June Gloom is back, and so is EMO! Dance to the emoest new pop punk outta SF
New reviews of pop punk by gloomy june, outlaw country by Josiah Flores, and Hindustani industrial by Only Now aka Kush Arora + our weekly show recs
Hi everyone! We’re White Crate :)
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We are a guide to Bay Area music. We are album reviewers. We are playlist curators. We are an online radio show. We are an events promoter. We are two humble music lovers, and one node in a vast, expanding constellation of collaborators and contributors.
We are… always experimenting with this project while always remaining true to its original mission: Showcasing amazing music by Bay Area artists.
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— White Crate
POETIC OUTLAW
“You took to the bottle
And I took to Jesus
Funny how we both ended up in pieces”
On Doin’ Fine, his second full-length album, Josiah Flores tells it like it is. If he says he’s going high, he’ll go high, playing the prettiest little ditties for the tipsy, two-stepping revelers. But if he strums a somber minor chord and smilingly warns it’ll feel this sad for four minutes, then buckle in. He did just that at his record release show before playing “Eddie,” a poignant, poetic reflection of a song about his father that had many of us in tears.
Inspired by Waylon Jennings, Stoney Edwards, Freddy Fender, and Willie Dunn, the Chicano singer-songwriter fearlessly traverses the spectrum, telling songs about being “Young, Dumb, & Full of Beer,” about our time being overripe for decolonization, and about the reality of familial heartbreak—all within the span of a half hour. Produced, recorded, and released by Alicia Vanden Heuvel of Speakeasy Studios SF and featuring a handful of Bay Area musicians—including Jacob Aranda on pedal steel and Ainsley Wagoner of Silverware on keys and backup vocals—Doin’ Fine is an essential work of local outlaw country.
Not to worry if you missed the record release show: Josiah Flores plays the Ivy Room on July 5 alongside Jacob Aranda, Trans-Pecos Department of Dust & Wire, and Mac Cornish.
— Ronny Kerr
EMOEST JUNE GLOOM EVER
Just in time for chilly summer parties under bright overcast skies, gloomy june is back with their foggy emo pop. Their debut self-titled LP, following a 2022 EP and string of singles, is vividly written and crisply produced, with drag-you-to-the-dancefloor rhythms and anthemic vocals that compel you to sing along.
The album’s first single “Picking Scabs” shimmers with imagery of seances and ouija boards, superstitious tools for prying into loss. The propulsive choruses ultimately explode on a hook about how we refuse to let wounds heal by scratching at them. But the anxious ruminations that continue across the record could also be seen as a kind of frustrated optimism: What is a seance, if not hopeful?
Hope is rewarded in the track “Making Plans,” a tender exploration of intimacy and feeling truly comfortable with another person. Here, the thornier topics from previous tracks can be expressed at the kitchen table, safe in a friendship where being seen doesn’t feel terrifying.
With their latest release, gloomy june makes a case for optimism, and dancing vulnerably with your friends at the punk club. Catch them at El Rio’s Queer Emo Night on Saturday, June 21 with Arcade 9 and Fistfight with Traffic
— Róisín Isner
APOCALYPTIC BALLISTICS
“Waterworld, for sure. If humans are still around, we would be in more sustainable enclaves as communities closer to the Sierra and in the valley. After throngs of folks migrate away, I estimate California’s still too beautiful even in an apocalypse scenario to abandon.”
— Kush Arora, when asked by White Crate what the Bay Area will look like in a thousand years
A decade since the first EP and nearly three years since Timeslave II, Kush Arora reignites his Only Now project with Timeslave III, infiltrating, dissecting, and exploding sonic pandemonium. “Ballistics”—the science of projectiles and firearms—is the first distinct word Kush uses to characterize the new work, and it’s immediately clear why on opening track “Power I,” hurling traditional Hindustani instruments and Punjabi-inspired synthlines into a polyrhythmic hurricane. As if to heighten the drama, occasional pockets of absolute silence manifest, and then are eviscerated.
The arc of Timeslave III broadly traces a path from this frenzy of percussive missiles to cavernous ambient industrial, an apocalyptic sound palette reminiscent of works by Arca, Lingua Ignota, and The Knife. Smack in the middle of this arc sits the album’s nine-minute centerpiece—”Eyes White, Vision Inside”—awash with undulating brown and greyish noise whereupon a single solo synth voice sings its serpentine, pining melody. In whole, the album is another deep meditation in time, and a fitting capsule of the Only Now live experience.
See Only Now perform live alongside Big Freak, Whine, and local DJs on July 12th at the 143rd dimension Black and Brown punk fest renegade.
— Ronny Kerr
SHOW RECS
Our top show recommendations for the coming week:
[punk] Pardoner, The She's, Toner, The Circulators — June 5 at the Chapel
[alternative] Asha Wells (EP release), Healing Potpourri, Waterstrider — June 5 at Rickshaw Stop
[alternative] Mild Universe, The Breathing Room, Catnip, Sweet Lew — June 5 at El Rio
[alternative] Plattenbau, La Isla Electronica, Circuit, Fog Lamp — June 5 at Eli’s Mile High Club
[metal] Piss Mist, Ancient Rage, Suffering, Rat Fuck — June 5 at Thee Parkside
[club] BAY AREA SOLIDARITY STRIKE ft. Bored Lord, RITCHRD, erika, sfcowboy, moth, DJ JUANNY, TRAVIEZA & more — June 6 at Safariiiicamp
[folk] Liana Warren (album release), Affectionately, Origin Stories — June 6 at Ramsess Art Garden
[experimental] Briana Marela (album release), JAW — June 6 at Temescal Art Center
[alternative] Shutups, Casual Hex, Nothing Natural, Ambient Living — June 6 at Eli’s Mile High Club
[alternative] Diesel Dudes, Blood Rave, Dildox, E.T. — June 6 at the Knockout
[fest] SF Porchfest — June 7 in the Mission District
[cumbia] Banda Sin Nombre, Esotérica Tropical, Shane Zaldivar, Mama Dora, La Katia, Jesse Escalante — June 7 at the 425 Mission St Rooftop Garden
[ambient] Cole Pulice (album release), Julius Smack, Zully Adler (DJ) — June 7 at the Lab
[club] HAZARDOUS NEMESIS x STRAPT x CLB INTRNCNL ft. DJ Saratonin, Profesito, 40split, Miya Lowe, Gem777 — June 7 at DM organizers
[rock] Raphael Saadiq — June 7-8 at the Fox Theater
[rock] The Rose Haze, Davia Schendel, Izzy Outerspace, Shipwreck Detective — June 10 at Thee Stork Club
[r&b] August Lee Stevens, Saint John Coltrane Global Spiritual Community — June 11 at the Bayview Opera House
[rock] WACKY WEDNESDAY OPENING NIGHT ft. Dinner Date, Town Bully, The Pranks — June 11 at Jack Kerouac Alley
[latin] KQED x KEXP ft. Ritmos Tropicosmos, Bululú, Mare.E.Fresh + Sizzle Fantastic (DJ) — June 12 at Crybaby
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