Beachwood Sparks

Name: Beachwood Sparks
Start: 2025-04-19T20:30:00-07:00
Location: 777 Valencia Street San Francisco CA 94110

Schedule

Sat, 19 Apr, 2025 at 08:30 pm

UTC-07:00

Location

777 Valencia Street San Francisco CA 94110 | San Francisco, CA

Dine with us at Curio [https://www.curiobarsf.com/] and receive Expedited Entry into The Chapel! When you kick off your evening with dinner and drinks at Curio, we will check your tickets at your table and you will avoid the line outside. Be sure you tell us you're coming to the show when you make your reservation and upon arrival to the restaurant. Reserve HERE [https://www.opentable.com/restref/client/?corrid=869f5291-d743-45e7-86e1-a220169d0799&lang=en-US&ot_source=Restaurant%20website&restref=107224].
Website [https://curationrecords.com/pages/beachwood-sparks?srsltid=AfmBOorFF-5v_Sv4t7cqNUpLYGzP1DWNYPCZC1cCCkeFXPVgkW6FVvNS] | Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/artist/07tmbQsiTfXekPkbovBERR?si=Xe72cFLwTQGGFo-r5nLpdA] | Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/beachwoodsparksofficial/?hl=en]
Forming in the summer swelter of 1997 - built on the bones of Further and Strictly Ballroom - Beachwood Sparks stood among the charmed few who picked up the yoke left loose as Alt-Country’s early ‘90s wave crested and cooled. While the whole world was wrapped in pop, nu-metal, and indie rock, Beachwood Sparks were aloft on winds with The Byrds, weaving harmonies like Starry Eyed and Laughing, and lost in the heat-ripple haze with the Flying Burritos. To the uninitiated they’d seemed out of step, but to those who’d already been scanning the Cosmic channels, waiting for kindred hearts to answer the call, they were far ahead of their time. The Cosmic American tide has finally caught up to their curl in the last few years, and it seems like it’s finally just the time and place for Beachwood Sparks to assume their rightful place at the forefront of the new wave of psychedelic country. Some heads were always clued in. Sharp ears at Sub Pop picked the band up after their debut single on Bomp! and set sail the journey of Cali’s most consistent sunbeam surfers. The group stuck out like a wild hair on the Sub Pop roster, but as the label eased into their reputation as indie rock’s rudder in the early aughts, the band laid down a celebrated string of albums — S/T (2000), Once We Were Trees (2001) and the EP Make The Cowboy Robots Cry (2002) — before slipping into the ether in favor of new projects like All Night Radio, Mystic Chords of Memory, and GospelbeacH. They’d return to form, and their home at Sub Pop, after a decade away for The Tarnished Gold (2012) and revisit some early material on Desert Skies for Alive (2013). Now the band’s three founders — Brent Rademaker, Chris Gunst, and Farmer Dave Scher — return to the fold once more for a new album that’s just in time to sweeten the Summer air.
The band hunkered down at John Dwyer’s Discount Mirrors Studios in Los Angeles. Producer Chris Robinson (The Black Crowes, The Chris Robinson Brotherhood) along with renowned house engineer Eric Bauer (Ty Segall, Osees) helped the band give their sound a fresh salt scrub, tacking the sails into those requisite warm winds once more. A few more familiar names entered the studio as well, with Benjamin Knight (The Tyde) adding guitar, Andres Renteria (John Dwyer’s Bent Arcana) laying down the drums, Jen Cohen Gunst (Mystic Chords of Memory, The Aislers Set) on keys, and Clay Finch (Mapache) peppering in background vocals.
The mix of friends and family (and friends who feel like family) helps add to the warmth and ease of the album. The band has long captured a kind of California ideal, and as we slip into Across The River of Stars, it still feels like a place where the days never end, the sun never burns, and the crash of waves lulls the listener into a place of peace. From the backstage stomp and dance floor romp of “My Love My Love” the band sets the scene, flings open the shutters, and lets the amp-fried goodness roll out into the streets. The album captures classic shades of Beachwood bliss — lovelorn yearning, now underpinned with Jen’s keys (“Torn In Two,” “Faded Glory”), last call crooners that slip over the horizon with the final rays of sun (“High Noon”) and a classic stacked-harmony hummer that reaches back to the haze and humidity of the Once We Were Trees era. While feeling at ease on the shelf alongside your copies of Rose City Band, Silver Synthetic, Color Green, The Hanging Stars, or any of the newer guard on Rademaker’s Curation Records, the band keeps one foot in classic territory and another just past the modern mirage. Far from following any trend, the band are keepers of the flame. Beachwood Sparks long ago entered the pantheon of country-psych’s headiest hitters, but with Across The River of Stars, they prove that they’re luminaries and leaders of a sound that still soaks the soul in the sublime.
Silver Synthetic turned heads with their debut EP 'Out Of The Darkness’ - an incendiary opening salvo. They followed it with an eponymous full length LP on Third Man Records that distilled the scope of their sound, turning stage-honed ballads and bar room burners into one of 2021’s most promising debuts. From there, touring, demoing, more touring, they tightened the new tunes with a view to making a ‘classic’ studio album rather than a bedroom demo style debut. They headed into Nashville’s The Bomb Shelter with producer Drew Carroll and then on to Brent’s door.
“I wouldn’t say our first album is pastiche but I think we managed to focus on more things that make us unique this time around.” Kunal Prakash
Rosalie welcomes you with cosmic west-coast warmth, crossed with The Velvet Underground, Television plus a dash of 90’s Glaswegian-Soul & post-grunge feel. The celebrated Luke Schneider guests with his unique brand of pedal steel on half the songs. Including opener “Age of Infamy" with its carefree swing, effortlessly twisting round the playful guitar-leads, skipping off into Pavement territory. Plenty of moments get the blood pumping and the slower second side shares the spotlight with jazz-adjacent moments and the tender-hearted songwriting of ‘Back Home’. Hometown studio slinger Rex Gregory on sax and flute, joins for the cheeky pop groove & album centre piece “Cool Blue Night.”
Rosalie is Chris Lyons' 70 year old neighbour and guardian angel. A beautiful dedication to the power of love, salvation and care. This hooky album comes at you like the younger indie brothers of Brent’s Beachwood Sparks - delivering something as enriching as Rosalie-from-next-door to us all. The surfy closer “Right Time” defies you not feel hope in these troubled times. This is the right time for Silver Synthetic and Curation Records.
"New Orleans’ Silver Synthetic music is a sunny earworm, lush with chiming guitars, rich harmonies and signature, tasteful noodling." - Brooklyn Vegan