by Dan Moffat

Dave Stringi and Rick Altieri of Blue Ocean. Photo by Jessica Goss @jesslynngoss

I’ve been watching the NBA playoffs and they’ve been exciting, albeit short lived for the Celtics. Watching Tatum crush the supergroup Nets (if only for one night) was a brief highlight. I think someone else said it best, in that it’s a special kind of feeling to beat a New York team.

I’m a little embarrassed to admit this, but there was a commercial during the broadcast that caught my attention. The slogan was something like “look outside the algorithm.” Is this a self-own? In that their product is so unpopular that no one will be directed to it?

Or is it a call to break out of consuming what is spoon-fed to us? I’m not going to say I don’t use Spotify – their platform is user friendly and the music library is second to none – but their model is to use an algorithm to favor only big-time artists, the top tier earners. Spotify, or any other major streaming platform, sucks for discovering new indie music.

That’s why I fuck with bandcamp. I can look up a record label I’m into and go down their discography and check out anything right away. It’s like digital crate digging. And the more I do it, the more satisfying “aha” moments of discovery I receive.

I was psyched to discover Oakland band Blue Ocean on one of these recent bandcamp forays. SF label Paisley Shirt Records has been putting out consistently good janglepop-psych-shoegaze tapes for a while now and Blue Ocean continues that trend. Right from the get-go, “Summer of Hands” beckons the listener close, as a sea of noise bursts from the speakers and envelopes the ears with tasteful transients. Yet underneath the maelstrom there is a more joyful noise, the juxtaposition sidelines the feedback and relegates it to ear candy, as the attention is drawn to the chugging bass and calm vocals in the eye of the storm. 

Photo by Jessica Goss @jesslynngoss

Here’s a band that writes tight pop structures in an experimental way, by using an unpredictable element such as noise to be used as a foil to enhance the hooks in their songs. The noise is also used for dynamic effect. For example, the haze builds from the beginning as in “Maggies Bind,” which starts with just reverberating guitars and climbs from there. The noise is peeled away around 45 seconds into “Emporium” to sharpen the focus of the song. Surf drums lightly drive each breezy piece as the swell ebbs and flows while melodic vocals and guitars bounce along. It’s the kind of shoegaze that’s easy to hum to — but not necessarily singalong to, since the words are often drowned out. 

Blue Ocean is the latest outfit of ex-Allston musicians Rick Altieri and Dave Stringi. Around ten years ago, you may have seen them at a basement show venue in Allston called Gay Gardens, where they frequently performed as an un-googleable noise-punk band called “Puke.” But chances are nil, as many folks from that scene moved to a commune in Maine and I guess I’m not sure about internet access at a commune. Atlieri and Stringi went a different route, as life took them separately to the Bay Area, first Altieri then Stringi, where they eventually reconnected in Oakland.

Musical kindred spirits, it seems that Blue Ocean wouldn’t have existed without either Stringi or Altieri. While Stringi was busy for several years making bedroom pop on his own and sequestering his songs in his apartment due to stage fright, it was Altieri that encouraged him to bring his tunes to the stage. Altieri offered to play bass and reboot the band from their Boston days, a sort of “Puke 2.0.” But where Puke, as you can probably guess, was abrasive, Blue Ocean is more commercial. Or as Stringi says, “my mom would like Blue Ocean.”

Since then, Blue Ocean has had a successful run playing around the Bay Area and they are looking to hop on the circuit again with an upcoming outdoor show. Says Stringi, “It took me a lot personally to get over stage fright and start playing live shows. [But] it was just really fun. It’s a great social environment and activity…There’s some fuel and recharge that happens in live shows.” 

So if you’re in the area, go see Blue Ocean play on June 20th at The Hit Factory. And listen to the album below. Maybe show it to your mom.