Emma Silvers is an editor at KQED Arts and a former digital producer at KQED News. Born and raised in the Bay Area, she has previously been an arts and entertainment editor at the San Francisco Chronicle, SF Weekly and the San Francisco Bay Guardian.Her work has also appeared in Rolling Stone, Pitchfork and Mother Jones. In 2017 she was the recipient of the Society of Professional Journalists-Northern California's award for arts and culture reporting. In 1993 she hyperventilated in Jurassic Park.
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Singing for Children on the Other Side of the World
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"content": "\u003cp>Since 2023, a private initiative called the Civic Joy Fund has financially supported hundreds of arts and culture events in San Francisco. But a growing group of artists are calling for a boycott of events affiliated with the Civic Joy Fund, citing its connections to the Bay Area’s ultra-wealthy who already play an outsized role in local and state politics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Emma Silvers, journalist and co-owner of COYOTE Media Collective, explains why Bay Area artists are talking about the Civic Joy Fund right now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Links:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.coyotemedia.org/how-could-you-be-against-joy-bay-area-artists-are-turning-on-the-civic-joy-fund/\">Bay Area Artists Are Turning on the Civic Joy Fund\u003c/a> (Coyote Media)\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by The Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco-Northern California Local.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC5054647239&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:00:00] I’m Ericka Cruz-Guevarra and welcome to The Bay, local news to keep you rooted. Last month, a free event called Ploverfest, featuring local artists and musicians, was scheduled to take place in San Francisco’s Sunset Dunes Park. Musician Sweet Lew was among those invited to participate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sweet Lew \u003c/strong>[00:00:25] And I was really excited and I went to post the flyer and upon checking the flyers I realized that they were funded by the Civic Joy Fund.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:00:36] The Civic Joy Fund is a privately funded initiative backed by some of San Francisco’s richest and most powerful people. And while its stated goal is to help revitalize San Francisco through arts and culture, some artists say that the city’s struggling arts scene has left them with few good choices. And some of them, like Sweet Lew, say it’s time to boycott the Civic Joy Fund.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sweet Lew \u003c/strong>[00:01:08] I didn’t want to be a part of it. I didn’t want to take their money, I didn’t want to play on their stage anymore. Like the more and more private equity gets in and the more we let the ruling billionaire class like muscle their way into our spaces.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:01:22] Today, the Civic Joy Fund and why some artists are boycotting it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Emma Silvers \u003c/strong>[00:01:40] I think the first thing to understand about the Civic Joy Fund is it is very much a product of tShe time it was founded.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:01:48] Emma Silvers is a co-founder and editor at Coyote Media Collective.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Emma Silvers \u003c/strong>[00:01:54] 2023, if you will recall, San Francisco made a lot of national headlines in a bad way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Newsreel \u003c/strong>[00:02:03] San Francisco spent millions of dollars for a national tourism campaign, hoping to change the perception that one of the world’s most beautiful destinations has turned into an urban nightmare.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Emma Silvers \u003c/strong>[00:02:13] We were sort of the butt of a lot of jokes here. We were described as a failed city. A doom loop narrative. Exactly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Newsreel \u003c/strong>[00:02:21] So-called poop maps and poop apps have been created over the years to help residents avoid the excrement on sidewalks and streets. And there’s a lot of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Emma Silvers \u003c/strong>[00:02:34] In May of 2023, Daniel Lurie and Manny Yakuteil started the Civic Joy Fund. It’s an initiative of a larger nonprofit called the Civic Space Foundation. And the whole idea was to quote unquote, revitalize San Francisco through arts and culture. Street parties, live music, they hired artists to paint utility boxes, they did a lot of street cleanups, and the whole idea was basically let’s get outside, let’s quote-unquote activate San Francisco streets use arts and culture as a means to economic recovery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:03:21] And so, Civic Joy Fund started in 2023 in the midst of this doom loop narrative in San Francisco. It’s billed as this thing to help bring San Francisco back. How involved, would you say now, is the Civic Joy fund in the San Francisco art scene?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Emma Silvers \u003c/strong>[00:03:40] It is massively involved. For a variety of reasons, including the loss of public funding for the arts, the Civic Joy Fund is playing a really huge role in shaping cultural events in public space. According to their most recent tax filing available, which is from 2024, Luke Spray, the executive director of the Civic Joy Fund, told me that in 2025, they supported 938 events. Which were attended by more than 506,000 attendees. It’s a lot of programming and it’s reaching a lot people. Some of those are trash cleanups, but a lot them are these larger scale night markets and block parties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:04:29] Your story Emma, of course, focuses on how artists are feeling about the Civic Joy Fund. How would you characterize, I guess, the range of feelings that artists have about doing work with the Civic joy fund these days?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Emma Silvers \u003c/strong>[00:04:42] I think a lot of people feel really conflicted. I heard some artists calling for a boycott, like Sweet Lew, saying the only way we fight this is to withhold our labor. Other artists, I think, are, you know, don’t love it, but a paying gig is a paying gig.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stella Lockman \u003c/strong>[00:05:10] To me, nuance is the capital letter quote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Emma Silvers \u003c/strong>[00:05:15] Stella Lockman is an artist and an activist and a long time San Franciscan. And she told me that I was, I think the third or fourth person who had called her that week alone to ask about the Civic Joy Fund. It’s in the zeitgeist and no one wants to do the wrong thing. She helped me really understand I think the landscape of the arts in San Francisco and the way that it’s changed. In the time since the Civic Joy Fund was founded, public funding for the arts has really disintegrated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stella Lockman \u003c/strong>[00:05:50] You know, tale as old as time, the city is and has been slashing arts funding consistently.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Emma Silvers \u003c/strong>[00:05:58] The past few years have been really, really bleak in terms of cuts to arts organizations in San Francisco. We’ve seen venues like Bottom of the Hill announcing their closures, as well as tons of art galleries, California College of the Arts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stella Lockman \u003c/strong>[00:06:13] What gets me about Civic Joy Fund is that it’s part of the shrinking art ecosystem and it stands out a lot stronger and seems to have an inflated sense of importance within the city’s ecosystem because the arts infrastructure is collapsing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Emma Silvers \u003c/strong>[00:06:34] She sort of said that in a healthy arts ecosystem, we wouldn’t even be in this position. And the Civic Joy Fund is as a result playing a bigger role in the ecosystem than it might otherwise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:06:51] It does seem like who is behind the Civic Joy Fund is a big part of artist skepticism here. What did the artist you spoke with say about that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Emma Silvers \u003c/strong>[00:07:01] So one of the big reasons artists have a hard time with the Civic Joy Fund, in my experience, is that they do not have to tell us because it is a privately funded initiative.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stella Lockman \u003c/strong>[00:07:15] People want to know where that money is coming from. And unlike civic funds, they don’t really have to tell you anything.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Emma Silvers \u003c/strong>[00:07:22] Unlike something like the San Francisco Arts Commission, the grants that the Civic Joy Fund issues are decided on by a small group of people, the Civic joy fund staff. There’s no process for regular people in San Francisco to weigh in on what’s getting funded. And there’s sort of a lack of transparency about where the money is coming from in the first place. I think their largest benefactor is still Chris Larson. The founder of Ripple, a fintech company. He’s given a lot of money to the San Francisco Police Department and engaged in other forms of support for political causes that many artists are not in line with. Joby Pritzker, who is from the Hyatt Hotels family, Bob Fischer of Gap. They also have money from the Levi Strauss Foundation, Michael Moritz, a lot very wealthy, I think it’s fair to say power brokers in the Bay Area. One thing I kept running into with this story is a lot of artists have strong opinions that they will tell you off the record. A lot of people did not want to talk to me on the record for this story. I mean, Chris Larson in particular is fighting labor unions and working to defeat the billionaire’s tax. I think there is a sense of frustration at culture in the city being shaped by people who are arguably, with the other hand, supporting or enacting legislation that does not help working class people or artists to survive here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:09:16] I mean, we’re just talking about San Francisco art scene, struggling, we keep hearing about these closures of small venues. Affordability is just such a big topic right now, especially for artists, always has been. It seems like there’s this sense among artists that the Civic Joy Fund isn’t helping the way that they need it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Austin Woz \u003c/strong>[00:09:47] San Francisco seems so invested in entertainment and so uninvested in art.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Emma Silvers \u003c/strong>[00:09:52] Austin Woz is the founder and frontman of an awesome band called Analog Dog. He is also a booker at Kilowatt in The Mission, which is an independent venue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Austin Woz \u003c/strong>[00:10:05] They view it all as entertainment, and they don’t understand the complexes that support art at the very foundation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Emma Silvers \u003c/strong>[00:10:11] He describes a situation where there’s just so little support from the city and then this massive entity that is supported by so much private funding that is ostensibly supporting arts and culture, and it just doesn’t feel like the money is going where it needs to\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Austin Woz \u003c/strong>[00:10:31] I think that there’s this staunch reality where you have these opportunities that come up in the streets one day, one fund, and they put $100,000, $200,000 up to half a million, maybe a million dollars into these things, when you could have saved an entire community with that fund. You could have created the conditions with just those funds for one day that would allow a venue of 10 venues to flourish.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Emma Silvers \u003c/strong>[00:10:57] I do see artists saying it feels hypocritical for politicians and billionaires to pat themselves on the back and sort of position themselves as these benevolent philanthropists when artists are struggling so severely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Austin Woz \u003c/strong>[00:11:15] And it’s really good at creating, you know, a nice bandaid that makes it really seem like these things are going well and that San Francisco is so back. But those of us on the ground who work at this day to day, we know that it has never been more difficult to be here and to try and provide the city with the core thing that it is known for in its global history, which is free thinking, progressive ideologies and good art.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Emma Silvers \u003c/strong>[00:11:44] Can you expand rent control? Can you ensure that artists have adequate health care? All these things that are sort of less flashy, they’re not photo opportunities. They’re institutional, structural support that will make it possible for artists to survive here. And I think people are starting to ask, you know, can we ask for more?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:12:19] How does the Civic Joy Fund respond to these criticisms as well, especially this discomfort around the people who are behind the fund?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Luke Spray \u003c/strong>[00:12:27] For as long as San Francisco has existed, it has had benefactors, some of them of questionable politics and morals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Emma Silvers \u003c/strong>[00:12:36] Luke Spray is the executive director of the Civic Joy Fund as of last fall. He took that position over from Manny, I believe in September of 2025.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Luke Spray \u003c/strong>[00:12:48] The San Francisco that we have is the result of like this push and pull this like tug of private and public.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Emma Silvers \u003c/strong>[00:12:57] He said that, you know, San Francisco has always had benefactors. This is part of the way culture works, is people with the means to do so, donate money to support things. And this is no different than that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Luke Spray \u003c/strong>[00:13:12] And the city that we get as a result of those conversations and like, I can think of a way to get there them up, bringing people together in public again. And again, and again, markets and block parties and all that to start. A dialog and a time where, like, we’re drifting away from that and it feels so, so, very important.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Emma Silvers \u003c/strong>[00:13:34] He also said, the outcome of getting people out of their houses and talking to each other is the goal, and they are achieving that goal. And the massive amount of need as evidenced by the insane number of grant applications they get, I think is validating in some ways.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:13:58] What do you think this story says about what it means to be an artist in San Francisco and the Bay Area right now?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Emma Silvers \u003c/strong>[00:14:08] I think it shows how difficult it is. The idea of, especially in the music industry, there’s no such thing as clean money. Every time you play the film where you’re talking about working with Live Nation and Ticketmaster, if you go to Coachella, you’re supporting Golden Voice. We live under capitalism and how you make choices about your own politics and how they intersect with money is such a personal thing when you also have bills to pay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:14:42] For people who are not deep in the San Francisco art scene, what do you hope they take away from this story?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Emma Silvers \u003c/strong>[00:14:48] I hope that people will be moved to ask questions about the economics behind their entertainment. To me, this story requires a little bit of an ability to yes and. I think that they are supporting events that get people out and talking to each other. And especially given the pandemic, I think, that’s really important. I also think it’s okay to poke at the larger situation and say, What does it mean that the health of the arts ecosystem relies on a few very wealthy people? The Civic Joy Fund, depending on how you look at it, it’s sort of a hidden picture psychological test. Whether you see benevolent, rich people swooping in to save the arts and fill in these gaps in funding, or see nefarious billionaires taking over public space.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:15:52] Emma Silvers, thank you so much for sharing your reporting with me, I appreciate it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Emma Silvers \u003c/strong>[00:15:57] Thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Since 2023, a private initiative called the Civic Joy Fund has financially supported hundreds of arts and culture events in San Francisco. But a growing group of artists are calling for a boycott of events affiliated with the Civic Joy Fund, citing its connections to the Bay Area’s ultra-wealthy who already play an outsized role in local and state politics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Emma Silvers, journalist and co-owner of COYOTE Media Collective, explains why Bay Area artists are talking about the Civic Joy Fund right now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Links:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.coyotemedia.org/how-could-you-be-against-joy-bay-area-artists-are-turning-on-the-civic-joy-fund/\">Bay Area Artists Are Turning on the Civic Joy Fund\u003c/a> (Coyote Media)\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by The Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco-Northern California Local.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC5054647239&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:00:00] I’m Ericka Cruz-Guevarra and welcome to The Bay, local news to keep you rooted. Last month, a free event called Ploverfest, featuring local artists and musicians, was scheduled to take place in San Francisco’s Sunset Dunes Park. Musician Sweet Lew was among those invited to participate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sweet Lew \u003c/strong>[00:00:25] And I was really excited and I went to post the flyer and upon checking the flyers I realized that they were funded by the Civic Joy Fund.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:00:36] The Civic Joy Fund is a privately funded initiative backed by some of San Francisco’s richest and most powerful people. And while its stated goal is to help revitalize San Francisco through arts and culture, some artists say that the city’s struggling arts scene has left them with few good choices. And some of them, like Sweet Lew, say it’s time to boycott the Civic Joy Fund.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sweet Lew \u003c/strong>[00:01:08] I didn’t want to be a part of it. I didn’t want to take their money, I didn’t want to play on their stage anymore. Like the more and more private equity gets in and the more we let the ruling billionaire class like muscle their way into our spaces.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:01:22] Today, the Civic Joy Fund and why some artists are boycotting it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Emma Silvers \u003c/strong>[00:01:40] I think the first thing to understand about the Civic Joy Fund is it is very much a product of tShe time it was founded.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:01:48] Emma Silvers is a co-founder and editor at Coyote Media Collective.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Emma Silvers \u003c/strong>[00:01:54] 2023, if you will recall, San Francisco made a lot of national headlines in a bad way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Newsreel \u003c/strong>[00:02:03] San Francisco spent millions of dollars for a national tourism campaign, hoping to change the perception that one of the world’s most beautiful destinations has turned into an urban nightmare.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Emma Silvers \u003c/strong>[00:02:13] We were sort of the butt of a lot of jokes here. We were described as a failed city. A doom loop narrative. Exactly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Newsreel \u003c/strong>[00:02:21] So-called poop maps and poop apps have been created over the years to help residents avoid the excrement on sidewalks and streets. And there’s a lot of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Emma Silvers \u003c/strong>[00:02:34] In May of 2023, Daniel Lurie and Manny Yakuteil started the Civic Joy Fund. It’s an initiative of a larger nonprofit called the Civic Space Foundation. And the whole idea was to quote unquote, revitalize San Francisco through arts and culture. Street parties, live music, they hired artists to paint utility boxes, they did a lot of street cleanups, and the whole idea was basically let’s get outside, let’s quote-unquote activate San Francisco streets use arts and culture as a means to economic recovery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:03:21] And so, Civic Joy Fund started in 2023 in the midst of this doom loop narrative in San Francisco. It’s billed as this thing to help bring San Francisco back. How involved, would you say now, is the Civic Joy fund in the San Francisco art scene?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Emma Silvers \u003c/strong>[00:03:40] It is massively involved. For a variety of reasons, including the loss of public funding for the arts, the Civic Joy Fund is playing a really huge role in shaping cultural events in public space. According to their most recent tax filing available, which is from 2024, Luke Spray, the executive director of the Civic Joy Fund, told me that in 2025, they supported 938 events. Which were attended by more than 506,000 attendees. It’s a lot of programming and it’s reaching a lot people. Some of those are trash cleanups, but a lot them are these larger scale night markets and block parties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:04:29] Your story Emma, of course, focuses on how artists are feeling about the Civic Joy Fund. How would you characterize, I guess, the range of feelings that artists have about doing work with the Civic joy fund these days?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Emma Silvers \u003c/strong>[00:04:42] I think a lot of people feel really conflicted. I heard some artists calling for a boycott, like Sweet Lew, saying the only way we fight this is to withhold our labor. Other artists, I think, are, you know, don’t love it, but a paying gig is a paying gig.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stella Lockman \u003c/strong>[00:05:10] To me, nuance is the capital letter quote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Emma Silvers \u003c/strong>[00:05:15] Stella Lockman is an artist and an activist and a long time San Franciscan. And she told me that I was, I think the third or fourth person who had called her that week alone to ask about the Civic Joy Fund. It’s in the zeitgeist and no one wants to do the wrong thing. She helped me really understand I think the landscape of the arts in San Francisco and the way that it’s changed. In the time since the Civic Joy Fund was founded, public funding for the arts has really disintegrated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stella Lockman \u003c/strong>[00:05:50] You know, tale as old as time, the city is and has been slashing arts funding consistently.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Emma Silvers \u003c/strong>[00:05:58] The past few years have been really, really bleak in terms of cuts to arts organizations in San Francisco. We’ve seen venues like Bottom of the Hill announcing their closures, as well as tons of art galleries, California College of the Arts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stella Lockman \u003c/strong>[00:06:13] What gets me about Civic Joy Fund is that it’s part of the shrinking art ecosystem and it stands out a lot stronger and seems to have an inflated sense of importance within the city’s ecosystem because the arts infrastructure is collapsing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Emma Silvers \u003c/strong>[00:06:34] She sort of said that in a healthy arts ecosystem, we wouldn’t even be in this position. And the Civic Joy Fund is as a result playing a bigger role in the ecosystem than it might otherwise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:06:51] It does seem like who is behind the Civic Joy Fund is a big part of artist skepticism here. What did the artist you spoke with say about that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Emma Silvers \u003c/strong>[00:07:01] So one of the big reasons artists have a hard time with the Civic Joy Fund, in my experience, is that they do not have to tell us because it is a privately funded initiative.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stella Lockman \u003c/strong>[00:07:15] People want to know where that money is coming from. And unlike civic funds, they don’t really have to tell you anything.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Emma Silvers \u003c/strong>[00:07:22] Unlike something like the San Francisco Arts Commission, the grants that the Civic Joy Fund issues are decided on by a small group of people, the Civic joy fund staff. There’s no process for regular people in San Francisco to weigh in on what’s getting funded. And there’s sort of a lack of transparency about where the money is coming from in the first place. I think their largest benefactor is still Chris Larson. The founder of Ripple, a fintech company. He’s given a lot of money to the San Francisco Police Department and engaged in other forms of support for political causes that many artists are not in line with. Joby Pritzker, who is from the Hyatt Hotels family, Bob Fischer of Gap. They also have money from the Levi Strauss Foundation, Michael Moritz, a lot very wealthy, I think it’s fair to say power brokers in the Bay Area. One thing I kept running into with this story is a lot of artists have strong opinions that they will tell you off the record. A lot of people did not want to talk to me on the record for this story. I mean, Chris Larson in particular is fighting labor unions and working to defeat the billionaire’s tax. I think there is a sense of frustration at culture in the city being shaped by people who are arguably, with the other hand, supporting or enacting legislation that does not help working class people or artists to survive here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:09:16] I mean, we’re just talking about San Francisco art scene, struggling, we keep hearing about these closures of small venues. Affordability is just such a big topic right now, especially for artists, always has been. It seems like there’s this sense among artists that the Civic Joy Fund isn’t helping the way that they need it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Austin Woz \u003c/strong>[00:09:47] San Francisco seems so invested in entertainment and so uninvested in art.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Emma Silvers \u003c/strong>[00:09:52] Austin Woz is the founder and frontman of an awesome band called Analog Dog. He is also a booker at Kilowatt in The Mission, which is an independent venue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Austin Woz \u003c/strong>[00:10:05] They view it all as entertainment, and they don’t understand the complexes that support art at the very foundation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Emma Silvers \u003c/strong>[00:10:11] He describes a situation where there’s just so little support from the city and then this massive entity that is supported by so much private funding that is ostensibly supporting arts and culture, and it just doesn’t feel like the money is going where it needs to\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Austin Woz \u003c/strong>[00:10:31] I think that there’s this staunch reality where you have these opportunities that come up in the streets one day, one fund, and they put $100,000, $200,000 up to half a million, maybe a million dollars into these things, when you could have saved an entire community with that fund. You could have created the conditions with just those funds for one day that would allow a venue of 10 venues to flourish.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Emma Silvers \u003c/strong>[00:10:57] I do see artists saying it feels hypocritical for politicians and billionaires to pat themselves on the back and sort of position themselves as these benevolent philanthropists when artists are struggling so severely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Austin Woz \u003c/strong>[00:11:15] And it’s really good at creating, you know, a nice bandaid that makes it really seem like these things are going well and that San Francisco is so back. But those of us on the ground who work at this day to day, we know that it has never been more difficult to be here and to try and provide the city with the core thing that it is known for in its global history, which is free thinking, progressive ideologies and good art.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Emma Silvers \u003c/strong>[00:11:44] Can you expand rent control? Can you ensure that artists have adequate health care? All these things that are sort of less flashy, they’re not photo opportunities. They’re institutional, structural support that will make it possible for artists to survive here. And I think people are starting to ask, you know, can we ask for more?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:12:19] How does the Civic Joy Fund respond to these criticisms as well, especially this discomfort around the people who are behind the fund?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Luke Spray \u003c/strong>[00:12:27] For as long as San Francisco has existed, it has had benefactors, some of them of questionable politics and morals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Emma Silvers \u003c/strong>[00:12:36] Luke Spray is the executive director of the Civic Joy Fund as of last fall. He took that position over from Manny, I believe in September of 2025.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Luke Spray \u003c/strong>[00:12:48] The San Francisco that we have is the result of like this push and pull this like tug of private and public.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Emma Silvers \u003c/strong>[00:12:57] He said that, you know, San Francisco has always had benefactors. This is part of the way culture works, is people with the means to do so, donate money to support things. And this is no different than that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Luke Spray \u003c/strong>[00:13:12] And the city that we get as a result of those conversations and like, I can think of a way to get there them up, bringing people together in public again. And again, and again, markets and block parties and all that to start. A dialog and a time where, like, we’re drifting away from that and it feels so, so, very important.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Emma Silvers \u003c/strong>[00:13:34] He also said, the outcome of getting people out of their houses and talking to each other is the goal, and they are achieving that goal. And the massive amount of need as evidenced by the insane number of grant applications they get, I think is validating in some ways.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:13:58] What do you think this story says about what it means to be an artist in San Francisco and the Bay Area right now?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Emma Silvers \u003c/strong>[00:14:08] I think it shows how difficult it is. The idea of, especially in the music industry, there’s no such thing as clean money. Every time you play the film where you’re talking about working with Live Nation and Ticketmaster, if you go to Coachella, you’re supporting Golden Voice. We live under capitalism and how you make choices about your own politics and how they intersect with money is such a personal thing when you also have bills to pay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:14:42] For people who are not deep in the San Francisco art scene, what do you hope they take away from this story?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Emma Silvers \u003c/strong>[00:14:48] I hope that people will be moved to ask questions about the economics behind their entertainment. To me, this story requires a little bit of an ability to yes and. I think that they are supporting events that get people out and talking to each other. And especially given the pandemic, I think, that’s really important. I also think it’s okay to poke at the larger situation and say, What does it mean that the health of the arts ecosystem relies on a few very wealthy people? The Civic Joy Fund, depending on how you look at it, it’s sort of a hidden picture psychological test. Whether you see benevolent, rich people swooping in to save the arts and fill in these gaps in funding, or see nefarious billionaires taking over public space.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:15:52] Emma Silvers, thank you so much for sharing your reporting with me, I appreciate it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Emma Silvers \u003c/strong>[00:15:57] Thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "how-to-prepare-for-this-weeks-atmospheric-river-storm-sandbags-emergency-kits-and-more",
"title": "Stay Safe During Bay Area Storms: Tips for Flooding, Power Outages and Winds",
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"headTitle": "Stay Safe During Bay Area Storms: Tips for Flooding, Power Outages and Winds | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>The rain and wind are back just in time \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1999678/bay-area-you-just-might-have-yourself-a-soggy-rainy-christmas\">for the holidays\u003c/a>. The Bay Area is experiencing \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1999695/3-storms-will-bring-much-needed-rain-to-bay-area-and-snow-in-the-sierras\">a series of storms\u003c/a> as part of a weeklong atmospheric river moving over Northern California that will last through the rest of the week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The National Weather Service has announced a flood watch — meaning conditions are favorable for flooding — for all nine Bay Area counties, the Central Coast and the San Joaquin Valley starting Tuesday at 10 a.m. and currently scheduled to end on Friday night. A flood advisory — which means minor flooding is already happening or likely to happen soon — has already \u003ca href=\"https://x.com/NWSBayArea/status/2003029485239894135\">been announced\u003c/a> for central Sonoma and western Napa counties, including Santa Rosa, Sebastopol and Cotati, through early Wednesday morning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/NWSBayArea/status/2003071020127707458\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We really have several waves of potentially strong to moderate showers and thunderstorms, and along with that, we’re going to have very strong winds at the highest peaks,” said Joe Merchant, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Communities closest to the Bay — including San Francisco and Richmond — have already seen \u003ca href=\"https://www.cnrfc.noaa.gov/precipMaps.php?group=sf&hour=24&synoptic=0\">over 2 inches of rain\u003c/a> in the past 24 hours. Hundreds of families in San Francisco’s eastern and northern neighborhoods are preparing for incoming storms while still waiting for their power to come back following Saturday’s massive power outage that at its peak plunged more than 130,000 households and businesses \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12068205/pge-gives-monday-afternoon-deadline-for-full-power-restoration-after-huge-outage\">into darkness\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What is an atmospheric river?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>An \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1935067/rivers-in-the-sky-what-you-need-to-know-about-atmospheric-river-storms\">atmospheric river\u003c/a> is a kind of weather system that brings trillions of gallons of water vapor from the Pacific Ocean to California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2023, storms brought \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/weather/article/bay-area-flooding-storm-rain-17853528.php\">flooding as well as extreme winds\u003c/a>, and claimed the lives of at least five people around the Bay Area. Before that, another winter storm caused the Pajaro River on the border of Monterey and Santa Cruz counties to breach a levee, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11943316/pajaro-river-levee-breached-where-to-find-evacuation-shelters\">flooding the Pajaro River Valley\u003c/a>, prompting rescues and placing more than 8,500 people under evacuation orders and warnings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During these kinds of weather events, knowing how to prepare for the worst — and how to cope if you’re directly affected — is crucial. Bay Area officials are routinely urging residents to prepare before the next big rainstorm arrives, providing free sandbags, sharing information on \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11937459/does-your-insurance-plan-cover-flood-and-storm-damage\">flood insurance\u003c/a> and more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Keep reading to learn when the biggest weather impacts will hit the Bay Area, how to safeguard your home from flooding and how to cope with power outages caused by the storm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jump to:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"#start\">How should I prepare my home for a storm?\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"#sandbags\">Where can I get free sandbags?\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"#poweroutages\">How can I be ready for potential power outages?\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"#driving\">What are best practices for driving in heavy rain and wind?\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"#updates\">How can I receive updates about my area?\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"start\">\u003c/a>How should I start preparing?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>First up, understand just how much you — and your home — could be affected by another storm of this magnitude.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Previous storms in the Bay Area have knocked down trees, flooded roads and cut power to tens of thousands of homes and businesses, and contributed to several deaths. Winds have also previously forced the cancellation of flights at local airports including San Francisco International Airport.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Flooding could mean you have to evacuate your home, or live without crucial services for an extended period. Besides flashlights, experts recommend having \u003ca href=\"https://www.ready.gov/floods#prepare\">an emergency supply kit\u003c/a> ready in both your home and car — should you need to evacuate — that includes nonperishable foods, necessary medications, cleaning supplies and water for several days, in case services are cut off in your area. You can also include \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11833686/what-to-pack-in-your-emergency-bag-with-covid-19-in-mind\">a copy of your ID, charging cables for your cellphone\u003c/a> and a portable cellphone battery pack.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Previous storms in the Bay Area have resulted in power outages that affected over 100,000 \u003ca href=\"https://pgealerts.alerts.pge.com/outagecenter/\">PG&E customers\u003c/a>. \u003ca href=\"#poweroutages\">Read more about preparing your home for a potential power outage \u003c/a>in this next storm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11937690\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1620px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11937690\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/01/5D65DA1F-1731-42C5-834B-6BA5B80BEF7F.jpg\" alt=\"two people in raincoats stand in shin deep water as they try to clear a drain on a city street in San Francisco\" width=\"1620\" height=\"1080\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/01/5D65DA1F-1731-42C5-834B-6BA5B80BEF7F.jpg 1620w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/01/5D65DA1F-1731-42C5-834B-6BA5B80BEF7F-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/01/5D65DA1F-1731-42C5-834B-6BA5B80BEF7F-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/01/5D65DA1F-1731-42C5-834B-6BA5B80BEF7F-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/01/5D65DA1F-1731-42C5-834B-6BA5B80BEF7F-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1620px) 100vw, 1620px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Two Mission District residents work to open a clogged drain on Mission and 21st streets in San Francisco on Jan. 10, 2023. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=\"news_11833686\" hero=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/08/pexels-dids-1986996-1-1020x680-1.jpg\"]If your home experienced flooding during previous storms this year — or in storms from years past — officials recommend having sandbags, plastic sheeting and other flood control materials ready. Counties, public utilities and even community organizations across the Bay Area are distributing free sandbags. Keep in mind that some distribution sites, like those in San Francisco and San José, may ask you to show ID to prove you are a resident. \u003ca href=\"#sandbags\">Learn more about where to find sandbags.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay Area officials have also doubled down on efforts to keep waterways and storm drains clear to reduce the risk of flooding in residential areas. Both \u003ca href=\"https://www.oaklandca.gov/services/adopt-a-drain\">Oakland\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://sfpuc.org/learning/how-you-can-help/adopt-drain-sf\">San Francisco\u003c/a> have programs where \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13923319/you-can-adopt-a-drain-in-san-francisco-with-naming-rights-included\">residents can “adopt” a storm drain in their community\u003c/a> and help remove leaves and other debris.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/valleywater/status/2002046551019950242\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FEMA also has created a tool that tracks which parts of a city are under flood risk — and to what extent. You can input your address in the \u003ca href=\"https://msc.fema.gov/portal/home\">FEMA Flood Map Service Center\u003c/a>. Once the map tool locates your address, you can select the “Dynamic Map” option to see a more detailed map that may have certain neighborhoods or blocks color coded to represent flood risk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you are a homeowner, keep in mind that most home insurance plans do \u003cem>not\u003c/em> cover damage caused by flooding. However, you can buy an additional policy with the \u003ca href=\"https://floodsmart.gov/\">National Flood Insurance Program\u003c/a> through your existing insurance provider. It’s important to mention that if you decide to buy a plan now, there is a 30-day wait period for the benefits to begin, so the policy would not cover damages potentially caused by this week’s storms.\u003cbr>\n[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"sandbags\">\u003c/a>I need sandbags. Where can I get them?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In San Francisco, officials in the past have stressed that only residents who have previously experienced flooding in their homes should seek out the free sandbags provided by city agencies. Additionally, San Mateo County has added on its emergency preparation website that \u003ca href=\"https://www.smcgov.org/ceo/news/prepare-now-heavy-rains-and-strong-winds-forecast-san-mateo-county\">sandbags brought out during a previous storm can be reused\u003c/a>.\u003cbr>\nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpvVAQ57uqM&t=39s\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Santa Clara Valley Water has \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpvVAQ57uqM&t=39s\">created a helpful video tutorial on how best to place sandbags around a home\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If your home has flooded in the past and you’re looking to pick up free sandbags, several options are available. Be aware that some sites may offer bags and sand separately or exclusively, and that you may need to bring your own shovel to some locations. You may also be required to prove county residency with an ID. Be sure to research the site you’re visiting before leaving.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alameda County\u003c/strong>: Residents can pick up sandbags from the offices of the county’s Public Works Agency Buildings and several fire stations. \u003ca href=\"https://www.acpwa.org/prepare-for-winter-storms.page\">Find the site closest to you.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/AlamedaCoFire/status/2002873309680304529\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>City of Berkeley\u003c/strong>: Berkeley residents and businesses can get up to five sandbags with an ID or business card, from the City of Berkeley Corporation Yard (located on 1326 Allston Way, \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/CityofBerkeley/status/1611392275065470985\">open 8 a.m.–4 p.m. Monday–Friday\u003c/a>).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/CityofBerkeley/status/1633903641701806080\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Contra Costa County\u003c/strong>: Each city in Contra Costa County has its own sandbag pickup locations. \u003ca href=\"https://www.contracosta.ca.gov/DocumentCenter/View/55575/Sandbag-City-Contacts-11-20-18-PDF?bidId=\">You can find the contact information for your city’s sandbag distribution site here (PDF).\u003c/a> Additionally, if you live in an unincorporated part of the county,\u003ca href=\"https://contracosta.ca.gov/5976/Sandbags\"> six additional locations are available\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marin County\u003c/strong>: Marin County has a list of both government-provided locations and commercial/retail options for sandbags.\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://emergency.marincounty.org/pages/flooding#sandbags\">Where to find sandbags in Marin County\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Napa County\u003c/strong>: In addition to the county-run sandbag locations below, Napa County also recommends residents of American Canyon, Napa, St. Helena, Calistoga and Yountville \u003ca href=\"https://www.countyofnapa.org/DocumentCenter/View/20444/2023-Sandbag-Locations-PDF?bidId=\">contact their city directly for sandbag locations and availability (PDF)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/NWSBayArea/status/2003029485239894135\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>San Francisco\u003c/strong>: The city’s public works agency is offering up to 10 sandbags per resident at its Operations Yard (located on the corner of Marin and Kansas, near Cesar Chavez). The site is open \u003ca href=\"https://sfpublicworks.org/services/sandbags\">Monday to Saturday\u003c/a>, from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., and staff will ask you to present an ID with a valid San Francisco address.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>San Mateo County\u003c/strong>: San Mateo County offers a limit of 15 premade sandbags per resident. \u003ca href=\"https://www.smcgov.org/publicworks/storm-preparedness\">Where to find sandbags in San Mateo County\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Santa Clara County: \u003c/strong>Santa Clara County residents can pick up free sandbags from \u003ca href=\"https://www.valleywater.org/flooding-safety/flood-ready/sandbags\">several locations managed by Santa Clara Valley Water\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Solano County\u003c/strong>: All locations are self-serve and require your own shovel. \u003ca href=\"https://www.solanocounty.com/depts/oes/grs/storm_ready/sandbag_information.asp\">Where to find sandbags in Solano County\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sonoma County\u003c/strong>: Sandbags are available at over 10 locations around the county. \u003ca href=\"https://socoemergency.org/emergency/flooding/sandbags/\">Where to find sandbags in Sonoma County\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"poweroutages\">\u003c/a>How can I be ready for potential power outages?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Flooding, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11944945/a-tree-fell-on-my-car-in-the-bay-area-what-do-i-do\">downed trees\u003c/a> and downed power lines: All of these can create the very real possibility of power outages during a storm like this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Remember: It can sometimes take days for PG&E to do safety checks and turn your power back on, particularly if an outage affects a large enough number of people. If you have medical needs that rely on power, consider planning which family members or friends you can stay with during a lengthy power outage. You might also talk to your doctor in advance about how to prepare with medications or mobility needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Things to have close at hand before a potential power outage\u003c/strong>:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Battery-powered flashlights, ideally one for every household member.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>A supply of fresh batteries.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Portable chargers or battery packs to keep your mobile phone charged.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>LED candles, instead of wax candles, are recommended by PG&E.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>A battery-powered radio to hear updates on storm conditions and outages.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Nonperishable food (think canned goods) and water: The state recommends having enough food and water for every member of your household for three days.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>A thermometer to make sure your food is safe to eat (more on that below).\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Make sure you know exactly where these crucial items are, so you’re not scrambling to find them in the dark.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Other things to do ahead of an outage\u003c/strong>:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Fully charge your cellphone and any portable chargers.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Get cash, as ATMs may not work during a power outage.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Top your vehicle up with a full tank of gas (similarly, gas stations may not be operational during an outage).\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Fill up plastic containers with water and store them in your freezer, which you can use later as ice substitutes to keep food fresh.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Additionally, make sure you and your household all know:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>How to manually open any door in your home or building that requires electricity (think garage doors, apartment complex doors that require key cards).\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>How you’ll communicate in an emergency situation, and not depend on a phone that needs electricity.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>How you’ll operate a generator, if you have one — check ahead of time that the one you have works, and make sure you know \u003ca href=\"https://www.pge.com/en_US/safety/electrical-safety/electric-generator-safety/electric-generator-safety.page\">how to use it safely and eliminate the risk of carbon-monoxide poisoning\u003c/a>.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>As always, you should also consider checking on neighbors, especially those who may need assistance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mouse over or click points on the map below to see all of PG&E’s current power outages, planned or otherwise, along with the number of customers impacted, the cause (if listed), and estimated time of restoration. To see a rough approximation of power outage areas, zoom in on each location.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All data \u003ca href=\"https://pgealerts.alerts.pge.com/outages/map/\">comes from PG&E\u003c/a>, via the \u003ca href=\"https://gis.data.ca.gov/datasets/CalEMA::power-outage-incidents/about\">California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES)\u003c/a>, and is updated every 15 minutes. Any planned safety outages, known as Public Safety Power Outages (PSPS), will be specifically labeled on the map when they occur.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv style=\"width: 100%\" align=\"center\">\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://kqednews.maps.arcgis.com/apps/instant/basic/index.html?appid=a04a97b02e764b5e94905acaaecf2edc\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"border:0\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv style=\"width: 94%\" align=\"left\">\u003ci>Map produced by Matthew Green/KQED\u003c/i>\u003c/div>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What should I do if a power outage hits my home?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Turn off almost all your appliances\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If your power goes out, be sure to unplug or turn off any appliances and equipment to prevent damage from surges when the power is restored.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PG&E recommends keeping one lamp turned to the on position, to alert you when power has returned. You can then turn each appliance back on one by one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stay far away from any downed power lines, and report them\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.pge.com/en_US/safety/emergency-preparedness/natural-disaster/storms/storms.page\">If you’re near a downed power line, PG&E advises that you assume it’s energized and dangerous\u003c/a> and stay far away from it. You should:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Make sure that others in your household, especially children, also stay far back from any downed lines.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Call 911 to report the downed power line, and make sure you give the location clearly.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Then call PG&E to report the downed line, at \u003ca href=\"tel:18007435000\">(800) 743-5000\u003c/a>.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Keep your food safe and edible during an outage \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once your power is out, be especially purposeful about when you open your freezer or your refrigerator.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A refrigerator that loses power can keep food cold for about four hours, and a freezer for about 48 hours, if kept closed. Plan to rely on coolers with ice or any water-filled plastic containers you’ve frozen ahead of time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state recommends that during an outage, you monitor food temperatures with a thermometer — and throw out any food that has a temperature of 40 degrees or higher.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you’re opting to use a camp stove or a grill in the absence of your oven or microwave, you should only use these appliances outdoors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you’re without power for more than 48 hours, you may qualify for compensation from PG&E. \u003ca href=\"https://www.pge.com/en_US/residential/outages/current-outages/report-view-an-electric-outage/additional-resources/extended-outage-compensation/extended-outage-compensation.page\">Read more about the PG&E Safety Net program\u003c/a>, which offers these payments due to “severe events, like storms.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A tree fell on my car. Who do I call?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>We have a guide for that. Read our full advice on w\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11944945/a-tree-fell-on-my-car-in-the-bay-area-what-do-i-do\">hat to do if windy storms bring a tree down onto your car (or your house.)\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"driving\">\u003c/a>How can I drive safely in rain and strong winds?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>During these storms, officials urge residents to limit unnecessary travel and stay home if at all possible during weather events like these, citing the potential dangers presented by downed trees and power lines in addition to flooding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you must drive, use your headlights, turn off cruise control, maintain a firm grip on the steering wheel and drive more slowly and cautiously than usual. Leave twice as much space between your vehicle and the one in front of it; wet roads might mean it takes longer to stop. Be alert for debris on the road. If your car begins to hydroplane, do not slam on the brakes. Remain calm, ease off the gas, steer in the direction you want to go and very lightly pump the brakes until you regain traction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11936994\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1478px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11936994\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/01/E2081DCF-BC1D-480F-B27A-DBB7E0C45B3A.jpg\" alt=\"A red car lies abandoned under a flooded underpass with another car submerged behind it.\" width=\"1478\" height=\"985\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/01/E2081DCF-BC1D-480F-B27A-DBB7E0C45B3A.jpg 1478w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/01/E2081DCF-BC1D-480F-B27A-DBB7E0C45B3A-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/01/E2081DCF-BC1D-480F-B27A-DBB7E0C45B3A-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/01/E2081DCF-BC1D-480F-B27A-DBB7E0C45B3A-160x107.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1478px) 100vw, 1478px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Two cars are stuck in a flooded underpass at 34th and Webster streets in Oakland on Jan. 4, 2023. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>If flooding occurs, err on the side of caution. Don’t assume you know the depth of a pool of water or the conditions of the road underneath it, especially at night.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Always turn around rather than driving through a flooded area\u003c/strong> — as few as 6 inches of water is enough to disable or stall a small car, while 12 inches can sweep away a vehicle. If floodwaters begin to rise around your car, abandon the car and move to higher ground on foot. According to the California Department of Water Resources, more people become trapped and die in their vehicles than anywhere else during a flood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/CaltransHQ/status/1634235193174413312\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"updates\">\u003c/a>How can I receive updates about my area?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>If you haven’t done so already, sign up to receive emergency weather alerts from your county. County officials use these notifications to inform residents of weather alerts, street and road closures, and evacuation orders. Find your county below:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.acgov.org/emergencysite/\">Alameda County emergency alerts\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.cityofberkeley.info/EmergencyAlerting/\">City of Berkeley emergency alerts\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.contracosta.ca.gov/2269/Emergency-Alerts-Resources\">Contra Costa County emergency alerts\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://emergency.marincounty.org/\">Marin County emergency alerts\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.countyofnapa.org/2481/Emergency-Alerts\">Napa County emergency alerts\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://sf.gov/information/be-know-official-emergency-alerts\">City and County of San Francisco emergency alerts\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://cmo.smcgov.org/smc-alert\">San Mateo County emergency alerts\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://emergencymanagement.sccgov.org/AlertSCC\">Santa Clara County emergency alerts\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.solanocounty.com/depts/oes/emergency.asp\">Solano County emergency alerts\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://socoemergency.org/get-ready/sign-up/\">Sonoma County emergency alerts\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>In San Francisco, officials have asked the public to call 311 to report flooding inside homes, instead of 911. “We still have to run all our critical 911 calls whether it’s a cardiac arrest, a car accident or a fire. If you add all these flooding issues \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">…\u003c/span> it can really overtax the system,” Fire Chief Jeanine Nicholson said in January 2023, days before the start of that year’s winter storm system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So if you have a little bit of flooding in your home, call 311,” she said. “If someone is having a heart attack or if someone is being swept by water, call 911.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>An earlier version of this story was published on Feb 2., 2024. KQED’s Ezra David Romero, Katie DeBenedetti, Danielle Venton, Kevin Stark, Daisy Nguyen and Erin Baldassari contributed to this story.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "More powerful storms are hitting the Bay Area this week. Find free sandbags, prepare homes and receive emergency information ahead of more heavy rain, high-speed winds and potential power outages.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The rain and wind are back just in time \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1999678/bay-area-you-just-might-have-yourself-a-soggy-rainy-christmas\">for the holidays\u003c/a>. The Bay Area is experiencing \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1999695/3-storms-will-bring-much-needed-rain-to-bay-area-and-snow-in-the-sierras\">a series of storms\u003c/a> as part of a weeklong atmospheric river moving over Northern California that will last through the rest of the week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The National Weather Service has announced a flood watch — meaning conditions are favorable for flooding — for all nine Bay Area counties, the Central Coast and the San Joaquin Valley starting Tuesday at 10 a.m. and currently scheduled to end on Friday night. A flood advisory — which means minor flooding is already happening or likely to happen soon — has already \u003ca href=\"https://x.com/NWSBayArea/status/2003029485239894135\">been announced\u003c/a> for central Sonoma and western Napa counties, including Santa Rosa, Sebastopol and Cotati, through early Wednesday morning.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>“We really have several waves of potentially strong to moderate showers and thunderstorms, and along with that, we’re going to have very strong winds at the highest peaks,” said Joe Merchant, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Communities closest to the Bay — including San Francisco and Richmond — have already seen \u003ca href=\"https://www.cnrfc.noaa.gov/precipMaps.php?group=sf&hour=24&synoptic=0\">over 2 inches of rain\u003c/a> in the past 24 hours. Hundreds of families in San Francisco’s eastern and northern neighborhoods are preparing for incoming storms while still waiting for their power to come back following Saturday’s massive power outage that at its peak plunged more than 130,000 households and businesses \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12068205/pge-gives-monday-afternoon-deadline-for-full-power-restoration-after-huge-outage\">into darkness\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What is an atmospheric river?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>An \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1935067/rivers-in-the-sky-what-you-need-to-know-about-atmospheric-river-storms\">atmospheric river\u003c/a> is a kind of weather system that brings trillions of gallons of water vapor from the Pacific Ocean to California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2023, storms brought \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/weather/article/bay-area-flooding-storm-rain-17853528.php\">flooding as well as extreme winds\u003c/a>, and claimed the lives of at least five people around the Bay Area. Before that, another winter storm caused the Pajaro River on the border of Monterey and Santa Cruz counties to breach a levee, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11943316/pajaro-river-levee-breached-where-to-find-evacuation-shelters\">flooding the Pajaro River Valley\u003c/a>, prompting rescues and placing more than 8,500 people under evacuation orders and warnings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During these kinds of weather events, knowing how to prepare for the worst — and how to cope if you’re directly affected — is crucial. Bay Area officials are routinely urging residents to prepare before the next big rainstorm arrives, providing free sandbags, sharing information on \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11937459/does-your-insurance-plan-cover-flood-and-storm-damage\">flood insurance\u003c/a> and more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Keep reading to learn when the biggest weather impacts will hit the Bay Area, how to safeguard your home from flooding and how to cope with power outages caused by the storm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jump to:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"#start\">How should I prepare my home for a storm?\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"#sandbags\">Where can I get free sandbags?\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"#poweroutages\">How can I be ready for potential power outages?\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"#driving\">What are best practices for driving in heavy rain and wind?\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"#updates\">How can I receive updates about my area?\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"start\">\u003c/a>How should I start preparing?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>First up, understand just how much you — and your home — could be affected by another storm of this magnitude.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Previous storms in the Bay Area have knocked down trees, flooded roads and cut power to tens of thousands of homes and businesses, and contributed to several deaths. Winds have also previously forced the cancellation of flights at local airports including San Francisco International Airport.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Flooding could mean you have to evacuate your home, or live without crucial services for an extended period. Besides flashlights, experts recommend having \u003ca href=\"https://www.ready.gov/floods#prepare\">an emergency supply kit\u003c/a> ready in both your home and car — should you need to evacuate — that includes nonperishable foods, necessary medications, cleaning supplies and water for several days, in case services are cut off in your area. You can also include \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11833686/what-to-pack-in-your-emergency-bag-with-covid-19-in-mind\">a copy of your ID, charging cables for your cellphone\u003c/a> and a portable cellphone battery pack.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Previous storms in the Bay Area have resulted in power outages that affected over 100,000 \u003ca href=\"https://pgealerts.alerts.pge.com/outagecenter/\">PG&E customers\u003c/a>. \u003ca href=\"#poweroutages\">Read more about preparing your home for a potential power outage \u003c/a>in this next storm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11937690\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1620px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11937690\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/01/5D65DA1F-1731-42C5-834B-6BA5B80BEF7F.jpg\" alt=\"two people in raincoats stand in shin deep water as they try to clear a drain on a city street in San Francisco\" width=\"1620\" height=\"1080\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/01/5D65DA1F-1731-42C5-834B-6BA5B80BEF7F.jpg 1620w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/01/5D65DA1F-1731-42C5-834B-6BA5B80BEF7F-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/01/5D65DA1F-1731-42C5-834B-6BA5B80BEF7F-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/01/5D65DA1F-1731-42C5-834B-6BA5B80BEF7F-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/01/5D65DA1F-1731-42C5-834B-6BA5B80BEF7F-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1620px) 100vw, 1620px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Two Mission District residents work to open a clogged drain on Mission and 21st streets in San Francisco on Jan. 10, 2023. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>If your home experienced flooding during previous storms this year — or in storms from years past — officials recommend having sandbags, plastic sheeting and other flood control materials ready. Counties, public utilities and even community organizations across the Bay Area are distributing free sandbags. Keep in mind that some distribution sites, like those in San Francisco and San José, may ask you to show ID to prove you are a resident. \u003ca href=\"#sandbags\">Learn more about where to find sandbags.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay Area officials have also doubled down on efforts to keep waterways and storm drains clear to reduce the risk of flooding in residential areas. Both \u003ca href=\"https://www.oaklandca.gov/services/adopt-a-drain\">Oakland\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://sfpuc.org/learning/how-you-can-help/adopt-drain-sf\">San Francisco\u003c/a> have programs where \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13923319/you-can-adopt-a-drain-in-san-francisco-with-naming-rights-included\">residents can “adopt” a storm drain in their community\u003c/a> and help remove leaves and other debris.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>FEMA also has created a tool that tracks which parts of a city are under flood risk — and to what extent. You can input your address in the \u003ca href=\"https://msc.fema.gov/portal/home\">FEMA Flood Map Service Center\u003c/a>. Once the map tool locates your address, you can select the “Dynamic Map” option to see a more detailed map that may have certain neighborhoods or blocks color coded to represent flood risk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you are a homeowner, keep in mind that most home insurance plans do \u003cem>not\u003c/em> cover damage caused by flooding. However, you can buy an additional policy with the \u003ca href=\"https://floodsmart.gov/\">National Flood Insurance Program\u003c/a> through your existing insurance provider. It’s important to mention that if you decide to buy a plan now, there is a 30-day wait period for the benefits to begin, so the policy would not cover damages potentially caused by this week’s storms.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"sandbags\">\u003c/a>I need sandbags. Where can I get them?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In San Francisco, officials in the past have stressed that only residents who have previously experienced flooding in their homes should seek out the free sandbags provided by city agencies. Additionally, San Mateo County has added on its emergency preparation website that \u003ca href=\"https://www.smcgov.org/ceo/news/prepare-now-heavy-rains-and-strong-winds-forecast-san-mateo-county\">sandbags brought out during a previous storm can be reused\u003c/a>.\u003cbr>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/GpvVAQ57uqM'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/GpvVAQ57uqM'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>Santa Clara Valley Water has \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpvVAQ57uqM&t=39s\">created a helpful video tutorial on how best to place sandbags around a home\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If your home has flooded in the past and you’re looking to pick up free sandbags, several options are available. Be aware that some sites may offer bags and sand separately or exclusively, and that you may need to bring your own shovel to some locations. You may also be required to prove county residency with an ID. Be sure to research the site you’re visiting before leaving.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alameda County\u003c/strong>: Residents can pick up sandbags from the offices of the county’s Public Works Agency Buildings and several fire stations. \u003ca href=\"https://www.acpwa.org/prepare-for-winter-storms.page\">Find the site closest to you.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>City of Berkeley\u003c/strong>: Berkeley residents and businesses can get up to five sandbags with an ID or business card, from the City of Berkeley Corporation Yard (located on 1326 Allston Way, \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/CityofBerkeley/status/1611392275065470985\">open 8 a.m.–4 p.m. Monday–Friday\u003c/a>).\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Contra Costa County\u003c/strong>: Each city in Contra Costa County has its own sandbag pickup locations. \u003ca href=\"https://www.contracosta.ca.gov/DocumentCenter/View/55575/Sandbag-City-Contacts-11-20-18-PDF?bidId=\">You can find the contact information for your city’s sandbag distribution site here (PDF).\u003c/a> Additionally, if you live in an unincorporated part of the county,\u003ca href=\"https://contracosta.ca.gov/5976/Sandbags\"> six additional locations are available\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marin County\u003c/strong>: Marin County has a list of both government-provided locations and commercial/retail options for sandbags.\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://emergency.marincounty.org/pages/flooding#sandbags\">Where to find sandbags in Marin County\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Napa County\u003c/strong>: In addition to the county-run sandbag locations below, Napa County also recommends residents of American Canyon, Napa, St. Helena, Calistoga and Yountville \u003ca href=\"https://www.countyofnapa.org/DocumentCenter/View/20444/2023-Sandbag-Locations-PDF?bidId=\">contact their city directly for sandbag locations and availability (PDF)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>San Francisco\u003c/strong>: The city’s public works agency is offering up to 10 sandbags per resident at its Operations Yard (located on the corner of Marin and Kansas, near Cesar Chavez). The site is open \u003ca href=\"https://sfpublicworks.org/services/sandbags\">Monday to Saturday\u003c/a>, from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., and staff will ask you to present an ID with a valid San Francisco address.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>San Mateo County\u003c/strong>: San Mateo County offers a limit of 15 premade sandbags per resident. \u003ca href=\"https://www.smcgov.org/publicworks/storm-preparedness\">Where to find sandbags in San Mateo County\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Santa Clara County: \u003c/strong>Santa Clara County residents can pick up free sandbags from \u003ca href=\"https://www.valleywater.org/flooding-safety/flood-ready/sandbags\">several locations managed by Santa Clara Valley Water\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Solano County\u003c/strong>: All locations are self-serve and require your own shovel. \u003ca href=\"https://www.solanocounty.com/depts/oes/grs/storm_ready/sandbag_information.asp\">Where to find sandbags in Solano County\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sonoma County\u003c/strong>: Sandbags are available at over 10 locations around the county. \u003ca href=\"https://socoemergency.org/emergency/flooding/sandbags/\">Where to find sandbags in Sonoma County\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"poweroutages\">\u003c/a>How can I be ready for potential power outages?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Flooding, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11944945/a-tree-fell-on-my-car-in-the-bay-area-what-do-i-do\">downed trees\u003c/a> and downed power lines: All of these can create the very real possibility of power outages during a storm like this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Remember: It can sometimes take days for PG&E to do safety checks and turn your power back on, particularly if an outage affects a large enough number of people. If you have medical needs that rely on power, consider planning which family members or friends you can stay with during a lengthy power outage. You might also talk to your doctor in advance about how to prepare with medications or mobility needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Things to have close at hand before a potential power outage\u003c/strong>:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Battery-powered flashlights, ideally one for every household member.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>A supply of fresh batteries.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Portable chargers or battery packs to keep your mobile phone charged.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>LED candles, instead of wax candles, are recommended by PG&E.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>A battery-powered radio to hear updates on storm conditions and outages.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Nonperishable food (think canned goods) and water: The state recommends having enough food and water for every member of your household for three days.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>A thermometer to make sure your food is safe to eat (more on that below).\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Make sure you know exactly where these crucial items are, so you’re not scrambling to find them in the dark.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Other things to do ahead of an outage\u003c/strong>:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Fully charge your cellphone and any portable chargers.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Get cash, as ATMs may not work during a power outage.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Top your vehicle up with a full tank of gas (similarly, gas stations may not be operational during an outage).\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Fill up plastic containers with water and store them in your freezer, which you can use later as ice substitutes to keep food fresh.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Additionally, make sure you and your household all know:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>How to manually open any door in your home or building that requires electricity (think garage doors, apartment complex doors that require key cards).\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>How you’ll communicate in an emergency situation, and not depend on a phone that needs electricity.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>How you’ll operate a generator, if you have one — check ahead of time that the one you have works, and make sure you know \u003ca href=\"https://www.pge.com/en_US/safety/electrical-safety/electric-generator-safety/electric-generator-safety.page\">how to use it safely and eliminate the risk of carbon-monoxide poisoning\u003c/a>.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>As always, you should also consider checking on neighbors, especially those who may need assistance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mouse over or click points on the map below to see all of PG&E’s current power outages, planned or otherwise, along with the number of customers impacted, the cause (if listed), and estimated time of restoration. To see a rough approximation of power outage areas, zoom in on each location.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All data \u003ca href=\"https://pgealerts.alerts.pge.com/outages/map/\">comes from PG&E\u003c/a>, via the \u003ca href=\"https://gis.data.ca.gov/datasets/CalEMA::power-outage-incidents/about\">California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES)\u003c/a>, and is updated every 15 minutes. Any planned safety outages, known as Public Safety Power Outages (PSPS), will be specifically labeled on the map when they occur.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv style=\"width: 100%\" align=\"center\">\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://kqednews.maps.arcgis.com/apps/instant/basic/index.html?appid=a04a97b02e764b5e94905acaaecf2edc\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"border:0\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv style=\"width: 94%\" align=\"left\">\u003ci>Map produced by Matthew Green/KQED\u003c/i>\u003c/div>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What should I do if a power outage hits my home?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Turn off almost all your appliances\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If your power goes out, be sure to unplug or turn off any appliances and equipment to prevent damage from surges when the power is restored.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PG&E recommends keeping one lamp turned to the on position, to alert you when power has returned. You can then turn each appliance back on one by one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stay far away from any downed power lines, and report them\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.pge.com/en_US/safety/emergency-preparedness/natural-disaster/storms/storms.page\">If you’re near a downed power line, PG&E advises that you assume it’s energized and dangerous\u003c/a> and stay far away from it. You should:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Make sure that others in your household, especially children, also stay far back from any downed lines.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Call 911 to report the downed power line, and make sure you give the location clearly.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Then call PG&E to report the downed line, at \u003ca href=\"tel:18007435000\">(800) 743-5000\u003c/a>.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Keep your food safe and edible during an outage \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once your power is out, be especially purposeful about when you open your freezer or your refrigerator.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A refrigerator that loses power can keep food cold for about four hours, and a freezer for about 48 hours, if kept closed. Plan to rely on coolers with ice or any water-filled plastic containers you’ve frozen ahead of time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state recommends that during an outage, you monitor food temperatures with a thermometer — and throw out any food that has a temperature of 40 degrees or higher.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you’re opting to use a camp stove or a grill in the absence of your oven or microwave, you should only use these appliances outdoors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you’re without power for more than 48 hours, you may qualify for compensation from PG&E. \u003ca href=\"https://www.pge.com/en_US/residential/outages/current-outages/report-view-an-electric-outage/additional-resources/extended-outage-compensation/extended-outage-compensation.page\">Read more about the PG&E Safety Net program\u003c/a>, which offers these payments due to “severe events, like storms.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A tree fell on my car. Who do I call?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>We have a guide for that. Read our full advice on w\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11944945/a-tree-fell-on-my-car-in-the-bay-area-what-do-i-do\">hat to do if windy storms bring a tree down onto your car (or your house.)\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"driving\">\u003c/a>How can I drive safely in rain and strong winds?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>During these storms, officials urge residents to limit unnecessary travel and stay home if at all possible during weather events like these, citing the potential dangers presented by downed trees and power lines in addition to flooding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you must drive, use your headlights, turn off cruise control, maintain a firm grip on the steering wheel and drive more slowly and cautiously than usual. Leave twice as much space between your vehicle and the one in front of it; wet roads might mean it takes longer to stop. Be alert for debris on the road. If your car begins to hydroplane, do not slam on the brakes. Remain calm, ease off the gas, steer in the direction you want to go and very lightly pump the brakes until you regain traction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11936994\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1478px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11936994\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/01/E2081DCF-BC1D-480F-B27A-DBB7E0C45B3A.jpg\" alt=\"A red car lies abandoned under a flooded underpass with another car submerged behind it.\" width=\"1478\" height=\"985\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/01/E2081DCF-BC1D-480F-B27A-DBB7E0C45B3A.jpg 1478w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/01/E2081DCF-BC1D-480F-B27A-DBB7E0C45B3A-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/01/E2081DCF-BC1D-480F-B27A-DBB7E0C45B3A-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/01/E2081DCF-BC1D-480F-B27A-DBB7E0C45B3A-160x107.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1478px) 100vw, 1478px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Two cars are stuck in a flooded underpass at 34th and Webster streets in Oakland on Jan. 4, 2023. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>If flooding occurs, err on the side of caution. Don’t assume you know the depth of a pool of water or the conditions of the road underneath it, especially at night.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Always turn around rather than driving through a flooded area\u003c/strong> — as few as 6 inches of water is enough to disable or stall a small car, while 12 inches can sweep away a vehicle. If floodwaters begin to rise around your car, abandon the car and move to higher ground on foot. According to the California Department of Water Resources, more people become trapped and die in their vehicles than anywhere else during a flood.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"updates\">\u003c/a>How can I receive updates about my area?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>If you haven’t done so already, sign up to receive emergency weather alerts from your county. County officials use these notifications to inform residents of weather alerts, street and road closures, and evacuation orders. Find your county below:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.acgov.org/emergencysite/\">Alameda County emergency alerts\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.cityofberkeley.info/EmergencyAlerting/\">City of Berkeley emergency alerts\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.contracosta.ca.gov/2269/Emergency-Alerts-Resources\">Contra Costa County emergency alerts\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://emergency.marincounty.org/\">Marin County emergency alerts\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.countyofnapa.org/2481/Emergency-Alerts\">Napa County emergency alerts\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://sf.gov/information/be-know-official-emergency-alerts\">City and County of San Francisco emergency alerts\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://cmo.smcgov.org/smc-alert\">San Mateo County emergency alerts\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://emergencymanagement.sccgov.org/AlertSCC\">Santa Clara County emergency alerts\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.solanocounty.com/depts/oes/emergency.asp\">Solano County emergency alerts\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://socoemergency.org/get-ready/sign-up/\">Sonoma County emergency alerts\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>In San Francisco, officials have asked the public to call 311 to report flooding inside homes, instead of 911. “We still have to run all our critical 911 calls whether it’s a cardiac arrest, a car accident or a fire. If you add all these flooding issues \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">…\u003c/span> it can really overtax the system,” Fire Chief Jeanine Nicholson said in January 2023, days before the start of that year’s winter storm system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So if you have a little bit of flooding in your home, call 311,” she said. “If someone is having a heart attack or if someone is being swept by water, call 911.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>An earlier version of this story was published on Feb 2., 2024. KQED’s Ezra David Romero, Katie DeBenedetti, Danielle Venton, Kevin Stark, Daisy Nguyen and Erin Baldassari contributed to this story.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "dance-hall-crashers-reunion-interview",
"title": "Dance Hall Crashers On Their Reunion, 30 Years After Breaking the Boys’ Club",
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"headTitle": "Dance Hall Crashers On Their Reunion, 30 Years After Breaking the Boys’ Club | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13977010\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Polaroid-by-Debra-McClinton-Karina-Denike-Elyse-Rogers-1998-7.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13977010\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Polaroid-by-Debra-McClinton-Karina-Denike-Elyse-Rogers-1998-7.jpg\" alt=\"two women with dark hair pose in front of a blue background, one wearing yellow, one wearing a black dress\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1439\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Polaroid-by-Debra-McClinton-Karina-Denike-Elyse-Rogers-1998-7.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Polaroid-by-Debra-McClinton-Karina-Denike-Elyse-Rogers-1998-7-800x576.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Polaroid-by-Debra-McClinton-Karina-Denike-Elyse-Rogers-1998-7-1020x734.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Polaroid-by-Debra-McClinton-Karina-Denike-Elyse-Rogers-1998-7-160x115.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Polaroid-by-Debra-McClinton-Karina-Denike-Elyse-Rogers-1998-7-768x553.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Polaroid-by-Debra-McClinton-Karina-Denike-Elyse-Rogers-1998-7-1536x1105.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Polaroid-by-Debra-McClinton-Karina-Denike-Elyse-Rogers-1998-7-1920x1381.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Karina Deniké and Elyse Rogers in a Polaroid circa 1998. \u003ccite>(Debra McClinton)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Karina Deniké has been in a \u003cem>lot\u003c/em> of bands. The San Francisco singer has performed in dive bars and on festival stages. She’s toured Europe and Japan, has released solo records, and, for the past decade, she was a touring member of NOFX, bringing a crucial shot of feminine energy to their notoriously rowdy stage show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But no project of Deniké’s inspires quite as big a reaction as the one she gets when fans realize she’s \u003cem>Karina from Dance Hall Crashers\u003c/em>. Their eyes widen, or they wax poetic about the set list from a show they saw at Slim’s in 1996. Mostly, they want her to know just how much the women-led Berkeley ska-punk band meant to them when they were young — and how much they still mean now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No matter that Dance Hall Crashers, a group Deniké began fronting at age 18 alongside singer Elyse Rogers, haven’t played a show in more than 20 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13977004\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 960px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/DHC-at-Rhino-Records-Montclair-1998-photographer-unknown-left-to-right_Elyse-Rogers-Gavin-Hammon-Karina-Denike-Jason-Hammon.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13977004\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/DHC-at-Rhino-Records-Montclair-1998-photographer-unknown-left-to-right_Elyse-Rogers-Gavin-Hammon-Karina-Denike-Jason-Hammon.jpg\" alt=\"a band plays at a record store\" width=\"960\" height=\"714\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/DHC-at-Rhino-Records-Montclair-1998-photographer-unknown-left-to-right_Elyse-Rogers-Gavin-Hammon-Karina-Denike-Jason-Hammon.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/DHC-at-Rhino-Records-Montclair-1998-photographer-unknown-left-to-right_Elyse-Rogers-Gavin-Hammon-Karina-Denike-Jason-Hammon-800x595.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/DHC-at-Rhino-Records-Montclair-1998-photographer-unknown-left-to-right_Elyse-Rogers-Gavin-Hammon-Karina-Denike-Jason-Hammon-160x119.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/DHC-at-Rhino-Records-Montclair-1998-photographer-unknown-left-to-right_Elyse-Rogers-Gavin-Hammon-Karina-Denike-Jason-Hammon-768x571.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Dance Hall Crashers show at Rhino Records, outside Pomona, in 1998. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Dance Hall Crashers)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“On tour with NOFX, everywhere I went, people were coming out of the woodwork to tell me they were fans,” says Deniké in a recent Zoom interview with Dance Hall Crashers guitarist Jason Hammon. Sometimes, these fans were too young to have ever seen a DHC show. “So I’ve been feeding that back to the rest of the band. Like, you guys, this is not just a couple people. There is a \u003cem>lot\u003c/em> of interest.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those superfans will see a long-held dream come true this month, as Dance Hall Crashers reunite for a short run of live shows, including Warped Tour dates in Long Beach and Washington, D.C. this summer, and a Riot Fest appearance in Chicago in September. Of course, they had to do something for the hometown fans: They kick it all off with two sold-out appearances at Great American Music Hall June 6 and 7.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID='arts_13830408']Fittingly, the reunion was largely inspired by a certain group of young adults who never saw DHC play the first time around: the \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/p/DKaA6b9JPn5/?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==\">band members’ children\u003c/a>. Among them are Logan Hammon, Jason’s daughter, who also fronts the Oakland indie rock band \u003ca href=\"https://www.smallcrush.fun/\">Small Crush\u003c/a>; they open for Dance Hall Crashers on June 7.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ve been joking about it for like 10 years: ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if Dance Hall Crashers got back together and we got to play with you guys?’” says Hammon. “So yeah, this is the coolest thing that could have ever happened.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Crashing the boys’ club\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Birthed from the primordial, massively influential punk soup that was \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/tag/924-gilman\">924 Gilman\u003c/a> in the late ’80s, Dance Hall Crashers come with a particularly complex family tree: Tim Armstrong and Matt Freeman were two of the band’s founding members, during a time after their seminal ska band Operation Ivy broke up, but before they formed Rancid. Hammon, a kid from San Leandro who was playing in multiple punk bands around the East Bay, joined soon after on guitar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13977022\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1689px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Dance_Hall_Crashers_at_The_Masquerade_in_Atlanta_GA_in_1998_4847189689.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13977022\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Dance_Hall_Crashers_at_The_Masquerade_in_Atlanta_GA_in_1998_4847189689.jpg\" alt=\"a black and white photo of a band on stage from the back\" width=\"1689\" height=\"692\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Dance_Hall_Crashers_at_The_Masquerade_in_Atlanta_GA_in_1998_4847189689.jpg 1689w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Dance_Hall_Crashers_at_The_Masquerade_in_Atlanta_GA_in_1998_4847189689-800x328.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Dance_Hall_Crashers_at_The_Masquerade_in_Atlanta_GA_in_1998_4847189689-1020x418.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Dance_Hall_Crashers_at_The_Masquerade_in_Atlanta_GA_in_1998_4847189689-160x66.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Dance_Hall_Crashers_at_The_Masquerade_in_Atlanta_GA_in_1998_4847189689-768x315.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Dance_Hall_Crashers_at_The_Masquerade_in_Atlanta_GA_in_1998_4847189689-1536x629.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1689px) 100vw, 1689px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Dance Hall Crashers show at the Masquerade in Atlanta, Georgia. \u003ccite>(veganstraightedge / Wikimedia Commons)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Elyse Rogers, a UC Berkeley student and Operation Ivy fan from Orange County, became one of the band’s singers. She was followed by Denike, a Berkeley High alum by way of Cambridge, England, who fit right in. “I was already a rude girl at age 12, because there’s such a big Caribbean and West Indian community [in England], so much reggae and ska influence,” says Denike.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By 1994, the lineup had solidified with Rogers, Deniké, Hammon, Mikey Weiss on bass and Jason’s brother Gavin Hammon on drums. The band spent the next decade making upbeat, danceable, ineffably sassy songs that hit at the intersection of punk, pop and ska. They had catchy guitar riffs, a killer live show and a key feature that set them apart from the era’s dude-heavy pack: Two charismatic, no-bullshit frontwomen who harmonized like they were spinning gold.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGbxHkHwNJU\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This was more of an anomaly than young fans in 2025 may realize.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think I can count on one hand the number of bands that had female singers that played Gilman frequently around that time,” says Hammon. (\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13953628/michelle-cruz-gonzales-of-spitboy-is-punk-af-and-lived-to-teach-about-it\">Spitboy\u003c/a>, Blatz and Tilt come to mind.) That gender imbalance took on an even more bro-ish tone on Warped Tour, which DHC last played in 1996. The scene at the time, Hammon says, was “kind of a boys’ club.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It \u003cem>absolutely\u003c/em> was,” interjects Deniké. She and Rogers quickly grew thick skin as performers, she says, but their roles as the rare frontwomen in a male-dominated scene also gave them a sense of responsibility to young women fans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We wanted to have an environment [at shows] where we would have felt safe being in the crowd,” she says. “And I remember wanting to present this very strong, playful and fun female front with Elyse, but I was also conscious that I didn’t want to be overly sexy. It was always about the music, and it was very, very important to me that we would get respected for our musicality, or for our stage show, but not just, you know, putting on a short skirt.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13977003\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 960px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Karina-Denike-Elyse-Rogers.-Photo-by-Lisa-Johnson-Rock-Photographer-1998-.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13977003\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Karina-Denike-Elyse-Rogers.-Photo-by-Lisa-Johnson-Rock-Photographer-1998-.jpg\" alt=\"a black and white photo of two women singing\" width=\"960\" height=\"960\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Karina-Denike-Elyse-Rogers.-Photo-by-Lisa-Johnson-Rock-Photographer-1998-.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Karina-Denike-Elyse-Rogers.-Photo-by-Lisa-Johnson-Rock-Photographer-1998--800x800.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Karina-Denike-Elyse-Rogers.-Photo-by-Lisa-Johnson-Rock-Photographer-1998--160x160.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Karina-Denike-Elyse-Rogers.-Photo-by-Lisa-Johnson-Rock-Photographer-1998--768x768.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Karina Deniké and Elyse Rogers at a DHC show around 1998. \u003ccite>(Lisa Johnson)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The band stayed active off and on until 2004. During that time they released four studio albums, an EP and a live record; flirted with mainstream America via MTV rotation, song placements on the \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://people.com/movies/angus-turns-20-we-remember-its-amazing-soundtrack/\">Angus\u003c/a>\u003c/em> soundtrack and \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2vLuYG_b50\">Dawson’s Creek\u003c/a>\u003c/em>; and toured the country relentlessly, both headlining and opening for bands like Blink 182, No Doubt, Bad Religion and the Mighty Mighty Bosstones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1997, \u003cem>Honey, I’m Homely!\u003c/em>, their second LP to be released through MCA Records, became their most commercially successful record to date. The single “Lost Again” got significant alt-rock radio play and a music video, and the album hit No. 22 on Billboard’s Heatseekers chart. At least one critic compared Deniké and Rogers’ vocal dynamic to Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson of the B-52s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=em20dRxxE-E\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, DHC never quite crossed the rubicon into mainstream pop culture. Looking back, members cite their lack of careerism; the band consistently rejected offers and opportunities that didn’t feel like them. They also made decisions democratically. “Maybe if we didn’t all have vetoes, we would have done Sprite commercials,” says Hammon. “But we kept each other pretty honest.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead, they watched bands that had opened for Dance Hall Crashers book stadium tours, fueled in part by the gold rush around Bay Area punk and ska that followed Green Day’s breakout success. It was a weird couple of years: they had signed to a major label, and in the Bay, the vitriol around “selling out” hit a fever pitch. At the same time, the national market seemed to have room for only \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2024/01/17/1225142550/no-doubt-the-pop-punk-band-featuring-lead-singer-gwen-stefani-is-reuniting\">one woman-fronted ska-rock band\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The band didn’t exactly play ball with the label either: “There were all these suggestions getting thrown at us, like, ‘Why don’t you do a cover of some big pop song from the ’80s or the ’60s, and they’ll put that on the radio, and then we’ll start pumping your originals?’ That was the thing at the time,” says Deniké. “And we were just like, ‘We don’t want to do that.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13977005\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/DHC_Band_by-Debra-McClinton-L-Right_Jason-Hammon-Mikey-Wiess-ELyse-Rogers-Karina-Denike-Gavin-Hammon.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13977005\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/DHC_Band_by-Debra-McClinton-L-Right_Jason-Hammon-Mikey-Wiess-ELyse-Rogers-Karina-Denike-Gavin-Hammon.jpg\" alt=\"a band of five people pose in front of a yellow wall\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1371\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/DHC_Band_by-Debra-McClinton-L-Right_Jason-Hammon-Mikey-Wiess-ELyse-Rogers-Karina-Denike-Gavin-Hammon.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/DHC_Band_by-Debra-McClinton-L-Right_Jason-Hammon-Mikey-Wiess-ELyse-Rogers-Karina-Denike-Gavin-Hammon-800x548.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/DHC_Band_by-Debra-McClinton-L-Right_Jason-Hammon-Mikey-Wiess-ELyse-Rogers-Karina-Denike-Gavin-Hammon-1020x699.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/DHC_Band_by-Debra-McClinton-L-Right_Jason-Hammon-Mikey-Wiess-ELyse-Rogers-Karina-Denike-Gavin-Hammon-160x110.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/DHC_Band_by-Debra-McClinton-L-Right_Jason-Hammon-Mikey-Wiess-ELyse-Rogers-Karina-Denike-Gavin-Hammon-768x526.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/DHC_Band_by-Debra-McClinton-L-Right_Jason-Hammon-Mikey-Wiess-ELyse-Rogers-Karina-Denike-Gavin-Hammon-1536x1053.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/DHC_Band_by-Debra-McClinton-L-Right_Jason-Hammon-Mikey-Wiess-ELyse-Rogers-Karina-Denike-Gavin-Hammon-1920x1316.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">L to R: Jason Hammon, Mikey Weiss, Elyse Rogers, Karina Deniké and Gavin Hammon. \u003ccite>(Debra McClinton)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>They also didn’t want to keep touring after it stopped being fun. And that’s the short version of what happened in 2004: Some band members wanted to go to college, some had small children; most everyone had spent their whole 20s on the road, with other projects they wanted to pursue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So Dance Hall Crashers went on indefinite hiatus. Everyone’s remained good friends and in regular touch over the years. But half the band doesn’t live in the Bay Area anymore, and everyone has busy lives. They had no reason to believe that hiatus wouldn’t be permanent.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘If we sound like shit, we’re not going to do this’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In November of last year, after Warped Tour founder Kevin Lyman asked if Dance Hall Crashers would reunite for this year’s festival dates, Deniké and Rogers got together to sing. It was a couple weeks after the election, and moods were strange, to say the least. But the old friends needed to see how their voices sounded together before they agreed to perform.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13977008\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1482px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13977008\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Elyse-Rogers-Karina-Denike-rehearsal-photo-by-Karina-Denike-2025.jpeg.jpg\" alt=\"two women take a selfie\" width=\"1482\" height=\"2000\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Elyse-Rogers-Karina-Denike-rehearsal-photo-by-Karina-Denike-2025.jpeg.jpg 1482w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Elyse-Rogers-Karina-Denike-rehearsal-photo-by-Karina-Denike-2025.jpeg-800x1080.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Elyse-Rogers-Karina-Denike-rehearsal-photo-by-Karina-Denike-2025.jpeg-1020x1377.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Elyse-Rogers-Karina-Denike-rehearsal-photo-by-Karina-Denike-2025.jpeg-160x216.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Elyse-Rogers-Karina-Denike-rehearsal-photo-by-Karina-Denike-2025.jpeg-768x1036.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Elyse-Rogers-Karina-Denike-rehearsal-photo-by-Karina-Denike-2025.jpeg-1138x1536.jpg 1138w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1482px) 100vw, 1482px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Elyse Rogers and Karina Deniké in a selfie from band practice. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Karina Deniké)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It’s a very strange experience to go back after this many years, because it’s all muscle memory,” says Denike. “You’ll be like, ‘I have no memory of writing this, singing this, thinking this,’ but you’re singing it, and you don’t even know where the words are coming from. And ‘Oh, my voice goes up here, and you go down there.’ We snapped back to our parts pretty quickly.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The ’90s band-reunion economy has boomed in recent years, with nostalgia-driven festivals like When We Were Young targeting punk and emo fans now in their 40s and 50s. But for Dance Hall Crashers fans, this reunion feels especially affirming: there’s a sense of DHC as an underdog, a gem that never quite got its true shine. “It is kind of exciting to get a second chance,” says Deniké, “and to be coming from a different perspective, which is age.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Hammon, gearing up for shows helped him realize just how many people still carry a torch for the band. Sure, he knew the Descendents were big fans, and NOFX’s Fat Mike had remarked to him in recent years that DHC was “so beloved.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13977002\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/DHC.rehearsal.fromFB.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-13977002 size-medium\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/DHC.rehearsal.fromFB-e1748974395652-800x646.jpg\" alt=\"three people at band practice\" width=\"800\" height=\"646\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/DHC.rehearsal.fromFB-e1748974395652-800x646.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/DHC.rehearsal.fromFB-e1748974395652-1020x824.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/DHC.rehearsal.fromFB-e1748974395652-160x129.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/DHC.rehearsal.fromFB-e1748974395652-768x620.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/DHC.rehearsal.fromFB-e1748974395652.jpg 1065w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Karina Deniké, Jason Hammon and Gavin Hammon at a recent band practice. \u003ccite>(Dance Hall Crashers / Instagram)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But Hammon wasn’t sure what to expect ticket sales-wise — until the San Francisco shows sold out within five minutes. On social media, fans have spent the last six months collectively losing their minds, with some flying in from as far as Japan, Australia, England and Nova Scotia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s been really, really cool to see how excited people are. It’s cool that anybody even still listens to us,” says Hammon. “But, you know, music’s forever.”\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Dance Hall Crashers play two very sold-out shows Friday and Saturday, June 6 and 7, at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco. \u003ca href=\"https://wl.seetickets.us/event/dance-hall-crashers/636019?afflky=GreatAmericanMusicHall\">Details\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://wl.seetickets.us/event/dance-hall-crashers/634707?afflky=GreatAmericanMusicHall\">here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Ahead of two sold-out reunion shows, Karina Deniké and Jason Hammon reflect on the ’90s, ska, and “selling out.”",
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"title": "Dance Hall Crashers On Their Reunion, 30 Years After Breaking the Boys’ Club | KQED",
"description": "Ahead of two sold-out reunion shows, Karina Deniké and Jason Hammon reflect on the ’90s, ska, and “selling out.”",
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"headline": "Dance Hall Crashers On Their Reunion, 30 Years After Breaking the Boys’ Club",
"datePublished": "2025-06-03T16:31:36-07:00",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13977010\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Polaroid-by-Debra-McClinton-Karina-Denike-Elyse-Rogers-1998-7.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13977010\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Polaroid-by-Debra-McClinton-Karina-Denike-Elyse-Rogers-1998-7.jpg\" alt=\"two women with dark hair pose in front of a blue background, one wearing yellow, one wearing a black dress\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1439\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Polaroid-by-Debra-McClinton-Karina-Denike-Elyse-Rogers-1998-7.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Polaroid-by-Debra-McClinton-Karina-Denike-Elyse-Rogers-1998-7-800x576.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Polaroid-by-Debra-McClinton-Karina-Denike-Elyse-Rogers-1998-7-1020x734.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Polaroid-by-Debra-McClinton-Karina-Denike-Elyse-Rogers-1998-7-160x115.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Polaroid-by-Debra-McClinton-Karina-Denike-Elyse-Rogers-1998-7-768x553.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Polaroid-by-Debra-McClinton-Karina-Denike-Elyse-Rogers-1998-7-1536x1105.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Polaroid-by-Debra-McClinton-Karina-Denike-Elyse-Rogers-1998-7-1920x1381.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Karina Deniké and Elyse Rogers in a Polaroid circa 1998. \u003ccite>(Debra McClinton)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Karina Deniké has been in a \u003cem>lot\u003c/em> of bands. The San Francisco singer has performed in dive bars and on festival stages. She’s toured Europe and Japan, has released solo records, and, for the past decade, she was a touring member of NOFX, bringing a crucial shot of feminine energy to their notoriously rowdy stage show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But no project of Deniké’s inspires quite as big a reaction as the one she gets when fans realize she’s \u003cem>Karina from Dance Hall Crashers\u003c/em>. Their eyes widen, or they wax poetic about the set list from a show they saw at Slim’s in 1996. Mostly, they want her to know just how much the women-led Berkeley ska-punk band meant to them when they were young — and how much they still mean now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No matter that Dance Hall Crashers, a group Deniké began fronting at age 18 alongside singer Elyse Rogers, haven’t played a show in more than 20 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13977004\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 960px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/DHC-at-Rhino-Records-Montclair-1998-photographer-unknown-left-to-right_Elyse-Rogers-Gavin-Hammon-Karina-Denike-Jason-Hammon.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13977004\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/DHC-at-Rhino-Records-Montclair-1998-photographer-unknown-left-to-right_Elyse-Rogers-Gavin-Hammon-Karina-Denike-Jason-Hammon.jpg\" alt=\"a band plays at a record store\" width=\"960\" height=\"714\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/DHC-at-Rhino-Records-Montclair-1998-photographer-unknown-left-to-right_Elyse-Rogers-Gavin-Hammon-Karina-Denike-Jason-Hammon.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/DHC-at-Rhino-Records-Montclair-1998-photographer-unknown-left-to-right_Elyse-Rogers-Gavin-Hammon-Karina-Denike-Jason-Hammon-800x595.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/DHC-at-Rhino-Records-Montclair-1998-photographer-unknown-left-to-right_Elyse-Rogers-Gavin-Hammon-Karina-Denike-Jason-Hammon-160x119.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/DHC-at-Rhino-Records-Montclair-1998-photographer-unknown-left-to-right_Elyse-Rogers-Gavin-Hammon-Karina-Denike-Jason-Hammon-768x571.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Dance Hall Crashers show at Rhino Records, outside Pomona, in 1998. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Dance Hall Crashers)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“On tour with NOFX, everywhere I went, people were coming out of the woodwork to tell me they were fans,” says Deniké in a recent Zoom interview with Dance Hall Crashers guitarist Jason Hammon. Sometimes, these fans were too young to have ever seen a DHC show. “So I’ve been feeding that back to the rest of the band. Like, you guys, this is not just a couple people. There is a \u003cem>lot\u003c/em> of interest.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those superfans will see a long-held dream come true this month, as Dance Hall Crashers reunite for a short run of live shows, including Warped Tour dates in Long Beach and Washington, D.C. this summer, and a Riot Fest appearance in Chicago in September. Of course, they had to do something for the hometown fans: They kick it all off with two sold-out appearances at Great American Music Hall June 6 and 7.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Fittingly, the reunion was largely inspired by a certain group of young adults who never saw DHC play the first time around: the \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/p/DKaA6b9JPn5/?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==\">band members’ children\u003c/a>. Among them are Logan Hammon, Jason’s daughter, who also fronts the Oakland indie rock band \u003ca href=\"https://www.smallcrush.fun/\">Small Crush\u003c/a>; they open for Dance Hall Crashers on June 7.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ve been joking about it for like 10 years: ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if Dance Hall Crashers got back together and we got to play with you guys?’” says Hammon. “So yeah, this is the coolest thing that could have ever happened.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Crashing the boys’ club\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Birthed from the primordial, massively influential punk soup that was \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/tag/924-gilman\">924 Gilman\u003c/a> in the late ’80s, Dance Hall Crashers come with a particularly complex family tree: Tim Armstrong and Matt Freeman were two of the band’s founding members, during a time after their seminal ska band Operation Ivy broke up, but before they formed Rancid. Hammon, a kid from San Leandro who was playing in multiple punk bands around the East Bay, joined soon after on guitar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13977022\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1689px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Dance_Hall_Crashers_at_The_Masquerade_in_Atlanta_GA_in_1998_4847189689.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13977022\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Dance_Hall_Crashers_at_The_Masquerade_in_Atlanta_GA_in_1998_4847189689.jpg\" alt=\"a black and white photo of a band on stage from the back\" width=\"1689\" height=\"692\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Dance_Hall_Crashers_at_The_Masquerade_in_Atlanta_GA_in_1998_4847189689.jpg 1689w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Dance_Hall_Crashers_at_The_Masquerade_in_Atlanta_GA_in_1998_4847189689-800x328.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Dance_Hall_Crashers_at_The_Masquerade_in_Atlanta_GA_in_1998_4847189689-1020x418.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Dance_Hall_Crashers_at_The_Masquerade_in_Atlanta_GA_in_1998_4847189689-160x66.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Dance_Hall_Crashers_at_The_Masquerade_in_Atlanta_GA_in_1998_4847189689-768x315.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Dance_Hall_Crashers_at_The_Masquerade_in_Atlanta_GA_in_1998_4847189689-1536x629.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1689px) 100vw, 1689px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Dance Hall Crashers show at the Masquerade in Atlanta, Georgia. \u003ccite>(veganstraightedge / Wikimedia Commons)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Elyse Rogers, a UC Berkeley student and Operation Ivy fan from Orange County, became one of the band’s singers. She was followed by Denike, a Berkeley High alum by way of Cambridge, England, who fit right in. “I was already a rude girl at age 12, because there’s such a big Caribbean and West Indian community [in England], so much reggae and ska influence,” says Denike.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By 1994, the lineup had solidified with Rogers, Deniké, Hammon, Mikey Weiss on bass and Jason’s brother Gavin Hammon on drums. The band spent the next decade making upbeat, danceable, ineffably sassy songs that hit at the intersection of punk, pop and ska. They had catchy guitar riffs, a killer live show and a key feature that set them apart from the era’s dude-heavy pack: Two charismatic, no-bullshit frontwomen who harmonized like they were spinning gold.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/dGbxHkHwNJU'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/dGbxHkHwNJU'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>This was more of an anomaly than young fans in 2025 may realize.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think I can count on one hand the number of bands that had female singers that played Gilman frequently around that time,” says Hammon. (\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13953628/michelle-cruz-gonzales-of-spitboy-is-punk-af-and-lived-to-teach-about-it\">Spitboy\u003c/a>, Blatz and Tilt come to mind.) That gender imbalance took on an even more bro-ish tone on Warped Tour, which DHC last played in 1996. The scene at the time, Hammon says, was “kind of a boys’ club.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It \u003cem>absolutely\u003c/em> was,” interjects Deniké. She and Rogers quickly grew thick skin as performers, she says, but their roles as the rare frontwomen in a male-dominated scene also gave them a sense of responsibility to young women fans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We wanted to have an environment [at shows] where we would have felt safe being in the crowd,” she says. “And I remember wanting to present this very strong, playful and fun female front with Elyse, but I was also conscious that I didn’t want to be overly sexy. It was always about the music, and it was very, very important to me that we would get respected for our musicality, or for our stage show, but not just, you know, putting on a short skirt.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13977003\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 960px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Karina-Denike-Elyse-Rogers.-Photo-by-Lisa-Johnson-Rock-Photographer-1998-.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13977003\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Karina-Denike-Elyse-Rogers.-Photo-by-Lisa-Johnson-Rock-Photographer-1998-.jpg\" alt=\"a black and white photo of two women singing\" width=\"960\" height=\"960\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Karina-Denike-Elyse-Rogers.-Photo-by-Lisa-Johnson-Rock-Photographer-1998-.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Karina-Denike-Elyse-Rogers.-Photo-by-Lisa-Johnson-Rock-Photographer-1998--800x800.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Karina-Denike-Elyse-Rogers.-Photo-by-Lisa-Johnson-Rock-Photographer-1998--160x160.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Karina-Denike-Elyse-Rogers.-Photo-by-Lisa-Johnson-Rock-Photographer-1998--768x768.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Karina Deniké and Elyse Rogers at a DHC show around 1998. \u003ccite>(Lisa Johnson)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The band stayed active off and on until 2004. During that time they released four studio albums, an EP and a live record; flirted with mainstream America via MTV rotation, song placements on the \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://people.com/movies/angus-turns-20-we-remember-its-amazing-soundtrack/\">Angus\u003c/a>\u003c/em> soundtrack and \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2vLuYG_b50\">Dawson’s Creek\u003c/a>\u003c/em>; and toured the country relentlessly, both headlining and opening for bands like Blink 182, No Doubt, Bad Religion and the Mighty Mighty Bosstones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1997, \u003cem>Honey, I’m Homely!\u003c/em>, their second LP to be released through MCA Records, became their most commercially successful record to date. The single “Lost Again” got significant alt-rock radio play and a music video, and the album hit No. 22 on Billboard’s Heatseekers chart. At least one critic compared Deniké and Rogers’ vocal dynamic to Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson of the B-52s.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/em20dRxxE-E'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/em20dRxxE-E'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>Still, DHC never quite crossed the rubicon into mainstream pop culture. Looking back, members cite their lack of careerism; the band consistently rejected offers and opportunities that didn’t feel like them. They also made decisions democratically. “Maybe if we didn’t all have vetoes, we would have done Sprite commercials,” says Hammon. “But we kept each other pretty honest.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead, they watched bands that had opened for Dance Hall Crashers book stadium tours, fueled in part by the gold rush around Bay Area punk and ska that followed Green Day’s breakout success. It was a weird couple of years: they had signed to a major label, and in the Bay, the vitriol around “selling out” hit a fever pitch. At the same time, the national market seemed to have room for only \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2024/01/17/1225142550/no-doubt-the-pop-punk-band-featuring-lead-singer-gwen-stefani-is-reuniting\">one woman-fronted ska-rock band\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The band didn’t exactly play ball with the label either: “There were all these suggestions getting thrown at us, like, ‘Why don’t you do a cover of some big pop song from the ’80s or the ’60s, and they’ll put that on the radio, and then we’ll start pumping your originals?’ That was the thing at the time,” says Deniké. “And we were just like, ‘We don’t want to do that.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13977005\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/DHC_Band_by-Debra-McClinton-L-Right_Jason-Hammon-Mikey-Wiess-ELyse-Rogers-Karina-Denike-Gavin-Hammon.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13977005\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/DHC_Band_by-Debra-McClinton-L-Right_Jason-Hammon-Mikey-Wiess-ELyse-Rogers-Karina-Denike-Gavin-Hammon.jpg\" alt=\"a band of five people pose in front of a yellow wall\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1371\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/DHC_Band_by-Debra-McClinton-L-Right_Jason-Hammon-Mikey-Wiess-ELyse-Rogers-Karina-Denike-Gavin-Hammon.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/DHC_Band_by-Debra-McClinton-L-Right_Jason-Hammon-Mikey-Wiess-ELyse-Rogers-Karina-Denike-Gavin-Hammon-800x548.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/DHC_Band_by-Debra-McClinton-L-Right_Jason-Hammon-Mikey-Wiess-ELyse-Rogers-Karina-Denike-Gavin-Hammon-1020x699.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/DHC_Band_by-Debra-McClinton-L-Right_Jason-Hammon-Mikey-Wiess-ELyse-Rogers-Karina-Denike-Gavin-Hammon-160x110.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/DHC_Band_by-Debra-McClinton-L-Right_Jason-Hammon-Mikey-Wiess-ELyse-Rogers-Karina-Denike-Gavin-Hammon-768x526.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/DHC_Band_by-Debra-McClinton-L-Right_Jason-Hammon-Mikey-Wiess-ELyse-Rogers-Karina-Denike-Gavin-Hammon-1536x1053.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/DHC_Band_by-Debra-McClinton-L-Right_Jason-Hammon-Mikey-Wiess-ELyse-Rogers-Karina-Denike-Gavin-Hammon-1920x1316.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">L to R: Jason Hammon, Mikey Weiss, Elyse Rogers, Karina Deniké and Gavin Hammon. \u003ccite>(Debra McClinton)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>They also didn’t want to keep touring after it stopped being fun. And that’s the short version of what happened in 2004: Some band members wanted to go to college, some had small children; most everyone had spent their whole 20s on the road, with other projects they wanted to pursue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So Dance Hall Crashers went on indefinite hiatus. Everyone’s remained good friends and in regular touch over the years. But half the band doesn’t live in the Bay Area anymore, and everyone has busy lives. They had no reason to believe that hiatus wouldn’t be permanent.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘If we sound like shit, we’re not going to do this’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In November of last year, after Warped Tour founder Kevin Lyman asked if Dance Hall Crashers would reunite for this year’s festival dates, Deniké and Rogers got together to sing. It was a couple weeks after the election, and moods were strange, to say the least. But the old friends needed to see how their voices sounded together before they agreed to perform.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13977008\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1482px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13977008\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Elyse-Rogers-Karina-Denike-rehearsal-photo-by-Karina-Denike-2025.jpeg.jpg\" alt=\"two women take a selfie\" width=\"1482\" height=\"2000\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Elyse-Rogers-Karina-Denike-rehearsal-photo-by-Karina-Denike-2025.jpeg.jpg 1482w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Elyse-Rogers-Karina-Denike-rehearsal-photo-by-Karina-Denike-2025.jpeg-800x1080.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Elyse-Rogers-Karina-Denike-rehearsal-photo-by-Karina-Denike-2025.jpeg-1020x1377.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Elyse-Rogers-Karina-Denike-rehearsal-photo-by-Karina-Denike-2025.jpeg-160x216.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Elyse-Rogers-Karina-Denike-rehearsal-photo-by-Karina-Denike-2025.jpeg-768x1036.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Elyse-Rogers-Karina-Denike-rehearsal-photo-by-Karina-Denike-2025.jpeg-1138x1536.jpg 1138w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1482px) 100vw, 1482px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Elyse Rogers and Karina Deniké in a selfie from band practice. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Karina Deniké)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It’s a very strange experience to go back after this many years, because it’s all muscle memory,” says Denike. “You’ll be like, ‘I have no memory of writing this, singing this, thinking this,’ but you’re singing it, and you don’t even know where the words are coming from. And ‘Oh, my voice goes up here, and you go down there.’ We snapped back to our parts pretty quickly.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The ’90s band-reunion economy has boomed in recent years, with nostalgia-driven festivals like When We Were Young targeting punk and emo fans now in their 40s and 50s. But for Dance Hall Crashers fans, this reunion feels especially affirming: there’s a sense of DHC as an underdog, a gem that never quite got its true shine. “It is kind of exciting to get a second chance,” says Deniké, “and to be coming from a different perspective, which is age.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Hammon, gearing up for shows helped him realize just how many people still carry a torch for the band. Sure, he knew the Descendents were big fans, and NOFX’s Fat Mike had remarked to him in recent years that DHC was “so beloved.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13977002\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/DHC.rehearsal.fromFB.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-13977002 size-medium\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/DHC.rehearsal.fromFB-e1748974395652-800x646.jpg\" alt=\"three people at band practice\" width=\"800\" height=\"646\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/DHC.rehearsal.fromFB-e1748974395652-800x646.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/DHC.rehearsal.fromFB-e1748974395652-1020x824.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/DHC.rehearsal.fromFB-e1748974395652-160x129.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/DHC.rehearsal.fromFB-e1748974395652-768x620.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/DHC.rehearsal.fromFB-e1748974395652.jpg 1065w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Karina Deniké, Jason Hammon and Gavin Hammon at a recent band practice. \u003ccite>(Dance Hall Crashers / Instagram)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But Hammon wasn’t sure what to expect ticket sales-wise — until the San Francisco shows sold out within five minutes. On social media, fans have spent the last six months collectively losing their minds, with some flying in from as far as Japan, Australia, England and Nova Scotia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s been really, really cool to see how excited people are. It’s cool that anybody even still listens to us,” says Hammon. “But, you know, music’s forever.”\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Dance Hall Crashers play two very sold-out shows Friday and Saturday, June 6 and 7, at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco. \u003ca href=\"https://wl.seetickets.us/event/dance-hall-crashers/636019?afflky=GreatAmericanMusicHall\">Details\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://wl.seetickets.us/event/dance-hall-crashers/634707?afflky=GreatAmericanMusicHall\">here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "best-kids-activities-family-friendly-events-bay-area-summer",
"title": "9 of the Best Kids’ Activities to Keep the Family Cool This Summer",
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"headTitle": "9 of the Best Kids’ Activities to Keep the Family Cool This Summer | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>Be sure to check out our full \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/tag/summer-guide-2025\">2025 Summer Arts Guide to live music, movies, art, theater, festivals and more\u003c/a> in the Bay Area.\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When I was a kid growing up in the Bay Area, the word “summer” conjured endless possibilities: lazy days spent lounging at Lake Anza, bleacher seats at baseball games, massive sundaes at Fenton’s. As a working adult now raising a small kid of my own in the Bay Area, the word now prompts a slightly different reaction: namely, “Oh, it’s on \u003cem>me\u003c/em> to think of stuff to do?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of course, there are always classic summer attractions and kids’ activities you don’t need me to recommend: can’t go wrong with county fairs or water parks. But it’s also fair to desire some kid-oriented activities that feel uniquely Bay Area — and that you, an adult, can enjoy on their own merits. Here are a few to get you started.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13929304\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/P1150139-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13929304\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/P1150139-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"a giant sand castle shaped like an ice cream sundae, with the word 'sandae'\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/P1150139-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/P1150139-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/P1150139-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/P1150139-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/P1150139-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/P1150139-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/P1150139-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An award-winning entry at Alameda’s annual Sand Castle and Sculpture Contest. \u003ccite>(Alameda Recreation and Park Department)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca href=\"https://www.alamedaca.gov/Departments/Recreation-Parks/Sand-Castle-Sculpture-Contest\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Build an epic sandcastle\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Robert Crown Memorial State Beach, Alameda\u003cbr>\nJune 21\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People get serious at the annual Sand Castle and Sculpture Contest in Alameda, and it’s easy to see why: previous years’ winners have set the bar pretty high. Participants enter in three categories (12 and under, 13 and over, families); have exactly three hours to complete their masterpieces; and are judged on four criteria (design, detail, neatness and technique), with an official awards ceremony to cap off the day. The whole thing’s free, and sideline spectators are very much encouraged.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13915273\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/RS56912_008_KQED_SFTransMarch_06242022-qut.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13915273\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/RS56912_008_KQED_SFTransMarch_06242022-qut.jpg\" alt=\"A young girl leads a chant at the Trans March.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/RS56912_008_KQED_SFTransMarch_06242022-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/RS56912_008_KQED_SFTransMarch_06242022-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/RS56912_008_KQED_SFTransMarch_06242022-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/RS56912_008_KQED_SFTransMarch_06242022-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/RS56912_008_KQED_SFTransMarch_06242022-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/RS56912_008_KQED_SFTransMarch_06242022-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Trans March in San Francisco on June 24, 2022. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca href=\"https://ybgfestival.org/event/pride-in-yerba-buena/\">Celebrate Pride with the whole family\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Yerba Buena Gardens, San Francisco\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\n\u003cem>June 28\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Family-friendly Pride parties abound the Friday and Saturday before San Francisco’s official Pride parade on Sunday. This \u003ca href=\"https://ybgfestival.org/event/pride-in-yerba-buena/\">free celebration\u003c/a> features drag, circus arts, music and dancing, featuring host and drag diva Rahni NothingMore, aerialists Starya and Miss Viva La Glam and more. The \u003ca href=\"https://www.transmarch.org/faq/#children\">Trans March\u003c/a>, this year on Friday, June 27, is also notably kid-friendly, with a snack and face-painting station at Dolores Park, the march’s starting point.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13929220\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 653px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/NW-EP-Sleepover__FillWzY1MywzMzdd.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13929220\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/NW-EP-Sleepover__FillWzY1MywzMzdd.jpg\" alt=\"tents are seen set up next to a storybook structure in a children's amusement park\" width=\"653\" height=\"337\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/NW-EP-Sleepover__FillWzY1MywzMzdd.jpg 653w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/NW-EP-Sleepover__FillWzY1MywzMzdd-160x83.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 653px) 100vw, 653px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A sleepover gets underway at Children’s Fairyland in Oakland. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Children's Fairyland)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca href=\"https://fairyland.org/event-calendar/family-summer-sleepover-1/2025-07-19/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Join a slumber party at Fairyland\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Children’s Fairyland, Oakland\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\n\u003cem>July 19–20; Aug. 9–10\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For more than 70 years, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11948422/the-future-looks-bright-for-childrens-fairyland-as-it-seeks-to-better-reflect-oaklands-cultural-rainbow\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">beloved, old-school amusement park\u003c/a> at the edge of Lake Merritt — famously a source of inspiration for Walt Disney when he was designing that other, slightly more commercial amusement park down south — has been a go-to for Bay Area family day trips. But if your kid can’t get enough of the park’s rides, storybook attractions or puppet performances, camping out under the stars at one of Fairyland’s summer sleepovers will be a next-level thrill. Dinner and breakfast are included, so you can just pack your sleeping bags and get ready to leave grownup reality-land behind for the night.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13929229\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/IMG_0342-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13929229\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/IMG_0342-800x711.jpg\" alt=\"a small child with curly hair points at some berries on a vine against a blue sky while holding a plastic red basket\" width=\"800\" height=\"711\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/IMG_0342-800x711.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/IMG_0342-1020x907.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/IMG_0342-160x142.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/IMG_0342-768x683.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/IMG_0342-1536x1366.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/IMG_0342-2048x1821.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/IMG_0342-1920x1707.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A late-in-season olallieberry hunt at R&R Farms in Pescadero. \u003ccite>(Emma Silvers)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Get pickin’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Various locations\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\n\u003cem>Late May through August depending on different crops; check individual farms’ websites for details\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What’s better than homemade pie? Homemade pie in which you can (literally) taste the fruits of your labor. Early summer is berry season in the Bay Area, and there are dozens of “u-pick” farms where kids can get their hands berry-stained to their hearts’ content.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Sebastopol, check out \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11921034/welcome-black-to-the-land-inside-sonoma-countys-first-afro-indigenous-permaculture-farm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">EARTHseed, Sonoma County’s first Afro-Indigeous permaculture farm\u003c/a>, for plums, pluots and blackberries. Head east to Brentwood for cherries — locals like \u003ca href=\"https://www.nunnbetterfarms.com/\">Nunn Better Farms\u003c/a>, where you don’t need a reservation. In Pescadero, hit the \u003ca href=\"https://bluehousefarm.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Blue House Farm\u003c/a> for strawberries in June or \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/rrfreshfarms/\">R&R Farms\u003c/a> for olallieberries later in the summer (and stop by Arcangeli Grocery for a loaf of fresh-baked garlic artichoke bread on your way out of town).\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13973624\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1680px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/03/media_38330308_38084227_compressed.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13973624\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/03/media_38330308_38084227_compressed.jpg\" alt=\"After a soccer game two players stand on a dark field as fireworks light up the sky above.\" width=\"1680\" height=\"2518\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/03/media_38330308_38084227_compressed.jpg 1680w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/03/media_38330308_38084227_compressed-800x1199.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/03/media_38330308_38084227_compressed-1020x1529.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/03/media_38330308_38084227_compressed-160x240.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/03/media_38330308_38084227_compressed-768x1151.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/03/media_38330308_38084227_compressed-1025x1536.jpg 1025w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/03/media_38330308_38084227_compressed-1366x2048.jpg 1366w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1680px) 100vw, 1680px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">After the Oakland Roots first soccer match of the season, Justin Rasmussen (left) and Wolfgang Prentice (right) stand on a dark field as fireworks light up the sky above the Oakland Coliseum. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Oakland Roots SC)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Root for the home team\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Various locations\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The A’s may have left Oakland under the dumbest and most infuriating of circumstances, but with new sports teams on the scene like the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13972636/billie-joe-armstrong-too-short-oakland-ballers-baseball\">Oakland Ballers\u003c/a>, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13973027/dee-dot-jones-oakland-roots-soccer-club-anthem-tru-2-my-roots\">Oakland Roots\u003c/a> and the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11986061/get-ready-for-the-golden-state-valkyries-bay-areas-new-wnba-team\">Golden State Valkyries\u003c/a>, home team pride is at an all-time high. Check teams’ calendars for special events like the Ballers’ celebration of Rickey Henderson (June 21) or the Valkyries’ Pride celebration night (June 27).\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13814020\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2130px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/11/0168-e1510095578367.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13814020\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/11/0168-e1510095578367.jpg\" alt=\"The courtyard at the Charles M Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa.\" width=\"2130\" height=\"1200\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/11/0168-e1510095578367.jpg 2130w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/11/0168-e1510095578367-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/11/0168-e1510095578367-800x451.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/11/0168-e1510095578367-768x433.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/11/0168-e1510095578367-1020x575.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/11/0168-e1510095578367-1920x1082.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/11/0168-e1510095578367-1180x665.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/11/0168-e1510095578367-960x541.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/11/0168-e1510095578367-240x135.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/11/0168-e1510095578367-375x211.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/11/0168-e1510095578367-520x293.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2130px) 100vw, 2130px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The courtyard at the Charles M Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa. \u003ccite>(DJ Ashton)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca href=\"https://schulzmuseum.org/\">Read the funnies (and learn about their history)\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Charles M. Schulz Museum, Santa Rosa\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Santa Rosa’s Charles M. Schulz museum is dedicated to the life and work of the beloved \u003cem>Peanuts\u003c/em> creator, and comics lovers of all ages will delight in viewing original strips, artifacts from Schulz’s home art studio, and more. Bonus: The museum is a hub for contemporary comics artists as well, hosting frequent classes, workshops and meet-and-greets, like this chance to see \u003ca href=\"https://schulzmuseum.org/janelle-blarg/#toggle-id-1\">Bay Area zine legend (and KQED contributor) Janelle Hessig\u003c/a> in action on July 12.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13914849\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/RS50073_033_Oakland_JuneteenthBBPMiniMuseum_06192021-qut.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13914849\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/RS50073_033_Oakland_JuneteenthBBPMiniMuseum_06192021-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"a young Black girl and an older Black man give thumbs ups while riding a horse in front of a mural celebrating the Black Panther Party\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/RS50073_033_Oakland_JuneteenthBBPMiniMuseum_06192021-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/RS50073_033_Oakland_JuneteenthBBPMiniMuseum_06192021-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/RS50073_033_Oakland_JuneteenthBBPMiniMuseum_06192021-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/RS50073_033_Oakland_JuneteenthBBPMiniMuseum_06192021-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/RS50073_033_Oakland_JuneteenthBBPMiniMuseum_06192021-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/RS50073_033_Oakland_JuneteenthBBPMiniMuseum_06192021-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Donnell McAlister gives kids a chance to sit on top of his horse during a block party to celebrate the opening of the Black Panther Party Mini Museum in West Oakland during a 2021 Juneteenth celebration. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Celebrate Juneteenth\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Various locations\u003cbr>\nProgramming throughout June; most events June 14–19\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Juneteenth has only been a recognized federal holiday since 2021, but the Bay Area has celebrated the day of emancipation since the 1980s. Family-friendly parades, musical performances, film screenings, political actions and parties highlighting Black history and culture abound on all sides of the Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://juneteenth-sf.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">San Francisco’s annual party in the Fillmore\u003c/a> on June 14 promises carnival rides, pony rides and games in a kids’ area; Berkeley’s \u003ca href=\"https://berkeleyjuneteenth.org/\">official celebration, held this year on June 15,\u003c/a> has previously featured a rock-climbing wall and kids’ STEM activities; while the Oakland Museum of California’s \u003ca href=\"https://museumca.org/event/hella-juneteenth-2025/\">Hella Juneteenth Festival\u003c/a> June 19 includes lawn games, a kids’ zone, and line dancing. In San Jose, \u003ca href=\"https://www.sjaacsa.org/juneteenth/home\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Juneteenth in the Street\u003c/a> takes over downtown June 14 with family-friendly music and dance performances, while the \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdm.org/celebrate/juneteenth/\">Children’s Discovery Museum\u003c/a> has a special kids’ program June 19 where kids can dance or play during a drumming workshop, then make their own percussion instruments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13929391\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/Sometimes-kids-are-entertained-and-sometimes-they-are-the-entertainers-at-Rivertown-Revival.-Photo-by-Debbie-Wilson-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13929391\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/Sometimes-kids-are-entertained-and-sometimes-they-are-the-entertainers-at-Rivertown-Revival.-Photo-by-Debbie-Wilson-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"a band made up of five kids with instruments performs on a stage with a sign that reads 'the boat dock' at a festival\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/Sometimes-kids-are-entertained-and-sometimes-they-are-the-entertainers-at-Rivertown-Revival.-Photo-by-Debbie-Wilson-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/Sometimes-kids-are-entertained-and-sometimes-they-are-the-entertainers-at-Rivertown-Revival.-Photo-by-Debbie-Wilson-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/Sometimes-kids-are-entertained-and-sometimes-they-are-the-entertainers-at-Rivertown-Revival.-Photo-by-Debbie-Wilson-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/Sometimes-kids-are-entertained-and-sometimes-they-are-the-entertainers-at-Rivertown-Revival.-Photo-by-Debbie-Wilson-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/Sometimes-kids-are-entertained-and-sometimes-they-are-the-entertainers-at-Rivertown-Revival.-Photo-by-Debbie-Wilson-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/Sometimes-kids-are-entertained-and-sometimes-they-are-the-entertainers-at-Rivertown-Revival.-Photo-by-Debbie-Wilson-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/Sometimes-kids-are-entertained-and-sometimes-they-are-the-entertainers-at-Rivertown-Revival.-Photo-by-Debbie-Wilson-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A band of kids performs at the Rivertown Revival, an especially family-friendly music fest in Petaluma. \u003ccite>(Debbie Wilson)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca href=\"https://www.rivertownrevival.com/\">Get down at the\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"http://www.rivertownrevival.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Rivertown Revival\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>McNear Peninsula, Steamer Landing Park, Petaluma\u003cbr>\nJuly 18–19\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This sweet two-day festival, now in its 12th year, offers a sizzle reel of Bay Area indie-folk, soul and alt-country talent. The 2025 lineup is still yet-to-be-announced, but previous incarnations have seen Petaluma’s own Ben Morrison (\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13838086/the-brothers-comatoses-trade-deal-with-china-bluegrass\">Brothers Comatose\u003c/a>), freak-folk from \u003ca href=\"http://www.janglahdahs.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Tay and the JangLahDahs \u003c/a>and Santa Rosa pirate punks \u003ca href=\"https://thecruxmusic.bandcamp.com/\">The Crux\u003c/a>. The kicker for families is a big, dedicated kids’ area with arts and crafts, water play and more, plus a shaded, private parents’ tent for nursing or diaper changes. It’s all a fundraiser for the nonprofit Friends of the Petaluma River.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(Other kid-friendly music festivals include \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13974214/stern-grove-2025-lineup-free-concerts-diana-ross-san-francisco\">Stern Grove\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13968062/mosswood-meltdown-oakland-lineup-2025\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Mosswood Meltdown \u003c/a>and the \u003ca href=\"https://summerfest.sanjosejazz.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">San Jose Summer Jazz Fest\u003c/a>.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11666132\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 600px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2016/06/santa-cruz.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11666132\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2016/06/santa-cruz.jpg\" alt=\"people watch a movie on an outdoor screen at the beach with a roller coaster in the background\" width=\"600\" height=\"381\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/06/santa-cruz.jpg 600w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/06/santa-cruz-400x254.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Free movies on the Beach at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca href=\"https://beachboardwalk.com/movies/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Catch a movie at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Friday nights June 13–Aug. 18\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\n\u003cem>Beach in front of the Colonnade, Santa Cruz\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nothing says summer like sand between your toes, corn dogs and saltwater taffy, and the unmistakable look on the face of a parent who just consumed corn dogs and saltwater taffy, then agreed to go on “one more ride” at the behest of a child hopped up on sugar and arcade games. A trip to the Santa Cruz boardwalk is already a classic summertime pilgrimage for Bay Area kids; up the ante (or just celebrate no one losing their lunch on the Giant Dipper) by sticking around for a free cult-classic movie on the beach. Just make sure no one wanders off on their own at night — “Santa Carla” can get freaky after dark.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDQ0_lXClxc\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Your Bay Area guide to all-ages activities that the whole family actually can enjoy. ",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>Be sure to check out our full \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/tag/summer-guide-2025\">2025 Summer Arts Guide to live music, movies, art, theater, festivals and more\u003c/a> in the Bay Area.\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When I was a kid growing up in the Bay Area, the word “summer” conjured endless possibilities: lazy days spent lounging at Lake Anza, bleacher seats at baseball games, massive sundaes at Fenton’s. As a working adult now raising a small kid of my own in the Bay Area, the word now prompts a slightly different reaction: namely, “Oh, it’s on \u003cem>me\u003c/em> to think of stuff to do?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of course, there are always classic summer attractions and kids’ activities you don’t need me to recommend: can’t go wrong with county fairs or water parks. But it’s also fair to desire some kid-oriented activities that feel uniquely Bay Area — and that you, an adult, can enjoy on their own merits. Here are a few to get you started.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13929304\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/P1150139-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13929304\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/P1150139-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"a giant sand castle shaped like an ice cream sundae, with the word 'sandae'\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/P1150139-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/P1150139-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/P1150139-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/P1150139-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/P1150139-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/P1150139-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/P1150139-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An award-winning entry at Alameda’s annual Sand Castle and Sculpture Contest. \u003ccite>(Alameda Recreation and Park Department)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca href=\"https://www.alamedaca.gov/Departments/Recreation-Parks/Sand-Castle-Sculpture-Contest\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Build an epic sandcastle\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Robert Crown Memorial State Beach, Alameda\u003cbr>\nJune 21\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People get serious at the annual Sand Castle and Sculpture Contest in Alameda, and it’s easy to see why: previous years’ winners have set the bar pretty high. Participants enter in three categories (12 and under, 13 and over, families); have exactly three hours to complete their masterpieces; and are judged on four criteria (design, detail, neatness and technique), with an official awards ceremony to cap off the day. The whole thing’s free, and sideline spectators are very much encouraged.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13915273\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/RS56912_008_KQED_SFTransMarch_06242022-qut.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13915273\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/RS56912_008_KQED_SFTransMarch_06242022-qut.jpg\" alt=\"A young girl leads a chant at the Trans March.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/RS56912_008_KQED_SFTransMarch_06242022-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/RS56912_008_KQED_SFTransMarch_06242022-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/RS56912_008_KQED_SFTransMarch_06242022-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/RS56912_008_KQED_SFTransMarch_06242022-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/RS56912_008_KQED_SFTransMarch_06242022-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/RS56912_008_KQED_SFTransMarch_06242022-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Trans March in San Francisco on June 24, 2022. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca href=\"https://ybgfestival.org/event/pride-in-yerba-buena/\">Celebrate Pride with the whole family\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Yerba Buena Gardens, San Francisco\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\n\u003cem>June 28\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Family-friendly Pride parties abound the Friday and Saturday before San Francisco’s official Pride parade on Sunday. This \u003ca href=\"https://ybgfestival.org/event/pride-in-yerba-buena/\">free celebration\u003c/a> features drag, circus arts, music and dancing, featuring host and drag diva Rahni NothingMore, aerialists Starya and Miss Viva La Glam and more. The \u003ca href=\"https://www.transmarch.org/faq/#children\">Trans March\u003c/a>, this year on Friday, June 27, is also notably kid-friendly, with a snack and face-painting station at Dolores Park, the march’s starting point.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13929220\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 653px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/NW-EP-Sleepover__FillWzY1MywzMzdd.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13929220\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/NW-EP-Sleepover__FillWzY1MywzMzdd.jpg\" alt=\"tents are seen set up next to a storybook structure in a children's amusement park\" width=\"653\" height=\"337\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/NW-EP-Sleepover__FillWzY1MywzMzdd.jpg 653w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/NW-EP-Sleepover__FillWzY1MywzMzdd-160x83.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 653px) 100vw, 653px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A sleepover gets underway at Children’s Fairyland in Oakland. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Children's Fairyland)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca href=\"https://fairyland.org/event-calendar/family-summer-sleepover-1/2025-07-19/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Join a slumber party at Fairyland\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Children’s Fairyland, Oakland\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\n\u003cem>July 19–20; Aug. 9–10\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For more than 70 years, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11948422/the-future-looks-bright-for-childrens-fairyland-as-it-seeks-to-better-reflect-oaklands-cultural-rainbow\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">beloved, old-school amusement park\u003c/a> at the edge of Lake Merritt — famously a source of inspiration for Walt Disney when he was designing that other, slightly more commercial amusement park down south — has been a go-to for Bay Area family day trips. But if your kid can’t get enough of the park’s rides, storybook attractions or puppet performances, camping out under the stars at one of Fairyland’s summer sleepovers will be a next-level thrill. Dinner and breakfast are included, so you can just pack your sleeping bags and get ready to leave grownup reality-land behind for the night.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13929229\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/IMG_0342-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13929229\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/IMG_0342-800x711.jpg\" alt=\"a small child with curly hair points at some berries on a vine against a blue sky while holding a plastic red basket\" width=\"800\" height=\"711\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/IMG_0342-800x711.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/IMG_0342-1020x907.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/IMG_0342-160x142.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/IMG_0342-768x683.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/IMG_0342-1536x1366.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/IMG_0342-2048x1821.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/IMG_0342-1920x1707.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A late-in-season olallieberry hunt at R&R Farms in Pescadero. \u003ccite>(Emma Silvers)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Get pickin’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Various locations\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\n\u003cem>Late May through August depending on different crops; check individual farms’ websites for details\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What’s better than homemade pie? Homemade pie in which you can (literally) taste the fruits of your labor. Early summer is berry season in the Bay Area, and there are dozens of “u-pick” farms where kids can get their hands berry-stained to their hearts’ content.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Sebastopol, check out \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11921034/welcome-black-to-the-land-inside-sonoma-countys-first-afro-indigenous-permaculture-farm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">EARTHseed, Sonoma County’s first Afro-Indigeous permaculture farm\u003c/a>, for plums, pluots and blackberries. Head east to Brentwood for cherries — locals like \u003ca href=\"https://www.nunnbetterfarms.com/\">Nunn Better Farms\u003c/a>, where you don’t need a reservation. In Pescadero, hit the \u003ca href=\"https://bluehousefarm.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Blue House Farm\u003c/a> for strawberries in June or \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/rrfreshfarms/\">R&R Farms\u003c/a> for olallieberries later in the summer (and stop by Arcangeli Grocery for a loaf of fresh-baked garlic artichoke bread on your way out of town).\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13973624\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1680px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/03/media_38330308_38084227_compressed.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13973624\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/03/media_38330308_38084227_compressed.jpg\" alt=\"After a soccer game two players stand on a dark field as fireworks light up the sky above.\" width=\"1680\" height=\"2518\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/03/media_38330308_38084227_compressed.jpg 1680w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/03/media_38330308_38084227_compressed-800x1199.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/03/media_38330308_38084227_compressed-1020x1529.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/03/media_38330308_38084227_compressed-160x240.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/03/media_38330308_38084227_compressed-768x1151.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/03/media_38330308_38084227_compressed-1025x1536.jpg 1025w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/03/media_38330308_38084227_compressed-1366x2048.jpg 1366w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1680px) 100vw, 1680px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">After the Oakland Roots first soccer match of the season, Justin Rasmussen (left) and Wolfgang Prentice (right) stand on a dark field as fireworks light up the sky above the Oakland Coliseum. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Oakland Roots SC)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Root for the home team\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Various locations\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The A’s may have left Oakland under the dumbest and most infuriating of circumstances, but with new sports teams on the scene like the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13972636/billie-joe-armstrong-too-short-oakland-ballers-baseball\">Oakland Ballers\u003c/a>, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13973027/dee-dot-jones-oakland-roots-soccer-club-anthem-tru-2-my-roots\">Oakland Roots\u003c/a> and the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11986061/get-ready-for-the-golden-state-valkyries-bay-areas-new-wnba-team\">Golden State Valkyries\u003c/a>, home team pride is at an all-time high. Check teams’ calendars for special events like the Ballers’ celebration of Rickey Henderson (June 21) or the Valkyries’ Pride celebration night (June 27).\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13814020\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2130px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/11/0168-e1510095578367.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13814020\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/11/0168-e1510095578367.jpg\" alt=\"The courtyard at the Charles M Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa.\" width=\"2130\" height=\"1200\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/11/0168-e1510095578367.jpg 2130w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/11/0168-e1510095578367-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/11/0168-e1510095578367-800x451.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/11/0168-e1510095578367-768x433.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/11/0168-e1510095578367-1020x575.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/11/0168-e1510095578367-1920x1082.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/11/0168-e1510095578367-1180x665.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/11/0168-e1510095578367-960x541.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/11/0168-e1510095578367-240x135.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/11/0168-e1510095578367-375x211.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/11/0168-e1510095578367-520x293.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2130px) 100vw, 2130px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The courtyard at the Charles M Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa. \u003ccite>(DJ Ashton)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca href=\"https://schulzmuseum.org/\">Read the funnies (and learn about their history)\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Charles M. Schulz Museum, Santa Rosa\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Santa Rosa’s Charles M. Schulz museum is dedicated to the life and work of the beloved \u003cem>Peanuts\u003c/em> creator, and comics lovers of all ages will delight in viewing original strips, artifacts from Schulz’s home art studio, and more. Bonus: The museum is a hub for contemporary comics artists as well, hosting frequent classes, workshops and meet-and-greets, like this chance to see \u003ca href=\"https://schulzmuseum.org/janelle-blarg/#toggle-id-1\">Bay Area zine legend (and KQED contributor) Janelle Hessig\u003c/a> in action on July 12.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13914849\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/RS50073_033_Oakland_JuneteenthBBPMiniMuseum_06192021-qut.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13914849\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/RS50073_033_Oakland_JuneteenthBBPMiniMuseum_06192021-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"a young Black girl and an older Black man give thumbs ups while riding a horse in front of a mural celebrating the Black Panther Party\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/RS50073_033_Oakland_JuneteenthBBPMiniMuseum_06192021-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/RS50073_033_Oakland_JuneteenthBBPMiniMuseum_06192021-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/RS50073_033_Oakland_JuneteenthBBPMiniMuseum_06192021-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/RS50073_033_Oakland_JuneteenthBBPMiniMuseum_06192021-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/RS50073_033_Oakland_JuneteenthBBPMiniMuseum_06192021-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/RS50073_033_Oakland_JuneteenthBBPMiniMuseum_06192021-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Donnell McAlister gives kids a chance to sit on top of his horse during a block party to celebrate the opening of the Black Panther Party Mini Museum in West Oakland during a 2021 Juneteenth celebration. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Celebrate Juneteenth\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Various locations\u003cbr>\nProgramming throughout June; most events June 14–19\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Juneteenth has only been a recognized federal holiday since 2021, but the Bay Area has celebrated the day of emancipation since the 1980s. Family-friendly parades, musical performances, film screenings, political actions and parties highlighting Black history and culture abound on all sides of the Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://juneteenth-sf.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">San Francisco’s annual party in the Fillmore\u003c/a> on June 14 promises carnival rides, pony rides and games in a kids’ area; Berkeley’s \u003ca href=\"https://berkeleyjuneteenth.org/\">official celebration, held this year on June 15,\u003c/a> has previously featured a rock-climbing wall and kids’ STEM activities; while the Oakland Museum of California’s \u003ca href=\"https://museumca.org/event/hella-juneteenth-2025/\">Hella Juneteenth Festival\u003c/a> June 19 includes lawn games, a kids’ zone, and line dancing. In San Jose, \u003ca href=\"https://www.sjaacsa.org/juneteenth/home\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Juneteenth in the Street\u003c/a> takes over downtown June 14 with family-friendly music and dance performances, while the \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdm.org/celebrate/juneteenth/\">Children’s Discovery Museum\u003c/a> has a special kids’ program June 19 where kids can dance or play during a drumming workshop, then make their own percussion instruments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13929391\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/Sometimes-kids-are-entertained-and-sometimes-they-are-the-entertainers-at-Rivertown-Revival.-Photo-by-Debbie-Wilson-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13929391\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/Sometimes-kids-are-entertained-and-sometimes-they-are-the-entertainers-at-Rivertown-Revival.-Photo-by-Debbie-Wilson-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"a band made up of five kids with instruments performs on a stage with a sign that reads 'the boat dock' at a festival\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/Sometimes-kids-are-entertained-and-sometimes-they-are-the-entertainers-at-Rivertown-Revival.-Photo-by-Debbie-Wilson-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/Sometimes-kids-are-entertained-and-sometimes-they-are-the-entertainers-at-Rivertown-Revival.-Photo-by-Debbie-Wilson-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/Sometimes-kids-are-entertained-and-sometimes-they-are-the-entertainers-at-Rivertown-Revival.-Photo-by-Debbie-Wilson-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/Sometimes-kids-are-entertained-and-sometimes-they-are-the-entertainers-at-Rivertown-Revival.-Photo-by-Debbie-Wilson-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/Sometimes-kids-are-entertained-and-sometimes-they-are-the-entertainers-at-Rivertown-Revival.-Photo-by-Debbie-Wilson-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/Sometimes-kids-are-entertained-and-sometimes-they-are-the-entertainers-at-Rivertown-Revival.-Photo-by-Debbie-Wilson-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/Sometimes-kids-are-entertained-and-sometimes-they-are-the-entertainers-at-Rivertown-Revival.-Photo-by-Debbie-Wilson-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A band of kids performs at the Rivertown Revival, an especially family-friendly music fest in Petaluma. \u003ccite>(Debbie Wilson)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca href=\"https://www.rivertownrevival.com/\">Get down at the\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"http://www.rivertownrevival.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Rivertown Revival\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>McNear Peninsula, Steamer Landing Park, Petaluma\u003cbr>\nJuly 18–19\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This sweet two-day festival, now in its 12th year, offers a sizzle reel of Bay Area indie-folk, soul and alt-country talent. The 2025 lineup is still yet-to-be-announced, but previous incarnations have seen Petaluma’s own Ben Morrison (\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13838086/the-brothers-comatoses-trade-deal-with-china-bluegrass\">Brothers Comatose\u003c/a>), freak-folk from \u003ca href=\"http://www.janglahdahs.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Tay and the JangLahDahs \u003c/a>and Santa Rosa pirate punks \u003ca href=\"https://thecruxmusic.bandcamp.com/\">The Crux\u003c/a>. The kicker for families is a big, dedicated kids’ area with arts and crafts, water play and more, plus a shaded, private parents’ tent for nursing or diaper changes. It’s all a fundraiser for the nonprofit Friends of the Petaluma River.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(Other kid-friendly music festivals include \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13974214/stern-grove-2025-lineup-free-concerts-diana-ross-san-francisco\">Stern Grove\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13968062/mosswood-meltdown-oakland-lineup-2025\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Mosswood Meltdown \u003c/a>and the \u003ca href=\"https://summerfest.sanjosejazz.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">San Jose Summer Jazz Fest\u003c/a>.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11666132\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 600px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2016/06/santa-cruz.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11666132\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2016/06/santa-cruz.jpg\" alt=\"people watch a movie on an outdoor screen at the beach with a roller coaster in the background\" width=\"600\" height=\"381\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/06/santa-cruz.jpg 600w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/06/santa-cruz-400x254.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Free movies on the Beach at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca href=\"https://beachboardwalk.com/movies/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Catch a movie at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Friday nights June 13–Aug. 18\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\n\u003cem>Beach in front of the Colonnade, Santa Cruz\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nothing says summer like sand between your toes, corn dogs and saltwater taffy, and the unmistakable look on the face of a parent who just consumed corn dogs and saltwater taffy, then agreed to go on “one more ride” at the behest of a child hopped up on sugar and arcade games. A trip to the Santa Cruz boardwalk is already a classic summertime pilgrimage for Bay Area kids; up the ante (or just celebrate no one losing their lunch on the Giant Dipper) by sticking around for a free cult-classic movie on the beach. Just make sure no one wanders off on their own at night — “Santa Carla” can get freaky after dark.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/zDQ0_lXClxc'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/zDQ0_lXClxc'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "laura-jane-grace-interview-gods-dick-touring-while-trans-adventure-club-against-me-punk",
"title": "Laura Jane Grace Is Just Asking Questions",
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"content": "\u003cp>It’s tough to imagine a better rock star for this moment in America than \u003ca href=\"https://www.laurajanegrace.com/\">Laura Jane Grace\u003c/a>. The founder of the seminal Florida \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/tag/punk\">punk\u003c/a> band \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13809159/black-me-out-against-me-laura-jane-grace\">Against Me!\u003c/a> has long been known for songwriting that blends the personal and political, as well as visceral, cathartic live shows. Now 44, she’s been releasing records and touring in bands for nearly 30 years. And while her cast of supporting players sometimes changes from album to album, Grace’s ethos is consistent, raising a melodic middle finger to inequality, injustice and authoritarianism. Last year, \u003cem>Rolling Stone \u003c/em>called her “the fiercest punk singer of our time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since coming out in 2012 (and releasing the critically acclaimed record \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13809159/black-me-out-against-me-laura-jane-grace\">\u003cem>Transgender Dysphoria Blues\u003c/em>\u003c/a>), Grace has also become a hero to a generation of LGBTQ+ punks, and used her platform to speak out for transgender rights. Her outspokenness does not usually go massively viral, however — until last month. That’s when Grace, performing at a Bernie Sanders rally in Kenosha, Washington, sang a catchy new sing-along called “Your God (God’s Dick),” with lyrics that pose detailed questions about the Judeo-Christian deity’s theoretical anatomy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSmYxKIs3PI\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Conservative commentators promptly \u003ca href=\"https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/laura-jane-grace-right-backlash-your-gods-dick-response-1235295332/\">lost their minds\u003c/a>: Fox News called it “pure evil”; the far-right social media account Libs of TikTok described it as a “degenerate, disgusting, anti-Christian song.” Comedians Dana Carvey and David Spade, who apparently have a podcast, mocked it on said podcast. (Actor-turned-Bible-thumper \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13935238/russell-brand-sexual-assault-allegations-channel-4-dispatches-sunday-times\">Russell Brand\u003c/a>, for his part, called the performance “blasphemy” in a March 12 social media post. \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/04/04/g-s1-58260/russell-brand-rape-assault\">He was charged on April 4 with the rape and sexual assault\u003c/a> of four different women.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite a few death threats, Grace has taken it in stride — and taken it on the road. The track is a single off \u003cem>Adventure Club\u003c/em>, a new full-length that she’ll release in July. At the time of this interview, she was a week into a U.S. tour with backing band \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYDLYlhvJho\">the Mississippi Medicals\u003c/a>. They play Friday, April 18 at Cornerstone in Berkeley and Saturday, April 19 at the Mystic Theatre in Petaluma.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This interview has been edited for length and clarity.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>I understand you made this new album in Greece last summer, as part of a dreamy-sounding fellowship from the \u003ca href=\"https://www.onassis.org/initiatives/onassis-air\">Onassis AiR Foundation\u003c/a>. But many of the songs on \u003cem>Adventure Club\u003c/em> are about the state of affairs in the U.S. How did it affect the songs to be writing about America from afar?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I actually went in with three or four songs in my back pocket, and some of them just caught up with the zeitgeist. For instance, I’ve been working on the song “Mine Me Mine” since probably 2018, and it never really clicked [until now]. Same with a song like “World War III.” I \u003cem>wish\u003c/em> it wasn’t lining up well politically, right? I wish the songs were completely irrelevant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID='arts_13968840']The song “God’s Dick,” I wrote while I was in Greece, actually at the Onassis AiR offices. They have these amazing work spaces where you’re like an exhibit: anybody walking by on the street can look and see whatever you’re working on. I had weekly check-ins where I would play what I was working on for the Onassis people and we’d talk about it. So it was interesting, when there was all the stink caused by right-wing people after the rally … I know, at face value, this may seem like knuckle-dragging toilet humor. But this is actually a really thought-out piece of work. I had to sit in front of a committee and be like, “This is the song I wrote. This is why I wrote it. This is what the lyrics are about,” and explain it to them with a straight face, you know?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s felt cool having that legitimacy added to it. There was more thought put into all these songs than any other previous record that I’ve put out, because I’ve already had to justify it to people who aren’t punk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13974484\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/LJG-Credit-Fabiana-Moreira-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13974484\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/LJG-Credit-Fabiana-Moreira-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"a black and white photo of a person with tattoos on stage playing guitar\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/LJG-Credit-Fabiana-Moreira-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/LJG-Credit-Fabiana-Moreira-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/LJG-Credit-Fabiana-Moreira-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/LJG-Credit-Fabiana-Moreira-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/LJG-Credit-Fabiana-Moreira-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/LJG-Credit-Fabiana-Moreira-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/LJG-Credit-Fabiana-Moreira-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/LJG-Credit-Fabiana-Moreira-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Laura Jane Grace. \u003ccite>(Fabiana Moreira)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Were you surprised by the reaction to that performance at the rally?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s just people choosing to be offended, and then not actually looking deeply into it or recognizing that it is completely relevant to the conversation that’s happening right now. Right-wing Christians want to know what is going on in \u003cem>everybody’s\u003c/em> pants. But then, if you flip it around and ask, OK, well, you’re referring to your God with male pronouns, and my understanding is that you imagine God to be, like, a guy in the sky wearing robes, with a beard? What does \u003cem>that\u003c/em> mean? I have questions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>It’s also undeniably catchy. It’s just a very joyful, well-constructed anthem.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That song would not exist if I did not have to endure however many years of fucking being sent to church youth group as a teenager, and singing songs like [sings] “Our God is an awesome God, He reigns from heaven above with wisdom, power and love.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>So church was good for something after all.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All my first drug experiences, all my first sexual experiences, and all my first bands were at church.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID='arts_13961071']\u003cstrong>I wanted to ask how you think about your safety on tour right now, given the onslaught of anti-trans bills and vitriol from this Trump administration. But I can also imagine it’s not like you felt 100% safe as a trans person touring the heartland for the last decade before this. Does it feel different now?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m trying to really gauge it, actually. Definitely traveling out west [over the past week], we stopped at a lot of places that, you go into the gas station, and they’re selling Trump bobbleheads or MAGA hats or whatever. And to me, it always seems like there’s a strange disconnect: the person behind the counter could be wearing a MAGA hat, and watching Fox News, and they could be enraged about trans issues. But if I walk up to the counter and have an interaction with them, they’re still friendly for the most part. It’s almost like the connection between what they’re seeing in the media hasn’t totally clicked into everyday life yet. But I don’t know when that’s gonna flip. Or if it’ll flip.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Also, right, the Trump billboards and things like that across the country have never gone away, since his first presidency. For a while, I was driving back and forth between Chicago and St. Louis pretty often, and there’s \u003cem>tons\u003c/em> of Trump stuff in between Chicago and St. Louis — all across Illinois, which is a primarily blue state, right? But I think it’s cool to be able to travel and get a read on the country in that way. It’s something that I wish more people could do. I feel like you get a better understanding of the country if you’re traveling through it all the time, as opposed to just existing in your own little world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOVKevOPQwg\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>You hear pretty frequently from young trans punks who tell you what your journey meant to them. What are queer young folks telling you right now at shows? Do kids ask you for advice?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I mean, I have all the same fears and uncertainties everyone else does. If anyone ever comes up to me and says that my story was a part of their story, that’s incredible. And I know exactly what that feels like, because I can look at the people who did that for me. But the big things that everyone’s concerned about right now are basic things, like access to hormones, or \u003ca href=\"https://ca.billboard.com/music/music-news/bells-larsen-us-tour-visa\">passports, name changes, gender marker change issues\u003c/a>. And I don’t have any of the fucking answers for that stuff. It feels just as uncertain and scary for me too. We’re all very much in this together and figuring it out as we go.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>You’ve been making protest music since your teens and early 20s, when the resistance was about fighting back against George W. Bush and the Iraq War. How does this moment feel similar or different to you?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What feels different to me is the way the DIY punk scene, or the activist scene, organized then. The underground network — whether that was people with zines, or punk houses doing shows — offered a real alternative to mainstream media, and how information was being disseminated. The protest movement that was happening around George Bush benefited from that. And very unfortunately, at this point, that structure and that whole network just feels like it’s gone. I don’t know if that’s everything shifting over to social media … but I do think, any kind of resistance or protest network organizing completely on social media, I feel like that’s a real mistake.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All the Colorado shows we just played, we had [trans-led social justice legal center] \u003ca href=\"https://www.breadandroseslaw.org/\">Bread and Roses\u003c/a> come out and table at the shows, and it feels like that really resonated. There were a couple of [bills to protect gender-affirming healthcare] going through the Colorado political system while we were there, and there’s genuine excitement — excitement about trying to get organized, trying to put your frustrations or fears in a positive direction. So that’s a positive sign.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13974485\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/LJG-and-The-Mississippi-Medicals-Credit-Dave-Decker_3-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13974485\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/LJG-and-The-Mississippi-Medicals-Credit-Dave-Decker_3-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"a black and white band photo with four people\" width=\"2560\" height=\"2048\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/LJG-and-The-Mississippi-Medicals-Credit-Dave-Decker_3-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/LJG-and-The-Mississippi-Medicals-Credit-Dave-Decker_3-800x640.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/LJG-and-The-Mississippi-Medicals-Credit-Dave-Decker_3-1020x816.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/LJG-and-The-Mississippi-Medicals-Credit-Dave-Decker_3-160x128.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/LJG-and-The-Mississippi-Medicals-Credit-Dave-Decker_3-768x614.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/LJG-and-The-Mississippi-Medicals-Credit-Dave-Decker_3-1536x1229.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/LJG-and-The-Mississippi-Medicals-Credit-Dave-Decker_3-2048x1638.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/LJG-and-The-Mississippi-Medicals-Credit-Dave-Decker_3-1920x1536.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Laura Jane Grace (far right) and the Mississippi Medicals, featuring (L to R) Matt Patton of Drive-By Truckers (bass), Mikey Erg of The Ergs (drums) and Paris Campbell Grace (vocals, percussion). \u003ccite>(Dave Decker)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What’s your relationship like with social media these days? You’re so funny and sharp online, but I also wonder how someone like you could possibly navigate a media diet and not just spiral into despair looking at your phone when you have a seven-hour drive.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Oh, I definitely spiral into despair. I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately because I feel like there’s been a tonality shift. I started being more active on Twitter and Instagram, back when those things started, at the push of record labels. But you can only post “Playing San Diego tonight!” so many times. So in between, you give your personal thoughts or shit takes, right?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But it seems like that worked better on Twitter when Twitter was still Twitter. It felt like a big group chat. And it was just an amazing resource — I remember being on tour in like 2015 in Portland, Oregon, and tweeting, “If anyone brings us donuts right now, we’ll give you guest list spots.” And 30 minutes later, somebody brought us a dozen donuts, and we hooked him up with guest list spots. Real communication in real time!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Also, I didn’t get into this [industry] to be a content creator. I want to play music. I want to write songs, and record songs, and play shows. All the other shit is being done to promote that, and to get the word out and to survive too, because some of those things [like Instagram reels \u003ca href=\"https://blog.symphonic.com/2024/01/27/does-instagram-pay-music-royalties-2/\">paying musicians small royalties\u003c/a>] have become revenue streams, even. In general it feels like we’re in a transitional period, everyone’s trying to figure out the new way forward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID='news_12023321']\u003cstrong>You sound like you’re having so much fun on \u003cem>Adventure Club\u003c/em>, despite the subject matter, and I’m curious how you think about the idea of joy as a form of protest. You’ll hear folks who were around during the AIDS crisis say “we buried our friends during the day, and then we went dancing at night” — this idea that fun is a necessary part of it.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I mean, you need that. You need to be restored, or else you’re just gonna burn out. With a song like “Mine Me Mine,” like I mentioned, I brought that song to Against Me! at one point, and it didn’t work out — and maybe that had a lot to do with it not being fun. I think they were the sessions we had right before the pandemic hit, and we were in a bad place, right? And you’re going in there and you’re singing songs about not-fun topics, and it’s not a fun time recording them, and it just burns you the fuck out. Whereas, with this, it was the balance of — again, I wish that the topics weren’t relevant. They are. But then, the experience behind recording them was fucking joyful. We went out swimming and snorkeling every day. You’re in the sun, you’re eating ice cream, and then you’re recording this music, and it \u003cem>restores\u003c/em> you, and you need that, otherwise you’re going to grind yourself into the ground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I think about that a lot, even in terms of parenting. Your child’s needs come first, but also you’re going to be a shitty parent if you don’t pay attention to your own needs. So there’s that balance of, you need to make sure you’re good in order to make sure they’re good.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6A-F9xos2iY\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>As a product of Albany and Berkeley, California, I have to ask you about the great Operation Ivy cover sets you did a few months ago with Catbite. What did that mean to you, as someone who’s loved them since you were a kid?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They are one of my all-time favorite bands, and it was a surreal, full-circle moment in so many ways. I’ll tell you the best moral of the story, with being able to do those sets: When I was 14 or 15 years old, I got arrested by a bunch of cops, beat up, charged with a couple felonies — I was in some really deep fucking trouble. At the time, I was playing bass in this punk band, and my guitar player’s dad was a really high-powered attorney. So he bailed me out of jail that night. And he was like, “I will represent you in these court cases for free. But my stipulation is, you all have this show coming up in two weeks, and you can’t play ‘Officer’” — because he knew we liked to cover “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwELCNMXR2w\">Officer\u003c/a>” by Operation Ivy. He was like, don’t play that song, and I’ll represent you for free.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so first song of the set, I got up and fucking let out that “Ahhhh—” … we played “Officer.” And I lost my legal representation. My mom ended up having to pay for a lawyer out of pocket for me. Thank you, Mom. I lost the case, and it fucking sucked. I spent a whole summer on house arrest. It’s still on my record. But to be up on stage however many years later, covering all those Operation Ivy songs, and having it come full circle like that? That was really fucking affirming.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Laura Jane Grace and the Mississippi Medicals play with openers Alex Lahey and Rodeo Boys on Friday, April 18 at Cornerstone in Berkeley (\u003ca href=\"https://www.tixr.com/groups/cornerstoneberkeley/events/laura-jane-grace-the-mississippi-medicals-122958\">details here\u003c/a>) and Saturday, April 19 at the Mystic Theatre in Petaluma (\u003ca href=\"https://wl.seetickets.us/event/laura-jane-grace-and-the-mississippi-medicals/627570?afflky=MysticTheatre\">details here\u003c/a>). \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>It’s tough to imagine a better rock star for this moment in America than \u003ca href=\"https://www.laurajanegrace.com/\">Laura Jane Grace\u003c/a>. The founder of the seminal Florida \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/tag/punk\">punk\u003c/a> band \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13809159/black-me-out-against-me-laura-jane-grace\">Against Me!\u003c/a> has long been known for songwriting that blends the personal and political, as well as visceral, cathartic live shows. Now 44, she’s been releasing records and touring in bands for nearly 30 years. And while her cast of supporting players sometimes changes from album to album, Grace’s ethos is consistent, raising a melodic middle finger to inequality, injustice and authoritarianism. Last year, \u003cem>Rolling Stone \u003c/em>called her “the fiercest punk singer of our time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since coming out in 2012 (and releasing the critically acclaimed record \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13809159/black-me-out-against-me-laura-jane-grace\">\u003cem>Transgender Dysphoria Blues\u003c/em>\u003c/a>), Grace has also become a hero to a generation of LGBTQ+ punks, and used her platform to speak out for transgender rights. Her outspokenness does not usually go massively viral, however — until last month. That’s when Grace, performing at a Bernie Sanders rally in Kenosha, Washington, sang a catchy new sing-along called “Your God (God’s Dick),” with lyrics that pose detailed questions about the Judeo-Christian deity’s theoretical anatomy.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/QSmYxKIs3PI'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/QSmYxKIs3PI'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>Conservative commentators promptly \u003ca href=\"https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/laura-jane-grace-right-backlash-your-gods-dick-response-1235295332/\">lost their minds\u003c/a>: Fox News called it “pure evil”; the far-right social media account Libs of TikTok described it as a “degenerate, disgusting, anti-Christian song.” Comedians Dana Carvey and David Spade, who apparently have a podcast, mocked it on said podcast. (Actor-turned-Bible-thumper \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13935238/russell-brand-sexual-assault-allegations-channel-4-dispatches-sunday-times\">Russell Brand\u003c/a>, for his part, called the performance “blasphemy” in a March 12 social media post. \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/04/04/g-s1-58260/russell-brand-rape-assault\">He was charged on April 4 with the rape and sexual assault\u003c/a> of four different women.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite a few death threats, Grace has taken it in stride — and taken it on the road. The track is a single off \u003cem>Adventure Club\u003c/em>, a new full-length that she’ll release in July. At the time of this interview, she was a week into a U.S. tour with backing band \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYDLYlhvJho\">the Mississippi Medicals\u003c/a>. They play Friday, April 18 at Cornerstone in Berkeley and Saturday, April 19 at the Mystic Theatre in Petaluma.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This interview has been edited for length and clarity.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>I understand you made this new album in Greece last summer, as part of a dreamy-sounding fellowship from the \u003ca href=\"https://www.onassis.org/initiatives/onassis-air\">Onassis AiR Foundation\u003c/a>. But many of the songs on \u003cem>Adventure Club\u003c/em> are about the state of affairs in the U.S. How did it affect the songs to be writing about America from afar?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I actually went in with three or four songs in my back pocket, and some of them just caught up with the zeitgeist. For instance, I’ve been working on the song “Mine Me Mine” since probably 2018, and it never really clicked [until now]. Same with a song like “World War III.” I \u003cem>wish\u003c/em> it wasn’t lining up well politically, right? I wish the songs were completely irrelevant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The song “God’s Dick,” I wrote while I was in Greece, actually at the Onassis AiR offices. They have these amazing work spaces where you’re like an exhibit: anybody walking by on the street can look and see whatever you’re working on. I had weekly check-ins where I would play what I was working on for the Onassis people and we’d talk about it. So it was interesting, when there was all the stink caused by right-wing people after the rally … I know, at face value, this may seem like knuckle-dragging toilet humor. But this is actually a really thought-out piece of work. I had to sit in front of a committee and be like, “This is the song I wrote. This is why I wrote it. This is what the lyrics are about,” and explain it to them with a straight face, you know?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s felt cool having that legitimacy added to it. There was more thought put into all these songs than any other previous record that I’ve put out, because I’ve already had to justify it to people who aren’t punk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13974484\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/LJG-Credit-Fabiana-Moreira-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13974484\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/LJG-Credit-Fabiana-Moreira-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"a black and white photo of a person with tattoos on stage playing guitar\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/LJG-Credit-Fabiana-Moreira-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/LJG-Credit-Fabiana-Moreira-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/LJG-Credit-Fabiana-Moreira-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/LJG-Credit-Fabiana-Moreira-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/LJG-Credit-Fabiana-Moreira-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/LJG-Credit-Fabiana-Moreira-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/LJG-Credit-Fabiana-Moreira-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/LJG-Credit-Fabiana-Moreira-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Laura Jane Grace. \u003ccite>(Fabiana Moreira)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Were you surprised by the reaction to that performance at the rally?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s just people choosing to be offended, and then not actually looking deeply into it or recognizing that it is completely relevant to the conversation that’s happening right now. Right-wing Christians want to know what is going on in \u003cem>everybody’s\u003c/em> pants. But then, if you flip it around and ask, OK, well, you’re referring to your God with male pronouns, and my understanding is that you imagine God to be, like, a guy in the sky wearing robes, with a beard? What does \u003cem>that\u003c/em> mean? I have questions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>It’s also undeniably catchy. It’s just a very joyful, well-constructed anthem.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That song would not exist if I did not have to endure however many years of fucking being sent to church youth group as a teenager, and singing songs like [sings] “Our God is an awesome God, He reigns from heaven above with wisdom, power and love.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>So church was good for something after all.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All my first drug experiences, all my first sexual experiences, and all my first bands were at church.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cstrong>I wanted to ask how you think about your safety on tour right now, given the onslaught of anti-trans bills and vitriol from this Trump administration. But I can also imagine it’s not like you felt 100% safe as a trans person touring the heartland for the last decade before this. Does it feel different now?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m trying to really gauge it, actually. Definitely traveling out west [over the past week], we stopped at a lot of places that, you go into the gas station, and they’re selling Trump bobbleheads or MAGA hats or whatever. And to me, it always seems like there’s a strange disconnect: the person behind the counter could be wearing a MAGA hat, and watching Fox News, and they could be enraged about trans issues. But if I walk up to the counter and have an interaction with them, they’re still friendly for the most part. It’s almost like the connection between what they’re seeing in the media hasn’t totally clicked into everyday life yet. But I don’t know when that’s gonna flip. Or if it’ll flip.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Also, right, the Trump billboards and things like that across the country have never gone away, since his first presidency. For a while, I was driving back and forth between Chicago and St. Louis pretty often, and there’s \u003cem>tons\u003c/em> of Trump stuff in between Chicago and St. Louis — all across Illinois, which is a primarily blue state, right? But I think it’s cool to be able to travel and get a read on the country in that way. It’s something that I wish more people could do. I feel like you get a better understanding of the country if you’re traveling through it all the time, as opposed to just existing in your own little world.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/OOVKevOPQwg'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/OOVKevOPQwg'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>You hear pretty frequently from young trans punks who tell you what your journey meant to them. What are queer young folks telling you right now at shows? Do kids ask you for advice?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I mean, I have all the same fears and uncertainties everyone else does. If anyone ever comes up to me and says that my story was a part of their story, that’s incredible. And I know exactly what that feels like, because I can look at the people who did that for me. But the big things that everyone’s concerned about right now are basic things, like access to hormones, or \u003ca href=\"https://ca.billboard.com/music/music-news/bells-larsen-us-tour-visa\">passports, name changes, gender marker change issues\u003c/a>. And I don’t have any of the fucking answers for that stuff. It feels just as uncertain and scary for me too. We’re all very much in this together and figuring it out as we go.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>You’ve been making protest music since your teens and early 20s, when the resistance was about fighting back against George W. Bush and the Iraq War. How does this moment feel similar or different to you?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What feels different to me is the way the DIY punk scene, or the activist scene, organized then. The underground network — whether that was people with zines, or punk houses doing shows — offered a real alternative to mainstream media, and how information was being disseminated. The protest movement that was happening around George Bush benefited from that. And very unfortunately, at this point, that structure and that whole network just feels like it’s gone. I don’t know if that’s everything shifting over to social media … but I do think, any kind of resistance or protest network organizing completely on social media, I feel like that’s a real mistake.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All the Colorado shows we just played, we had [trans-led social justice legal center] \u003ca href=\"https://www.breadandroseslaw.org/\">Bread and Roses\u003c/a> come out and table at the shows, and it feels like that really resonated. There were a couple of [bills to protect gender-affirming healthcare] going through the Colorado political system while we were there, and there’s genuine excitement — excitement about trying to get organized, trying to put your frustrations or fears in a positive direction. So that’s a positive sign.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13974485\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/LJG-and-The-Mississippi-Medicals-Credit-Dave-Decker_3-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13974485\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/LJG-and-The-Mississippi-Medicals-Credit-Dave-Decker_3-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"a black and white band photo with four people\" width=\"2560\" height=\"2048\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/LJG-and-The-Mississippi-Medicals-Credit-Dave-Decker_3-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/LJG-and-The-Mississippi-Medicals-Credit-Dave-Decker_3-800x640.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/LJG-and-The-Mississippi-Medicals-Credit-Dave-Decker_3-1020x816.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/LJG-and-The-Mississippi-Medicals-Credit-Dave-Decker_3-160x128.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/LJG-and-The-Mississippi-Medicals-Credit-Dave-Decker_3-768x614.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/LJG-and-The-Mississippi-Medicals-Credit-Dave-Decker_3-1536x1229.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/LJG-and-The-Mississippi-Medicals-Credit-Dave-Decker_3-2048x1638.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/LJG-and-The-Mississippi-Medicals-Credit-Dave-Decker_3-1920x1536.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Laura Jane Grace (far right) and the Mississippi Medicals, featuring (L to R) Matt Patton of Drive-By Truckers (bass), Mikey Erg of The Ergs (drums) and Paris Campbell Grace (vocals, percussion). \u003ccite>(Dave Decker)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What’s your relationship like with social media these days? You’re so funny and sharp online, but I also wonder how someone like you could possibly navigate a media diet and not just spiral into despair looking at your phone when you have a seven-hour drive.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Oh, I definitely spiral into despair. I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately because I feel like there’s been a tonality shift. I started being more active on Twitter and Instagram, back when those things started, at the push of record labels. But you can only post “Playing San Diego tonight!” so many times. So in between, you give your personal thoughts or shit takes, right?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But it seems like that worked better on Twitter when Twitter was still Twitter. It felt like a big group chat. And it was just an amazing resource — I remember being on tour in like 2015 in Portland, Oregon, and tweeting, “If anyone brings us donuts right now, we’ll give you guest list spots.” And 30 minutes later, somebody brought us a dozen donuts, and we hooked him up with guest list spots. Real communication in real time!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Also, I didn’t get into this [industry] to be a content creator. I want to play music. I want to write songs, and record songs, and play shows. All the other shit is being done to promote that, and to get the word out and to survive too, because some of those things [like Instagram reels \u003ca href=\"https://blog.symphonic.com/2024/01/27/does-instagram-pay-music-royalties-2/\">paying musicians small royalties\u003c/a>] have become revenue streams, even. In general it feels like we’re in a transitional period, everyone’s trying to figure out the new way forward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cstrong>You sound like you’re having so much fun on \u003cem>Adventure Club\u003c/em>, despite the subject matter, and I’m curious how you think about the idea of joy as a form of protest. You’ll hear folks who were around during the AIDS crisis say “we buried our friends during the day, and then we went dancing at night” — this idea that fun is a necessary part of it.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I mean, you need that. You need to be restored, or else you’re just gonna burn out. With a song like “Mine Me Mine,” like I mentioned, I brought that song to Against Me! at one point, and it didn’t work out — and maybe that had a lot to do with it not being fun. I think they were the sessions we had right before the pandemic hit, and we were in a bad place, right? And you’re going in there and you’re singing songs about not-fun topics, and it’s not a fun time recording them, and it just burns you the fuck out. Whereas, with this, it was the balance of — again, I wish that the topics weren’t relevant. They are. But then, the experience behind recording them was fucking joyful. We went out swimming and snorkeling every day. You’re in the sun, you’re eating ice cream, and then you’re recording this music, and it \u003cem>restores\u003c/em> you, and you need that, otherwise you’re going to grind yourself into the ground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I think about that a lot, even in terms of parenting. Your child’s needs come first, but also you’re going to be a shitty parent if you don’t pay attention to your own needs. So there’s that balance of, you need to make sure you’re good in order to make sure they’re good.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/6A-F9xos2iY'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/6A-F9xos2iY'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>As a product of Albany and Berkeley, California, I have to ask you about the great Operation Ivy cover sets you did a few months ago with Catbite. What did that mean to you, as someone who’s loved them since you were a kid?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They are one of my all-time favorite bands, and it was a surreal, full-circle moment in so many ways. I’ll tell you the best moral of the story, with being able to do those sets: When I was 14 or 15 years old, I got arrested by a bunch of cops, beat up, charged with a couple felonies — I was in some really deep fucking trouble. At the time, I was playing bass in this punk band, and my guitar player’s dad was a really high-powered attorney. So he bailed me out of jail that night. And he was like, “I will represent you in these court cases for free. But my stipulation is, you all have this show coming up in two weeks, and you can’t play ‘Officer’” — because he knew we liked to cover “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwELCNMXR2w\">Officer\u003c/a>” by Operation Ivy. He was like, don’t play that song, and I’ll represent you for free.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so first song of the set, I got up and fucking let out that “Ahhhh—” … we played “Officer.” And I lost my legal representation. My mom ended up having to pay for a lawyer out of pocket for me. Thank you, Mom. I lost the case, and it fucking sucked. I spent a whole summer on house arrest. It’s still on my record. But to be up on stage however many years later, covering all those Operation Ivy songs, and having it come full circle like that? That was really fucking affirming.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Laura Jane Grace and the Mississippi Medicals play with openers Alex Lahey and Rodeo Boys on Friday, April 18 at Cornerstone in Berkeley (\u003ca href=\"https://www.tixr.com/groups/cornerstoneberkeley/events/laura-jane-grace-the-mississippi-medicals-122958\">details here\u003c/a>) and Saturday, April 19 at the Mystic Theatre in Petaluma (\u003ca href=\"https://wl.seetickets.us/event/laura-jane-grace-and-the-mississippi-medicals/627570?afflky=MysticTheatre\">details here\u003c/a>). \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Bay Area Musicians Plan Benefit Concerts, Parties for LA Fire Relief",
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"headTitle": "Bay Area Musicians Plan Benefit Concerts, Parties for LA Fire Relief | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>When the fires first broke out in Los Angeles, San Francisco music promoter KC Turner was on his honeymoon in Oaxaca, trying not to get sucked into looking at his phone too much. After all, he figured, there was only so much he could do from afar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That lasted for a couple days — a couple days of watching as an exponentially growing list of friends, loved ones and \u003ca href=\"https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jyJ-NM2qP-iRk1LJ8l3dc7e0M3IhHlo3E7Agvo9JOAQ/htmlview\">colleagues from the music industry lost their homes\u003c/a> or livelihoods or both. Then Turner did what he does best: He organized a show.\u003cbr>\n[aside postID='arts_13970214']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When so many people have been displaced and lost everything, sitting back is not the move,” says Turner, now back home in the Bay Area. “If you’re a gazillionaire, you should donate money. If you’re a concert promoter, you put a concert together.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The result is \u003ca href=\"https://kcturnerpresents.com/event/5903501/707991055/l-a-fire-department-foundation-benefit-concert\">a daylong benefit show on Sunday, Jan. 26 at Novato’s HopMonk Tavern\u003c/a>, featuring an eclectic bill of Bay Area artists in folk, rock and roots music. A longtime promoter who’s well-connected in the singer-songwriter scene, Turner cast a wide net, hitting up even musicians he figured were longshots — like Oakland’s Grammy-winning blues star Fantastic Negrito, who’s often on tour. But he happened to be home on that date, and he said yes immediately.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13970422\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1500px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/Megan-Slankard-photo-by-Laura-Kudritzki-1.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13970422\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/Megan-Slankard-photo-by-Laura-Kudritzki-1.jpg\" alt=\"a white woman with wavy blond hair poses for a portrait wearing a denim vest near an art-covered wall.\" width=\"1500\" height=\"1000\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/Megan-Slankard-photo-by-Laura-Kudritzki-1.jpg 1500w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/Megan-Slankard-photo-by-Laura-Kudritzki-1-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/Megan-Slankard-photo-by-Laura-Kudritzki-1-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/Megan-Slankard-photo-by-Laura-Kudritzki-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/Megan-Slankard-photo-by-Laura-Kudritzki-1-768x512.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1500px) 100vw, 1500px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Megan Slankard will perform at the benefit for the LAFD Foundation on Jan. 26, 2025 at HopMonk Tavern in Novato. \u003ccite>(Laura Kudritzki)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Additional notable names on the lineup include Berkeley bluegrass veteran \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/128446/laurie-lewis-brings-berkeley-roots-to-a-bluegrass-sound-all-her-own\">Laurie Lewis\u003c/a>; Petaluma folk singer \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13906345/sean-hayes-new-album-be-like-water-offers-pathway-from-worry\">Sean Hayes\u003c/a>; San Francisco indie rocker \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13918276/megan-slankards-california-is-a-breakup-anthem-for-the-whole-state\">Megan Slankard\u003c/a>; North Bay siblings Alex and Ben Morrison of Americana act \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13838086/the-brothers-comatoses-trade-deal-with-china-bluegrass\">The Brothers Comatose\u003c/a>, who’ll perform as a duo; and San Francisco singer-songwriter and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13912499/song-jfk-drive-car-free-board-of-supervisors-sf\">car-free street enthusiast John Elliott\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tickets are $50, but attendees are welcome to donate more; all proceeds from the show will go to the Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation. That means everyone involved — including the artists, sound engineer and venue staff — is donating their time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Turner says no one needed convincing. Even the show’s poster artist, Katie Kincade, was honored to be able to donate her work, he says. She’s from Los Angeles originally, and lost her own home in Sonoma County in a fire last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPeoWS3by_4\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In other parts of the Bay Area, likeminded artists have organized their own fire relief fundraisers, including one \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/p/DE3A-E5Sr7k/?hl=en\">DJ night at Night Heron\u003c/a> in Oakland on Jan. 17 and \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/p/DE0g5uYTY1d/?hl=en&img_index=1\">another at Mothership in San Francisco\u003c/a> on Jan. 19.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As for the speed with which Turner threw his benefit together, he notes that this isn’t his first rodeo. In 2017, he organized a house concert as a benefit for victims of the Tubbs Fire, raising more than $13,000. In 2018, in the wake of the Camp Fire, he moved to HopMonk, hosting a benefit that raised $20,000.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So he hasn’t been surprised, exactly, by the local music community’s eagerness to get involved. “It’s the purest kind of show. It’s really cool to be able to put together a concert or play in a band and have it actually impact someone’s life,” he says. “I think so many people, musicians and fans alike, are just looking for a way to help.”\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The L.A. Fire Department Foundation Benefit Concert starts at 12:30 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 26, at HopMonk Tavern. \u003ca href=\"https://www.seetickets.us/event/la-fire-department-foundation-benefit-concert/634400\">Tickets ($50 and up) and more info here\u003c/a>. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>Other Bay Area parties raising funds for fire relief include:\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/p/DE3A-E5Sr7k/?hl=en\">From the Bay to LA\u003c/a>,’ Friday, Jan. 17, at Oakland’s Night Heron, with DJs Makeroom, Lefty, Jenset, Lexapeel and Junior. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/p/DE0g5uYTY1d/?hl=en\">The Bay Loves LA\u003c/a>,’ Sunday, Jan. 19, at San Francisco’s Mothership, with support from Fault Radio and DJs Three6Sashia, Joko Homo, DJ Doorknob, Nikk Benoit and more.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "An eclectic Jan. 26 concert at Novato's HopMonk Tavern includes Fantastic Negrito, Laurie Lewis and more. ",
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"title": "Bay Area Musicians Plan Benefit Concerts, Parties for LA Fire Relief | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>When the fires first broke out in Los Angeles, San Francisco music promoter KC Turner was on his honeymoon in Oaxaca, trying not to get sucked into looking at his phone too much. After all, he figured, there was only so much he could do from afar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That lasted for a couple days — a couple days of watching as an exponentially growing list of friends, loved ones and \u003ca href=\"https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jyJ-NM2qP-iRk1LJ8l3dc7e0M3IhHlo3E7Agvo9JOAQ/htmlview\">colleagues from the music industry lost their homes\u003c/a> or livelihoods or both. Then Turner did what he does best: He organized a show.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When so many people have been displaced and lost everything, sitting back is not the move,” says Turner, now back home in the Bay Area. “If you’re a gazillionaire, you should donate money. If you’re a concert promoter, you put a concert together.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The result is \u003ca href=\"https://kcturnerpresents.com/event/5903501/707991055/l-a-fire-department-foundation-benefit-concert\">a daylong benefit show on Sunday, Jan. 26 at Novato’s HopMonk Tavern\u003c/a>, featuring an eclectic bill of Bay Area artists in folk, rock and roots music. A longtime promoter who’s well-connected in the singer-songwriter scene, Turner cast a wide net, hitting up even musicians he figured were longshots — like Oakland’s Grammy-winning blues star Fantastic Negrito, who’s often on tour. But he happened to be home on that date, and he said yes immediately.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13970422\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1500px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/Megan-Slankard-photo-by-Laura-Kudritzki-1.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13970422\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/Megan-Slankard-photo-by-Laura-Kudritzki-1.jpg\" alt=\"a white woman with wavy blond hair poses for a portrait wearing a denim vest near an art-covered wall.\" width=\"1500\" height=\"1000\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/Megan-Slankard-photo-by-Laura-Kudritzki-1.jpg 1500w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/Megan-Slankard-photo-by-Laura-Kudritzki-1-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/Megan-Slankard-photo-by-Laura-Kudritzki-1-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/Megan-Slankard-photo-by-Laura-Kudritzki-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/Megan-Slankard-photo-by-Laura-Kudritzki-1-768x512.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1500px) 100vw, 1500px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Megan Slankard will perform at the benefit for the LAFD Foundation on Jan. 26, 2025 at HopMonk Tavern in Novato. \u003ccite>(Laura Kudritzki)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Additional notable names on the lineup include Berkeley bluegrass veteran \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/128446/laurie-lewis-brings-berkeley-roots-to-a-bluegrass-sound-all-her-own\">Laurie Lewis\u003c/a>; Petaluma folk singer \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13906345/sean-hayes-new-album-be-like-water-offers-pathway-from-worry\">Sean Hayes\u003c/a>; San Francisco indie rocker \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13918276/megan-slankards-california-is-a-breakup-anthem-for-the-whole-state\">Megan Slankard\u003c/a>; North Bay siblings Alex and Ben Morrison of Americana act \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13838086/the-brothers-comatoses-trade-deal-with-china-bluegrass\">The Brothers Comatose\u003c/a>, who’ll perform as a duo; and San Francisco singer-songwriter and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13912499/song-jfk-drive-car-free-board-of-supervisors-sf\">car-free street enthusiast John Elliott\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tickets are $50, but attendees are welcome to donate more; all proceeds from the show will go to the Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation. That means everyone involved — including the artists, sound engineer and venue staff — is donating their time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Turner says no one needed convincing. Even the show’s poster artist, Katie Kincade, was honored to be able to donate her work, he says. She’s from Los Angeles originally, and lost her own home in Sonoma County in a fire last year.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/mPeoWS3by_4'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/mPeoWS3by_4'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>In other parts of the Bay Area, likeminded artists have organized their own fire relief fundraisers, including one \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/p/DE3A-E5Sr7k/?hl=en\">DJ night at Night Heron\u003c/a> in Oakland on Jan. 17 and \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/p/DE0g5uYTY1d/?hl=en&img_index=1\">another at Mothership in San Francisco\u003c/a> on Jan. 19.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As for the speed with which Turner threw his benefit together, he notes that this isn’t his first rodeo. In 2017, he organized a house concert as a benefit for victims of the Tubbs Fire, raising more than $13,000. In 2018, in the wake of the Camp Fire, he moved to HopMonk, hosting a benefit that raised $20,000.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So he hasn’t been surprised, exactly, by the local music community’s eagerness to get involved. “It’s the purest kind of show. It’s really cool to be able to put together a concert or play in a band and have it actually impact someone’s life,” he says. “I think so many people, musicians and fans alike, are just looking for a way to help.”\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The L.A. Fire Department Foundation Benefit Concert starts at 12:30 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 26, at HopMonk Tavern. \u003ca href=\"https://www.seetickets.us/event/la-fire-department-foundation-benefit-concert/634400\">Tickets ($50 and up) and more info here\u003c/a>. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>Other Bay Area parties raising funds for fire relief include:\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/p/DE3A-E5Sr7k/?hl=en\">From the Bay to LA\u003c/a>,’ Friday, Jan. 17, at Oakland’s Night Heron, with DJs Makeroom, Lefty, Jenset, Lexapeel and Junior. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/p/DE0g5uYTY1d/?hl=en\">The Bay Loves LA\u003c/a>,’ Sunday, Jan. 19, at San Francisco’s Mothership, with support from Fault Radio and DJs Three6Sashia, Joko Homo, DJ Doorknob, Nikk Benoit and more.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "chuck-prophet-and-his-cumbia-shoes-wake-the-dead",
"title": "Chuck Prophet’s Music Has Never Felt More Alive",
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"content": "\u003cp>For two weeks in March of 2022, \u003ca href=\"http://www.chuckprophet.com\">Chuck Prophet\u003c/a> didn’t know if he would live to see the end of the year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Days earlier, the musician was gearing up for an international tour — one that had already been rescheduled three times due to COVID. He’d released a full-length in 2020, but hadn’t yet taken it on the road, and the acclaimed San Francisco rocker was excited to get out there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead, after a routine checkup, doctors discovered a mass in his upper intestine. “Mr. Prophet, you’re not going anywhere,” he remembers one physician telling him. It was clearly cancer. But determining which kind required a type of scan that Kaiser couldn’t schedule for 12 long days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID='arts_11428541']“It blindsided me,” says Prophet, 61. While he waited to learn his fate, he turned to music to distract him from fear. He’d been getting into Latin dance music for the last few years, so he listened to a lot of that. And then he wrote a song.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two and a half years later, after surgery, chemotherapy and immunotherapy for stage-four lymphoma, Prophet is in full remission. Sitting at a Mission District coffee shop on a warm October afternoon, he is yet again gearing up for an international tour. “One Lie for Me, One for You,” the song he wrote during that two-week purgatory, is now a tender cowboy lullaby, undercut by both dread and acceptance, with lyrics about plunging into “dangerous waters” ahead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s track 8 of 11 on Prophet’s new record \u003cem>Wake the Dead\u003c/em>, an album that drives headlong into the songwriter’s dark night of the soul with an unlikely companion riding shotgun: cumbia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13966904\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/CD4T3830_Credit-Kory-Thibeault-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13966904\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/CD4T3830_Credit-Kory-Thibeault-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"a band of six men wearing sunglasses posed for a portrait\" width=\"2560\" height=\"2367\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/CD4T3830_Credit-Kory-Thibeault-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/CD4T3830_Credit-Kory-Thibeault-800x740.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/CD4T3830_Credit-Kory-Thibeault-1020x943.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/CD4T3830_Credit-Kory-Thibeault-160x148.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/CD4T3830_Credit-Kory-Thibeault-768x710.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/CD4T3830_Credit-Kory-Thibeault-1536x1420.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/CD4T3830_Credit-Kory-Thibeault-2048x1894.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/CD4T3830_Credit-Kory-Thibeault-1920x1775.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Chuck Prophet and His Cumbia Shoes includes (left to right) James DePrato, Joaquin Zamudia Garcia, Alejandro Gomez, Chuck Prophet, Vicente Rodriguez and Mario Cortez. \u003ccite>(Kory Thibeault)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The album, out Oct. 25, sees Prophet collaborating with \u003ca href=\"https://qiensavemusic.com/home/\">¿Qiensave?\u003c/a>, a Salinas-based band of brothers whose sound enchanted Prophet when he first heard them back in 2022. As soon as his health allowed, he began driving from his home in the Duboce Triangle to their place near Salinas to jam. Eventually, they all headed into an Oakland studio to record, intermingling with the usual suspects — including Prophet’s wife, keyboardist/vocalist Stephanie Finch — in his longtime band, the Mission Express.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The result is an adventurous, soulful project that deftly balances darkness and hope, shot through with the unmistakable energy of a veteran musician having more fun than he has in years. Longtime followers of Prophet’s work (his wide, loyal fanbase includes Bruce Springsteen, Lucinda Williams and Stephen King) will find plenty that’s familiar here. A storyteller at heart, he retains his usual dry wit and wistfulness over warm, jangly guitar, with tinges of rockabilly and surf punk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But from the opening notes of the title track, clave rhythms, accordion and a Farfisa organ announce that this will not be your standard Americana record. “Gonna wake the dead, get ‘em on their feet,” Prophet sings slyly over rhythmic Latin percussion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the handful of live shows he’s played with this new band (“Chuck Prophet and His Cumbia Shoes”), people do something Prophet hasn’t always seen at his shows. They do get on their feet, immediately, and they dance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmEpztGvPsY\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A different musical vocabulary\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The first time Prophet really “got” cumbia was around Hardly Strictly Bluegrass weekend, in October 2019. He and a few musicians who were in town for the festival played at the Make Out Room, and afterwards, a DJ started setting up for a staple at the tiny club. It was cumbia night.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Me and the guys and Stephanie were all sitting in one of those Naugahyde booths, we’d stacked our stuff up, and they started playing this music — it was really loud with the subs and bass and everything,” he recalls. His drummer, Vicente Rodriguez, began showing Stephanie some dance moves. “I was watching them, listening to this music, and it was just one of those things, like: \u003cem>This is amazing.\u003c/em>”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stuck at home during the early days of the pandemic, he threw himself into learning about the genre, but it was after his diagnosis that everything converged. He started collecting records, going to shows. He drove to Modesto to see the psych-punk-cumbia outfit \u003ca href=\"https://valleywolf.bandcamp.com/\">Valley Wolf,\u003c/a> and fell in love with the atmosphere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13966944\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/20241006_203623-1-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13966944\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/20241006_203623-1-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"a band performs onstage in pink and blue lighting\" width=\"2560\" height=\"2258\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/20241006_203623-1-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/20241006_203623-1-800x706.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/20241006_203623-1-1020x900.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/20241006_203623-1-160x141.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/20241006_203623-1-768x677.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/20241006_203623-1-1536x1355.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/20241006_203623-1-2048x1806.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/20241006_203623-1-1920x1694.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Chuck Prophet and His Cumbia Shoes perform at the Great American Music Hall on Oct. 6, 2024. \u003ccite>(Daniel Strickland)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“The crowd is not just standing there, watching the band,” he says. “They’re not shoegazing. \u003cem>Everyone’s\u003c/em> dancing. They’re partying. It’s Miller time.” Like with punk rock, he says, the hijinks in the crowd are just as lively and important as what’s happening onstage. “It kind of erases the line between the stage and the audience.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Enter ¿Qiensave?, a cumbia urbana group that’s built a following in the West Coast’s Latin music and festival circuit since 2009. Hearing from Prophet was initially a little surprising, says Alejandro “Flaco” Gomez, who plays lead guitar and sings in the band. But Prophet’s curiosity was genuine, and he had an obvious desire to learn. He shared some new songs he’d written, and asked if they wanted to jam.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He’s a man who does his research,” says Gomez, recalling the first few times Prophet drove out to play with the band. “And I appreciated his enthusiasm. He was excited to hear our interpretation of his music, and to bring his songs somewhere they had never been before. I mean, that’s how you innovate.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edGzfjSBDks\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A year later, the band was piling into 25th Street Recording in Oakland alongside the Mission Express. Gomez has been a working musician for over a decade; he releases his own music, which blends cumbia and boleros with more modern rock and pop sounds, under the name \u003ca href=\"https://www.flacoeljandro.com/\">Flaco el Jandro\u003c/a>. He’s no stranger to collaboration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But “to have a collaboration where it was two groups of musicians that have never met or interacted, who come from completely different musical worlds and use different musical vocabulary?” says the musician. “That was exciting. I’ve never done anything like that in my life.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘Cumbia is for everybody’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>It’s a week before his tour kicks off in Seattle, and Prophet is shopping at \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13931586/discodelic-brings-latin-vinyl-home-to-the-mission-district\">Discodelic\u003c/a>, the tiny Latin vinyl store on 24th street. He’s brought a list of Latin American psych-rock albums he wants to check out, like \u003cem>Rise of the Melted Eagle\u003c/em>, by Los Tabanos Experience, and \u003cem>Gran Muro de Coma\u003c/em>, by La Iglesia Atomica.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This place is pretty hip,” he murmurs as he thumbs through records, eventually selecting a few to listen to on the store’s turntable. “Not a ton of reissues.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13966693\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/241015-CHUCKPROPHET-12-BL-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13966693\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/241015-CHUCKPROPHET-12-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/241015-CHUCKPROPHET-12-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/241015-CHUCKPROPHET-12-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/241015-CHUCKPROPHET-12-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/241015-CHUCKPROPHET-12-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/241015-CHUCKPROPHET-12-BL-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/241015-CHUCKPROPHET-12-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/241015-CHUCKPROPHET-12-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Musician Chuck Prophet shops for records at Discodelic in the Mission District of San Francisco on Oct. 15, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>There is, of course, an elephant in the record shop: the question of when appreciation becomes appropriation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>¿Qiensave?’s Gomez says he knows what it’s like to feel tokenized in the music industry. But with Prophet, it’s been an ongoing conversation filled with respect: “To me, cumbia is for everybody,” he says. “Music is for everybody. So if you inject your respect and appreciation into it, and that shows through the art, then I don’t see anything wrong with it … cultural exchange, fusion, that’s how art and music grow and progress.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Prophet reconciled any hesitation through enthusiastic co-signs from his collaborators. “There are always reasons not to do something,” he says, “but I know who I’m playing with.” On \u003cem>Wake the Dead\u003c/em>, that includes Prophet’s old friend \u003ca href=\"https://www.alejandroescovedo.com/\">Alejandro Escovedo\u003c/a>, formerly of groundbreaking San Francisco punk band the Nuns, who co-wrote and rips some beautiful guitar harmonies on “Sally Was a Cop.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And Adrian Quesada of Black Pumas, who grew up steeped in Latin music, helped Prophet get over his sense that he wasn’t playing cumbia the right way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He said, ‘Pay no attention to the clave police.’ Which was his way of saying, if it feels good, it feels good, don’t worry about being correct,” says Prophet. He also looks to how the Clash incorporated reggae, which of course did not originate in their culture. “When I hear ‘Police and Thieves,’ I’m like, these guys don’t know what they’re doing. And it’s never bothered me!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And then there’s this: When an art form helps comfort and guide you through the darkest time in your life, the suggestion that it’s problematic to practice that art might feel downright cruel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13966695\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/241015-CHUCKPROPHET-36-BL-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13966695\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/241015-CHUCKPROPHET-36-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/241015-CHUCKPROPHET-36-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/241015-CHUCKPROPHET-36-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/241015-CHUCKPROPHET-36-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/241015-CHUCKPROPHET-36-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/241015-CHUCKPROPHET-36-BL-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/241015-CHUCKPROPHET-36-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/241015-CHUCKPROPHET-36-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Musician Chuck Prophet stands on 24th Street in the Mission District of San Francisco on Oct. 15, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Sometimes, lately, Prophet forgets he even had cancer. He doesn’t identify as the kind of person who goes around with a cancer story. “I’m not that guy,” he says. He’s always been lucky, he adds with a smile.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He still feels that way. But it’s undeniable that there’s something weightier in his voice now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a good day to walk on water,” he sings in the album’s final moments. “It’s a good day to swallow your pride. It’s a good day to call your mother. It’s a good day to be alive.”\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘Wake the Dead’ is released on Friday, Oct. 25. Chuck Prophet and His Cumbia Shoes play at 5 p.m. that day at \u003ca href=\"https://www.amoeba.com/live-shows/upcoming/detail-2926/\">Amoeba Music\u003c/a> in Berkeley. After a European tour, the band plays a homecoming show on Saturday, Dec. 28, at \u003ca href=\"https://wl.seetickets.us/event/chuck-prophet-and-his-cumbia-shoes/622284?afflky=TheChapel\">The Chapel\u003c/a> in San Francisco.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>For two weeks in March of 2022, \u003ca href=\"http://www.chuckprophet.com\">Chuck Prophet\u003c/a> didn’t know if he would live to see the end of the year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Days earlier, the musician was gearing up for an international tour — one that had already been rescheduled three times due to COVID. He’d released a full-length in 2020, but hadn’t yet taken it on the road, and the acclaimed San Francisco rocker was excited to get out there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead, after a routine checkup, doctors discovered a mass in his upper intestine. “Mr. Prophet, you’re not going anywhere,” he remembers one physician telling him. It was clearly cancer. But determining which kind required a type of scan that Kaiser couldn’t schedule for 12 long days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“It blindsided me,” says Prophet, 61. While he waited to learn his fate, he turned to music to distract him from fear. He’d been getting into Latin dance music for the last few years, so he listened to a lot of that. And then he wrote a song.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two and a half years later, after surgery, chemotherapy and immunotherapy for stage-four lymphoma, Prophet is in full remission. Sitting at a Mission District coffee shop on a warm October afternoon, he is yet again gearing up for an international tour. “One Lie for Me, One for You,” the song he wrote during that two-week purgatory, is now a tender cowboy lullaby, undercut by both dread and acceptance, with lyrics about plunging into “dangerous waters” ahead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s track 8 of 11 on Prophet’s new record \u003cem>Wake the Dead\u003c/em>, an album that drives headlong into the songwriter’s dark night of the soul with an unlikely companion riding shotgun: cumbia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13966904\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/CD4T3830_Credit-Kory-Thibeault-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13966904\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/CD4T3830_Credit-Kory-Thibeault-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"a band of six men wearing sunglasses posed for a portrait\" width=\"2560\" height=\"2367\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/CD4T3830_Credit-Kory-Thibeault-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/CD4T3830_Credit-Kory-Thibeault-800x740.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/CD4T3830_Credit-Kory-Thibeault-1020x943.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/CD4T3830_Credit-Kory-Thibeault-160x148.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/CD4T3830_Credit-Kory-Thibeault-768x710.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/CD4T3830_Credit-Kory-Thibeault-1536x1420.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/CD4T3830_Credit-Kory-Thibeault-2048x1894.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/CD4T3830_Credit-Kory-Thibeault-1920x1775.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Chuck Prophet and His Cumbia Shoes includes (left to right) James DePrato, Joaquin Zamudia Garcia, Alejandro Gomez, Chuck Prophet, Vicente Rodriguez and Mario Cortez. \u003ccite>(Kory Thibeault)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The album, out Oct. 25, sees Prophet collaborating with \u003ca href=\"https://qiensavemusic.com/home/\">¿Qiensave?\u003c/a>, a Salinas-based band of brothers whose sound enchanted Prophet when he first heard them back in 2022. As soon as his health allowed, he began driving from his home in the Duboce Triangle to their place near Salinas to jam. Eventually, they all headed into an Oakland studio to record, intermingling with the usual suspects — including Prophet’s wife, keyboardist/vocalist Stephanie Finch — in his longtime band, the Mission Express.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The result is an adventurous, soulful project that deftly balances darkness and hope, shot through with the unmistakable energy of a veteran musician having more fun than he has in years. Longtime followers of Prophet’s work (his wide, loyal fanbase includes Bruce Springsteen, Lucinda Williams and Stephen King) will find plenty that’s familiar here. A storyteller at heart, he retains his usual dry wit and wistfulness over warm, jangly guitar, with tinges of rockabilly and surf punk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But from the opening notes of the title track, clave rhythms, accordion and a Farfisa organ announce that this will not be your standard Americana record. “Gonna wake the dead, get ‘em on their feet,” Prophet sings slyly over rhythmic Latin percussion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the handful of live shows he’s played with this new band (“Chuck Prophet and His Cumbia Shoes”), people do something Prophet hasn’t always seen at his shows. They do get on their feet, immediately, and they dance.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/lmEpztGvPsY'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/lmEpztGvPsY'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003ch2>A different musical vocabulary\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The first time Prophet really “got” cumbia was around Hardly Strictly Bluegrass weekend, in October 2019. He and a few musicians who were in town for the festival played at the Make Out Room, and afterwards, a DJ started setting up for a staple at the tiny club. It was cumbia night.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Me and the guys and Stephanie were all sitting in one of those Naugahyde booths, we’d stacked our stuff up, and they started playing this music — it was really loud with the subs and bass and everything,” he recalls. His drummer, Vicente Rodriguez, began showing Stephanie some dance moves. “I was watching them, listening to this music, and it was just one of those things, like: \u003cem>This is amazing.\u003c/em>”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stuck at home during the early days of the pandemic, he threw himself into learning about the genre, but it was after his diagnosis that everything converged. He started collecting records, going to shows. He drove to Modesto to see the psych-punk-cumbia outfit \u003ca href=\"https://valleywolf.bandcamp.com/\">Valley Wolf,\u003c/a> and fell in love with the atmosphere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13966944\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/20241006_203623-1-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13966944\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/20241006_203623-1-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"a band performs onstage in pink and blue lighting\" width=\"2560\" height=\"2258\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/20241006_203623-1-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/20241006_203623-1-800x706.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/20241006_203623-1-1020x900.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/20241006_203623-1-160x141.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/20241006_203623-1-768x677.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/20241006_203623-1-1536x1355.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/20241006_203623-1-2048x1806.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/20241006_203623-1-1920x1694.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Chuck Prophet and His Cumbia Shoes perform at the Great American Music Hall on Oct. 6, 2024. \u003ccite>(Daniel Strickland)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“The crowd is not just standing there, watching the band,” he says. “They’re not shoegazing. \u003cem>Everyone’s\u003c/em> dancing. They’re partying. It’s Miller time.” Like with punk rock, he says, the hijinks in the crowd are just as lively and important as what’s happening onstage. “It kind of erases the line between the stage and the audience.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Enter ¿Qiensave?, a cumbia urbana group that’s built a following in the West Coast’s Latin music and festival circuit since 2009. Hearing from Prophet was initially a little surprising, says Alejandro “Flaco” Gomez, who plays lead guitar and sings in the band. But Prophet’s curiosity was genuine, and he had an obvious desire to learn. He shared some new songs he’d written, and asked if they wanted to jam.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He’s a man who does his research,” says Gomez, recalling the first few times Prophet drove out to play with the band. “And I appreciated his enthusiasm. He was excited to hear our interpretation of his music, and to bring his songs somewhere they had never been before. I mean, that’s how you innovate.”\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/edGzfjSBDks'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/edGzfjSBDks'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>A year later, the band was piling into 25th Street Recording in Oakland alongside the Mission Express. Gomez has been a working musician for over a decade; he releases his own music, which blends cumbia and boleros with more modern rock and pop sounds, under the name \u003ca href=\"https://www.flacoeljandro.com/\">Flaco el Jandro\u003c/a>. He’s no stranger to collaboration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But “to have a collaboration where it was two groups of musicians that have never met or interacted, who come from completely different musical worlds and use different musical vocabulary?” says the musician. “That was exciting. I’ve never done anything like that in my life.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘Cumbia is for everybody’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>It’s a week before his tour kicks off in Seattle, and Prophet is shopping at \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13931586/discodelic-brings-latin-vinyl-home-to-the-mission-district\">Discodelic\u003c/a>, the tiny Latin vinyl store on 24th street. He’s brought a list of Latin American psych-rock albums he wants to check out, like \u003cem>Rise of the Melted Eagle\u003c/em>, by Los Tabanos Experience, and \u003cem>Gran Muro de Coma\u003c/em>, by La Iglesia Atomica.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This place is pretty hip,” he murmurs as he thumbs through records, eventually selecting a few to listen to on the store’s turntable. “Not a ton of reissues.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13966693\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/241015-CHUCKPROPHET-12-BL-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13966693\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/241015-CHUCKPROPHET-12-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/241015-CHUCKPROPHET-12-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/241015-CHUCKPROPHET-12-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/241015-CHUCKPROPHET-12-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/241015-CHUCKPROPHET-12-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/241015-CHUCKPROPHET-12-BL-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/241015-CHUCKPROPHET-12-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/241015-CHUCKPROPHET-12-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Musician Chuck Prophet shops for records at Discodelic in the Mission District of San Francisco on Oct. 15, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>There is, of course, an elephant in the record shop: the question of when appreciation becomes appropriation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>¿Qiensave?’s Gomez says he knows what it’s like to feel tokenized in the music industry. But with Prophet, it’s been an ongoing conversation filled with respect: “To me, cumbia is for everybody,” he says. “Music is for everybody. So if you inject your respect and appreciation into it, and that shows through the art, then I don’t see anything wrong with it … cultural exchange, fusion, that’s how art and music grow and progress.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Prophet reconciled any hesitation through enthusiastic co-signs from his collaborators. “There are always reasons not to do something,” he says, “but I know who I’m playing with.” On \u003cem>Wake the Dead\u003c/em>, that includes Prophet’s old friend \u003ca href=\"https://www.alejandroescovedo.com/\">Alejandro Escovedo\u003c/a>, formerly of groundbreaking San Francisco punk band the Nuns, who co-wrote and rips some beautiful guitar harmonies on “Sally Was a Cop.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And Adrian Quesada of Black Pumas, who grew up steeped in Latin music, helped Prophet get over his sense that he wasn’t playing cumbia the right way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He said, ‘Pay no attention to the clave police.’ Which was his way of saying, if it feels good, it feels good, don’t worry about being correct,” says Prophet. He also looks to how the Clash incorporated reggae, which of course did not originate in their culture. “When I hear ‘Police and Thieves,’ I’m like, these guys don’t know what they’re doing. And it’s never bothered me!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And then there’s this: When an art form helps comfort and guide you through the darkest time in your life, the suggestion that it’s problematic to practice that art might feel downright cruel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13966695\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/241015-CHUCKPROPHET-36-BL-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13966695\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/241015-CHUCKPROPHET-36-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/241015-CHUCKPROPHET-36-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/241015-CHUCKPROPHET-36-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/241015-CHUCKPROPHET-36-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/241015-CHUCKPROPHET-36-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/241015-CHUCKPROPHET-36-BL-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/241015-CHUCKPROPHET-36-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/241015-CHUCKPROPHET-36-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Musician Chuck Prophet stands on 24th Street in the Mission District of San Francisco on Oct. 15, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Sometimes, lately, Prophet forgets he even had cancer. He doesn’t identify as the kind of person who goes around with a cancer story. “I’m not that guy,” he says. He’s always been lucky, he adds with a smile.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He still feels that way. But it’s undeniable that there’s something weightier in his voice now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a good day to walk on water,” he sings in the album’s final moments. “It’s a good day to swallow your pride. It’s a good day to call your mother. It’s a good day to be alive.”\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘Wake the Dead’ is released on Friday, Oct. 25. Chuck Prophet and His Cumbia Shoes play at 5 p.m. that day at \u003ca href=\"https://www.amoeba.com/live-shows/upcoming/detail-2926/\">Amoeba Music\u003c/a> in Berkeley. After a European tour, the band plays a homecoming show on Saturday, Dec. 28, at \u003ca href=\"https://wl.seetickets.us/event/chuck-prophet-and-his-cumbia-shoes/622284?afflky=TheChapel\">The Chapel\u003c/a> in San Francisco.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Magik*Magik Orchestra Is Back For a Sweet Sixteen",
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"content": "\u003cp>Turning 16 is a classic milestone for American teenagers: the driver’s license, the questionable decisions, the exhilaration of independence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But for \u003ca href=\"https://magikmagikorchestra.com/\">Magik*Magik Orchestra\u003c/a>, the anniversary feels more like a homecoming, says founder and artistic director \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13654262/women-to-watch-minna-choi\">Minna Choi\u003c/a>. Two San Francisco shows this Friday, Aug. 16 — an early, kid-friendly show and a later one for the grownups — mark the orchestra’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.eventbrite.com/e/magik-in-the-green-room-sweet-sixteen-anniversary-show-tickets-962528517707\">first live, public performances\u003c/a> since before the pandemic. Billed as a “sweet 16” party, both will feature Magik*Magik’s string quartet accompanying singer-songwriter \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13910723/dear-homeland-diana-gameros-documentary-trailer\">Diana Gameros\u003c/a> and the Shakespeare-inspired indie-pop band the Frail Ophelias.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It all feels very celebratory,” says Choi, especially on the heels of a tough few years. “We’re finally emerging from our little hidden place.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a made-to-order orchestra whose configurations can range from a solo violinist to an 80-piece symphony, Magik*Magik has occupied a unique place in the Bay Area music landscape. Founded in 2008, they quickly became your favorite indie rocker’s favorite collaborator, providing live and in-studio accompaniment for Death Cab for Cutie, Weezer, Third Eye Blind, the Dodos, Geographer and John Vanderslice. In 2014, Magik*Magik got hired as the house band for Pop-Up Magazine, and toured the country for much of the next decade performing original scores for the beloved storytelling event.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13962652\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/08/GettyImages-143503000-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13962652\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/08/GettyImages-143503000-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"an indie musician dude with a guitar performs on stage with a string orchestra\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1624\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/08/GettyImages-143503000-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/08/GettyImages-143503000-800x507.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/08/GettyImages-143503000-1020x647.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/08/GettyImages-143503000-160x101.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/08/GettyImages-143503000-768x487.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/08/GettyImages-143503000-1536x974.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/08/GettyImages-143503000-2048x1299.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/08/GettyImages-143503000-1920x1218.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie performs with Magik*Magik Orchestra at the Beacon Theatre in New York in 2012. \u003ccite>(Mike Lawrie/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But the pandemic was brutal to the orchestra: Choi recalls losing $40,000 of upcoming work in one week back in April 2020, more than a third of their yearly budget. John Vanderslice, a major Magik*Magik collaborator and patron, moved to Los Angeles that year after \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13873789/tiny-telephone-sf-to-close-foreshadowing-an-arts-hubs-uncertain-future\">closing his original Mission District location of Tiny Telephone Studios\u003c/a>. And Pop-Up Magazine, which briefly returned to live performances after a COVID hiatus, permanently ended its run in January 2023.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So Choi pivoted. She moved to Sausalito in 2021, into a spot with a room for a home studio, and picked up work composing film scores. Magik*Magik stayed afloat with studio work, including some collaborations with bands, but increasingly for an expanding roster of corporate clients, like Meta and a range of gaming apps. Ever since, Choi’s quest for financial stability — and determination to keep rates competitive for the orchestra’s top-tier musicians — means their live performances have mainly been for large company holiday parties and galas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=398qIWN9N38\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Choi says they’re ready for the next chapter. “Coming out of COVID, and entering this new phase of my life — I’m in my 40s now — I was thinking, ‘What kind of work do we want to do? Do we really want to just work for corporations?’ That was never the intention of this group,” she says. Looking into fundraising possibilities, she realized it was time to treat the orchestra like a true San Francisco arts institution, and throw their own events.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We had super-scrappy Magik 1.0, where everybody got paid $50 and a slice of pizza to do a cool show with the Dodos. And then we grew up out of that and financially became more secure, but artistically it’s been a bit more corporate,” she says. “So I see this as Magik 3.0 — how can we combine these in a way that lets us go back to collaborating with up-and-coming independent artists?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13962654\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/08/Diana-Gameros-guitar-scaled.jpeg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13962654\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/08/Diana-Gameros-guitar-scaled.jpeg\" alt=\"a Latina woman with long black hair dressed in white sitting in a field with an acoustic guitar\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/08/Diana-Gameros-guitar-scaled.jpeg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/08/Diana-Gameros-guitar-800x533.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/08/Diana-Gameros-guitar-1020x680.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/08/Diana-Gameros-guitar-160x107.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/08/Diana-Gameros-guitar-768x512.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/08/Diana-Gameros-guitar-1536x1024.jpeg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/08/Diana-Gameros-guitar-2048x1365.jpeg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/08/Diana-Gameros-guitar-1920x1280.jpeg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Diana Gameros will perform at Magik*Magik Orchestra’s sweet sixteen party Aug. 16. \u003ccite>(Cristina Isabel Rivera)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The Aug. 16 shows will be their first foray into this new chapter, and also a bit of an experiment, says Choi: Prior to the main performances from Gameros and the Frail Ophelias, musicians will be stationed throughout the War Memorial’s elegant, Beaux Arts \u003ca href=\"https://sfwarmemorial.org/the-green-room/\">Green Room\u003c/a> playing short solo sets, and attendees are welcome to wander the space, taking it all in at their own pace. The family-friendly shows will provide floor mats, juice boxes, crayons and coloring pages with illustrated portraits of the artists. (Choi envisions the adjacent balcony area as a “cry area,” should younger kids need a place to let it all out.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both shows, Choi hopes, will offer the kind of intimate space in which attendees can strike up a conversation with their neighbor. Because coming out of the pandemic, her other big goal for Magik*Magik was that it should help foster human connection.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For better or for worse, Magik*Magik Orchestra always reflects where I’m at personally,” she says with a laugh. “[The pandemic] made me realize how important friendships are to my mental health … and the way that I’ve always made friends, since I was a child, was through music.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So I want to do our part to help the people of San Francisco feel a little less isolated, a little less lonely,” she says. “And two people connecting over their love of a song is a really powerful, genuine way to make a new friend.”\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘Noise Pop Presents: Magik In the Green Room,’ a sweet sixteen anniversary show featuring Diana Gameros, the Frail Ophelias, Magik*Magik and Live Strings, runs for two shows, at 5 p.m. and 8 p.m., on Friday, Aug. 16, at the Green Room in the War Memorial (401 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco). \u003ca href=\"https://www.eventbrite.com/e/magik-in-the-green-room-sweet-sixteen-anniversary-show-tickets-962528517707?aff=oddtdtcreator\">Tickets ($25) and more info here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Turning 16 is a classic milestone for American teenagers: the driver’s license, the questionable decisions, the exhilaration of independence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But for \u003ca href=\"https://magikmagikorchestra.com/\">Magik*Magik Orchestra\u003c/a>, the anniversary feels more like a homecoming, says founder and artistic director \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13654262/women-to-watch-minna-choi\">Minna Choi\u003c/a>. Two San Francisco shows this Friday, Aug. 16 — an early, kid-friendly show and a later one for the grownups — mark the orchestra’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.eventbrite.com/e/magik-in-the-green-room-sweet-sixteen-anniversary-show-tickets-962528517707\">first live, public performances\u003c/a> since before the pandemic. Billed as a “sweet 16” party, both will feature Magik*Magik’s string quartet accompanying singer-songwriter \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13910723/dear-homeland-diana-gameros-documentary-trailer\">Diana Gameros\u003c/a> and the Shakespeare-inspired indie-pop band the Frail Ophelias.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It all feels very celebratory,” says Choi, especially on the heels of a tough few years. “We’re finally emerging from our little hidden place.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a made-to-order orchestra whose configurations can range from a solo violinist to an 80-piece symphony, Magik*Magik has occupied a unique place in the Bay Area music landscape. Founded in 2008, they quickly became your favorite indie rocker’s favorite collaborator, providing live and in-studio accompaniment for Death Cab for Cutie, Weezer, Third Eye Blind, the Dodos, Geographer and John Vanderslice. In 2014, Magik*Magik got hired as the house band for Pop-Up Magazine, and toured the country for much of the next decade performing original scores for the beloved storytelling event.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13962652\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/08/GettyImages-143503000-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13962652\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/08/GettyImages-143503000-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"an indie musician dude with a guitar performs on stage with a string orchestra\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1624\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/08/GettyImages-143503000-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/08/GettyImages-143503000-800x507.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/08/GettyImages-143503000-1020x647.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/08/GettyImages-143503000-160x101.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/08/GettyImages-143503000-768x487.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/08/GettyImages-143503000-1536x974.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/08/GettyImages-143503000-2048x1299.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/08/GettyImages-143503000-1920x1218.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie performs with Magik*Magik Orchestra at the Beacon Theatre in New York in 2012. \u003ccite>(Mike Lawrie/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But the pandemic was brutal to the orchestra: Choi recalls losing $40,000 of upcoming work in one week back in April 2020, more than a third of their yearly budget. John Vanderslice, a major Magik*Magik collaborator and patron, moved to Los Angeles that year after \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13873789/tiny-telephone-sf-to-close-foreshadowing-an-arts-hubs-uncertain-future\">closing his original Mission District location of Tiny Telephone Studios\u003c/a>. And Pop-Up Magazine, which briefly returned to live performances after a COVID hiatus, permanently ended its run in January 2023.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So Choi pivoted. She moved to Sausalito in 2021, into a spot with a room for a home studio, and picked up work composing film scores. Magik*Magik stayed afloat with studio work, including some collaborations with bands, but increasingly for an expanding roster of corporate clients, like Meta and a range of gaming apps. Ever since, Choi’s quest for financial stability — and determination to keep rates competitive for the orchestra’s top-tier musicians — means their live performances have mainly been for large company holiday parties and galas.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/398qIWN9N38'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/398qIWN9N38'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>But Choi says they’re ready for the next chapter. “Coming out of COVID, and entering this new phase of my life — I’m in my 40s now — I was thinking, ‘What kind of work do we want to do? Do we really want to just work for corporations?’ That was never the intention of this group,” she says. Looking into fundraising possibilities, she realized it was time to treat the orchestra like a true San Francisco arts institution, and throw their own events.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We had super-scrappy Magik 1.0, where everybody got paid $50 and a slice of pizza to do a cool show with the Dodos. And then we grew up out of that and financially became more secure, but artistically it’s been a bit more corporate,” she says. “So I see this as Magik 3.0 — how can we combine these in a way that lets us go back to collaborating with up-and-coming independent artists?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13962654\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/08/Diana-Gameros-guitar-scaled.jpeg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13962654\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/08/Diana-Gameros-guitar-scaled.jpeg\" alt=\"a Latina woman with long black hair dressed in white sitting in a field with an acoustic guitar\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/08/Diana-Gameros-guitar-scaled.jpeg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/08/Diana-Gameros-guitar-800x533.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/08/Diana-Gameros-guitar-1020x680.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/08/Diana-Gameros-guitar-160x107.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/08/Diana-Gameros-guitar-768x512.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/08/Diana-Gameros-guitar-1536x1024.jpeg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/08/Diana-Gameros-guitar-2048x1365.jpeg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/08/Diana-Gameros-guitar-1920x1280.jpeg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Diana Gameros will perform at Magik*Magik Orchestra’s sweet sixteen party Aug. 16. \u003ccite>(Cristina Isabel Rivera)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The Aug. 16 shows will be their first foray into this new chapter, and also a bit of an experiment, says Choi: Prior to the main performances from Gameros and the Frail Ophelias, musicians will be stationed throughout the War Memorial’s elegant, Beaux Arts \u003ca href=\"https://sfwarmemorial.org/the-green-room/\">Green Room\u003c/a> playing short solo sets, and attendees are welcome to wander the space, taking it all in at their own pace. The family-friendly shows will provide floor mats, juice boxes, crayons and coloring pages with illustrated portraits of the artists. (Choi envisions the adjacent balcony area as a “cry area,” should younger kids need a place to let it all out.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both shows, Choi hopes, will offer the kind of intimate space in which attendees can strike up a conversation with their neighbor. Because coming out of the pandemic, her other big goal for Magik*Magik was that it should help foster human connection.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For better or for worse, Magik*Magik Orchestra always reflects where I’m at personally,” she says with a laugh. “[The pandemic] made me realize how important friendships are to my mental health … and the way that I’ve always made friends, since I was a child, was through music.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So I want to do our part to help the people of San Francisco feel a little less isolated, a little less lonely,” she says. “And two people connecting over their love of a song is a really powerful, genuine way to make a new friend.”\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘Noise Pop Presents: Magik In the Green Room,’ a sweet sixteen anniversary show featuring Diana Gameros, the Frail Ophelias, Magik*Magik and Live Strings, runs for two shows, at 5 p.m. and 8 p.m., on Friday, Aug. 16, at the Green Room in the War Memorial (401 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco). \u003ca href=\"https://www.eventbrite.com/e/magik-in-the-green-room-sweet-sixteen-anniversary-show-tickets-962528517707?aff=oddtdtcreator\">Tickets ($25) and more info here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "White Crate Is Documenting the Bay Area’s Music Renaissance",
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"content": "\u003cp>In the fall of 2020, with concert calendars blank for the foreseeable future, something shifted for Ronny Kerr.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The musician, record collector and DJ made a habit of taking long, contemplative walks around his neighborhood in West Oakland. Shows by touring bands and big festivals were off the table. So instead, he says, “I just became really interested and invested and curious about what was happening right here.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kerr, who grew up in Daly City, started scouring the internet for new releases from Bay Area artists. As loosening restrictions began to allow for small outdoor shows, he kept track of upcoming performances. Soon, he was sharing his weekly list of findings with friends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“While everyone else was baking bread for the first time, I was like ‘I wanna start a newsletter about Bay Area music,’” says Kerr. He and his co-founder, longtime friend Elliot Engel, decided to name the project \u003ca href=\"https://whitecrate.org/\">White Crate\u003c/a>, after the crate they transported records in when they DJed together.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13960737\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/Ronny-and-Elliot-at-Portola-1-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13960737\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/Ronny-and-Elliot-at-Portola-1-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"two white men pose together at an outdoor music festival\" width=\"2560\" height=\"2397\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/Ronny-and-Elliot-at-Portola-1-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/Ronny-and-Elliot-at-Portola-1-800x749.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/Ronny-and-Elliot-at-Portola-1-1020x955.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/Ronny-and-Elliot-at-Portola-1-160x150.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/Ronny-and-Elliot-at-Portola-1-768x719.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/Ronny-and-Elliot-at-Portola-1-1536x1438.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/Ronny-and-Elliot-at-Portola-1-2048x1917.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/Ronny-and-Elliot-at-Portola-1-1920x1797.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">White Crate co-founders Ronny Kerr (left) and Elliot Engel at Portola Music Festival. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Ronny Kerr)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Nearly four years later, \u003ca href=\"https://whitecrate.org/\">White Crate\u003c/a> has become an indispensable resource for Bay Area music fans — and at an incredibly fertile time for local artists. (More on that in a minute.) White Crate has also expanded into so many formats that Kerr and Engel struggle to define it. In addition to the newsletter of show recommendations, there’s a website that publishes daily record reviews and artist interviews, plus a monthly online broadcast on \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13926316/hydefm-lower-grand-diy-internet-radio-stations-bay-area-music\">Lower Grand Radio\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Live events, White Crate’s newest venture, have so far included a \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfgate.com/sf-culture/article/grace-cathedral-rock-concert-review-17736176.php\">sold-out Cold Beat concert at Grace Cathedral\u003c/a>, and an ongoing series in which they invite a local artist or label to curate a lineup that highlights the best of their scene.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13960734\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/Qween-at-WC04-El-Rio-scaled-e1720470466828.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13960734\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/Qween-at-WC04-El-Rio-scaled-e1720470466828.jpg\" alt=\"a Black woman with purple hair in a black dress sings into a microphone on a patio\" width=\"1920\" height=\"2560\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/Qween-at-WC04-El-Rio-scaled-e1720470466828.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/Qween-at-WC04-El-Rio-scaled-e1720470466828-800x1067.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/Qween-at-WC04-El-Rio-scaled-e1720470466828-1020x1360.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/Qween-at-WC04-El-Rio-scaled-e1720470466828-160x213.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/Qween-at-WC04-El-Rio-scaled-e1720470466828-768x1024.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/Qween-at-WC04-El-Rio-scaled-e1720470466828-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/Qween-at-WC04-El-Rio-scaled-e1720470466828-1536x2048.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Qween at WC04, curated by local label 7000COILS. \u003ccite>(Courtesy White Crate)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The next show in this series, WC05, is set for Saturday, July 13 at El Rio, with a lineup programmed by the Mission District’s own \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13816703/can-text-me-records-become-san-franciscos-new-hit-factory\">Text Me Records\u003c/a>. Producer and rapper \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/mayflowerjammy/?hl=en\">Jammy\u003c/a>, alt-hip-hop artist \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/whoisrickylake/?hl=en\">Ricky Lake\u003c/a>, Latin Grammy-winning singer \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/nataliaalafavi?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA%3D%3D\">La Favi\u003c/a> and rapper-actress \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/tia.nomore/?hl=en\">Tia Nomore\u003c/a> are all set to perform live on the beloved queer bar’s sunny back patio, with DJ sets by \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/drewwwwwww___/?hl=en\">Drew Banga\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/louielser/?hl=en\">Louie El Ser\u003c/a>. [aside postid='arts_13925905']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When you start doing research, you realize there’s just such a vast constellation of music and creators and community here that no single person can have a full grasp on it,” says Kerr of the guest-curator format. “So we rely on other people to share what’s going on.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From where he’s sitting, what’s going on looks like a renaissance. Four years after the pandemic brought live music to a standstill, in garages and basements, in practice spaces and dive bars, the Bay Area music scene is blossoming once again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lbx1XrhkfE\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Bay has always had and will always have amazing music, amazing visual art, amazing art in general. But I think it’s kind of a wave system…. and right now we’re in a really good little moment,” says Ricky Lake, whose most recent EP, \u003ca href=\"https://open.spotify.com/album/5r6tsQ17IlJlh0nyQ5pxXb\">\u003cem>Tundra\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, blends indie rock and emo pop sounds with rap. [aside postid='arts_13960603']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite having lived here for a decade, Lake said he’s recently started going to new venues — like downtown San Francisco speakeasy The Felix — and seeing more cross-Bay collaboration between Oakland and San Francisco crews. He also attributes a lot of the momentum in his particular scene to femme DJs: “I know that’s very specific!” he says with a laugh. “But people like Louie El Ser, and the DJs they’ve put me on to… they go so hard. No matter what else is happening, they’re finding spaces to throw lit events and create scenes that people want to go to.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For La Favi, whose recent EP \u003ca href=\"https://favi.bandcamp.com/album/14-mission\">\u003cem>14 Mission\u003c/em>\u003c/a> takes its name from the bus line and neighborhood of her childhood, the El Rio showcase will be a hometown gig in the truest sense. “I was born and raised in San Francisco, it shaped who I am, my heart and my soul,” she says. While San Francisco has changed drastically since she was a kid, she says, “It’s always cool to see the new young artists that are coming up, the creativity of youth here — there are always little seeds. You just have to nurture them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ry6Gb1kksmw\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>White Crate co-founder Elliot Engel hypothesizes that the surge of new albums released over the past year is a result of the pandemic’s dormant period.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People were stuck at home, there was a lot of pent-up creativity,” says Engel. “And of course it’s easier now than ever to create music online. I mean, we’re still finding out about albums that were created during 2020 and 2021 that [artists] are just now releasing, and they’re incredibly creative.” [aside postid='arts_13960325']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Practically speaking, he adds, the eviction moratorium may have provided an all-too-brief glimpse into a world where artists don’t have to hustle around the clock to make rent: “People were allowed to breathe a little bit.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whatever the reasons for this resurgence, White Crate is documenting it — a role that feels increasingly important when so many outlets that once covered up-and-coming artists have shuttered. Following the decimation of the Bay Area’s alternative weeklies and the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13901785/the-bay-bridged-longtime-local-music-site-will-close-down-in-october\">demise of indie music site \u003cem>The Bay Bridged\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, very few local media outlets devote significant resources to coverage of even “traditional” arts like the theater or symphony, let alone the scrappy punk bands, electronic music parties and house shows that form the basis of the independent scene.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13960724\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/DJ-Mizu-at-WC03.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13960724\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/DJ-Mizu-at-WC03.jpg\" alt=\"a young person in a peach jumper and long braids smiles behind a DJ board\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/DJ-Mizu-at-WC03.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/DJ-Mizu-at-WC03-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/DJ-Mizu-at-WC03-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/DJ-Mizu-at-WC03-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/DJ-Mizu-at-WC03-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/DJ-Mizu-at-WC03-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/DJ-Mizu-at-WC03-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">DJ Mizu at WC03. \u003ccite>(Chris Caceres)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Importantly, White Crate’s founders say they’re not trying to grow into a media outlet. They both have full-time jobs, so the project is truly a labor of love. Which, in turn, helps explain why the whole thing has a touch of the nostalgic, DIY energy of a fanzine: They just want you to get to the show. And to celebrate local artists — even though the Fillmore and Fox’s calendars are once again filled with touring bands from around the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are so many great, accessible music venues that you can just pop into, like Thee Stork Club, Kilowatt, Bottom of the Hill, places where you can go and just be immersed among music people,” says Engel, of what he’d suggest to someone looking to discover independent Bay Area music. (Kerr chimes in, suggesting The Lab for the avant-garde scene, and event producers \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/n.o.b.i.a.s/?hl=en\">No Bias\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/vitamin1k/?hl=en\">Vitamin 1000\u003c/a> for dance music.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s remarkably little gatekeeping here. People are welcomed with open arms,” adds Engel. “It’s a pretty special place.”\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>WC05 takes place from 3\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">–\u003c/span>8 p.m. on Saturday, July 13 at El Rio (3158 Mission St., San Francisco). \u003ca href=\"https://www.eventbrite.com/e/wc05-curated-by-text-me-records-tickets-914809127727\">Tickets ($15-$20) and more info here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>In the fall of 2020, with concert calendars blank for the foreseeable future, something shifted for Ronny Kerr.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The musician, record collector and DJ made a habit of taking long, contemplative walks around his neighborhood in West Oakland. Shows by touring bands and big festivals were off the table. So instead, he says, “I just became really interested and invested and curious about what was happening right here.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kerr, who grew up in Daly City, started scouring the internet for new releases from Bay Area artists. As loosening restrictions began to allow for small outdoor shows, he kept track of upcoming performances. Soon, he was sharing his weekly list of findings with friends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“While everyone else was baking bread for the first time, I was like ‘I wanna start a newsletter about Bay Area music,’” says Kerr. He and his co-founder, longtime friend Elliot Engel, decided to name the project \u003ca href=\"https://whitecrate.org/\">White Crate\u003c/a>, after the crate they transported records in when they DJed together.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13960737\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/Ronny-and-Elliot-at-Portola-1-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13960737\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/Ronny-and-Elliot-at-Portola-1-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"two white men pose together at an outdoor music festival\" width=\"2560\" height=\"2397\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/Ronny-and-Elliot-at-Portola-1-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/Ronny-and-Elliot-at-Portola-1-800x749.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/Ronny-and-Elliot-at-Portola-1-1020x955.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/Ronny-and-Elliot-at-Portola-1-160x150.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/Ronny-and-Elliot-at-Portola-1-768x719.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/Ronny-and-Elliot-at-Portola-1-1536x1438.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/Ronny-and-Elliot-at-Portola-1-2048x1917.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/Ronny-and-Elliot-at-Portola-1-1920x1797.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">White Crate co-founders Ronny Kerr (left) and Elliot Engel at Portola Music Festival. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Ronny Kerr)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Nearly four years later, \u003ca href=\"https://whitecrate.org/\">White Crate\u003c/a> has become an indispensable resource for Bay Area music fans — and at an incredibly fertile time for local artists. (More on that in a minute.) White Crate has also expanded into so many formats that Kerr and Engel struggle to define it. In addition to the newsletter of show recommendations, there’s a website that publishes daily record reviews and artist interviews, plus a monthly online broadcast on \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13926316/hydefm-lower-grand-diy-internet-radio-stations-bay-area-music\">Lower Grand Radio\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Live events, White Crate’s newest venture, have so far included a \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfgate.com/sf-culture/article/grace-cathedral-rock-concert-review-17736176.php\">sold-out Cold Beat concert at Grace Cathedral\u003c/a>, and an ongoing series in which they invite a local artist or label to curate a lineup that highlights the best of their scene.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13960734\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/Qween-at-WC04-El-Rio-scaled-e1720470466828.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13960734\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/Qween-at-WC04-El-Rio-scaled-e1720470466828.jpg\" alt=\"a Black woman with purple hair in a black dress sings into a microphone on a patio\" width=\"1920\" height=\"2560\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/Qween-at-WC04-El-Rio-scaled-e1720470466828.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/Qween-at-WC04-El-Rio-scaled-e1720470466828-800x1067.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/Qween-at-WC04-El-Rio-scaled-e1720470466828-1020x1360.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/Qween-at-WC04-El-Rio-scaled-e1720470466828-160x213.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/Qween-at-WC04-El-Rio-scaled-e1720470466828-768x1024.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/Qween-at-WC04-El-Rio-scaled-e1720470466828-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/Qween-at-WC04-El-Rio-scaled-e1720470466828-1536x2048.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Qween at WC04, curated by local label 7000COILS. \u003ccite>(Courtesy White Crate)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The next show in this series, WC05, is set for Saturday, July 13 at El Rio, with a lineup programmed by the Mission District’s own \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13816703/can-text-me-records-become-san-franciscos-new-hit-factory\">Text Me Records\u003c/a>. Producer and rapper \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/mayflowerjammy/?hl=en\">Jammy\u003c/a>, alt-hip-hop artist \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/whoisrickylake/?hl=en\">Ricky Lake\u003c/a>, Latin Grammy-winning singer \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/nataliaalafavi?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA%3D%3D\">La Favi\u003c/a> and rapper-actress \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/tia.nomore/?hl=en\">Tia Nomore\u003c/a> are all set to perform live on the beloved queer bar’s sunny back patio, with DJ sets by \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/drewwwwwww___/?hl=en\">Drew Banga\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/louielser/?hl=en\">Louie El Ser\u003c/a>. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When you start doing research, you realize there’s just such a vast constellation of music and creators and community here that no single person can have a full grasp on it,” says Kerr of the guest-curator format. “So we rely on other people to share what’s going on.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From where he’s sitting, what’s going on looks like a renaissance. Four years after the pandemic brought live music to a standstill, in garages and basements, in practice spaces and dive bars, the Bay Area music scene is blossoming once again.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/8lbx1XrhkfE'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/8lbx1XrhkfE'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>“The Bay has always had and will always have amazing music, amazing visual art, amazing art in general. But I think it’s kind of a wave system…. and right now we’re in a really good little moment,” says Ricky Lake, whose most recent EP, \u003ca href=\"https://open.spotify.com/album/5r6tsQ17IlJlh0nyQ5pxXb\">\u003cem>Tundra\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, blends indie rock and emo pop sounds with rap. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite having lived here for a decade, Lake said he’s recently started going to new venues — like downtown San Francisco speakeasy The Felix — and seeing more cross-Bay collaboration between Oakland and San Francisco crews. He also attributes a lot of the momentum in his particular scene to femme DJs: “I know that’s very specific!” he says with a laugh. “But people like Louie El Ser, and the DJs they’ve put me on to… they go so hard. No matter what else is happening, they’re finding spaces to throw lit events and create scenes that people want to go to.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For La Favi, whose recent EP \u003ca href=\"https://favi.bandcamp.com/album/14-mission\">\u003cem>14 Mission\u003c/em>\u003c/a> takes its name from the bus line and neighborhood of her childhood, the El Rio showcase will be a hometown gig in the truest sense. “I was born and raised in San Francisco, it shaped who I am, my heart and my soul,” she says. While San Francisco has changed drastically since she was a kid, she says, “It’s always cool to see the new young artists that are coming up, the creativity of youth here — there are always little seeds. You just have to nurture them.”\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/ry6Gb1kksmw'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/ry6Gb1kksmw'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>White Crate co-founder Elliot Engel hypothesizes that the surge of new albums released over the past year is a result of the pandemic’s dormant period.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People were stuck at home, there was a lot of pent-up creativity,” says Engel. “And of course it’s easier now than ever to create music online. I mean, we’re still finding out about albums that were created during 2020 and 2021 that [artists] are just now releasing, and they’re incredibly creative.” \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Practically speaking, he adds, the eviction moratorium may have provided an all-too-brief glimpse into a world where artists don’t have to hustle around the clock to make rent: “People were allowed to breathe a little bit.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whatever the reasons for this resurgence, White Crate is documenting it — a role that feels increasingly important when so many outlets that once covered up-and-coming artists have shuttered. Following the decimation of the Bay Area’s alternative weeklies and the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13901785/the-bay-bridged-longtime-local-music-site-will-close-down-in-october\">demise of indie music site \u003cem>The Bay Bridged\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, very few local media outlets devote significant resources to coverage of even “traditional” arts like the theater or symphony, let alone the scrappy punk bands, electronic music parties and house shows that form the basis of the independent scene.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13960724\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/DJ-Mizu-at-WC03.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13960724\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/DJ-Mizu-at-WC03.jpg\" alt=\"a young person in a peach jumper and long braids smiles behind a DJ board\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/DJ-Mizu-at-WC03.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/DJ-Mizu-at-WC03-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/DJ-Mizu-at-WC03-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/DJ-Mizu-at-WC03-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/DJ-Mizu-at-WC03-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/DJ-Mizu-at-WC03-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/DJ-Mizu-at-WC03-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">DJ Mizu at WC03. \u003ccite>(Chris Caceres)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Importantly, White Crate’s founders say they’re not trying to grow into a media outlet. They both have full-time jobs, so the project is truly a labor of love. Which, in turn, helps explain why the whole thing has a touch of the nostalgic, DIY energy of a fanzine: They just want you to get to the show. And to celebrate local artists — even though the Fillmore and Fox’s calendars are once again filled with touring bands from around the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are so many great, accessible music venues that you can just pop into, like Thee Stork Club, Kilowatt, Bottom of the Hill, places where you can go and just be immersed among music people,” says Engel, of what he’d suggest to someone looking to discover independent Bay Area music. (Kerr chimes in, suggesting The Lab for the avant-garde scene, and event producers \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/n.o.b.i.a.s/?hl=en\">No Bias\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/vitamin1k/?hl=en\">Vitamin 1000\u003c/a> for dance music.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s remarkably little gatekeeping here. People are welcomed with open arms,” adds Engel. “It’s a pretty special place.”\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>WC05 takes place from 3\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">–\u003c/span>8 p.m. on Saturday, July 13 at El Rio (3158 Mission St., San Francisco). \u003ca href=\"https://www.eventbrite.com/e/wc05-curated-by-text-me-records-tickets-914809127727\">Tickets ($15-$20) and more info here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "‘Nourished and Replenished’: Meklit’s New EP Delivers an Antidote for Uncertain Times",
"headTitle": "‘Nourished and Replenished’: Meklit’s New EP Delivers an Antidote for Uncertain Times | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>“Everyday dreaming, everyday songs / Everyday pushing, we keep keeping on,” sings \u003ca href=\"https://www.meklitmusic.com/\">Meklit\u003c/a> on “Antidote,” the first track on the San Francisco musician’s new EP, as a hopeful saxophone line from \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/tag/howard-wiley\">Howard Wiley\u003c/a> rises up behind her. “Everyday passage, everyday bread / You yourself are an offer, turn the world on its head.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID='arts_13817300']It’s classic Meklit, finding beauty in the mundane — a thread that runs through most of her work. The Ethiopian-American singer-songwriter, who’s earned critical acclaim for her inventive blend of jazz, folk and East African music, is a true Bay Area multihyphenate. A speaker, scholar and organizer, she’s been a TED Senior Fellow, founded the nonprofit \u003ca href=\"https://www.bu.edu/arts/nile-project/\">Nile Project\u003c/a> and held a programming role at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts until 2022. Her podcast and performance series \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://movementstories.com/\">Movement\u003c/a>\u003c/em>, which debuted in 2020 nationwide on PRX’s The World, explores stories of migration and the malleable concept of home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, man, does it feel like an extra special gift when she decides to release new music. \u003ca href=\"https://meklitsings.bandcamp.com/album/ethio-blue\">\u003cem>Ethio Blue\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, out Friday, March 8, is Meklit’s first release in seven years. She’ll celebrate it with \u003ca href=\"https://www.brava.org/all-events/ethio-blue\">a full-band live show at San Francisco’s Brava theater\u003c/a> on Saturday, March 9.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: 0; width: 100%; height: 120px;\" src=\"https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/track=1122803803/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=0687f5/tracklist=false/artwork=small/transparent=true/\" width=\"100%\" height=\"500\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On first listen, one might assume the collection of six songs is a pandemic album. These songs play with grief and hope; they’re unmistakably intimate, introspective and tender, even as funk grooves lock into place, percussion builds to epic proportions and Meklit’s vocal power fills the room.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That assumption would be wrong: Meklit wrote and recorded most of these songs in 2019, while on the verge of becoming a first-time mother, and trying to process the daily horrors of the Trump Administration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was thinking about what kind of world I wanted this child to be in,” recalls the songwriter of that tumultuous time. “And then every other week there would be a new way of assaulting immigrants, or assaulting women, and everyone just seemed so worn down … I wanted to write healing songs, to help people feel nourished and replenished, remind people of their strengths and capacities and power.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13953527\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/03/Meklit-at-Helsinki-Festival-by-Petri_Anttila-smaller-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13953527\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/03/Meklit-at-Helsinki-Festival-by-Petri_Anttila-smaller-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"a smiling woman performs at a microphone on stage\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/03/Meklit-at-Helsinki-Festival-by-Petri_Anttila-smaller-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/03/Meklit-at-Helsinki-Festival-by-Petri_Anttila-smaller-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/03/Meklit-at-Helsinki-Festival-by-Petri_Anttila-smaller-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/03/Meklit-at-Helsinki-Festival-by-Petri_Anttila-smaller-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/03/Meklit-at-Helsinki-Festival-by-Petri_Anttila-smaller-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/03/Meklit-at-Helsinki-Festival-by-Petri_Anttila-smaller-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/03/Meklit-at-Helsinki-Festival-by-Petri_Anttila-smaller-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/03/Meklit-at-Helsinki-Festival-by-Petri_Anttila-smaller-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Meklit performs at a festival in Helsinki. \u003ccite>(Petri Anttila)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>To that end, she sought out sounds and words that made \u003cem>her\u003c/em> feel nourished. The track “Hagere Ethiopia,” which she sings in Amharic, was born of a lyrical collaboration with \u003ca href=\"https://www.tayitu.org/copy-of-history\">Alemtsehay Wedajo\u003c/a>, a longtime poet, theater actress and activist whom Meklit describes as a giant in contemporary Ethiopian art and culture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“She was so openhearted and excited about it,” says Meklit. The upbeat song, adapted from a poem of Wedajo’s, names rivers, caves and other ecological features of Ethiopia, describing them as precious heirlooms. “She’s so powerful, and in Ethiopia she’s a legend, but because she’s not writing in English she’s not really known here. I wanted to acknowledge her … and honor our women heroes, who often don’t get acknowledged while they’re still alive.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Elsewhere, Meklit drew inspiration from right outside her window: “Birdsong” pulls its melody and feel from, yes, a bird the singer recorded one morning; there’s also a stunning clarinet part from Ismail Lumanovski that sounds like a flight path. The production, from Dan Wilson (Jon Batiste, Leon Bridges, John Legend), is somehow both earthy and pristine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: 0; width: 100%; height: 120px;\" src=\"https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/track=2988072889/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=0687f5/tracklist=false/artwork=small/transparent=true/\" width=\"100%\" height=\"500\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Five years after she wrote these songs, some things have changed: the quietude of pregnancy has been replaced by the joyful cacophony of a 4-year-old, who often accompanies his parents — Meklit and her partner, percussionist Marco Peris Coppola — on the road. But \u003cem>Ethio Blue\u003c/em>’s determined hope in the face of uncertainty has persisted, and, in these songs, aged quite well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID='arts_13951290']“We have all kinds of reasons to feel terrified,” acknowledges Meklit, noting that the specter of Trump once again hangs over the national mood. And yet “there’s also never been more space for me in the public sphere, as an African woman, as a Black woman, as an immigrant woman. … For me, it’s thinking about places where our power is expanding, our abilities to shape worlds for ourselves.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Music helps, she says, by forcing her to stay present — and she hopes to offer the same to people who come to her shows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Look at the neuroscience of what’s happening at a show: our brains are doing entrainment, syncing up with the rhythm, so our brain waves are moving together. We’re singing, so our breath is moving together,” says the artist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have the things we need to make us feel connected in our own well-being, and our own sense of possibility,” she adds. “We just have to remember them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-12127869\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"78\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-768x75.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Meklit performs her EP release show at 8 p.m. on Saturday, March 9, at Brava Theater (2789 24th St.) in San Francisco. Oakland’s LoCura opens. \u003ca href=\"https://www.brava.org/all-events/ethio-blue\">Tickets ($25 and up) and more info here\u003c/a>. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>“Everyday dreaming, everyday songs / Everyday pushing, we keep keeping on,” sings \u003ca href=\"https://www.meklitmusic.com/\">Meklit\u003c/a> on “Antidote,” the first track on the San Francisco musician’s new EP, as a hopeful saxophone line from \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/tag/howard-wiley\">Howard Wiley\u003c/a> rises up behind her. “Everyday passage, everyday bread / You yourself are an offer, turn the world on its head.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>It’s classic Meklit, finding beauty in the mundane — a thread that runs through most of her work. The Ethiopian-American singer-songwriter, who’s earned critical acclaim for her inventive blend of jazz, folk and East African music, is a true Bay Area multihyphenate. A speaker, scholar and organizer, she’s been a TED Senior Fellow, founded the nonprofit \u003ca href=\"https://www.bu.edu/arts/nile-project/\">Nile Project\u003c/a> and held a programming role at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts until 2022. Her podcast and performance series \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://movementstories.com/\">Movement\u003c/a>\u003c/em>, which debuted in 2020 nationwide on PRX’s The World, explores stories of migration and the malleable concept of home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, man, does it feel like an extra special gift when she decides to release new music. \u003ca href=\"https://meklitsings.bandcamp.com/album/ethio-blue\">\u003cem>Ethio Blue\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, out Friday, March 8, is Meklit’s first release in seven years. She’ll celebrate it with \u003ca href=\"https://www.brava.org/all-events/ethio-blue\">a full-band live show at San Francisco’s Brava theater\u003c/a> on Saturday, March 9.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: 0; width: 100%; height: 120px;\" src=\"https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/track=1122803803/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=0687f5/tracklist=false/artwork=small/transparent=true/\" width=\"100%\" height=\"500\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On first listen, one might assume the collection of six songs is a pandemic album. These songs play with grief and hope; they’re unmistakably intimate, introspective and tender, even as funk grooves lock into place, percussion builds to epic proportions and Meklit’s vocal power fills the room.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That assumption would be wrong: Meklit wrote and recorded most of these songs in 2019, while on the verge of becoming a first-time mother, and trying to process the daily horrors of the Trump Administration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was thinking about what kind of world I wanted this child to be in,” recalls the songwriter of that tumultuous time. “And then every other week there would be a new way of assaulting immigrants, or assaulting women, and everyone just seemed so worn down … I wanted to write healing songs, to help people feel nourished and replenished, remind people of their strengths and capacities and power.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13953527\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/03/Meklit-at-Helsinki-Festival-by-Petri_Anttila-smaller-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13953527\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/03/Meklit-at-Helsinki-Festival-by-Petri_Anttila-smaller-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"a smiling woman performs at a microphone on stage\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/03/Meklit-at-Helsinki-Festival-by-Petri_Anttila-smaller-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/03/Meklit-at-Helsinki-Festival-by-Petri_Anttila-smaller-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/03/Meklit-at-Helsinki-Festival-by-Petri_Anttila-smaller-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/03/Meklit-at-Helsinki-Festival-by-Petri_Anttila-smaller-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/03/Meklit-at-Helsinki-Festival-by-Petri_Anttila-smaller-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/03/Meklit-at-Helsinki-Festival-by-Petri_Anttila-smaller-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/03/Meklit-at-Helsinki-Festival-by-Petri_Anttila-smaller-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/03/Meklit-at-Helsinki-Festival-by-Petri_Anttila-smaller-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Meklit performs at a festival in Helsinki. \u003ccite>(Petri Anttila)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>To that end, she sought out sounds and words that made \u003cem>her\u003c/em> feel nourished. The track “Hagere Ethiopia,” which she sings in Amharic, was born of a lyrical collaboration with \u003ca href=\"https://www.tayitu.org/copy-of-history\">Alemtsehay Wedajo\u003c/a>, a longtime poet, theater actress and activist whom Meklit describes as a giant in contemporary Ethiopian art and culture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“She was so openhearted and excited about it,” says Meklit. The upbeat song, adapted from a poem of Wedajo’s, names rivers, caves and other ecological features of Ethiopia, describing them as precious heirlooms. “She’s so powerful, and in Ethiopia she’s a legend, but because she’s not writing in English she’s not really known here. I wanted to acknowledge her … and honor our women heroes, who often don’t get acknowledged while they’re still alive.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Elsewhere, Meklit drew inspiration from right outside her window: “Birdsong” pulls its melody and feel from, yes, a bird the singer recorded one morning; there’s also a stunning clarinet part from Ismail Lumanovski that sounds like a flight path. The production, from Dan Wilson (Jon Batiste, Leon Bridges, John Legend), is somehow both earthy and pristine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: 0; width: 100%; height: 120px;\" src=\"https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/track=2988072889/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=0687f5/tracklist=false/artwork=small/transparent=true/\" width=\"100%\" height=\"500\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Five years after she wrote these songs, some things have changed: the quietude of pregnancy has been replaced by the joyful cacophony of a 4-year-old, who often accompanies his parents — Meklit and her partner, percussionist Marco Peris Coppola — on the road. But \u003cem>Ethio Blue\u003c/em>’s determined hope in the face of uncertainty has persisted, and, in these songs, aged quite well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“We have all kinds of reasons to feel terrified,” acknowledges Meklit, noting that the specter of Trump once again hangs over the national mood. And yet “there’s also never been more space for me in the public sphere, as an African woman, as a Black woman, as an immigrant woman. … For me, it’s thinking about places where our power is expanding, our abilities to shape worlds for ourselves.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Music helps, she says, by forcing her to stay present — and she hopes to offer the same to people who come to her shows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Look at the neuroscience of what’s happening at a show: our brains are doing entrainment, syncing up with the rhythm, so our brain waves are moving together. We’re singing, so our breath is moving together,” says the artist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have the things we need to make us feel connected in our own well-being, and our own sense of possibility,” she adds. “We just have to remember them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-12127869\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"78\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-768x75.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Meklit performs her EP release show at 8 p.m. on Saturday, March 9, at Brava Theater (2789 24th St.) in San Francisco. Oakland’s LoCura opens. \u003ca href=\"https://www.brava.org/all-events/ethio-blue\">Tickets ($25 and up) and more info here\u003c/a>. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Live Review: Madonna Gives a Master Class in ‘Eras’ in San Francisco",
"headTitle": "Live Review: Madonna Gives a Master Class in ‘Eras’ in San Francisco | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Let’s get this out of the way: She looked great. Sure, we could talk about Madonna’s face — about how we require aesthetic perfection from women, demand they stay frozen in amber after 40, then become cruel if they try \u003cem>too\u003c/em> hard to maintain the appearance that’s tied to their economic and cultural value — but it’s actually the least interesting thing about her. And if that’s what you wanna talk about, you clearly were not at her Celebration Tour at Chase Center in San Francisco on Tuesday night, because if you were, the only thing you would say about Madonna’s appearance is: Bitch looked \u003cem>great\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even more impressive? This show was rescheduled from October, because the whole Celebration Tour was postponed for six months after a bacterial infection put Madonna in a medically induced coma for several days. Then she got better, got back to rehearsals and went on the damn tour, because she’s Madonna.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13953149\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/GettyImages-1739697593-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13953149\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/GettyImages-1739697593-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"a young Black man and an older blonde woman stand side by side on a stage with guitars in western gear\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/GettyImages-1739697593-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/GettyImages-1739697593-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/GettyImages-1739697593-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/GettyImages-1739697593-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/GettyImages-1739697593-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/GettyImages-1739697593-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/GettyImages-1739697593-2048x1366.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/GettyImages-1739697593-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Madonna and her son David Banda perform during The Celebration Tour at The O2 Arena in London on Oct. 15, 2023. \u003ccite>(Kevin Mazur/WireImage for Live Nation)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We honor our mothers, always, don’t we? They gave us life. No matter what, we honor our mothers. Even if they’re motherfuckers!” said the 65-year-old pop star, clad in a leather corset, cowboy hat and fishnets, as the stadium full of people in sparkles, leather and fishnets roared back at her. This was about 90 minutes into a two-hour-and-15 minute set that careened sonically, visually and not-quite-chronologically across her four decades in show business — all for the cumulative effect of a sometimes unintentionally funny but nonetheless captivating musical about Madonna’s life, written, directed and produced by (and of course starring) Madonna.[aside postID='arts_13812867']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This show had everything: Versace bodysuits; a voguing competition; athletic and scantily clad dancers; Bob the Drag Queen; vaguely Y2K screensaver-esque visuals; Prince and Michael Jackson tributes; an abridged but otherwise transcendent version of “Like a Prayer” flanked by rotating neon crosses; and charming appearances by three of Madonna’s musically talented children (her youngest, voguing in a Versace bodysuit, natch). There was also such a high volume of pop culture references, delivered at such a frenetic clip, that when images of Che Guevara and James Baldwin flashed on screen amid clips of Cher and Ariana Grande sometime near the finale, I kinda just went “Sure, that makes sense.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13953148\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/Getty-Images-_-Kevin-Mazur-6-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13953148\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/Getty-Images-_-Kevin-Mazur-6-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"four people in sparkly outfits pose and vogue during a stadium show\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1750\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/Getty-Images-_-Kevin-Mazur-6-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/Getty-Images-_-Kevin-Mazur-6-800x547.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/Getty-Images-_-Kevin-Mazur-6-1020x697.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/Getty-Images-_-Kevin-Mazur-6-160x109.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/Getty-Images-_-Kevin-Mazur-6-768x525.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/Getty-Images-_-Kevin-Mazur-6-1536x1050.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/Getty-Images-_-Kevin-Mazur-6-2048x1400.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/Getty-Images-_-Kevin-Mazur-6-1920x1313.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Bob the Drag Queen and Madonna’s daughter Estere perform during “Vogue” at Madonna’s Celebration Tour show in New York. \u003ccite>(Kevin Mazur/WireImage for Live Nation)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>If you wanna talk “eras,” you have to talk about Madonna, who has — unlike some artists who use the word to describe album cycles — actually reinvented herself a dozen times over the course of 40 years. Back in the “mother” era of the show, as it were, she’d just performed “Mother and Father” with her son, guitarist David Banda, in front of giant photos of both their biological mothers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And as a mother, I want to say a prayer for peace for the children of the world who are being killed, kidnapped, hurt, harmed, the list goes on,” said Madonna. After imploring the crowd to “do the research, learn the history…not just pick sides and call names,” she told us to turn our phone flashlights on, then led us in a stripped down sing-along of “Express Yourself,” her voice strong and unencumbered without a backing track. Four minutes later we were transported to “La Isla Bonita.” Tropical island breeze, all of nature wild and free, you know the one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13953140\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/Getty-Images-_-Kevin-Mazur-8-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13953140\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/Getty-Images-_-Kevin-Mazur-8-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"a blond woman performs on a rotating stage in a stadium with dancers\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1546\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/Getty-Images-_-Kevin-Mazur-8-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/Getty-Images-_-Kevin-Mazur-8-800x483.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/Getty-Images-_-Kevin-Mazur-8-1020x616.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/Getty-Images-_-Kevin-Mazur-8-160x97.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/Getty-Images-_-Kevin-Mazur-8-768x464.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/Getty-Images-_-Kevin-Mazur-8-1536x928.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/Getty-Images-_-Kevin-Mazur-8-2048x1237.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/Getty-Images-_-Kevin-Mazur-8-1920x1160.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Madonna performs during The Celebration Tour at Barclays Center in New York on Dec. 14, 2023. The pop star performed at Chase Center in San Francisco on Feb. 27, 2024. \u003ccite>(Kevin Mazur/WireImage for Live Nation)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>If the tonal shift seemed abrupt, well, Madonna had a lot of career left to pack in. As she reminded us over the course of seven musical “acts” about her life, Madonna has not just courted controversy over her four decades in the spotlight; she drew the blueprint for making a career of it. In the ’80s and ’90s, she challenged societal norms by expressing female sexuality in a way that made enemies out of the Catholic Church, Tipper Gore’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/pop/18111/the-tipper-sticker-at-30-the-most-entertaining-and-least-effective-attempt-at-censorship-in-rock-history\">Parents Music Resource Center\u003c/a> and countless other arbiters of so-called family values. (In one of several between-song skits with her dancers, she dramatized her 1990 near-arrest by Toronto police for simulating masturbation onstage while performing “Like a Virgin.”)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since the aughts, as Madonna herself noted in a voice-over during a montage of outraged headlines, she’s battled ageism along with misogyny: “The most controversial thing I’ve ever done is stick around.” I think that’s probably true. And yet… at some point, after I lost count of how many times she seemed to be visually likening herself to Jesus, I wrote in my notes that “Madonna is always being persecuted!!!?” Which is, frankly, a hilarious framing for someone worth an estimated $850 million, with seven Grammys and two Golden Globes, who was recently re-certified by the Guiness Book of World Records as the reigning \u003cem>best-selling female artist of all time.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13953164\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/240227-MadonnaFans-27-BL_qut.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13953164\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/240227-MadonnaFans-27-BL_qut.jpg\" alt=\"jeans with pictures of Madonna on them\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/240227-MadonnaFans-27-BL_qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/240227-MadonnaFans-27-BL_qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/240227-MadonnaFans-27-BL_qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/240227-MadonnaFans-27-BL_qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/240227-MadonnaFans-27-BL_qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/240227-MadonnaFans-27-BL_qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Fan Heather Breiling wears Madonna pants while attending the Madonna Celebration Tour concert at Chase Center in San Francisco on Feb. 27, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Part of the dissonance, surely, is that pop has evolved since Madonna helped build MTV with shock value, and some of what made her a visionary now seems tame: “Like a Virgin” no longer ruffles feathers in a world with “WAP.” One could argue that’s what happens when visionaries are successful at pushing culture forward — what was once rule-breaking becomes the industry standard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What is undeniable is just how much she still means to people. Specifically, to the LGBTQ community — to whom Madonna has been an outspoken ally since before the word “ally” was part of our lexicon — and who showed up and showed out last night in style. Local legends from the queer community were everywhere, if you looked, including Sister Roma, Peaches Christ, Honey Mahogany and more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13953144\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/240227-MadonnaFans-09-BL_qut.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13953144\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/240227-MadonnaFans-09-BL_qut.jpg\" alt=\"a drag performer in white makeup and a purple wig poses in front of a sign reading Madonna the celebration tour\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/240227-MadonnaFans-09-BL_qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/240227-MadonnaFans-09-BL_qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/240227-MadonnaFans-09-BL_qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/240227-MadonnaFans-09-BL_qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/240227-MadonnaFans-09-BL_qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/240227-MadonnaFans-09-BL_qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sister Roma poses before the Madonna Celebration Tour concert at the Chase Center in San Francisco on Feb. 27, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It made sense, then, when the most genuinely moving moment of the show arrived with a tribute to people who died from AIDS, introduced as an ecstatic performance of “Holiday” drew to a close. The backing track suddenly sounded like a warped record as one of Madonna’s dancers slowly collapsed on the rotating stage. The singer bent to check his pulse, and draped her coat over his body before they both sank into the floor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13953151\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/GettyImages-1736271119-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13953151\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/GettyImages-1736271119-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"a tribute to people who have died from AIDS\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/GettyImages-1736271119-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/GettyImages-1736271119-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/GettyImages-1736271119-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/GettyImages-1736271119-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/GettyImages-1736271119-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/GettyImages-1736271119-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/GettyImages-1736271119-2048x1366.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/GettyImages-1736271119-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A tribute to people who died from AIDS during Madonna’s Celebration Tour at The O2 Arena in London on Oct.14, 2023. \u003ccite>(Kevin Mazur/WireImage for Live Nation)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Then, as she traversed the stadium in an aerial box performing “Live to Tell,” massive screens began to show black and white photos of Keith Haring, Martin Burgoyne, Alvin Ailey, Arthur Ashe, Freddie Mercury and more, until there were hundreds of tiny photos surrounding us, willing us, here in a city whose gay community was devastated by the AIDS crisis, to look each one of them in the eye.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Madonna has built a career out of pushing forward, and has until now eschewed the idea of a “greatest hits” show, which I’ve always respected. But that moment alone lifted the exercise out of the ordinary, for me. It was the kind of thing that could only really be pulled off, one might say, by someone who’s had the audacity to stick around.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-12127869\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"78\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-768x75.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Madonna performs again tonight, Wednesday, Feb. 28, at Chase Center in San Francisco. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "The pop star’s captivating show at Chase Center careened through four decades of music and controversy.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Let’s get this out of the way: She looked great. Sure, we could talk about Madonna’s face — about how we require aesthetic perfection from women, demand they stay frozen in amber after 40, then become cruel if they try \u003cem>too\u003c/em> hard to maintain the appearance that’s tied to their economic and cultural value — but it’s actually the least interesting thing about her. And if that’s what you wanna talk about, you clearly were not at her Celebration Tour at Chase Center in San Francisco on Tuesday night, because if you were, the only thing you would say about Madonna’s appearance is: Bitch looked \u003cem>great\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even more impressive? This show was rescheduled from October, because the whole Celebration Tour was postponed for six months after a bacterial infection put Madonna in a medically induced coma for several days. Then she got better, got back to rehearsals and went on the damn tour, because she’s Madonna.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13953149\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/GettyImages-1739697593-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13953149\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/GettyImages-1739697593-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"a young Black man and an older blonde woman stand side by side on a stage with guitars in western gear\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/GettyImages-1739697593-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/GettyImages-1739697593-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/GettyImages-1739697593-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/GettyImages-1739697593-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/GettyImages-1739697593-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/GettyImages-1739697593-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/GettyImages-1739697593-2048x1366.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/GettyImages-1739697593-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Madonna and her son David Banda perform during The Celebration Tour at The O2 Arena in London on Oct. 15, 2023. \u003ccite>(Kevin Mazur/WireImage for Live Nation)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We honor our mothers, always, don’t we? They gave us life. No matter what, we honor our mothers. Even if they’re motherfuckers!” said the 65-year-old pop star, clad in a leather corset, cowboy hat and fishnets, as the stadium full of people in sparkles, leather and fishnets roared back at her. This was about 90 minutes into a two-hour-and-15 minute set that careened sonically, visually and not-quite-chronologically across her four decades in show business — all for the cumulative effect of a sometimes unintentionally funny but nonetheless captivating musical about Madonna’s life, written, directed and produced by (and of course starring) Madonna.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This show had everything: Versace bodysuits; a voguing competition; athletic and scantily clad dancers; Bob the Drag Queen; vaguely Y2K screensaver-esque visuals; Prince and Michael Jackson tributes; an abridged but otherwise transcendent version of “Like a Prayer” flanked by rotating neon crosses; and charming appearances by three of Madonna’s musically talented children (her youngest, voguing in a Versace bodysuit, natch). There was also such a high volume of pop culture references, delivered at such a frenetic clip, that when images of Che Guevara and James Baldwin flashed on screen amid clips of Cher and Ariana Grande sometime near the finale, I kinda just went “Sure, that makes sense.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13953148\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/Getty-Images-_-Kevin-Mazur-6-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13953148\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/Getty-Images-_-Kevin-Mazur-6-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"four people in sparkly outfits pose and vogue during a stadium show\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1750\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/Getty-Images-_-Kevin-Mazur-6-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/Getty-Images-_-Kevin-Mazur-6-800x547.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/Getty-Images-_-Kevin-Mazur-6-1020x697.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/Getty-Images-_-Kevin-Mazur-6-160x109.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/Getty-Images-_-Kevin-Mazur-6-768x525.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/Getty-Images-_-Kevin-Mazur-6-1536x1050.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/Getty-Images-_-Kevin-Mazur-6-2048x1400.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/Getty-Images-_-Kevin-Mazur-6-1920x1313.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Bob the Drag Queen and Madonna’s daughter Estere perform during “Vogue” at Madonna’s Celebration Tour show in New York. \u003ccite>(Kevin Mazur/WireImage for Live Nation)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>If you wanna talk “eras,” you have to talk about Madonna, who has — unlike some artists who use the word to describe album cycles — actually reinvented herself a dozen times over the course of 40 years. Back in the “mother” era of the show, as it were, she’d just performed “Mother and Father” with her son, guitarist David Banda, in front of giant photos of both their biological mothers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And as a mother, I want to say a prayer for peace for the children of the world who are being killed, kidnapped, hurt, harmed, the list goes on,” said Madonna. After imploring the crowd to “do the research, learn the history…not just pick sides and call names,” she told us to turn our phone flashlights on, then led us in a stripped down sing-along of “Express Yourself,” her voice strong and unencumbered without a backing track. Four minutes later we were transported to “La Isla Bonita.” Tropical island breeze, all of nature wild and free, you know the one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13953140\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/Getty-Images-_-Kevin-Mazur-8-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13953140\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/Getty-Images-_-Kevin-Mazur-8-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"a blond woman performs on a rotating stage in a stadium with dancers\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1546\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/Getty-Images-_-Kevin-Mazur-8-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/Getty-Images-_-Kevin-Mazur-8-800x483.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/Getty-Images-_-Kevin-Mazur-8-1020x616.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/Getty-Images-_-Kevin-Mazur-8-160x97.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/Getty-Images-_-Kevin-Mazur-8-768x464.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/Getty-Images-_-Kevin-Mazur-8-1536x928.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/Getty-Images-_-Kevin-Mazur-8-2048x1237.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/Getty-Images-_-Kevin-Mazur-8-1920x1160.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Madonna performs during The Celebration Tour at Barclays Center in New York on Dec. 14, 2023. The pop star performed at Chase Center in San Francisco on Feb. 27, 2024. \u003ccite>(Kevin Mazur/WireImage for Live Nation)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>If the tonal shift seemed abrupt, well, Madonna had a lot of career left to pack in. As she reminded us over the course of seven musical “acts” about her life, Madonna has not just courted controversy over her four decades in the spotlight; she drew the blueprint for making a career of it. In the ’80s and ’90s, she challenged societal norms by expressing female sexuality in a way that made enemies out of the Catholic Church, Tipper Gore’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/pop/18111/the-tipper-sticker-at-30-the-most-entertaining-and-least-effective-attempt-at-censorship-in-rock-history\">Parents Music Resource Center\u003c/a> and countless other arbiters of so-called family values. (In one of several between-song skits with her dancers, she dramatized her 1990 near-arrest by Toronto police for simulating masturbation onstage while performing “Like a Virgin.”)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since the aughts, as Madonna herself noted in a voice-over during a montage of outraged headlines, she’s battled ageism along with misogyny: “The most controversial thing I’ve ever done is stick around.” I think that’s probably true. And yet… at some point, after I lost count of how many times she seemed to be visually likening herself to Jesus, I wrote in my notes that “Madonna is always being persecuted!!!?” Which is, frankly, a hilarious framing for someone worth an estimated $850 million, with seven Grammys and two Golden Globes, who was recently re-certified by the Guiness Book of World Records as the reigning \u003cem>best-selling female artist of all time.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13953164\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/240227-MadonnaFans-27-BL_qut.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13953164\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/240227-MadonnaFans-27-BL_qut.jpg\" alt=\"jeans with pictures of Madonna on them\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/240227-MadonnaFans-27-BL_qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/240227-MadonnaFans-27-BL_qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/240227-MadonnaFans-27-BL_qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/240227-MadonnaFans-27-BL_qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/240227-MadonnaFans-27-BL_qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/240227-MadonnaFans-27-BL_qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Fan Heather Breiling wears Madonna pants while attending the Madonna Celebration Tour concert at Chase Center in San Francisco on Feb. 27, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Part of the dissonance, surely, is that pop has evolved since Madonna helped build MTV with shock value, and some of what made her a visionary now seems tame: “Like a Virgin” no longer ruffles feathers in a world with “WAP.” One could argue that’s what happens when visionaries are successful at pushing culture forward — what was once rule-breaking becomes the industry standard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What is undeniable is just how much she still means to people. Specifically, to the LGBTQ community — to whom Madonna has been an outspoken ally since before the word “ally” was part of our lexicon — and who showed up and showed out last night in style. Local legends from the queer community were everywhere, if you looked, including Sister Roma, Peaches Christ, Honey Mahogany and more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13953144\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/240227-MadonnaFans-09-BL_qut.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13953144\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/240227-MadonnaFans-09-BL_qut.jpg\" alt=\"a drag performer in white makeup and a purple wig poses in front of a sign reading Madonna the celebration tour\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/240227-MadonnaFans-09-BL_qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/240227-MadonnaFans-09-BL_qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/240227-MadonnaFans-09-BL_qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/240227-MadonnaFans-09-BL_qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/240227-MadonnaFans-09-BL_qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/240227-MadonnaFans-09-BL_qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sister Roma poses before the Madonna Celebration Tour concert at the Chase Center in San Francisco on Feb. 27, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It made sense, then, when the most genuinely moving moment of the show arrived with a tribute to people who died from AIDS, introduced as an ecstatic performance of “Holiday” drew to a close. The backing track suddenly sounded like a warped record as one of Madonna’s dancers slowly collapsed on the rotating stage. The singer bent to check his pulse, and draped her coat over his body before they both sank into the floor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13953151\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/GettyImages-1736271119-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13953151\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/GettyImages-1736271119-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"a tribute to people who have died from AIDS\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/GettyImages-1736271119-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/GettyImages-1736271119-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/GettyImages-1736271119-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/GettyImages-1736271119-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/GettyImages-1736271119-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/GettyImages-1736271119-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/GettyImages-1736271119-2048x1366.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/GettyImages-1736271119-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A tribute to people who died from AIDS during Madonna’s Celebration Tour at The O2 Arena in London on Oct.14, 2023. \u003ccite>(Kevin Mazur/WireImage for Live Nation)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Then, as she traversed the stadium in an aerial box performing “Live to Tell,” massive screens began to show black and white photos of Keith Haring, Martin Burgoyne, Alvin Ailey, Arthur Ashe, Freddie Mercury and more, until there were hundreds of tiny photos surrounding us, willing us, here in a city whose gay community was devastated by the AIDS crisis, to look each one of them in the eye.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Madonna has built a career out of pushing forward, and has until now eschewed the idea of a “greatest hits” show, which I’ve always respected. But that moment alone lifted the exercise out of the ordinary, for me. It was the kind of thing that could only really be pulled off, one might say, by someone who’s had the audacity to stick around.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-12127869\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"78\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-768x75.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Madonna performs again tonight, Wednesday, Feb. 28, at Chase Center in San Francisco. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Singing for Children on the Other Side of the World",
"headTitle": "Singing for Children on the Other Side of the World | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>If you hang around San Francisco’s indie folk scene, it will not take you long to run into singer and promoter \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfweekly.com/music/music-heroes-jessie-woletz/article_bfe961b1-70a1-5154-9113-cd00d5024e65.html\">Jessie Woletz\u003c/a>. As an individual, she’s warm and soft-spoken, having worked as a nanny for over a decade. But as \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/seaweedsway/?hl=en\">Seaweed Sway\u003c/a>, the moniker for her DIY music and event-production project that’s hosted shows around the Bay Area since 2007, she’s a veritable force of nature. She gets things done. And she knows \u003cem>a lot\u003c/em> of people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID='arts_13940282']Both of these attributes came in handy last month, when Woletz — feeling helpless while taking in images of the devastation in Gaza — decided to contact artists she knew with a simple request: “Do you want to donate a song to support relief in Palestine?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The result is a compilation, clocking in at 87 songs and counting, that has already raised more than $5000 for the \u003ca href=\"https://www.mecaforpeace.org/\">Middle East Children’s Alliance\u003c/a> since its release on Jan. 1. \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://seaweedsway.bandcamp.com/album/mixtape-for-palestine-fundraiser-for-middle-east-childrens-alliance-for-peace-25-125-scroll-down-to-donate-directly-get-music\">Mixtape for Palestine\u003c/a>, \u003c/em>available for download via Bandcamp with a donation to MECA, is a sprawling patchwork of songs — some originals, some previously released, some covers — by artists across a wide variety of genres.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: 0; width: 100%; height: 120px;\" src=\"https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=4014827160/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=0687f5/tracklist=false/artwork=small/track=3952569100/transparent=true/\" width=\"100%\" height=\"500\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Emerging local artists appear alongside names with wider recognition, including Jolie Holland, Little Wings, field medic, C.J. Boyd (with a song featuring Bonnie “Prince” Billy), Ayla Nereo, Meklit and more. Veteran Bay Area musicians turned out in droves, including \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13855177/doctor-musician-and-activist-rupa-marya-offers-a-healing-balm-on-new-april-fishes-album\">Rupa & the April Fishes\u003c/a>, Brian Belknap, \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHR_n_o0f20\">Diana Gameros\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13906345/sean-hayes-new-album-be-like-water-offers-pathway-from-worry\">Sean Hayes\u003c/a>, Kelly McFarling, Chelsea Coleman, Whiskerman, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11667569/singer-songwriter-megan-keelys-tribute-to-her-grandmother\">Megan Keely\u003c/a>, Ezra Lipp and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13894398/amina-shareef-ali-comes-back-to-life\">Amina Shareef Ali\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A handful of the tracks directly address the current death toll in Palestine, like Maia “MJoy” Wiitala’s “\u003ca href=\"https://seaweedsway.bandcamp.com/track/watermelon-nights\">Watermelon Nights\u003c/a>,” and B. Hamilton’s “\u003ca href=\"https://seaweedsway.bandcamp.com/track/that-god-damn-paul-mccartney-christmas-song\">That God Damn Paul McCartney Christmas Song\u003c/a>.” (While the very first track, Nora Roman and the Border Busters’ “\u003ca href=\"https://seaweedsway.bandcamp.com/track/song-for-palestine\">Song For Palestine\u003c/a>,” could have been written last week, the group actually released it in 2011.) Others are protest songs originally inspired by other causes or oppressed communities; still others speak more generally on themes of heartbreak and grief. Woletz welcomed them all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: 0; width: 100%; height: 120px;\" src=\"https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=4014827160/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=0687f5/tracklist=false/artwork=small/track=1737183087/transparent=true/\" width=\"100%\" height=\"500\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I wasn’t sure anyone would want to do it,” she says of her initial trepidation. “I know different artists have different views [on the war] … but my hope was, ‘OK, let’s find where we align.’ I think we can have different views and still come together to support people who are not getting resources.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID='arts_13939726']Quickly, she says, it became obvious that many artists agreed. It took some dialogue about the exact language that would be released with the compilation, and where and how funds would be distributed, says Woletz. But she was moved by the sheer number of musicians who ultimately wanted to get involved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a risky thing for some of them, there’s a risk of losing fans,” she says. “But people are choosing to speak out anyway, putting themselves out there, and that feels really powerful.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The compilation’s cover image, \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/p/C1H_xqiOB0K/?hl=en\">donated by artist Donovan Brutus\u003c/a>, was inspired by Palestinian embroidery, with traditional motifs like chickpeas, raisins, roosters and the Moon of Bethlehem embedded throughout the design.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: 0; width: 100%; height: 120px;\" src=\"https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=4014827160/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=0687f5/tracklist=false/artwork=small/track=2648187703/transparent=true/\" width=\"100%\" height=\"500\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brutus is just one of many artists involved with the project whom Woletz originally met at Amnesia, the tiny, beloved Mission District music venue where she hosted shows for years, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13873227/amnesia-is-the-latest-san-francisco-music-venue-to-close\">which closed in 2020\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For those who frequented the club in its heyday, the compilation also feels a bit like a family reunion, full of now far-flung artists who once called the Bay home: Kacey Johansing and Lapel, now both in Los Angeles; Kendra McKinley and Sonya Cotton, in New York and New Jersey; Misisipi Mike Wolf, now in Duluth, Minnesota. Mariee Siou, now based in Portland, is one of several artist-activists who was instrumental in helping Woletz learn about Palestine, and in spurring her to take action.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So many artists have left over the last few years, especially during the pandemic, and I think we all have grief about that,” says Woletz. “This is hopefully a way to build a sort of shared reality, to bring together different communities at a time when so many of us are feeling helpless, and put our energy in the same place.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-12127869\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"78\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-768x75.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘Mixtape for Palestine’ is \u003ca href=\"https://seaweedsway.bandcamp.com/album/mixtape-for-palestine-fundraiser-for-middle-east-childrens-alliance-for-peace-25-125-scroll-down-to-donate-directly-get-music\">available on Bandcamp\u003c/a> for a donation of at least $25 to MECA. To bypass Bandcamp’s fees so the organization receives 100% of your donation, visit \u003ca href=\"http://bit.ly/MECAmixtape\">bit.ly/MECAmixtape\u003c/a> and include your email address to receive a download link.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "‘Mixtape for Palestine’ features Jolie Holland, Little Wings and a slew of Bay Area indie staples to raise funds for MECA.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>If you hang around San Francisco’s indie folk scene, it will not take you long to run into singer and promoter \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfweekly.com/music/music-heroes-jessie-woletz/article_bfe961b1-70a1-5154-9113-cd00d5024e65.html\">Jessie Woletz\u003c/a>. As an individual, she’s warm and soft-spoken, having worked as a nanny for over a decade. But as \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/seaweedsway/?hl=en\">Seaweed Sway\u003c/a>, the moniker for her DIY music and event-production project that’s hosted shows around the Bay Area since 2007, she’s a veritable force of nature. She gets things done. And she knows \u003cem>a lot\u003c/em> of people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Both of these attributes came in handy last month, when Woletz — feeling helpless while taking in images of the devastation in Gaza — decided to contact artists she knew with a simple request: “Do you want to donate a song to support relief in Palestine?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The result is a compilation, clocking in at 87 songs and counting, that has already raised more than $5000 for the \u003ca href=\"https://www.mecaforpeace.org/\">Middle East Children’s Alliance\u003c/a> since its release on Jan. 1. \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://seaweedsway.bandcamp.com/album/mixtape-for-palestine-fundraiser-for-middle-east-childrens-alliance-for-peace-25-125-scroll-down-to-donate-directly-get-music\">Mixtape for Palestine\u003c/a>, \u003c/em>available for download via Bandcamp with a donation to MECA, is a sprawling patchwork of songs — some originals, some previously released, some covers — by artists across a wide variety of genres.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: 0; width: 100%; height: 120px;\" src=\"https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=4014827160/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=0687f5/tracklist=false/artwork=small/track=3952569100/transparent=true/\" width=\"100%\" height=\"500\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Emerging local artists appear alongside names with wider recognition, including Jolie Holland, Little Wings, field medic, C.J. Boyd (with a song featuring Bonnie “Prince” Billy), Ayla Nereo, Meklit and more. Veteran Bay Area musicians turned out in droves, including \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13855177/doctor-musician-and-activist-rupa-marya-offers-a-healing-balm-on-new-april-fishes-album\">Rupa & the April Fishes\u003c/a>, Brian Belknap, \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHR_n_o0f20\">Diana Gameros\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13906345/sean-hayes-new-album-be-like-water-offers-pathway-from-worry\">Sean Hayes\u003c/a>, Kelly McFarling, Chelsea Coleman, Whiskerman, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11667569/singer-songwriter-megan-keelys-tribute-to-her-grandmother\">Megan Keely\u003c/a>, Ezra Lipp and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13894398/amina-shareef-ali-comes-back-to-life\">Amina Shareef Ali\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A handful of the tracks directly address the current death toll in Palestine, like Maia “MJoy” Wiitala’s “\u003ca href=\"https://seaweedsway.bandcamp.com/track/watermelon-nights\">Watermelon Nights\u003c/a>,” and B. Hamilton’s “\u003ca href=\"https://seaweedsway.bandcamp.com/track/that-god-damn-paul-mccartney-christmas-song\">That God Damn Paul McCartney Christmas Song\u003c/a>.” (While the very first track, Nora Roman and the Border Busters’ “\u003ca href=\"https://seaweedsway.bandcamp.com/track/song-for-palestine\">Song For Palestine\u003c/a>,” could have been written last week, the group actually released it in 2011.) Others are protest songs originally inspired by other causes or oppressed communities; still others speak more generally on themes of heartbreak and grief. Woletz welcomed them all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: 0; width: 100%; height: 120px;\" src=\"https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=4014827160/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=0687f5/tracklist=false/artwork=small/track=1737183087/transparent=true/\" width=\"100%\" height=\"500\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I wasn’t sure anyone would want to do it,” she says of her initial trepidation. “I know different artists have different views [on the war] … but my hope was, ‘OK, let’s find where we align.’ I think we can have different views and still come together to support people who are not getting resources.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Quickly, she says, it became obvious that many artists agreed. It took some dialogue about the exact language that would be released with the compilation, and where and how funds would be distributed, says Woletz. But she was moved by the sheer number of musicians who ultimately wanted to get involved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a risky thing for some of them, there’s a risk of losing fans,” she says. “But people are choosing to speak out anyway, putting themselves out there, and that feels really powerful.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The compilation’s cover image, \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/p/C1H_xqiOB0K/?hl=en\">donated by artist Donovan Brutus\u003c/a>, was inspired by Palestinian embroidery, with traditional motifs like chickpeas, raisins, roosters and the Moon of Bethlehem embedded throughout the design.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: 0; width: 100%; height: 120px;\" src=\"https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=4014827160/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=0687f5/tracklist=false/artwork=small/track=2648187703/transparent=true/\" width=\"100%\" height=\"500\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brutus is just one of many artists involved with the project whom Woletz originally met at Amnesia, the tiny, beloved Mission District music venue where she hosted shows for years, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13873227/amnesia-is-the-latest-san-francisco-music-venue-to-close\">which closed in 2020\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For those who frequented the club in its heyday, the compilation also feels a bit like a family reunion, full of now far-flung artists who once called the Bay home: Kacey Johansing and Lapel, now both in Los Angeles; Kendra McKinley and Sonya Cotton, in New York and New Jersey; Misisipi Mike Wolf, now in Duluth, Minnesota. Mariee Siou, now based in Portland, is one of several artist-activists who was instrumental in helping Woletz learn about Palestine, and in spurring her to take action.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So many artists have left over the last few years, especially during the pandemic, and I think we all have grief about that,” says Woletz. “This is hopefully a way to build a sort of shared reality, to bring together different communities at a time when so many of us are feeling helpless, and put our energy in the same place.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-12127869\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"78\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-768x75.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘Mixtape for Palestine’ is \u003ca href=\"https://seaweedsway.bandcamp.com/album/mixtape-for-palestine-fundraiser-for-middle-east-childrens-alliance-for-peace-25-125-scroll-down-to-donate-directly-get-music\">available on Bandcamp\u003c/a> for a donation of at least $25 to MECA. To bypass Bandcamp’s fees so the organization receives 100% of your donation, visit \u003ca href=\"http://bit.ly/MECAmixtape\">bit.ly/MECAmixtape\u003c/a> and include your email address to receive a download link.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"info": "\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />",
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"id": "commonwealth-club",
"title": "Commonwealth Club of California Podcast",
"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
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"meta": {
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"id": "fresh-air",
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"hidden-brain": {
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"how-i-built-this": {
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"info": "Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world's best known companies. How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
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"hyphenacion": {
"id": "hyphenacion",
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"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
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"jerrybrown": {
"id": "jerrybrown",
"title": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"tagline": "Lessons from a lifetime in politics",
"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
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"order": 18
},
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},
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"id": "latino-usa",
"title": "Latino USA",
"airtime": "MON 1am-2am, SUN 6pm-7pm",
"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/latinoUsa.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://latinousa.org/",
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"link": "/radio/program/latino-usa",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=79681317&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510016/podcast.xml"
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},
"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Marketplace-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
"meta": {
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"source": "American Public Media"
},
"link": "/radio/program/marketplace",
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},
"masters-of-scale": {
"id": "masters-of-scale",
"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
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"meta": {
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"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
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},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
"tagline": "A podcast about the future of learning and how we raise our kids",
"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mindshift-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/mindshift/",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 12
},
"link": "/podcasts/mindshift",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
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},
"morning-edition": {
"id": "morning-edition",
"title": "Morning Edition",
"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3am-9am",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/programs/morning-edition/",
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"link": "/radio/program/morning-edition"
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"onourwatch": {
"id": "onourwatch",
"title": "On Our Watch",
"tagline": "Deeply-reported investigative journalism",
"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/On-Our-Watch-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 11
},
"link": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5ucHIub3JnLzUxMDM2MC9wb2RjYXN0LnhtbD9zYz1nb29nbGVwb2RjYXN0cw",
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},
"on-the-media": {
"id": "on-the-media",
"title": "On The Media",
"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm-3pm, MON 12am-1am",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/onTheMedia.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.wnycstudios.org/shows/otm",
"meta": {
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},
"link": "/radio/program/on-the-media",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/on-the-media/id73330715?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/On-the-Media-p69/",
"rss": "http://feeds.wnyc.org/onthemedia"
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},
"pbs-newshour": {
"id": "pbs-newshour",
"title": "PBS NewsHour",
"info": "Analysis, background reports and updates from the PBS NewsHour putting today's news in context.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3pm-4pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/PBS-News-Hour-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.pbs.org/newshour/",
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},
"link": "/radio/program/pbs-newshour",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/pbs-newshour-full-show/id394432287?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/PBS-NewsHour---Full-Show-p425698/",
"rss": "https://www.pbs.org/newshour/feeds/rss/podcasts/show"
}
},
"perspectives": {
"id": "perspectives",
"title": "Perspectives",
"tagline": "KQED's series of daily listener commentaries since 1991",
"info": "KQED's series of daily listener commentaries since 1991.",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Perspectives_Tile_Final.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/perspectives/",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 14
},
"link": "/perspectives",
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"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/432309616/perspectives",
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"planet-money": {
"id": "planet-money",
"title": "Planet Money",
"info": "The economy explained. Imagine you could call up a friend and say, Meet me at the bar and tell me what's going on with the economy. Now imagine that's actually a fun evening.",
"airtime": "SUN 3pm-4pm",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/planetmoney.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/sections/money/",
"meta": {
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"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/planet-money",
"subscribe": {
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/planet-money/id290783428?mt=2",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510289/podcast.xml"
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},
"politicalbreakdown": {
"id": "politicalbreakdown",
"title": "Political Breakdown",
"tagline": "Politics from a personal perspective",
"info": "Political Breakdown is a new series that explores the political intersection of California and the nation. Each week hosts Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos are joined with a new special guest to unpack politics -- with personality — and offer an insider’s glimpse at how politics happens.",
"airtime": "THU 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Political-Breakdown-2024-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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