April 13th: Wavves with Vampire Hands, and That Ghost at Bottom of the Hill

This is a show you CANNOT miss. Best venue in the city to hear some music: hands down. Wavves is in your face and will also make wanna grab your board and hit the waves (get it?). Simple, driving chords meet ethereal background vocals in this punk meets surf meets pop-rock duo.

For a quick sample, this is Wavves with So Bored, which could quite possibly be the anthem for all twenty-somethings living in the world…

And this song by That Ghost, titled Open Windows, goes through my head INCESSANTLY (in a good way) at work:

April 15th: Blue Rabbit with Chelsea Wolfe, and Tippy Canoe at Hemlock Tavern

This is ladies night, plain and simple. Blue Rabbit makes music that every woman’s melodramatic inner monologue conjures up from time to time. Let’s just say, Andrew Lloyd Weber would give them props for the way they construct their music, yet they’d still be welcome in any group hanging in Dolores Park on a sunny Sunday afternoon: hip with a sprinkling of obtuse classicism. And yes, that will be a bitchin’ cello you see on stage.

Now, if you just broke up with your boyfriend or the boy you’ve been seeing for the past few months has mysteriously stopped calling you and fallen off the face of the planet, you need to be listening to Chelsea Wolf. This haunting chanteuse helps to warm your melancholy soul with song titles like The Way it Used to Be and Run and a sultry smooth voice. Hating men? Catch her before she leaves for Europe…

And keep the pop-tinged, country grrrll power going with Tippy Canoe: the modern day June Carter. Wouldn’t Johnny be proud…

April 17th: Juanita & the Rabbit with Roger Rocha and The GoldenHearts at The Hotel Utah

Garage rock with an ear to its punk rock, blues infused heritage is what you’ll be getting a heaping dose of if you stand next to me in the Juanita and the Rabbit crowd. Granted, The Hotel Utah has awful acoustics and sound equipment, but it’s vintage San Francisco at its best and this band is a good representative of that as well. 

Roger Rocha and the GoldenHearts can construct a solid piece of music. Kiss Me Darling is bad ass, yet orchestral at the same time (which is a hard combination to pull off). Who doesn’t like melodic bad-assness? 

April 19th: Kimya Dawson at The Rickshaw Stop

Because everyone loved Juno.