{"id":378831,"date":"2026-06-29T02:00:54","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T02:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/378831\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T02:00:54","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T02:00:54","slug":"tesla-guitarist-frank-hannon-channels-the-summer-of-love-on-psychedelic-san-francisco-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/378831\/","title":{"rendered":"Tesla Guitarist Frank Hannon Channels The Summer Of Love On Psychedelic “San Francisco” Video"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Swirling liquid light projections born in 1967 give a Tesla guitarist\u2019s love letter to San Francisco its glow. Frank Hannon has released a new remix and striking video for \u201cSan Francisco,\u201d the latest from his instrumental solo guitar album \u2018Reflections\u2019.<\/p>\n

Built around improvisation, atmosphere, and cultural memory, the track works as both a tribute to the city and a window into the exploratory side of Hannon\u2019s musicianship. The video is anchored by the analog, hand-crafted psychedelic visuals of Brotherhood of Light Show artist Chris Samardizch, whose organically created oil-light imagery has illuminated stages for generations of boundary-pushing musicians. His swirling, liquid visuals become a living, breathing reflection of the city\u2019s creative DNA.<\/p>\n

The Brotherhood of Light Show\u2019s lineage stretches back to the Summer of Love in 1967, when pioneering liquid light projections became an essential visual counterpart to the San Francisco Bay Area\u2019s music explosion. The collective\u2019s work traces all the way to landmark moments like the Monterey Pop Festival and decades of historic performances at venues such as the Fillmore, helping define the immersive psychedelic concert experience, from Jefferson Airplane to the Grateful Dead.<\/p>\n

Hannon and Samardizch first connected at the Fillmore, where Hannon was performing alongside Devon Allman and Duane Betts. That shared lineage, rooted in improvisation, feel, and communal musical exchange, carried naturally into the collaboration. Working with longtime partner and drummer-videographer Kelly Smith, the pair assembled Samardizch\u2019s imagery into the final edit, letting the visuals move and evolve with the music rather than dictating it.<\/p>\n

Musically, \u201cSan Francisco\u201d stands apart within \u2018Reflections\u2019 for its fluid construction and stylistic range. Recorded as an improvised jam, it began with a live bass performance and built outward through one-take guitar overdubs. Hypnotic bass lines, flowing electric leads, and swelling acoustics evoke the city\u2019s early psychedelic sound before the song breaks into a fiery flamenco-inspired bridge, a nod to the Spanish and Mexican influences woven into Northern California\u2019s history.<\/p>\n

\u201cSan Francisco has always been my favorite city,\u201d Hannon shares. \u201cIt\u2019s the gateway to the West, a cultural melting pot, and a place where so many different musical ideas collided and became something new. The artists that came out of this city in the \u201960s and \u201970s shaped how I hear harmony, melody, and freedom in music.\u201d He cites the exploratory spirit of Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, Santana, and It\u2019s a Beautiful Day, along with players like Jorma Kaukonen, Jack Casady, and David LaFlamme, as foundational to his musical vocabulary.<\/p>\n

That affinity runs back decades. In the late 1980s, Tesla\u2019s acoustic set at the Bay Area Music Awards helped spark the idea that became \u2018Five Man Acoustical Jam\u2019, often credited with helping usher in the unplugged movement of the 1990s, complete with a Tesla version of the Grateful Dead\u2019s \u201cTruckin\u2019.\u201d \u2018Reflections\u2019 stands as Hannon\u2019s most personal release to date, recorded as raw first takes on his cell phone using an Audigo wireless mic and mobile app, capturing instinct over polish. Recent singles \u201cOne More Time,\u201d \u201cOur Father\u2019s Love,\u201d and \u201cThis Is Goodbye\u201d each explore different emotional terrain, while \u201cSan Francisco\u201d reveals the communal, improvisational heart beating just beneath the surface.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Swirling liquid light projections born in 1967 give a Tesla guitarist\u2019s love letter to San Francisco its glow.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":378832,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[153235,153236,153237,153238,153239,64959,101,103,102,104,106,105,1090],"class_list":["post-378831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-brotherhood-of-light-show","tag-chris-samardizch","tag-devon-allman","tag-duane-betts","tag-frank-hannon","tag-kelly-smith","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news","tag-tesla"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378831\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}