Newsletter: Spoon-Man! (And other recommended concert events)

Hello friends and welcome back to SMART MOUTH!

Smart Mouth is an email newsletter that I, "Dammit" Damian Burford aims to send out every week with local music news and event recommendations, with the occasional profile, interviews or other long reads about the local community. Smart Mouth is an extension of my "Word Of Mouth" column for the Napa Valley Register, with a focus on discovering our new home of Sonoma County.

I did a soft launch last month with a handful of pieces about my adventures exploring Sonoma County as well as a piece about the opening of the Museum Of Sonoma County's "Disturbing the Peace: Sonoma County's Early Punk Underground" exhibit.

I got really stellar feedback about the project before heading off to Colorado for a memorial service for one of my best friends. I returned home and immediately started a new gig at Crooked Goat Brewing, both Sebastopol & Petaluma locations. I also started volunteering at the Charles Schulz (aka Snoopy/Peanuts) museum, one of my absolute favorite places on earth! I've been a busy busy busy boy.

On top of all that, I was hired by the Napa Valley Register newspaper to write a daily journal with coverage of the BottleRock music festival that happened on Memorial Day weekend.

For my BottleRock coverage, I went looking for the "real Napa," hiding inside the ultra-expensive LiveNation behemoth. I didn't exactly find it, but what I did find gave me hope for the future of music and the community in the North Bay.

Read about my adventures by clicking on the images below, these are links to Archive.ph, a website that archives websites (and lets you get around paywalls).

My life-partner Claire and I have also been into The City a few times for some big concert events like Florence & The Machine at the Chase Center and Alabama Shakes/ Nathaniel Rateliff at the Greek in Berkeley. May was a very musical month for us!

SMART MOUTH CURRATED CALENDAR OF EVENTS

On top of everything, I've been slowly building up a curated calendar of events for Smart Mouth! This has been a pretty big undertaking, as it has involved me going to each and every single music venue or show space in the Sonoma & Napa areas, listening to most of the artists performing in the area and building a standalone calendar.

You can check out that calendar RIGHT NOW at SmartMouthCalendar.Com!

When I first moved to the area, I was told there was nothing going on up here. That Sonoma County was "boring." My friends, you couldn't be more wrong.

There is absolutely SO MUCH GOING ON that I've been spending much of the last month building that calendar and I still have a ton left to add to it. There's a number of great events happening at Napa Music Hall (formerly the Blue Note) and the Luther Burbank Center that I have not had a chance to post on the website. There's a ton of smaller events happening in the taco shops and DIY spaces as well, shows that do not have official websites.

I'm also a successful concert/show promoter. I know how to get butts into seats. Looking at all the many local music venues in the area... Holy shit. They have no idea what they're doing. Their promotions are SO BAD. Is purposely this bad?!? I hope to work with the community and educate them on how to fill up their spaces and spread the word on what's happening.

My goal in the following weeks is to use this space to help promote events and shows that I think should be on your radar. I want to find those hidden gems that you might not be aware of and showcase them to the world. I'll do that through these rambling columns as well as the calendar.

Bookmark the site and keep checking back as I continue to update it with shows and events that I think are worth your time. I don't post every show or event. I'm not interested in cover/tribute bands at all. I'm not into most DJ night stuff. I'm not really into "Live music," and instead will be focusing on shows and concerts.

I will absolutely not cover any events that use A.I. flyers or artwork.

I'm an old punk rocker with a love for more stuff that skews "Alternative" or "indie." I also really like solid AF folk, roots music and Americana. I'm looking for those artists and events that create original music that grabs your soul and doesn't let go.

It's been a hell of a scavenger hunt, but every time I discover someone new I get really damned excited. I'll be back next week to write more about what I've been discovering.

WHAT I'M EXCITED ABOUT THIS WEEKEND:

This weekend is pretty quiet in the area.

There is a GREAT Americana showcase happening at the new Lost Church in Santa Rosa on Friday June 5th with Joshua James Jackson & Elena Lambertson! This is a welcome home event for Jackson, who just returned to Sonoma County after spending many years in the East Bay.

Saturday I'm heading up to Healdsburg to cover the BLOODROOT RAMBLE with one of my all-time favorite bands, SPOON! I've only ever watched them from a thousand yards away at Red Rocks. I'm excited to see them up close and in person at this small festival event!

I'm not familiar with the other artists, Lucius, Devon Gilfillian, Tropa Magica, & The Plastic Cherries, but I can't wait to discover them.

VIP Tickets are sold out, but GA passes are still available for $100.94. Plus all proceeds from the entire weekend will go to helping fight gun violence! Hell yeah.

I've rambled on enough for one newsletter. We'll be back next week with many, many, many more events to talk about.

I'm working on building up the subscriber base for this list. I'm currently at 58 subscribers. My goal of 1,000 by year end isn't looking to promising, but if we can hit 500 subscribers, I'm going to throw a big party/show here in the area and showcase some of my favorite new acts.

So tell your friends. Help us spread the word of mouth... Smart Mouth!