June 10, 2011 6:15 pm Bud Light Stage

It’s not just great song writing, warm guitars, a nut-tight rhythm section, and the occasional blues harp riffs that make The Stone Foxes’ second album, Bears & Bulls, so good; the Bay Area four-piece consisting of brothers Shannon and Spence Koehler, Aaron Mort, and Avi Vinocur have captured something else on this recording that makes the whole thing huge, and very, very cool. Listeners sense it right away. There’s a genuineness here that’s rare and refreshing, and it’s something that can’t be achieved simply by grabbing a couple of vintage axes and plugging into a stack of tube amps. Because while The Stone Foxes may be influenced by the greats of the late 60s and early 70s like The Band, Bob Dylan, and Led Zeppelin, they never sound like they’re trying to be anything but exactly who they are...