This event is 21 and over.
$18.00 — General Admission (Advance)
$20.00 — General Admission (Door)
*plus applicable service fees
Tickets available at The Independent box office (628 Divisadero, SF) with no service charge.
All doors & show times subject to change.
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Ghost Light
“I think of this album like a bunch of abstract paintings,” says Ghost Light’s Tom Hamilton. “We present the songs as a series meant to be experienced in a certain order, but at the end of the day, whatever that series makes you feel is totally up to you.”
In that sense, Ghost Light’s brilliant debut album, ‘Best Kept Secrets,’ functions much like the band itself, drawing beauty and strength from both its complementary pairings and its unexpected juxtapositions. Formed in 2017, the group brings together five consummately talented artists from across the musical spectrum—guitarists/singers Tom Hamilton and Raina Mullen, pianist Holly Bowling, and drummer Scotty Zwang—and thrusts them into a wholly new context. The result is a record that transcends the sonic contributions and background of any single member, a collection that’s at once gritty and refined, sprawling and restrained, straightforward and psychedelic.
Though the performances on the album are laser focused, the group’s live shows are a far looser affair, with tracks frequently blossoming into extended improvisational journeys dictated by the emotional temperature of the room on any given night. Songs turn into wordless conversations between all five members, a tide-like give-and-take that makes each show wholly engrossing and utterly unique.
“An album is…a document and snapshot of a particular moment in time,” Hamilton told Live For Live Music in a recent interview, “but when it comes to taking that album and bringing it into the live arena, that’s when we turn ourselves back into the improvisers that we all are. We get to really see what these songs can do and where they can go.”
With a formidable live reputation already preceding them, the band sold out the opening night of their inaugural tour and they haven’t looked back since, playing a slew of headline dates around the country in addition to entrancing festival crowds from Lock’n to High Sierra, Peach Music Festival, Electric Forest, and beyond.
Andrew St. James
ANDREW ST. JAMES
“When people ask what’s going on with the San Francisco music scene, point them in the general direction of Andrew St. James.” – Aidin Vaziri, San Francisco Chroncle
Andrew St. James was born the accidental child of The Rolling Stones’ tour caterers. After riding the Voodoo Lounge Tour in utero, he was born somewhere in Northern California, and taken in by a family of political lobbyists in San Francisco. Considered a vocal prodigy, St. James developed an early interest in baroque classical music, touring internationally in choirs and by age 11 was singing for the San Francisco Opera. Following the death of his biological father, St. James, then 16, recorded a solo album with a handheld recorder while hitchhiking the Pacific Northwest. The recordings found their way to veteran Bay Area producer Jim Greer (Foster The People, Galactic, Geographer), who in turn began working with St. James on his first proper release. Doldrums, recorded during his senior year of high school, was released September 2013 to critical acclaim.
After briefly attending college on the east coast, St James headed back to California on a motorcycle where he joined Greer to record his second LP The Shakes, released in 2014, which according to Pittsburg In Tune “cements St. James’ status as one of the most promising young artists around.” Followed by several years of touring he eventually landed in Los Angeles where he capitalized on his talent as a songwriter and started collaborating with some of LA’s larger acts such as Cold War Kids and Mark Foster.
Born out of time visiting and creating in Los Angeles, The Big Ole Veronica Apology Record, released in 2017, is a commentary on flat mass culture, American indifference, and a self expressed “millennial malaise.” Despite its subversive undertones, “The Apology Record” is an upbeat collection of songs the Bay Bridged refers to as “lyrically charged folk-pop […] with gorgeous harmonies, indelible hooks and an infectious high energy.”
Andrew St. James currently lives in San Francisco, where he continues working with long time producer Jim Greer. His latest release, Liberation Music.! For Boring People was recorded in November of 2016. Written in the aftermath of the presidential election, the songs are an exploration of national tension and personal turmoil.
Liberation Music offers exactly what music needs right now: a voice for those cerebral members of the new generation, out there hiding in plain sight, observing and relating on the level we should all expect from our troubadours. St. James’s lyrical subversion and musical vulnerability explores just that, revealing the very core social values and personal ambitions of today. “Boring People” is about all of us, how we are brainwashed by the media, having to work ten times harder to keep up with the onslaught,” says St James. Filled with catchy singles such as I’m Ready, Inside The Mess You Made, and the gorgeous Forever Waiting, Forever There, his sly look on life translates onto this record. If “Liberation Music” could be best summed up in a lyric, it would be from the records breezy pop song, Inside A Wonderful Mind: “While you were looking for the answers, I was looking at the dancer…”
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