Hey, it’s Under The Stars. Happy Pride folks… Join us for our quasi-weekly column that presents new music releases, upcoming shows, opinions, and other adjacent items. We keep it moving like a shell game, hustling with the changes, and thinking outside the margins. We’ve been doing this for five years… Spend some time with us…
FAREWELL PHOENIX HOTEL
We all came to recognize the place once known as the Caravan Motor Lodge, as the Phoenix Hotel, a Tenderloin landmark where famous artists like Bowie, Cobain, Pearl Jam, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers stayed during its heyday. After 39 years of Pride extravaganzas and those unforgettable pool parties, it will be closing its doors at the end of the year.
In the ’90s, I had a drum and bass party with a friend at the venue inside called Backflip. The gig turned heads and made patrons second-guess what was coming from the speakers. At that time, Backflip was known more as a go-to for parties that featured house music. Not for our grimey and grumpy low-end bass music. I even hosted a few happy hours there.
One time DJ Spooky stayed at the hotel. This is a true story.
He was in town, nominated for a Webby Award. He had a track called “Object Unknown” featuring Kool Keith and Sir Menelik, and the beat was just a damn bop. I used to bump the instrumental to set the mood and just watch people’s eyes bug out.
Down comes DJ Spooky, hearing his tune but unsure where it was coming from, literally “seeing objects,” searching around, unaware that a DJ was tucked away around the corner. I played his track a couple of times that afternoon just to tease him—he didn’t find it amusing, but I did!
Make sure to swing by that landmark pool, have a drink, or pour one out for all the parties, all the times, had by many at the Tenderloin destination place that is soon to be no more.
DIRECTIONS IN STEREO & 415 ZINE AT 540 BAR, FRI/27
It’s the last Friday of the month, finally, and you desperately need that extra boost of creative expression by way of those audible treats called vinyl. Come down to 540 Bar, where DJ night Directions in Sound, hosted by DJ Circuit 73, will be hosting a curated set of music from the year Circuit 73 was born—1973. (He’s wrapping up his birthday week.) You can expect, as always, an eclectic mix of jazz, rock, reggae, soul, funk, and more from arguably one of the best years in music history.
In addition, special guests from 415 Zine celebrate the latest issue of their quarterly mini-magazine, which explores San Francisco’s expansive art culture. Owners Laine and Alfredo will be on hand from 6-9pm with hot-off-the-press copies of Issue #6, as well as past editions to complete your collection, and 415 Zine swag.
So mark it on your Notes app and come down to the heart of Inner Richmond at 540 Bar, purveyors of ice-cold beer, deliciously stiff cocktails, rotating art shows, and pinball machines. 540’s inclusive nature and community vision make this taproom a neighborhood fave.
More info here.
REVIEW: VALERIE JUNE AT PALACE OF FINE ARTS THEATRE, JUNE 18
As a semi-retired DJ who recently un-retired, I am a witness to the overwhelming power of music. Its ability to uplift makes strangers fast friends and can calm the waves of despair in seconds.
That’s the message: a clear and funky one, with flowers, images of owls: Valerie June touched down with at the Palace of Fine Arts Theater just one day before Juneteenth.
This Grammy-nominated singer’s trademark “pinched vocals” create haunting landscapes that represent all corners of music and seems to be country-based. That “organic moonshine roots music,” as she calls it, creates a tapestry draped in psychedelic folk, indie rock, Appalachian, bluegrass, soul, and gospel. Her new album, Owls, Omens, and Oracles (out via Concord), produced by M. Ward and featuring contributions from The Blind Boys of Alabama, Norah Jones, and more, is rootsy, suffused with hands-in-the-dirt folksiness.
But when you hear and see her live, all those classifications become words. Her fans get it. They were not confused by the crossed-up influences, because they come across naturally as rainwater on stage. This concert, as my friend brought to my attention, had “a ladies’ night vibe” to it, with some women in long flowing hippie dresses recalling Haight-Ashbury’s better days, while African American women of a certain age showed up in bedazzled sparkly tops and colorful sartorial combinations.
June cruised through her current hit, which speaks to that truth: “There is a light you can see/That is wanting to be free.” Its rousing “Joy, Joy!” refrain did, in fact, get patrons up, moving, gesturing, and giving up that joy. As she addressed the crowd, thanking them for coming by, she made sure to mention her love for Muir Woods, how special the trees are, and how they look out for one another and the forest, communicating how magical it would be if human beings could learn from the trees. That organic moonshine sensibility? Sounds like common sense.
THE CIRCLING SUN, ORBITS (SOUNDWAY RECORDS)
As if on cue, esteemed New Zealand jazz collective The Circling Sun arrives with big band jazz, sweeping vistas, heavenly choir arrangements, and just the right amount of syncopated grooves on their Orbits release. Carrying with it an instilled positivity, a life-affirming chord scheme, and gentle buoyancy for a better day, it’s vigorous bass work crossed with circular string charts, partly rooted in Afro-Cuban patterns and the modal explorations of Coltrane and Elvin Jones. Mang, Orbits confidently whips around big band jazz charts with solid footing and uplifting pep. Let the breeze fill your cup until it overflows.
Pre-order it here.
RAZ OLSHER, CRATERS OF THE LOST SOULS (FOSSIL SOUNDS)
Producer Raz Olsher, one half of the acclaimed duo Raz & Afla, takes the opportunity on Craters of the Lost Souls to move listeners into a dreamscape world of a spaghetti western with a downtempo, ambient feel that resides in the deep waters of electronic music. The London-based record producer, composer, and remixer sculpts a psychedelic Western soundtrack with creativity and class that harkens back to a time when trip-hop albums and a little smoke in the air could transport listeners to uncharted territories. With live instrumentation from top-flight musicians and arrangements that speak to yearning and isolation, Craters of the Lost Souls delivers adventures and emotions you’d find in a shoot-’em-up horse opera.
Giddy up here.
ISAAC HAYES, STAX RECORDS PRESENTS THE BEST OF ISAAC HAYES (CRAFT RECORDINGS)
Understand this, people: I couldn’t care less about whatever is considered holy and natural in this world regarding what Chef was cooking on South Park, whether it was in the cafeteria during the day or what he had on the menu after dark. I am here for the autodidact and civil rights activist who voice the character, an American master.
Mr. Isaac Hayes. Arranger, cultural icon, Grammy and Academy Award-winning creative force behind the Southern soul music label Stax Records, was an architect for expanding the genre, putting soul music into orchestral and cinematic realms. We’re talking psychedelic, baby. He remains a one of one. It’s called foresight.
Helping to pen “Soul Man,” which became Sam & Dave’s legacy, later on Hayes would push soul music through the crevices of what was happening in the culture at large of the time. Altering pop “read white,” music staples, from Burt Bacharach, Glen Campbell, and even reinterpreting hits by The Jackson 5, with short and stirring gospel stretches added for oomph. Issac was taking bout grown folks’ business, no time for boy band stuff, Michael.
But that arrangement acumen? The imprint is colossal and cosmic all at once.
Shoot. Let’s get cultural, too. It’s impossible to even calculate how many Black wives, girlfriends, and side pieces asked—nope, let me get that right—demanded their man (even back in the 1970s) shave his head so they could fantasize about Mr. Hot Buttered Soul himself, day and night, in the comfort of their own home.
Swag, juice, pull, whatever you want to call that; It’s the space in which Issac Hayes existed and dominated in for so long.
This brand-new compilation from Stax Records and Craft Recordings, gets a good grip on why Hayes remains singular in popular American music. There’s the Grammy-winning “Theme from Shaft,” which built the blaxploitation soundtrack business up from the shag carpet. And don’t miss the vivid, string-laden, picturesque arrangement of “Walk On By,”, galaxies away from Dionne Warwick’s creation. Hayes’ version would be the one Portishead chose to repurpose, launching their groundbreaking career with the enigmatic “Glory Box.”
I do believe the disruptive nine-plus-minute opus, essentially blues on acid, that is “Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic” from album Hot Buttered Soul deserves a mention. If only for Hayes’ straight-dealin’ gut-bucket gospel-funk piano solo running against that bass drum and snare, the bass keeping that pocket locked, getting all muscular in your ear piece, that dissertation alone—and seriously, folks, just rock with that solo—it’s still emblematic to this day. Sometimes people ask the dumb question, how does it feel to be Black in America? While the question is vast, this song, and specifically that solo, gives some quick insight. All you gotta do is listen. If you need more of an answer than that… you ever heard of a group called Public Enemy, folks?
Hayes’ discography would not just be the support beams for hip-hop; it would also become part of the basement foundation for electronic and popular music 50 years after his tracks were released. So I suggest you pick this up, pop on “Do Your Thing,” and let one of the true American music masters talk at ‘cha.
Order it here.
MAE POWELL, “TANGERINE”
The rough draft and outlines for Mae Powell’s sophomore album, Making Room for the Light, her debut for Karma Chief Records, were drawn and shaped while she was living on her mother’s farm, two hours north of San Francisco. The album opener “Tangerine” moves at a gentle two-step pace. “We were channeling Bob Dylan’s Nashville Skyline,” Powell revealed. But this country twang and front-porch truthfulness, it doesn’t just add to that SF cool; we get a songwriter in reveal mode, down-by-the-fire wholesomeness.
“I wrote ‘Tangerine’ as a testament to my squishy heart,” stated the Bay Area artist. “This idea of a tender heart being akin to a fruit getting smushed in the bottom of a bag, making a mess but also making everything smell really good. I will always be an advocate for living with your heart on your sleeve, telling the ones around you that you love them, because we never know how things might change. I’m also looking for the balance between open-heartedness and boundaries that can also serve as an act of self-love and care.”
You can pre-order that wholesome “squishyness” of an album here.
TRAX RECORDS: THE 40TH ANNIVERSARY COLLECTION
Born in Chicago, Trax is easily the Motown of electronic music. Alpha Dog all day. Those facts hit me hard during a seminal moment when I was deeply into drum and bass. I noticed producers like Calibre, Marcus Intalex (RIP), and Photek were using, sampling, and employing a heavy house influence in their arrangements. I mean, they were absolutely borrowing, hustling, stealing—being inspired by house music.
Look no further than “Mine To Give” by Photek, featuring none other than Robert Owens just blowing this arrangement through heady house waters. Man, it still cooks.
So many times I have thought about how drum and bass had a random collection of music heads making production connections to punk, disco, rock, funk, dub, jazz—but nah. They must all have been hanging around on Larry Levan’s floor decades before.
The Trax plant opened in Chicago in 1984, with the imprint becoming officially incorporated the following year. As house music flourished, Trax was widely recognized as a crucial early collective for the growth and development of the genre. In its early years, the label released key house tracks, including Frankie Knuckles and Jamie Principle’s “Your Love,” Marshall Jefferson’s “The House Music Anthem (Move Your Body)” and many other genre-defining classics by artists like DJ Pierre, Ron Hardy, Mr. Fingers, Phuture, Maurice Joshua, and Screamin’ Rachael.
Trax Records: The 40th Anniversary Collection is a release the label states, “captures the essence of the label’s past, present, and future.”
Still independent (yes, it preceded DJ Mag and Resident Advisor), Trax is an official elder ambassador of the entire genre of electronic music. Its legacy paved the way for all the styles of electronic music that represent so many revolutions being fought in this country and around the world, 365 days a year.
“Gotta have house, music!”
Tracklist:
Jacques x Gregory feat. Screamin’ Rachael – I’ll Take You There (Full Journey Mix)
Willie Wonka – What Is House
Frankie Knuckles – Your Love
Marshall Jefferson – Move Your Body
Stylophonic – Jack It Up
Armando – Love In Heart
Mark Row, Jame Starck feat. Carol Jiani – Free Your Mind
Paul Johnson – Follow This Beat
Screamin’ Rachael – Rising (Lea Rognoni Remix)
Fuck Charley Pleasure Zone – House Nation
Yuri Suzuki – DATA MANIA
D Beat – Pump It (Lea Rognoni Remix)
Sir Nesis- Freaks (So Called Friend Remix)
Frankie Bones – Beat Me Up
Joey Beltram – The Start It Up
Ricky Dillard – As Always (Full Vocal Version)
Marshall Jefferson – Ride The Rhythm (Remix)
Owen E – Shift
Analog 87 – rOOmclaSSic
Jorge, Carmelo Carone – Jack the Acid Kid (Hiroko Yamamura & Eric Elvambuena Remix)
Phuture – Spank Spank (Original Mix)
Screamin’ Rachael – Gina (XXX) [Someone from Lithuania with a Friend Named Jorge Remix]
Jared – Fly So High (Roger Sanchez Tilt Mix)
Hercules – 7 Ways to Jack
Ron Carroll – 1993 the Bargin Enterprize
Luca Gerlin – Battery (Kkles Mix)
Jesse Velez – Girls Out On The Floor (Dub)
Camilo Do Santos – 1984
Samurai Sam – House of Japanese
David Chong – There Is No Place
Frankie Knuckles – Your Love (You Got The Love Remix)
Seph Martin – Rainy Nights
Larry Sherman – Colors
Miss Autumn Leaves – No Turning Back
Late Nite ‘DUB’ Addict – The ‘F’ Word
Carlos Nilmmns feat. Genoveva – Fade Out (Original Mix)
Ron Hardy – Liquid Love (Chicago Mix)
Screamin’ Rachael – Sensation (Zewmob Radio Edit)
Chris Jones – Strong2 (Dance Mix)
Screamin’ Rachael – My Main Man
Keep an eye here for purchasing soon.
