Thursday June 9: A Night of Americana at The Ivy Room

This week's fun: Thursday, June 9 at the Ivy Room in Albany, Bay Station shares a with Kate Burkart and Nate Jones & The Sloe Sippers, it's going to be a fine night. Three bands, $7, good vibes; hope to see you there!

Thursday, June 9th, 2016

Bay Station (full band) at The Ivy Room

with Nate Jones & The Slow Sippers, Kate Burkart Band

858 San Pablo Ave
Albany, CA 94706
510-524-9299
 Show starts at 8pm;  Price: $7. Bay Station plays at 10:30

 

Indie Rock, Twang & Twilight: October 24 at The Starry Plough Berkeley, w/ Laura Benitez & the Heartache

Two female-fronted acts take the stage on this autumn evening, sharing original songs of love, life, and the pursuit of damn good whiskey.
 

Laura Benitez and the Heartache use the three chord tools of country music to tell the simple, unvarnished truth about love, too much whiskey, and the call of the road. Their songs range from honky-tonk shuffles to rock 'n' roll numbers to sweet old time waltzes, and cover everything from unwed motherhood ("Me or the Baby") to mean drunks ("Don't Wake the Devil"), with a whole lot of heartbreak in between. Their twangy honesty shines through in straightforward arrangements, crystalline harmonies, and spare instrumentation. Beware their catchy hooks and sweet melodies - these stray puppy tunes will follow you home and become your most steadfast companions. www.laurabenitezandtheheartache.com

California songwriter Deborah Crooks' lyric driven and soul-wise music draws on folk, rock, and Americana and is often compared to Lucinda Williams and The Cowboy Junkies. Her music ventures into everything from funk and reggae to rock and blues, reflecting her expansive and eclectic tastes, a sound which has evolved over her years studying writing and poetics at The Naropa Institute, voice with Chloe Goodchild and Mysore V. Amba Prasad (India), and cowriting and collaborating with her Bay Area peers. She’s released three CDs and several EPs of critically noted original music, including 2015’s Something Special, which reflects both her California Roots and global peregrinations. “Quite simply smart and engaging music." — RockWired Magazine www.deborahcrooks.com

KCDC Band Live in Alameda September 26

This Saturday, KCDC breaks out the electric guitars to perform our cowritten tunes at High Street Station Cafe in Alameda. Come on down and hear songs from the Your Own Reaction CD plus new KCDC originals. Kwame and I had a great time 'boat-shedding' many of these songs live on Espresso this past weekend, and we're looking forward to plugging in and playing with our band on terra firma! We’ll be joined by Steve Waters (guitars), Andrew Gibson (bass) & Mike Stevens (drums). Plus our fellow Alamedan Paul Manousos will kick things off with a set of his dynamic music.

 High Street Station is located at 1303 High St (@Encinal) in Alameda, CA. Call High Street to reserve a table 510-995-8049. Tickets are available in advance for $10 through Brown Paper Tickets.

 

Picking Up Good Vibrations at the Integratron

We've been doing quite a bit of songwriting on this semi-unplugged jaunt to the Joshua Tree. Still, with plenty of time to both play and create - Wow! Vacation! - we took the area up on it offers and spent much of Sunday soaking up the sounds of others. 
The desert of course, has long attracted artist and seekers of  all manner: homesteaders after free lands, outdoors-folk in search of a tricky rock problem, naturalists and scientists assembling clues, Mystics and madmen and one combination of many of the above, George Van Tassel (1920-1978), creator of the Integratron. Located in Landers, on an energetic vortex, the Integratron is a "one-of-a-kind 38-foot high, 55-foot diameter, all wood dome designed to be an electrostatic generator for the purpose of rejuvenation and time travel." 
It's composition is also "based on the design of Moses’ Tabernacle, the writings of Nikola Tesla and telepathic directions from extraterrestrials."
Uh, sign us up! 
The Integratron is open to the public a couple "no reservations weekends" a month, and fortunately for us, our timing worked. We drove up the road 20 minutes to the site, lucking into a just-added, earlier-than-scheduled sound bath at 10:30am, when the gates opened Sunday morning. Within minutes, we were laying on the floor with 40 other people in the top story of the domed building. After everyone got settled with their blankets and mats, a gentleman played large crystal bowls for 25 minutes, sending variously oscillating sound waves, in frequencies perceptible and beyond perception, pulsing through our bodies. I didn't see any aliens, but I can't say it wasn't great. After the last bowls sounds, Hearts of Space type music was played for the remainder of the hour in what became a sort of sound-induced savasana.  I felt better after than when I'd arrived, still cramped from the travel and sleeping in a new place, and emerged from the dome feeling as bemused as healed, an altogether good thing. 
The grounds of the site were an equally relaxing playground of general good vibes, complete with a hammock garden, cantina, a place to cast your dreams and water stations. Reminded me of Fairfax and Goa and Sedona rolled into one.

Still. we were up for more sound vibrations later in the day, albeit of a more traditional kind, and drove another 30 minutes to Pioneertown where Pappy & Harriets was hosting its Sunday evening Music Service. A weekly, well-curated jam led by a band composed of the venue's favorite musicians and guest artists, the service was a unabashed celebration of LA Country Rock. More than ably covering songs by the likes of Gram Parsons, Fleetwood Mac, Linda Rondstandt and Tom Petty, the musicians were hot and the crowd hungry. Noneother than Bay Area native Bart Davenport, in fine form, happened to be the week's musical guest, and more than rose to the challenge, rocking his telecaster and otherwise destroying every song he led. Good stuff. People dancing, people eating, another dose of high quality good vibrations. 

Then we saw aliens. Well, not really. As drove drove down the hill from Pioneertown, more of those impossible bright stars overhead, we did a double take, then pulled over to the side of a road to watch  as an (illicit?) group of folks were lighting large paper (?) lanterns and letting them go into the sky. As they ascended, the lanterns - luminarias? -  appeared much like those moon jellyfish at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, languorously floating brightly through space, only in reverse and in the sky rather than water. It looked dangerous, but it was more beautiful, the lights rising, tumbling over one another before melting into the starry sky. Nice.