Big fan of the Crumbs. Huge even. I’ve long wanted to write about this band even in the midst of me hyping up their first full on album but have been really distracted in times since.
My fascination with PFOC started in the early months of the first lockdown when I was browsing the location and genre tags on bandcamp as I sometimes do as sort of digital cratedigging. Going through the “San Francisco” tag, I came across some releases with some cool looking cut and stitch artwork, one of which turned out to be “This Feels Familiar”, an early 2019 release from the band. Note to say that PFOC at it’s core is the project of Mark Paiz, who started the proj seemingly public sometime around 2018 or prior likely somewhere in California before visibly being a San Francisco bound band. I hadn’t really heard about the band around town at this time, but I was eager to dig into the tunes. “This Feels Familiar” and some of the early singles were amazingly written slack rock joints of the times like Alex G and Mac and such but even in those early days Mark had a really amazing songwriting chops with a really beautiful voice . Not knocking anyone else in the Bay, truly, but Mark’s vocals were and are a cut above the rest. What made me a huge fan of the band from the jump was PFOC’s now deleted release “202020” a quarantine collection of 5 acoustic guitar songs which I still have saved on me. Truly mean it when I say it is/was an amazingly written body of work, a clear embodiment of bleeding honesty in songwriting with beautiful and catchy lyricism and guitar. I became immediately drawn to that release upon listening and in some car or bike rides since then I still jam and sing along to the tunes. Mark, if you’re reading this please don’t hesitate to put these tracks back up! Forreal.
Continuing on, Mark trudged with the project past lockdown, enrolling the likes of different peeps in the live band from the local scene. The most consistent member has been Siena LaMere of Outhouse and Wife fame who has long been in San Francisco’s music crowd with an older project called “Sabrina is Not In This Chat”. PFOC would go on to create more guitar rock orientated tunes coming out of locdown from the summer of 2021, pivoting with more slowcore and emo rock tinged songs with a berth of singles like “Afternoon” and “Familiar Friend”. The band would go on to play live much more consistently from that time and drop more singles amidst Outhouse’s growing college and post college age crowd alongside the worldwide growth of screamo/skramz/emo hardcore revival. Eventually, the Crumbs would enroll the likes of Olivia, also from Wife, full time in the band. Pocket dropped their self-titled full-on release in August of 2022 on their own accord, pressing their own tapes. This album would show the band’s embrace of heavy and powerful emo guitar rock tunes drawing similar energy from the likes (to me at least) of emo post hardcore band Jejune and more modern Hotline TNT. Def one of the best albums from that year and an earmark of great underground slow-core/guitar rock of the era if you consider other American guitar bands like deadharrie, TNT, A Country Western, Teethe, Toner, waveform*, etc.
Images by me from a set of their at the Milk Bar, San Francisco January 2022
The Crumbs in the wake of their first album would prove to be a recognizable force in San Francisco’s rock crowd and really drive it home with plenty of shows and tours and killer performances. A ton of great acoustic songs released in the path of their debut album, and it def seemed that the band were brewing and honing the craft of their performances to make which would be their next full length album “In My Hands I Hold A Lucky Cricket” off Cherub Dreams records just this month.
“In My Hands I Hold A Lucky Cricket” is an amazing album and continues with the trajectory of their self titled of guitar emo heaviness with an amplified sense of intercchangability within the band. The other members of the band besides Mark have more involved vocals and the exchange between parts feel more fluid compared to their last major outing. Truly just a great piece of work, and in the growth of the band since, I’m super happy that plenty of people have caught on to the Crumbs greatness and will continue to do so over time.
Pocket Full Of Crumbs on film + digital, Rickshaw Stop SF 2024 by me
They are absolutuely not to be missed live especially in the outpour of this new album. If you’re reading this now on July 20th 2024, you can see their album release show at Toxic Beach in SF 5-9PM and with Toner/Lurks/the Heart Wants on July 23rd at the Knockout in SF. They’ll also go on a summer tour along the east coatst and perchance more too so keep an eye out!
