Classically trained DJ and Producer Douglas Appling, better known as Emancipator played a cleansing set to a sold-out house at San Francisco’s Great American Music Hall that was nothing short of hypnotizing. His music, if not genuinely describable as trance, was certainly trance-esque, and highlighted electronic music’s evolution and maturity in recent years.

Cellarmaker Brewing Company out of San Francisco has built a stellar reputation for their consistent artisanal brews. As evidenced from their fifth-anniversary celebration hosted at Great American Music Hall last Saturday night, they sure know how to treat their community. Foremost the evening’s entertainment was a fine progressive bluegrass lineup of Billy Strings with Cold and in the Bay supporting.

There are three key fundamental elements to a superior live music experience. The band, the crowd, and the space. Sure, there are factors from the outside like weather, parking, a potential Shakedown Street, and maybe even lame small-town cops. But it’s the first three that bring it all together. Two veteran acts co-billed a doubleheader at San Francisco’s legendary Great American Music Hall last Thursday and Friday.

Though the winter ahead may be icy, at least we can celebrate the days becoming longer! The big news around here is the first onsale announcement for the Golden Gate Wingmen Spring Tour 2018! More announcements are on the way through the first week of January. 

Golden Gate Wingmen: April 13, 2018 at the Great American Music Hall. Tickets go on sale December 22.

While art will always be a progressive process and reflect the changes of the people in our evolving world, some things are best kept preserved. Music is the perfect example of this. Progressive Rock, Jazz Fusion, Post Punk, New Wave, an echo of the culture and climate that influenced these musicians.

It was a double whammy of new record releases at the Great American Music Hall for the Dead Winter Carpenters and The Sam Chase and the Untraditional. Both bands dropped highly anticipated new albums, but welcomed Marty O’Reilly and the Old Soul Orchestra to get the night going.

For a band that excels in the live music setting, Umphrey’s McGee have not really released a whole lot of live material in the past, at least not when compared to a lot of their jamband counterparts.  Outside of Live at the Murat and a few Hall of Fame releases, most of their official projects have come out of the studio lately.  Now with the band working to spotlight their standalone streaming platform on the UMLive App released less than a year ago, the demand for live performances has become greater than ever before.

Certain bonds never fade away. It has been quite a while since guitar icon Steve Kimock and legendary drummer Greg Anton have performed together as their original band, Zero. They were the originators of “jam band” before that was even coined or acknowledged. Back then there was a variety of genres. Rock, soul, jazz, blues, on and on, Zero encompassed them all.

An extraordinary treat for Bay Area music lovers is coming to the Great American Music Hall on Sunday June 21^st, 2015.

When relating to the Grateful Dead, the term cover band is a sticky one. Some joked that the Dead were the best cover band in the world. Close fans and family understood their powers more clearly. Rather than a cover band they were more of a snowball collecting remnants of America’s musical past. So the idea of covers has always been different when relating to the Dead. The bottom line is nobody in rock approached music the way they did, so cover or not, every tune became an original.