From the always rockin’ Mosswood Meltdown to a hot air balloon fest and the San Francisco Mime Troupe, there are a lot of cool things to see and do this weekend.
Here’s a partial rundown.
Rockin’ the Ramones at Mosswood
You might be able see better Ramones tribute acts than The Return of Jackie and Judy.
But you definitely won’t see any others that feature members of terrific alt-rock act Sleater-Kinney and the cast of the cult hit TV show “Portlandia.”
So, yeah, there’s most definitely a curiosity factor involved when The Return of Jackie and Judy headline Day 2 of the Mosswood Meltdown Festival, which runs July 18 and 19 at Mosswood Park in Oakland.
The band — which takes its name from the Ramones’ fifth studio album, 1980’s Phil Spector-produced “End of the Century” — features vocalists-guitarists Tucker (Sleater-Kinney) and Carrie Brownstein (Sleater-Kinney and “Portlandia) as well as drummer Fred Armisen (“Portlandia”) and bassist Toko Yasuda (a member of Sleater-Kinney and St. Vincent’s touring bands).
We caught the band at BottleRock Napa Valley in May and enjoyed the troupe’s fun, energetic takes on such Ramones classics as “Blitzkrieg Bop,” “Teenage Lobotomy,” “She’s the One,” “Sheena Is a Punk Rocker” and “Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment.”
As for Mosswood Meltdown, the lineup also includes “The Godfather of Punk” himself — the one and only Iggy Pop — as well as riot grrrl pioneers Bikini Kill, Philly punks The Dead Milkmen, Japanese punk act Otoboke Beaver, Motor City garage-rock outfit The Dirtbombs and so much more. The festivities actually get started with a pre-party show on July 17 headlined by Stockton indie-rock legends Pavement and also featuring bootgazers Wednesday and indie-rock act Vivian Girls.
Details: For tickets and more information, visit mosswoodmeltdown.com.
— Jim Harrington, Staff
Pastrana brings sounds of Puerto Rico
Since moving to the Bay Area in 2017 Pedro José Pastrana has become one of the region’s leading practitioners of the Puerto Rican cuatro. Despite its name, the island’s diminutive national instrument has 10 strings in five courses, and possesses a bright, sunny tone that cuts to the front of an ensemble.
Pastrana grew up playing traditional rural songs known as jibaro music, and for his concert Sunday at the smartly curated Livermore Jazz Society series he’s joined by Jose Roberto Hernandez on seven-string guitar and Julio Perez on percussion. He says the trio setup is “almost like going back to my roots. I’m playing tunes from the traditional and folkloric Puerto Rican songbook but adding the improvisational language.”
It’s a vocabulary he’s honed with leading Latin jazz artists like percussionist John Santos, and the direction he’ll be leaning at Mr. Tipple’s Aug. 1 with bassist Ayla Dávila and drummer Colin Douglas.
Details: 2 p.m. July 19 in Livermore (house concert); $20 suggested; www.livermorejazzsociety.org; 6 and 7:30 p.m. Aug. 1 at Mr. Tipple’s in San Francisco; $15-$30; mrtipplessf.com.
— Andrew Gilbert, Correspondent
Sweet times in Crockett
The sugar industry’s history in the East Bay will be feted again this weekend as the Sugartown Festival returns to Crockett for its 18th year on July 19.
From 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., at Rolph and Pomona streets in the tiny Contra Costa community, folks can catch live music, check out arts and crafts booths, and snack on a wide variety of culinary treats and beverages. Music acts include the Terry Hanck Band, the Billy Martini Show and Beer Drinkers And Hell Raisers.
Lawn chairs are welcome.
The event is free, but a $20 VIP tickets buys you some extras, including a shadey sitting area, cooling misters and a bag of snacks.
The event celebrates Crockett’s early-20th-century role as sugar town, when it was home to California and Hawaiian Sugar Company.
Details: More information is at www.sugartownfestival.com.
— Randy McMullen, Staff
Classical picks: Mendelssohn, Haydn, Phil Baroque
There’s plenty of midsummer music for audiences around the Bay: this week alone brings outdoor enchantment courtesy of San Francisco Symphony, Haydn favorites at Carmel Bach, and a thrilling, seldom-heard opera by Handel. Read on for these special events.
Mendelssohn’s “Dream”: San Francisco Symphony has two performances of Felix Mendelssohn’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” waiting in the wings – one at Frost Amphitheater and one at Davies Symphony Hall. Geneva Lewis plays the work’s magical violin part, conducted by Nicolas Ellis; the event also includes music by Wagner, Vaughan Williams and others.
Details: 7:30 p.m. July 16 at Frost Amphitheater, Stanford University; and 7:30 p.m. July 17, Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco; tickets $39 and up; sfsymphony.org.
Haydn rules at Carmel: A highlight of this year’s Carmel Bach Festival is a performance of “Haydn: The Seasons,” performed in the lovely Sunset Theater; it’s a perfect setting for this music, and New Zealand-born violinist Geneva Lewis is sure to make it memorable. This is just one of dozens of events at Carmel Bach this year.
Details: 7:30 p.m. July 18-25; Sunset Center Theater, Carmel By the Sea; $50-$120; bachfestival.org.
Phil Baroque revives “Tolomeo”: The music of Handel is a specialty for the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and Chorale, and their dedication to the composer’s music is bound to bring brilliance to the upcoming performances of his “Tolomeo.” It’s a rarity, as the title character, stripped of power, must stay alive by eluding betrayal in this high drama of political intrigue. The production is directed by James Darrah Black, with the excellent countertenor Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen in the title role.
Details: 7:30 p.m. July 23, Herbst Theatre, San Francisco; 7:30 p.m. July 24, First Congregational Church, Berkeley; tickets $40-$175; $20 under age 30; cityboxoffice.com.
— Georgia Rowe, Correspondent
They’re full of hot air, thankfully
Bevies of bulbous, billowing balloons, blowing in the breeze — it’s time once again for the Sonoma County Hot Air Balloon Classic.
The festival on Saturday and Sunday draws crowds to the Sonoma County Fairgrounds, in Santa Rosa, where scads of huge balloons are just rarin’ to get into the sky. Arrive early, because much of the action happens in the calmer morning hours. On both July 18 and 19 there are hot-air balloon “Glow Shows” at 5 a.m., for instance, which feature balloons lit up like massive Jack-o’-lanterns. Those are followed by the main launches each day around 6:30 a.m., with approximately 20 balloons soaring high and proud above wine country.
Adventure-seekers desiring to touch the clouds can take rides on balloons tethered to the ground, lest they blow off across the Pacific Ocean on a long journey to Japan. These rides require an extra $15 and are dependent on wind conditions. With another extra purchase, there’s also the opportunity to enjoy what the organizers call a “once in a lifetime experience — yoga inside a hot-air balloon envelope.” And for folks who just want to enjoy the spectacle, there will be food trucks, a kids’ “funzone” and plenty of photo opportunities.
Details: Hours are 4 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. July 18 and 19 (with an additional balloon-yoga class on July 17) at 1350 Bennett Valley Road, Santa Rosa; tickets and more information are at schabc.org.
— John Metcalfe, Staff
Here’s your freebie of the week
Why, yes, of course the San Francisco Mime Troupe addresses AI in its new free production, “Wreckage,” being performed at parks and other locations around the Bay Area this summer. The rabble-rousing theater/comedy troupe has for decades been performing its politically charged musicals around the Bay Area in its annual tour, which this year runs through Labor Day weekend. But just because the troupe, which formed in 1959, has its roots in Bay Area left-leaning political tradition and bases its performance style on classic Commedia dell’Arte doesn’t mean its shows are glued to its flower-power, tie-dyed past. For one thing, the company creates a new show each year – often written by Michael Gene Sullivan – and makes every attempt to rip its storyline off the day’s headlines while remaining true to its mission of delivering broad and very silly belly laughs. Consider the Mime Troupe’s own description of the show: “Mari, a flower seller barely managing to hold on in an increasingly unaffordable city, must defend her street corner from invading evangelical Felicity, who is herself torn between joyfully anticipating the Rapture and the discrepancies she’s found in her church’s accounting. Meanwhile Bobbie, a successful software developer who realizes his new AI agent is far from intelligent, is caught between telling his bosses at Anthropomorphic the dangerous truth, or delivering a dud that will – despite endangering the world – boost the stock.”
This weekend, the troupe brings “Wreckage” to Berkeley’s Live Oak Park for performances at 2 p.m. on July 18 and 19. Admission is free but donations are welcome. There is live musical accompaniment and a short concert before the show starts.
Details: For more information and upcoming performance dates, go to www.sfmt.org.
— Bay City News Foundation
A bash for Broadcast history
Once upon a time, radios were among the most important and relied-upon source of news, information and entertainment, creating a magical world where you could listen to music or news or comedy or whatever and never see a single image except what your brain created from what you were hearing (and if you think that is a limited experience, consider that Orson Welles once convinced millions of Americans that Earth was under attack by angry martians in a 1938 broadcast). And unlike the internet, which offers content as expressly individualistic as you can demand, radio serves up broadly shaped broadcasts created for a mass audience or a specialized group of very loyal listeners. In Alameda, there is a museum devoted to the history of Bay Area radio, and on July 18, it’s hosting its annual festival.
The event features live music from Don Neely’s Rhythm Aces playing classics from the ‘20s (as in the 1920s), a live radio play re-creating the famed “Thin Man” radio mystery program, the Top Shelf Classics band, Bay Area radio DJs, and all manner of radios and radio equipment that will be on display and in some cases, for sale. If you’re a radio buff, or just interested in celebrating a medium that was once foundational to the American experience, head to the Bay Area Radio Museum and Hall of Fame, 2152 Central Ave., Alameda, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Details: Admission is free; more information is at californiahistoricalradio.com.
— Bay City News Foundation
Big doings at Pocket Opera
San Francisco’s energetic little company Pocket Opera has a Giacomo Puccini classic on tap for its next presentation. Bowing first at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts at 7:30 p.m. July 17 is the beloved Italian composer’s “La Rondine,” or The Swallow, so titled because its lead character, a bored courtesan named Magda, flies away from her comfortable life in Paris to chase after love in the south of France. Soprano Michelle Allie Drever sings the title role, while tenor Maxwell Ary is Ruggero, the object of her conflicted affections. Meanwhile, Melissa Sondhi as her maid Lisette and Alex Taite as the poet Prunier have a little romantic escapade of their own going on. Mary Chun conducts the production directed by Elly Lichenstein. The performance repeats at 1:30 p.m. July 19 at the Hillside Club in Berkeley and at 1:30 p.m. July 26 at the Legion of Honor’s Gunn Theater in San Francisco.
Details: Tickets are $26-$99.50; pocketopera.org.
— Bay City News Foundation
The triumph of the vines
San Francisco composer Jake Heggie and his frequent partner, librettist Gene Scheer, have collaborated on a new opera that commemorates the victory the New World celebrated over the Old at the legendary blind tasting of Napa Valley wines versus the best the French vintners had to offer back in 1976. The world premiere of their “The Judgment of Paris,” commissioned for the 20th anniversary season of Festival Napa Valley, takes place at 6:30 p.m. July 18 on the festival stage at Charles Krug Winery in St. Helena, with none other than Kent Nagano, for 31 years the beloved music director of the Berkeley Symphony, conducting. The one-act opera summons the mythical Venus and Bacchus from the Olympian heights to come observe what these mortals were up to. Soprano Danielle De Niese plays the goddess of love, and baritone Quinn Kelsey sings as the god of wine; tenor Nicholas Phan is Steven Spurrier, the English wine merchant and educator who organized the blind tasting of the wines along with his colleague Patricia Gallagher, whose role will be sung by mezzo-soprano Simone McIntosh.
Details: Tickets are $35 for general admission with chairs or lawn seating without, with an $85 option to add on a preperformance glass of champagne and a charcuterie box followed by a post-performance tasting of wines from Chateau Montelena and Stag’s Leap wine Cellars. Find tickets and more information at festivalnapavalley.org.
— Bay City News Foundation
Marvelous Music in Mendocino
The 40th annual Mendocino Music Festival is officially underway. Running through July 25 in various locales across town and famously covering myriad genres — jazz, big band, folk, bluegrass, pop, piano, chamber music, opera and symphonic — this year’s programming focuses on Beethoven. Classical fans who missed festival co-artistic director Susan Waterfall’s lecture and documentary on the master can stream the film for free (though donations are encouraged). The remaining concerts in the “Beethoven Now” series include pianist Anthony Ratinov performing Sonata No. 8 in C minor, the Pathétique on Thursday. The July 21 chamber program features Waterfall and Julian Pollack performing Sonata for Piano 4 Hands in D Major, Op. 6; Sam Weiser andCarolyn Steinbuck on the Sonata for Violin and Piano in F Major, “Spring”; and Terrie Baune, Stephen Harrison, and Elizabeth Dorman playing 1811’s “Archduke Trio,” for violin, cello, and piano. The festival closes July 25 with the iconic Ninth Symphony conducted by Allan Pollack. These concerts represent the tip of the iceberg; other upcoming shows include folk rock band Steel Wheels on Thursday; Cajun band BeauSoleil with Michael Doucet on Monday; singer-songwriter-pianist-radio host Laila Biali playing Joni Mitchell and the Canadian songbook on Tuesday July 21; boogie and bluesman Tom Rush on July 23.
Details: Tickets are $15-75; mendocinomusic.org
— Bay City News Foundation