Don't miss these great Bay Area events! The Desert Stars Festival is around the corner and the Bay Area is celebrating this massive fest with pre parties in San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose. All of the pre parties are on the same night, October 1st, so you'll just have to choose which line up you want to see the most:

Kymberli's Music Box & Innerlight Presents: Desert Stars Pre Party at Elbo Room in San Francisco:

Cellar Doors
The Spiral Electric
Ancient River
The Shivas

Dj Vikki Vaden
Visuals by Mad Alchemy

The Shivas

Cellar Doors

Ancient River

The Spiral Electric

San Jose Desert Stars Pre Party:

​Cafe Stitch - Doors Start at 8 pm

SLOWNESS
Silent Pictures
The Soft Bombs
DJs Jafar Green & Jeff Jagged

Oakland Desert Stars Pre Party:

​At Leo's Music Club - Doors at 9 pm:

The Telescopes
LSD and the Search for God
Disappearing People
Magic Castles

Paperhouse Presents an evening of heavy psychedelic revivalist and experimental music tomorrow night at The Night Light. The Oakland based second floor music venue will host local bands, Disappearing People, Psychic Ju Jitsu and Mall Walk who will perform in support of the Mexico based psych band, Lorelle Meets The Obsolete. If you're into real psychdelic rock, it is important that you attend this show.

While Disappearing People and Psychic Ju Jitsu play out frequently, both bands have a distinct face-melting and energetic live show that will expose you to a more musically proficient side of the underground. These bands will be supporting the talented and trippy Bay Area based band, Mall Walk, whose washed out, lofi and echoey musical aesthetic will fit right in with the rest of the line up.

The entire show will seamlessly wrap around the Mexico based band, Lorelle Meets The Obsolete’s American tour. This band’s style is a bit more soulful, with a heavy desert psych influence. They will meld and mesh just fine with the rest of the line up, and what Paperhouse has woven together will be a real and well curated experience.

Psych rock is not dead, it is in fact, more alive than ever in the Bay Area. Make sure you make it out to this show TOMORROW in Oakland at The Night Light.

One last post to celebrate the top three bands from our year end Best of SF Poll for Emerging Artists. 

Down Dirty Shake

San Francisco based, psychedelic soul rock group, Down Dirty Shake has been honored with the title of The Deli Magazine San Francisco’s Emerging Artist of 2013. Even without that accomplishment, they are one of the hardest working bands in the Bay Area. This sometimes sultry, sometimes completely rowdy soul band that features the smooth Jim Morrison-esque vocals of lead singer, A.J. Lopez, plays a plethora of shows in San Fran and Oakland.

They played a four-week residency at The Milk Bar in the summer of 2013, and continue to record and release impressively psychedelic recordings. Their January release, The Beauville Boogie features two new songs: Sun Cheyenne and Stoned Love, which are previews of their upcoming full length album.

Down Dirty Shake's sexy ‘60s throwback ballads are completely romantic and lyrically impressive. You can always groove to their love and sex-centric music, as their songs are powerfully soulful, well composed and well written. If you haven’t seen Down Dirty Shake live, you will be doing yourself a favor by experiencing their energetic and wildly entertaining performances. (Note: you can read about DDS in the upcoming SXSW print edition of The Deli Magazine, coming soon!)

Disappearing People

The noisy heavy, dank experimental and unpredictable Oakland based duo, Disappearing People is the runner-up for The Deli Magazine San Francisco Emerging artist band of 2013. Our hand selected jury and writers really thought DP was one of the cream of the crop in the SF Bay scene. We completely agree. This band's otherworldly dissonance and musical experimentation will take you on a wild ride, and show that music doesn't have to be structured and pop oriented to move a crowd!

French Cassettes

French Cassettes is a veteran emerging band, finally getting their recognition as they were the second runner-up on the poll. They've proven time and time again that they can record great records, fill a room of anticipating and supportive fans and make their mark on the local music scene. We're always happy to cover this well rounded indie pop band. They're playing Noisepop 2014 this month in San Francisco, so keep an eye out here at The Deli SF for more details about their appearance!

Now that the poll is officially over, the Deli staff would like to thank all of the local jurors, artists, readers and writers for participating and making this year's Emerging Artist poll a great success. We look forward to introducing a new list of emerging bands next year as we continue to cover and support the SF Bay's underground and indie music scene.

Also look out for interviews with the winners of our Reader's poll, Major Powers & The Lo-Fi Symphony and 2013's Emerging Artist of the Year, Down Dirty Shake - SF Editor, je

Deli Nation,

Our Year End Poll for Emerging SF Bay Area Artists was - as usual - a painstaking (and somewhat excruciating) process, but we pulled it off with remarkable flair!

Kudos to vintage sounding psych rockers Down Dirty Shake (pictured) for winning it! Thumbs up also to dissonance masters Disappearing People (ion second place) and to bronze medal winners indie pop high fivers French Cassettes who bring a wave of optimism to this truly out there top 3... but it's SF, baby! (Oh and there's no medal, really...)

Here is how it all went down: first, we let the local bands submit their music (for free), and got our Deli editors to pick the nominees. Then we polled a list of 15+ SF Bay Area scene expert (our jury, list at the bottom) and asked them to nominate 3 more bands of their choice each. Then we polled our writers, then we polled our readers. We tried to keep things open for each single genre, from Indie Rock to Roots Music to Hip Hop.

If you are a geek interested in all the subtelties related to how this poll works, you can read its rules here (happy reading!). But if all you care about is the awesome new music SF Bay Area produced in the year 2013, this list is all you need. Enjoy!

BEST OF 2013 POLL FOR EMERGING SF BAY AREA ARTISTS ****** FINAL RESULTS ******

ARTIST J W OS R TOT   1 Down Dirty Shake 7     1.5 8.5 2 Disappearing People 6 1   0.003 7.003 3 French Cassettes 3   3 0.051 6.051 4 The Love Dimension 6     0.015 6.015 5 Chasms 6     0.006 6.006 6 8th Grader 3 1   0.052 4.052 7 Meat Market 3 1   0.012 4.012 8 JAM 2   2 0.004 4.004 9 Everyone is Dirty 3     0.096 3.096 10 Sea Dramas     3 0.045 3.045 11 Twin Steps 2 1   0.037 3.037 12 Black Cobra Vipers 3     0.008 3.008 13 Cellar Doors 3     0.005 3.005 14 Happy Fangs 3     0.001 3.001 15 Major Powers & The Lo-Fi...     1 2 3   California Honeydrops 2     1 3   Koruscant Weekend 2 1   0 3 18 False Priest 1   1 0.091 2.091 19 Range of Light Wilderness 2     0.046 2.046 20 Miserable 2     0.011 2.011 21 Fuzz 2     0.009 2.009 22 Fine Steps 2     0.007 2.007   Warm Soda 2     0.007 2.007 24 Gitter Wizard 2     0.005 2.005 25 Cold Beat 1 1   0.004 2.004   Asteroid #4 2     0.004 2.004   The Family Crest 2     0.004 2.004   There's Talk 1 1   0.004 2.004 29 Blackbird Blackbird 2     0.003 2.003 30 Art Elliot     1.5 0.024 1.524 31 Devin Farney     1.5 0.018 1.518 32 Agony Aunts     1 0.5 1.5   Airs 1     0.5 1.5 34 Owl Paws     1 0.092 1.092 35 Down and Outlaws 1     0.082 1.082 36 Seshen 1     0.069 1.069 37 The She's 1     0.053 1.053 38 Chris Klippel     1 0.035 1.035 39 Fritz Montana     1 0.027 1.027   Religious Girls 1     0.027 1.027 41 Hot Lunch 1     0.025 1.025 42 Electric Shepherd 1     0.016 1.016   Spider Heart 1     0.016 1.016 44 Psychic Jiu Jitsu 1     0.015 1.015   Scraper 1     0.015 1.015 46 Front Country 1     0.004 1.004 47 Churches 1     0.003 1.003

Hope you'll find some awesome new artists you weren't aware of!

The Deli's Staff

Are you yearning to see an awesome psych rock show this week?? This Wednesday, Bay Area darlings Disappearing People and Faux Canada will be joining New Zealand psych-pop act Connan Mockisan at Bottom of the Hill in San Francisco. Opening the show is indie-pop trio, Faux Canada, who embrace synthesizers and give an electronic update to indie rock bands of yore. Oakland’s duo, Disappearing People will change the pace of the show, blending elements of psych-rock and fuzzed-out lo-fi music to create durational musical compositions. This band is nothing short of trippy. And last but not least, there’s the headliner Connan Mockisan who has made it to California from across the pond. Mockisan crafts slowly building, twee-like, psych-pop. The artist has been making waves with his most recent album, Caramel. That said, catch Mockisan before he flees the states! -Erin Dage