Actual Wolf prepares new album, shows
Actual Wolf is the project of Minnesota native and current Oakland resident Eric Pollard, who has had a brief stint in Nashville since leaving Minnesota and winding up in the Bay permanently in 2015. Pollard's brand of music evokes country artists ranging from Vince Gill to Willie Nelson to Steve Earle without being beholden to any one sound or influence. What impresses me most, however, is how he can make a song that hits you in the gut while his deliveries and rhythms are so subtle and laid-back. Actual Wolf has a new LP on the way, but first take [...]
Hayes Life Presents: Fog City Songwriters at Viracocha
In what will be their third quarterly show, the local folk series Fog City Songwriters will be hosted at Viracocha this Friday. You can expect a parlor in the round style showcase with some of the most talented and endearing musicians sequestered around the Bay. They tend to pull one out-of-towner into the mix, and this time around it's Wisconsin's Anna Vogelzang. Presented and led by promoter veteran Travis Hayes, it's a donation based event ($10-20 suggested) livening up the San Francisco cultural landscape, despite the impending closure of our one lesbian bar and locally-focused online publications disappearing. So again, though this request has been an incessant foghorn as of [...]
Starry Plough hosting Waylon Jennings tribute
Come all ye highwaymen, ye honky tonk heroes, ye ramblin' men and women over to the Starry Plough in Berkeley on Saturday to see some of the Bay's best Americana acts sing happy birthday to a legend: O.G. of outlaw country, Waylon Jennings. Featuring performances from Misisipi Mike and the Midnight Gamblers, Otto Mobile and the Moaners, and a host of other California country collaborators, both the East Bay and the city proper will be represented. Other performers include members and collaborators of Deep Ellum, Ash Reiter, TV Mike and the Scarecrowes, and Dead Winter Carpenters. The festivities start at [...]
Misisipi Mike and Otto Mobile host Waylon Jennings birthday show at Starry Plough
This Saturday night, the Starry Plough in Berkeley will host an evening paying tribute to Waylon Jennings organized by local country artists Matt Lundquist of Otto Mobile and the Moaners and Misisipi Mike Wolf. Jennings, although wildly popular in his time, seems somewhat under-appreciated today, with his contemporaries such as Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash garnering far more attention. That being said, his great songwriting and distinctive rhythms on his albums are still an influence on artists today, perhaps most notably on Father John Misty's Fear Fun, where his driving basslines often remind me of Jennings. For the Starry Plough [...]