Editor's Note: Jonathan Cárdenas of Pow Magazine and San Francisco Great Society put a lot of time into curating this exclusive peek at the upcoming festival, Gathering of the Tribes. This fest celebrates and works to promote and preserve the spirit of psych music in San Francisco. Founder, Dennis Gonzales is very passionate about his work and his efforts to support psych musicians from all over the US. The Bay Area is lucky to have him and the community of amazing promoters and musicians who help keep the spirit and tradition of supportive, familial music and arts communities alive and well. -je

The Gathering Of The Tribes is a festival centralized exclusively in itself and its own breed of musicians and artists. San Francisco has had other festivals in past years, but this one aims to showcase the Bay Area’s breed of psychedelia and its sub-genres, as well as celebrate its musical and artistic ancestry. The name is borrowed, or you could even say revitalized—resurrected—from the Human Be-In that took place in Golden Gate Park, January 14, 1967. This is when Haight-Ashbury became symbolically immortalized as a counter-culture mecca. Our festival celebrates San Francisco’s past and present, and aims to push forward its music and arts in a positive and progressive direction, preserving it for the good of the Bay Area and to keep things groovy.

“We are the San Francisco Preservation Society—God save the Acid Tests, Beatniks and notoriety.”

Hopefully you got that reference. But no, we’re the San Francisco Great Society. 

Founder, Dennis Gonzales: I've been running Pow Magazine since 1986 and being entrenched in the music community for several years as a social media journalist, I can tell you SF music is not only alive, it is about to explode into a new movement unlike anything seen since the first music scene in 1965. Everything about our Society and our festival is a familial, grass roots effort.  Amoeba is sponsoring the event—they too have promoted it on their Facebook page as well as Twitter. Pow Magazine, Counter Culture Artist Management, and Innerlight Presents are altogether presenting this festival. We have reached out to the best of the Bay, and most have said “yes.”

Clay Andrews of The Spiral Electric and Innerlight Presents: If the festival is comprised of bands that are all touring and far away, and everybody has all their records—that’s great and all; you have to bring people to the event, but at the same time it’s like—don’t just throw a fest where you just bring an import of things because that’s not really doing anything for the local scene. It’s not exposing people to what’s actually happening right now in their backyards.

Derek See SF DJ, musician and music collector: One thing I’m especially excited about is hearing and meeting bands that I don’t know even though they're local. Because of what i do for a living, i have to get up real early in the morning on weekends—I do go out and see live music when I can, but never as much as I’d like to, whereas at this festival I’m just super stoked to be able to experience and hang out with like-minded folks.

Performing at SFGS: Gathering of The Tribes
at Public Works in San Francisco on September 13th

The Gentle Cycle
Buzzmutt
The Spiral Electric
LSD and the Search for God
Down and Outlaws
Cellar Doors
Down Dirty Shake
The Love Dimension
Mark Nelsen
Sea Dramas
California Raga Association
Lee Gallagher and the Hallelujah
The Green Door
Carlton Melton
Mystery Flavors
The She’s
Electric Shepherd
Zodiac Death Valley

Visuals by:

White Light Prism - vimeo.com/user6728976
Mad Alchemy - www.madalchemy.net
Andy Puls - www.videopaws.com

DJs:

Abel Oleson
Derek See
Michael Tarin

The San Francisco based psychedelic revivalist band, The Love Dimension has shared a new music video for Inner Eye Insight, a single from their latest album, Create and Consume. The video was directed by Matt Robeson of White Light Prism.

"Matt took us around the Bay Area last December and January on location to various spots in Oakland, San Francisco and Marin County. Hiking around with all that gear into all of those nature spots wasn't easy, but we had a lot of fun filming this so want to share it with you." -Jimmy Dias, lead singer/songwriter of TLD

Oh, we're so into the love-centric, esoteric lyrics of Inner Eye Insight and the amazing nature shots going on in the video. It's really nice to see the band's six member full line up grooving all in one shot!

Check out the video and then take the opportunity to see The Love Dimension perform live at Great American Music Hall in San Francisco on Saturday, May 23rd. The show will also include performances by Cellar Doors, Buzzmutt and The Bad Jones.

The San Francisco based avant-noise post punk band, Buzzmutt has released a new music video for their single, Stumble Forward. The song is a track off their entrancing 2014 release, Strange Planes of Surveillance.

The Stumble Forward music video is a crisp pastiche of images starring an oddly charming robot. The video looks great and shares a number of clips from Buzzmutt's local live performances. Watch the video and see if you can make out where the band is playing. If you go to enough shows, you can recognize any stage! We like robots, dioramas, cardboard cities and rock and roll! Stumble Forward has it all!

San Francisco based experimental post punk band, Buzzmutt has released a new album entitled, Strange Planes of Surveillance. Their music is loud and untamed, but their song's composition is structurally coherent. Buzzmutt's  brand of noise music has a danceable element that is really fun but doesn't take away from their punk integrity.

If you're into Sonic Youth and New Order, you'll be into Buzzmutt. They certainly standout and you should check out their show and pick up an album just to make sure you keep your music taste diverse.

Head out to the Hemlock Tavern TONIGHT to see Buzzmutt share a bill with Wild Pack of Canaries and The Shape.

​San Francisco experimental post punk band, Buzzmutt will be releasing a new ​EP next month. Today, we have an exclusive first single from their upcoming album entitled, Strange Planes of ​​Surveillance​.

This new single, Stumble Forward is a strange grungy collage of urban drenched tribal instrumentation mixed with​ a catchy vocal melody. A cool thing about Buzzmutt is that they sound just as grungy, raw and intense live. It's hard to find a live band that keeps the integrity of their recordings, but they do.

​Stumble Forward and Buzzmutt are a breath of fresh air because this band obliterates the laid back, washed out Cali garage rock style that we know and love. They bring a gritty east coast underground sound that derives from Baltimore/DC punk and experimental vintage rock like, CAN. Get into it. The music may be a bit of an acquired taste, but it goes down easy.

You can catch Buzzmutt live on September 11th at their album release show at the Hemlock Tavern. ​