Oakland prog rock four-piece Queen Crescent doesn’t care much about satisfying patriarchal social norms. Musicians Amy Martinez, Andrea Genevieve, Melissa Vu, and Eden Savage — all of whom are women of color, and some of whom are queer — began playing together around three and half years ago. And while prog rock and psych rock are known in the United States and United Kingdom as the domains of nerdy white dudes, the four bandmates take inspiration from subcultures in countries such as Cambodia, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Mexico, where rock ‘n’ roll has historically been used as a form of resistance.

“We can’t just talk about getting fucked up, or going on tour and drinking whiskey, or whatever else bands talk about, because of our experiences as women of color, and as queer women,” said Martinez, the band’s drummer, during a recent interview in Queen Crescent’s practice space at Oakland Music Complex, a West Oakland warehouse. “We experience a lot of racism, and a lot of sexism, and a lot of homophobia,” she continued. “Even if it’s not directed at us … stuff like that that happens in our community affects us, too. So it’s like, we don’t have the privilege to speak about bullshit.”

Martinez is one of the organizers of San Francisco’s popular, soul music-themed queer party Hard French, and she spins vinyl under the stage name Brown Amy. Although she’s considerably popular in the Bay Area’s queer scene as a DJ and promoter, she’s also been drumming since the age of four. A few years ago, when she traveled to Portland for a DJ gig, she connected with Genevieve, who was living in Portland at the time and had plans to move to the Bay Area.

After Genevieve relocated to Oakland, the duo began jamming and eventually decided to start Queen Crescent. They recruited bassist Savage and flutist Vu to join the band, and Queen Crescent hit the ground running. Genevieve had friends in Mexico City and the bandmates made a spur-of-the-moment decision to perform there despite the fact that they had only recently begun playing together. Soon enough, they found themselves on an international tour.

“We had been a band for maybe eight months, and we went down there and [promoters] would be like ‘You’re headlining!’ And we’d be like, ‘What?!'” said Genevieve.

“Our shows would be at midnight but they’d have us show up at seven and give us shots,” added Martinez. “We were fucked up! We also were randomly on this TV show. It was wild.”

The members of Queen Crescent returned to Oakland excited to get back to work, and their self-titled, debut album, which came out a year ago, sees the band homing in on a sound that combines elements of hard rock from the Seventies (Genevieve cited Black Sabbath as a major influence, which is apparent in her hypnotic, dark guitar riffs) with bright, melodic vocals, sprightly flute, and a booming rhythm section.

The flute, in particular, is a key element of Queen Crescent’s sound. On Queen Crescent, Vu’s graceful playing accents the galloping rhythms that Genevieve and Pela weave together with bass and guitar, which often create action-packed riffs in tandem. Because it’s in a similar register, the flute often sounds like an auxiliary to Genevieve’s voice. Her direct delivery has the intensity of a call to arms, and her soaring timbre often evokes the sturdy-yet-resonant voice of Heart’s Ann Wilson.

A hallmark of Queen Crescent’s sound is its focus on elaborate, highly skilled instrumentation — a feature of prog rock that has earned the genre a reputation for self-seriousness. And though the band’s members certainly flaunt their ostentatious, high-voltage playing — with guitar solos, flute solos, vocal harmonies, and thunderous percussion stacked within each track — they also have a sense of humor that makes their music accessible despite its dense compositions and underlying sociopolitical themes.

For instance, Queen Crescent contains the songs “I Wish a Muthafucka Would” and “Majic Moonjynuh” in addition to ones with more sober titles such as “Ancestors.” In fact, when I asked about the moon reference in the band’s name, Savage joked that they almost called themselves Majic Moonjynuh because of a black-lit mural of a moon at their first practice space (and the moon as a feminine archetype, of course). Though the bandmates thought better of it, their work does occasionally showcase their offbeat, irreverent sense of humor.

When Savage brought up their former practice space, Genevieve and Martinez began sharing anecdotes from Queen Crescent’s early days. When the bandmates were writing the tracks for Queen Crescent, they found themselves in a feud with their neighbor — who, apparently, was a co-creator of the Spongebob Squarepants theme song.

“He’d be like, ‘Shut the fuck up.’ And we’d be like, ‘Fuck you,’ at like 3 p.m.,” laughed Martinez. “The last week we were there, I was praying to start my period so I could put some bloody tampons in front of his door. But I didn’t, so it sucked.”

It’s apparent that OMC is a better-suited home for the quartet. During our conversation, several neighboring punk bands’ rehearsals drifted in through the walls. Genevieve and Martinez reclined on the couch, and Savage sparked up a joint (Vu wasn’t able to join us). The bandmates discussed new tracks they’ve been performing that they want to put out as an EP before they begin developing their next full-length record, which they said will be a concept album — though, because it’s in its nascent stages, they wouldn’t share the theme.

“I’m hoping we find a space for five days and take a bunch of mushrooms and take all our equipment somewhere and get super fucked up and write a concept album,” said Martinez.

“Yeah, get weird in the woods and record everything we do,” added Genevieve. “And then listen back after that weekend, or however long, and extract songs from that.”

Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that Queen Crescent’s former bassist Eni Loicy Pela is still in the band when the bassist is now Eden Savage.

In 1970, sixteen-year-old David M. Mayeri landed a job working for Bill Graham Presents at the Berkeley Community Theatre. “I got paid ten bucks cash to unload the trucks, set the stage, usher the show, tear down the stage, repack the truck,” said Mayeri. “For me, it was transformative. When I left Bill Graham Presents 35 years later, I left as the company’s chief operating officer.”

Today, Mayeri is the president of the Berkeley Music Group, the nonprofit he founded to renovate and run the long-shuttered UC Theatre Taube Family Music Hall (2036 University Ave., Berkeley). Along with transforming the dilapidated movie theater into a gorgeous concert hall, he also plans to turn it into a classroom. Through the nonprofit’s education program, Concert Career Pathways, Mayeri hopes to give young people a jump-start in the music business.

After sitting empty for fifteen years, the 99-year-old theater is reopening with an inaugural concert on Friday, March 25, with venerable quirk-rockers They Might Be Giants. The venue, which can accommodate up to 1,400 general admission attendees or 700 guests for seated shows, plans to host a variety of performances, including symphony, opera, jazz, and comedy, as well as a range of rock, electronic, and hip-hop acts. The theater’s upcoming concerts offer plenty of opportunities for interns to learn about working in the music industry — from how to budget and market a show to lighting design and sound engineering.

Under the guidance of education director Robyn Bykofsky, the theater’s Youth Advisory Board (YAB) is developing the education program in tandem with the building’s renovation. The board is made up of ten 17- to 25-year-olds (the same age range as the future interns) who are taking pilot workshops and providing feedback on the curriculum. An education committee comprised of several youth development organizations is also assisting with the curriculum and student outreach. Those nonprofits include Richmond’s RYSE youth center, which holds classes on hip-hop writing and beat production, and Youth UpRising in Oakland, which offers instruction in studio recording and engineering, as well as radio and club DJing.

When the Concert Career Pathways program officially launches in July, UC Theatre staff and other industry professionals will teach students key technical, creative, and business aspects of concert and event promotion through a series of six workshops. Students who advance beyond the workshops can move into paid internships, where they’ll gain hands-on experience working alongside staff at fifteen to twenty shows. In the beginning, participants will rotate from department to department. During the second half of the internship, they’ll settle into the area that interests them the most. After completing the full six-month program, interns will receive help finding jobs or advanced internships at Bay Area performing arts and music venues.

“A lot of young people want to be a part of the music industry, but they don’t know what it even takes. This program is teaching that,” said YAB member Shakeea Smith, a 23-year-old student at Laney College who also works as an enrichment coordinator at Youth UpRising. Although Smith hasn’t given up on her own ambitions to make it as a performer (she sings gospel, R&B, and reggae and also raps), the marketing workshop stuck with her, and she’s discovered that music promotion gives her “an adrenaline rush.”

Twenty-two-year-old Maleik Carter joined YAB to learn as much as possible about the industry. Along with being a multi-instrumentalist and rapper, Carter organizes and promotes events with his sister Jada Imani as Tatu Vision. “Maybe I’ll end up in promotion. Maybe people will love my raps and I’ll be famous off that. Who knows? I just want to keep my options open and gain as many skills as I can.

“The thing I really love about music, though, is that it builds community,” continued Carter. “It allows people to connect … and open their minds to new ideas. I want to create spaces for that to happen. I think that we need bigger changes than just making music, but I think that keeping people motivated to build better systems takes music and it takes art.”

Mayeri echoed Carter’s feelings about the invigorating power of a live performance. “There’s something special that happens between the artist and the audience that just kind of fills you with life,” he said. “Bill was a great teacher. … We worked sixteen hours a day, maybe twenty, thirty days in a row, and we loved every minute of it.”

If all goes according to plan, come December, a crop of new, perhaps slightly sleep-deprived, music industry hopefuls will walk out of the UC Theatre’s refurbished doors prepared to create some concert magic.