Hometown Music Series — Northern California

curator

natalie neypes

Northern California, especially the Bay Area, is home to an incredibly diverse and vibrant music scene. A number of notable artists including Green Day, E-40, and Steve Miller Band all have roots in the Bay Area. From house shows to stadium concerts, to live music in the park across every genre imaginable, the Bay and Northern California truly has it all in terms of the live music scene.

Over the years, I’ve been able to attend live shows at a variety of venues. I’ve seen flor at Cornerstone in Berkeley, Maude Latour at The Chapel in San Francisco, Taylor Swift at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara for the 1989 World Tour and Eras Tour, and Ed Sheeran, Maisie Peters, and Russ also at Levi’s Stadium.

While the Bay Area and Northern California artists boast numerous small, local indie artists, here are five of my favorites. Be sure to check out the entire playlist below featuring songs by these artists.

faith zapata

Faith Zapata is a Bay Area native and musical force to be reckoned with. Her discography is an indie masterpiece and perfect for fans of Phoebe Bridgers, Searows, Leith Ross, beabadoobee, and Lizzy McAlpine. She began uploading demos to SoundCloud at 14 and released her first EP at the age of 17, but has written songs since childhood. This passion for songwriting is evident through her poignant and relatable lyrics, touching upon themes such as the desire to not end up alone in “company” and the feeling of a star-crossed love in “Star-Crossed.” Zapata’s talent speaks for itself as her discography includes some folk, some indie-rock, and even a Phoebe Bridgers-esque cover of Miley Cyrus’s “Party in the USA” cleverly titled “party in the alps.”

Recently, she collaborated with Regina Pimentel and Wesley Preis on “Miles I Can’t Afford.” The Filipina trio nicknamed themselves pinoygenius as a nod to boygenius. As a fellow Filipina, I am a big pinoygenius supporter. Mahal ko ang pinoygenius.

Faith Zapata is an indie singer-songwriter you won’t regret adding to your weekly music rotation. Be sure to check out her upcoming song, “wallet picture song,” which will be released on February 2nd.

trestles

Trestles, an indie rock group from Santa Cruz, features members Hunter Kelly (vocals/guitar), Jackson Jones (guitar/vocals), Sophia Wall (bass/vocals), and Malena Clark (drums/vocals). The group released their first single, “Dwell,” in July 2021, and most recently released their first EP, Halfway Up The Hill, in December 2022. Since the band’s beginnings, they have amassed over thirteen thousand monthly listeners on Spotify and have become well known in Santa Cruz from their DIY shows. Their sound is akin to The Strokes, Surf Curse, and Beach Fossils, featuring driving drum beats and catchy guitar riffs. Trestles is for fans of West Coast surfing, dancing to live music at outdoor shows, the month of August, and iced lattes. While that is my arbitrary opinion based upon Trestles’ discography, if you do enjoy any of those, I highly suggest giving Trestles a listen. They certainly will not disappoint.

preschool

Preschool is a San Francisco-based trio, featuring Ava (drums/vocals), Corbin (guitar), and Nikki (bass/vocals). The group originally met at the San Francisco Rock Project, an after-school music program. After meeting, they originally began playing covers but were soon drawn to writing original music. Preschool has an incredible knack for writing meaningful and emotional lyrics while contrasting their raw lyricism with a heavy rock sound. Their electric sound reminds me of female ’80s classic rock stars like Stevie Nicks and Blondie with a contemporary surf and garage-rock sound.

I could explain why you should give Preschool a listen, but I think their description of being an “amalgam of efficacious psychedelic surf-punk served in a flagon of sacchariferous garage rock” is all the convincing anyone could need.

corner club

San Francisco-based duo Savannah Du and Mike Zhang are behind the indie-pop corner club. The duo’s name comes from the idea that they’re corner people. At a party, they’d be found in opposite corners of the room, which is also how Du and Zhang met. From post-work jam sessions to covering Bruno Major’s “Easily” to self-producing two EPs, corner club continues to shine with intentional production elements, beautiful harmonic progressions, and earnest lyricism. Fans of Bruno Major, mxmtoon, and Laufey are sure to love corner club’s soft and melodic yet playful sound.

corner club’s latest EP, in the rearview mirror, was released on October 6th. The sophomore EP is both heartfelt and nostalgic, focusing on themes regarding generational grief of loved ones passing, slow-burning heartbreak, and long gone childhood memories.

Be sure to check out their new single, “cattails,” and the rest of corner club’s discography.

garren sean

Psychedelic R&B funk is exactly Garren Sean’s forte. His musical style is as if you combined Tame Impala’s cosmic sound with Omar Apollo’s smooth lyricism and Blu DeTiger’s bass lines–but in a way that is better than anything you could imagine. The Bay Area native grew up in a musical family, drawing inspiration and influence from funk, soul, and classic rock. Aside from songwriting, Sean also has experience in production. Most notably, he produced the beat for “Smoke Break” on Chance the Rapper’s Coloring Book. What is even more impressive, though, is that this simultaneously took place during Sean’s senior year at UC Berkeley. Since then, he has released three albums–Off Summer, SUNDROP, and GARREN, LP–each with a unique and captivating sound.

Be sure to check out Garren Sean’s most recent single, “get enough of u.”