2023
ALO
ALO stands for Animal Liberation Orchestra - because music liberates the inner animal, of course. As liberated as they come, Zach Gill, Dan “Lebo” Lebowitz, and Steve Adams have certainly been at this a long time. The trio met while still pre-teens in Saratoga, California, where they quickly connected through their love of music.
In junior high, they got the idea to put together a band for their eighth-grade talent show. Zach recounts the struggle of the emerging artist thusly: “It’s hard to get all the pieces right, you know, you’re chasing a dream and an abstract vision, and you’re going through puberty. It’s kind of a lot.” Lebo elaborates, “We met at a time in our lives where we were coming of age and craving identity. Music, and more specifically, our band, gave us a vessel with which we could ‘set sail’ on the ocean of life”.
And the rest is history, but history is always a crooked path. You end up where you belong, but the journey is never quite what you expected when you took the first step. Twenty five years in, Gill (keyboards/vocals), Lebo (guitar/vocals), Adams (bass, vocals) and newest addition, Bay Area drum legend-in-training Ezra Lipp (drums, vocals), have recorded their greatest work to date. Quite simply, this is what happens when a band doesn’t break up – the culmination of a lifetime of shared effort and camaraderie, four master collaborators at the peak of their craft with nothing left to prove, a near-telepathic cohesion.
These guys have played with everybody. From royalty like Phil Lesh and members of the Grateful Dead to So Cal surf-troubadour Jack Johnson. If the show happened in California, you’ll almost always find one of them in the corner of the shot and, sometimes, even in the center.
But you don’t really hear the band’s magic until you hear them together. And it urges repeat listening, because it’s a rich stew that only fully reveals itself with time, attention, a few tears, and a lot of love.
ALO call their music “jam-pop,” and the description is apt - meticulously-crafted/accessibly-hooky compositions laced with improvisational departures, in which the band melds into a single organism in voice and consciousness. They’re always exploring, but never wandering. There is always intention, momentum, and a patience and confidence that can only be wrought from a quarter century of collaboration and water under the bridge.
The band’s new full-length album Silver Saturdays is a celebration of that crooked path, of having lived through a turbulent phase of human history, and of the winding road still to come. Won’t you join us for the ride?
Jay Lane & The Mayhem
Jay Lane’s roles on drums have earned him a place in music history. He is currently on tour with Dead & Company and has been a part of countless groups including Furthur, RatDog, Primus, the Golden Gate Wingmen, and Bobby Weir & Wolf Bros. His brand new band Jay Lane & The Mayhem will debut with their first performance at the Bruns.
Two Runner
Two Runner is Paige Anderson and Emilie Rose. This American Roots duo from Northern California embody the hills they grew up in. Through the mediums of clawhammer banjo, flatpicking guitar, vocal harmonies, and oldtime fiddle, Two Runner puts a hip take on the Appalachian feel.
2022
LYRICS BORN
Lyrics Born is the only Asian-American MC to release 10 studios albums and the first to play major music festivals like Coachella and Lollapalooza. From his Quannum Recordings debut with Latyrx, 1997’s The Album, to 2003’s seminal solo album Later That Day, he’s consistently pushed the boundaries of his craft. His newest project, Quite A Life, is like the exclamation point on his milestone year. “Ten albums is a lot for any artist, let alone an indie artist who colored outside the lines, so to speak,” LB says.
“I'm just appreciative there was always somehow a path for me, no matter how impossible it seemed —either on paper or in practice.”
Destini Wolf
Powerhouse vocalist Destani Wolf forged her own path as an artist, with a genre-defying sound, impeccable vocal prowess, and authentic lyrics. From performing at the age of 15 at the iconic Great American Music Hall, to recording on over 40 albums, to traveling the world as the lead vocalist with Cirque du Soleil’s “BAZZAR,” Destani’s journey is one of verve and vision. Instilling her heart into every song, Destani inspires positive change and personal awakening through her music. Her latest single, “White Water Tumbling” is an extension of her belief in the power of music to encourage empathy for others’ human experience.
Teao Sense (Audiopharmacy)
Teao “Teao Sense” Thompson is a DJ, music producer and multi-instrumentalist, with a worldly, urban, and unique sound. He founded the international music/artist collective Audiopharmacy Prescriptions, an international grassroots movement, studio space, and live band, all of which strive to raise consciousness and global awareness, while building communities through art and music.
Brett Dennen
Flame-haired, six-foot-five, and with a singular gift for meditating on life's most meaningful subjects with equal parts innocence and razor sharp wit, Brett Dennen is familiar from his decade-plus career as a singer/songwriter. With a successful string of albums and four Top Ten AAA singles like "Make You Crazy," "Wild Child," and 2018's "Already Gone," which achieved his highest chart position yet, Dennen has cemented himself as a fixture in American folk music. It is easy to imagine him writing for all of us, gently encouraging us to pick up the paint brush, jump in the ocean, and climb whatever mountain lies in front of us. Peppered in equal parts with shrewd quips and vulnerable admissions, his new album is ultimately an exploration of life's deepest meaning. And that is certainly emblematic of Brett Dennen, who spans wide as both an artist and a human being -- sometimes biting and somehow always generous of spirit -- his arms out to meet you where you are. See The World is, in short, reflective of a life well-explored, a life well-pursued, and, we can hope, a life well-lived.
Megan Jacobs
Megan Jacobs is a singer songwriter, born and raised in Los Angeles, CA . She grew up playing the piano and singing in the school choir. She started to explore songwriting in the late ’90s, immersed in LA’s incredible music scene. Stretching from Venice Beach to Echo Park, she’s had the honor of playing LA’s best clubs from The Hotel Cafe to The Roxy Theatre alongside some of the finest musicians now backing such greats as John Legend and Fitz & the Tantrums. Performing on her signature vintage Wurlitzer, Megan’s live set will take you through the highs, the lows and the full bodied flavor of love and life in Los Angeles.
La Dee Da
Oakland-based La Dee Da makes imaginative pop music. Prepare for an unfolding dream of insightful lyrics and musical twists, a shifting cinematic soundscape where hypnotizing beauty spontaneously evolves into bold, tasty grooves. Songwriter Rosie Steffy's vocals shine against a backdrop of sparkly Wurlitzer piano with Aaron Handler on bass and Daniel Fleischer on the drums.
Sam Bush
There is only one son of Kentucky both finding a light of inspiration from Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys and catching a fire from Bob Marley and The Wailers. Only one progressive hippie allying with like-minded conspirators, rolling out the New Grass revolution, and then leaving the genre's torch-bearing band behind as it reached its commercial peak. There is only one consensus pick of peers and predecessors, of the traditionalists, the rebels, and the next gen devotees. Music's ultimate inside outsider.
Or is it outside insider? There is only one Sam Bush. "With this band I have now I am free to try anything. Looking back at the last 50 years of playing newgrass, with the elements of jazz improvisation and rock-&-roll, jamming, playing with New Grass Revival, Leon, and Emmylou; it's a culmination of all of that," says Bush.
AJ Lee and Blue Summit
AJ Lee & Blue Summit are pure, beautiful American music. Soaring harmonies, top notch picking and strumming as well as a healthy respect and reverence for the classic country, bluegrass and folk music of the past all add up to a band who are masters of the genre. The band are great torch bearers of the music that helped build America. Although falling loosely under the bluegrass label, AJ Liebling & Blue
Summit generally plays sans banjo, with Sullivan Tuttle and Scott Gates on steel stringed acoustic guitars, AJ on mandolin, Jan Purat on fiddle, and Chad Bowen on upright bass - a configuration effectively used to create unique space and texture in the arrangements not as commonly found in the music of their peers.
Drawing from influences such as country, soul, swing, rock, and jam music, the band uses the lens of bluegrass as a vessel through which to express and explore the thread that binds and unifies all great music.
2021
Hailed by the New York Times as “a New Orleans institution,” the Rebirth Brass Band have been at the forefront of the brass band revival that they helped kick off over 30 years ago. Formed by the Frazier brothers, Phil and Keith, along with Basin Street labelmate Kermit Ruffins in 1983, The Rebirth Brass Band has gone from playing on corners in the French Quarter to selling out concert halls across the world and appearing in David Simon’s HBO hit Treme. While committed to upholding the tradition of brass bands, they’ve also extended themselves into the realms of funk and hip-hop to create their signature sound. “Rebirth can be precise whenever it wants to,” says The New York Times, “but it’s more like a party than a machine. It’s a working model of the New Orleans musical ethos: as long as everybody knows what they’re doing, anyone can cut loose.” It perhaps can’t be put more simply than in the words of Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist, Flea, “Just saw THE REBIRTH BRASS BAND, unbelievable. Hard as hell, free as a ray of light, there is not a band on earth that is better. Stunning.”
No band exemplifies the essence and soul of New Orleans like Rebirth Brass Band.
The Funky Gators
The Funky Gators is a band of Cajun, Zydeco, and R&B veterans whose credits include many of the most popular local bands of the past couple of decades. They take zydeco and mix in some R&B and funk flavor while still keeping the zydeco tempos that dancers love. The Funky Gators play zydeco hits by Boozoo Chavis, Rosie Ledet, and others, plus Motown classics such as “Heatwave” and “Walking the Dog” in Zydeco style.
Along with rubboard player and lead singer Myrna, the band is accordion player Dana Mandell, guitarist Jeffery James, bassist Marty Holland, and drummer Rasheed Wedlow. Myrna was a star in Gator Beat, and after that band’s leader Richie Domingue died several years ago, she retired from the zydeco scene. But after much coaxing from fans, she and Mandell put together the Funky Gators. Myrna’s many years of R&B experience combines with Mandell’s zydeco dance knowledge to create a sound that R&B listeners enjoy and that also keeps zydeco dancers out on the floor."
Cello Joe
Joey Chang aka CelloJoe is an anomaly in the world of cellists.
Cello + beatboxing + vocals + live looping = Cello Joe
Cello Joe plays the cello while beatboxing, looping, and singing. It's Classical Hip Hop. He creates fat beats with a cello and his mouth and he does it live!
His lyrics weave together sustainability, environmental justice, and social awareness. They entertain, inspire, and make you wonder.
By beatboxing, throatsinging, singing, plucking and bowing the cello, CelloJoe can mimic many styles of music from dubstep to folk to rock to classical to hip hop.
CelloJoe is the world's first long distance musical bike touring cellist.
He has ridden his bike over 10,000 miles in the US, Canada, Mexico, Europe and Australia.
Destani Wolf
The powerhouse vocalist, Destani Wolf forged her own path as an artist, with a genre-defying sound, impeccable vocal prowess, and authentic lyrics. From performing at the age of 15 at the iconic Great American Music Hall, to recording on over 40 albums, to now traveling the world as the lead vocalist with Cirque du Soleil’s “BAZZAR,”Destani’s journey is one of verve and vision.
Raised in the artistic haven of Berkeley on her parents’ classic soul and Latin vinyl and the Bay’s rich musical community, Destani began cultivating her signature sound. She later spent time in Mexico, immersed in heart-rending ranchera classics, like those performed by her great uncle, known for his vocals of ranchera songs. Returning to the Bay Area’s underground hip-hop and blues scene, she further honed her singular voice and distinctive Cali-soul sound while recording and composing with world class artists.
She joined Afro-Latin hip-hop group O-maya as the lead singer and eclectic a capella group SoVosó, wowing crowds on San Francisco’s preeminent stages, including Yoshi’s, Bimbo’s, SFJazz Center, and Stern Grove Festival, as well as at venues across the country and internationally. In addition to her debut LP Again and Again, she was featured on recordings with local hip-hop favorites Crown City Rockers , World renowned latin percussionist John Santos ( recorded on SF. BAY GRAMMY nominated album) and alternative hip- hop group The Pharcyde.
For the next 12 years, Destani continued her journey in Los Angeles. Reveling in her Latin roots, jazz and hip-hop, Destani recorded with Matisyahu on his songs “Crossroads” and “Live Like a Warrior,” with producer KoOol KOjak (Nicki Minaj, Flo Rida, Ke$ha). She also recorded with the Velvet Underground’s John Cale and multi-instrumentalist and producer Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, and performed with British Soul singer Alice Russell on Jimmy Kimmel Live. During this time, she was a featured vocalist on Jose Rizo’s 2012 GRAMMY-nominated Latin Jazz LP MongoRama and her nu-soul throwback EP Peak Away won a 2015 Independent Music Award. Destani further developed her song-writing and studio talents, crafting compositions and singing for TV and films including Disney’s “The Descendants,” Kevin Hart’s “Laugh at my Pain,” HBO’s “Momentum Generation,” “So You Think You Can Dance,” and more.
Instilling her heart into every song, Destani inspires positive change and personal awakening through her music. Her latest single, “White Water Tumbling” is an extension of her belief in the power of music to encourage empathy for others’ human experience. The song’s folk-soul vibe and plaintive lyrics are punctuated by Destani’s powerful, yet vulnerable, vocals. Lyrics like “The journey’s so long it won’t get the best of me/Trying to rise from this fall I just want to be free” speak to our capacity for resilience and hope. Like much of Destani’s lyrical content, it’s a song of faith in the face of heartbreak, about finding one’s inner strength to overcome seemingly insurmountable challenges and to empathize the plight of others.
At work on another collection of original songs in between touring the world with Cirque Du Soleil, Destani is embarking in new directions. Drawing on global, fresh and unconventional influences, her latest music is inspired by the ever-evolving, bold, and innovative spirit that defines the Bay Area. No matter where her journey takes her next, Destani honors her past, while looking to the future.
Written by Monica Ware
Yuka Yu
Hailing from Taipei, Taiwan, a city with a thriving nightlife that goes until the wee hours of the morning, Yuka grew up with the birth of the electronic music scene in Asia in the late 90s. She is Taiwanese, Dutch, and Japanese.
Yuka began DJ’ing while living in London in Camden town, getting trained at the London Sound Academy. “We need music so we don’t forget that there are places in this world that aren’t made out of stone. Like the Taiwan Strait between Taiwan and China, like the Berlin Wall between West Berlin and East Berlin, music has the ability to transcend any borders, cultures and languages, bringing together diversity, freedom, and peace.” Her musical style is influenced by acid, psychedelic tunes and oriental rhythms. Immersed in a multi-cultural and conflicted atmosphere, her experience in Eastern and Western culture inspires her creation of music. Her first vinyl she bought in Berlin feature the 'jahyu' Oriental flute, where the string melodies slide effortlessly amongst a powerful roots-based dubstep beat, creating a unique sound full of flavour. While living in London, her musical career has brought her many gigs in London and Berlin, such as DJ’ing at Ministry of sound, The Cause, RoadTrip and The Workshop, Number 90, Factory 45, White Post, Vortex, Cafe 1001, Troubadour, Humboldthain Club, and Kaffee Burger. Yuka currently resides in Sonoma County and performs regularly throughout Northern California. She aims to build a global community, a Yutopia, welcoming people of all background, nationality, color, gender, sharing music and inspiration.
Taj Majal
Taj Mahal doesn’t wait for permission. If a sound intrigues him, he sets out to make it. If origins mystify him, he moves to trace them. If rules get in his way, he unapologetically breaks them. To Taj, convention means nothing, but traditions are holy. He has pushed music and culture forward, all while looking lovingly back.
“I just want to be able to make the music that I’m hearing come to me––and that’s what I did,” Taj says. The 76-year-old is home in Berkeley, reflecting on six decades of music making. “When I say, ‘I did,’ I’m not coming from the ego. The music comes from somewhere. You’re just the conduit it comes through. You’re there to receive the gift.”
Taj is a towering musical figure––a legend who transcended the blues not by leaving them behind, but by revealing their magnificent scope to the world. “The blues is bigger than most people think,” he says. “You could hear Mozart play the blues. It might be more like a lament. It might be more melancholy. But I’m going to tell you: the blues is in there.”
If anyone knows where to find the blues, it’s Taj. A brilliant artist with a musicologist’s mind, he has pursued and elevated the roots of beloved sounds with boundless devotion and skill. Then, as he traced origins to the American South, the Caribbean, Africa, and elsewhere, he created entirely new sounds, over and over again. As a result, he’s not only a god to rock-and-roll icons such as Eric Clapton and the Rolling Stones, but also a hero to ambitious artists toiling in obscurity who are determined to combine sounds that have heretofore been ostracized from one another. No one is as simultaneously traditional and avant-garde.
Gaby Moreno
Since moving to Los Angeles from her native Guatemala, singer-songwriter-producer Gaby Moreno has released 5 albums, earned a Grammy nomination for her album, Illusion (Best Latin Pop Album, 2017), an Emmy nomination (for co-writing the "Parks & Recreation" theme song), and won a Latin Grammy (Best New Artist, 2013). In 2006 she took the Grand Prize in the John Lennon Songwriting Contest, the first contestant in the Latin category to win Song of the Year (she’s now a judge). Gaby also sings the theme song and voices a character (Marlena) on the multi Emmy Award-winning Disney children’s television series, “Elena of Avalor,” which features Disney's first Latina princess.
Her moving version of “Cucurrucucú Paloma” was chosen to play at the end of the emotional episode "God Bless America" for the last season of Netflix' original show, "Orange Is The New Black” .
Moreno has shared the international stage with pop music luminaries such as Bono, Andrea Boccelli, Tracy Chapman, Ani DiFranco, Punch Brothers, Hugh Laurie, Buena Vista Social Club, Calexico, David Gray and many more. More recently, she has appeared on Live From Here (hosted by five-time Grammy winner/MacArthur Genius, Chris Thile).
Her new album "¡Spangled!" - a collaboration with american musician, songwriter and arranger, Van Dyke Parks - will be realeased on Oct. 4th through Nonesuch Records (Metamorfosis in Latin America).
The ten-song set celebrates the migration of song across the Americas and spans more than a century, including a bolero from Panama, a bossa nova from Brazil, and an elegiac ballad from the Southwest United States—Ry Cooder, John Hiatt, and Jim Dickinson's "Across the Borderline," performed with Cooder and Jackson Browne. The album also includes one of Moreno's own songs as well as the previously released track "The Immigrants" by Trinidadian songwriter David Rudder.
Rev. Rabia
Rev. Rabia has been singing in the Bay Area for over 30 years . She hails from Sacramento where she began learning guitar at age 14 when
her friend taught her a few chords and loaned her a guitar.
In the mid 80's , she moved to the Bay Area and started making the rounds as a singer/songwriter. For awhile she was a backup singer in the Afro Beat band, Bole Bantu. She briefly was a member of the Oakland Jazz Choir before taking a hiatus from musical pursuits to give birth to and raise her second child.
In 1995, she happened to wander into a small cafe and hear her future mentors (Robert Lowery and Virgil Thrasher) performing raucous acoustic blues. Her life and music were sooned changed as she found her musical direction and inspiration. Since then, she has had the honor of performing at several festivals in California and touring southern Italy with Sonny Rhodes, opening for the late J.J.Cale and releasing two CD's. Rabia, has started on a new venture: rehearsing with a trio which will be debuting later this year.
Keizo, a former session musician in Japan, brought his exensive rock music knowledege to create a perfect blend of Folk Rock and Americana. He formerly was a studio musician in Japan before coming to the states in 1979 and becoming a rock photo journalist. He worked for the late Chet Helms and became friends with several of his rock heroes from the formative days of San Francisco music scene.
ALO
“ALO is a lot of things. Simply put, it’s a rock band, a family, an artistic outlet, a community and a business. But that only scratches the surface of this 30-year musical vision quest,” says Zach Gill, keys player for the beloved funk n’ roll outfit that began in 1989 when Gill, Dan “Lebo” Lebowitz, and Steve Adams teamed up in their Bay Area hometown at the ripe old age of 13 to play music. “We’ve all been through so much together, there’s a lot of trust,” adds Lebo. “This long term relationship of ours is a beautiful thing.” Before their senior year of high school the three had already recorded an album, and in keeping with their shared vision and rock n’ roll dreams, they relocated as a band to Santa Barbara for college. After nine studio releases and nearly a couple decades of worldwide touring, ALO continues to defy the odds as they prepare to embark on their 14th Annual Tour d’Amour, and unleash Creatures Vol. 2: Weave, the second in a series of EPs.
With the release of Creatures Vol. 1: Spark in July 2019, ALO unveiled a fresh sound and a new lineup with the addition of friend and drummer Ezra Lipp (Phil Lesh & Friends, Stu Allen & Mars Hotel, Magic In The Other), who stepped in for longtime bandmate Dave Brogan. The decision to make a series of EPs worked well for the band, whose members live in different places, and whose schedules required quicker recording sessions. “We love the full-length album process, but these days there are so many different ways to get your music out there,” Adams explains. “For us, the decision to make EPs was like, ‘Why not try it? We like new things.’ Just four songs to focus on each round in the studio. As it went, it was manageable and fun.”
It’s that innovative spirit that keeps ALO’s fires of inspiration burning, along with their individual side projects and collaborations. Multi-instrumentalist Gill nurtures a solo career and records and tours with Jack Johnson, who the band befriended in college and who signed ALO to his label, Brushfire Records, in 2005. Bassist Adams has toured with many groups over the years including Nicki Bluhm & The Gramblers and Brett Dennen, and stays active in the Bay Area music scene. And along with solo and band-led work, guitarist Lebo performs with the Grateful Dead’s Phil Lesh, Rock Collection, Doobie Decibel System, and more. When these lifelong friends come together to create, however, is when the magic happens, born from familiarity and experience, of all-night drives to gigs in vans, of shared destinies and inside jokes. And the evidence is in the lyrical, head-bobbing introspection of Spark, and in the smoldering, dance-worthy grooves of Weave. Both efforts encompass the band’s multiple facets. Both translate beautifully for the band’s legendary live performances. And both are primed for those mystical, mysterious jams.
“The idea is to inspire people,” Lebo explains. “As a music listener, that’s the music I tend to be drawn to, when I hear something that inspires me and gets me excited about life. That’s what we’re trying to do. As well as inspire ourselves as a band. If we can get ourselves there, then we can translate that to our audience.” That idea has been more like a mission for ALO, to approach the music with a sense of freedom, and create a liberating space for their listeners. “We want people to feel free at our shows - to participate and join along, or just step into our world for a night and enjoy the ride,” says Adams.
Sass N Harmony
The music of Sass N Harmony is imbued with mischief, minimalism & magic. With lyrics immersed in archetypes & folk-tales their vocals fly together at times angelic & feathery and other times cackling & edgy, full of tension & resolve, rhythm & playfulness.
These ladies are and Oakland based musicians and environmental activists who first formed their band on the Biketopia Music Collective bike tour of 2016, each performing with their own group or solo projects on a journey from Canada to San Francisco hosting off grid, bike powered music festivals along the way.
Audiopharmacy
Audiopharmacy is not just a musical collaboration, it’s a way of being rooted in creativity, a passion for raising the vibrations, respectful cultural-exchange, and a deep love for the healing of our planet. A multi-cultural community of creatives with its current touring members having Native American, Black, Pilipinx, Fijian-Indian, Mexican, Brazilian, European, and Chinese Tibetan Buddhist roots, the eclectic hip-hop ensemble intricately weaves together artistic and cultural inspiration and wisdom from all corners of the Earth. Audiopharmacy’s performance is a global journey that fuses live instrumentation, turntablism, electronics, poetry, prayer and technical lyrics that stir, heal, and reveal.