Well, hello lovers of music and culture. We are Under the Stars, a quasi-weekly column that stays on message with strong-ass opinions, presenting new music releases, upcoming shows, 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…
MAGIC FIG, “FLAMMARION”
San Francisco certainly has a rich history of psych-pop groups, right? Well, Magic Fig is the first band to celebrate the works of Camille Flammarion, a 19th century French astronomer and author who had a deep interest in the spiritual and metaphysical realms.
“Flammarion,” the lead single from their upcoming debut full-length album, Valerian Tea, out later this month, the track both symphonic and harmonic features a full sound palette—piano, synthesizers, glockenspiel, organ, 12-string acoustic guitar, and electric guitar—that radiates warmth, eccentricity, and groovy textures. From the initial keyboard run to the MTV fonts in the visual, we are time-traveling from the jump.
This psych-pop supergroup consists of Inna Showalter (vocals, mellotron), Jon Chaney (keys), Muzzy Moskowitz (guitar), Matthew Ferrara (bass), and Taylor Giffin (drums), all of whom are members of various bands, including The Umbrellas, Healing Potpourri, Almond Joy, Whitney’s Playland, and Blades of Joy. The project’s goal is to explore an alternative musical realm. These accomplished local musicians share a passion for creating mind-altering musical experiences and invite listeners on a captivating journey that’s low-key, absolutely sick.
Pre-order here.
37 HOUSES AT KNOCKOUT, FRI/9
I was reading a band review from almost a year ago by the great Greil Marcus (heard of him, you should have if you surf in these rock and roll skreets), and he was surmising a crowd at a local dive bar, or in his odd terms a “grunge” bar. He made a specific observation about how this “grunge” bar was populated by about 60 people who all looked like they were rock stars or in bands.
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That? Dart accurate. You know how certain parts of SF are. You can be 20, 50, or 60, folks are still spending big money to try and look oh so damn cheap.
Local SF band 37 Houses sounds automatically, from the rip, like non-posers. A formidable rock outfit. Legit architects, off top, from the straight-ahead bellowing drive that emanates from vocalist Erin Sydney.
Oooh buddy. That voice will get you up and moving in the morning without coffee, tea, hot chocolate, or whatever the hell spiced or herbal beverages your morning awareness influencer is pushing on your social feed.
Like I said, no frills or tricks, a rock and roll band.
Formed during the pandemic (boo), nobody likes that word, Sydney and her husband, Jeremy Rosenblum, took all that bottled-up emotion and feels, that can be triggered within a nanosecond, I’ve heard, and fed that ’90s coffee house-created indie flick premise by building a high-flying band using the searing, gritty vocal caterwauls of Sydney, as evidenced on the blood pumping new single “Strangers,” in advance of their West Coast tour.
I suggest making that move, quickly, and getting down to The Knockout on November 9 to catch the next classic indie-rock band to climb its way to the top in Fog City. Ride the wave early, my friend.
Grab tickets here.
Grab the new EP here.
THUNDERCAT AT THE REGENCY BALLROOM, NOVEMBER 14
“Children of the Baked Potato,” a song on the upcoming Thundercat album dropping sometime in the future (?), refers to a historic hole-in-the-wall jazz club in LA that, yep, served baked potatoes. For over 50 years, it also showcased the best of LA’s jazz scene, fusion greats, and studio icons. It was the place to see your favorite musician’s favorite musicians, and it was a major influence on Thundercat.
He brought in Remi Wolfe for vocals on this math-fusion tornado of a jam that only Thundercat can do. Wolf, originally from Palo Alto, was on American Idol at the age of 17. (At one point, she was training to be an Olympic skier.) She embraces a wide range of genres—alterna-pop, funk-lite, and disco-adjacent sounds—while conveying a deep, unspoken message of self-love. “She’s a child of the Baked Potato like me,” Thundercat said. “She knew exactly what the song needed. And it was wild to watch her make it happen. The more I listen to the song, it’s clear there was no one better I could have picked.”
So uhhh, yes. Go see Thundercat at The Regency here in SF on November 14, blah blah blah….
But here’s my point. It’s these kinds of outsider arrangements, and I’ve seen Homeboy about four or five times, where he still brings that ‘lost in the music’ kind of love. I could go on for another 500 words, but I’ll just repeat my Thundercat mantra: He’s introduced jazz to a new generation, we’re talking younger listeners, causing the genre to grow exponentially in the 21st century.
Grab tickets here.
DJ-KICKS, ERIS DREW (!K7 RECORDS)
Growing up in a world immersed in physical media, taping things off the then-terrestrial radio, and then DJ sets, I was conditioned to eventually mix vinyl records.
On the radio, in a bar, at former SF clubs (Big Heart City, 181, Backflip, DNA, Slim’s), where you got paid in cash or, depending on what part of the city you were in, some folks would try to pay you in, err… other substances….
What a time.
There is a distinct smell, odor rather, a Rane MP 24 mixer gives off after tirelessly being beaten on night after night in a DJ booth where all types of drinks accidentally spill on that clubland beast, and it would just keep on pumping out those BPMs. Heh. Until it did not.
It totally tracks that DJ, producer, and musician, Eris Drew, is a long-time resident at Chicago’s Smartbar, a DJ church itself. When you hear, or rather experience, an Eris Drew mix, it’s not crafted to be cute, tricky, or trendy. Nah. It’s about sweat. Moving asses. Shakin’ butts.
Drew is not scared to put her foot innit. Rocking doubles, pulling out those OG tricks, blending Rave tunes with disco vocals, “hot mixing” at its finest. Assuring nightlife revelers who enter the club, leave, whenever the party has to end, in a higher state of mind. High off mid-’80s and early ’90s Master Mixes of club tracks presented with thunking bass, noisy-ass hip-house loops, horn snippets, and diva vocal samples running into the red. Booze, pills? Please…well, maybe some shrooms for good measure. But mostly full on euphoric on whatever Eris Drew and her Motherbeat are running through that Rane Mixer. Show me a computer program that can do that. You can’t, Bubba.
These types of DJ-Kicks mixes, including Eris Drew’s for sure, are the ones that redirect the entire 30-year tradition. Points us to the history so we can all go forward in rhythm. Drew lets us, between the breaks, rave highlights, vocal accents, handclaps, acid washes, and catch a glimpse of the beautiful human connection that comes through. Even a sliver of a second to hear that evergreen hiss between the grooves on the records. Ooooh.
These moments remind us that a mortal with a soul—not a machine—is behind this mix, and these rekkids have traveled many, many miles with Drew down the old rave road. She’s sharing and mixing history.
If you’ve been digging the Drew over-the-top vinyl manipulation show for a couple of years now, you will recognize a few of these tracks. They arrive like old friends who don’t owe you money. Meaning, you wanna see and hear them. The tracks may actually dap you up. That, in this time of immediacy, shows just how present Drew is as a DJ. These tunes, specifically the heavily hiss-laden “Detroit” by Hoof. With all the rave riffs that gave birth to this thing called EDM.
Ever heard of it?
Then the rude, incessant snare drum upside your earhole on Calisto’s “Get House.” OG joints, Son. That still goes full bump. The type of tracks that, as soon as they exit the subwoofers, you abandon your drink, at the bar like a bad first date, and hit the floor to handle your bizness.
These selections don’t just give infrastructure to Eris’ 79-minute DJ-Kicks mix, which she outlines in the presser as “the funky, emotional, ecstatic house-and-breaks backbone that defines my sound”—they assures us personal interaction. Connection, the thing that music does. Establishing that vinyl, too, can pack dancefloors for sweaty agreement. Well, at least for a couple of special hours just before the sun comes up. As Drew states in digital ink, with this essential mix:
“I’m an all-vinyl DJ with 30-plus years of mixing behind me, and I feel the mix reflects that.” Amen. Good night. Buy some vinyl, kiddos.
Pick up the mix here.
YUUF AT KILOWATT, NOVEMBER 12
The self-described outernational quartet, hailing from Switzerland, Denmark, France, and England, has a deft hand at guiding arrangements that leave large swaths of space that can suck the breath out of your lungs while at the same time articulating a certain degree of heaviness to get lost within. Droning, thick, and yet very blues-based, Yuuf is here to blow that proverbial wig back, as you nod on ad infinitum.
Grab tix here.
PJ HARVEY, STORIES FROM THE CITY, STORIES FROM THE SEA AT 25
This record was released on October 23, 2000, by Island Records, and Polly Jean Harvey fans were divided, upset, and forced to share their Queen with the world. Upon the album’s initial release, it was a watershed moment for Harvey. By far her most well-received project to date, Rolling Stone called it “the best album of her career.” Ironically, her diehard fans didn’t love the release, which strangely makes sense. This was the moment the world caught up with PJ, and her stans didn’t want to play nice with the newbies.
Listen. For years, maybe a decade, I had girlfriend after girlfriend who tried and tried to get my DJ ass to dig PJ Harvey. Somehow, this was the record by her that I could not live without. Die-hards shouted, “It’s PJ’s U2 moment record.” I just thought it was great, jarring rock and roll. Period.
Full of broad sweeping moods, direct narratives, and, as always in Harvey’s melodic lyrical play. Written but not recorded in New York City, it does, in fact, still sound wonderful in the pod-hole while record shopping on the Lower East Side.
