Pills & Jackets
Jesse Olswang, Justin Ancheta, and Eric Alonzo formed the band Pills & Jackets in 1999. Each band member has over 15 years of musical experience and nothing to fear when it comes to jumping outside the boundaries of any genre. Injecting feeling into their music is of great importance and stylistically the sound ranges from reggae to indie rock. In 2003, under the name Sinclair, they won the Sacramento State battle of the bands and released their first self titled album. “Sinclair” was also nominated for a Sacramento Music Award for best world band three years in a row (2003, 2004, and 2005). The threesome changed their name to Pills & Jackets when they move to San Francisco. The fan base continued to grow in the years that followed and last November (2007) the S.F. Chronicle published an article titled “Pills & Jackets take it to the streets” recognizing their success in performing live on the streets of San Francisco. “[Pills & Jackets] had sold all of 500 copies of their album before coming to the city, but they would sell 10,000 in the year that followed.” (SF Chronicle 2007) In 2006 Pills & Jackets jumped on the opportunity to work with Grammy Award winning producer Matt Shaw to craft a unique and free spirited self-titled album. The album was released at the Café Du Nord show on Friday, March 14th 2008.