Aggressive-Indie Rock; never heard of such a thing? Then you are missing out! This genre of music is best portrayed by The Sole Pursuit, and if you haven’t already heard this band’s sound, you’d better check them out. With a soft outer skin but a stern soul, their sound is far from mediocre. Their song “All Aside” is a perfect representation of what I’m talking about. With strong guitar leads and killer vocals, this band is going to go far! Wanna see for yourself? Their new debut album "Infinite Regress" is available this Friday, September 11th, 2015. You can bask in the awesomeness of their new album at their release party, Sept 10th @ Junction City Music Hall. -Nick M

The San Francisco based record label, Tricycle Records is in search of submissions for their upcoming compilation, The Friends of Tricycle Records Compilation. This will be the 5th compilation in the label's series. If you want to send your music to the label for consideration, go directly to their submission page!

http://www.tricyclerecords.com/friendssubmission/

The Friends of Tricycle Records Compilation is about building the Bay Area music scene. We are looking for new and/or unreleased songs from Bay Area / Northern California artists only. All genres accepted. This is offered as a free promotional download to help artists gain visibility in the local and national music scene. - Julie Schuchard Co-Founder Tricycle Records

Taking the boom of indie rock and using the oft-underused technique of raw, layered vocals, Century Thief is certainly doing good work in a great way. The six-piece from Toronto are ramping up to their Sept 10 release of their first debut album, “Reverie”, and the first samples from it will certainly put you into a daydream. The backbone of both “Pillar” and “City Banks” are the beautiful vocal harmonies. In Pillar, they hit soaring highs, carried along by the pulsing drums, with horns, strings and woodwinds gently carrying, tastefully layered along with the backup vocals, never losing a single moment of this well-orchestrated (literally) piece. Parts flutter and fade to and from the forefront, creating a beautiful swell that really hits all at once, not making any one single musician the star, but rather the music itself. City Banks waltzes along, with trumpets, violins and flutes all creating a great counterpoint melody. The song builds and builds, while the rock inclinations of the band come to the forefront, crashing and stomping through, creating a great contradiction that pieces together perfectly. The lead vocals portray a raw soul, with the layers upon layers supporting underneath to drive the point straight home, effective in its brief length, not wasting so much as a second of the listeners time. If you love the beauty of ambient-rock, and dig orchestral instruments even more, that these guys are a definite buy. You can catch them on their CD Launch Tour, Sept 10th at The Piston, with a handful of dates following. - Cody Wright

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