Max Diez

Tune in on Tuesday, June 11th @ 1pm when Sparkle Motion hosts singer-songwriter, ISMAY, for a live in-studio performance and interview.

ISMAY is Avery Hellman, a Bay Area native who creates rich, atmospheric songs that are heavily influenced by the California ranch where they worked in their 20s. Hellman grew up attending Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, the music festival launched by their grandfather, Warren Hellman, and incorporated the melting pot of sounds that is California into their being.

Latest album, Desert Pavement, is a collection of transcendent American roots songs, full of folky textures and alt-country stylings that invokes a variety of traditional and contemporary sounds. Desert Pavement follows ISMAY’s critically acclaimed 2020 debut Songs of Sonoma Mountain and continues their lyrical exploration of life spent on the land.

Catch ISMAY live on July 20th at Bottom of the Hill in San Francisco.

On Thursday, May 30th @ 4pm, Massari sits down with two legendary UK drummers of the post-punk era, The Cure’s Lol Tolhurst, and Budgie from Siouxsie & The Banshees and The Creatures.  Lol Tolhurst x Budgie play the Great American Music Hall on June 1st with Miki Berenyi Trio.

Along with stellar producer and multi-instrumentalist Garret ‘Jacknife’ Lee, this unlikely alt-supergroup have spent the last four years spiriting up one of the most extraordinary albums to appear in 2023.

Perusing the tracklist, with its guest credits for, amongst others, LCD Soundsystem‘s James Murphy, Bobby Gillespie, Civil Rights avant-gardist Lonnie Holley, Starcrawler wildchild Arrow de Wilde and The Edge from U2, you may rightly wonder just what the 13-track long-player holds in store.

The answer: a hard-hitting and compulsively exploratory 55-minute electronic mindbender, founded on unrivalled rhythmic expertise, fleshed out with an armoury of synths, guitars (Jacknife’s forté) and supplementary percussion (think: wooden teeth!), often overlaid with elite-class strings and brass, then universally twisted, manipulated and quite masterfully sculpted by Lee, with his super-producer’s hat on.

As per the title, Los Angeles is a journey into the dark heart of contemporary LaLaLand, the city of its birth, a place of limitless possibility, yet also a diseased and consumptive hell-on-earth which, to quote Murphy’s lyric on the title track, “eats its children,” where pipe dreams shatter, racial inequality prevails and homelessness spirals.

Photo Credit: Louis Rodiger

On Saturday, May 25th @ 9pm, DJ B-Fly will host San Francisco based band, The Seagulls on KALX Live!

The Seagulls are a rock ‘n roll band fronted by UK songwriter Jon Brooder. Their “modern classic,” raucous sound has hooks galore, with influences from 50s rock ‘n roll, Motown, Rock Steady, British Pub Rock and first wave punk rock.

Jon, aka “The ‘Gullfather” is joined by Isaac “Ikey von Boardman” Bonnell on keys & percussion, Geri “Don’t F*ck with Me” Vahey on drums, Nate Fink bringing in the low end on bass and newest ‘gull Rob Vastano on guitar.

Figureskater recently sat down with Los Angeles based songwriter, Julia Holter, when she was in SF to play the Great American Music Hall.  Tune in on Tuesday, May 28th @ 1pm to hear their conversation about Holter’s latest album, Something in the Room She Moves, her writing process, and her recent exploration into teaching the craft of songwriting.

The common thread running through the Julia Holter discography is her fearless individuality. The Southern California composer has amassed a body of work that explores song structure, atmosphere, minimalism and the authority of her voice.

Holter’s past work has often explored memory and dreamlike future, but her latest album resides more in presence: “There’s a corporeal focus, inspired by the complexity and transformability of our bodies,” Holter says.

Her production choices and arrangements form a continuum of fretless electric bass pitches in counterpoint with gliding vocal melodies, while glissing Yamaha CS-60 lines entwine warm winds and reeds. “I was trying to create a world that’s fluid-sounding, waterlike, evoking the body’s internal sound world,” Holter says of her flowing harmonic universe.

Join Massari on Thursday, May 23rd @ 4pm when he speaks with Miki Berenyi ahead of her show at the Great American Music Hall in SF on June 1st.

Miki Berenyi is best known as the lead singer, rhythm guitarist and founder member of U.K. band, Lush, who The New York Times note were “the brilliant, unsung underdogs of the ethereal pop wave that crashed through Britain in the late 1980s and early ’90s.”

Most recently, Berenyi has fronted the bands Piroshka and the Miki Berenyi Trio, who are set to perform in the U.S. this May and June with Lol Tolhurst x Budgie as the main support.

Berenyi has also announced the North American release of her acclaimed autobiography, Fingers Crossed: How Music Saved Me From Success via Mango Publishing as well as the global release of the audiobook via Bonnier Books. Originally published in the UK in 2022, the searingly honest and beautifully written memoir by the musician is an incredible account of a trailblazing woman and a seminal band delivered with the vivid, emotional power of an accomplished storyteller.

Told through frank confession, wry humor and emotional honesty, this is the incredible tale of a trailblazing woman and a seminal band.

Photo Credit: Abbey Raymondev

Tune in on Tuesday, May 28th @ 6:45pm to hear Polly Vinyl speak with American fiddler and singer-songwriter, Amanda Shaw, known for her dynamic blend of Cajun, country, and rock music.

Shaw began playing the violin at a young age and quickly gained recognition for her prodigious talent. By the age of 10, she recorded her first full length album, and at 14, she made her debut at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.

Shaw’s energetic performances, characterized by her fiery fiddling and vibrant vocals, have earned her a devoted fan base and critical acclaim. She has released several albums, showcasing her versatility and passion for preserving and innovating Cajun music, and continues to be a prominent figure in the Louisiana music scene.

Polly Vinyl recently caught up with Miss Shaw following her performance at this year’s French Quarter Festival in New Orleans. Tune in to hear what she has to say about performing live, the 20 year anniversary re-release of her album, I Am Not A Bubblegum Princess, meeting Dolly Parton and much more.