THU 9/17
ROCK
ROLLING QUARTZ
There’s that old adage: If you can’t beat your enemies, join them. It’s one Rolling Quartz understands very well. Formed in 2019, this South Korean, all-woman rock band is the combination of two previous groups, Rolling Girlz and Rose Quartz. Not that they were necessarily enemies, but the ladies realized the power in numbers and never looked back. Of course right after they formed, the Covid pandemic hit, making the women pivot once more to build a large online presence. Two years later they became the first Korean indie band to make it into the Top 5 album charts on iTunes with their debut EP, Fighting. – Mat Weir
INFO: Thu, 7pm, Crybaby, 1928 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. $37-$247.
THU 9/17
COMEDY
HONEY PLUTON & SPIKE EINBINDER
Honey Pluton and Spike Einbinder make comedy that lands somewhere between stand-up and an especially strange late-night conversation. Pluton is a theatrical comedian whose work draws on queer experience, religious imagery, absurdity and a taste for the transgressive. Their podcast, Up Good, extends that sensibility into sprawling conversations about divinity, strange occurrences and the odd corners of everyday life. Einbinder brings an even more surreal sensibility, combining dark comedy, body horror, drag and deliberately unhinged performance into a persona that has been described, in their own bio, as a 6,000-year-old demon from Los Angeles. Their shared work includes the comedy/trivia show Jeopargay! – Sonya Bennett-Brandt
INFO: Thu, 7pm, Eli’s Mile High Club, 3629 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Oakland. $15. 510.808.7565.
FRI 9/18
GARAGE ROCK
SHE’S
Tokyo garage-rock quartet SHE’s brings a scrappy strain of Japanese indie-rock to Thee Stork Club, fronted by San Francisco expat Aya Cuzner, a.k.a. Aya Papaya. The all-girl band works in the tradition of hooky garage rock: ragged at the edges, melodic at the center. The appeal lies in the collision of homespun, garage-rock immediacy and the particular eccentricity of Japan’s underground-pop scene. They’re joined by Oakland singalong punks the Vaxxines, whose loud, guitar-heavy rock ’n’ roll comes loaded with big choruses, and Eureka’s Clean Girl and the Dirty Dishes, whose bargain-garage sound is as scruffy and kitschy as its name suggests. – SBB
INFO: Fri, 8pm, Thee Stork Club, 2330 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. $12-$15. 510.859.8709.
FRI 9/18
OLD-TIME
ALICE GERRARD & FRIENDS
The Berkeley Old Time Music Convention runs from Sept. 16-20 at venues around Berkeley, with numerous performances and opportunities for aspiring musicians of all stripes to participate. But the festival’s centerpiece features East Bay-reared, old-time legend Alice Gerrard, whose partnership with Appalachian singer Hazel Dickens created some of the genre’s most enduring recordings from the 1960s and ’70s. She performs with multi-instrumentalists Reed Stutz and Suzy Thompson—who relaunched the BOTMC in 2003. The program also features North Carolina fiddler Justin Robinson, best known for his work with the Carolina Chocolate Drops, and Forty Drop Few, a string band that specializes in idioms from the early 1900s. – AG
INFO: Fri, 7pm, The Freight, 2020 Addison St., Berkeley. $39-$44. 510.644.2020.
FRI 9/18
PUNK
CORTEX
Gold- and platinum-certified pianist, composer and vocalist Alain Mion exudes cool. After releasing the 1975 album, Troupeau Bleu, Mion and his jazz-funk band, Cortex, became a sampling darling. Hip-hop artists like Tyler, Kanye West and MF DOOM tapped Cortex. In 2026 the band returned to the road with a 16-city tour that brings “Le Jazz Est Mort” (Jazz is Dead) to Berkeley. Catching a high wave with “Oh Lord,” lifting the anchor with “Devil’s Dance,” docking in with “I Heard a Sigh,” every tune is a journey that disproves the idea that jazz could ever be dead when Mion and the members of Cortex run the ship. – Lou Fancher
INFO: Fri, 8pm, UC Theatre, 2036 University Ave. Berkeley. $50. 510.356.4000.
SAT 9/19
WORLD MUSIC
VIEUX FARKA TOURÉ
Touré comes to Cornerstone with pedigree. His father, Ali Farka Touré, was a foremost Malian musician who, in spite of his efforts to turn his son in other directions, failed to discourage the younger Touré. The happy result is albums and performances that have brought Malian music into new/old territory with vestiges of traditional American Blues, West African rhythms and other influences. A virtuoso guitarist with a rich, textured vocal tone and gentle lyrics in traditional dialects, the opportunity to sit in close proximity to him at Cornerstone is sure to be rewarding, transfixing and the balm for anything that ails the soul and seeks healing in sound. – LF
INFO: Sat, 9pm, Cornerstone, 2367 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley. $50. 510.214.8600.
SAT 9/19
ROCK
MOHINI DEY
Indian bassist Mohini Dey makes the bass unignorable. A Mumbai-born virtuoso who began working professionally as a child, Dey has built an unusually wide-ranging résumé that spans jazz, fusion, Indian music, rock and pop, with collaborations including Zakir Hussain, Steve Vai, Quincy Jones, Stanley Clarke, Vinnie Colaiuta, Jordan Rudess and A.R. Rahman. She is currently a bassist for Willow Smith, appearing with her on both The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and NPR’s Tiny Desk. Dey’s playing is formidably athletic and versatile: She moves easily between rapid-fire runs, deep rhythmic grooves, and the intricate melodic vocabulary of Indian and fusion music. Show also on Sunday. – SBB
INFO: Sat, 7:30pm, Yoshi’s, 510 Embarcadero West, Oakland. $40-$89. 510.238.9200.
SAT 9/19
JAZZ
ROVA SAXOPHONE QUARTET
As ROVA Saxophone Quartet approaches its 50th birthday in 2027, performances have become infrequent, which makes every concert something of an event. With three founding members—Jon Raskin, Larry Ochs and Bruce Ackley—and Steve Adams, who joined in 1988, the group has created a vast and inestimable body of work exploring numerous approaches to melding composition and improvisation. These include hand signals, graphic scores and rigorously realized interpretations of music by John Coltrane, Steve Lacy and Nels Cline. In preparation for next year’s milestone, the ensemble is honing a program of previously unrecorded music while preparing for an upcoming release on ESP-disk. With ROVA, everything new is new again. – Andrew Gilbert
INFO: Sat, 8pm, The Back Room, 1984 Bonita Ave., Berkeley. $20-$25. 510.654.3808.
TUE 9/22
POP
LILY ALLEN
Allen began generating buzz in 2006 with the release of her debut studio album, Alright, Still. Since then, the English singer/songwriter/actress has acquired a Grammy Award and Laurence Olivier Award nominations, along with other kinds of glittery attention. Dramas in Allen’s personal and professional lives have only added panache, but it takes talent to come up with an album like her newest gesture, West End Girl. With over 150 million streams, Allen brings the entire album, performed in order, to the gorgeous Paramount Theatre. The smoky-silk vocalist has that tang. Allen is like the best friend who made it big but never forgot the good folks back home. – LF
INFO: Tue, 8pm, Paramount Theatre, 2025 Broadway, Oakland. $73-$323. 510.893.2300.
WED 9/23
ROCK
THE PANTURAS
There’s so much great music out in the world right now that it’s almost overwhelming at times. Take, for instance, the Panturas. This Indonesian surf-rock band has been at it for 10 years now and deserves to be much more popular. They take the classic surf-rock sound and throw in elements of ska, psychedelic garage-rock and pieces of other world traditions for a heavily unique sound that is all their own. Along with throwing down danceable party music, they also bring with them a message as evidenced in their 2018 debut album, Mabuk Kota, which is about the maritime challenges faced by Indonesian fishermen. – MW
INFO: Wed, 8pm, Cornerstone, 2367 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley. $28. 510.214.8600.
