The Americans & Matt Walden w/ The Helltones
Sean Healy PresentsTHE AMERICANS & MATT WALDENwith The HelltonesLive in the Crystal CavernThursday December 15 2022 – Doors @ 7pm$20 adv // $24 dos18+————
Elise Trouw (MOVED TO CORNERSTONE)
MOVED TO CORNERSTONE BERKELEY –> https://wl.seetickets.us/event/Elise-Trouw/523385?afflky=CornerstoneBerkeleyStarline Social Club PresentsELISE TROUWLive in the Ballroom – MOVED TO CORNERSTONETuesday January 31, 2022 – Doors @ 7pm$21 adv // $26 dos18+——————-Born to a South African father and a mother from New York in the very last year of themillennium. Raised on The Carpenters, Green Day, and 80s New Wave. Her music inspirationfirst occurred at six years old when she heard the haunting piano melody in “My Immortal” byEvanescence during a five-hour plane ride as she played it repeatedly. She immediately beggedher parents for piano lessons and her musical journey began, usually practicing at five in themorning before school each day much to her parents’ dismay.Life changed when her family bought the game Rockband for Xbox. After mastering the drumsto The Red Hot Chili Peppers’ "Dani California” on Expert Mode, Elise was determined toconvince her parents that she now needed drum lessons. Honing her musical skills through TheSchool of Rock and playing in her high school jazz band and the hard work of 10,000+ hours ofpracticing, Elise has built a massive fanbase through her self-produced YouTube videos, socialmedia platforms and touring both as a solo looping artist and with her band. She has performedon The Jimmy Kimmel Show and shot a video for the Amazon Prime Academy Award nominatedpicture “The Sound of Metal” which also featured Blink 182 drummer Travis Barker and PaulRaci, co-star of the movie.Recently, Elise had the honor of writing songs with Andy Summers from The Police and playingdrums in Seals band. Elise is currently writing with some of the top writers in Nashville and LosAngeles as she is working towards her first full album release planned for early 2022.
CANCELED – Alice Boman
Starline Social Club PresentsALICE BOMANLive in the Crystal CavernThursday March 30 2022 – Doors @ 7pm$15 adv // $18 dos18+—————— Alice Boman has been thinking about space a lot lately. The silence between sounds, the unspoken bonds between humans, the enormity of the universe and her place within it. It can all get a little overwhelming at times if she’s honest, but whenever it does there’s always music. “Writing is still a way for me to understand myself,” Boman explains, speaking from her home in Stockholm. “As an overthinker, there’s this constant motion in my head, so it helps to sit down and write about it to actually understand what I feel or think. Or just to find stillness.” You can follow these mini epiphanies on The Space Between, the Swedish singer-songwriter’s stunning new album. Ruminating on intimacy and existential angst, to listen is to hear Boman’s thoughts unfurl in real time, her quiet contemplations cocooned in sympathetic arrangements created in collaboration with producer Patrik Berger.
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.
Rachel Bobbitt w/ Renata Zeiguer & Absinthe Father
Starline Social Club PresentsRACHEL BOBBITTRENATA ZEIGUERABSINTHE FATHERLive in the Crystal CavernWednesday November 2 2022 – Doors @ 6:00pm$15 adv // $17 dos18+——————–Originally from Nova Scotia, Canada Rachel Bobbitt is a rising singer-songwriter currently residing in Toronto. The professionally trained musician attended Humber Music College and is part of a tight knit community of musicians in Toronto with whom she consistently collaborates including guitarist and producer, Justice Der. Their cover of Frank Ocean’s“Forrest Gump”has nearly 2 million streams on Spotify. At the age of 16, Rachel embraced the then popular social media platform,Vine and began amassing an audience sharing performance videos covering artists such as Leonard Cohen, Frank Ocean, and Bon Iver. Drawing inspiration from artists such as Mazzy Star, Elliot Smith, and My Blood Valentine, her confidence grew, and she began writing original songs and developing her own unique sound. In November 2020, Rachel self-released her debut EP,And It’s the Same. Organic editorial playlisting across Spotify (NMF Canada, Outliers, Indie All Stars, FreshFinds) helped spread the word further. She was also named one of RADAR US’s Artist to Watch for 2021.
Johanna Warren w/ Spacemoth
Starline Social Club PresentsJOHANNA WARRENSPACEMOTHLive in the Crystal CavernSaturday October 8, 2022$13 adv // $15 dos18+—————– Johanna Warren is no stranger to death. As a toddler she was notorious for jumping into the deep end of swimming pools when no one was watching. At nine she grew mysteriously ill, eventually fell into a coma and emerged with a diagnosis of Type 1 diabetes, a condition that has consistently taken her back to what she describes as “liminal, mystical places” in bouts of extreme hypoglycemia. And at 23, Warren (at the time a staunchly cynical atheist) was in a fatal car crash that left her with an unshakably vivid experience with what seemed to be an angel. This close collaboration with mortality and mystery is key to Warren’s artistic practice. Floating in the doorway between worlds, she has repeatedly found herself looking out at an ocean of etheric colored light and indescribably beautiful music—and been left with a feeling of purpose. “It’s the role of the artist to try to carry some of that beauty, even one tiny drop of it, back over the threshold,” explains Warren. “Of course it’s doomed to fail, but it’s a sacred failure.” It makes sense, then, that Warren seems to make art like her life depends on it. Since self-releasing her debut solo album Fates in 2013 she has barely stopped touring, performing alongside similarly masterful artists including Mitski, Julie Byrne and Marissa Nadler. Her 2015 sophomore album nūmūn propelled her to the forefront of artists to watch, with Rolling Stone naming her an “Artist You Need to Know” and Stereogum citing her as a best of that year. In 2016 Warren founded Spirit House Records, an independent label that promotes a queer, artist-friendly ethos, and announced a twin pair of albums: Gemini I and II. The two LPs are in conversation with one another, offering glimpses of a passionately dysfunctional relationship—perhaps between two warring parts of the artist herself. Following the release of Gemini II Warren embarked on her extensive “Plant Medicine Tour” around the US. At every one of the 70+ shows, she welcomed local herbalists, farmers, and activists to share their work with attendees. In the spare moments between tour stops, Warren recorded her fifth solo album, Chaotic Good, at thirteen different studios around the US. It was released on Wax Nine/Carpark Records in 2020 to critical acclaim. In addition to music, Warren has a love for acting. In October 2021, she premiered selected songs from a new musical adaptation of Euripides’ ancient tragedy The Bacchae, in which she plays both Pentheus and his mother Agave. She recently starred in forthcoming indie feature “She the Creator” (Bioluminescent Films) and lent her voice to Netflix series The Midnight Gospel. Currently homesteading in rural Wales, Warren spends her days foraging for wild medicinal plants and raising two dogs, four chickens and a vegetable garden. Lessons for Mutants is her sixth solo LP and second for Wax Nine/Carpark Records.
Caitlin Cobb-Vialet w/ Grooblen, virgogabrielle, Cardio Star
Starline Social Club Presents:CAITLIN COBB-VIALETGROOBLENVIRGOGABRIELLECARDIO STARFriday May 6 2022 – Doors @ 7pm$13 adv // $16 dos18+———————