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Earth Girl Helen Brown, Brigid Dawson and the Mothers Network, Almond Joy at Bottom of the Hill

  • Bottom of the Hill 1233 17th St San Francisco, CA 94107 (map)

8pm doors. $14 adv., $16 door.

21+. Proof of vaxx required.

EARTH GIRL HELEN BROWN

The Earth Girl Center for Planetary Intelligence Band is an inclusive, expansive, participatory ensemble interested in creative communicative art practice and the longevity and wellness of the big blue ball and all its inhabitants and systems.

Earth Girl Helen Brown is like a Jack Kirby version of Pippi Longstocking as written by Charles Portis—cosmic, earthy and never ready to settle down anywhere, even after leaving a cult and escaping to the Alaskan wilderness before sparking up an academic career and … well, that’s the story musician Sonny Smith came up with when he invented her and a lot of other people for his 100 Records alternate-world-of-music project, anyway. But Earth Girl Helen Brown is also Heidi Alexander from Bay Area band the Sandwitches, now relocated to L.A. and reinventing Smith’s character as her own personal sci-fi heroine. She spent 2017 leading—well, navigating might be a better word—her Center for Planetary Intelligence Band through four cassette EPs on the Empty Cellar label, each one named and themed for a planet in our solar system. Mercury, Mars, Saturn and finally Venus—fire, war, communication and love, transmitted through enthusiastic clatter and static by a crew of some of L.A.’s best musicians, cloaked in radiation-shielding pseudonym for now.” - LA Record


The Center for Planetary Intelligence Band and related media artists and technicians includes: Heidi Alexander, Madeline Allard, Jamie Barron, Jamin Barton, Eric Bauer, Aylin Beyce, Cole Berliner, Emilee Booher, Ryan Browne, Tim Cohen, Grace Cooper, Dave Cousin, Brad Caulkins, Mikal Cronin, Bart Davenport, Brigid Dawson, John Dwyer, Chris Fallon, Lars Finberg, James Finch Jr., Glen Jennings, Brain Girgus, Davin Givhan, Grameme Gibson, Dylan Hadley, Dustin Hamman, Kiran Harlow, Wilder Harlow, Arvel Hernandez, Larry Hardy, Tahlia Harbour, Anna Hillburg, Douglas Hilsinger, Warren Huegel, Emmett Kelly, Nora Keys, Shannon Lay, Will Lemon, Raven Mahon, Rusty Miller, Charlie Moonheart, Jack Name, Ethan Novikoff, Enrique Tena Padilla, Tim Presley, Andres Renteria, Ty Segall, Dave Sitek, Sean Smith, Sonny Smith, Kelley Stoltz, Alicia Vanden Heuvel, Lida Vanden Heuvel, Chelsea Jene Woodard, and Mikey Young.


BRIGID DAWSON AND THE MOTHERS NETWORK

"Tip-top of our osmosis list is the first quiver of tunes from Brigid Dawson and her newly minted Mothers Network: wise warnings dyed in dark hues, knotted and hard-won torch songs from the edge of a turbulent sea, bittersweet balladry spun in defense against evils familiar and unknown. Lovely though it may seem from a distance, the striation of loss quicksilvered throughout provides weighty balance to her contralto lilt. Those familiar with her harmonic counterpoint from her time in Thee Oh Sees or in OCS know she can belt as well as lullaby but there’s a fresh and smolderingly heavy swing in her step on display here that we mightily dig. “Ballet of Apes” tapestries together sessions that read like a who’s who from outside our own castle walls - in Australia with Mikey Young (Total Control/Eddy Current Suppression Ring), in San Francisco with Mike Donovan (ex Sic Alps), Shayde Sartin (ex Fresh & Onlys/lifetime ringer) and Mike Shoun (ex Oh Sees/Peacers), and in Brooklyn with instrumental heavy-weights Sunwatchers - and the results are spellbinding. At the focal point of this maelstrom, our lady, as if illumed by candlelight, intones, pleads, consoles - white magic perhaps but it carries with it the anodized tang of blood.” - Castle Face


Almond Joy is an American rock band formed in 2021 in San Francisco. They have been called the one of the pioneering bands of "Bear Rock" and feature members of Rays, Cool Ghouls, Galore and Warp.