Written by Guest Editor: Stefan Aronsen of SF Intercom and Balanced Breakfast Industry Meetup

As an avid concert-goer and music promoter, I listen to a lot of music from Bay Area bands. However, I don't find myself listening to very many albums! I realize my being a music enthusiast that doesn't listen to albums might be considered a contradiction. Shouldn't a promoter of bands also promote full albums? The problem is, most fans don't listen to full albums, why should I be any different? Thus, instead of promoting people to listen to music in a way that they are uncomfortable with, I am choosing to promote a system that works.

Full albums can be intimidating for bands to produce. I regularly advocate that bands release singles instead of waiting to release music until they have enough songs to fill an album. The following is a playlist from 10 bands that released awesome music in 2016.

Fantastic Negrito - In The Pines
Many people discovered Xavier Dphrepaulezz and his band Fantastic Negrito when he submitted his song Lost in A Crowd to NPR’s Tiny Desk Competition in 2015 and won. However, my first introduction to him was as a guest speaker at Creative Mornings. The way he talked about his life, his songs and his goals made me want to listen to his music. While Xavier has had his roadblocks in the past, it seems there is no stopping him now.

CON BRIO - Paradise
I hadn’t heard Ziek McCarter’s band Con Brio before I saw them live at the North Beach Festival in 2014. I was blocks away when I first heard the exciting sounds of his band. As I got closer I was drawn in by his energetic performance. Did you know he does flips on stage? I didn’t until I heard him speak at SF Music Expo about how he originally joined Con Brio. With this new found knowledge I can’t wait to see them live again.

HEARTWATCH - Never Let You Go
How long have you been listening to Claire George’s band HEARTWATCH? Perhaps you were a fan when they were called The Tropics? Either way … you know them now … so you must be aware of their exciting sound. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing them perform live at BottleRock, The Independent and Claire solo at OB Music & Art Festival. Never heard of HEARTWATCH? Listen now and find their next show near you.

The Y Axes - Umbra
Do you love science, video games and nerdiness all wrapped up and delivered in an indie space rock style? Hopefully the answer is yes. If so, check out the high energy vocals of Alexi Belchere and her band The Y Axes. Since they formed in 2011, the band has come a long way in finding their sound and look. I was first introduced to the band in 2013 at a Balanced Breakfast meetup. The band’s guitarist Devin Nelson showed me a picture of his band, since then half of the faces in that picture have changed. With Devin and Alexi changing their bandmates they also created a more mature sound.

Kendra McKinley - Fine As A Vine
When Kendra arrived in San Francisco, a friend suggested she check out Balanced Breakfast. She quickly made many friends, played shows and recruited band mates. She managed to take her solo looped sound and progressed it to a full sound. She sounds amazing on the stage at The FIllmore or in the woods at DIO Fest.

Down and Outlaws - Lay Me Down
I’ve seen Peter Danzig and his band Down and Outlaws at a lot of theirs shows in San Francisco. I got their band patch at their show at Noise Pop 2016. I wear it proudly on my every day sweater. Though I’ve seen them plenty of times in San Francisco, my favorite experience is still spending time with them at SxSW 2016.

Panic is Perfect - Turn Back Into Stars
Managed by Guerilla Management, the same company that works with Con Brio, Mike Hoffman and his band have finally made it to the festival circuit. For many bands being selected to play major festivals like SxSW, Live 105 BFD Festival, and BottleRock is a major goal and a sign of success. Get ready for some more exciting shows from Panic is Perfect in 2017.

Dangermaker - I Won't Let You Down
I love spending time with the members of SF band Dangermaker. It doesn’t matter if it’s an intimate conversation at Mutiny Radio with lead singer Adam Brookes or being at a live show watching bass player Neko Fuzzmonk’s hair blow in the wind like a supermodel.

Battlehooch - EVERYDAY
If you haven’t met a member of Battlehooch, you must not like local music. With 6+ members in the band, they are larger than most Bay Area bands. Sometimes it’s hard to keep track of all the members of a band, thus my friends would often joke that they were in Battlehooch. Would you be able to know if they were telling the truth?

Abbot Kinney - It's the Middle of the Night
If you’ve been to LA you might know the landmark in Venice, California called Abbot Kinney Blvd. Hailing from Los Angeles, lead singer Jared Swanson has brought more than just a landmark name, he has also shared a lot of his industry knowledge with our San Francisco friends. Over the years a lot of bands have relocated from SF to LA. Abbot Kinney is a reminder to local bands that we have a scene and you can be discovered and experience a lot of success here in the Bay Area.

It´s that time of year again! Former Deli Magazine San Francisco´s Artist of the Year, Down Dirty Shake has curated their 4th Annual Residency at Milk Bar in San Francisco. This year you can anticipate performances by:

Lee Gallagher and the Hallelujah
Annie Girl and the Flight
Zodiac Death Valley
Hungry Skinny
Everyone is Dirty
Down and Outlaws
Battlehooch

and more!

The residency occurs Every Wednesday in July along with two Saturday events on July 9th and July 23rd!
http://www.milksf.com/ to get tickets $5 in advance, $10 at the door 

¨I want to build a community of like-minded artists in the Bay Area. We'll be featuring bands, artist, projections, dancers, djs and public speakers talking about the real issues in SF and what we can do about them. The Residency is starting to become a staple and cult classic in our thriving Bay Area music scene. I loved how hard it was to pick which acts to have on the lineups. There are so many talented bands in the Bay that I actually had to add two dates to accommodate the amount of bands. I could easily could have had a year long DDS Residency.

My expectations for this years residency is to inspire more people to become apart of the Bay Area music scene. I would like to attend more local shows after this month and have the residency artists collaborate and network long after this residency.¨ -Kyle DeMartini of Down Dirty Shake

The San Francisco based alternative psych band, Zodiac Death Valley will be celebrating the release of their second album, Desert Bohéme at Bottom of the Hill in San Francisco tomorrow night (October 3rd).

The band will be supported by a great line up that includes: JJUU JJUU (LA), Down and Outlaws (SF) and The Turn Turn Turn (SF members of The Love Dimension, The Lotus Moons, The Gregors). This is going to be one of those nights where you´re going to run into the who´s who of the local music scene.

You´re not going to want to miss Zodiac Death Valley as Nic Abodeely’s entrancing words slither in a deep baritone before thrusting you into honest-to-god rock n’ roll anthemic nirvana and a chorus that will be inside you from then on. Jordan Villa’s guitar work deftly navigates from atmosphere, hook, to solo. Nate Ricker’s keys and organ immediately commands a psychedelic vein pumping throughout the collective musical body. Daniel Burns’ bass comes in crashing the party with a thunderous chug while Landon Cisneros (drums) and Tyler Jones (percussion) bring the drums that will have you hungover the next day.

Head down to Bottom of the Hill in San Francisco tomorrow night!
You can also download the album via iTunes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Visuals by:

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

DJs:

Abel Oleson
Derek See
Michael Tarin

Deli Nation,

Our Year End Poll for Emerging SF Bay Area Artists was - as usual - a painstaking (and somewhat excruciating) process, but we pulled it off with remarkable flair!

Kudos to garage rockers, Down and Outlaws, our new Deli SF Bay Area Artist of the Year!!!

Thumbs up to the awesome psych- soul band, Lee Gallagher and the Hallelujah:

And to the great indie-folk band, Assateague:

Here is how it all went down: first, we let the local bands submit their music (for free), and got our Deli editors to pick the nominees. Then we polled a list of 15+ SF Bay Area scene expert (our jury) and asked them to nominate 3 more bands of their choice each. Then we polled our writers, then we polled our readers. We tried to keep things open for each single genre, from Indie Rock to Roots Music to Hip Hop.

If you are a geek interested in all the subtelties related to how this poll works, you can read its rules here (happy reading!). But if all you care about is the awesome new music SF Bay Area produced in the year 2013, this list is all you need. Enjoy!

BEST OF 2014 POLL FOR EMERGING SF BAY AREA ARTISTS ****** FINAL RESULTS ******

ARTIST   J OS R TOT   1 Down and Outlaws   6.5   0.006 6.506 2 Lee Gallagher and the Hallelujah   4.5   0.025 4.525 3 Assateague   4.5   0.005 4.505 4 Cellar Doors   4.5   0.001 4.501 5 ​Indianna Hale   3.5   0.001 3.501 6 Friends W/O Benefits   3   0.082 3.082 7 Summer Peaks     3 0.03 3.03 8 Cotillon   3   0.007 3.007 9 Balms   3   0.004 3.004 10 Fritz Montana   3   0.04 3.04 11 Michael Musika   3   0.004 3.004 12 Useless Eaters   3   0.004 3.004 13 Cool Ghouls   3   0.003 3.003 14 Vanwave   3   0.003 3.003 15 King Woman​   3   0.002 3.002 16 David Brookings and the Average Lookings   1   2 3 17 The Classical   2   1 3 18 Wildwood   3   0 3 19 Meet Me in Orbit     1 1.5 2.5 20 Unconditional Arms   2   0.5 2.5 21 Miss March     2 0.076 2.076 22 Breakdown Valentine   2   0.05 2.05 23 The Hot Toddies   2   0.046 2.046 24 Front Country   2   0.017 2.017 25 Once and Future Band   2   0.014 2.014 26 Queen Crescent   2   0.007 2.007 27 The Seshen   2   0.006 2.006 28 Hot Flash Heat Wave   2   0.004 2.004 29 Martin Luther   2   0.004 2.004 30 Con Brio   2   0.003 2.003 31 Sugar Candy Mountain   2   0.003 2.003 32 The Asteroid #4   2   0.003 2.003 33 Tumbleweed Wanderers   2   0.003 2.003 34 Void Boys   2   0.003 2.003 35 Waterstrider   2   0.003 2.003 36 Yassou Benedict   2   0.003 2.003 37 City Tribe   2   0.002 2.002 38 Cocktails   2   0.002 2.002 39 Hot Lunch   2   0.002 2.002 40 Steep Ravine   2   0.002 2.002 41 Uke-Hunt   2   0.002 2.002 42 Violence Creeps​   2   0.002 2.002 43 ​fpodbpod   2   0.001 2.001 44 Luke Sweeney     1.5 0.5 2 45 Mansion   2   0 2 46 Pow! ​   2   0 2 47 Spencer Owen   2   0 2 48 The Love Dimension   2   0 2 49 WILD EYES   2   0 2 50 Goodnight, Texas     1.5 0.003 1.503 51 Before the Brave   1   0.069 1.069 52 Builders     1 0.057 1.057 53 Jet Trash     1 0.019 1.019 54 Royal Jelly Jive     1 0.011 1.011 55 Buffalo Tooth   1   0.006 1.006 56 Lemme Adams     1 0.006 1.006 57 Black Cobra Vipers   1   0.005 1.005 58 Mondo Drag   1   0.003 1.003 59 Brogan Bentley   1   0 1 60 Fleetwood Macrame   1   0 1 61 The Spiral Electric​   1   0 1 Legend: J = Jurors, W = Deli Writers, R = Deli Readers, OS = Open Submissions

Jurors List:

Doug Kinsey - The Night Light
​Alex Lilienfield​ - The Chapel
Dan Strachota - Rickshaw Stop
​Travis Busse​ - Neck of the Woods
​Sam Lefebvre​ - East Bay Express​ ​
Brian Zisk​ - SF Music Tech Summit​
Victor Casillas Valle - The Bay Bridged 
Barry Smyth - Brick and Mortar Music Hall
Jessie Woletz - Seaweed Sway
Shawn MacGee - Amnesia Music Hall 
Anisa - Sofar Sounds
Lowell Galliani - Local Music Supporter
Lynne Angel - El Rio
Audra - Thee Parkside
Ash Reiter - Hickey Fest
Jordannah Elizabeth - The Deli Magazine San Francisco

Hope you'll find some awesome new artists you weren't aware of!

The Deli's Staff