotate between punchy guitar, boxy percussion, Ian MacKaye–like yelps and roars, and pulsing bass lines, with Rylee McGowan chiming in with keyboard textures. "We're like a volleyball team," Gries says with a laugh. Tonight they're doing double duty, first opening for pop-rock darlings Boyskout at Mezzanine, then jumping over to El Rio to headline a benefit for a new documentary about a veteran Tenderloin cabaret performer. "We'll be flushed, sweaty, and ready to dance!" Gries assures me.
- Eliana Fiore - San Francisco Bay Guardian, April 5th, 2006


"Best-Worst Band Names"

We see a lot of band names here at The A.V. Club. Late last year, I started keeping a list of the worst ones I saw, which I eventually spun off into the best-worst ones. In our "best of 2005" issue, I listed the ones I felt really stuck out.

I've kept the list going continuously since then. Seeing as how we're nearly halfway through the year at this point, I thought I'd share some of the worst and best-worst ones I've encountered so far this year. And there are some really bad ones out there. Please, for the children's sake, don't use the word "funk" in your band name. Please.
- The Onion A.V. Club Blog, May 26th, 2006


"Sharp-edged art-rocky songs that take cues from the Fall and Gang of Four"

It's now possible to love a scrappy local band without ever having seen it, thanks to the Internet. So it goes with the Fucking Ocean. I've never been to a show, but I know through stealthy online research (aka MySpace) that FO makes sharp-edged art-rocky songs that take cues from the Fall and Gang of Four. An elegantly angular guitar characterizes the band's sound: Whose is it? We do need to go to the show to find that out.
- Hiya Swanhuyser - SF Weekly, October 19, 2005


"Mission Creek Music Festival"

The Fucking Ocean were great.... I've never seen them before. They have this surfy kinda sound to them... Droney/ with some great guitar and driving rhythmic... wait, I suck at writing about music. Listen to some of their music on their MySpace Page. - FecalFace.com - May 21st, 2006


Discography

Debut album (title TBD) will be released in October 2006.

Photos

Feeling a bit camera shy

Bio

Great things can happen in unusual places – even in Redwood City. Thankfully, after forming in late 2003, the Fucking Ocean quickly relocated to San Francisco.

Beginning as a quartet, the Fucking Ocean quickly established themselves as a post-punk force to be reckoned with, despite their name (which the Onion A.V. Club included in their list of “Best-Worst Band Names”). Comparisons to bands like Fugazi, The Fall, Mission of Burma, Electrelane and Gang of Four are common but fail to provide a complete picture. Perhaps The San Francisco Bay Guardian captured it best when they wrote, “The Fucking Ocean generate delightfully angular and beautiful songs to transform their audience into a sea of head-nodding, knee-shaking clones.”

As a self-described musical volleyball team, band members Matt Swagler, John Nguyen and Marcella Gries are constantly rotating on vocals, guitar, bass and drums. Former member Elias Spiliotis also used to get in on the act, but recently left the band to engage in a spiritual battle with science (translation: finish his Ph.D. and get a real job).

The Fucking Ocean have played shows with 31 Knots, The Mall, Boyskout, Battleship, Yikes (ex-Coachwhips), Paradise Island, Fuckwolf, Health, Moggs, We Be the Echo and more. They recently invaded New York and completed a West Coast mini-tour. The band also took part in the 2006 Mission Creek Music Festival.

The band recently finished recording their debut album at Tiny Telephone Studios with Ian and Jay Pellicci, who have previously been behind the boards for bands like Deerhoof, Erase Errata and Gravy Train!!!. The album will be released in October 2006 on Double Negative Records.