Join us at WC02, a sunny outdoor party curated by the Bay's psychedelic folk pixie Mae Powell
WC02 will feature performances by Everyone is Dirty, The Breathing Room, Marika Christine, and Arts & Crafts - plus Stanley Ipkuss on the decks - and more!
We're excited to announce WC02, a party on Saturday, July 8th curated by Mae Powell—generous spirit, jazz pixie, psychedelic indie folk chanteuse, and the Bay’s rainbow-embodied ambassador of peace and magic.
WC02 is the second in a quarterly party series curated by Bay Area artists, and for this outing we’ll be treated to live performances by Everyone is Dirty, The Breathing Room, Marika Christine, and Arts and Crafts - plus DJ Stanley Ipkuss.
We're looking forward to connecting with everyone and grooving out at our secret sunny outdoor spot in the Mission. Location to be shared week of the event!
— White Crate
INTERGALACTIC CABARET
To the rest of the world, San Francisco used to be synonymous with psychedelia. Well, some of us are still living in that now. In fact, hundreds of us were witnesses to that nowness when Austin Waz and Big Leap Collective teamed up to present Do You Remember??, a psychedelic indie festival this past April featuring local bands Analog Dog, Mild Universe, Peña, For Your Pleasure, and Grooblen performing at the Golden Gate Park Bandshell. It was certainly a day to remember.
This week one of those bands, Grooblen, arrives with their second full-length album A Wormhole is a Freeway to the Stars. With a release timed right after one of planet Earth’s biggest cosmic moments—the summer solstice—the album sees bandleader Ellie S. (also the founder and creative director at Big Leap Collective) stretching out in her intergalactic brand of cabaret rock. Unlike a lot of the dude-led work in the psych world (no offense, I love a talking, drawling, vocal-stoned bro), Ellie has a voice to make heads turn. Dipping into humming lows and swelling into ecstatic highs, that voice commands the alien spaceship on this goofy ride through the cosmos. For a taste, check out epic rock and roller “Gastropod” or the slow burner “It Costs $0 to Be Kind” (Ellie’s favorite song on the album).
Get a limited edition cassette of the album from Lava Socks Records.
— Ronny Kerr
LUSH LOFI SHOEGAZE
Wall of fog, empty streets, howling winds. Arriving like a spooky, wintry summertime is you cry for eternity, a six-track EP by figure eight on Cherub Dream Records. It’s the latest entrant in a series of lush, lofi shoegaze tapes that have emerged from the Bay over the past few years, and it’s just so easy to get lost in. Heavy muffled thumping drums, gauzy guitar strumming, and a ghostly sonorant voice that barely emerges through the mesh. The band has played a couple shows in the past week but we’ll definitely keep an eye out for more.
— Ronny Kerr
RAW EMOTIONAL INDIE
“To hold together and to split apart
at one and the same time,
like the shock of being born,
breathing in this world
while lamenting for the one we’ve left.”
As the years have gone by, I’ve seen more and more once-happy couples split and move on, long-term relationships and marriages built on a seemingly unshakeable bedrock of love splinter and folks just… wobble back into the world like newborns, finding themselves and searching for love again.
That’s the world that San Jose band Comfort Fashion’s new album Cleave lives in. Inspired by the fantastic poem above, of which I’ve included just a snippet, the songs on the record strike a melancholy yet hopeful tone. Raw emotional indie folk rock with an edge and gorgeous storytelling throughout, fans of Adam Schlesinger’s influential band Fountains of Wayne or even Ben Folds should be on high alert.
— Ellliot Engel
OLD SCHOOL SOUL
“Well I’m just like a ship, without a sail in the world today”
Eight months after the album’s original release, Soft Spot by the California Honeydrops gets the deluxe treatment, including even more groovy old school soul rock. One of the highlights? A live performance covering “Like a Ship”, one of the many glorious gospel pieces first released by Pastor T.L. Barrett and the Youth for Christ Choir in 1971. (Yes, the same Pastor T.L. Barrett who rose to greater prominence after Kanye West sampled his song “Father I Stretch My Hands.”) Also included in the deluxe set are acoustic demos, a cover of Sam Cooke (“Good Times”), and more originals. It’s a rocking, feel good time, the perfect thing to kick back and celebrate the summer solstice.
The California Honeydrops are touring the U.S. right now, but you can catch them locally at the Mare Island Dock of Bay Festival on Sunday, September 10 and at the Rebels and Renegades Music Festival on Saturday, October 7.
— Ronny Kerr
SHOW RECS
Our top show recommendations for the coming week:
[hip hop] Grand-O, Ozer + Easway, AMK, Baghead, DJ Say — June 23 at 428 11th St San Francisco
[experimental] San Huan — June 23 at Pallas
[rock] Mild Universe, Plum Anderson, Arts & Crafts — June 23 at the Warehouse
[rock] Doubleplus Alright, Hafner, Kids on a Crime Spree — June 23 at Tamarack
[club] PINK BLOCK ft. Big Freedia, Horse Meat Disco, Doc Martin, Kim Ann Foxman, Jessy Lanza, Tune-Yards — June 24 at the Great Northern
[classical] Kronos Festival ft. Kronos Quartet — June 23-24 at SFJAZZ
[club] Cakes Da Killa, Uffie, MJ Nebreda, Jasmine Infiniti, DJ Caro, Guerrilla Pump, SNAQ, and more — June 24 at Record Bar
[rock] Body Double, Gushes, Monica Ramos — June 24 at Eli’s Mile High Club
[hip hop] R.A.P. Ferreira, AroMa, Mars Kumari — June 24 at Neck of the Woods
[latin] La India — June 24 at Hyatt Regency Burlingame
[dub] SWALK 2 Year Anniversary ft. Lonald J. Bandz, Paul Paul, Three6Sashia, Alex Niceness, Jumpin’ Toads — June 25 at Lake Merritt
[rock] Indigo Girls, Neko Case — June 25 at Stern Grove
[rock] Grooblen, Cardboard People — June 28 at Rickshaw Stop
[r&b] Astu — June 29 at Yerba Buena Gardens Festival
[rock] Marinero, Chulita Vinyl Club — June 29 at KQED