A Bay Area music / urban planning blog
All things music-related
This is an alternately twangy-and-laid-back and groovy-and-danceable and noisy-and-unhinged playlist this month. Just press play and treat yourself to the perfect mix for having your mind blown by the vastness of the night sky as you get ready to hit the clubs for a night of ranging against the machine.
It’s going to take more time to let these songs rattle around in my noggin. But there’s potential. Listen for yourself to this month’s playlist.
This is a good month, folks. I am excited about several of these new musical offerings from Oakland and Berkeley singer-songwriters, rappers, mystery jazz ensembles, alter-egos, you name it. I want to just jump right into it.
OK, so you might argue the Oakland alt-rock quartet is overplaying the “endearingly awkward” schtick. But those melodic riffs? The casual Teenage Fanclub mention in album PR write-up? The goofy DIY music videos? That genuinely funny bio (“internationally ignored song stylists”)? Objection overruled!
It can be time consuming to hunt for actual new releases by actual East Bay musicians. Is anyone crazy enough to do all that work and blog about it once a month for a non-existent readership and zero compensation from Bandcamp? We shall see!
If you’re a Dad Rock and ’90s Nostalgia aficionado, have I got 30 tunes for you to check out.
Diverse influences mix together to create genre-defying sounds, particularly laid-back grooves that conjure up carefree summer afternoons hanging with friends? That’s the Oakland sound in 2022.
A plodding piano ballad about abortion was being played on mainstream radio stations across the country. Only in 1997 could something like this happen. It seemed weird at the time. But so did the Spice Girls.
I miiiiight have mentioned it before, but Bandcamp Fridays have been a great excuse for me to reconnect with local music over the last 22…
On the whole, I’d say these songs are a hopeful bunch, rooted in the possibility of muddling through somehow and reclaiming a semblance of fellowship, cohesion, progress, and well-being. Perhaps 2022 will deliver on that promise.