Happy Juneteenth, everyone. It’s Under The Stars. A quasi-weekly column that presents new music releases, upcoming shows, opinions, and other adjacent items. We keep it moving, hustling with the changes, thinking outside the margins. We’ve been doing this for five years… Spend some time with us…
RON TRENT, LIFT OFF (RUSH HOUR MUSIC)
If you tell me that it’s time for a Ron Trent long player, I will pleasantly respond, “Yes. It is.”
Lift Off, a 90-minute escapade through “what dance music can become” from the long-standing Chicago producer, maneuvers unrushed, loose, and heady-easy through new wave, alternative, slow jams, big-stepping grooves, and anything he feels needs that “rich rhythms, warm chords, impeccable instrumentation” Trent signature. Recorded at different points over the last five years, it skits about, making big splashes with retro bass lines that would make D-Train very happy, as in the bumper of a track, “Jazz-Funk.” We’ve got boogie royalty with the Leroy Burgess cameo on the big-stepping, rolling groove “Let Me See You Shining,” which gives Frankie Crocker/WBLS New York vibes to a 2025 creation. Big, big tune right there.
We’ve also got deep atmospheric funk with the meditations “Woman of Color” and “Juice” that cruise along in their private airspace of full-bodied chords and stinging handclaps. So when we get to Trent’s bread and butter, uptempo arrangements that can take a dance floor from midnight to sunrise, you might have forgotten he’s a master house producer. But we get that reminder in full on the ever-giving “Street Wave,” featuring the seminal guitarist Lars Bartkuhn.
You’ll be pleased to hear Trent is set to return to global touring in 2025. So pick up Lift Off. Yes, the wax is a bit pricey, but some things are worth the price.
Grab it here.
REVIEW: CHOKECHERRY AT THE CHAPEL, JUNE 14
It was the night after the nationwide and especially local No Kings Day protests, and horrendous ICE raids had been taking place intermittently, all during Pride Month. So SF by default was already at Defcon 4.
I was supposed to hit another “festival” in the city on that day, but the ticket availability didn’t jive with the performance time of the band I was supposed to cover, so yeah. It was time to see what I’d been told repeatedly over the past couple of years was SF’s buzziest band: Chokecherry. Yep. The band named after a shrub known for its bitter, astringent berries, whose two co-lead members met on the dating app Hinge, was opening for the psych folk, lo-fi blues, garage-rock trio L.A. Witch at The Chapel—and my schedule was conveniently open.
I fired up “No Other Place” from their aptly titled 2024 EP Messy Star—nicely done—on the way to the venue. It’s a bop, Jack. Characterizing what band members Izzie A. Clark, Abri Crocitto, and E. Scarlett Levinson do best: fly through a prism of sped-up shoegaze, ’90s counterculture grunge, alt-rock fuzz, and outskirt pop sensibilities. They move like Soundgarden’s younger, faster, and snarkier sister. Not a diss at all. Messy Star is a helluva well-produced EP, and made me want to see them even more.
So I slide into the venue just as they take the stage, and it’s apparent this is a homecoming of sorts for them. Clark and Levinson are beaming, looking out at friends, their city, their community, getting ready to hit. They roll through a combination of Messy Star tunes, preview a couple of new ones from the upcoming album dropping on November 7, and alert us all that they will be back in town around the release date; it’s a tour where they are opening for San Diego-based band Wavves. But amidst all the announcements, they make sure to tell their crowd, “Fuck ICE, stand up, support your community, San Francisco.”
I applaud the sentiment while ordering a beer and a shot of tequila from the bartender. He tries to explain over the band’s sleek shoegazey sway of “I Know You”—they kind of got that style down pat—that Clark and Levinson have a Chapel connection. As I take my beverages, I notice both bartenders are focused on the show. That’s a tell in venue bar culture language. Bartenders see all the bands, and most of the time are just focused on making their money. But these guys are Chokecherry focused, as is the entire crowd, who doubled in attendance in a matter of minutes. Respect.
BLISS FEST AT PRESIDIO THEATRE, SAT/21 & SUN/22
We’re going to run this back, like you were sitting in the cheap seats at a sold-out stadium show and could not hear what the band on stage was saying… This show and venue just might be the new way to do music, food, and forestry in San Francisco… That’s right, I said what I said!
The third annual Presidio Theatre Bliss Festival is returning to San Francisco’s national park this weekend, Sat/21 and Sun/22. City residents and music aficionados can take part and thrive in the glow of live music amidst the serene environs of nature. No after-effects of hundreds of thousands of half-naked patrons, high, geeked, and sunburnt… Not here.
Just a family-friendly outdoor music festival on a San Francisco burrito budget. Single-day tickets are $35 for adults and $10 for youth. If you choose to buy both days, you will automatically receive a package discount of $50 for adults and $15 for youth.
With a Saturday lineup featuring Martin Luther McCoy, The Seshen, and Orchestra Gold, that’s affordable. Add to that a Sunday lineup featuring Grahame Lesh & Friends, Jesús Díaz and the Fifth Chord, and Alam Khan & Eman Hashimi: Tribute to Zakir Hussain. Hands down or hands up, appropriately… it’s the most accessible, feasible, and least stressful music festival you will find amongst the SF trees this summer. With complementary wine and beer tasting on-hand, food trucks including Curry Up Now and El Fuego, and other food, beverage, and art vendors. Plus, the first 100 people on both Saturday and Sunday will receive a free poster designed by Brian Blomerth.
Summer has just gotten easier to navigate, people.
Grab tickets and info here.
MONZANTO SOUND, “PEPPER DEM” (NONE MORE RECORDS)
Loaded with “funky drummer” drum breaks, directional vocals you want in your life—especially in the sweltering summer months for cool vibrations—and this whole jazzy-for-purpose attitude? I’m smitten, Jack, with this rising South East London-based music collective called Monzanto Sound. Body music for the soul is the way “Pepper Dem” operates, a whole vibe for you and yours. Hold tight for the August release of their debut album The Channel.
Pre-order here.
CHIME SCHOOL AT BOTTOM OF THE HILL, FRI/20
Just in time for Bay-Area music fans to reacquaint themselves with the faces of some local faves, Chime School will be headlining a three-bill treat at what Rolling Stone once called “the best place to hear live music in San Francisco”, which we know as Bottom of The Hill.
Fresh off touring the hell out of their sophomore LP The Boy Who Ran The Paisley Hotel on the Oakland imprint Slumberland Records, the band played the Paris Popfest, toured the UK, took a trip to the PNW, and just recently returned from Spain, where they played the Madrid Popfest and additional shows. As a matter of fact, they are headed back to the UK again in July, so boppers, make sure to catch this show. Always good to hear that fog-pop is taking over across the pond.
Also on the bill is The Telephone Numbers, which is fronted by Thomas Rubinstein, lead jangler in The Reds, Pinks & Purples, and Morgan Stanley of the Umbrellas, who may just have a new album in the works. In addition, Remedy & Wren, the third act on the bill, are a brand-new group featuring Bay Area indie legends Alicia Vanden Heuvel of Poundsign fame, Tony Molina, Dan Lee, and Becky Barron. Ramshackle pop, girl-group harmonies, fuzzy bass, energetic drums, and reverb-laden guitars is the word on the street about this outfit, who currently have nothing released. Sounds like a fine night.
Grab a ticket here.
DRUGDEALER FEAT. WEYES BLOOD, “REAL THING”
Michael Collins (Drugdealer) can tap into early ’70s AM radio ephemera, or late ’70s Steely Dan sleaze, maneuvering about all the up-with-people shades in between. After wondering for so long who the hell this band is that named itself Drugdealer, last summer, I caught the artist, outfit, and vibe in one hell of an evening of sometimes-disorganized modal pop blues.
Leaving The Chapel that night, I immediately wanted more.
Collins is a bit of a savant when crafting warm ideas on sound that have a pin prick of psychedelic mellow glue that can put a trance on a sold-out crowd in about 30 minutes.
I’m a damn witness.
Hearing a collaboration with his charts and Weyes Blood’s vocals makes me think of Burt Bacharach if he got high, dropped ludes, and cracked jokes in the middle of a killer set.
“Real Thing,” constructed of stellar pop tunes manship, unites longtime collaborators Collins and Natalie Mering (Weyes Blood), making us all yearn for fewer shenanigans and more of this top-flight production acumen we know Collins can knock out of the box. With so many fools faking the funk on the retro tip these days, sometimes it’s an entire label, Collins’s genius-type chops shine. “Real Thing,” featuring veteran band members doing a less-is-more reading, minus the saxual healing toward the end, nudges our memory bank that Drugdealer, whose name just popped up on the Austin-based Levitation festival billboard 9/25-9/28, is due for a pop masterpiece of a record, soon.
Grab the tune here.
BLACK DAHLIA’S JUNETEENTH AT RICKSHAW STOP, FRI/20
About once a year, I get to see a show at Rickshaw that prompts contemplation. You think I’m kidding? SpaceMoth, The Messthetics & James Brandon Lewis, BALTHVS, even Princess ove 10 years ago… all at Rickshaw. Between the weird dance parties, from Chappel Roan to Shrek, Nerd Nites, and such, when it comes time to book a serious show, they do the work.
Over and over again.
So nobody, including myself, should be shocked that they are presenting a Juneteenth punk party with promoter Black Dahlia. That’s right, snowflake. Get in the pit with Kind Eyes, Basuko, Fatal, On Bended Knee, and Forever and Always. This is rad, inclusive, and more importantly, right. Shouts to Rickshaw. Now it’s up to us to support it.
Grab tix here.
