A new outdoor venue at Cal Expo, more concerts for July — The Sacramento Beat

Bad news first: we’re still gutted by the abrupt closure of the Russ Room and its anchoring Solomon’s earlier in June, mere weeks after the cozy upstairs venue rebooted its stage with a bevy of local shows.

Good news: we’ve got some incubation of local gigs happening at a bedrock midtown watering hole, and a brand new outdoor venue is joining the party this month at Cal Expo.

Local artists, message Aaron Davis on Instagram if you have upcoming shows, @adavis_threetosee.

Quietly, perhaps no local Independence Day music offering is as firmly reliable as that put on by the city of Davis and Davis Live Music Collective, who annually snare some standout touring talent and serve it up at a tasty price tag (read: free). This year, it’s a spicy golden hour set from our pals in swinging L.A. hot jazz-roots-soul-funk co-op Dustbowl Revival — listen closely to “Sonic Boom” for a Sacramento name drop, and prepare to atone for your sins once that carnal brass gets howling. They’ll be flanked by similarly zesty Brazilian-tinged funk rock locals Boca do Rio. Obviously, fireworks to follow (4 p.m. Thursday, July 4; music 6:30 to 9:30 at Community Park, Davis. cityofdavis.org).

Borderline jarring is the ease and fluidity with which the mysterious Daikaiju tears through a tsunami of mesmerizing, gripping surf rock — without ever speaking a word. Leaning into the “kaiju” theme (that translates to “strange beast”), there is an underlying beauty and whimsical edge to these elongated, spirited instrumental compositions, delivered with intricate and laconically intense acumen — they simultaneously play the sporadic whitecaps of a calm and breezy sea and the thundering squalls that pound the shores whilst a snarling mythical creature emerges from the deep to wreak havoc upon man. The Huntsville, Alabama, troupe teams up with Sacramento surf rock standouts the Me Gustas and Stockton’s Boat Floaters (7:30 p.m. Friday, July 5, at Cafe Colonial, 3520 Stockton Blvd. $15/$20. cafecolonial916.com)

Depending how long you’ve lived in Sacramento, you’ve likely got a story or two about late nights on the back patio or a Sunday trivia battle spent at Streets Pub & Grub, née Streets of London. Live music hasn’t really been part of the calculus for the venerable haunt’s place in midtown lore, but that’s changing thanks to the folks from local indie label Lazy Rush, which has been hosting a smattering of local gigs there, with designs on bi-monthly free music nights bi-monthly moving forward. First up for July is Swan Ronson, the jagged-edged rock project of local singer/songwriter Samantha Henson and drummer Nick Marquez, which just dropped a masked powderkeg of blistering alt-punk on the Concerts in the Park stage in May. They’ll be joined by local pop-punk acts Private Kingdom and Playground Hooligans (8 p.m. Saturday, July 6. Free). A busy Swan Ronson summer also now includes a slot at the Golden Bear on July 18, and Aug. 11 and Aug. 15 gigs at Goldfield Midtown and Old Ironsides, respectively. Autumnal and ethereal indie folk singer Madilyn Mackensie is next up at Streets, alongside fellow indie acts Alex Dowden and tchochke (8 p.m. Friday, July 19. Free. instagram.com/lazyrushrecords).

A pair of outdoor Sunday evening electronic “Sunset Parties” bookend the month on the banks of the river at the spacious Barn in West Sacramento — unlike most of their events, you need tickets for these. Atmospheric deep house architect Nora En Pure soundtracks the setting sun on July 7, with a club set from Bob Moses on July 28, in what we believe to be the duo’s first time in Sacramento since their would-be 2022 Concerts in the Park was canceled due to COVID-19 (alldayallnightevents.com).

Nestled at the edge of Cal Expo behind that towering guitar neck sign that waypoints Rock & Brews restaurant, The Backyard is the newest concert venue to join the Sacramento landscape, boasting space for 3,000 in an outdoor setting. As of this writing, fairly little is known about what the new space will look like, so we’ll eagerly await the pics and reels from its maiden voyage, the Sad Summer Festival. The emo-pop rock heavy lineup features veteran troupes Mayday Parade and the Maine, with a platoon of acts on the day-long bill including the Wonder Years, We The Kings, Real Friends, Knuckle Puck, Daisy Grenade, the Summer Set and Like Roses (2 p.m. Thurs. July 11. 1600 Exposition Blvd. $59.50). Sad Summer is it for July at the new digs, but their forthcoming August slate includes a pairing of legendary Latin rock torchbearers Los Lobos with the venerable Los Lonely Boys (Aug. 9), the idobi Radio Summer School Tour with Stand Atlantic, Magnolia Park and others (Aug. 13), and spitfire lyricist and showman Michael Franti & Spearhead with support from Citizen Cope and Bombargo (Aug. 23). nederlanderconcerts.com/thebackyardsac.

When you think of the blues, the first name to come to mind is, of course…(checks notes), Slash? The Guns N’ Roses icon recently cobbled together the all-star likes of Chris Stapleton, Gary Clark Jr., Iggy Pop and others to record “Orgy of the Damned,” a towering behemoth of familiar blues rippers. He’s roped in a similarly aristocratic list of gunslingers to team up with his headlining band on the S.E.R.P.E.N.T. Festival (an acronym for Solidarity, Engagement, Restore, Peace, Equality N’ Tolerance). The Thunder Valley tour stop for this megalodon includes Southern Rock axe titan and Gov’t Mule head honcho Warren Haynes and his band, along with the enigmatic Samantha Fish and the ever-prodigious Eric Gales (7 p.m. Friday, July 12. thundervalleyresort.com).

Speaking of hard rock guitarists switching things up, Bay Area thrash metal fixture Sven Söderlund now lives that crooner life with Sven & the Masterful Few, the former rocker’s point of entry into the martini lounge songbook. Weaving through a variety of recognizable standards, the Masterful Few serves as a more intimate, stripped-down version of his popular Masterful Orchestra - the exact sort of thing those Harlow’s walls were built for, no? (8 p.m. Sat. July 13 at Starlet Room. $18. harlows.com).

Lyrical mastermind Talib Kweli, formerly half of seminal duo Black Star with Yasiin Bey (formerly known as Mos Def) and one of the most influential hip-hop artists known to the genre, visits Nevada City’s Miners Foundry with Skyzoo and Landon Wordswell in support (7 p.m. Thursday, July 18. $35/$40. minersfoundry.org).

It’s now a hat trick of new music festivals for the city of Elk Grove, with a debut blues festival popping up this month after the inaugural turns of the soul-themed Elk Grove Spring Musicfest in May and the Elk Grove Jazz Festival last September. The Blues in the Grove festival welcomes Sacramento legend and stalwart performer Mick Martin and his eight-piece Big Blues Band. Fellow Sac Blues Society hall of famer Marcel Smith joins the party along with Zydeco Flames, vocalist Annie Sampson and her band, Bob Jones and the Chosen Few and Papa Day Blues Band - with Elk Grove’s own Gary Mendoza also performing and serving as emcee (12 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Sun. July 21, 8230 Civic Center Drive, Elk Grove. $40. elkgrovecity.org). Later this year, the sophomore Elk Grove Fall Jazz Festival returns to host Julian Vaughn & Friends, Lin Roundtree, Paula Atherton and others (12 p.m. to 7 p.m. Sat. Sept. 28. $25-$65. eventbrite.com).