Music
Oakland-based nonprofit Today’s Future Sound teaches music production to students in K-12 schools around the bay and beyond.
Dirtwire, led by Bay Area musicians Evan Fraser and David Satori, fused their eclectic beats with the recorded voice of the late Siberian throat singer Kongar-ol Ondar in peformance at The New Parish.
The New Parish is packed – with couples trying to dance a two-step, with indisputably underage girls taking selfies, with raucous laughter, with the sounds of congas and pulsating bass lines. And, rising above it all, an exceptional falsetto that captures every eye and ear in the place.
Today Antique is wearing a black skirt over green tights, a boldly-striped tank top over a black long-sleeve shirt, bright earrings that look like ice cream cones you might find in a Dr. Seuss story, an orange and black bandanna in her hair, and black 1950s-style cat’s eye glasses with sparkles in the corners. “I dress in different eras every day,” she says.
The music she creates, however, is naked.
As the lead vocalist of the ensemble Antique Naked Soul, Antique, along with vocal percussionist Tommy Shepherd, also known as Soulati, and vocalists Jayme Brown and N’gala McCoy, composes songs that consist solely of the human voice. The challenge, she and Shepherd say, is managing to create full-bodied “manifestos” within the limitation of such spare instrumentation.
Body music, for the uninitiated, is an art form composed of sounds and rhythms made solely with the body.
Latham Square is an experimental project in a space once entirely open to vehicle traffic, but was transformed into a pedestrian plaza last August. The City of Oakland partnered with the Downtown Oakland Association and design studio Rebar to offer foot-travelers a place to sit and socialize.
Oakland’s own Twin Steps, a chameleon band, blends angst-ridden lyrics with incongruous sounds from soul to pop to punk, in an eclectic show.
Oakland’s long abandoned 16th Street Station hosts the coast-to-coast project.
Food makers and food lovers converged at Jack London Square September 27-29 for three days of music, drinks and cuisine at the Eat Real Festival.