Do you know what we do here at Under The Stars?
We champion music items. Mostly.
Well, except, we make suggestions. Burrito suggestions.
What’s that… What’s the best SF burrito crawl?
It starts at El Farolito and ends at Taqueria El Castillito.
You can fill some others in between, fancy brunch ones, but those first suggested give you the best chitty chitty bang bang for your buck.
Anyhow, we discuss music subjects. Like up-and-coming jangle pop bands.
Nasty bass electronic music. Hip-hop that moves through you like Marshawn Lynch running up yo face with the football.
House music, so friggin good, you bring your fog machine to the club.
We regard Toni Tony Toné as a genre, vinyl records are a lifestyle that chooses you.
And, live shows, here in SF at Kilowatt Bar, The Chapel, or Great American Music Hall should be classified as religious experiences.
That’s what we do.
As mentioned before in this column, hip-hop is currently experiencing a moment.
Within just eight days, we’ve seen new releases from Jay Worthy and DāM-FunK, featuring DRAM called “Westside”…
and Madlib with “REEKYOD,” featuring Black Thought and Your Old Droog. It’s his grand debut on his very own label, Madlib Invazion. Stream it here.
Pound for pound, both releases showcase some of the most straightforward beats and rhymes productions. The ultimate connection between producer and Emcee.
That’s hip-hop.
PORTOLA ANNOUNCES 2024 LINEUP
Hold up. Did San Francisco’s Portola festival outshine all the other SF summertime outdoor music gatherings this year? On Monday, festival organizers unveiled a lineup full of crowd-drawing talent, including EDM festival mainstays, up-and-coming disruptors, and trending viral acts. This two-day beats by the bay event will take place on September 28-29 at Pier 80 in San Francisco. Tickets go on sale Friday, May 17, and is open to those aged 21 and above.
This is despite the noise complaints from residents in Alameda last year.
Not to mention that Portola Fest will once again coincide with Folsom Street Fair weekend.
But who says leather, ruffled feathers, and bass bins can’t coexist?
Produced by Goldenvoice and conceived by Danny Bell, the SVP Talent Buyer for Goldenvoice in San Francisco, the festival has managed to secure a diversity that’s the bizness, despite another dearth of local talent.
Headliners include Four Tet, M.I.A., and Floating Points, all of whom are well-known in the electronic music scene. However, in San Francisco, the music scene goes much deeper.
Chase & Status, a prominent drum and bass act from the UK, known for leading the breakbeat genre’s resurgence, is scheduled to perform. Disco revivalist Jessie Ware is also on the bill, along with hard techno veteran Honey Dijon, who is sure to deliver a fierce and lengthy set. Additionally, buzz-worthy DJs Seinfeld and Pee Wee (the alter ego of musician Anderson .Paak) are set to bless the decks.
Deltron 3030, a local act from the Bay Area featuring producer Dan the Automator, rapper Del the Funky Homosapien, and DJ Kid Koala, will give a rare performance that is sure to excite the hometown crowd.
The lineup also includes big-room players Justice and Gesaffelstein, who recently delivered impressive performances at Coachella. Other notable acts include Peaches, Nia Archives, Boys Noize b2b VTTS, Shygirl, Soulwax, Rüfüs du Sol, Jamie xx, and Brazilian house phenom Mochakk, among many others.
Grab tickets here.
THE EXPANDING JOY OF BATOV RECORDS
Shrinkflation is such a thing, I’ve traded in my White Claw for frisco instant coffee.
That too is a thing, people.
So we’d like to do a first right here at Under The Stars. We’re gonna serve up a twofer.
Money is tight, Stakes Is High, and we are empathetic to the times.
With this move on our part, you can relax: The product remains solid.
Legit.
That’s right music nerd, digging into that Khruangbin vibe that seems to be every-friggin’-where these days. Welp, Batov Records, launched by DJ Kobayashi and Bob Martyn, is kinda sorta a lodestar to that type of funk.
The imprint’s roots remain firm, platforming idiosyncratic poly-bump hybrids from all corners of the globe, but they get shoegaze too. Take, for example, Rasco.
Copped from the Charlie Megira track “At the Rasco” and high off the fumes of The Cramps, Beach Boys, Elvis, April March, and others, comes Rasco, a quixotic hypnagogic pop band that gets that rawness, sand-between-the-toes surf-garage weirdness spot on, crossed up with vocal blending and sexy fuzzed up guitar parts.
They claim it’s a one-of-a-kind sonic blueprint that sounds like something you dreamed of hearing at Twin Peaks’ infamous Roadhouse.
Fair. Get thizzy here.
But let’s get back to that swirling groove, shall we?
Middle Eastern psych, funk, disco, Japanese folk, and pop somehow contort to sound like a fat slice of summer. It’s the good space of convergence where band Sababa 5 and Japanese singer and belly dancer Yurika Hanashima join forces to make their own vibed-out hippest trip of psychedelic soul, with hints of the Mediterranean coast and desert. “Kokoro”, the lead single from the upcoming album in July, goes beyond earworm, it’s head-nod candy for the rhythmically impaired. Listen up Sparky, Batov Records has been crushing it with authenticity for the past decade. Go ask tastemaker, Gilles Peterson, he knows what’s up. “Kokoro” keeps that stretch intact.
Order it here.
LA LUZ, NEWS OF THE UNIVERSE (SUB POP)
La Luz, the band led by Shana Cleveland, in their debut release for Sub Pop records (half-owned by Warner Music Group), News of The Universe, has assembled a captivating release which shares space in the otherworldly hallucinogenic pop lane and straddles that heart-filled melancholy department.
Cleveland—who drew inspiration from difficult personal challenges, health battles, and an adapted creed from science fiction author Octavia E. Butler—along with drummer Audrey Johnson and long-time members, bassist Lena Simon and keyboardist Alice Sandahl, found symmetry amidst the chaos.
Check for the rhythmic instrumental “Close Your Eyes,” and the guitar whizzes of “Strange World.” Automatically listeners will immediately understand why producer Maryam Qudos (Spacemoth), from the Bay Area, is producing this band.
As described in the album notes, the all-women environment allowed Cleveland to feel safe, explore difficult places, and express difficult emotions that women are socialized to suppress. “Having that kind of connection and comfort from the start allowed us to take it further,” she says. “We didn’t spend the first half of the session being careful not to offend someone’s ego.”
News of the Universe is a bold and moving symphonic rock moment sure to require multiple plays here or someplace in the outer galaxies..
Get it here.
ALUMINUM, “BEHIND MY MOUTH”
Okay, Boppers. Somehow the San Francisco shoegaze band Aluminum, featuring Ryann Gonsalves, who also released a new LP with Torrey on Slumberland earlier this year, snuck up on me without warning. But I can dig it. Their single “Behind My Mouth,” released in March, has a “Madchester” feel to it, reminiscent of Happy Mondays and Soup Dragons. The band also includes members of Marbled Eye and Wild Moth.
It’s the Bay Area. Everyone has multiple jobs!
Their second single, “Beat,” is a more straightforward jagged riff sitch with fuzzy textures and braggadocio rhythms. I’m excited to see them perform live and witness their mix of retro and contemporary faded textures.
San Francisco keeps producing these quality bands that stick in your head long after the first listen.
Aluminum is worth adding to your local rotation.
The album drops on May 24, pre-order here.
REMAIN IN LIGHT AT QUARRY AMPHITHEATER, JUNE 23 SANTA CRUZ
That’s right. REMAIN IN LIGHT, a special concert series produced by Jerry Harrison and Adrian Belew that features former members of Talking Heads touring band is coming to Santa Cruz this summer.
Last year they stole the show at The Mill Valley Music Festival, opening with “Psycho Killer,” and working through the ’80s Talking Heads oeuvre including “Life During Wartime,” “Once in a Lifetime,” and “Take Me to the River.”
It’s the perfect moment for this revue since the original band members besides Harrison—Chris Frantz, Tina Weymouth, and David Byrne—are getting along these days, with the revival for Talking Heads’ 1984 concert film Stop Making Sense making the 40th Anniversary rounds.
There is an all-star covers album getting ready to drop soon too. Alas.
There’s no “let’s get the band back together for a big bag of cash” tour talk from the original members soooo?
Shoot. Santa Cruz Quarry Amphitheater, it is!
Grab tickets here.
FRED EVERYTHING, LOVE, CARE, KINDNESS & HOPE (LAZY DAYS RECORDING)
The title of Frédéric Blais’s fifth album comes from four words he scribbled down on a Post-it early on during the global lockdown. Love, Care, Kindness, and Hope guided his project like a Jedi, seeing and moving objects out of the way that were not sonically aligned with the goal.
At least that’s what it sounds like.
Fred Everything, hailing out of Montreal, has been super busy all these years helping, collaborating and just lending a guiding hand and helpful ear. I kept seeing that name pop up on early Jayda G releases.
Now we know why.
Take for example the absolute burner of a house track featuring Mr House vocalist himself, Robert Owens.
A follow-up to their 2021 collaboration “I’ll Take You In,” “Never” was written during Robert’s last trip to Montreal. Forever simple in the additive elements department, but as a complete chart: Those keys, that bassline, and the superhuman, emotionally present reading of lyrics by Mr Owens, I mean, that’s what he does right? Fred Everything locked this track up. It’s dance floor-ready in any setting.
Class, elegance, and bump. Thank you.
Pre-order here.
PAUL BRYAN, “FAMILY MAN” FROM WESTERN ELECTRIC
Grammy-winning bassist, composer, and producer Paul Bryan’s most recent project, Western Electric, takes on the personality of its creator: an album constructed with eclectic ideas and various influences. Bryan, who has worked with singer-songwriter Aimee Mann, exchanged musical ideas that stick with beat scientist and jazz chameleon Jeff Parker, or centering the pocket with Elvis Costello, has added the expertise of drummer Jay Bellerose and saxophonist Josh Johnson for his new mysticism.
On the track “Family Man,” the trio begins with bass, fuzz-tone sorcery, and saxophone blues running wafty and delayed over a Weather Report-esque feel. While abstract keyboard runs appear midway, the track as a whole feels from another era and dimension while remaining firmly seated on the one. Bryan’s release succeeds as an out-there-there but in-there journey, with stellar musicians transporting charts to other atmospheres.
Pick it up here.
