Drugdealer
Healing Potpourri
This event is 21 and over.
$16.00 – General Admission (Advance)
$18.00 – General Admission (Door)
*plus applicable service fees
The general on sale begins Friday, February 15th at noon!
Tickets available at The Independent box office (628 Divisadero, SF) with no service charge.
All doors & show times subject to change.
“All anyone wants to be is what they can.”
In an era when networked access to information is nearly universal and wearing influences on your sleeve is normalized, it often feels like everything’s been done. Which begs the questions: What’s the point of creating? Does the world need another still life of fruit? Another film about love? Does the world need another melody?
On Raw Honey, his second album as Drugdealer, Michael Collins colors these existential conundrums with lush arrangements, memetic melodies, and a vulnerable tunefulness that tries to make sense of self-doubt and connected loneliness in our shared simulacra.
Collins, who never played an instrument, let alone received musical training in any formal capacity, began experimenting with sounds in 2009 after traversing the US on freight trains. After a few years crafting abstract sampledelia, he decided to forgo his experimental exercises in favor of teaching himself how to write the traditional song. In doing so, he made the decision to approach songwriting from the perspective of a listener, rather than a “musician.”
In 2013, Collins headed west and enmeshed himself in the Los Angeles underground scene. It was then that he began collaborating with players in the orbit of Ariel Pink, slowly over time crafting what would become Drugdealer’s debut album, The End of Comedy, a collection of sunlit songs as indebted to Laurel Canyon psych pop as it is Bacharian orchestration.
Raw Honey continues where The End of Comedy left off, with Collins once again leading an ace crew of collaborators to coalesce the spirit of Drugdealer’s classically modern pop. Built on the foundation of a creative partnership between Collins, Sasha Winn (vocals) and Shags Chamberlain(bass, production), Drugdealer is more a collective than band. Raw Honeyfeatures contributions of Josh Da Costa (drums), Jackson MacIntosh(guitar), Danny Garcia (guitar), Michael Long (lead guitar), and Benjamin Schwab (backing vocals, guitar, organ, piano, wurlitzer), as well as guest vocalists like country balladeer Dougie Poole (“Wild Motion”), Harley Hill-Richmond (“Lonely”), and frequent collaborator Natalie Mering (Weyes Blood) whose dulcet tones sing low before soaring on “Honey,” a track as silky as the nectar itself.
Throughout Raw Honey, Collins and crew display their influences as a new tapestry, one woven with the recycled fibers from thousands of tapestries that have colored our collective listening histories. As evidenced throughout Raw Honey, Collins has an ear for penning numbers that would sound as at home on Classic Rock radio as they would at Zebulon in Los Angeles, where any of the contributors to Raw Honey could, perhaps, be found on any night of the week, on stage, or in the audience supporting another Angelino’s modern pop aspirations.
Rather than hiding behind a curtain or casually sidestepping AOR tropes, Raw Honey adheres to a modern kind of creation — one that cultivates influences and espouses reverence. An honest totem, Raw Honey isn’t tangled up in social norms, with Collins prefering to air his self-doubt as a northern star to guide like-minded people wherever they need to go.
Drugdealer’s Raw Honey will be released on April 19, 2019 via Mexican Summer.
“Jeffrey Lebowski, it is “The Dude”, Donny Benét, it is “The Don”. Quite simply.”
Praised and panned by critics as “Prince on a serious budget cut”, Donny Benét is best described as the favorite nephew to Uncles Giorgio Moroder, Alan Vega and Michael McDonald.
Hailing from Australia, Benét’s debut album Don’t Hold Back confused and intrigued many whilst quickly establishing him as a cult figure in the Australian music scene. Donny’s piece de resistance The Don, which featured the breakthrough single Konichi-wa, facilitated his first invitation to tour Europe in 2018. In no time at all Europe had caught a fever that only Donny could quell each time he returned to perform. America’s first taste of The Don came in 2019 with Donny supporting Mac DeMarco. Returning in early 2020 for his first sold out headline tour, Donny’s acclaimed album Mr Experience was released soon after. 2022 saw the release of Le Piano alongside another successful North American tour.
A perfectionist, Benét writes, performs and records entirely by himself at the renowned Donnyland Studios. Vintage synthesizers and drum machines are used exclusively by Donny when presenting his hot takes on life, love and relationships. A masterful bassist, his songs are instantly recognised by their signature basslines, which guarantee to get you up and keep you on the dance floor.
Touring Europe and the US since 2018, Donny regularly sells out headline shows and has performed at festivals such as Pukkelpop, Green Man Festival, Rock Werchter, Down the Rabbit Hole, Pohoda Festival, Zomerparkfeest and Rock For Churchill to name a few.
When you need the one who will deliver it – you know you’ve got to call…“Mr Experience”