This event is 21 and over
$16.00 – General Admission (Advance)
$18.00 – General Admission (Door)
*plus applicable service fees
Tickets available at The Independent box office (628 Divisadero, SF) with no service charge
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The Districts
The total electric charge of Popular Manipulations is just the latest evolution for the impressively young quartet, whose founding members — vocalist/guitarist Rob Grote, bassist Connor Jacobus, and drummer Braden Lawrence — have known each other since attending grade school together in the Pennsylvania town of Lititz. After deciding to form a band in high school, the Districts gigged hard in the tri-state area, releasing a slew of promising material (including the rootsy 2012 debut Telephone) before catching the eye of venerable indie Fat Possum. 2015’s A Flourish and a Spoil found the band refining their embryonic sound with veteran producer John Congleton (St. Vincent, Kurt Vile) — and looking back on that release, there are glimmers of Popular Manipulations in chrysalis form to be found on it, hints of the fence-swinging anthemic sound they’d soon make wholly their own.
After touring behind A Flourish and a Spoil, Grote began “playing with different ideas” in his own songwriting by making demos at a prolific pace. “We knew that we wanted to change some things musically, so we were trying to come up with as many songs as possible to narrow the direction we wanted to take the material,” he states. In total, they ended up with 50 song ideas, and so they were off to LA in May of 2016 with new guitarist Pat Cassidy in tow to log more recording time with Congleton, with four of Popular Manipulations‘ songs coming out of the sessions.
For such weighty thematic material, though, Popular Manipulations is purely life-affirming rock music, bursting with energy that cuts through the darkness of the world that surrounds us. “We’re a much better distillation of who we wish to be as a band,” Grote reflects on the journey that has led the Districts to this point. “We’ve figured out how to distill the things we’ve been trying to accomplish as a band, musically and lyrically. We’ve always viewed making music as something we’re trying to do better the whole time.” Mission accomplished.