The San Francisco based electro pop band, Starlight Kid will be performing Friday night at DNA Lounge, along with the local Emily Whitehurst fronted band, Survival Guide. Make sure you head out and support local artists!

Both ensembles will be supporting the Brooklyn based experimental songstress, GABI:

"Gabrielle Herbst’s experiences writing for chamber orchestra and experiments in mixed instrumentation inspired her to develop a repertoire of short-form, vocal-centric compositions under the name Gabi. These solitary explorations in early 2013 with dual-track loop pedals led to the nine songs which composed the album, "Sympathy". Embracing the vast potential of the human voice as instrument, story and landscape, these open-ended sessions yielded a suite of compositions that captured Herbst’s personal metamorphosis into Gabi. Which rendered past influences and new collaborations into a personal statement on the desire for human connectivity and emotional catharsis via an intimate exploration along the edges of common songwriting."

This is going to be a great show. If you’re into highly experimental, female vocal based electro art rock, you should definitely do your best to make this show on September 25th at DNA Lounge!

Nelsen & Farney consists of San Francisco based singer/songwriters, Devin Farney and Mark Nelsen. You may know Mark from the heavy psych rock band, Electric Shepherd and Devin as the keyboardist of the 60s revivalist band, The Love Dimension.

We’re always excited to share new music and Nelsen & Farney have given us the honor of premiering their latest musical effort entitled, One For Many Roads. If you like Simon and Garfunkel-esque folk music, you’ll be into this record.

"We’re a songwriting project and live acoustic band that began in 2013, peripherally to our respective solo work. We have since played a handful of local shows while working on our debut LP, "One for Many Roads" – produced by Devin at his home studio. This collection of songs contains melodically rich vocal harmonies and heavy Americana/folk + British/indie-psych-pop influence. Some key inspirations for Nelsen & Farney include CSNY, Lennon/McCartney, Simon & Garfunkel, Dirty Projectors, Everly Brothers, and Kings of Convenience. The songs on "One for Many Roads" were individually written by me and Devin, but shaped together as a band." – Mark Nelsen

"… It’s good to have finally found a home for these songs, some of which have been lying around dormant for the better part of a decade. It took a while to finish, but it happened very organically, which is how it had to be." – Devin Farney

Take a listen to the album in its entirety and don’t miss the duo’s album release show at The Lost Church in San Francisco on September 30th!

The inaugural Bay Area Vibez music festival officially announces its 3-stage, 2-day music, arts and urban lifestyle festival being held at Middle Harbor Shoreline Park in Oakland, California on Saturday, September 26th and Sunday, September 27th, with more than 25 artists to represent the line-up. The festival was created in celebration of music, art, diversity and the rich culture that mirrors the Bay Area and its unique characteristics.

The first round of artists to be released are Grammy©winning artist, Damian "Jr. Gong" Marley, Nas, who has a #1 album on American Billboard top 200, eight time Grammy© winning artist/producer, Stephen "Ragga" Marley, Grammy© nominated Meshell Ndegeocello, #1 Billboard reggae performer Morgan Heritage, Tarrus Riley, Jo Mersa; son of Stephen Marley, Fiji, Fishbone, Krooked Treez, Richie Spice, I-Wayne, Queen Omega, Ghetto Youths, The Courtney John Project, Black Am-I and the Oakland based fan-favorite band, Forrest Day, along with a few big surprises!

"…The eclectic mix is what constitutes the urban festival and represents the very nature of the Bay Area," says festival coordinator, Yurel Hassan Cooke. "The location is impeccable for an annual festival. With other surrounding fest locations as California Roots, Outside Lands, Reggae on the River and Treasure Island, the Bay Area Vibez seemed to fill a void on the map, and blending the genres for the Bay Area just felt right."

The water-lined breathtaking views of the city of San Francisco and the Bay Bridge have made Middle Harbor Shoreline Park in Oakland the perfect backdrop for this urban lifestyle festival. 

"Keeping the music alive for the next generations is key. Collectively, we need to support the creative flow of our children and open their eyes to a new world filled with creativity and a universal appreciation for diversity," says festival co-founders, an Oakland native; Tressa Wells, along with tour manager to Damian Marley, Albert "Pretty" Cooke.

General Admission are set at $85 for 1-day passes, $160 for 2-day passes and $225 1-day VIP, or $400 2-day VIP passes, which include early entrance to grounds, special VIP viewing and lounge area, VIP beer and wine garden and select organic foods and snacks. Shuttle services will be available for convenient entrance to the festival. Parking passes are $29 per day. Festival hours go from 11am to 10pm daily. For more information, or to secure tickets, visit www.BayAreaVibez.com.

Well, you’re certainly in for a once in a lifetime line up on September 23rd! Music Box Presents and the Elbo Room will be hosting an incredibly well curated pre-party for the Desert Stars Music Festival. The San Francisco based neo psych outfit, Cellar Doors and Rachel Fannon, formally of the SF based band, Sleepy Sun will be shining beacons on the line up. Portland’s new ensemble, Hollow Sidewalks which features the legendary neo psych rock aficionado, Jason "Plucky" Anchondo will be performing as well. If Cellar Doors, Rachel Fannan and Hollow Sidewalks are not enough incentive to attend this pre-party celebration, the lead singer of The Black Angels, Alex Maas will be sharing a very rare Bay Area solo performance.

If you’re in San Francisco and you don’t make a sincere effort to attend this show, you’re going to miss a very unique night that you’ll probably remember for some time. Make your way down to The Elbo Room on September 23rd to celebrate the dawning of the 2015 Desert Stars Music Festival.

The popular San Francisco based indie rock band, Social Studies is returning with a new full length album entitled, Wake. Releasing their first EP in 2007, San Francisco’s own indie pop/rock outfit, Social Studies, have undergone multiple reincarnations before finding their current line-up and signature sound.

You can take a listen to a track from the band’s dreamy new album called Drifty in anticipation of the official release on September 18th. You can preorder a vinyl version of Wake at Social Studies’ record label, Aerobic International’s website. The digital version of the album is available now.

We’re totally excited for this news. Make sure you support local independent music!

The SF based heavy garage rock band, Happy Fangs will be headlining a show in San Francisco at Bottom of the Hill tomorrow night, September 12th. If you want to whip and bang your head (assuming people still head bang) to a night a heavy garage rock this is the show to attend. Black Map will also be performing some thrashy music that borders on metal. The post punk band, El Terrible will be rounding out the bill. How can you deny a Saturday night of music at Bottom of the Hill?!

The San Francisco based electro rock band, no:carrier will be performing live at Neck of the Woods in SF on September 24th. Make sure you check them out as they will be sharing the bill with the goth industrial experimental band, Audio Terrorist and the electronic synthpop band, Vicereine. It’s going to be a night of super interesting music!

Everyone needs a little industrial synth music in their lives. Support independent artists and enjoy the show!

The San Francisco based record label, Tricycle Records is in search of submissions for their upcoming compilation, The Friends of Tricycle Records Compilation. This will be the 5th compilation in the label’s series. If you want to send your music to the label for consideration, go directly to their submission page!

http://www.tricyclerecords.com/friendssubmission/

The Friends of Tricycle Records Compilation is about building the Bay Area music scene. We are looking for new and/or unreleased songs from Bay Area / Northern California artists only. All genres accepted. This is offered as a free promotional download to help artists gain visibility in the local and national music scene. – Julie Schuchard Co-Founder Tricycle Records

If you’re residing in Oakland or are partial to traveling over to the East Bay to experience what Oakland’s live music scene has to offer, take the opportunity to head down to Leo’s to check out a line up of purely local bands.

Oakland’s soul-rock band, Harry & the Hitmen will be sharing a bill with San Francisco’s definitive folk band, Sugar Candy Mountain and the popular art rock psych band, Everyone is Dirty. If you want to hear a few seasoned Bay Area bands who guarantee to put on a good show, this is certainly the show to attend!

Editor’s Note: Jonathan Cárdenas of Pow Magazine and San Francisco Great Society put a lot of time into curating this exclusive peek at the upcoming festival, Gathering of the Tribes. This fest celebrates and works to promote and preserve the spirit of psych music in San Francisco. Founder, Dennis Gonzales is very passionate about his work and his efforts to support psych musicians from all over the US. The Bay Area is lucky to have him and the community of amazing promoters and musicians who help keep the spirit and tradition of supportive, familial music and arts communities alive and well. –je

The Gathering Of The Tribes is a festival centralized exclusively in itself and its own breed of musicians and artists. San Francisco has had other festivals in past years, but this one aims to showcase the Bay Area’s breed of psychedelia and its sub-genres, as well as celebrate its musical and artistic ancestry. The name is borrowed, or you could even say revitalized—resurrected—from the Human Be-In that took place in Golden Gate Park, January 14, 1967. This is when Haight-Ashbury became symbolically immortalized as a counter-culture mecca. Our festival celebrates San Francisco’s past and present, and aims to push forward its music and arts in a positive and progressive direction, preserving it for the good of the Bay Area and to keep things groovy.

“We are the San Francisco Preservation Society—God save the Acid Tests, Beatniks and notoriety.”

Hopefully you got that reference. But no, we’re the San Francisco Great Society. 

Founder, Dennis Gonzales: I’ve been running Pow Magazine since 1986 and being entrenched in the music community for several years as a social media journalist, I can tell you SF music is not only alive, it is about to explode into a new movement unlike anything seen since the first music scene in 1965. Everything about our Society and our festival is a familial, grass roots effort.  Amoeba is sponsoring the event—they too have promoted it on their Facebook page as well as Twitter. Pow Magazine, Counter Culture Artist Management, and Innerlight Presents are altogether presenting this festival. We have reached out to the best of the Bay, and most have said “yes.”

Clay Andrews of The Spiral Electric and Innerlight Presents: If the festival is comprised of bands that are all touring and far away, and everybody has all their records—that’s great and all; you have to bring people to the event, but at the same time it’s like—don’t just throw a fest where you just bring an import of things because that’s not really doing anything for the local scene. It’s not exposing people to what’s actually happening right now in their backyards.

Derek See SF DJ, musician and music collector: One thing I’m especially excited about is hearing and meeting bands that I don’t know even though they’re local. Because of what i do for a living, i have to get up real early in the morning on weekends—I do go out and see live music when I can, but never as much as I’d like to, whereas at this festival I’m just super stoked to be able to experience and hang out with like-minded folks.

Performing at SFGS: Gathering of The Tribes
at Public Works in San Francisco on September 13th

The Gentle Cycle
Buzzmutt
The Spiral Electric
LSD and the Search for God
Down and Outlaws
Cellar Doors
Down Dirty Shake
The Love Dimension
Mark Nelsen
Sea Dramas
California Raga Association
Lee Gallagher and the Hallelujah
The Green Door
Carlton Melton
Mystery Flavors
The She’s
Electric Shepherd
Zodiac Death Valley

Visuals by:

White Light Prism – vimeo.com/user6728976
Mad Alchemy – www.madalchemy.net
Andy Puls – www.videopaws.com

DJs:

Abel Oleson
Derek See
Michael Tarin

We always have our ears pressed to the ground for brand new music! We also get excited when we learn about new emerging bands from the Bay Area as well!

Crooked is a new and heavy electro soul band with deep roots in the San Francisco Bay Area music scene. The Crooked Cuts Vol. 1 EP, mixed by Joel Hamilton (Black Keys, Lettuce, Highly Suspect), consists of four unique tracks that set a vibey and slightly haunting stage for a collection of additional songs to be released this fall. With a heavy drum and bass foundation, the tracks are accented throughout with spacious keys and a deeply soulful yet edgy voice. The four piece draws upon a wide spectrum of influences and merges them into a hypnotic feel that dynamically shifts from spacey soul to driving electronic and distorted alternative anthems.

Crooked’s style is sultry and a bit innovative. It’s R&B you can take seriously. We recommend you give this band’s new album a spin and enjoy what they have to offer. It’s refreshing to see new projects arise in the Bay!

We’re excited to premiere a new music from the San Francisco based country artist, Katie Garibaldi. Garibaldi is another local artist who chooses to express herself in a more traditional music genre. With her beautiful voice and talent for musical arrangement, we always respect Katie for her hard work and well written country ballads.

I’ve kind of nicknamed "Lock The Door, Lose The Key" the ‘newlywed song’ because it’s basically about newlywed business. When I go through big life moments, including falling in love and getting married, those subjects infuse themselves into my creative mind and are reflected in my songwriting. I wrote a lot of the songs on my album, Follow Your Heart during the period of my life when I was engaged and newly married. "Lock The Door, Lose The Key" is about that honeymoon phase my husband and I were in when we basically just wanted to lock ourselves away in a blissful nest and forget the rest of the world. It’s become one of my favorite songs to perform live from the album because I’ve noticed how happy it makes people who are listening. It’s a really fun story and a staple song off Follow Your Heart that contributes to the record’s signature sound, so I chose this song for my first official music video to celebrate the album’s one-year anniversary as a celebration of what an absolute blast this past year has been touring with these songs, and as a personal thank you to my supporters. – Katie Garibaldi on writing Lock the Door, Lose the Key

Check out Katie’s "newlywed song", Lock the Door, Lose the Key exclusively on The Deli Magazine San Francisco!