“I think you’d like me honey, if you knew me better“.

I’ve known Leeds based San Francisco for the past couple of years for their cheery but introspective shoe gazey brand of indie. The band has been in almost constant concentrated development, moving from a one man bed room project (by front man Iwan Grant), to becoming a fully developed and fully blooded live band.

Along the way, the things I admired about this musical project have grown and developed, and here now in September 2022, Know Me Better can perhaps be best described as San Francisco’s proper debut single. And what a fking banger it is.

Here Know Me Better offers solid pounding indie music that brings its sound to you, but with Iwan’s gentle, almost hesitant vocal at the front, this tune is a bit more of a slow burner than a peacock strutter. I like the attitude of this band; they want to be heard, they will wait and welcome you to unpick the complex layers of music and confection within their sound, but they are not going to parade it in front of you. That’s what I’d describe as musical polite and perfect etiquette.

I hear tell that Know Me Better is the first track from a forthcoming EP recorded in a mad 3 days.

When I listen to a tune for the first few plays, I kind of imagine what it would sound like live and what the reaction to the tune is likely to be. Here, the tune totally passes the test; it’s a track that would give the floor joists below the audience a good old fashioned royal shafting.

With Know Me Better, the lyrics have something of a familiar San Francisco theme. The band have a knack of getting to a human relationship truth, something that everyone can relate to. Here it’s a stream of conscious thought about someone our protagonist is keen on, but there is perhaps a barrier to their getting further, and a wish that the certain someone made an effort to get to know him. The tune meanwhile has that infectious stomp beloved of we indie types. Know Me Better is a delicious tune San Francisco.

Anyone wanting to see floor joists getting a damn good seeing to, can toddle off to the wonderful Leeds Oporto on Thursday 27th October where San Francisco will be on stage for their debut headline show, with support from Uncoof Youth and Lunar Vertigo. That’s gonna be a special one.

Chris R