We would like to extend a heartfelt holiday greeting to everyone who chooses to see what the hell Shiver is writing about musically at Under The Stars this week and every week. 48Hills would greatly appreciate your support during this gift-giving season to help ensure this community-based platform continues to exist through 2026.
No freakin joke, Mang.
So to put you up on game and extend over the “finger quotes” holiday (we do not want to offend anyone’s own personal beliefs), we’d like to suggest a show a couple of days after said holiday that I know for sure will put you in the mood for joy.
KARL DENSON’S SEXY 69TH BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION AT THE FILLMORE, DECEMBER 27
Funk-jazz saxophonist Karl Denson has been known to tell his SF crowds that when the band started off in the 1990s, people used to think he was from San Francisco because he played a lot of shows at the Elbo Room. They drove such good business to the bar that they were able to lose money playing less well-attended shows in Sacramento and other distant points where they weren’t as well known.
Which kinda makes sense why he’s celebrating his birthday right here, in Fog City.
As someone who lived in Elbo Room’s Mission District neighborhood at the time, it totally tracks. In those days, it was all about Karl Denison’s Tiny Universe, aka KDTU, Greyboy All-Stars, Alphabet Soup, and the main draw for the decade, Charlie Hunter.
That concentration of live music, funk, and groove made Elbo Room and Valencia Street the spot to be at on any given evening.
KDTU is still the band to see. When Denson is not called away to play for the Rolling Stones, you can find his world-renowned band performing as Sexual Chocolate (Karl was in the original band in the movie Coming To America and its sequel). They were the first late-night act at the inaugural Bonnaroo festival, have performed sold-out concerts during Jazzfest in New Orleans, and in the fields of Naeba at Japan’s infamous Fuji Rock Festival.
Make Karl Denson your after-Xmas special treat, and wish him a healthy and happy birthday while you are at it.
Grab tickets here.
THE OLYMPIANS, “HONEY BEA” (DAPTONE RECORDS)
The Olympians, a group of New York City’s most sought-after musicians led by Toby Pazner, songwriter for Lee Fields as well as band keyboard player and manager for 16 years, make cinematic soul, drawing on the arrangement stylings of Curtis Mayfield and James Brown. Their new project, In Search of a Revival, leans into the golden era of the studio famous Wrecking Crew, with the lush textures of Gold Star Studios, vintage film scores, and the more obscure corners of cinematic soundscapes.
“Honey Bea,” a song written by Pazner for his daughter Beatrice, features a weighty and vital 10-piece string section, four trumpets, two trombones, and a baritone. “I wanted to make something big that sounds different than things everyone is making today,” said Pazner. If you listen closely, you will hear references to “I Am the Walrus” by The Beatles and Cream’s “I Feel Free” during the interlude. That type of grand drama, coming from real-life instruments, does in fact track hallucinatory and time-bending traits The Beatles possessed back when they turned the studio into an instrument all its own. Here we are, barreling into 2026 and still, those four mop-tops are shaping how we make, hear, and listen to music.
Pre-order In Search of a Revival here.
NEWCLEUS, JAM ON REVENGE (DARLA)
1984 was a doozy, right? In the era of Prince hits like “When Doves Cry” and “Let’s Go Crazy,” the revival of Tina Turner, John Waite’s—sorry bro—notable ballad “Missing You,” Newcleus emerged from Bedford-Stuyvesant blending up funk, hip-hop, and electro to create streetwise joints with (wikki, wikki, wikki) raps that could pass as boogie today.
“Jam On It” was a cassette boombox jam, a certified street hit, and pause-tape staple in the throes of Reganomics. Before that track even thought of getting radio airplay, it moonlighted as breakdancers’ feature tune and was blasted on basketball and handball courts equally, all over New York City in the summer of ’84. This electro, for sure Kraftwerkian arrangement, was embraced by Black radio first, and then hit the Billboard charts with Casey Kasem’s weekend Top 40 approval.
Newcleus’s Jam on Revenge album is finally on vinyl for consumers who want a taste of what made the kids buy parachute pants, breakdance in checkered vans and buy 12-inch records at said local record store. The real heroes on these tracks? Those masterful Roland synths, such as the Juno, Jupiter, and JX series, as well as the Roland TR-707 and TR-727 drum machines. Anyone who makes electronic music today understands how these dinosaurs paved the way to our pop music landscape.
As much as “Jam On It” remains a global anthem, it’s the electro-funk upbeat ballad “Automan” that cut the deepest crevice. To hear an upbeat love song aka tortured ballad, with all this technology surrounding the narrative, remains paranormal, even in 2025.
Complete your vinyl collection and cop this here.
VARIOUS ARTISTS, LATE SHIFT SILK (100% SILK)
I’m always open to the new hip-speak when talking about really good music. So, hit a dude with all that oily talk: monorail house, ASMR breaks, boombox 2-step, lo-fi cruise, velvet groove, aquatic dub. It doesn’t matter. One listen, I know it’s 100% Silk.
15 years in the game, this LA label doesn’t miss. Ever. They always bring the right amount of rhythmic pressure, or as they like to say, “music for inner circles under low lights”, holding it down, holding it together, to the end of the night.
Now we’ve got their end-of-the-year, various-artists compilation that features talents from all over the globe. I think there are pay-what-you-want Bandcamp codes available, but give it a quick listen first, and then support the label with a little something. You don’t want to diss yourself.
Purchase here.
SISTER NANCY AND FAKE FRUIT AT THE CHAPEL, FRI/19
A clash of the right proportions will occur when global icon Sister Nancy, the first female Jamaican deejay to tour internationally, arrives in SF with her transcontinental anthem “Bam Bam.”
Opening in support of this legend is Fake Fruit, the Bay Area-based, nervy post-punk outfit led by the plainspoken delivery and sneering wit of California native Hannah “Ham” D’Amato.
This is what we call a show, kiddos.
Grab tickets here.
MICHAEL SHANNON AND JASON NARDUCY PERFORM R.E.M.’S LIFE’S RICH PAGEANT AT THE FILLMORE, FEBRUARY 17
Is that you in the corner, in the spotlight, losing your… nope, sorry, different album.
Michael Shannon & Jason Narducy are doing their R.E.M. tribute tour again, this third time in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the band’s fourth album, Life’s Rich Pageant. They’ll play the album—which includes “Fall on Me,” “Superman,” “Begin the Begin,” “Life and How to Live it,” “These Days”, and more—in full, plus a lot of other R.E.M. songs with their band: Jon Wurster (drums), John Stirratt (bass), Dag Juhlin (guitar), and Vijay Tellis-Nayak (keyboards).
I haphazardly found Shannon on Late Night with Seth Meyers a while back, and he did promise they would be playing “Superman,” despite the coincidence of his dramatic role as General Zod in a previous presentation of the film.
Listen, this sounds super dope. Shannon is an odd duck in all the right and perfect ways.
Go see him in the excellent Netflix miniseries “Death by Lightning,” where he plays James Garfield, the 20th president of the United States. Also, since we are in the jingle bell season, you can also catch Shannon in the Holiday comedy ” The Night Before” where he plays, yes, Mr. Green, an angel/weed dealer assisting Seth Rogen and his friends to make better decisions so Mr Green can earn his wings.
Oh, that Shannon. He possesses what people call… range.
Grab tickets here.
