British Icons WU LYF Continue Their Improbable Return With Show at the Independent on Monday

Photo Credit: Anthony Harrison

WU LYF were always destined to go out in a blaze of glory.

Masked in anonymity and burnishing a revolutionary zeal, the Manchester collective railed against generational greed and urged for a collective uprising against rampant capitalism and environmental degradation. Their mission was predicated on activating an engaged youth movement (WU LYF = World Unite, Lucifer Youth Foundation)—one that sought to escape apathy and resignation in favor of compassion and self-righteous rage.

The band’s debut album, “Go Tell Fire on The Mountain,”  was a monumental statement piece—one of the best albums of the 2010s (actually, make that all time), filled with ridiculously ambitious post-rock treatises. With such a massive ambit soaking in the dueling forces of fatalism and idealism, no one seemed shocked when the band announced its break-up in 2012, ending their feverish run after one utterly perfect record.

It was an ending seemingly written in the stars from the beginning. A reunion seemed almost inconceivable, which is why it’s almost fitting that their return can be traced back to one of the more improbable places imaginable—a local bookstore.

It was at that nondescript outpost in Manchester that Ellery James Roberts, the lead singer and keyboard player for WU LYF, was working following the dissolution of his follow-up act, Lost Under Heaven—an endeavor he started with his romantic partner, Ebony Hoorn. With both that relationship and the band over, Roberts had decamped to the bookstore to work for his friend, who owned the shop.

“There was little room above the bookshop with some drums and a piano, so I would just go up there and mess around a little after work,” said Roberts. “And then one day my friend suggested that I reach out to Joe [Manning], who played drums in WU LYF. I hadn’t spoken to Joe in a while, but I ended up reaching out to him and we had just this really sweet, playful connection immediately.

And from there, Evans [Kati], our old guitarist, started coming down and we did that for like two or three months together. At that point, we were only missing Tom [McClung], who was living in France with his family. I phoned him one night and he was down to come over. That was like, August of 2023, and we ended up spending a week together, just jamming and coming up with all these interesting ideas. We were all really inspired to see that energy still being there.”

After more than a decade of being dormant, WU LYF slowly re-introduced themselves to the world, playing shows in Europe in 2025 before releasing this year’s anthemic, unstoppable return to glory, “A Wave That Will Never Break.” On Monday night at the Independent, the band will play its first show in San Francisco in 14 years. 

A seven-song album bursting with big ideas, “A Wave That Will Never Break” is a thrillingly uplifting indication that the fires burning within WU LYF never dimmed. Roberts—whose gruff, gasping and often indecipherable vocal deliveries powered WU LYF’s debut album—has never sounded better. It’s not just that his lyrics tackle cosmically vast topics (sample: “As this dark night approaches/the dreamers descend/True life is unveiled/know its not the end”), it’s that he delivers them with a desperate urgency that makes every breath feel like a battle.

And the band is just as good. Whereas “Go Tell Fire On A Mountain,” was powered by Roberts’ transcendent organ and keyboard work, the sound on “A Wave That Will Never Break” is more muscular and sinewy.  Like most great indie rock bands, WU LYF has always been more about feeling and emotion than technical proficiency, but on the new album they sound completely in lockstep, embracing a post-punk approach that’s both lean and exploratory.

“It’s interesting, because when we first started out as a band, I just thought I was good at playing music with others,” said McClung, who also performs as Francis Lung. “I was quite naïve, because I soon discovered that I didn’t have that sort of relationship with anyone else. It was only when we started jamming together again that I realized there was something really special about what we have. It’s not like a virtuosic thing—it’s much more ephemeral than that. It’s just this innate feeling we have when we play together.”

Much like its predecessor, “A Wave That Will Never Break,” speaks almost exclusively in bold statements, but there is nothing in the back WU LYF catalog that matches the grandeur of a song like “Tib St. Tabernacle,” an 11-minute, multi-suite saga that’s a heartbreaking chronicle of a world slowly capitulating to environmental destruction and neglect.

“It’s my sort of experience that we live in a completely enchanted and beautifully infinite world,” said Roberts. “But we also live in a system that has very specific parameters of what’s acceptable for a life. It’s this very mechanized, narrow way of living that’s just depressing—it’s destructive to the human spirit and it’s prevalent across cultures. It’s like we have to unplug from the dream to see what life really is.”

These kinds of grandiloquent statements are part of Roberts’ regular lexicon, and coming from another source, could prompt some sighs or eyerolls, but there isn’t an ounce of insincerity to anything he says. He’s a true believer. 

He’s also a little love wounded, and for the first time in the WU LYF catalog, there are some legitimate romantic songs, especially “The Fool.” Channeling the atmosphere of Echo and the Bunnymen, Roberts opens up in a manner previously foreign to the band, with him lamenting that, “I can't eat or sleep/my heart's aflame.” Roberts said the song was written about Hoorn, his former creative and romantic partner.

“I was in a space where I'd separated from Ebony, but still had so much love for her,” said Roberts. “It was really about feeling gratitude for the relationship we had. It’s when you can’t help but love someone, even if you’re literally separated from them.”

“The Fool” is a nice example of WU LYF marrying the personal to the universal, but in many ways, no barrier exists between those poles for the band. Every song they write is for the masses, knowing that those masses are each made up of individual souls, and it takes just one person to start a movement.

During their first go-round the band espoused a grand vision that might have been unmet, but they didn’t disappear into nothingness. And now they’re back, undaunted and unrepentant, determined to keep the message going. Both Roberts and McClung confirmed that they have a whole trove of material written, and more WU LYF albums will be in the offing.

“We have to keep putting music out at this point—there’s kind of no turning back,” said McClung. “We’ve set up this platform where our fans can really engage with us and it’s been amazing to see how they’ve supported us now that we are back. They’re more than fans—they’re contributing to our livelihoods in a meaningful way. It’s been really encouraging to see and it really motivates us to keep this thing going.”

Show Details:
WU LYF with Bondo
Where: The Independent
When: 8 p.m., Monday, July 27
Tickets: $32, available here.

Friendship, Coming to the Chapel on Wednesday, Find Beauty in the Mundane

Photo Credit: Charlie Boss

Cheap beer and vodka in tiki cups. City buses and well-worn stoops. Choirs singing angelically at church.

Through the eyes of Dan Wriggins—the creative force behind the Philly alt-country act Friendship—all those elements of life are worth observing. From the sordid to the sublime, they are part of the continuum and spectrum that is daily existence. No minutiae is too granular or mundane to celebrate, and no phenomenon is too awe-inspiring to ignore in favor of blessed obeisance.

“I think songwriting has always been about profaning the sacred, but for me, the inverse has always been more interesting—to sanctify the profane,” said Wriggins. “Taking the garbage that we see all around and finding the strange beauty in it. It’s a way to remind yourself that there is beauty all around us. You don’t even have to search too hard to find it—it’s already there.”

Wriggins beautifully catalogs the commonplace wonders of existence in Friendship’s stellar 2025 album, “Caveman Wakes Up,” a startlingly emotional recollection of daily urban routine. On Wednesday night, Friendship will play selections from that album at the Chapel, with support from local heroes the Reds Pinks and Purples and Cindy.

While Wriggins appreciates the lesser splendors of the world, he’s insistent that he doesn’t walk around in a daze with rose-tinted glasses, glorifying all he sees.

“There's this quote of Mary Oliver that I love, which is, like, ‘this is the first, the wildest and the wisest thing I know—that the soul exists and is built entirely out of attentiveness,’” said Wriggins. “And I definitely aspire to that philosophy, but it’s certainly not all true for me. I feel like people think I have this wonderful observational quality, but a lot of the time it's just me spending hours and hours writing to find the right phrase. I do enjoy being mindful, but I haven’t found the secret to this perfect open perspective or anything.”

On “Caveman Wakes Up,” Wriggins makes most of his perceptive everyday diary inscriptions about his adopted hometown of Philadelphia.  The city’s dueling forces of urban grit and charm—at times inspiring and exasperating—are reflected in tracks like “Wildwood in January,” where Wriggins sings about “Nail gun sounds/Summer's gonna come around,” or in “Love Vape,” a song in which a touching moment of someone’s head resting on a shoulder is juxtaposed with a remark about a corner store having “the cheapest cigarettes on Earth.”

No song represents Wriggins ambivalent appreciation of Philadelphia more so than “Tree of Heaven,” a Kinks-like stroll through the city’s gloriously crumbling landscape. In his trademark howl—Wriggins warbled, wounded voice is truly a force of nature—he craggily belts out how “You know you changed me, babe,” a declaration that could be about a relationship, a job or a project, but most likely refers to the city he inhabits.

While the album is endearingly devoted to Philadelphia, Wriggins does manage to single out San Francisco—a city he’s admittedly not too familiar with—in the wonderfully wry “Betty Ford.” A chronicle equally about addiction as it is about life’s endless up-and-downs, “Betty Ford” starts off with Wriggins’ reminiscing about hearing “Mission in the Rain,” by the Jerry Garcia Band before ending with the hilarious/hilariously sad couplet, “I have been everyone/I've been so alone/In my tender loin/In my Lincoln bedroom.”

“I know very little about the Tenderloin—that song really started because I was listening to Jerry Garcia and I wanted to play on the idea of someone being on a Mission,” said Wriggins. “I’m aware that the neighborhood is a little run-down. And that song represents these two opposite feelings of despair and exultation—how we all contain those things. Like, I have the White House and the Tenderloin inside me—we are made up of many different parts.”

In addition to being an acclaimed songwriter—“Cavemen Wakes Up” was lauded in the press—Wriggins is also an accomplished poet. In 2024, he released his debut collection, “Prince of Grass,” which contained roughly 50 poems. While Wriggins songs contain the remnants of poetry, he said the two disciplines don’t typically bleed into one another.

“There is a lot more freedom with poetry, which helps me stay focused with my songwriting,” said Wriggins. “If you think about your desk and the computer being on it right now, could you write a song about that? Probably not an interesting one that anyone wants to hear. But you could write a poem that describes and details that scene in a way that’s compelling and interesting.”

While he might not imbue his own songs with that particular kind of craftwork, Wriggins has an unerring poets’ eye for finding the graceful symmetries of a wondrously hardscrabble existence. There is prose and poetry hidden everywhere in our daily encounters, and like Wriggins, we must look to uncover and celebrate both types, whenever we can.

Show Details:
Friendship with the Reds, Pinks and Purples and Cindy
Where: The Chapel
When: 8 p.m., Wednesday, July 22
Tickets: $27, available here.

“Residue,” The Newest Album From Yea-Ming and The Rumours, Is Their Best Yet

Yea-Ming Chen, Photo Credit: Cyrus Yoshi Tabar

While phonetically pleasing, the word “residue” has never prompted the most positive thought associations. It evokes images of stickiness and dustiness, a film of detritus and debris that refuses to be shaken off or discarded. 

Yes–residue might be an unwanted malingerer that is anchored to some hidden memory. But it can also signify growth and regeneration. Whatever was there prior has drifted away or been brought down, leaving only a thin reminder of its presence. 

Residue is stubbornly resilient, but it is also translucent and gossamer, an impediment that can be overcome. We might not be able to completely forget the residue of our past, but we can still move forward, knowing that each new layer and deposit adds an oddly rewarding complexity to our lives.

Although album titles rarely contain deep meanings, Yea-Ming Chen intentionally chose to name her latest release “Residue” to provide a glimpse into a record brimming with songs about renewal, recovery and rebirth. 

“The album title definitely has a deep meaning for me,” said Chen, who records as Yea-Ming and the Rumours. “In general, I always carry this sense of leftover-ness of past lives—a feeling that the past people I loved in my life are always present with me somehow. No matter how long it’s been since I’ve seen them or talked to them, their essence stays with you, their memories stay with you. They’re just there all the time.”

Released on June 12 via Dandy Boy Records, “Residue” is the finest album yet from Yea-Ming and the Rumours, a stirring collection of melancholic indie-rock, ambient pop and Americana tunes. Channeling the elegant, elongated vocal stylings of Nico, Chen manages to sound both dispassionate and self-righteous on the record, flitting between moments of broken-hearted woes and kiss-off recriminations. The album feels in many ways to be the creative culmination of Chen’s already impressive music catalog. 

A fixture of the local music scene for years, Chen first fronted the lo-fi, Sarah Records-indebted outfit Hawaiian Getaway, before moving on to Dreamdate, a pop-duo collaboration with Anna Hillburg. The debut Yea-Ming and the Rumours album, "I Will Make You Mine,” came out in 2016, and in addition to her solo work, Chen also plays in Ryli, a more upbeat alternative to the Rumours.

Trained in classical piano as a youngster, Chen has been devoted to music for essentially her entire life.

“I remember getting a keyboard as a little kid and from the moment I pressed the piano keys, I knew I wanted to do music forever,” said Chen. “When I entered high school, I really got into rock music and wanted to write songs. I had an English teacher who really encouraged my poetry, which gave me the confidence to pursue music further.”

Chen has long specialized in creating emotive, sincere songs. With the Rumours, she has opted to pair her heart-on-sleeve lyrics with a countryish sound reminiscent of acts like the Beachwood Sparks, Rilo Kiley, Camera Obscura and San Francisco’s own Girls. 

For “Residue,” that sonic structure has never felt more profound or effective. The album opener “Paper Doll,” is the perfect mission statement for record. With tearful slide guitars (played expertly by Chen’s longtime collaborator Eóin Galvin) set against an urgent rhythm section, the song is punctuated by Chen’s painfully blunt admissions of feeling used. Kicking off an album with a track that repeats the line, “I don’t want to be here,” is a bold choice, but Chen’s delightfully insouciant delivery gives the lyric an unexpectedly empowering vibe. It serves as a reminder that Chen might have suffered fools in the past, but she won’t any longer.

“I think most of my songs tend to be a little sappy or romantic or nostalgic,” said Chen. “And I am definitely all of those things. But there is also a part of me that’s, like, a fucking angry person. Sometimes I feel the need to kind of prove that, and I think ‘Paper Doll’ is an example of that.”

There are plenty of romantic moments on the album (the hazy, gorgeous dreampop number, “Uncommon Dreaming”) in addition to some sultry and steamy instances (the spacy, Frankie Rose-inflected “Sweet Opiate”), but “Residue” has plenty of defiant, raucous interludes as well.

Album highlight “Cold” is a powerful soft-loud-soft dynamo of a song, with a cascade of fuzzed-out guitars greeting Chen’s chorus of “It’s cold/in my bones,” a bracingly direct confession of the memories that can haunt oneself ceaselessly. Similarly, “Treasury of Loved Ones” returns to the theme of restless attachment. 

Again, it’s that idea of the residue—that ineffable ether that sticks around seemingly forever, no matter how far from our consciousness it may reside.

“I’ve always imagined this room in my head, with a box or a file cabinet,” said Chen. “And my grandmother is in one corner of the room in that file, and my ex-boyfriend from 10 years ago is in another corner in that box. It’s always been hard to vocalize or explain that feeling, other than through music.”

Next month, Chen will bring that room in her head out on tour, with the Rumours set for a three-date Pacific Northwest jaunt. She’ll return to the Bay Area for a September 12 show at the Little Hill Lounge in El Cerrito. 

These dates will be an opportunity to see one of the Bay Area’s most gifted and revered voices—a troubadour who proudly wears her past experiences on her sleeve. Chen understands that our creative tapestries are all just a little more interesting with a fine coat of residue sprinkled atop.

“Residue” is available for purchase on Bandcamp here.

Mosswood Meltdown, The Best Fest in the World, Coming Back to Oakland July 17 – 19

It’s long been the contention of this website that Mosswood Meltdown is the most outrageously fun time you can have at a music festival. 

The bands, the setting, and the overall vibes are so far removed from the typical festival experience. There is a wonderful irreverence to the scene that is such a breath of fresh air—there aren’t any corporate sponsors or eye-wateringly over-priced merch stands. It’s an experience for outsiders, a fact affirmed every year by the presence of host John Waters, the legendary B-movie auteur who is a living reminder that some art is just not for everyone.

Unsurprisingly, this year’s rendition of Mosswood Meltdown once again reaches those lofty standards. Headlining the two-day gathering, which takes place on July 18 and 19 in Mosswood Park in Oakland, is the chameleonic Iggy Pop, the beloved rock icon whose shapeshifting ways have always placed him on the cutting edge—or outer edge—of contemporary tastes. The other headliner is Bikini Kill, the legendarily defiant riot grrrl outfit who inspired an entire generation of followers and whose influence is still being felt today. 

And for the first time, Mosswood Meltdown will feature a pre-festival gathering on Friday, highlighted by slack rock trailblazers Pavement (maybe the greatest band of all time?) and the Vivian Girls, whose DIY sound helped define the Brooklyn indie rock scene of the early 2010s.

But what makes Mosswood Meltdown truly great is the host of utterly entertaining and offbeat acts that make up the festival’s supporting cast. These are the groups that play in their underwear or who have hilarious band names. And of course, there are acts like Peaches Christ, the nom-de-plume of longtime San Francisco mainstay Joshua Grannell.

No good time is complete without an appearance from Peaches Christ, Granell’s drag persona who is also an emcee, actor, performer and all around entertainer. On Sunday at Mosswood, Grannell will produce the Peaches Christ Punk Pride, a tour-de-force collection of drag performers belting out classic punk tunes to the backing of a live band.

Peaches Christ, photo credit: Jenna Gable

“These are drag performers, so they’re not classically trained vocalists or anything,” said Grannell. “But they will blow people’s minds. As soon as they get up there, everyone will think, ‘oh wow, these are rock stars!’ And of course, I’ll be up there doing my regular job bringing that crazy transgressive energy.”

Grannell said the group is still figuring out the set list, but Peaches can be counted on to perform “God Save The Queen,” by the Sex Pistols. (“I can’t ignore a song with god in the title, can I?”)

Grannell grew up in Washington D.C. and was a longtime admirer of Waters, whose hometown of Baltimore is right down Interstate 95. While he was studying film at Penn State, Grannell actually raised funds to have Waters visit the school for a speaking engagement and the two have been close friends since collaborating together on one of the Peaches Christ Midnight Mass parties. 

While Grannell said he’s thrilled to connect again with Waters, he said Mosswood Meltdown will also be an opportunity to reconnect with his punk roots, which helped sustain him during a rocky childhood.

“I loved Siouxsie and the Banshees growing up, and while there is a debate about whether they were post-punk or goth, the energy and passion from that project really got me into other punk bands,” said Grannell. “I loved the Ramones and the Sex Pistols and of course the Violent Femmes. The punk community really helped save me as a kid.”

Grannell recalls having a wonderful heart-to-heart conversation with Henry Rollins years ago and also had an equally inspiring talk with Joe Genaro of the Dead Milkmen, whom Grannell recalls as “incredibly sweet.”

In a nice bit of serendipity, Genaro (or Joe Jack Talcum as he goes by onstage) and the Dead Milkmen will also be performing at Mosswood Meltdown on Sunday. One of the more influential punk bands from the creatively fertile mid-80s period, the DNA of the Dead Milkmen is written all over Mosswood Meltdown.

A snotty, hilarious punk group from the Philly, the Dead Milkmen specialize in making catchy tunes laced with impudent commentary that’s never mean-spirited or spiteful. They’re cheeky and sassy and clearly more comfortable with the outcasts—a template that has been dutifully aped by countless other punk outfits, many of whom will be making appearances at Mosswood Meltdown.

The Dead Milkmen, photo credit: Matt Teacher

“It’s flattering to think that some of the bands playing at Mosswood were inspired by us, but I’m the worst person to ask about that,” said Genaro. “I don’t keep tabs on too many new bands. But I know that we were inspired by John Waters, so if some band got the same inspiration from us that we got from him, I guess that would be really special.” 

In many ways, it’s a minor miracle that the Dead Milkmen are playing at Mosswood Meltdown. After a spirited run through the 80s and the early 90s, the group broke up in 1994. They reunited to play at Austin’s Fun Fun Fun Fest in 2008, and after that triumphant gig, they decided to keep the band going, but only on their own terms.

“After that show, we had a meeting back in Philly, where we voted as a group to keep the band going, but only on the condition that we wrote and recorded new music and that we wouldn’t be going on any crazy world tours,” said Genaro. “We were too old for this to be our main gig, but we still enjoyed making music together.”

Genaro said the band still practices every Friday night (they all live outside of Philadelphia) and that they’re working on new material at the moment. Since reforming, the band has issued three albums, including 2023’s “Quaker City Quiet Pills.”

For a band whose identity is so closely aligned with Mosswood Meltdown, the Dead Milkmen have shockingly never played the event before, although not for a lack of outreach. Genaro said festival organizers have reached out in the past, but due to various band circumstances, they haven’t been able to play until this year.

“I think we’re all really excited to be finally playing this festival,” said Genaro. “From everything we ever heard or seen about Mosswood Meltdown, it should be a great time.”

Show Details:
Mosswood Meltdown
Where: Mosswood Park, Oakland
When: July 17 – 19
Tickets: Various prices, available here.

Broken Social Scene Bringing All The Feelings Tour To Masonic

Photo Credit: Norman Wong / Post Production by Jimmy Limit

Before there was Broken Social Scene—the expansive, beloved musical collective that encompasses numerous different Toronto bands and artists—there was KC Accidental.

A humble two-person outfit, KC Accidental was composed of Kevin Drew (the K) and Charles Spearin (the C) and the origin of that project can be traced back to an unlikely source of inspiration.

“Kevin and I were both in this vocational music school together but we didn't know each other at first,” said Spearin. “I guess he heard that I liked [the Chicago band] Tortoise, so he came up, introduced himself and said, ‘you look like a Tortoise fan.’ I mean, at the time, I think that band sold maybe 5,000 records, so I have no idea what a ‘Tortoise fan’ would look like, but hey, I guess the rest is history.”

Growing from the humble roots of a couple of post-rock loving Canadians, Broken Social Scene has bloomed into something truly beautiful and inspiring. An amorphous, ever-evolving commune that includes members from Stars, Feist, Metric, Do Make Say Think and others, Broken Social Scene represent the idea that bands can not only stay thrillingly relevant 25 years into their careers, but can do so by embracing friendship and mutual respect as their core tenets.

On Sunday and Monday nights, Broken Social Scene will be joined by two of their longtime Toronto cohorts—Stars and Metric—at the Masonic as part of the bands’ “All The Feelings Tour.” It will be an opportunity to witness again the communal love that underpins the band's connective tissues.

“I think the secret here is that just a little bit of effort,” said Spearin, who is also a founding member of Do Make Say Think. “At the center of it all is Kevin—he has this spider web of connections and friends, and he just makes sure that we all stay in contact and keep this friendship together. This tour idea was actually Metric’s but Kevin is kind of the gravitational center. He might not be the absolute brightest star in our constellation, but he holds us all together.”

For their shows at the Masonic, the band will be supporting “Remember the Humans,” an album with the most Broken Social Scene-sounding title imaginable. The group’s first release in nine years, it is another triumphantly endearing piece of maximalist art—a collection of ambitious baroque pop offerings that somehow feel both deeply intimate and grandly expansive.

There are love songs aplenty on the album—some traditional boy-girl laments, some paeans to friendship—and each track is imbued with the tenderness that has become a trademark for Broken Social Scene. Extended instrumental jams and moments of quiet reflection and interspersed with creative horn arrangements, adding a new wrinkle to the band’s famous post-rock experimentation. 

And as one could expect for such a sprawling collective with little to no ego involved, the song from “Remember the Humans” tended to evolve from collaborative, formless beginnings.

“There has always been this core group of us who get together and just play and play and play,” said Spearin. “We let our imaginations go and we don’t worry about making mistakes or remembering things. We put everything out there and sort of find a collective feeling over those few days. And then Kevin and I will go through all those recordings and put markers on all the interesting parts. We make sure to hold space in those parts for anyone who might contribute further, and that’s where the real song formations take place.”

In addition to those iterative creative processes, “Remember the Humans” was buoyed by a few unexpected contributions. Lisa Lobsinger, who last played with the group on 2010’s “Forgiveness Rock Record,” and Leslie Feist, the eponymous singer-songwriter who has been an occasional band member throughout the years, both reached out to Drew and Spearin with ideas for “Remember the Humans.” The results are starring moments from Lobsinger on “Relief” and Feist on “What Happens Now.”

“For the Feist song, the two of us just spent weeks and weeks hanging out in my little garage studio together,” said Spearin. “We were ostensibly there to work, but most of the time we were just about life. I think that’s such an important part of the process, and you can see it reflected in the lyrics of “What Happens Now,” which are very introspective. To me, those conversations we had were all part of the process.”

With such deep collaboration involved—both emotionally and creatively—Broken Social Scene albums can be long, labored efforts. That investment is a reason why the band releases albums somewhat infrequently (just six full length records over 25 years)—when so much is poured into each effort, it can be draining.

“The egolessness and the kind of compromise that happens in Broken Social Scene can be exhausting,” said Spearin. “We’re constantly letting go of our own personal vision in favor of the bigger group dynamic. So, we need to take breaks and do our own projects. Then, after a while we somehow all realize that we’re better together, so we get back and begin the process all over again. I think that’s been the key to keeping this thing going for all these years.”

Show Details:
Broken Social Scene with Metric and Stars
Where: The Masonic
When: 8 p.m., Sunday and Monday, June 21 and 22
Tickets: Starting at $77 for Sunday, available here. Starting at $52 for Monday, available here.

Spencer Krug’s Latest Album Unpacks the Mysteries and Mundanity of Songwriting

Photo credit: Simon Liem

There is simply no other songwriter like Spencer Krug.

Over his storied 25 year career—a tenure that has included numerous different projects, most notably Wolf Parade and Sunset Rubdown—the Canadian musician has evoked a uniquely distinct landscape of characters, stories and narratives. 

Whether referencing fantastical phantoms, dangerous monsters and mythical tales, or analyzing personal doubts and aspirations, the cerebral singer and keyboardist has managed to deliver his messages in a way unmatched by any peer. He is brainy, clever and inventive, but not high-minded to sprinkle in the occasional curse word or get uncomfortably real in his vivid descriptions.

Being one of the most gifted lyricists of his generation only makes it natural that he’s now devoted an album to the craft of songwriting—a meta, self-referential examination that picks apart and dissects his various approaches to the art of making music. With his latest release, “Same Fangs,” Krug has reaffirmed his place among the pantheon of legitimate indie rock geniuses while documenting the creative process in his own wonderfully inscrutable manner.

“I’m usually the first to be like—don’t write songs about songwriting,” said Krug. “But I cut myself a little slack in that department for this album. A lot of what is going on in my head right now is me questioning what it's like to write songs at this stage of life. I’m a 49-year-old who lives in Canada with his wife and kid in a house. I would feel like a bit of a poseur if I was writing songs filled with rage. These are more like journal entries of day-to-day life, and one thing I think about a lot in my daily life is writing songs.”

“Same Fangs” is a dizzying, byzantine work, with songs referencing other songs that weren’t written or were partially written or were abandoned altogether. The tone for the album is established from the onset, with the first track, “Get to Live,” including snippets of voice memos Krug sent to himself, offering a glimpse into how he crafts and shapes his inventions.

“It was very intentional starting the album off with that song,” said Krug. “I mean, this album gets pretty meta, right? It kind of nods to itself and there’s plenty of other songs on this record and it breaks the fourth wall. So, I wanted to start right off the bat with me working through that process—to acknowledge the self-referential nature of the album.”

The lead single off the album, “Timebomb,” follows in that same vein. Featuring a heavily-distorted piano—a cool new wrinkle for Krug—the song tracks Krug’s attempt to write a song called “Listening to Music in Cars,” which, he notes, was abandoned in favor of “Timebomb.” 

The self-referencing reaches its apex with “Listening to Music in Cars 2.5 (All The Tired Horses),” which not only chronicles “Timebomb” and the earlier version of “Listening to Music…” but also references Sunset Rubdown tours and songs and talks about incorporating the Bob Dylan classic into the track as it plays (catch all that?)

“That original song—'Listening to Music in Cars’—does still exist, it’s just bad,” said Krug. “These songs are really just another way to explore the kind of absurd nature of being a middle-aged person working in this industry. They’re about the complicated nature of being in a band, and how tours can go south and how those experiences become part of the songs.”

Always a prolific songwriter, Krug has been regularly sharing songs with his Patreon followers for the past several years, and “Same Fangs” is an assemblage of tracks he wrote mostly in 2024 and 2025. Even though the songs weren’t created for a specific album in mind, there is a clear narrative throughout, adding an obvious cohesiveness to the record. 

While it could be easy to dismiss an album with so many insidery allusions, Krug is sonically incapable of making a dull record. Buoyed by elaborate piano pieces, the album also features string flourishes, inventive sonic arrangements, and flowery vocal duets with the Canadian artist Elbow Kiss. And Krug’s voice—while not quite as animated and yelpy as in past efforts—is still a wholly one-of-a-kind instrument. It’s a reminder that Krug has never hewed to convention—while some songs in his back catalog have the forcefulness and immediacy of great pop tracks, accessibility has never been a top priority of his.

That’s all the more apt to consider, given the current newfound attention paid to Krug and Wolf Parade. The past year has been fairly seismic for the indie rock legends, with “I’ll Believe in Anything” turning into a viral hit, thanks to its prominent placement in the uber-popular Netflix series, “Heated Rivalry.” 

Now back in the zeitgeist, Wolf Parade—and Krug—are seeing a deservedly renewed interest. Initially, Krug said that there was a little noticeable difference for himself, outside of online chat, but now both he and Wolf Parade are getting more and more offers to play live shows, Unfortunately, due to some issues with the band’s work Visas, they won’t be going on any significant US jaunts until next year (Wolf Parade has only one scheduled American show—this November in Seattle.)

For longtime fans, the widespread adoration of “I’ll Believe in Anything”—a legitimate contender for best song of all time—was long overdue and much appreciated. Krug could have made a career out of replicating that titanic anthem, but he’s never seemed too interested in going down the same trodden path he’s explored before. From Sunset Rubdown to Moonface to Swan Lake to his solo material, Krug’s work has been defined by fearlessness and intense interest in exploring new territories and pushing boundaries ever further.

Which, again, makes him the ideal candidate to write an album about writing. “Same Fangs” is a testament to the artists and musicians who are averse to compromise and conformity. It’s also a paean to those who realize that the craftsmanship or art will always be a continual work in progress.

“I’ll admit that lyrics get harder to write, the songs don’t come to me as easily as they used to,” said Krug. “I still feel pretty blessed that I manage somehow to do this for a living. I care about the things I sing about it—I have to be sincere with myself—and I think I still have things to say.” 

A digital version of “Same Fangs” is available for purchase on Bandcamp here.

To become a Spencer Krug Patreon member, visit here.

Total Accord Fest Returning For Second Gathering Next Week

Total Accord Fest—a multi-week music gathering featuring a stacked collection of great local bands playing in iconic music clubs and venues throughout San Francisco—will return for its second rendition next week.

Hosted by Total Accord Agency, an artist booking and management outfit focusing exclusively on Bay Area talent, the festival will run from June 3 – 20, highlighted by headlining performers The Seshen and Brijean. 

The lineup is a ridiculously great collection of local favorites, including Al Harper, Marika Christine, Anna Hillburg, Mild Universe, Yea-Ming and the Rumors, Elujay, Outer Sunset and Silverware. The acts performing at Total Accord Fest represent a dizzying array of sounds, including neo-soul, psych-pop, indie rock, Americana, janglepop and electronica. The program was designed to be as diverse as possible, said Tyla Jones, founder of Total Accord.

“We want to reflect that the Bay Area is a melting pot of all different types of people,” said Jones. “We’re not trying to represent just one scene or one sound as an agency—that’s why the festival lineup looks the way it does.”

The event will launch next Wednesday with a festival kickoff party at Bottom of the Hill, San Francisco’s most venerable music venue. That show will feature For Horses, Outer Sunset and Davia Schendel. 

Over the next two-plus weeks, the fest will shift around a litany of beloved local clubs, including El Rio, the Independent, 4 Star Theater, Café du Nord and Kilowatt, among others.  The Seshen headlining show will happen on June 7 at the 4 Star Theater and the Brijean show will take place on June 11 at the Rickshaw Stop. 

Nearly all the acts performing at Total Accord Fest are signed with the talent management company, a reflection of the agency’s growing resonance within the local music ecosystem. 

A Bay Area native, Jones spent her adolescence attending live shows throughout the region. She moved to San Francisco in 2005 and began a side career as DJ Tylawave, immersing herself in the local scene by spinning vinyl and opening for the likes of Thee Sacred Souls, Os Mutantes, LA Witch and Fantastic Negrito.

While working mainly in the nonprofit sector for most of her time in the city, Jones stayed deeply involved with music, and eventually she took on talent booking roles for the Chapel and El Rio. Buoyed from that experience and encouraged by the likes of musician pals such as Galine Tumasyan, Jones launched Total Accord Agency in 2024.

“There was a moment after I left the Chapel that I started with a small boutique agency based in LA, where I kind of learned the ropes of booking and management, and it really caught on locally here,” said Jones. “Friends started asking me questions about routing tours and that kind of stuff. That’s when I realized I could just do this on my own—to start something where I just basically work with my friends on this.”

Since Jones founded the agency two years ago, Total Accord’s roster has exploded—with the total number of acts tripling in size. Last year’s Total Accord Fest was much smaller in scale, making the logistics and planning for the 2026 version more complicated, Jones said. Because of the work needed to carry out an operation of this kind, Jones said that Total Accord Fest probably won’t be an annual event.

“I really want to focus on our mission, which is to be a booking agency and talent management company—not a promoter,” said Jones. “We want to make these kinds of showcases really special, so when the time is right, we’ll make it happen.”

That limited edition feature of Total Accord Fest makes this year’s gathering all the more special. In addition to uplifting dozens of Bay Area artists, Total Accord is also partnering with local mainstays White Crate and BFF.fm to stage the festival, making it a truly unique and special event for the community. Local artist Michael Bridgmon—also known asJames Wavey—managed artwork for the fest, as well.

“When I started Total Accord, I wanted to combine my love of music with my background in community organizing,” said Jones. “Having a strong mission statement of what we believe in—zero discrimination of any kind, for example—was such a key element of the agency. I’m being true to who I am, and it’s amazing to see people respond to that. We don’t want to think of ourselves as just an agency—we want to be a part of a community with like-minded values. And I think this festival represents that vision.”

Show Details:
Total Accord Fest:
Where: Venues throughout San Francisco
When: June 3 – June 20
Tickets: Available for purchase at participating venues
More details: www.totalaccordagency.com

Broncho Celebrating a Decade of “Double Vanity” at the Independent

Photo Credit: Broncho

Journeying through Broncho’s back catalog makes for a dizzying, thrilling experience. With the band’s chameleonic, ever-shifting sounds, one could be forgiven for mistaking Broncho’s five album discography as the product of five different bands. 

Ranging from scuzzed-out garage rock to slinky glam pop to propulsive new wave and moody atmospheric art rock, the Broncho oeuvre is one that’s impossible to pin down. Broncho frontman and chief songwriter Ryan Lindsey said the band never tried to intentionally create different sounding albums—they just always played what felt natural to them at the time. But he conceded that the end results make for an eclectic catalog.

“It’s funny to go back and listen to all our albums now, because I do realize how diverse sounding we are,” said Lindsey. “Maybe on a subconscious level, we were trying to make a sound that contrasted with the prior album, but there wasn’t like a master vision there. But I like how diverse we are—it feels like all these different lives we’ve lived. We can be several different versions of ourselves, but still have the same underlying spirit.”

For Broncho’s latest stretch of shows, the band is digging into their third album, “Double Vanity,” a reverb-laden, garage rock masterpiece. Last year, the Oklahoma-based outfit toured extensively in support of their newest release, “Natural Pleasure,” and because they enjoyed that jaunt so much, they decided to extend their live playing schedule. This year happened to coincide with the 10 year anniversary of “Double Vanity,” so Lindsey and company thought it would be fun to play that album in full, which they’ll do on Monday night at the Independent.

“It’s been a blast playing these songs again,” said Lindsey. “It was hard for me to relax when we first toured this record, because I was so focused on everything sounding right. ‘Double Vanity’ is a challenging album to play live, based on how we recorded it. It was almost like I was in a blackout moment when I played those songs 10 years ago. Now, it’s a lot easier for me to just have fun and play these songs. Time does good things sometimes.”

Broncho first gained fame when Lena Dunham placed the band’s punk manifesto, “It’s On,” on her hit HBO show, “Girls.” The band increased their profile even more with the release of their second album, “Just Enough Hip to Be Woman,” powered by their skittery new wave number, “Class Historian,” one of the undeniably best songs of 2014.

The group could have just xeroxed the template for “Class Historian” for the rest of their career, but they took a daring left turn with “Double Vanity.” Dense, heavy and dark, “Double Vanity” took its cue from the psychedelic garage rock sounds of 13th Floor Elevators and the glam gauziness of outfits such as T. Rex. 

While there are plenty of classic cuts on the record, it was a more challenging and less accessible listen than their prior efforts. Still, it has a formidable place in the band’s discography, cementing their reputation as fearless risk-takers.

“We had that record finished and for some reason, it just didn’t feel right,” said Lindsey. “We just threw everything into the reverb chamber—with those slower paced songs, it just felt natural to do that. But that meant those songs ended up taking on a lot of space—they had a lot going on.”

Although the album represented a challenging shift, it remains a fan favorite for Broncho backers. Songs like “Fantasy Boys,” “Jenny Loves Jenae” and “Senora Borealis” have been live staples since the release of the “Double Vanity.”

The songs from “Double Vanity” also offer an intriguing contrast to the cuts from “Natural Pleasures,” the band’s 2025 release. During the “Decade of Double Vanity” tour, Broncho have played songs from that album as well, and those tracks are airy, atmospheric and bright, providing an exciting juxtaposition for crowd-goers

For Lindsey, the opportunity to play both old and new songs live has offered him a moment to do something he rarely does—reflect on the longevity and success of Broncho.

“Looking back, having these conversations, it’s almost like therapy for me,” said Lindsey. “I’m always focused on what’s next—on moving forward. So, it’s been nice to go back to the beginning and appreciate what we’ve done.”

Show Details:
Broncho
Where: The Independent
When: 8 p.m., Monday, May 18
Tickets: $42, available here.

British Post-Rockers caroline Coming to Great American Music Hall

Photo Credit: Henry Redcliff

Listening to the music of the eight-piece British art collective caroline (stylized with a lowercase c) is like hearing a love-crossed conversation between two distant travelers. The vocals come at you from all directions, sounding cavernous, pleading and desperate to be heard. 

The effect creates a distinct presence of space and geography—this yearning feeling that if one of the participants was only just a little bit closer, a little less removed, then that sense of unrequitedness would evaporate. Yet those distances remain, adding to the beautifully forlorn and fated undertone to the songs.

That persistent mood of satisfaction being just beyond the fingertips is not some accident, as the songwriters behind caroline—whose 2025 release, “caroline 2” was one of the best albums of the year—intentionally sought to create a dialogue of sorts within their tracks. No where is that approach more evident than the haunting, “Two Riders Down,” a ghostly, stirring epic from the second half of “caroline 2.”

“We wanted that song to be this really strong contrast between the first half and the second,” said Jasper Llewellyn, the band’s founding member. “We actually first recorded that song in a church, and we assigned the drums to one speaker and the vocals to another speaker and the guitar to another speaker. The idea was to spatialize the recording—to make everything sound distant and removed.”

The band actually ditched the original demo of that effort, but the original intent remained in their final product, which was recorded back in a studio awash with reverb. Like so many of the other songs on “caroline 2,” “Two Riders Down” is a testament to the grand ambitions of the band’s creative process—one that recalls early aughts acts like Broken Social Scene and Arcade Fire. The band’s inventive and eclectic song structures evoke Midwestern emo outfits such as American Football and Cap’n Jazz and their comfort with yawning negative space is reminiscent of post-rock groups like Slint and Talk Talk.

On May 18, caroline will bring their big-tent ensemble to the Great American Music Hall for the group’s first ever performance in San Francisco.

“We are incredibly buzzed about playing in San Francisco,” said multi-instrumentalist Casper Hughes. “For some reason, my main cultural references to the city are from ‘The Princess Diaries.’ So yeah, I’m definitely looking forward to making new memories now.”

Fans who make it to the Great American Music Hall will be in for a cathartic, emotionally rewarding experience. “caroline 2” plays out like a journey, a travelogue detailing the challenges of reaching genuine human connection and finding hope in a fractured society. 

From the opening track, “Total Euphoria,” where the narrator asks “Did we ever talk about /  How you left them?” to the album closer, the aptly titled “Beautiful Ending,” which is marked by more questions—"Did you recognize it? / I'm halfway off my island,” “caroline 2” is filled with the kind of existential riddles that permeate modern life.

But this is not a cynical album. Despite the chasms that appear in the song structures, there are persistent feelings of optimism, a gritty determinism that invokes hope against all odds. That sentiment is captured so eloquently in the band’s most famous song, “Tell Me I Never Knew That,” where guest vocalist Caroline Polachek mournfully and defiantly sings, “I don't even know if I'm alive / But I don't wanna be somebody else.”

Polachek, who started off as a vocalist for one-time indie rock darlings Chairlift, is now a legitimate pop star, making her appearance on “caroline 2” as a big-time coup for the band.

“We actually heard that she was a fan of the band, and so when we wrote that vocal line, we thought it would sound good in her voice,” said Llewellyn. “So, we just sent her an early demo of the songs to see if she was up for doing something and she said yes. We were really nervous to send her something, but she ended up making what was perhaps the weakest song on the album into one of the best. That’s how talented she is.”

While Polachek’s vocal performances are a highlight of the album, her contributions end up blending seamlessly into the rest of “caroline 2”—they aren’t some strange outlier. That can be attributed in large part to the band’s distinctly democratic vibe, an egalitarian, measured outlook that is grounded in genuine affection for one another. While caroline started out as a trio in 2017, the group’s ever-expanding roster has required the band to be intentional and understanding in how they work with one another.

“This band has always been based on the existing and interconnected web of relationships and friendships between us,” said Hughes. “And I think to maintain those kinds of relationships takes effort—especially under the conditions of touring together and making music together in one room. And I think that’s one of the things I’m most proud of when it comes to this band—is how purposeful we’ve been in maintaining those relationships.”

While never overt in “caroline 2,” that commitment to one another can be seen as the ultimate  moral compass for the album. It’s reflected in those long and distant, back-and-forth exchanges that occur throughout the record. 

Yes, those talks are strained and arduous—difficult to hear over the canyons of time, space and distance. But they are happening, nonetheless. Despite everything, caroline is keeping the conversation going.

Show Details:
caroline with Joshua Chuquimia Crampton
Where: Great American Music Hall
When: 8 p.m., Monday, May 18
Tickets: $34, available here.