Editor's Note: Jonathan Cárdenas of Pow Magazine and San Francisco Great Society put a lot of time into curating this exclusive peek at the upcoming festival, Gathering of the Tribes. This fest celebrates and works to promote and preserve the spirit of psych music in San Francisco. Founder, Dennis Gonzales is very passionate about his work and his efforts to support psych musicians from all over the US. The Bay Area is lucky to have him and the community of amazing promoters and musicians who help keep the spirit and tradition of supportive, familial music and arts communities alive and well. -je

The Gathering Of The Tribes is a festival centralized exclusively in itself and its own breed of musicians and artists. San Francisco has had other festivals in past years, but this one aims to showcase the Bay Area’s breed of psychedelia and its sub-genres, as well as celebrate its musical and artistic ancestry. The name is borrowed, or you could even say revitalized—resurrected—from the Human Be-In that took place in Golden Gate Park, January 14, 1967. This is when Haight-Ashbury became symbolically immortalized as a counter-culture mecca. Our festival celebrates San Francisco’s past and present, and aims to push forward its music and arts in a positive and progressive direction, preserving it for the good of the Bay Area and to keep things groovy.

“We are the San Francisco Preservation Society—God save the Acid Tests, Beatniks and notoriety.”

Hopefully you got that reference. But no, we’re the San Francisco Great Society. 

Founder, Dennis Gonzales: I've been running Pow Magazine since 1986 and being entrenched in the music community for several years as a social media journalist, I can tell you SF music is not only alive, it is about to explode into a new movement unlike anything seen since the first music scene in 1965. Everything about our Society and our festival is a familial, grass roots effort.  Amoeba is sponsoring the event—they too have promoted it on their Facebook page as well as Twitter. Pow Magazine, Counter Culture Artist Management, and Innerlight Presents are altogether presenting this festival. We have reached out to the best of the Bay, and most have said “yes.”

Clay Andrews of The Spiral Electric and Innerlight Presents: If the festival is comprised of bands that are all touring and far away, and everybody has all their records—that’s great and all; you have to bring people to the event, but at the same time it’s like—don’t just throw a fest where you just bring an import of things because that’s not really doing anything for the local scene. It’s not exposing people to what’s actually happening right now in their backyards.

Derek See SF DJ, musician and music collector: One thing I’m especially excited about is hearing and meeting bands that I don’t know even though they're local. Because of what i do for a living, i have to get up real early in the morning on weekends—I do go out and see live music when I can, but never as much as I’d like to, whereas at this festival I’m just super stoked to be able to experience and hang out with like-minded folks.

Performing at SFGS: Gathering of The Tribes
at Public Works in San Francisco on September 13th

The Gentle Cycle
Buzzmutt
The Spiral Electric
LSD and the Search for God
Down and Outlaws
Cellar Doors
Down Dirty Shake
The Love Dimension
Mark Nelsen
Sea Dramas
California Raga Association
Lee Gallagher and the Hallelujah
The Green Door
Carlton Melton
Mystery Flavors
The She’s
Electric Shepherd
Zodiac Death Valley

Visuals by:

White Light Prism - vimeo.com/user6728976
Mad Alchemy - www.madalchemy.net
Andy Puls - www.videopaws.com

DJs:

Abel Oleson
Derek See
Michael Tarin

There’s no denying that Toronto and Hamilton have their share of hot spots to hit up when the sun goes down. Even if it isn’t about a specific location, the new video by Hamilton jam-rockers Flamingo Bay shows that sometimes it’s cool to just walk around the city at night and pretend you’re in a music video. The 5-minute film captures guitarist Dillon Henningson through Go Pro footage walking (and cabbing) around, sampling the good stuff from Toronto and Hamilton’s nightlife. A couple of landmarks from each city make an appearance (Honest Ed’s, The Baltimore house) as well as everyone’s favourite default beer of choice (“Old Style” Pilsner). It’s about as straight forward of a video as you can get, but it coincides perfectly with the mid-tempo jam about heart broken dudes and people changing. Check it out below! - Chris PJ D

Deep summer is a good time for music in Texas. That weird auburn heat that comes down, part the blonde of summer and part the brunette of fall means you can actually get out about in the summer sun and take walks and drives and hang on patios and listen to some goddamned music without wondering if you’re gonna die if you don’t stay perfectly, freakishly hydrated. Change is comin’, and I dunno, maybe I’m alone in this, but it feels like a time when certain tracks and types of music fit the general mood of the earth that don’t always fit at the same time. It’s a pretty nice vibe.

Speakin’ of, here’s what we’ve got for you to vibe to for the end of the month’s Artist of the Month poll, and why we think they’re the shit. This poll is ending quite soon, tomorrow in fact, but we thought we’d give a little last bit of edge to the competition by dropping it all right here for you to gander at, compare, and choose your own personal victor. Put your ears under the tap and let it flow in, and then take that imbibed energy and convert it directly into a vote upon the voting block at your right, if you have not yet and are so inclined. We’ve got a couple early-fall appropriate electronic rock bands, and an introspective hip-hop act appropriate for that change-is-coming feeling, and an indie band that will soundtrack those last golden dyin’ days of the summer just perfectly for ya, so let’s dig in to this month’s selections.

Boss Battle

Boss Battle has just one track available online right now, but they are a band in the process of dropping hard onto the scene. They’ve only been around since 2014, but this first single “Ride” (which just officially dropped 8/31/2015, but which has been kickin’ around the net for a while) is some hard pounding electronic-heavy rock good times. As they call it, the “megapop dual lead vocals” dominate and drive this track that’s got a Mindless Self Indulgence pop/hard/electronic/weird thing goin’, but which is more trying to nail the good pop song instead of just weirding people out. Well-thought of and known Ohm Recording Facility producer Chico Jones provides one half of said vocals, giving this band his 28 years of recording experience and a notoriety boost off the bat, and a slew of recent shows and the looming release of EP “Attack Time” get Boss Battle their nod for this edition of the Artist of the Month poll.

The Nimbus

The hype on The Nimbus is a little early, but well deserved- the band is on the eve of a 7” releasing on September 17 at a show at one of Austin’s best and most underrated clubs, The North Door on East 6th and I-35, but we thought we’d nominate them now because of just how excited we are for more from this band. The Nimbus’ own take on electronics drenched rock music is stylistically, in turn, steeped in the 80s new wave and gothic styles, with clear dramatic vocals over layers and layers of melancholy electronics, heavy thudding beats and droning guitars. The upcoming 7’ and supporting shows along with the just-so-enticing teaser video released for the new record get The Nimbus some deep support here at The Deli, and the early but definitely warranted Artist of the Month nomination. Check out the teaser below.

Tone Royal

We profiled Tone Royal a few weeks ago just after the release of his damn solid debut album Rushing Greatness, and since even that short time ago, it seems like this man’s star has risen considerably. Right now he’s up for not just our Artist of the Month, but also is promoting himself in the San Antonio Music Awards poll and is climbing the charts at Reverb Nation. He was also recently featured in a My San Antonio article on emerging twenty-something’s from the area, and he’s got a big show lined up at The Korova (8/19). He was also set to be a feature at Weird City Hip-Hop Fest until its quite damn depressing cancelation about nine hours before this posting, but despite that sadness (that’s really a blow to the whole area’s hip-hop scene, and not just Tone Royal), this young man is making waves with the smart delivery on his new album, which you can read more about in our recent review here, and which you can listen to in full below.

The Villas

It’s pretty hard to make an impact with just a few songs available, but like Boss Battle above, The Villas have done just that with three lovely tracks from upcoming record Long Player. The Villas do a thing that’s very rooted in the traditional indie rock formula of the 90s and 2000s with little electronics, a punk-gone-nicer feel and big and/or surfy guitar chords over some twangy bass and beats that change-up pretty frequently. Vocals that equally snarl and smile and lyrics like stand-out track Julie’s that say “It seems to me/You’re the apple on the tree/Waiting for the sun/It’s my time” that hearken back to indie rock’s roots in approachable suburban-era good if a little cynical feelings make these three tracks stand up as some of the best Austin indie of the year, and make this young band quite intriguing indeed.

Lounge-rock, or, a haunting, roomy version of pop, with plenty of groove and emotion is what Veins is pumping out. With the Moon Garden LP, this offshoot from blues rock is a dreamy romp through some beautiful melodies and heartbreaking lyrics. Lead singer Hannah has soul to spare, and the whole band ebbs and flows with the emotion from the songs encased within. The garage-pop of Diggin' In My Grave turns into a stripped down 50's ballad, complete with falsetto back ups and a tambourine. The first band-included song, Runaway Girl, brings a late night dancer with some real mean lead lines and a heavy groove. Chops aplenty from every band member. The disc is chock-full of great songs, including Nightmare Gone To Waste, one of the heavier tunes included in the mix, with a great brooding, ambient melody guitar, and an even spookier sounding lead guitar plucking and scraping away at the notes. The album winds down to close with a sparse, solo piano performance, with an orchestrated string accompaniment, sounding like it was torn right from a Lynch-ish or Tarantino-esque climax. All in all, the dream-pop of Veins Moon Garden is a great piece of art, keep up-to-date with their facebook for shows in your area. - Cody Wright

Influenced by the roots of the country without getting tangled in them, Pat Maloney blends and bashes his influences into something new, bringing us the freshness of his newest album Repotting. From his spanish-shuffle, to his anti-corporate acoustic groove, Pat brings an honest approach and some real talent on every facet of the music. From the rhythm up to the melody, the auxiliary to the forefront, every part of his songs are essential; no excess, no fat, just lean and mean. Gracing us with just the slightest hint of gravel in his voice, adds a real sincerity to his music, lyrics and overall completeness of the album. The future's looking bright for this man! Go and check him out Aug 28 in Mahtay Cafe in St Catherines, and at Relish in Toronto Aug 30th.- Cody Wright