Summer touring season is in full swing and Wednesday night I caught two great bands, Oh Pep! and DonCat live on the Rickshaw stage. Through my headphones I’ve been blasting two new bands of 2016 that I can’t recommend enough – Whitney and Jamila Woods. For those looking for a nostalgic summer soundtrack there is always Day of the Dead: a new 59-song Grateful Dead tribute album featuring The National, Lucius, Courtney Barnett, Wilco, The Flaming Lips, and many others. So much good summer music to be had, buckle up and start singing folks!
On Stage
Oh Pep!
Wednesday night I was back at one of my favorite little venues, the Rickshaw stop, for a night of new music. Headlining the show were Aussie indie darlings – Oh Pep! Originally from Melbourne this duo of Olivia Hally and Pepita Emmerichs stood on stage in sparkly dressesand charmed the audience with their accents and perfectly executed pop-folk sound. They professed their love for San Francisco and their blatant distate for coffee (despite a misleading lyric, but “hot chocolate just doesn’t sound as cool”). Lying lyrics aside, Oh Pep!’s mandolin solos and beautiful harmonies won over the local crowd pretty quick. They just released a debut album Stadium Cake, with the catchy single “Doctor, Doctor” below.
Opening for Oh Pep! last night was a completely different band – DonCat. This local San Francisco band brought shoe-gaze ballads and surfer rock melodies to the stage. Some songs, like “Give it Away” (below) could be described as California cowboy folk, but other songs had heavy metal infused rock – with such a wide musical range this band could go a lot of directions, it will be fun to see what’s next. Kudos to lead singer and songwriter Duncan Nielsen who injected a lot of heartful mystery into the set with a swoop of black hair and many a soulful stare.
In Stereo
Whitney
The debut album “Light Upon the Lake” by Whitney is by far my favorite album of the summer. I discovered this group out of Chicago thanks to my fellow music nerds at NPR Music ( one time Bob Boilen gave me a fist pump in response to my comment about a Beirut album, so yeah, we’re pretty much besties now. Stop getting so jealous). They are playing at Outside Lands on Friday – so check them out if you’re going! This album is both joyful and bittersweet – the perfect lazy summer soundtrack . Just try to watch the video for their title track “No Woman” and NOT bliss out in this indie daydream…
Also a debut from a Chicago-native, Jamila Woods’ record Heavn is an R&B powerhouse album that that combines beautiful Black Lives Matter protest rhetoric with intoxicating beats. I just can’t stop dancing and singing this album. HEAVN features songs with many of Woods’ friends Chance the Rapper, Noname, Saba, Lorine Chia and Donnie Trumpet. The album is truthful and honest in a way that I haven’t heard put to music in a long time. The message she tells is an important one of equality and justice that is incredibly relevant with today’s violence. For the album’s single “Blak Girl Solider” Pitchfork notes “…Woods champions freedom fighters, feminists, and writers as being “déjà vu of Tubman,” noting that even a young black girl “scares the government…The theme is one of defense in the face of oppression, not vengeance… It’s a “Black Lives Matter (Too)” treatise, not an “(Only) Black Lives Matter” one.” Definitely make some time to listen to Woods’ new album Heavn, you won’t regret it.
Aaron and Bryce Dessner of The National have curated an epic tribute to the music and the artistry of the Grateful Dead in their new album Day of the Dead. Featuring 59 songs and over 5 hours of music this album is a jam-band soliloquy created by a diverse group of modern musicians who pay hommage to the Dead’s musical influence. Don’t listen to this album expecting pithy covers of the Dead’s work- but rather provocative reinterpretations by artists ranging from Lucius to Courtney Barnett, The Flaming Lips to Lucinda Williams, Mumford and Sons to Wilco. The whole album is up on Spotify so explore a bit to see how your favorite artists reconfigure these classic Dead anthems. Courtney Barnett’s cover of New Speedway Boogie is an early favorite of mine:
Thanks for reading, hope you enjoy all this new summer music!
Music On My Mind 