Timothy Lynch

Join Sex 14s on Monday, November 27th @ 10am when he speaks with acclaimed songwriter, guitarist, performer, author and activist, Bruce Cockburn, before his shows at the Freight & Salvage on December 1st and 2nd.

Having sold more than nine million albums worldwide, Bruce Cockburn is a member of both the Canadian Songwriter and Canadian Music Hall of Fame, a winner of Folk Alliance’s People’s Voice Award, as well as 13 Juno Awards from more than 30 nominations. Bruce is continuing the celebration of the release of his 35th album, O Sun O Moon on True North Records.

Bruce Cockburn has enjoyed an illustrious career shaped by politics, spirituality, and musical diversity. His remarkable journey has seen him embrace folk, jazz, rock, and worldbeat styles while earning high praise as a prolific, inspired songwriter and accomplished guitarist. He remains deeply respected for his activism and humanist song lyrics that thread throughout his career. On all his albums Cockburn has deftly captured the joy, pain, fear, and faith of human experience in song.

Photo Credit: Daniel Keebler

On Wednesday, November 22 @ 10:30am, join Sparkle Motion as she hosts world-renowned Javanese Puppetmaster (dhalang) and orchestra director, Midiyanto, and Javanese vocalist, Heni Savitri, for an in-studio acoustic performance and interview ahead of their performance with UC Berkeley’s Javanese Gamelan Orchestra Sari Raras on Saturday, December 2 @ 8pm at Hertz Concert Hall on the UC Berkeley Campus.

The ensemble plays on an exquisite set of instruments named Gamelan Kyahi Udan Mas, donated to the Department of Music by Sam and Louise Scripps, who also donated an equally beautiful set of shadow puppets which are used in Sari Raras’s shadow play performances.

Under the leadership of Midiyanto and Ben Brinner, Gamelan Sari Raras includes students and former students at Berkeley as well as musicians from surrounding communities, including ethnomusicologists who specialize in various types of Indonesian music, as well as others who have trained in Indonesia. Midiyanto has introduced thousands of students to the musical traditions of Central Java and Gamelan Sari Raras presents noon and evening concerts every semester in Hertz Hall.

The brew has boiled over lately, a pressure-cooked chaos that can no longer be contained. The growl has grown to a howl.. the howl is at the door. Few are as ready to meet the madness head on as Frankie and the Witch Fingers.

Comprised of Alithea Tuttle (Bass, Vocals), Baron Rinzler (Guitar), Cooper Ladomade (Drums) and Desi Scaglione (Guitar), the members of Rocket have all know each other for a very long time, some since as early as preschool, and the full group coalescing in highschool. With only three singles to their name, the amount of momentum they’ve been able to build is impressive, opening for bands like Pretty Sick, bar italia, Hello Mary, and more.

Debut EP, Versions of You, pits Sonic Youth & Dinosaur Jr-esque guitar riffs against soaring harmonies, the single perfectly distills what’s made Rocket one of the West Coast’s buzziest new bands, with Paste Magazine praising it’s  “laid-back California charm with biting lyricism and tight, synergetic compositions.”

Versions of You is a time capsule, a document of the turbulent transition from one’s late teens into their early twenties during one of the most uncertain times to be alive. Despite their youth, there’s a confidence and strength of vision across these 7 songs that is rare to find in a debut. Just listen to the roar of the My Bloody Valentine guitars on “Sugarcoated,” a song they explain “feels nostalgic to us, like it’s always existed.” A friendship like theirs is one in a million, but a chemistry that yields music like this is something you hold onto, and Rocket are just getting started.