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The Long Forgotten is a bluegrass band FROM FRESNO and they’re pretty good. They came on stage first and played for 30-45 minutes. There’s three of them, and each of them played at least three instruments. Imagine a bluegrass trio, and that’s exactly what they are. They’re good musicians playing fun music and vocally harmonizing. One of them had a Lou Hazel shirt on. I’m pretty sure he was the sound guy for Lou’s show the other night at the Tower Theater Lounge. He also play

Malena Cadiz was up first. She’s got a Joni Mitchell aesthetic, with long, straight hair parted in the middle and draped over her shoulders and a long, flowing, loose fitting dress with a floral print. A dress so long that she has to grab it and raise it up a little bit when walking up straits so that she doesn’t step on it and trip herself. She was all by herself on stage. No band. Just her and an electric guitar (which she is playing finger style ). Like Joni Mitchell. Th

Molly Tuttle was the first act of the night, and this was the third or fourth time I've seen her perform. She still puts on a great show, and is still very talented, both as a singer and even more so as a guitar player, an absolutely incredible guitar player. None of that has changed. What has changed, though, is her sound. The first couple times I saw her, it was with her backing band Golden Highway, and the music they played was almost entirely bluegrass. It was all acousti

I wish I had the music and guitar knowledge and vocabulary to put into words how incredible of a guitar player he is. I just saw Chris Duarte a couple weeks ago, who was mind-blowingly good, but this guy Albert (Alfredo maybe?) is just as good or maybe even a little better. His technical skills are off the chart. He effortlessly changed chord shapes all over the neck and accurately picked strings in every imaginable combination. If I was going to try to describe it what kin

The Lostines are a duo, or maybe a sextet, I’m not exactly sure (I clarified this after the show, the backing band is a rotating cast, but there are five regular members). But there are two ladies with great voices trading off the singing duties. And sometimes harmonizing, which is when they sound best. But honestly, doesn't everyone sound best when they're harmonizing? Either way, they sound great. In addition to trading off lead vocals, they also trade off an acoustic guita

Eurotripp was the first band of the night, and I got there when their set was mostly over. From what I saw, they are a high energy trio that is part pop-punk, part hip hop, part nu metal, and always with a lot of energy. They closed their set with their song Where's Your Head At which I recognized and has tens of millions of streams on spotify. They're fun and high octane. Red Leather was up next. He's a dude wearing a red fringed cowboy hat (or mayge a lamp shade) on his hea

Crossbreaker was up first, and I’m not sure what flavor of metal music they play, but I’m going to guess it’s death metal. Or maybe thrash metal. Possibly hardcore metal? I’m not really sure, but it’s definitely metal. I appreciate metal, and the musicianship that’s required to play it. It’s just not pleasing to my ear. They play fast and they’ve got the weird chord shapes and there’s a good mosh pit for the crowd size, but it just doesn’t sound good to me. But, if you do lik

I close my eyes and I’m back at Porky’s or the Babylon listening to Ron Thompson (RIP). Except this is a little more rock and not the pure blues that Thompson breathed. Chris Duarte is also one of the best guitar players I’ve seen, with a super awkward stage presence that is endearing. At the end of the day though, we’re all here for bluesy blues, and that’s what we got. It was an hour and forty five minutes of the finest blues guitar I can remember seeing since Ron Thompson

Wow. On a day full of really good music, LCD Soundsystem stood head and shoulders above everyone else on the schedule. And they were also head and shoulders better than the last time I saw them, which had to have been about 10 years ago at Outside Lands with Mahesh. I hope that dude is doing well.... Anyways, back to how incredible LCD was. The last 10 years of touring semi-regularly have done them incredibly well. Each song was tight where it needed to be and open when it wa

Werebear, a four man group from Orosi (not Dinuba) came on stage first with a fast paced set that phased punk, garage rock, blues, and electronic on top of and between and inside of each other. Songs that sounded like Black Keys or LCD Soundsystem. They were strongest when all the different elements of their music shined together, a bluesy Black Keys beat, LCD melodies played on keys or guitar, and punk rock tempo. The vocals were mostly delivered in a rapid fire, staccato s

The metal quartet What Lies Below was the first band I saw on the night (I missed Mirrorcell, the opener), but it wasn’t a standard quartet. They rolled with two guitars and no bass, and the songs weren’t missing anything. Each shouted lyric, each strummed power chord, each strike of a drum hit me with the anger that it was intended to convey. It was a ferocious performance, but not without softer elements. The machine gun kick drum was the jab, keeping your attention and mea

Alabama Shakes put on the kind of show you'd expect out of them, and that's a compliment. We got the full range of their sound, the blues, the soul, the rock, the R&B all fused together. The expected result, of course, is the infectious grooves that you can't help but dance to and Brittany Howard's voice that touches something deep in your core. I always talk about how I like all different types and genres of music, and what I want is music and performances with soul. I want

Evangile, a one woman show, started the evening by singing down tempo goth songs over synthy beats. She’s an expressive dancer, but in a forlorn way. Like she’s grieving something. I’m not the best at hearing lyrics, so I don’t know exactly what she was singing about, but I imagine the tone of her songs matches her anguished dancing. I do know for sure though, that she sang at least one song in French and I’m pretty sure she sang one in Spanish as well. Overall she put on a s

Spaceman Bob was the first act of the night, the show was theatrical and structured as a hypothetical trip through the cosmos, stopping on different planets, each one being the home for a different song. They’ve got the attitude of Rage with the sound of the Beastie Boys. The music is up tempo guitar and drums, think B.O.B. by OutKast. The songs are politically charged and left leaning. They played fast and angry. Their energy was sky high and infectious. Bob (the vocalist) w

Brothers Comatose is a bluegrass (or as they would say, golden grass, which is an allusion to all the string bands that have come out of the Golden State recently) band from the Bay Area, and according to them this was the first time they’d been in Fresno for 12 years. Guitarist is main vocalist with mandolin, bass, and banjo providing backing vocals. In typical bluegrass (golden grass) fashion, they harmonize extremely well. As far as instruments go, they had the full strin

It was one of those perfect Fresno spring evenings, warm but not hot, a light breeze, no humidity, just perfect. And Panchiko packed the house at Tioga Sequoia for their second show in 4 days (the first one sold out instantaneously so they booked a second). Fresno’s version of Tightwad Hill had some attendees as well, with 10-15 people enjoying the show from the top of the spiral garage across the street. Dressed in a #42 Pogba Man United jersey and singing into a mic painted

Sleek Teeth got the night started. They're an electronic duo based in Los Angeles. Both of them are singing, both of them are facing each other with a mixing station in front of themselves, one of them is beating on an electronic drum kit, both of them are putting on a theatric performance. Most of their songs have an 80s dance club sound, like I’m in a night club in Miami Vice or Scarface, or maybe just a club sound in general. In all honesty I don’t really know a ton about

Ghost Mountain is the moniker of a vocalist, with a producer behind him playing the backing tracks. When he sings in a higher register it has a plaintive quality, like an emo singer. He’s wearing a shaggy, ripped hoodie that makes him look like a deathly spirit, which matches the skeleton decoration on his mic stand. Most of the time, though, he’s half singing, half rapping, maybe this is what mumble rap is? He doesn’t have a bad singing voice. He danced and moved for his who

Spite House got the night started. They're from Montreal, and you can hear the accents. The bassist was slinging his bass all over the place, up in the air, around his body, jumping around and putting on a show. The crowd is small, and a little subdued, but the Québécois on stage are still bringing energy. Every song is played at breakneck speed, the drummer pushes the throttle forward and doesn’t let up. Their sound is emo post punk with a slight hint of shoegaze with a lot

Durand Jones and the Indications came to Fresno and brought a whole lot of soul with them, with grooves that grab you and pull you in, teasing and coaxing and demanding that you move with them. An invitation to open yourself with them and through them and join them on the path to full surrender, surrender to the horns and the drums and the groove and to just live in the moment and feel the music at its most primal level, baring your soul and heart and the things that you ke