Max Diez

Desolation Girl and Ness recently sat down with Jayson Green of legendary Massachusetts hardcore screamo band Orchid ahead of their upcoming pair of SOLD OUT reunion shows in the Bay Area at Great American Music Hall in SF with Jerome’s Stream/Strangelight and Eli’s Mile High Club in Oakland with Kowloon Walled City/Greyhound. Tune in this Sunday, February 9th at 8pm to hear their conversation.

After reuniting for a run of shows in 2024, Orchid is keeping the momentum going with a string of West Coast dates this month. In this conversation, right before their first stop in Seattle, you can hear Jayson talk candidly about topics like what led to the Orchid reunion, memories of Club Cocodrie, hardcore and politics after 40, his fascination with theory and fiction, family life in Toronto, and his take on New Jersey emo bands Thursday and My Chemical Romance.

Tune in on Saturday, February 8th at 5pm to hear Excuse My French speak with L.A. based songwriter, Jordana, ahead of her show in SF at Bottom of the Hill later that same night.

Though the concept of eras is exhaustingly omnipresent at the moment, Jordana has drawn definitive lines between her projects and musical phases over the past few years, releasing albums that have spanned lo-fi to pristine pop, craggy indie rock, hushed folk, and more. “I don’t think I’ll ever settle on a specific sound,” says Jordana. “I’m just a chameleon.” Every Jordana record promises the unexpected, and this one is no different, as it finds her entering new territory: yacht rock-ing through Laurel Canyon.

Latest album, Lively Premonition focuses on crumbling relationships, a newfound sobriety, finding a place in a new city and people to help build it with her. “It’s about the cycle of love, heartbreak, lust, party-going, self acceptance, connections, and rediscovering yourself over and over again,” Jordana explains. She rediscovers herself with the help of fellow New York-turned-LA greats, who also moved west to nurture their sound, like The Mamas & The Papas, Carole King, Donald Fagen and Walter Becker. It’s her LA record, alright.

Photo: Johanna Hvidtved

Charles Curtis Blackwell speaks of The Bay.  From Eddy to Lombard.  East 14th to the Embarcadero, he has spent a life noticing, learning, interpreting, improvising. A long respected figure of the poetry community, his work blends words with a beat, dancing, painting – a quest across mediums to offer the audience a window into “who is Charles? and what does it mean to be in this place”

At the Tenderloin Museum at 6:30 pm on Thursday, February 20th, Charles has organized an evening of poetry and jazz that features new, improvised work intertwined with a tribute to his friend and fellow poet Q.R. Hand. Presented as part of TLM’s Sounds of the TL series, Tender Musical Tapestries features Blackwell in concert with a trio of improvising musicians–Sandra Poindexter (violin), Kash Killion (cello/bass), and Donald Griggs (trumpet)–plus special guests.

Before the show DJ Reality Check met up with Charles at the Ed Roberts campus in Berkeley for a conversation spanning his upbringing in Sacramento, teaching in state prisons and art practice. Join us at 7pm on Wednesday, February 19th for this conversation.

Jon The Reptilian caught up with songwriter, social activist, and Grammy winner, Ani DiFranco, during her recent tour though the Bay Area for two sold out shows at The Fillmore.  Tune in on Monday, February 3rd at 10am to hear the interview.

Widely considered a feminist icon, Ani DiFranco is the mother of the DIY movement, being one of the first artists to create her own record label in 1990. While she has been known as the “Little Folksinger,” her music has embraced punk, funk, hip hop, jazz, soul, electronica and even more distant sounds.

Her memoir No Walls and the Recurring Dream was a New York Times Top 10 best seller in 2019, and her debut children’s book The Knowing is out now. DiFranco recently completed a 5-month run on Broadway as ‘Persephone’ in the Tony and Grammy Award-winning Best Musical, Hadestown. Her 23rd album Unprecedented Sh!t is out now, and a second children’s book Show Up and Vote was released in August of 2024.

Photo: Danny Clinch

Join Last Will on Tuesday, February 4th at 6:30pm to hear his recent interview with French garage punk duo, Human Toys, ahead of their Record Release Show in Oakland at Thee Stork Club on February 15th. This will be Human Toys first Bay Area appearance with the current lineup.

Human Toys is Poupée Mecanik (vocals, theremin) who plays with female archetypes, coupling subversion with irony and guitarist Jon Von, ex-Rip Offs, who has transformed the band with new songs somewhere between the Ramones and the Avengers!

Jon Von Zelowitz was a KALX DJ in the 1980s and is a founding member of the Mr. T Experience as well as a former member of the Rip-Offs before moving to France in 1999. He was the leader of Jon And The Vons before meeting founding Human Toys member Poupée Mecanik and re-starting Human Toys as a duo.

Anyone lucky enough to catch one of their electrifying live shows around the globe knows they deliver relentless energy, raw power, and a tough yet seductive attitude.

That same fierce energy shines through in their new album At The Poor Cow, named after a legendary underground punk rock bar in Tokyo. The album features fantastic covers of IGGY POP’s “I’m Sick of You”, THE NERVES’ “When You Find Out”, and BOB CENTER’s “Lost In The Jungle”, alongside addictive and wild HUMAN TOYS originals. This record is a true modern-day punk rock-classic!

Tunisian/American, New York City-based artist, producer, and activist EMEL (Emel Mathlouthi) sat down with Velvet Einstein to discuss her latest album, MRA, ahead of her upcoming show at Freight & Salvage on February 16th.  Tune in on Saturday, February 1st at 4pm to hear their conversation.

On MRA, meaning “woman” in Arabic, EMEL deconstructs to rebuild, boldly pressing forward her vision of a female-driven paradigm shift in a world in desperate need of one. That is why every single collaborator on MRA, from producers, featured artists, musicians, and beyond, is a woman — marginalized in recognition, but outsized in ability.

With the help of artists such as Camélia Jordana, Nayomi, and Alyona Alyona, the result is a multi-genre meld where African trap, batucada, Arabic reggaeton, hip hop, and drum n’ bass rub shoulders seamlessly with vibrant melodies and empowering lyrics sung in 5 different languages & 3 dialects.

EMEL isn’t interested in being typecast as an exotic North African. For people who still haven’t heard her ground her honeyed vocals in heavy, distorted electronics, and whose theatrical stage presence and arresting visuals call to mind the likes of Kate Bush and Björk — it’s still useful to know how she rose onto stages across the world and become an anthemic voice during the Arab Spring.

Photo: Amber Grey