"Get a Little" love from Alan Dixon's remixes of Patrick Cowley hi-NRG heat from 1981
Kronos Quartet collaborates with Iranian singer Mahsa Vahdat; Berkeley teacher Mahea Uchiyama publishes a book on mbira; Metallica live in Oakland in 1991
While I’m up in Grass Valley recording an hour of sludge punk with my band this weekend, music lovers from across the Bay will be happily reuniting at Outside Lands in Golden Gate Park. Here’s your quick guide to all the local acts playing the festival:
Boy Scouts (rock / Oakland)
Brijean (electronic / Oakland)
Kehlani (hip hop / Oakland)
Madeline Kenney (rock / Oakland)
mxmtoon (pop / Oakland)
Rexx Life Raj (hip hop / Berkeley)
Salami Rose Joe Louis (electronic / Bay Area)
24kGoldn (hip hop / SF)
Stay safe out there, and enjoy the music!
Peace,
ronny
THAT NEW NEW
London producer Alan Dixon turns up the bass but largely leaves the original magic intact on their remixes of two classic Patrick Cowley tracks—“Get a Little” and “Lift Off”—both originally released on the legendary SF artist’s 1981 album Megatron Man.
“April Magazine is from the Bay Area, which has an absurd overabundance of really great bands right now. This fantastic tape on Paisley Shirt Records somehow feels like the middle ground between Grouper and Spacemen 3, if they were from Bristol’s early ’90s rural psychedelic scene.” That’s a quote from the LA band Dummy, who included Sunday Music for an Overpass in their Bandcamp favorites.
SF singer-songwriter Avi Vinocur released “Casino Time Loop Nightmare No. 366”, a gritty, catchy country rock ditty.
“While this album may feel like a paean to a bygone era, it is more a reflection of optimism about the future: a hope that we can rebuild our scene and our communal physical spaces with better priorities and better values, so that everybody can experience the euphoria, joy, transcendence, and physical release of the dancefloor.” SF producer Chrissy dropped full-length album PHYSICAL RELEASE—stacked with club monsters—on London’s Hooversound Recordings. (h/t First Floor)
Filmed simply at the Mulholland Scenic Overlook, LA/Oakland rapper C5 released “You Owe Me One.”
You could probably write an entire weekly newsletter dedicated to E-40 but I digress. Though his recent contribution to MOUNT WESTMORE’s “Big Subwoofer” is the newest thing he’s done, also check out his feature on “Clydesdale” by Tech N9ne.
!K7 announced that Canadian artist Jessy Lanza, who relocated from New York City to the Bay Area last year, will be delivering the next entry in the famed DJ-Kicks series. The mix arrives November 19, but you can watch a music video for the first single “Seven 55” (featuring fellow Hyperdub artist Loraine James).
Oakland and Olympia come together on the UNTIL DAWN EP, a pay-what-you-want three-track release of Halloween-inspired jungle and hardcore from M27, Stereo Out, and DJ Cantstandya—via Joker's Got a Posse aka JGAP.
Kenny Vaughan, best known as a guitarist for country star Marty Stuart’s supporting band the Fabulous Superlatives, appears on “El Gato Negro” as the latest collaborator in Funkwrench Blues’ “Need to Know Badass Blues Instrumentals Series.”
Kronos Quartet and Iranian singer Mahsa Vahdat released “Vaya Vaya”, written at the height of the pandemic lockdown in 2020. See the Bay Area artists perform live on December 2 at Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley.
“Fractured rhythms, consuming drone, and poignant echoes of virtuosic Indian music.” Berkeley artist Kush Arora released Indian Unclassical Vol. 1, the first volume in a new series for the Only Now project, weaving together “heavyweight experimentation and traditional Indian heritage.” Half the proceeds for this release will go to Manav Sadhna for their work strengthening underprivileged communities in Ahmedabad in western India. (h/t First Floor)
Oakland producer Moto Tembo dropped a disco house edit of “Cry Little Sister” by Gerard McMahon from the soundtrack to the 2021 TV series The Lost Boy.
SF producer rental vhs released house single “Heart Eyes” b/w “Act Up.”
“I am speaking to the audacity that we as Black people have to no longer tolerate the brutality that we and our ancestors have suffered, that is the theft of our basic human rights.” East Bay rapper Shy’an G spoke to KQED about her new single “Better Daze.”
Thao & the Get Down Stay Down released a deluxe version of 2020’s Temple, featuring acoustic and string arrangement versions of songs from the album.
Influenced by Television, Interpol, and the National, SF/Atlanta synth pop duo Tralala released their third single “Like You.”
Richmond rapper White Dave returns with a 22-min headbopping EP, Love Hurts.
Young Jr, Stunnaman02, and Clayton William team up on “Hand Stand.”
Suddenly I want to go to a pool party at a mansion by the beach. All I did was watch the video for “No Mentiras” by Zyme, XienHow, Hitta Slim, and Aristotle the Great.
Discos Extraños dropped two must-have mixtapes: the second volume of Valle Nacido (featuring porro, cumbia, vallenato, palenque, gaita and more from Arturo Guzmán) and a deluxe edition of Cumbia Embrujada (featuring four volumes of Halloween-inspired cumbia from original vinyl mixed by Sue Problema and Bobby Ganush).
San Ramon’s Ripple Music released “No Blood in Bone” by LA heavy rockers Salem's Bend.
MAYBE MISSED
Our traditional music is more community based, it involves everyone. Back home, I don’t know racism. I just see human beings. I see souls. I just want to teach anyone who wants to learn. I don’t look at color or how rich you are. If your soul is open and loving you can receive the music.
Mahea Uchiyama is a dancer, choreographer, musician, and teacher who founded and serves as artistic director of the Māhea Uchiyama Center for International Dance in West Berkeley. Uchiyama recently published The Mbira: An African Musical Tradition, providing an introduction to the history and practice of the instrument, which is traditional to the Shona people of Zimbabwe “as a vehicle for healing and spiritual communion.” Read more on Oaklandside.
This one is for all the people who “love every kind of music except rap and country.” Post-Scarcity Rodeo is nine lo-fi country-tinged beats by Oakland’s Purpose Server. Perfect for a morning cup of coffee in the country… or the city?
South Hayward-based artist Joel Franco teamed up with Blaze Avenue to form a new group called Summer Blanco, and released ‘97 Demo, a nearly hourlong laidback hip hop album shooting for end of summer vibes.
CLASSICS
The Chronicle story that followed focused on the violence in the mosh pits, and the damage to the Coliseum baseball field that included large chunks of grass pulled out by rowdy heavy metal fans. […] The scene was described in apocalyptic terms, with more time spent cataloging minor injuries and damage reports than the music itself. The lead image on the front of the Datebook was a photo of the moonscaped field after the concert was done.
On October 12, 1991, Metallica made their second and last appearance at Day on the Green, a recurring concert series started in 1973 and presented by promoter Bill Graham at the Oakland Coliseum. Three decades later, you can revisit their performance via the new remastered deluxe box set of Metallica (The Black Album).
Occurring a month after the release of Metallica—now one of the best selling albums ever—the concert captures the SF band on the edge of superstardom. Not that they weren’t great before. Metallica by that point had already cemented their status as one of the leaders in thrash with four solid studio albums: Kill 'Em All, Ride the Lightning, Master of Puppets, and ...And Justice for All. But “the Black Album” signaled a new direction, and the concert at Day on the Green makes this apparent, with some of the newer songs (“Nothing Else Matters,” “Wherever I May Roam”) sounding a bit more mainstream and palatable for wider audiences beyond the core heavy metal base. Overall, it’s a highly recommended listen for anyone who wants a peek into a defining moment for one of the last standing acts of the 1980s Bay Area thrash scene.
Read more and see photos from the show on SF Chronicle.
SHUFFLE ON
Listen to the Lower Grand Radio mix - Recorded Oct 7.