Oakland Weekender
Thee Stork Club
2330 Telegraph Ave.
Oakland
June 7, 2024
Summer in June is lovely in theory, but every true Bay Area local knows that our mercurial microclimates beckon us east this time of year, away from San Francisco’s gloomy June and through the BART tunnel, surfacing in Oakland for snatches of sunshine. The same holds true not just for the weather but for lovers of indie pop. As art lovers and party people packed Uptown’s Telegraph Avenue for the First Friday art scene, music scenesters packed Thee Stork Club on Friday for night 2 of Oakland Weekender, the yearly music festival.
“Festival” may seem like a stretch, as it all takes place in the cozy, dive‑y environs of just the one bar. But the stellar lineup did make the weekend feel and sound larger than life. From the lo-fi, ‘90s pop nostalgia of Santa Cruz’s #Poundsign# to the honeyed, atmospheric melodies of San Francisco’s Seablite, the Weekender’s Friday night lineup had music fans basking in the sounds of an indie-pop summer. It was the kind of indie pop night where lyrics and words took a backseat to music, mood, and sound.
Thee Stork Club is a lo-fi venue in and of itself, the kind perfectly suited to the Weekender’s vibe — rooms romantically lit in red hues, a series of cheeky, pop culture dioramas just to the right of the small stage, and a side-by-side stall-slash-urinal that seemed to give some restroom-goers performance anxiety.
The mood felt rough and ready. DJ Jessica B. primed the crowd with spot-on, breezy pop sets in-between bands. I bopped my head to throwback New Wave gems like Altered Images’ “Happy Birthday” as bands expertly set up and broke down their gear for each set.
San Francisco’s Tony Jay was like listening to the Velvet Underground in a darkened bedroom at the end of the night, all soft-spoken, breathy, almost incoherent vocals against stripped-down guitars, the aural equivalent of the faint smell of cigarettes and street lights shining outside your bedroom window. Never mind that the singer sometimes wears KISS makeup and a leather jacket; the vibe is all downtempo and lofi.
Mo Dotti, a Los Angeles band that bills themselves as “a jangle-gaze band [of] four cat lovers,” combined soaring guitars and airy, feminine vocals into perfect pop prettiness. It’s the moody marriage of pop and shoegaze, guitars climbing chords towards heaven but tethered to catchy hooks.
Maria, who called themselves a “Latino indie pop band from Oxnard,” broke up in 2010, but reunited for new music and a brief but bright slot at the Weekender. With disarmingly cute, cracking vocals playing against breezy guitars, they wobbled into a charming set of indie pop à la Hefner, full of strumming melodies. They performed a lo-fi cover of the Velvet Underground’s “I’m Set Free,” along with a nice soupçon of syrup-inflected guitar pop on their own catchy little ditties, like “Baby Honey.”
Seablite of San Francisco epitomizes the indie rock of their environs — summer fog and winter melodies that breach the clouds, angling towards the sun. “They sound like Stereolab meets My Bloody Valentine,” cooed my friend. It’s the unexpected magic sound of shoegazing and stargazing in the same moment. On songs like “Hit the Wall,” their spacy, swirling guitars harmonize with singer Lauren Matsui’s lush, breezy vocals, crescendoing into dreamlike snatches of psychedelic harmonies. Lyrics feel secondary to the mood of the music. Experienced live, it feels as if you’re meant to close your eyes and appreciate the weightlessness of fuzzy guitars and dreamy vocals in a soundscape of loveliness.
It was the best of the indie-pop ‘90s all over again with the triumphant return of Santa Cruz band #Poundsign#, who brought the kind of jangly pop that perfectly fit this early Oakland summer night. Channeling the melody-centered riffs of bands like the Smiths and the Field Mice, #Poundsign#’s deconstructed pop in songs like “Starry Night” and “Michigan” layered hints of ‘60s girl groups and bright harmonies deconstructed into sunshine-flavored songs of equal parts hope and despair. By the end of the Oakland Weekender’s Friday set, local music fans were sent out into the summer night, their hearts full of nostalgia and their ears ringing gratefully with the sounds of a Bay Area summer.
