Something happened during Noise Pop week, at a non-Noise Pop event, that warrants a few words.
In this week’s column, I write about seeing Vinyl Williams at The Chapel. I’m a fan. He’s great. Trippy AF. Whatever. At the top of his set, he tells the crowd, “The Chapel is by far my favorite venue in the nation.”
Now I’ve seen, heard and most def, felt, too many false platitudes fall from lips into hot mics at live music shows for decades. I can tell who’s shoveling that stinky stuff and who means it. Vinyl Williams meant that. For real. He’s said it before at another show at The Chapel and doubled down on it that night.
Why does it matter?
With so much nasty talk about San Francisco (I’m not going to engage in the discourse. Pick a subject and you will find all the mudslinging), it was just nice to hear a person who travels all over the world for a living say something not just nice about SF, but also repeat a platitude that many a music fan, performer, journalist, booker, and artist says daily. I’ve heard it before about The Chapel … matter of fact, I’ve said it before about The Chapel. We are very lucky to have numerous venues here in The City that book great artists, new and established, in a comfortable room. It was just energizing to hear a non-SF resident speak nicely about a city I still love no matter what people outside the bubble think of it.
Go ahead, Vinyl Williams.
And with that …
It’s Under The Stars babe…A quasi-weekly column that presents new music releases, upcoming shows, opinions, and other adjacent items. We keep moving with the changes and thinking outside the margins.
Be nice … it just feels good. Ok, Let’s get it!
COMBO TEZETA AT ELI’S MILE HIGH CLUB, SAT/9
Oakland-based outfit Combo Tezeta identifies their sound as a highly danceable blend of instrumental cumbias, chicha, and música tropical inspired by the psychedelic late ’60s and early ’70s in Peru. Now that may be a whopper of a description to drop on somebody, anybody, without a frame of reference. But I guarantee you this, trust your ears. This is a bad, bad (and we do mean bad meaning good) ensemble that can trip those trippy vibes up into crazy reverbed vibes of surf-rock. They say one of the band’s focuses is to highlight the rich melodies and hypnotic rhythms birthed from the Afro-Latin diaspora.
Right on, my brothers.
Over the past years, I’ve become quite fond of different versions of cumbia and chicha. First, with Los Bitchos, who tackle the territory with a party rock attitude, which I do not mind at all. And then recently, at a Tommy Guerrero show, I heard for the first time the band Healing Gems, a Los Angeles-based outfit that describes themselves as “Space Age Tequila Sunrise, Trash Lounge, and Lava Pop.”
It felt hallucinogenic, like country and stoned tropicalia flaunting their roots in the cumbia family.
But running through videos of Combo Tezeta, this hits Bay style on the cumbia and chicha spectrum. It’s that sweaty, polyrhythmic, laid-back type of steeze.
I dare you to treat your ears to that supernatural music. They’ll be performing at Eli’s Mile High on Saturday, March 9 with Ritmos Tropicosmos.
Grab tix here.
SUN RA, INSIDE THE LIGHT WORLD: SUN RA MEETS THE OVC (STRUT RECORDS)
As we previously witnessed right here in San Francisco during the three nights of the Arkestra performing at the Great American Music Hall, the discography of Sun Ra remains vast and complex but always rewarding.
Herman Poole Blount aka Sun Ra could write engaging big band jazz arrangements, similar to Mingus and such, and then turn around and use the intergalactic organ, mellophone, gong, space bird sounds, and reverb to communicate much more peculiar arrangements.
Strut Records will release a new album of previously unreleased Sun Ra recordings from the 1980s that will be available on April 20th, Record Store Day. Why are we mentioning this now?
Get ready.
Inside the Light World: Sun Ra Meets the OVC will feature recordings with the Outer Space Visual Communicator, an instrument that “harnessed the power of light, casting mesmerizing kaleidoscopic, multi-colored patterns onto a screen suspended above performers on stage.”
Here we are in 2024 and Sun Ra is still surpassing and dunking on all of us.
Bill Sebastian, the forward-thinking technological innovator and rocket scientist who created the OVC, spoke of processing the entity that is Sun Ra for the first time:
“I was living in the Fort Hill area of Roxbury, and one of my friends said, ‘Hey, you got to come down and check this out.’ I said, ‘What?’ He said, ‘I can’t explain it. Just come.’ So, we went down, and I was blown away. I believe it was at Paul’s Mall—a small jazz club. He packed in the whole Arkestra, and it was the most amazing evening I’d ever experienced. I knew at that moment, ‘This is what I’ve got to do with the OVC.’ I was a spectator. I had nothing to offer him at that point. His music was embodying everything that I was trying to achieve with the OVC.”
Stay updated here.
REVIEW: VINYL WILLIAMS AT THE CHAPEL, FEBRUARY 24
Lionel “Vinyl” Williams has such an affinity for The Chapel that he gladly took a last-minute gig supporting Loco Tranquilo’s record release. Unbeknownst to me as I rolled up to said Mission stronghold, which Williams called “literally my favorite venue in the nation”, next door at a cafe, saxophonist extraordinaire and Bay Area luminary David Boyce from Broun Fellinis was distilling a blistering set to a cozy crowd drinking in the hip Saturday night decor. Inside and out.
As a buddy of mine and I took in the crowd at The Chapel, Williams, with the always stylish Höfner 500/1 violin bass, joyously entertained a crowd from a wide age range, who were far more concerned with feeling and the peculiar musicianship happening in real-time than “putting it on tha’ Gram.” Vinyl Williams tore off a 50-minute set that felt smooth, still working out some arrangements in real-time, while tripping the light fantastic with those delectable feedback delicacies.
A younger fan, clad in thick Dr. Marten boots, was taking Polaroid retro-cool snapshots of the band and passed them up to Williams, who quickly thanked the fan and then said, “How did you do this? It’s so cool,” before blasting off again into the space rock zephyr.
The four-piece, playing with all types of digital illustrations projected behind them, just drifted out those earworms, ones dipped in trademark wormwood. That Williams touch.
After complimenting The Chapel, the group went into “L’quasar”, off the Brunei album from 2016, and then proceeded to pull nugget after nugget from his impressive discography. I’d suggest hitting up his website to stay current.
Always a sneaky great bass player, Williams, an accomplished musician, rarely gives guitar solos in these arrangements. Instead, his bass is the melody delivery system, which adds yet another layer of singularity to the product.
Yes, Chapel, good call indeed.
“It’s his tone,” my buddy Todd told me during or after the show. “It’s always clean. Clear.”
Track the celestial pop here.
REJOICER, THIS IS REASONABLE (CIRCUS COMPANY)
Yuval Hawkin, who has been recording and producing under the moniker of Rejoicer, has established himself as a competent provider of downtempo music over the last 10 years. The inspiration he draws from neo-fusion jazz, experimental beats, world music accents, and classical music orchestration always finds modernist pathways into contemporary beat culture.
On his forthcoming release for Circus Company, he has chosen an ambient tone, moving forward once again with a craft that sometimes catches other producers repeating themselves.
This Is Reasonable is not just somber, reflective, and minimal; it is a nuanced choice in the way that only Rejoicer could do it.
It is a beautiful project.
Pre-order it here.
COR.ECE & BAD COLOURS, ‘’SAY YEA’’, BEEN HERE BEFORE (BASTARD JAZZ)
Sometimes you don’t need to see an artist’s highly detailed resume; you can hear it in the music. Immediately.
That’s what’s going on with the single, “Say Yea” by Cor.Ece (pronounced cor-reese) and Bad Colours, the moniker of London-born, Maryland-raised, Brooklyn-based DJ, songwriter, producer, and instrumentalist Ibe Soliman. The track is off their collaborative album Been Here Before.
Rolling basslines keep it coming, drums hitting four on the floor, color chords synths, and breezy lyrics. But wait—a sax solo to give the track Chef’s kiss it deserves. It’s in mode. Accessible house for the dancefloor bopper, or just some cool stuff to bob your head to on the train.
Listen, Cor.Ece is a Grammy-winning writer (for Beyonce & Honey Dijon on “Cozy”) and Bad Colours was a DJ for James Murphy, Mark Ronson, and Q-Tip, not to mention a producer for Kendrick Lamar, Faith Evans, Keyshia Cole, Rick Ross, and others.
So while this album does cruise (yes, I’ve heard the entire thing, it’s plush) through soulful house, UK garage, proto-techno, and disco, with a talent pool that runs deep, it qualifies as “move” music for the soul.
Out on March 22, it’s Bastard Jazz to the rescue once again.
Pick it up here.
