Author: Dakin Hardwick

Single of the Week: “Practice” by Jamila Woods featuring Saba

Chicago’s poet/singer/rapper Jamila Woods is very quickly becoming one of those rare artists that I’d buy anything from blind. Her latest record, Water Made Us, keeps dropping great singles. “Practice” is a sexy, romantic, and genuinely happy track. It’s such a nice relief from the exceptionally stressful news week we’ve had to listen to a song that’s such a joy. It’s also a rare video where every single person is naked, yet it’s somehow not NSFW?

Water Made Us is available to stream wherever you pay your monthly streaming dues to. The physical version of the record is coming October 24th, just a few days before my birthday, so if you feel like buying me this on vinyl, I’ll gladly accept it! Woods is also touring, and I’m pretty excited to see this show live. Tickets went on sale today! Continue reading “Single of the Week: “Practice” by Jamila Woods featuring Saba”

Single of the Week: “Out Alpha The Alpha” by Megan Thee Stallion

I guess we are getting a raunchy, musical adult update on The Parent Trap. And it’s called Dicks and it stars Nathan Lane, Megan Mullaly, and Megan Thee Stallion, and it seems pretty absurd. What isn’t absurd is how I’ve spent most of 2023 learning that Megan Thee Stallion is really, really talented. This piece is just chock-full of witty braggadocio, and I’m sure within the context of the film, it’s even wittier, but she is just a beast on the microphone. 

Dicks is in theaters on October 20th, and the soundtrack is out NOW! 

STOP THE PRESSES!!! NEW SLEATER-KINNEY SINGLE!!!! TOUR DATES!!! ALBUM ANNOUNCEMENT!!! HAPPINESS!!!

Good news! The *actual* greatest rock band in America has gifted us a new single, “Hell,” and it’s a cathartic piece of anxious psychedelic darkness. This is probably the biggest song to come from Sleater-Kinney- in a short 3:22, we are taken on a cinematic roller coaster that builds and releases and contracts and I haven’t even started on the video. Miranda July is making her third appearance in a Sleater-Kinney video, and, really, she is so good at expressing a wide array of emotions with just her eyes. Brilliant. 

2024 marks the 30th Anniversary of the band’s first release, “You Ain’t It.” To mark this momentous occasion, they are releasing their 11th studio album, Little Rope, on January 19th. And, of course, they are going on a Spring North American tour! Dates are here, and tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. local time on October 6th! 

Show Review: Lauren Mayberry with Alaska Reid at August Hall, 9/28/23

Brilliant. Chvrches lead vocalist Lauren Mayberry decided to share her first solo album by touring it BEFORE releasing it. It’s such a brave endeavor- we all know her band’s work, but anyone who bought a ticket to this was taking a risk that this project would be worth their time and money. I decided it was worth my time because the curiosity was killing me. Continue reading “Show Review: Lauren Mayberry with Alaska Reid at August Hall, 9/28/23”

Single of the Week: “Lenny” by Atka

I keep trying to figure out what the story of “Lenny” actually is, which maybe why I’ve listened to it so much. Atka says, “This is a song about how one man’s tunnel-visioned obsession with finding meaning turns everything around him into a swamp of meaninglessness that also sucks in everyone around him. It’s witnessing empty repetition right in front of your eyes and the helplessness and all-limbs-dropping-to-the-floor exhaustion felt as a result, when caring for someone who is depressed. And ultimately it’s about the absence of being perceived by that person and one’s drift into a ghost-like state. When no one is watching or sees me – do I even exist? Lenny is about “reverse-paranoia” if you want it.” The song itself is heavy on the analog electronics, with a Kraftwerkian anxiety that somehow doesn’t sound like The Postal Service. All I know is I both really want to know Lenny, but I also don’t want Lenny to get dragged down by my own mental health. 

Anyways, you can also dig deep into the inner workings of “Lenny” and reading your own struggles with your own psyche into the song by streaming it here! Atka has plenty more coming your way, including an EP called The Eye Against The Ashen Sky, due out November 3rd! 

TALKIES is BACK IN THE BAY AREA (BRIEFLY)

Y’know, as often as I try to keep on top of hip, new things, I’m 43 years old (going on 44 next month!), and I DEFINITELY reminisce about the Bay Area of my youth (Read: 30’s). And Talkies at the old Cinecave (The best comedy venue in history, RIP) was something that I always loved. Well, ever since George Chen moved to LA, the show moved, too. We’d only get to enjoy the blend of film, PowerPoint, stand-up, sketch, and storytelling that is TALKIES during his annual Sketchfest visit. Well… FEAR NOT! TALKIES is ON TOUR and it’s coming home during the off-Sketchfest season!  

TALKIES is hosted by Nick Stargu, Aviva Siegel, George Chen, and Land Smith-Abbinate. Special Guests for these shows will be Drennon Davis and Jack Brown, along with Ashley Monique in SF and Jessica Sele in Sacramento and Santa Cruz. (BTW: I bloody love those last two comics AND don’t drive, so, yeah, I’m a little sad about them being on different shows.)

Next week, they are bringing the show to Punch Line in SF on October 3rd, Comedy Spot in Sacramento on October 4th, and Blue Lagoon in Santa Cruz on October 5th! 

Show Review: Dream Wife with Buzzed Lightbeer at Bottom Of The Hill, 9/20/23

There’s nothing more exciting than realizing you’ve reached “fan” status with a band. And after picking up Social Lubrication, followed by their 2020 live album IRL, I’ve gone officially “all in” on the political dance punk stylings of Dream Wife. My turntable has pretty much alternated between both discs all year, reminding me that I need to pick up the two earlier records so I don’t wear out the other ones. This show has been on my calendar for most of the year, and it was also my return to Bottom Of The Hill, one of the most magic venues on the west side of SF Bay. 

Continue reading “Show Review: Dream Wife with Buzzed Lightbeer at Bottom Of The Hill, 9/20/23”

Single of the Week: “Le Temple Volant” by Crumb & Melody’s Echo Chamber

Modern shoegazers Crumb and Psych’s reigning chanteuse Melody’s Echo Chamber have never come to mind as a collaboration that felt like the world needed. Both bands are fantastic, but their similarities never really gelled to me. And then I heard “Le Temple Volant.” What an airy, breezy groove of a song! I can listen to a song like this endlessly… I speak no French, and it doesn’t matter. This one-off single screams for a full-length collaboration of goodness like this. 

You can enjoy “Le Temple Volant” in all the usual places. Both Crumb and Melody’s Echo Chamber are currently on the road, sadly separately. Tour dates after the jump, and maybe enough streams of this track will get a clever booker to put the two bands together for a Spring package run? Please? 

Continue reading “Single of the Week: “Le Temple Volant” by Crumb & Melody’s Echo Chamber”

Festival Review: Through The Looking Glass at Children’s Fairyland, 9/16/23

Children’s Fairyland is a pretty magical, at times even mythical place. The place that may or may not have inspired Disneyland has certainly inspired the imaginations of many generations of children who have grown up in the Bay Area. Yet, aside from the annual open-bar fundraiser, there haven’t been many opportunities for adults without children to really experience the wonder of this place. Really, it would take a special type of person, an artist who understands what fairies mean to grown-ups, who can bridge the beauty of approaching the world with a childlike curiosity with an adult’s maturity. There are probably three local musicians who are capable of curating an event at Children’s Fairyland and doing it right. It would be either Les Claypool, Tom Waits, or SPELLLING. And, really, we all know SPELLLING is the only person who could really do it right. 

Continue reading “Festival Review: Through The Looking Glass at Children’s Fairyland, 9/16/23”

Single of the Week: “The Tree b/w Get The Hell Out Of Here” by Maren Morris

Country music is a messy, messy place these days. The narrative seems to always be dominated by the Jason Aldeans and Toby Keiths, and Morgan Wallens, folks that dominate the mainstream not because they make good music but because they speak to the petty grievances of right-wing America. (I’m not putting Oliver Anthony in this boat, and someday I’ll write a real blog post about that song, but I don’t think he’s saying what people think he’s saying with that song.) Anyway, I’ve already said too much about despicable white men who are deathly afraid of losing power and control. I’m much more interested in the people looking to speak the truth, unafraid of losing power. Maren Morris’ new EP, The Bridge, does just that. It’s a direct rebuttal of “Try That In A Small Town,” two singles about the crushing weight of hate in this country and how to navigate it. Neither of the tracks are actually political anthems. She’s managed to hit that specific feeling of being overwhelmed by the hell we are in, and sometimes it feels like we are just doomed, but we’ve gotta take a step out and rest and then get back to work, because we are all humans and need to treat each other as such. 

Anyways… I’m also on Day 12 of testing positive for my first ever COVID-19 infection (and hoping hard to test negative tomorrow and finally leave my room) and feeling SUPER angry about how we don’t have any sufficient ways to protect ourselves while still existing and such. So, yeah, I’m feeling raw and Maren Morris is like a nice weighted blanket telling me that I’m not alone, and maybe, just maybe, we will get through this. The Bridge is out now and is available on all your DSPs. Hopefully, we will see a physical release, too!