Check out Phil Free Band, Craig Green Band, & Flying Half Full in the Club!

Doors 7pm, Show 730pm

$8 Advance + Day of Show

This is a 21+ event.

Hotel Congress

Phil Free Band

Gigs

Tucson

Club Congress

**Tom Heavy presents MASTODONNA - A benefit show to replace Garth’s stolen bass!**

**ft. Manguera & Demon Tongue**

Friday, February 10th

Doors 8pm, Show 830pm

$10 Advance + Day of Show

21+

Tom Heavy presents Mastodonna, Tucson’s only heavy metal tribute to The Material Girl herself, Madonna.

https://gofund.me/939da4c6

This is a 21+ event.

Tom Heavy presents MASTODONNA

Los Esplifs with special guest Dolly Creamer!

Sunday February 12th

Doors 8pm, Show 830pm

$12 Advance, $15 Day of Show

This is a 21+ event

Los Esplifs

Dolly Creamer

HARMONY HOUSE with DJs ROBERTITX & ELISIVA "FRIKITONA"

Sunday February 12

11pm-1am

21+

Reggaeton | Techno | Global Bass

This is a 21+ event.

Harmony House

Tuesday February 14th

Doors 8pm, Show 830pm

21+

GA: $12.50 Advance, $15 Day of Show

VIP Ticket Pack: $50 Advance Only

VIP Ticket Pack includes:

- 2 tickets
- Front Row seating
- Mini Champagne for two

\*very limited availability

This is a 21+ event.

Lola Torch 'Hearts On Fire' Valentine Burlesque

theatre

Theatre

Wednesday February 15

Doors 8pm, Show 830 pm

21+

$10 Advance & Day of Show

This is a 21+ event.

Bat Population + The Cult of Chunk

Friday February 17th

Doors 8pm, Show 9pm

21+

$5 Advance + Day of Show

Bush League Band plays homage to all of the beloved minor leagues out there. Music catered to those like us, this one goes out to those of y’all with champagne taste on a bud-heavy budget. Now Tucson based, these Northern Arizona kids come from mismatched musical backgrounds. Through the thoughtful amalgamation of these styles, Bush League forges the heavy psychedelic noise scapes and jivey choruses that define their style. The league consists of Sammy Riddle on bass, Karson Trainor on drums, Jackson Ells on sax and synth, and Dylan Walker, Canyon Willis-Green, and Liam Cashmore all on guitar. Don’t let the name fool you, Bush League is major league.

This is a 18+ event.

Bush League

Doors 7pm, Show 730pm

Inner Wave has partnered with PLUS1 so that $1 from each ticket will go towards supporting Our Music My Body, a collaborative campaign founded by Between Friends and Resilience to raise awareness about sexual harassment in the music scene.

\--INNER WAVE--September 2021 marked the 15th anniversary of the first rehearsal of what we now know as LA-based band Inner Wave. Its founding trio—composed of Pablo Sotelo, Elijah Trujillo (guitar), and Jean Pierre Narvaez (bass, vox)—set off as middle schoolers with a certain kind of gusto, and they’ve never forgotten it. Now in their 20s, Inner Wave is in its tightest formation yet. With the addition of drummer Luis Portillo and keyboardist Jose Cruz, its members feel more musically connected and confident than ever before.

Apoptosis (2021), the quintet's fourth LP Apoptosis, is a trip into the band’s familiar realm of electronic, soul, and garage-rock.This time, however, the details are especially intricate; is experimental yet intentional. It is far-fetched in theory, but not out of reach in its final presentation. The LP name is derived from a biological term for the death of cells, Sotelo explains. Like their recent tribulation and renewal, the process of apoptosis is normal—part of an organism’s development. “Coming out of the pandemic,” Sotelo says, “having gone through so much and restructuring our team, we reverted back to being very hands-on—like we were for 11 years. Now I feel very confident: we're like a musical tank.” This year, the band has already embarked on a North America tour, supported Boy Pablo in his European tour, and played at festivals like Coachella,Outside Lands, and Pickathon.

16+

Inner Wave

1 4 2

Inner Wave - American Spirits

Doors 7pm, Show 8pm

Ballyhoo!’s subtle blend of ska, old-school punk, reggae, and metal makes them one of the acknowledged founders of the current scene. Starting 25 years ago in the basement of their mom’s Aberdeen, MD, home, brothers Howi and Donald Spangler have guided the band through eight independent album releases, including their newest, Message to the World, which finds them exploring a more breezy island sound.

This is a 21+ event.

Ballyhoo!

**Peaceful Sky Benefit presents An Evening of Desert Voices , featuring Sage Bond, Just Najima, Flor de Nopal, Ruben Cu:k Ba’ak, Poetry by Crisosto Apache, & Art by Lynnette Haozous**

Monday February 20th

Show Information:

Doors 7pm, Show 730pm

$10 Advance, $12 Day of Show

21+

\*There is an NGO Meet & Greet from 6-7pm that is Free and All Ages.\*

The US Air Force has announced plans to escalate training over the most biodiverse region of the continental United States, where military air maneuvers especially harm conservation areas and Tribal Lands. The Peaceful Sky Benefit is sharing awareness of these proposals 2/19 - 2/22, in solidarity for peaceful skies and equitable stewardship of the region, featuring local and touring musicians at different Tucson venues. Net proceeds will support initiatives that have pledged to increase awareness of the proposals, including The Border Chronicle, a weekly newsletter that publishes original, on-the-ground reporting, analysis, and commentary from a border perspective.

On 2/20 the Club stage will resonate with the desert voices of Metal-edged singer/composer Sage Bond, southwestern soul artist Just Najima, experimental synth artist Flor de Nopal, and poet-activist Ruben Cu:k Ba’ak. The concert will be accompanied by projections of Crisosto Apache’s poem Gahé Dzíł / Mountain Spirits, and of Lynnette Haozous’s mural The Carrier of Life. Prints of art and photography by Monica Aissa Martinez, Ahchipaptunhe, and Julius Schlosburg will be available as thanks for direct contributions to leading local NGOs.

**https://www.gofundme.com/f/peaceful-sky**

This is a 21+ event.

Peaceful Sky Benefit presents  An Evening of Desert Voices  

Tuesday February 21st

21+

Doors 7pm

$30 Advance, $35 Day of Show

The Sky Islands region is in danger. The US Air Force has announced proposals to severely escalate training over the most biodiverse region of the continental United States, where military air maneuvers especially harm Tribal Lands and conservation areas.

The Peaceful Sky Benefit is sharing awareness of these dangerous proposals with 4-days of solidarity, featuring local and touring musicians at different Tucson venues, 2/19-2/22. Underground legends, Unwound, pit stop during a still-unbelievable reunion tour, that takes ownership of the band’s legacy with honor for former bandmate and bassist Vern Rumsey, to headline this special event.

As if that wasn’t monumental enough, Unwound will be joined by fellow Pacific Northwest indi-rock icons, Quasi, touring in support of their first LP in a decade, Breaking the Balls of History.

The night kicks off in full force with Hot Pursuit Of Happiness: noise-pop project of the internationally acclaimed artist, Thollem (Tsigoti, Hand To Man Band), collaborating specifically for this event with Brian McOmber (longtime drummer of the Dirty Projectors, who’s also worked with David Byrne, The Roots, Björk, et al.)

Tucson shoegaze rockers, Sonya Blade, are keeping this lineup sharply anchored to the beloved Sonoran underground music scene.

Net proceeds will be donated to initiatives furthering public understanding of dangers the region faces, if the new military proposals proceed.

This is a 21+ event.

 Peaceful Skies Benefit Feat: Unwound 

Corpse Pose

Quasi

Unwound

**GOON + TEETHE + ORCHADIA!**

Wednesday February 22nd

Doors 7p, Show 730p

16+

**GOON**

Come along and wake up on the way,” sings Goon frontman Kenny Becker, “orange shapes arrange and change again/quiet Isaac in a mild dream.” The lyric evokes the hazy dreamscape spaces occupied by the band’s new album, Hour of Green Evening. Goon began as Becker’s Bandcamp solo project in 2015. At a friend’s encouragement, Becker compiled the best of his tracks and released them as an EP, 2016’s Dusk of Punk. He recruited bandmates from his college buddies and released a second EP, all the while working on the band’s first full-length, 2019’s Heaven is Humming on Partisan Records, followed by the self-released Paint By Numbers 1, a collection of his mid-pandemic home recordings. The evolution of Goon has come to full fruition on Hour of Green Evening. It’s the band’s most complete statement, engaging all aspects of their sound to stunning effect. The album thrums with mystery, with the half-remembered past hazy as dreams, the mixed sense of comfort and longing for freedom so essential to youth.

**TEETHE**

Teethe is a Texas based slowcore music group.

**ORCHADIA**

Tucson, AZ

16+

Goon + Teethe

Doors: 7 PM

21+

$10 Advance / $12 Day of Show

This is a 21+ event.

Shadows of Algol Album Release

Friday February 24th

Doors: 8 PM

21+

This is a 21+ event.

Nunca Jamas

Narda

Doors 6pm, Show 7pm

21+

$15 Advance & Day of Show

Come get sassy at Sassword on Saturday February 25 at Hotel Congress!

Join the glamorously glib Chatty Kathee and her spectacularly saucy executive assistant Swish Manley for a hilarious night of Sassword! The deliciously divine Fulta Burstyn and absolutely annoyed Oasis Kimmelman will join the insanity as our celebrity guests! Put your name in Kathee's big, red, sparkly box for a chance to play for incredible prizes and questionable fame!!

C'mon down to Hotel Congress for Tucson's very own Retro Game Show Night - now in its 12th year! Open seat tickets are just $15 at the door, at Hotel Congress's front desk or online (service fees may apply)! Doors open at 6pm and the sassin' starts at 7pm. Drop everything and get your tickets NOW! 21+

(Open seat & SRO tickets will be available at the door the night of show until we run out!)

This is a 21+ event.

Retro Game Show Night presents Sassword!

Retro Game Show Night

comedy

Comedy

**TINY BIRD + ANNIE JUMP CANYON + TONIGHT'S SUNSHINE**

Sunday February 26

Doors 6pm, Show 630pm

$10 Advance, $12 Day of Show

16+

punk | rock | emo | indie

This is a 16+ event.

Tiny Bird ft. Annie Jump Canyon and Tonight's Sunshine

Doors 7pm, Show 730pm

$15 Advance, $18 Day of Show

“No one escapes the marks left behind when it comes to love or the absence of it,” says singer-songwriter S.G. Goodman, describing the inspiration behind her sophomore album Teeth Marks. “Not only are we the ones who bear its indentations, but we’re also the ones responsible for placing them on ourselves and others.”

When the Kentucky native released her debut album, Old Time Feeling, she was rightly coined an “untamed rock n roll truth-teller” by Rolling Stone. The roots-inflected rock n’ roll record saw Goodman lending her gritty, haunting vocals to narrate the dual perspectives of her upbringing as the daughter of a crop farmer, and a queer woman coming out in a rural town.

Now with Teeth Marks, co-produced by Drew Vandenberg (Faye Webster, Drive-By Truckers, Of Montreal) in Athens, Georgia, she picks up the threads of Old Time Feeling. But where her critically acclaimed, Jim James-produced debut zeroed in on the South, reframing misconceptions in slough water-soaked tones, her latest album pulses with downtown Velvet Underground electricity, shifting its focus inward - though never losing Goodman’s searing and universal point of view. Teeth Marks is what you might get if Flannery O’Connor and Lou Reed went on a road trip.

Drawing influences from the aforementioned Velvets, as well as Pavement, Karen Dalton, and Chad VanGaalen, Goodman brings 11 powerful vignettes to life, with a sound that ventures deeper into indie rock and punk territory than she ever has before. Though Teeth Marks is a love album, Goodman doesn’t aim her focus on romantic relationships alone. Instead, she analyzes the way love between communities, families, and even one’s self can be influenced by trauma that lingers in the body. Teeth Marks is about what love actually is, love’s psychological and physical imprint, its light, and its darkness. It’s a record about the love we have or don't have for each other, and perhaps, more significantly, the love we have or don’t have for ourselves.

21+

S. G. Goodman

Marina Allen

S.G. Goodman

Dos Argentés | Bright Bright | Viané

Wednesday March 1st

Doors 7pm, Show 730p

$10 Advance & Day of Show

16+

\-- DOS ARGENTÉS--Dos Argentés is the musical moniker for multi-instrumentalist, Brian Gottshall. With a sound that isn’t genre specific, Dos Argentés crafts soft melodies with a backdrop of honest lyrics and sincere delivery. Raised in Tucson, Arizona, Dos Argentés blends the alternative roots of his youth with the modern stylings of Matt Corby, Bon Iver, and David Bazan.

This is a 16+ event.

Dos Argentés  |  Bright Bright  |  Viané 

**The Basements 'Broken Escalators Are Stairs' EP release show!!**

Thursday March 2

Doors 7pm, Show 730pm

$5 Advance, $8 Day of Show

The Basements are a high energy alternative rock group formed at the University of Arizona in 2021. The band burst onto the scene by winning the Dusk Music Festival Battle of the Bands and have since come into their own with their own brand of live music. The group has their debut EP “Long Stories Get Short” available now for streaming, and their second EP “BROKEN Escalators Are Stairs” is releasing on March 1st. Even if you have never heard their music, The Basements guarantee they will have you singing along by the end of the show!

All Welcome

The Basements EP Release Show!

New Misphoria - Savior Song

HOLY FAINT with GLIDE REFLECTION!

Friday March 3rd

Doors 8p, Show 830p

21+

$10 Advance, $12 Day of Show

\-- HOLY FAINT --The antidote to apathy, Holy Faint is music for the unapologetically passionate. The Tucson-based quintet makes loud music for romantics, dreamers, and oddities

A newly electric guitar obsessed Sophie Gibson-Rush started the project in early 2021 as a means of exploring music with a harder edge than her past experiences in folk and classical. To her, the social and political climate at the time demanded a fiercer sound. As a result, Holy Faint has aggressive, socially-conscious lyrics delivered with a melodic touch.

Holy Faint’s songs filter the catharsis of live theatre through the lens of post-punk. From the inception of the project, it was important for singer/guitarist Sophie Gibson-Rush that the band capture the heightened emotion and drama of contemporary society. Like the punk and folk movements of the past fifty years, numbness was never an option.

When Pete and Andrea Connolly (of Tucson-based folk-rock duo Birds and Arrows) joined the band in 2022, they took the project from a bedroom recording experiment—to a full-fledged ensemble. Ryan Green (Ryanhood) was enlisted as an assistant producer and multi-instrumentalist when the group entered the St. Cecilia’s studio to record the firsts tracks for their upcoming EP ‘Charisma 1’. Just ahead of their first show, Jordan Prather (Head over Heart) completed the quintet as synth and guitar player.

This is a 21+ event.

Holy Faint EP Release Party with Glide Reflection

Paul Cherry and The Mattson 2 perform live on The Club stage!

Doors 7pm, Show 730 pm

Paul Cherry & Mattson 2 met serendipitously in Boise at Treefort and since then they've kept in touch and decided to collaborate in the studio and on the road together.... Paul Cherry VS Mattson 2 are thrilled to bring you this Head 2 Head ephemeral music experience...4 the heads!!

The Mattson 2’s recent output includes the celebratory, disco splashed Toro Y Moi single Millennium which appeared on The Tonight Show Staring Jimmy Fallon. The twin brothers cameoed in the joints video as grumpy orderlies in a mental ward high-jacking instruments from Chaz Bear’s bandmates. Amongst collabs w/ Ray Barbee, ‪Tommy Guerrero,‬ Farmer Dave (of ‪Kurt Vile‬), and ‪‪Money Mark‬ (‬of ‪‪Beastie Boys‬‬)‪, they released Star Stuff in 2017 with ‬Chaz Bear (FKA Chaz Bundick, AKA Toro Y Moi) — #1 on Billboard contemp. jazz charts — and reinterpreted Coltrane’s legendary A Love Supreme.

Paul Cherry is a musician and DJ from Chicago who achieved some success after the release of his first LP Flavour in 2018. After playing for years developing his mid-fi jazz-pop sound in the local Chicago garage and bar scene which brought up other artists like Twin Peaks, Smith Westerns, Whitney, and Mild High Club, The album cycle for Flavour took Paul on tour for almost 2 years straight, playing 300+ shows in the US, Canada and Europe. As the Covid-19 pandemic halted all touring and live music, Cherry was able to pause and focus on what really mattered to him in music, and spent the entirety of 2020 in lockdown creating his follow up to Flavour and 2nd LP, Back on the Music.

This is a 16+ event

Paul Cherry x The Mattson 2

Paul Cherry

The Mattson 2

Doors 7pm, Show 730pm

$18 Advance, $22 Day of Show

Leaders in the underground music scene's 'Southern Gothic" Legendary Shack Shakers visit the Club stage with support from Hillybilly Casino.

After twenty-five years into their worldwide crusade, it’s clear those Legendary Shack Shakers have become the leaders in the underground music scene’s “Southern Gothic” sound.

Led by their charismatic front man, Col. JD Wilkes, the band continues to wow crowds with their explosive interpretations of swamp blues, rock n' roll and hillbilly music, making fans, critics, and now, an entire new generation into true believers.

Despite Wilkes' extracurricular writing and solo projects, the Shakers' reputation for intense entertainment endures.

On stage, JD has been compared to the likes of Iggy Pop, David Byrne, and Jerry Lee Lewis. The Nashville Scene named Wilkes “the best frontman in Nashville”, while former Dead Kennedys frontman Jello Biafra has called JD “the last great Rock and Roll frontman.”

Guitar-slinger and “illustrated man” David Lee intones a variety of styles, from blues to surf to cowpunk, while the rhythm section rounds out with drummer Declan Dachowski and Tomas “Frenchy” Lorioux thumping the upright bass.

With ten critically-acclaimed studio albums (and songs that have been featured on television shows such as HBO’s True Blood, CBS’s The Unit , Swamp Loggers, and movies like Julia Roberts’ Duplicity), the band shows no sign of stopping. Past tour mates and fans include Sturgill Simpson, Reverend Horton Heat, Rancid, The Black Keys, Slim Cessna’s Auto Club, and Hank Williams III. Robert Plant is also a noted Legendary Shack Shakers fan, and picked the band to open for him on his “Strange Sensation” tour of Europe. Plant named the band's third album Believe as one of his favorite records, and the list of esteemed admirers goes on to include horror novelist Stephen King. King listed “CB Song” as among his iPod’s Top Five in an Entertainment Weekly article.

Such a wealth of devoted, cult-like fans has only added to the mystique that the Legendary Shack Shakers possess, carrying them down the road toward new creative pursuits and intense new music and ideas.

This is a 21+ event.

Legendary Shack Shakers

Blood On The Bluegrass

Hillbilly Casino

Thursday March 9th

Doors 6pm

16+

$12 Advance

\-- MATTSTAGRAHAM--With all the good band names taken and, like, 17 other Matt Graham’s on Spotify, he decided that no one would be stupid enough to use the name “MattstaGraham,” which was both an expertly crafted social media pun based on his name and his internet username on every platform he has. With his internet success on TikTok getting ahead of him, it just goes to show that sometimes the name you choose on a whim makes for a totally incredible and memorable artist name, that would sound really good at, like, I don’t know, The MTV Music Awards orsomething. (hint hint MTV hint hint)

“Yeah, life’s short and we all die someday. I may as well see where this goes. I mean, I’m not exactly gonna be a doctor or invent a million dollar idea any time soon either,” he told us at MattstaGraham, meaning me, MattstaGraham, who is currently writing a bio for the press release for his upcoming record, Prescribe Whatever. Yup. It’s been me this whole time, writing in 3rd person. Don’t judge me, weirder things have happened. Why are you reading the bio and not listening to the music anyway? Do you enjoy reading about music more than just listening to it? Get a life, nerd. Anyway, Prescribe Whatever isMattstaGraham’s label debut on I Surrender Records, and is out now everywhere music is streaming.

This is a 16+ event.

MattstaGraham and Racoon Tour

Saturday March 11th

Doors 7pm, Show 8pm

$15 Advance, $17 Day of Show

All ages

Glitterer

Glitterer - The Race

Objection of Affection 

Tacoma-based rockers Enumclaw visit the Club stage with support from Nitefire.

Enumclaw is a rock band based in Tacoma, WA composed of brothers Aramis and Eli and friends Nathan and Ladaniel. The four met playing shows in the Seattle-Tacoma area and bonded over their mutual love for Drake, Nirvana, and 90’s R&B. Despite having never played guitar or have any singing experience, frontman Aramis has proclaimed that the band will be the biggest in the world. With critical acclaim from Pitchfork, Gorilla Vs Bear, Stereogum, KEXP, and others, Enumclaw is on their way. Their debut EP Jimbo Demo came out late April 2021 via Youth Riot Records.

This is a 21+ event.

Enumclaw

Jimmy Neutron

Nitefire

21+

Doors 7pm, Show 730pm

$13 Advance, $15 Day of Show

\--MODEL/ACTRIZ--Dogsbody, the debut album by Brooklyn-based Model/Actriz (vocalist Cole Haden, guitarist Jack Wetmore, drummer Ruben Radlauer, and bassist Aaron Shapiro), is a coming-of-age album set between the hours of dusk and dawn. It is as much an exploration of love and loss as it is a sharp, piercing, and violent ode to the explosive joy of being alive - the overwhelming brightness of staring at the sun.

The music takes inspiration from the physicality and repetition in electronic music, and the relentlessly propulsive sounds of the cityscape and cycling overground trains. The band was inspired by dance music and how it can be rebuilt, remixed, or broken down into the core elements that keep a song intact and incisive. Co-produced and mixed by Seth Manchester (Lingua Ignota, The Body, Battles), the record feels inherently tactile; written in starkly different environments (Shapiro’s parents’ house in Vermont, Haden’s grandfather’s cabin in Pennsylvania, the Pfizer building in Brooklyn, as well as the basement of Tribeca art gallery the Hole) and reconstituted into the band’s own world.

This is a 21+ event.

Model/Actriz

Suntan

Tuesday March 21st

Doors 7pm, Show 730pm

21+

GA Seated: $25

\-- DAMIEN JURADO --“Play on, there’s no such thing as better days,” Damien Jurado sings on “Roger,” the sweeping wash of a song that opens Reggae Film Star, his 18th full length album and second release from Jurado’s own Maraqopa Records label. But as he enters his 25th year as a recording artist, it’s clear these are, at the least, very good days for Jurado on the creative front. In these 12 songs, which evoke half-recalled dreams and overheard conversations, the cosmic rushes headlong into the autobiographical and specific moments on the clock fade from past to future to scenes set only in the eternal now.

Playing out like a backlot documentary filmed on the location of an unnamed TV or film set—maybe a sitcom taping, or perhaps it’s a low budget science fiction B-movie, or could it be a talk show?—the album is populated by performers awaiting call times, camera operators praying for their shot, and studio audiences rapt with anticipation. The stars here eschew glitz and glamor. Instead, they wander grocery stores and parking lots in the verdant Pacific Northwest and the desert Southwest, looking for payphones and a sense of purpose.

This is a 21+ event.

Damien Jurado

Thursday March 23rd

Doors 7pm, Show 730pm

$20 Advance, $25 Day of Show

21+

This is a 21+ event.

Sara Schaefer

MIKE is a quintessential old soul. The 24-year-old artist’s wisdom is evident in both his calm delivery and measured questioning, even if he doesn’t always understand the depth of his words until they’re written. “All of these random ideas come to my head, but always end up making sense after it’s done,” the NY-based rapper-producer says about his method. Known for introspective, subtly profound rhymes that explore grief, family, and identity, and melt over muffled, soul-seasoned samples, MIKE’s signature sound returns matured and healthy on his eighth album Beware of the Monkey.

“Through the city I can’t do too much looking up,” MIKE raps on “nuthin i can do is wrng”, the first single from his forthcoming self-produced record. The line is emblematic of what the album as a whole signifies for MIKE. As his career—spanning numerous critically celebrated albums and tours with artists like Blood Orange, Earl Sweatshirt, and Freddie Gibbs—flourishes, his inner world demands nurturing. In a noisy metropolis, it can be hard to see beyond what’s right in front you, to find stillness. “So much shit is happening on surface level, it’s hard to have some idea of external shit outside of that,” MIKE says.

In a way, Beware of the Monkey is MIKE’s coming-of-age album. The beloved rapper has come a long way from making waves in underground hip-hop circles with the \[sLUms\] collective—a group of young rappers Adé Hakim, Darryl Johnson, King Carter, Jazz Jodi, and DJ Mason formed in New York in 2015. In 2017 MIKE released his mixtape May God Bless Your Hustle, capturing a singular moment in a city where the only constant is change. It received a Best New Music review from Pitchfork as MIKE started to gain international attention outside of New York City. At the end of 2018 MIKE released his album War In My Pen independently, and followed it up in mid 2019 with Tears of Joy, his second album to be selected for Pitchfork’s Best New Music. He released his most recent album, Weight of the World, in 2020. Nearly entirely self-produced, and only containing features from Jadasea and Earl Sweatshirt, it is one of MIKE’s most introspective and sonically diverse releases. Disco! followed Weight of the World, and saw MIKE combine his new style of production with his top tier songwriting and delivery.

As MIKE has found success in his career, his inner world has come into focus. Finding meaning in Chinese astrology, MIKE acknowledges a full circle moment in his life through this album: both MIKE’s birth year and 2022 fall under the year of the Tiger, which he says, “holds the hardest challenges for people born in the year of the Tiger.” Beware of the Monkey, a title referencing years in the past as well as the future, seems to emphasize the importance of MIKE navigating this inner world, addressing personal challenges, and finding stillness in the noise. “In scary movies, you hear the monkey’s voice but you don’t really see the monkey,” he explains. “It’s hiding in the trees or circling around you.”

As producer dj blackpower, MIKE has armed himself with a tapestry of ancestral sound built upon repurposed material, from soulful cuts to archival motifs. The ethos of dj blackpower shows up throughout episodes of IFE Radio, an ecosystem of black sound (Sun Ra, Miles Davis, Roy Ayers, Yesterday’s New Quintet) he hosts, featuring guest conversations and sets from artists like duendita and Frank Dorrey.

“You don’t have to ask to be a leader. You have to do things and if the spot is open and needed, it will be there for you,” MIKE says about using his platform to build community. Young World II, a day-long festival he organized over the summer at Bed Stuy’s Herbert Von King Park (Junglepussy, Slick Rick, TisaKorean, Maasaai, and more), epitomized his impact.

Beware of the Monkey affirms the wide-smiled rapper as he chooses to find the sublime in order to “get out of his own way.” Following the longest gap MIKE has taken since recent projects, the new record displays the intuitive musician’s eclipse into a new cycle. Beware of the Monkey finds the most confident and determined MIKE to date, as he shifts from an adolescent poet to a masterful interdisciplinary artist.

16+

MIKE

Sideshow

Tuesday April 4th

Doors 7pm, Show 8pm

21+

$15 Advance, $18 Day of Show

\-- BRAINSTORY --To be familiar with Brainstory is to know their Rialto, CA, roots, the positivity that laces each of their songs, and then the maverick-musicianship-meets-real-friendship that expertly holds it all together.

If you're new to Brainstory, you'd be forgiven if you didn't quite believe the music they make—from sweet soul slowies to psyche rock-tinted bangers to ballads with a nod to a smooth jazzy R&B of the 70s—is the product of only three people.

Brainstory is the brothers Kevin and Tony Martin (on guitar/vocals and bass, respectfully) and Eric Hagstrom (drums)—but all three of these raw, sensitive, California dudes are family.

Inspired and conceived in California's Inland Empire, these three found each other through the common denominator of jazz. With no real music scene to speak of in the IE, Kevin and Eric landed in music school (where they initially met) while Tony left for San Francisco to study jazz bass the more traditional way—gig after gig, learning by trial-by-fire. By the mid-2010s, the group was in Los Angeles. "That's what we were all into at the time—jazz," Kevin explains. "And that's what we wanted to do with our first EP in 2014—take our songs and expand them, improvise, weld jazz onto them. We wanted to trick people into listening to jazz, basically."

This is a 21+ event.

Club Congress

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