G.I.R.L.S. Rock Sacramento showcase kicks off July concert calendar | The Sacramento Beat
In July, you can attend a music festival at a casino or a hip-hop/jazz throwdown at a planetarium (no, we’re not kidding). Off we go!
Local artists, message Aaron Davis on Instagram if you have upcoming shows, @adavis_threetosee.
July kicks off with the 2023 Teen Camp Showcase from our friends at G.I.R.L.S. Rock Sacramento (an acronym for Gender Inclusivity through Radical Love and Support), which runs a variety of music education programs for those who identify as female, non-binary or gender-expansive youth. Come showtime, they’ll have just wrapped their annual weeklong teen music camp and will send five new bands to the stage — each featuring members age 12 to 17. We can’t tell you the names of the bands yet, because they’ll all be envisioned and created during the camp, as will their original material, which will be performed for the first time at the showcase. Eclectic and funky local collaborative Angelite and DJ Lady Char are also special guests for the performance — all you have to do is wrap your head around an alternate reality of being at Harlow’s so soon after breakfast (noon Saturday, July 1. $10. harlows.com).
Also coming to Harlow’s are pair of marquee local album release shows, kicking off with veteran alt-metal act Will Haven dishing up the official release of “VII,” from which they’ve already released a trip of sludgy, intense rippers in “Diablito,” “5 of Fire” and “Wings of Mariposa.” Chrome Ghost and Kill the Precedent lend support (8 p.m. Friday, July 7. $15/$20. harlows.com). Later in the month, soul/funk drenched the Philharmonik celebrates the long-awaited release of “Kironic” — a collection of songs he subtitles “My Ten Commandments of Finding My Personal Happiness” (with Spacewalker, Jakhari Smith, Tsavo and Da Rap Nerd. 7:30 p.m. Saturday, July 29. $20/$30. harlows.com)
If you judge your axemen by the company they keep, chalk up British-born Albert Lee as one of the more strangely unheralded virtuosos of the last several decades. Having palled around and zigzagged between touring and recording sessions with the likes of the Everly Brothers, Eric Clapton, Emmylou Harris, Joe Cocker and other standouts far too numerous to mention, Lee has honed a distinct and soaring picking style deeply rooted in his love of vintage country, but tangoing with all the roadhouse blues and free-riding classic rock you’d ever care to get your hands on. (with Vicky Lee and Bob Woods. 7 p.m. Saturday, July 8, at the Sofia. $33. bstreettheatre.org)
Carnival rides and cooking demos are becoming the standard accoutrement to music festivals nowadays — but the ability to drop some coin into the slot machines between acts? Pretty sure that’s a relative novelty! Enter the three-day Gambler’s Run Music Festival, making its debut at the already musically rich Crystal Bay Club Casino. Keep the shades handy, because there’s a total of eight acts each day alternating between the indoor Club Room stage and an outdoor stage. Frisky jam collective Pigeons Playing Ping Pong headlines all three days outside, with ukulele-driven Hawaiian jammers Kanekoa (Friday and Saturday), our old pals in zesty hot jazz/roots troupe Dustbowl Revival (Saturday and Sunday), and the likes of gritty-sweet duo Shovels & Rope and tantalizing throwback Americana outfit Goodnight, Texas (Friday), Moon Hooch and Sunsquabi (Saturday), with a little bluegrass from Hot Buttered Rum and Lil’ Smokies and a little funk from Con Brio and Big Sam’s Funky Nation (Sunday). Plus, each day has a separate after-party show in the Club Room, with Tauk and the Magic Beans Friday, Yonder Mountain String Band with Lil’ Smokies Saturday and Tyler Bryant & The Shakedown with Maggie Rose on Sunday (July 14-16. tixr.com/groups/crystalbaycasino).
The aforementioned Kanekoa — purportedly referred to as “the Hawaiian Grateful Dead” by none other than Bill Kreutzmann — also holds court a week prior July 7 at the Crest Theatre as part of its $20 concert series, with heaps of added organic grooves provided local stalwarts Zuhg and Island of Black and White (crestsacramento.com/events).
As it gets set to host its first music event, we’re figuring there can’t be many more fundamentally awesome and immersive indoor spaces to hold a concert in Sacramento than inside the UC Davis Multiverse Theater (that sounds way cooler than “planetarium”) at the SMUD Museum of Science and Curiosity in downtown Sacramento. Local outfit A New Kitchen Entertainment — which has been hosting a variety of recent open mics, jam sessions and events around town — has the honor of curating the “Journey Through Time and Space,” an explorative cosmic saunter featuring soul/funk/jazz torchbearers LabRats, joined by atmospheric lyricist Beatnik Scum, local standout Jakhari Smith and other special guests (given the pedigree of acts already on the bill, we’re guessing “guests” will be formidable). Seats in the Multiverse don’t figure to last long, don’t dawdle (7 p.m. Saturday, July 15, 400 Jibboom St. $30. eventbrite.com)
Many years ago — 2007 to be precise — this then-neophyte writer opined that punk outfit The Dollyrots sounded “a bit like Joey Ramone, Joan Jett and Hello Kitty having a cage match.” Sixteen years later, I stand by it. Through several studio releases, multiple supporting cast members and two kids — all the way up to 2022’s double-sided “Down the Rabbit Hole” and their new single “Missing You (I Can’t Wait)” — the color-splashed waves of feisty, spit-shined punk rock still glimmer like a rock-and-roll fever dream that husband-and-wife duo Kelly Ogden and Luis Cabezas refuse to ever awaken from. Local favorites Dog Party, the Moans and Lewd Jaw join the fun on the Dollyrots’ “Year of the Bunny” tour (7:30 p.m. Wednesday, July 26 at Old Ironsides. $17. theoldironsides.com).
You’ve got a couple of chances to catch Southern rock-tinged Americana jammers Cordovas (fans of The Band, you’re on notice) at the end of the month, when they set up for a cozy midweek gig at the Folsom Hotel (7:30 p.m. Wednesday, July 26. $15. folsomhotel.net), then swing back up Highway 50 to Camino for some open sky and muggy Muscle Shoals rock at Delfino Farms’ “Folk on the Farm” series (6 p.m. Saturday, July 29. delfinofarms.com/folkonthefarm). This month, Delfino also welcomes scintillating British soul-pop troupe the Heavy Heavy (July 1), veteran rockers Dead Winter Carpenters (July 15) and “Appalachian country soul” act 49 Winchester (July 22).
If you fancy another July trip to Tahoe (and who wouldn’t?) ... just past the Y in South Lake Tahoe, spaciously wooded and ever-welcoming beer garden The Hangar always sports a killer tap list, but they’re now hosting what we believe to be their first big-name concert, with an irresistible pairing of crooning, blues-speckled alt-indie rocker Rayland Baxter and carnal guitar slinger/psych rocker Liz Cooper. Still considering canceling some other plans for this one — sorry, mom! (7 p.m. Friday, July 28, 2401 Lake Tahoe Blvd. $30. instagram.com/thehangar_laketahoe).
