"If you don't like the city, you can leave the city sir" Watch the video for Secret Secret's "Garbage Town"
New this week: A dreamy lovesick mixtape by Yea-Ming and The Rumours, transformative jazz rap by Oddity, and our weekly show recommendations
While 90s-inspired fashion might be what most people are rocking these days, spandex is always a Look. SF quartet Secret Secret knows it, harnessing iconic 80s fashion—headbands, armbands, bike shorts, neon, and all—in their new video for “Garbage Town.”
A stand-out track from their latest EP, Queen of Cups, “Garbage Town” is inspired by all the people (especially wealthy SF residents) who complain about the city without actively engaging in the community. The lyrics make clear their frustration—”If you don’t like the city, you can leave the city sir”—but the catchy pop punk music and video reflect a joy and love for this place we call home.
Directed by Maria Donjacour and Phil Elleston II, the video features the band and friends stretching out in the dance studio, flaunting ecstatic choreography down the Valencia Street bike lane, and finally raucously celebrating in front of the sexy velvet nudes at Casanova.
What does Secret Secret love about San Francisco?
“The best thing about San Francisco, and the Bay Area in general, is the supportive community spirit surrounding the arts,” said the band’s lead guitarist and vocalist Marika Stuurman. She cites the new Bay Beats program by the SF Public Library as well as BFF.FM, KALX, Psyched!, KEXP, and White Crate as community-oriented organizations and radio stations that genuinely care about local musicians and artists.
“Beyond the special music community, I love walking down the street and running into friends completely unplanned. I love all the parks, big and small. I love racing to China Beach on a rare hot day to jump in the ocean and sometimes I even love the fog. I love all the characters that make San Francisco such a unique and beautiful place.”
Watch the video on YouTube and stream the EP on Bandcamp.
— White Crate
DREAMY LOVESICK MIXTAPE
I Can’t Have It All cements Yea-Ming and The Rumours as one of Oakland’s most cherished songwriters. With 60s pop-rock and 90s/early aughts college radio references, The Rumours’ dreamy music could make a lovesick mixtape from any decade—rediscovered from the past, yet effortlessly fresh.
Out now on Dandy Boy Records, I Can’t Have It All showcases Yea-Ming Chen’s skill with contrasting lyrical truths against carefree melodies. The album starts and ends with “Pretending,” melodically infectious but blunt: “You need to know something… I’m pretending it’s just fine and it’s killing me inside.” Then comes the title track, where there’s no missing the album’s themes: the dissonance of living through limits and disappointments alongside the necessity of keeping it together. “Old Frog” dips briefly into full-fledged melancholy, where a stripped-down arrangement allows Yea-Ming’s vocals to shine and deliver, with sweet resignation: “If that water keeps rushing down, well that’s just the way it goes.”
— Ainsley Wagoner
JAZZ RAP TRANSFORMATION
“Melt away my inhibitions
Open up my heart
Sow the seeds of transformation
Glowing in the dark”
Is the Bay’s best hip hop album this week actually a jazz album? The fourth and final entry in a series two years in the making, Oddisea, Pt. 4 is the latest full-length by Oakland artist Oddity. As open-hearted with her Chinese-American transfemme identity as a blooming lotus, the artist gracefully lays funky fiery raps (“Fuel My Fire”) and truth-spitting (“Ego to the Side” ft. Stoni and Pandaraps) alongside soul jazz meditations (“Melt Away”) and instrumental piano pieces gorgeously reminiscent of Bill Evans and Chick Corea. Party grooves and sunshine songs so often dominate the summertime music conversation, but if you’re looking for music encapsulating the beauty of changing seasons, growth, and positive transformation, here it is.
— Ronny Kerr
SHOW RECS
Our top show recommendations for the coming week:
[hip hop] Equipto ft. DJ True Justice, Michael Marshall, Monk HTS, Gennessee — June 27 at Amoeba SF
[indie] Cut the Breakers (A Songwriter Night) — June 27 at the Golden Bull
[alternative] Ha Vay (album release), Susannah Joffe, Kate Yaeger — June 27 at Rickshaw Stop
[electronic] Chroma Sea, Demora, Analog Dream — June 27 at Bottom of the Hill
[queermericana] Proud Mary, Secret Emchy Society, Country Risque, Ashleigh Flynn & the Riveters — June 28 at Verdi Club
[punk] Humanhead (EP release), George Crustanza, Lipstick, Land of Wolves — June 28 at Thee Parkside
[rock] Nina Durango (record release), Alvie & The Breakfast Pigs, Tess & The Details — June 28 at Bottom of the Hill
[club] STRAPT ft. Anna Morgan, Mars Kasei, Discnogirl, DJ CARO, 40split — June 28 at Underground SF
[club] CLUB A.B.L.U.N.T. ft. UNiiQU3, Tomu DJ, Brown Amy, DE ALMA, Freaky Emo b2b Digital KitKat, Kween Uneek, BLACK b2b Brown Amy, Blu Moon b2b Madre Guía, Charles Hawthorne b2b FLORIDAWTR — June 28 at Monarch
[club] YerbaFM Launch Party ft. Eichef, DJ Juanny, Ab.rham, Carranzaa, Loammi — June 29 at 1566 Carroll Ave
[rock] Mild Universe, Skip the Needle, Mommy Mommy, Pleeay — June 29 at the Golden Gate Park Bandshell
[noise] Brutal Sound Effects #97 — June 29 at the Lab
[rock] Skip the Needle, Grooblen — June 29 at Ivy Room
[alternative] Pure Hex (record release), Wander, Mint — June 29 at Bottom of the Hill
[club] Bored Lord — June 29 at Bar Part Time
[club] NO BIAS ft. estoc, RITCHRD, Taraneh b2b FINISHHER, Lonald J. Bandz b2b Discnogirl, Del, SUNDAY MASS, ALGU, Honeybear, Alora, Red Beans — June 29 at F8
[punk] Sucker, Big Freak, Whine, Shuv — June 30 at Dolores Park