This event is 21 and over
$15.00 – General Admission (Advance)
$18.00 – General Admission (Door)
*plus applicable service fees
The general on sale begins Friday, May 6th at noon!
Tickets available at The Independent box office (628 Divisadero, SF) with no service charge.
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The Donkeys
As we watched the Donkeys perform one of the first of their nearly 150 shows in support of 2014’s Ride The Black Wave, on the clattery rooftop stage of the aptly named SXSW venue Cheers Shot Bar, Craig Finn (he of literate-rock luminaries The Hold Steady) turned to me and said something on the order of “you can just feel that they’ve played with each other since high school…they’ve got that thing, and you just can’t get it otherwise.” That thing, an elusive, intuitive musical hive-mindedness informs every note the acclaimed San Diego quartet ever play, live or on record, but is especially present on Midnight Palms, the mini-album due for release February 12th on Easy Sound.
Tracked largely live-in-the-studio with veteran producer, longtime friend, and fellow traveler Thom Monahan (Vetiver, Fruit Bats, Devendra Banhart), Midnight Palmsoozes with the sticky, syrupy energy of a band fresh off the road and “in rare form,” as the expression goes. Recorded as it was at the end of one of the bands blitzkrieg road runs (which might see the band playing as many as 28 shows in 29 days), the collection’s lived-in live feel should surprise few.
The core founding trio of Tim Denardo, Anthony Lukens, and Sam Sprague drive the proceedings. Drummer Sprague alternately (and effortlessly) sets a lock-step driving pace, as on album opener “Hurt Somebody,” a bouncy girl-group groove (“Day by Day”), or a lazy gallop, as on the languid “Star Bird,” which the drummer also sings. Meanwhile, bassist Denardo falls easily into any of those pockets, and takes his own lead vocal turn on “Down the Line,” a dusty roots-pop tune as laid back as the men playing it. Lukens, of course, provides the by-turns warm, slippery, punchy and liquid keyboard lines that are the album’s bedrock, while lending his direct, earnest vocals to three of the album’s five tunes.
The fourth Donkey on Midnight Palms is The Hold Steady’s Steve Selvidge, stepping in after the (amiable) departure of long-time guitarist Jesse Gulati. Selvidge hopped on stage with the Donkeys that night at Cheers Shot Bar and would end up joining the band for a fair number of those 150 RTBW shows. His pointed, tasteful leads are peppered throughout Midnight Palms, most notably on the searing “Hold On To You.”
In all, the Donkeys have crafted in the Midnight Palms mini-album a fine, half-sized document of their singular sound. At once accessible, adventurous, nostalgic, and progressive, it can only be the Donkeys.
Goodnight, Texas
Conventional wisdom says the two frontmen of a band shouldn’t live on opposite sides of the United States, but that’s never seemed to deter Avi Vinocur and Patrick Dyer Wolf.
Goodnight, Texas is a band whose strength lies in unexpected sweet spots. Drawing their name from Pat and Avi’s onetime geographic midpoint (the real town of Goodnight in the State of Texas, a tiny hamlet east of Amarillo), the four-piece also exists at the center of its songwriters’ contrasting styles — with a Gibson A mandolin from 1913 and a Danelectro from 2015, at the crossroads of folk and blues and rock ‘n’ roll, in a place where dry wit and dark truths meet hope and utmost sincerity.
In March of 2020, the band released its first live album: “Live in Seattle, Just BeforeThe Global Pandemic.” Jonathan Kirchner recorded, mixed and mastered a weekend ofOctober performances at Tractor Tavern that featured a newly expanded five-manlineup. GN, TX rookie Chris Sugiura brings precision and flair to the bass (and stronghair); grizzled veteran and former GN, TX bassist Adam Nash slides over to lead guitarand pedal steel where he can truly dazzle; extra grizzled veteran and former GN, TXbassist Scott Griffin Padden holds steady behind the kit, beating the hell out of theavailable objects with aplomb. In a strange and often dark time, here is a totem of life,and a great example of the raucousness and dynamics of the band’s live performance.
Also in March 2020, as the world confronted a new indoor reality, two long minutes ofthe GN,TX mainstay “The Railroad” found themselves in the intro sequence of the firstepisode of Netflix’s “Tiger King,” which shattered streaming records with 34 millionviews in 10 days.
On September 10th, 2021, the band’s unique version of Metallica’s ‘Of Wolf and Man’will be featured as part of the 30th anniversary of The Black Album on the ‘TheMetallica Blacklist’. Avi from Goodnight, Texas occasionally plays and sings withMetallica when they perform acoustic.