January is the month where music is moving underneath the surface, feeling out the venues, plotting and planning for those great days under the sun, at a festival. If you are a globe-trotting DJ or band, January is the month you’re finishing up those FaceTime calls with managers and bookers, and plotting out which month you’ll be on the road playing the Empty Bottle in Chicago, the Iron Horse in Northampton, MA, or the Continental Club in Austin, TX.
A couple weeks ago we found out this years edition of BottleRock Napa Valley will resemble a trip down MTV’s dominant decades with performers Foo Fighters, Backstreet Boys, and LCD Soundsystem headlining, and more than 80 other artists set to hit the popular music, wine, and culinary festival over Memorial Day weekend this year. As usual January is the perfect time to sell those late May vibes.
Fans of music, as always, should plan accordingly.
SATYA AT SFJAZZ JOE HENDERSON LAB, THU/29 + FRI/30
In recent years, a new generation of Oakland neo-soul and R&B stars (like Veotis Latchison, performing March 1 as part of Noise Pop 2026), have been transforming their genres, receiving valuable exposure at the Joe Henderson Lab at SFJAZZ. This smaller, intimate venue holds about 100 attendees and features a funky club atmosphere where the energy of the performers can be felt closely.
Satya Hawley, a vocalist with roots in Oakland and New Orleans, is an emerging artist whose diverse talents blend indie rock and R&B. Her unique sound, reminiscent of Mazzy Star, Sade, and Prince, shines in all environments, but even brighter here. Satya will be returning to the Lab for the first time since her performance at Noise Pop in 2023. Be sure to make time and space for this artist, as the venue is perfect for showcasing her fine abilities.
Grab tix here.
SWEET RELIEF BENEFIT CONCERT HONORING TAJ MAHAL AT MASONIC AUDITORIUM, FEBRUARY 21
Arriving about a year and a month after becoming a 2025 Lifetime Achievement Grammy honoree, legendary blues musician Taj Mahal will be honored with an all-star lineup performing at the Sweet Relief Musicians Fund in his esteemed regard.
Mahal, who has collaborated with everyone from Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters to Jerry Garcia and the Rolling Stones, not to mention Bob Marley and the Wailers, has crafted a career that resembles a wild and unpredictable weathervane of activity, pushing genres and maximizing the limits many genres, not least of the blues. A who’s who lineup of musicians that includes Van Morrison, Stevie Van Zandt, George Thorogood, Mike Campbell, Patty Griffin, and newly added Joan Baez, who was the honoree at a similar Sweet Relief benefit just last year. Of the upcoming event, Taj Mahal said he’s “thrilled to be honored and to celebrate with good feeling music.”
Sweet Relief Musicians Fund provides services and financial assistance for career musicians and music industry professionals. Grants are earmarked for medical and vital living expenses, including medical treatments and insurance premiums, housing costs, food costs, utilities, and other necessities.
Grab info for tix here.
NOISE POP PHASE THREE PAYS TRIBUTE TO BOTTOM OF THE HILL
Organizers of Noise Pop have added a celebration of Bottom of the Hill in response to the recent announcement of the storied venue’s closing, booking cold-wave dynamo Black Marble at Great American Music Hall, and expanding the festival to 90+ acts across 15 Bay Area venues from February 19 through March 1.
According to the press release, “at a moment when many festivals are scaling bigger and sounding narrower, Noise Pop continues to stand apart as a discovery-forward, indie-produced alternative that reflects the full spectrum of San Francisco’s music culture.”
You can witness that local culture by attending shows that feature Bay Area standouts like Lyrics Born, Orcutt Shelly Miller, and Spacemoth.
Other notable Phase 3 additions include Los Angeles psych-punk rockers Death Valley Girls rocking Kilowatt as part of a special event marking the third anniversary of the venue’s reopening; back-to-back nights at the historic 4 Star Theater with London-based Eleni Drake and Julie Doiron; and a newly added second show from The Pains of Being Pure at Heart at Rickshaw Stop on February 19, due to overwhelming fan demand.
More info and ticket purchase here.
TROPICAL FUCK STORM AT THE CHAPEL, FEBRUARY 3
In all the “Best of” hullabaloo for 2025, I kinda forgot about this Australian band, with the purposely cursed name, ’cause that puppy fits. I had to punk out on seeing them this summer, which ultimately is my friggin’ loss. To recap: Gareth Liddiard, Lauren Hammel, Fiona Kitschin, and Erica Dunn are freaky weird. They fashion lopsided avant-punk that doesn’t look where it shall land next. Yes, it feels like Talking Heads and the B-52’s had a 21st-century Australian shit-talking baby, and that sucker is forever on the loose—and we can’t help but be obsessed with it. They’re not called post-apocalyptic acid punk disco scuzzheads for nuthin.’
But now in 2026, I’ve got an even greater amount of respect for the attitude this band brings with it.
Anyone with a TV streaming fetish will have watched, intensively, two shows this past year. That’s “Pluribus,” from the “Breaking Bad”/”Better Call Saul” camp on Apple TV and “The Chair Company,” a completely gonzo deep-dive detective romp featuring Tim Robinson on MAX. While both shows simmer at different temperatures of crazy, there is a serious conversation between the two excellent absurdist, comedic dramas that revolve around how, in our modern life, systems are broken. You can barely operate without some type of digital exploitation or misinterpreted human interaction.
The more you try to go about calling attention to solving these modern problems, the more you as an individual get associated with being the actual problem, and you’re tagged and bagged for the fuck-truck back to Hoboken. Not exactly, but you get the idea. There’s a great deal in life and society that seems unfixable these days, and it’s even sillier that two recklessly brilliant scripted shows see it for what it is, unlike, oh, I dunno, governments?
There is more to it, but that’s the gist. While watching both of these shows, I had my own Tropical Fuck Storm soundtrack flowing through the noggin. As we continue to experience an unprecedented time, where no resolutions ever seem to be in sight, Tropical Fuck Storms’ silliness keeps the wolves of despair at a safe distance.
Grab tickets here.
RIP, BOB WEIR
The more that you study the true masters of music, the more you find out how they are also ambassadors. They pull from, get inspired by, and reach a certain type of high off other arrangements, players, and compositions, just like we all do. For somebody who always had a great deal of Deadheads in my casual friendship circles over the past 30-some odd years, I was never a so-called Deadhead.
Grateful Dead founding member Bob Weir died at the age of 78 on January 10. He played rhythm guitar and sang lead vocals for the entirety of the Grateful Dead’s 30-year career and continued playing in numerous bands such as Other Ones and the Dead, and, just last summer, Dead & Company. Over the past couple of years, he played tirelessly at Sweetwater in Mill Valley. I’d assume if he were still alive, he’d be playing at the Sweet Relief Benefit Concert in February, honoring his friend Taj Mahal.
As I’ve shared here over the years, I did in fact attend the memorial for Jerry Garcia in Golden Gate Park on August 12, 1995; my housemate at the time was a pensive jazz drummer with a quick temper who dragged me with him to pay respects. It was, how can you say, another Dead experience, messy and beautiful as only they can do in life and in the afterlife, but I’m glad I attended.
I was very sorry to hear about Weir’s passing, he was an original thinker. I like the way he dug into San Francisco sports on a real fan level. He cared about the Warriors, Giants, and other local sports franchises deeply. So many times artists feel as though they can’t take part in sports spaces, which I find ridiculous. You follow your heart, right? That’s the thing, this whole art-thing is about. Right?
In this “What’s In My bag” video from Amoeba Music, Bob Weir mentions playing Bessie Smith tunes “at a little club in Mill Valley” with a friend, and also highlights how the John Coltrane composition “Tunji” is one of his faves, and you see his eyes light up. As i’ve read in his obituary, he suffered from undiagnosed dyslexia which led Weir to be expelled from nearly every school he attended, but somehow as a muscian he possessed the innate ability to be present in the throes of a moment, a feeling, an emotion, a wave of improvisation with a shared group of friends and strangers throughout his entire muscial career. A certain attention to detail carried through to his listening and compositional skills on the fly, and in the responses. Something dyslexia could not touch or tarnish.
RIP Bob Weir.
