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

We're excited to share the news that a new festival will be taking place at The Cave on August 29th in San Francisco, CA!

DreamGaze Collective, a group of musicians, music lovers and promoters with a shared interest in musical genres ranging from shoegaze and dream-pop to post-punk and nugaze features members who are vested in furthering these genres. From putting on shows all around Southern California to expanding their efforts into a larger festival.

The San Francisco edition will feature local San Francisco psychedelic rock n' roll band LSD and The Search For God as headliners, and many other bands such as Balms, Crescendo, Cruel Summer, Bellavista, Golden Drugs and many more. It will be $15 for advanced tickets and $20 for door. This festival is an all ages event.

"Greg (from Los Angeles band Crescendo and I became friends and started talking about doing festival-style shows in LA/SF highlighting our favorite local dreampop / shoegaze / post-punk-ish bands. There's been a lot of really cool new bands coming out of both cities, so over all it was really easy to get everyone together and excited about it. There is still an amazing group of creative people living here, being cool as hell and making rad art/music." -Jared Padovani of Balms

Click here to RSVP to the event:

LSD and the Search for God (SF)
Balms (SF)
Cruel Summer (SF)
Golden Drugs (OAK)
Crescendo (LA)
Bellavista (SF // members of Tamaryn)
WHITE CLOUD (SF // members of Deafheaven)
Night Shapes (OAK)
Surf Club (STOCKTON // members of Craft Spells)
Mother Room (OAK)

DJ Sets by:

BABY J (Popgang)
Dometrious James (White Cloud, Mwahaha)
Greg Wilson (DKFM)
Jamie Jams (Debaser)
Jonathan Reddick (Slime City)
Joshua Yule (Cruel Summer)

Visuals by White Light Prism
Poster by Jonathan Reddick

August 29th, 2015 || 3 PM - Midnight
The Cave, SF || All Ages
$15 Adv || $20 Door
dreamgaze.net

‘Aguas Frescas (Part I)’ is the latest superb EP from Austin indie alt-rock band, Wildfires, The Deli's March 2015 Band of the Month (check our EP preview from a while back right here). This newest offering takes listeners on a surreal journey of textured soundscapes and ethereal vocals summoning up memories of shoegazing bands of yesteryears such as Sonic Youth or My Bloody Valentine. The understated vocal delivery and dreamy guitar effects present on the tracks takes audiences to familiar psychedelic terrain along with melodies that are charming, yet laconic, Wildfires draw you into their breezy hippie-fueled wall of sound slowly and effortlessly leave the indelible mark of a band acutely aware of what they are. Imagine floating down the river into the fading sunset with a cold beer in one hand and one of those wacky tobacco cigarettes in the other, and you’ll get the feel for the serene and dreamy music the group creates. Check out Wildfires’ EP, ‘Aguas Frescas (Part I), below and come back for updates on upcoming music from the band.

--

Tavon Perkins

@tavonperkins

DCRadaR only has one single out so far, "GUN (Give Up On The Now)", and already you can pinpoint their interesting play on genres (listen below). Their self-proclaimed sound is "electro-shoegaze," but there's also hints of pop-punk, making it surprisingly easy to dance to. They've got more singles to come, and they're playing July 19th at Metropolitan in Annapolis.

Oh, this is going to be a good show. The Oakland based dreamgaze-grunge band, Night School (Graveface Records) will be sharing a bill with the Brooklyn based minimal, art pop band, Pony Farm and the Baltimore based dreampop band, Wild Honey. This show is regionally eclectic, but the music will flow together really well.

We at The Deli Magazine have local Baltimore/DC and NYC blogs, so we’re excited to cover bands who have been written about on other local Deli sites! We like when our fave national bands tour because we get to write about them on our home turf!

If you like riot grrrl rock, shoegaze, dream pop and home grown Brooklyn lofi rock, you’ll be right at home at The Knockout on Thursday, July 16th! We recommend you make it a point to support some great underground music!