Concerts | Starline Social Club

Anuhea w/ Keilana

Starline Social Club PresentsANUHEAKEILANALive in the BallroomFriday December 2, 2022 – Doors @ 8pm$25 adv // $30 dos18+———————

Starline Social Club and Boomzilla Sound Collective Present:MILK & COOKIESLive in the Crystal CavernSaturday October 15 2022 – 10pm-2amFREE! (w/ RSVP)21+————————- Milk & Cookies—one of Oakland’s longest running monthly house dance parties—is back at the Starline Social Club No need to cross the bridge to hear the best house, soul, tech and funky four-on-the-floor dance music. The BoomZilla Sound Collective and monthly special guest djs curate unique playlists that will expand your mind and move your butt. What to expect at a Milk & Cookies party: +A night full of music exploration brought to you by the BoomZilla crew and special guest djs +FREE milk and cookies at midnight (vegan options available) + Drink specials inspired by milk and cookies + An open and safe community of house music lovers—EVERYONE is welcome. + No cover. Seriously. What is Milk & Cookies? In 2016, BoomZilla Sound Collective djs SantosSocialClub and IGGY were annoyed that they had to leave Oakland to hear good, live house music. So, the DJ duo started throwing parties all over Oakland. They cut their teeth playing hole-in-the-wall clubs in East Oakland and spent a year as the residential music duo at Chabot Space Center’s First Fridays. In 2019, the BoomZilla crew found a permanent home at the Starline Social Club and Milk & Cookies was born. The party was a hit from the start and packed out the Crystal Cavern every month, attracting notable djs like Ben Browning of Cut Copy and Miss Dre to share the decks. Just like everything else in 2020, the party was forced to go on a hiatus. Now, after a 2-year hiatus (fuck you Covid) Milk & Cookies is back!

NoSo w/ Sophia Yau-Weeks

Starline Social Club PresentsNoSow/ Sophia Yau-WeeksLive in the Crystal CavernMonday November 7, 2022 – Doors @ 7pm$15 adv // $20 dos18+——————- What does it mean to feel pride – to feel love? Not just romantic desire, but an all-encompassing love built around acceptance and unconditional respect? For 24-year-old indie/alternative artist NoSo, they seek out the answers in their work. The title of their debut album Stay Proud of Me is an entreaty to their past self, as they dauntlessly forge ahead to become the person and artist they’ve always wanted to be. If you’re a guitar enthusiast or familiar with the L.A. music scene, you may already know the name Baek Hwong. Born and raised in the Chicago suburbs before moving to California as a teenager, Hwong cut their teeth at the competitive Thornton School of Music at USC, where they studied guitar and songwriting and began to develop their own unique playstyle. After originally pursuing the path of more instrumental players like Tommy Emmanuel, Hwong realized in college that their writing was quickly manifesting itself in new, more personal ways: in lyrics, arrangements, songs that begged to be sung and fully realized. They began to cultivate an ever-growing collection of demos, a small portion of which would make up Stay Proud of Me, their debut album under the name NoSo. NoSo is shorthand for “North or South?” – a question Hwong often had to face growing up in a predominately white town whenever they mentioned they’re Korean. Hwong’s writing often indirectly grapples with the insecurities and frustrations that can arise from the Asian American experience. Their writing feels like a balm for the alienated, like this couplet from the song “I Feel You”: “You feel my lies while my body moves without me/Laughing about it, laughing about it.” Hwong wrote and recorded much of the record alone during quarantine in their bedroom, studying any non-guitar instruments they weren’t as proficient with in order to make it happen. On the fluttery lead single “Suburbia,” one of the first songs written for the LP, they move between a heart-rending chorus and diaristic lyrics about golden Oreos and power-walking moms with the grace of a seasoned screenwriter, sprinkling in the small but vivid details that place you in the heart of the story. Just as there is no singular Asian American experience, there is no singular LGBTQ experience. Hwong, a queer non-binary person, remembers that the first time they realized they were attracted to women was when they wrote a romantic song with femme pronouns. They don’t remember ever explicitly coming out in public; from the start, their declaration of themselves to the world at large has always been through music. In an effort to escape themselves during the writing process, Hwong also occasionally turned to the solace of fantasy. Screenplays they wrote during quarantine informed the lyrics, allowing them to inhabit the characters and plotlines from worlds other than their own as they poured themselves into fleshing out the details. You can hear this clearly in the cinematic verses of “Honey Understand;” a brooding stomp with a cathartic chorus. Stay Proud of Me is a deeply earnest coming-of-age album, a nuanced introduction to NoSo’s universe and Hwong’s rapidly expanding musical abilities. The marriage of their lyrics and captivating guitar performance feels magical, as if Noso can open up portals to fantastic new realms, guided by an emotional honesty that breaks you down in one moment and fills you with joy in the next.

Flamingos in the Tree w/ The Happys & The Hayds

Starline Social Club PresentsFLAMINGOS IN THE TREETHE HAPPYSTHE HAYDSLive in the Crystal CavernFriday October 21, 2022 – Doors @ 8pm$13 adv // $15 dosAll Ages——————-Recent TikTok virality & editorial playlisting has thrust the basement-pop band’s debut LP sunsets that i had w u to the ears of unsuspecting listeners. Locally, they’re hard to ignore – the four stick out like a sore thumb in a city that’s praised metal and punk for decades. Arguably, that’s why they’re geared for success; it’s hard to resist rooting for the elephant in the room, or rather, the Flamingos in the Tree.

Cairokee

**Moved from The UC Theatre in Berkeley – All tickets purchased will be valid at the door**Keme Production PresentsCAIROKEE @ STARLINE SOCIAL CLUBLive in the BallroomSunday October 2, 2022 – Doors @ 5:30pm$82.50All AgesLocation: 2236 Martin Luther King Jr Way, Oakland, CA 94612———————— Keme Production is excited to be bringing Egypt’s top Indie Rock band Cairokee to the greater SF area on Sunday October 2nd.This is an all ages event. A different color bracelet will be provided for those under the age of 21.

Sports w/ Sipper

Starline Social Club and Throwin’ Bo’s PresentSPORTSSIPPERLive in the BallroomWednesday September 12 2022 – Doors @ 7pm$2018+—– Purpose is at the cornerstone of Sports’ resonance and impressive second album Get A Good Look. Childhood friends Cale Chronister and Christian Theriot have come to realize that life can change at any second. Perspectives are reshaped, relationships rise or fall, and home is anywhere you want it to be. For Sports, it’s the intricacies of their lifelong friendship, the victories and shortcomings of growing up, and the lessons learned along the way that have influenced their worldview. Growing up on the outskirts of Tulsa, Oklahoma, life for Cale and Christian revolved around watching MTV and going to church. The pair first met in middle school and formed an instant connection with both seeking to break out of the conformity of their quaint small town upbringing. “We have been making and recording music under different names since we were about 13,” they share. The genesis of Sports would come almost a decade later. On choosing the name Sports, Cale and Christian show reverence to their parents. “They’re big sports fans. It’s like we’re fulfilling some childhood dream of being in the NBA.” Musically, Sports inspires images of the youthful idyll of bygone times through dulcet melodies and sun-drenched funk synths. Their elaborate, mind-expanding arrangements are warm and enveloping, creating a world where David Bowie, The Beach Boys, and The Clash collide. Sports first introduced themselves with their 2015 debut single “You Are The Right One,” a concentrated slow drip of funk. Their debut project, Naked All The Time (2015) and its follow-up, People Can’t Stop Chillin (2016) delivered additional critically-praised singles including: “Panama,” “Whatever You Want,” and “Someone You’d Rather Be Dating.” The band returned in 2018 with their first full-length album, Everyone’s Invited, a vibrant offering that received acclaim from Pitchfork, Pigeons & Planes, and Ones To Watch, in addition to earning plays on KCRW’s Morning Becomes Eclectic and Spotify’s New Indie Mix playlist. To date, Sports has garnered over 125 million streams, an impressive feat for a band who’s stayed true to their independent roots and DIY ethos. After spending the last three years split between Los Angeles, California and Norman, Oklahoma, Cale and Christian find themselves back in their hometown, but with fresh perspective gained from distance and time. It’s this perspective that’s apparent in their upcoming third studio album Get A Good Look, which they first teased in 2020 with the single “Tell You Something.” The experimental and innovative track effortlessly blurs the lines between synth-pop, indie-funk, and psychedelic rock and marked the beginning of an exciting new era for the band. Unlike their previous two albums, Get A Good Look was split in two parts. “We didn’t set out to release the album in 2 parts, but with the pandemic, we had to be creative,” Cale shares. “It gives us the chance to work on the music and the visuals at a more methodical pace.” Nowhere is this vigilance more apparent than in their latest two singles – “Can’t Be What You Think” and “Damn I’m Tired.” In both tracks, each element is meticulously placed, creating Wall Of Sound compositions that reverberate long after the last note. While “Can’t Be What You Think” oozes confidence and self-assuredness musically the lyrics underscore its fragility in social settings., “Damn I’m Tired” is buzz-fueled angst; a twangy embodiment of how exhausting being a people pleaser can be.

The Dead Tongues w/ LoWatters

Starline Social Club PresentsTHE DEAD TONGUESLOWATTERSLive in the Crystal CavernThursday Sept 8 2022 – Doors @ 7pm$16 adv // $18 dos18+———————— When Ryan Gustafson finished recording Transmigration Blues, his fourth and bestalbum under the nameThe Dead Tongues, in the summer of 2019, he slumped into a month-long haze of depression. For two decades, Gustafson—a preternaturally sensitive soul, interested in the mystic but grounded by his love of quiet woods and open deserts—had made many albums with various bands and under assorted guises. This one however,had left him wounded, momentarily empty. He couldn’t write songs, couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t summon any enthusiasm for tapping into his emotions. Even the shows he played meant going through the motions. “The deeper wells of my being had run dry,” he remembers of how he felt when he returned to his mountain cabin, deep in a North Carolina holler. “There was just this big, open space.” In the years since recording his 2018 breakthrough, Unsung Passage, Gustafson had built words and songs of intense emotional reckoning. He had wrestled with relationships that failed spectacularly. He had contemplated growing up in and then apart from a devoted religious household. He had surveyed the damage of living hard in his 20s, partying in the back of vans as he prowled the interstates of the United States, reckless and free. Before any of the songs detailing these reckonings emerged, Gustafson had the title Transmigration Blues—a reference to the Buddhist concept of a dead body’s soul migrating into another host. For Gustafson, though, it also represents the “little deaths” we all experience as we grow and evolve, the lessons and fables (however indirect) we take with us as we molt and slip from an old skin into our next one. This baggage was daunting, Gustafson admits, but he’s better for having sorted through it, having pulled it from his body at last. “It took a while to come back from,” he says. “But I would rather walk out of the studio feeling that way instead of it just being another day at the office.” Those thoughts—powerful personal reflections on his place in the world, tardy attempts to find meaning in the moments of life he thought he’d left behind—are the core of Transmigration Blues, an album that transmogrifies heavy emotional burdens into some of the most disarming folk-rock you’ll ever hear. From the graceful string-swept recollections of “Deep Water, Strange Wind” to the radiant calls and responses of “Bama Boys Circa 2005,” Gustafson drags past darkness into present light. Transmigration Blues gets to the idiosyncratic heart and unorthodox past of Gustafson, who lives the contemplative rural life about which many of his peers simply sing.