THURSDAY, JUNE 26
BALKAN
DRÓMENO
What’s better than a Greek family band? Not much! Combining the Govetas family with Nick Maroussis, Drómeno brings the Balkans to the Americas with their traditional sounds from the mountains. Their music conjures its ancestral lands, rolling hills, green fields and crystal-clear blue waters. It might be a surprise to learn they come from … Seattle?!? But don’t think Drómeno is a bunch of posers. In fact, band leader and clarinetist Christos Govetas’ earliest memories are from Northern Greece’s Serres region. Check out their 2023 album, Music From Epirus, to hear what all the rage is about. – MAT WEIR
INFO: Thu, 8:30pm, Ashkenaz Music & Dance Community Center, 1317 San Pablo Ave., Berkeley. $20-$25. 510.525.5099.
FRIDAY, JUNE 27
SINGER-SONGWRITER
KING ISIS
Oakland’s King Isis identifies proudly as a “punk rock fairy” who writes music for “faes and freaks.” The description is apt: Hints of mischief and mystery weave in and out of her otherwise heartfelt, grungy alt-pop style. In songs like “Dissonance,” she blends R&B inspiration with empowering lyricism, singing the refrain, “I’m in love with dissonance / She makes me feel / She makes me heal.” The rising artist has had a big year, recording a Spotify Singles version of “Flower Boy” in August 2024, hitting SXSW and releasing her third EP, Sirenity, this month. She’ll take the museum’s Garden Stage to celebrate Pride Month. – ADDIE MAHMASSANI
INFO: Fri, 7pm, OMCA, 1000 Oak St., Oakland. Free. 510.318.8400.
FRIDAY, JUNE 27
JAZZ
JUDY WEXLER
Los Angeles jazz vocalist Judy Wexler possesses a subtle, petite voice that she wields to big effect. Over the years she’s honed a scintillating repertoire distinguished by songs collected far outside the pages of the Great American Songbook, often showcasing work by fellow vocalists. She returns to the Sound Room with her primary accompanist and arranger, pianist Jeff Colella, and an ace Bay Area rhythm section tandem of bassist Doug Miller and drummer Sylvia Cuenca. She’s focusing on material from her seventh album, No Wonder, which takes its name from the opening track by brilliant Brazilian vocalist Luciana Souza. For anyone looking for smart jazz vocals telling unfamiliar stories, Wexler is the woman. – ANDREW GILBERT
INFO: Fri, 7:30pm, Sound Room, 3022 Broadway, Oakland. $25. 510.708.9691.
SATURDAY, JUNE 28
ROCK
PLANNING FOR BURIAL
Thom Wasluck started his solo music project, Planning For Burial, 20 years ago after losing his grandmother and witnessing his grandfather begin preparations for his own death. As such, his distinctive blend of shoegaze, slowcore and doom metal has never shied away from dark subject material. After a long wait, he’s back with the album It’s Closeness, It’s Easy, which takes on some of the more subtle, slow-motion kinds of emotion one faces in middle-age. In his recent Pitchfork review, Colin Joyce attests, “On It’s Closeness, It’s Easy, more than on Wasluck’s past records, optimism and anxiety are braided together.” – AM
INFO: Sat, 9pm, Eli’s Mile High Club, 3629 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Oakland. $20/adv, $25/door. 510.808.7565.
SATURDAY, JUNE 28
PUNK
45 GRAVE
45 Grave emerged from the shadows of ’80s Los Angeles, bringing gothic rock to America with a grin full of fangs. Fronted by the magnetic Dinah Cancer, the band stitches horror-punk, surf and goth into something campy, chaotic and cheeky. Their cult-classic album Sleep in Safety is a haunted house of reverb-drenched riffs and cemetery wails, where B-movie theatrics meet real punk menace. Macabre and mischievous, 45 Grave helped invent the soundtrack for the undead, and they’re still howling through multiple decades and lineups. This isn’t a comeback, it’s a resurrection. – SONYA BENNETT-BRANDT
INFO: Sat, 8:30pm, Ivy Room, 860 San Pablo Ave., Albany. $26. 510.526.5888.
SATURDAY, JUNE 28
COMEDY
RACHEL SCANLON
Scanlon is polite, plays dyke pinball, rattles cages and carabiners, and co-hosts the podcast and nationally touring live show, Two Dykes and a Mic. Embarked on a rapidly selling-out tour following the 2024 release of her nearly notorious one-hour special, Gay Fantasy, Crybaby plays host to a hilarious night with the L.A.-based, queer comedian. Like an infusion of high-voltage, be-who-you-are energy, the space for queers and their allies is chiseled, cheeky and chock full of fun. Scanlon is anything but shy, so check the setting on the sensibility meter, loosen it and enter, knowing the greatest risk is laughing so often and so hard a seam splits. – LOU FANCHER
INFO: Sat, 7:30pm, CryBaby, 1928 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. $45.
SUNDAY, JUNE 29
ROCK
PRIDE 2025 CONCERT
Attending a show celebrating the LGBTQ+ and—mostly—Black musicians who identify as women, nonbinary, trans, queer or gender fluid in 2025 is revolutionary. This year’s Pride Concert, while radical due to the cultural climate, couldn’t be called a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, except that it can. Why? Because it’s no stretch to say this combination of top-tier Bay Area artists will ever again appear in one night on the same stage. The indomitable vocalist/multi-instrumentalist/composer Vicki Randle has curated a roster that includes Linda Tillery, Valerie Troutt, Pangaea Colter, B DeVeaux, Genesis Fermin, Diana Alvarez, Black Gold Sun and Tribe 8. Strike up the revolution. Be radical. See and be seen. – LF
INFO: Sun, 7pm, The Freight, 2020 Addison St., Berkeley. $25-$43. 510.644.2020.
SUNDAY, JUNE 29
JAZZ
THE ZEN OF GLENN: THE GLENN HORIUCHI PROJECT
Bay Area pianist, composer and activist Glenn Horiuchi (1955-2000) was a prime mover in the Asian-American jazz movement of the 1980s and ’90s, creating historically informed work that incorporated traditional Japanese forms and instrumentation. A cast of musicians has revived his music over the past two years. The Zen of Glenn includes tenor saxophonist Francis Wong, an early Horiuchi collaborator and co-founder of the Asian Improv label that released most of his early albums. This afternoon’s concert also features Berkeley pianist, flutist and composer Erika Oba; vocalist Helen Palma; drummer Carrie Jahde; and bassist/composer Chris Trinidad. – AG
INFO: Sun, 3pm, Oaktown Jazz Workshops, 55 Washington St., Oakland. $20. 510.649.1785.
SUNDAY, JUNE 29
ELECTROPOP
VALGUR
This brother-and-sister duo, Elizabeth and Hugo Valdivieso, hail from Oaxaca and proudly embrace their Mexican culture throughout their music. It’s a catchy but chaotic mix of electropop that flows through dreamwave to hyperpop. Despite sounding sugary on the outside, its deep, chewy center asks to be bitten into. After all, how many other pop bands would make a song like “Hijos de Caos,” which touches on Jungian themes of needing pain to awaken consciousness. Joining them are Tricky FM, 55 Castles and Skoto delivering the night with a soundtrack of futuristic pop to listen to at the end of the world. – MW
INFO: Sun, 8pm, Thee Stork Club, 2330 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. $12/adv, $15/door. 510.859.8709.
TUESDAY, JULY 1
PUNK
PEGBOY
Pegboy came out of Chicago with rustbelt fists and punk hearts, fueled by working-class grit. Their sound is an early ’90s blunt-force hybrid: melodic enough to hum, mean enough to bruise. Anchored by Larry Damore’s gravel growl and John Haggerty’s surgical guitar attack, they deliver no-frills, gut-punch songs. Pegboy never chased scenes or softened edges, so 30 years on they’re staying loud, raw and real, still giving that sweaty basement floor terror. – SBB
INFO: Tue, 7pm, 924 Gilman St., Berkeley. $20-$25. 510.524.8180.
