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The Aislers Set, Tony Molina, and Dear Nora Head Up the Inaugural SF Bay Popfest This August

Eric Alper
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The Aislers Set, Tony Molina, and Dear Nora Head Up the Inaugural SF Bay Popfest This August

San Francisco is getting its own indie pop festival, and the inaugural lineup is a genuine statement of intent. SF Bay Popfest runs August 20-23 at Bottom of the Hill, presented by Oakland Weekender in partnership with Speakeasy Studios SF and Slumberland Records, bringing together 16 bands and DJs across 4 nights of pure pop songcraft and indie ethos.

The headliners alone make this worth the trip. The Aislers Set return to San Francisco with the full band for what’s being billed as one last hurrah at the soon-to-close Bottom of the Hill, a genuinely significant moment for anyone who knows what that venue and that band mean to the Bay Area scene. Dear Nora comes back to the Bay with a classic lineup. Tony Molina, West Bay legend and Slumberland pioneer, brings his gift for melody distilled to its purest form. And local favorites The Umbrellas round out the headliners with their shambolic guitars, rich songwriting, and duet vocals that nod toward the Pastels side of anorak indie.

The full lineup stretches across the country and into Canada, with Jeanines traveling from Massachusetts, Lightheaded from New Jersey, WUT from Vancouver, Paper Jam from Denton, TX, and Pillow Fight from Los Angeles joining Bay Area acts Galore, Wifey, The Kitchenettes, Monster Treasure, and Slumberland artists Artsick and Kids On A Crime Spree. Remedy & Wren and DJs Kid Frostbite, Jessica B, Poindexter, and Wam Bam Ashleyanne complete the bill.

The weekend pass at $110 includes an exclusive Teenage Fanclub tribute CD featuring tracks from the SF Bay Popfest bands, making it one of the better festival value propositions around. Individual night tickets are $30. Daily lineups drop August 20-22 for evening shows, with a matinee closing things out on August 23.

SF Bay Popfest 2026:

August 20, 21, 22 – Evening Shows, Bottom of the Hill, San Francisco, CA

August 23 – Matinee, Bottom of the Hill, San Francisco, CA

Mr Billy Fitzgerald Strips It All Back on Tiny Desk-Inspired Live EP ‘Little Gestures’

Eric Alper
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Mr Billy Fitzgerald Strips It All Back on Tiny Desk-Inspired Live EP ‘Little Gestures’

A year on from his debut album ‘A Grand Romantic Gesture’, Mr Billy Fitzgerald returns not with something bigger, but with something more intimate. ‘Little Gestures’ is a 4-track live EP out now, taking songs from the album and reimagining them in stripped-back form, inspired by NPR’s celebrated Tiny Desk series and recorded guerilla-style across bedrooms, rehearsal studios, and secret spaces.

The contrast with the source material is deliberate and striking. ‘A Grand Romantic Gesture’ was a maximalist production, 10 years in the making, with multiple guitars, pianos, layers of percussion, and 16-part vocal harmonies built up almost entirely alone in the studio. ‘Little Gestures’ pulls all of that back to its raw elements, shakers, drum machines, melodicas, acoustic guitars, and voices in a room together.

The EP was recorded as Fitzgerald recovered from long-covid, and he considers it his most honest vocal performance captured on tape. With nowhere to hide behind production, he had to commit fully to each take. The result is vocals that feel full, present, and completely unguarded.

The 4 tracks were chosen using live performance as the litmus test, songs that consistently drew a reaction from audiences over a year of touring. Each one carries that energy into its alternate version. “Gimme Love” opens with an En Vogue-inspired vocal arrangement featuring wife and live backing vocalist Aoife Mulqueen, longtime collaborator Sam Jackson, and Dave Power of The Dead Flags, before hand claps, shouts, and a melodica solo take over. “Give Me A Chance” was reshaped by live drummer Dennis, whose reimagining of the groove fed directly into this version. “You Had Your Chance” is reduced to a delicate piano and Aoife’s harmonies, the keyboard keys audible in the recording, adding a layer of intimacy that the album version couldn’t achieve. And closer “All Fucked Up Now,” featuring Shaool of Sligo hip-hop group This Side Up, closes the EP with a full choir joining in on the final reprise.

‘A Grand Romantic Gesture’ drew praise from XSNoize, Hot Press, Turn Up The Volume, and RTE2XM on its release, drawing comparisons across Curtis Mayfield, Destiny’s Child, Robert Palmer, and Beck. ‘Little Gestures’ serves as both a worthy companion piece for fans of the album and a genuinely compelling entry point for anyone new to the world of Mr Billy Fitzgerald.

Transatlantic Indie Duo The Astronauts Get Fuzzed Up and Lovesick on New Single “More Than Friends”

Eric Alper
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Transatlantic Indie Duo The Astronauts Get Fuzzed Up and Lovesick on New Single “More Than Friends”

The Astronauts are back with something warm, fuzzy, and emotionally direct. “More Than Friends,” the new single from the transatlantic duo of Benjamin Fox and Gordon Cooper, is out now on Flip Flop Records, and it captures the overwhelming, slightly terrifying moment when a friendship tips into something deeper and more consuming. Listen here.

The band frames the song with real clarity. “‘More Than Friends’ is a song about falling deeply into someone, moving beyond the innocent phase and into something more intense and consuming. It captures that overwhelming moment when emotions hit you all at once, bringing both panic and ecstasy. It’s about finding the confidence within yourself to take that leap.”

That combination of panic and ecstasy is exactly what the track delivers, a fuzzed-up, loved-up piece of indie songwriting that understands young love not as a simple thing but as something that demands genuine courage to pursue.

Fox operates out of Detroit, Cooper out of Ireland, and the transatlantic collaboration has been a defining part of The Astronauts’ creative identity since the project began. The 2 also work together under the name Irish Lights, an ambient instrumental project inspired by the timeless beauty and solitude of Ireland’s lighthouses, and run Sleeping in Space LLC, a boutique Detroit-based label dedicated to independent and forward-thinking music.

“More Than Friends” follows earlier single “Ease Up” and arrives with a new album promised later in 2026. Two musicians building something across an ocean, one carefully crafted song at a time.

London Post-Punk Newcomers Mouth Ulcers Sign to LAB Records and Drop Atmospheric Single “Prevail”

Eric Alper
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London Post-Punk Newcomers Mouth Ulcers Sign to LAB Records and Drop Atmospheric Single “Prevail”

Mouth Ulcers have arrived with a signing, a single, and a sound that makes an immediate impression. The London quartet have joined LAB Records and released “Prevail,” a dark, atmospheric post-punk track accompanied by an official video, and it’s a confident statement from a band that clearly knows exactly who they are.

The sound has been described as “music for vampires to dance to,” and that framing is accurate. Atmospheric guitars, tribal percussion, and Zak Watson’s cavernous baritone vocals create something moody, physical, and irresistibly cool, drawing from the classic post-punk darkness of The Cure, Bauhaus, and Twin Tribes while injecting a freshness and urgency that feels entirely current.

The inspiration behind “Prevail” runs deep. The band looked to Andrei Tarkovsky’s film ‘Stalker’ for its conceptual foundation. “The meaning behind Prevail was inspired by the film ‘Stalker’ by Tarkovsky. The mental and physical struggle of surviving ‘The Zone’, a hostile and reality warping environment which threatens to erase one’s sanity.”

That sense of psychological tension runs through the track’s entire architecture, a menacing, momentum-driven piece of music that balances atmosphere with drive in a way many bands in this space never quite manage.

Mouth Ulcers, rounded out by Josephine Rose on guitar and vocals, Jamie-Lee Culver on bass, and David Zbirka on drums, have already made their live presence known with sold-out shows in the UK and the Netherlands. A debut EP is on the way, with a summer live plot set to be announced. The underground is already paying attention.

50-Plus Punk Bands Unite for a Massive Community-Driven Green Day Tribute Benefiting No-Kill Animal Shelters

Eric Alper
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50-Plus Punk Bands Unite for a Massive Community-Driven Green Day Tribute Benefiting No-Kill Animal Shelters

This is punk rock doing exactly what it does best. Punk Rock Radar and Coffin Curse Records have joined forces for the first installment of their Tribute to Green Day series, a massive community-driven compilation featuring more than 50 bands across the punk and alternative spectrum, with every dollar of proceeds going directly to no-kill animal shelters. Get it here.

The project is built on 2 simple ideas: celebrate one of punk rock’s most influential catalogs, and do some genuine good in the process. 100% of all proceeds benefit Young-Williams Animal Center in Knoxville, Tennessee and CARE of DC in Wappingers Falls, New York. It’s a rare compilation with a real purpose behind it.

The release arrives as 2 volumes on double LP vinyl, with each color variant designed to match the look and feel of Green Day’s most iconic albums. Volume 1 carries Dookie artwork and covers the band’s early catalog extensively. Volume 2 moves through Insomniac and American Idiot territory, with bands tackling everything from “Basket Case” and “Longview” to “American Idiot” and “Good Riddance.”

The lineup is stacked with names that punk fans will recognize immediately. Audio Karate, Ballyhoo!, Krang, and Rabies are among the standouts, joined by dozens of bands each bringing their own distinct take to songs that have been part of the punk conversation for 3 decades. As a discovery tool alone, the compilation earns its place, but the charitable foundation makes it something worth actively supporting.

Select copies are available in the UK and EU via Cats Claw Records.

Volume 1 – Dookie Art:

Side A

  1. Smacked – 2000 Light Years Away
  2. Gone Stereo – One For The Razorbacks
  3. Mortars – 80
  4. Hell Beach – Android
  5. Lesser Rockstars – No One Knows
  6. Popeless & the Apostates – The Ballad of Wilhelm Fink

Side B

  1. Enemy Proof – Disappearing Boy
  2. Stay Out – Green Day
  3. Making Friends – Going To Pasalacqua
  4. Regal Beagle – Why Do You Want Him?
  5. Random Heroes – Cigarettes & Valentines
  6. Jukebox Romantics – J.A.R.
  7. Raincheck – Sick Of Me
  8. All Ages – Don’t Wanna Fall In Love

Side C

  1. Krang – Burnout
  2. Divide By Zero – Having A Blast
  3. Nowhere Fast – Longview
  4. Borderlines – Pulling Teeth
  5. Common Perry – Basket Case
  6. 88Bunkface – She
  7. Brutal Youth – Sassafras Roots
  8. Moral Less Right – When I Come Around
  9. Agent 51 – Emenius Sleepus

Side D

  1. Phineas Gage – In The End
  2. Ballyhoo – Armatage Shanks
  3. Punchline13 – Brat
  4. American Television – Geek Stink Breath
  5. Fat Heaven – Babs Uvula Who
  6. Rough Dreams – 86
  7. Dead Alright – Stuart And The Avenue
  8. Warn The Duke – Brain Stew
  9. Lola – Jaded
  10. Fight Back Mountain – Westbound Sign
  11. Hot Alice – Walking Contradiction

Volume 2 – Insomniac Art:

Side A

  1. The Enthused – Nice Guys Finish Last
  2. Senor Dinosaur – Hitchin A Ride
  3. The Bad Ups – The Grouch
  4. Virginity – Redundant
  5. Too Bad Eugene – Scattered
  6. One Reason To Rise – All The Time
  7. Audio Karate – Worry Rock
  8. The Remote Controls – Platypus (I Hate You)

Side B

  1. Brain Soup – Jinx
  2. Game Time – Haushinka
  3. No Quarter – King For A Day
  4. Casper Flip – Good Riddance
  5. Rabies – American Idiot
  6. Misconduct – Holiday
  7. Goin’ Places – Boulevard Of Broken Dreams

Side C

  1. Paper Lanterns – St. Jimmy
  2. Heavy Dose – Letterbomb
  3. The Crease Rule – Blood, Sex & Booze
  4. The Upshot – Church On Sunday

Side D

  1. Pat Decline – Castaway
  2. The Overjoyed – Misery
  3. Old Cross – Deadbeat Holiday
  4. Goldenboy – Waiting
  5. No Guidance – Minority
  6. GDCP – Bobby Sox

Swiss Gothic Quartet Lone Assembly Arrive Fully Formed on Debut Album “Knots & Chains”

Eric Alper
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Swiss Gothic Quartet Lone Assembly Arrive Fully Formed on Debut Album “Knots & Chains”

Lone Assembly have been building toward this, and “Knots & Chains” delivers on every promise the Swiss quartet has made. The debut album is out now, arriving alongside a new video for “You’re Pulling at the Same Strings,” and it’s a richly crafted, emotionally complex record that announces a genuinely distinctive new voice in gothic new wave and synth-pop.

The album is thematically unified around a single, multifaceted idea: control. Control exerted by others, cultivated within ourselves, and imposed by the places we inhabit. Each track approaches that theme from a different angle, creating a record that moves like a cycle, from suffocation to openness, from closed spaces to something more fragile and breathable.

Vocalist Raphaël Bressler frames the album’s arc directly. “The album takes shape like a cycle, moving from suffocation to openness, from closed spaces to greater, albeit fragile, breathing space.”

“You’re Pulling at the Same Strings” examines the control others exert, the narrator wrestling with the evil that dwells within another person. “The Pain Keeper” and “My Life’s Solid” turn inward, exploring self-imposed control. “The City Works Like This” expands the lens further, treating the city itself as a living organism that absorbs, rejects, and distorts those who inhabit it. And “In the Open” provides the record’s vital exhale, a genuine banger amid the darkness.

Musically, “Knots & Chains” leans into an ’80s coldness polished with magnificently modern production. The influence of Factory Records’ golden years is audible throughout, balanced against the pop directness of bands like Editors. Bressler’s voice carries real depth and gravity, Glenn Le Meur’s soaring guitars push the sound wide open, and Jim Bodeman and Romain Segu form a rhythm section with genuine power.

The band first emerged with debut EP ‘That Never Happened’ in early 2024, a tribute to a lost loved one that quickly transformed the project into something beyond music, a space for healing and closeness. That urgency is amplified across every track on “Knots & Chains,” a debut album of high aesthetic standards and remarkable pop appeal in equal measure.

Toronto Singer-Songwriter Katie Dauson Brings Rockabilly Back to Life on New Single “Will You Won’t You”

Eric Alper
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Toronto Singer-Songwriter Katie Dauson Brings Rockabilly Back to Life on New Single “Will You Won’t You”

Katie Dauson writes early in the morning, when her mind is fresh and ideas arrive without resistance, and “Will You Won’t You” has that spontaneous spark embedded in its DNA. The Toronto singer-songwriter’s new single is out now, produced by James Nickle, and it’s a toe-tapping, grin-inducing slice of rockabilly rock and roll that feels both vintage and completely alive.

Drawing from 1950s rockabilly, particularly The Crickets, and the ’70s revivalists who modernized the style, including Blondie and George Thorogood, Dauson blends retro swing with a contemporary edge that makes the track sit comfortably across rockabilly, rock and roll, and country all at once.

Her enthusiasm for the source material is genuine and specific. “I love George Thorogood’s guitar playing, and the fact that he added a saxophone player to his band in 1980. Saxophone is such an important instrument in rock and roll and rockabilly, it really elevated his music. I love how some of the ’70s groups took that ’50s style and modernised it with more instrumentation and a different vibe.”

The recording approach reflects that same attention to detail. Dauson tracked the rhythm guitar on a left-handed G&L Comanche in Shoreline Gold, choosing the instrument specifically for its distinctive Z-coil pickups and their unique tonal character. A fuzz pedal was added to inject a touch of modern dirt and grit into the mix, bridging the vintage feel with something harder-edged and current.

“Will You Won’t You” follows previous single “Get Ready” and continues to build the case for Dauson as one of Toronto’s most genre-savvy and fearlessly individual voices. Playful, gritty, and irresistibly catchy, it honours the roots of rock and roll while sounding entirely like its own thing.

South African Rock Veteran Steve Louw Delivers His Most Confident Work Yet on ‘Traces of the Flood’

Eric Alper
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South African Rock Veteran Steve Louw Delivers His Most Confident Work Yet on ‘Traces of the Flood’

Steve Louw has been making records for over 4 decades, and ‘Traces of the Flood’ stands as one of the finest of his career. The South African singer-songwriter and guitarist’s fourth solo album in 5 years is out now, a 10-track collection recorded live in the room at Nashville’s RCA Studio with a band operating at full flight.

Lead single “Time To Move” arrives with an official music video, and it’s a perfect introduction to what the album delivers. The song nearly didn’t make the cut. “I didn’t think I’d do that song if only because I thought it wasn’t ready,” Louw recalls, “but when we started playing it, we fell right into the song’s groove. After 3 days of jamming in the studio the song became effortless.”

The album was produced by Kevin Shirley, Louw’s creative partner since 1986, whose credits include Joe Bonamassa, Black Country Communion, Beth Hart, and Joanne Shaw Taylor. The sessions brought together an exceptional group of players, with Louw recruiting guitarists Bob Britt and Doug Lancio after spotting them play together at a Dylan show in Memphis.

“I’d seen Bob Britt play with Doug Lancio at a Dylan show in Memphis, and I wanted to have those two guitar players in the band for this record,” he explains. The instinct paid off completely. The band walked into the studio on day one, plugged in, and played, arriving with 18 songs and recording with the kind of loose, committed energy that can’t be manufactured.

Individual tracks illuminate the process. “Echo Dream” was built around 3 acoustic guitars, Louw, Britt, and Lancio playing together while Greg Morrow handled drums, before a single electric guitar part completed it. “CBGB Xmas” came to life in a single take with 10 minutes of studio time left. “We just knocked it out. You hear how we caught it in one loose jam.”

The result is an album that sounds exactly like what it is, a band in full flight, capturing the energy and urgency of a room full of committed players doing what they do best. ‘Traces of the Flood’ joins ‘Headlight Dreams’ (2021), ‘Thunder & Rain’ (2022), and ‘Between Time’ (2024) in a run of solo work that has cemented Louw’s international reputation well beyond his South African Rock Hall of Fame status.

A musician who collaborated with Brian May and Dave Stewart on the Nelson Mandela-inspired 46664 AIDS awareness project, and whose band Big Sky helped soundtrack South Africa’s transition away from apartheid in the 1990s, Louw carries real history into everything he makes. ‘Traces of the Flood’ is the latest proof that the journey is far from over.

KillerStar and Their Bowie Collaborators Cross Into Epic Territory With “Rubicon”

Eric Alper
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KillerStar and Their Bowie Collaborators Cross Into Epic Territory With “Rubicon”

KillerStar operate in a space very few bands occupy, and “Rubicon” makes that unmistakably clear. The new single from the art-rock duo of Rob Fleming and James Sedge is out now, previewing their second album ‘The Afterglow’, and it’s one of the most ambitious tracks they’ve released to date.

“Rubicon” is epic in both scope and duration, unfolding like a journey with progressive leanings held in perfect balance with the band’s commitment to making every moment count. The cast assembled around Fleming and Sedge is extraordinary, a constellation of David Bowie’s most trusted collaborators who have each organically gravitated toward the project over time.

Gerry Leonard contributes ambient guitar work, Earl Slick delivers a sprawling, fluid solo alongside Fleming, and Mark Garson’s atmospheric keys add the kind of depth that only comes from someone who has inhabited this sonic world for decades. Mark Plati handles bass, The Webb Sisters, known for their work with David Gilmour and Leonard Cohen, bring ethereal vocal harmonies, and Emm Grynor adds backing vocals.

The lyrical foundation is equally ambitious. Fleming draws on one of history’s most consequential decisions as a lens for personal ones. “The song is about crossing the point of no return, on two levels, Julius Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon River and anyone’s individual decision points regarding tackling tough decisions.”

‘The Afterglow’ was produced by Fleming and Sedge alongside Dave Eringa, whose credits include Manic Street Preachers and The Who, who also mixed the record. The result is an album rich with glam, art-rock, hook-laden pop, and touches of jazz, all anchored by killer melodies and lyrical themes on life, love, and remembering.

The duo’s self-titled debut earned praise from MOJO, Louder Than War, and Vintage Guitar. ‘The Afterglow’ builds on that foundation while pushing into something more fully realized and more sonically expansive than anything they’ve attempted before.

Rob Zombie Unleashes His Boldest Statement Yet With ‘The Great Satan’

Eric Alper
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Rob Zombie Unleashes His Boldest Statement Yet With ‘The Great Satan’

Rob Zombie has spent more than 4 decades building a world entirely his own, and ‘The Great Satan’ is his most fully realized version of it yet. The new album is out now via Nuclear Blast Records, arriving alongside a self-directed music video for “F.T.W. 84” that expands the record’s vivid and uncompromising visual universe.

Fusing avant-garde aesthetics with monstrous, groove-driven rock, Zombie has never made a record that sounds like anyone else, and ‘The Great Satan’ continues that tradition with real force. From the foot-stomping swagger of “(I’m a) Rock ‘N’ Roller” to the throwback grit of “Heathen Days” and the anthemic punch of “Punks And Demons,” the album moves through its own cinematic landscape on its own terms, leaving trends and expectations entirely behind.

The self-directed video for “F.T.W. 84” is exactly what you’d expect from one of rock’s most committed visual auteurs, an extension of the album’s aesthetic world that reinforces why Zombie’s art has always operated across multiple dimensions simultaneously. The music and the imagery are inseparable, and that’s been true since the beginning.

‘The Great Satan’ lands as Zombie also prepares for a summer tour alongside Marilyn Manson, making 2026 one of the more consequential years of a career that has never stood still. For a singular cultural force who has consistently defied convention across music and film, this album is another reminder that nobody does this quite like Rob Zombie.

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That Eric Alper

Eric Alper is a 6-time nominee for Publicist of the Year during Canadian Music Week and has overseen the publicity campaigns for over 183 JUNO Award-nominated albums (and 16 in 2025), 45 Grammy-nominated albums, including 47 JUNO Award, 58 Canadian Folk Music Award, 126 Maple Blues Award-winning albums and is also truly honoured to work with some of the biggest and most important artists of our time.

Contact me: eric@thatericalper.com

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