The Oakland based soulful jazz ensemble, Ghost & the City has released a new song entitled, Steady Trippin. Here´s your chance to listen to an amazing local jazz group who has consistently released well composed, entrancing music!

Oakland outfit Ghost & the City is dedicated to elevating style and experience to create music that embodies elements of soul, trip-hop and jazz. Traveling across numerous musical genres to appeal to many tastes, Ghost & the City creates music that defies conventionality, yet solidifies a distinctive sound. Over the past five years, the project has successfully performed at venues all over the Bay Area, supporting such acts as Shabazz Palaces, Hiatus Kaiyote, Incognito and Marco Benevento. This year will see the release of Patchwork Soul, a 6-song EP that features fresh collaborations and a new direction.

Musician and composer, Ash Maynor and the awesome vocalist, Kia Fay have given us the opportunity to share this new song with you and we love the sound, style and vibe of this sensual trip hop inspired track. Steady Trippin is a free download via Soundcloud so you can listen to this track straight from your hard drive whenever you desire!

"Lyrically it reflects struggles with self-doubt as an artist, those moments when you're really just ready to throw in the towel. The concept of "Steady Trippin" comes from the idea of feeling caught in limbo, a place where you aren't walking but you're aren't quite falling, and yet you still find yourself moving forward" - Kia Fay

"With this tune we were trying to capture the ideal blend of jazz + trip-hop, both genres we've been exploring more with our new EP Patchwork Soul. The track features trumpeter Ross Eustis (Brass Magic, Guy Fox) doing what he does best, and largely reminiscent of Guru's Jazzmatazz volumes." - Ash Maynor

Ghost & the City has a string of local shows coming up. Make sure you catch this band live!

9/26 - OMF Festival w/ Anderson .Paak, Trails & Ways and more
11/6 - Leo's Music w/ Zakiya Harris
12/4 - Awaken Cafe w/ Guy Fox
12/5 - KALX Live

The inaugural Bay Area Vibez music festival officially announces its 3-stage, 2-day music, arts and urban lifestyle festival being held at Middle Harbor Shoreline Park in Oakland, California on Saturday, September 26th and Sunday, September 27th, with more than 25 artists to represent the line-up. The festival was created in celebration of music, art, diversity and the rich culture that mirrors the Bay Area and its unique characteristics.

The first round of artists to be released are Grammy©winning artist, Damian "Jr. Gong" Marley, Nas, who has a #1 album on American Billboard top 200, eight time Grammy© winning artist/producer, Stephen "Ragga" Marley, Grammy© nominated Meshell Ndegeocello, #1 Billboard reggae performer Morgan Heritage, Tarrus Riley, Jo Mersa; son of Stephen Marley, Fiji, Fishbone, Krooked Treez, Richie Spice, I-Wayne, Queen Omega, Ghetto Youths, The Courtney John Project, Black Am-I and the Oakland based fan-favorite band, Forrest Day, along with a few big surprises!

"...The eclectic mix is what constitutes the urban festival and represents the very nature of the Bay Area," says festival coordinator, Yurel Hassan Cooke. "The location is impeccable for an annual festival. With other surrounding fest locations as California Roots, Outside Lands, Reggae on the River and Treasure Island, the Bay Area Vibez seemed to fill a void on the map, and blending the genres for the Bay Area just felt right."

The water-lined breathtaking views of the city of San Francisco and the Bay Bridge have made Middle Harbor Shoreline Park in Oakland the perfect backdrop for this urban lifestyle festival. 

"Keeping the music alive for the next generations is key. Collectively, we need to support the creative flow of our children and open their eyes to a new world filled with creativity and a universal appreciation for diversity," says festival co-founders, an Oakland native; Tressa Wells, along with tour manager to Damian Marley, Albert "Pretty" Cooke.

General Admission are set at $85 for 1-day passes, $160 for 2-day passes and $225 1-day VIP, or $400 2-day VIP passes, which include early entrance to grounds, special VIP viewing and lounge area, VIP beer and wine garden and select organic foods and snacks. Shuttle services will be available for convenient entrance to the festival. Parking passes are $29 per day. Festival hours go from 11am to 10pm daily. For more information, or to secure tickets, visit www.BayAreaVibez.com.

If you're into the non-radio-play hip hop scene even a bit, you know that the Drake "Back to Back" freestyle diss track that the sports-cursing Canadian dropped on SoundCloud a month ago has been just about the only off the cuff verses anyone has been hearing lately (63.9 million plays as of this posting), so much so that the thing must be paying all of Soundcloud's bills by its own damn self at this point. So, maybe now we think is a good time to be reminded that just 'cause one really famous rich dude made another sort-of famous rich dude look somewhat goofy in a fairly decent freestyle rap, Drake's verses weren't good enough to end all of freestyling forever. Hell some of them ain't even that good- there's def cats out there who hold down rapping's most difficult and impressive tradition with much more power and skill, and they're still droppin' bombs on SoundCloud even after the Destruction of Meek Mill at the Hands of the Canadian Aubrey Drake Graham.

To wit, give yer brain an ice-cold dose of Austin's David Shabani and his newest release, a freestyle good enough to be an album track called "YUL to DFW" that'll get you right cool for these last few mind boiling summer days. Shabani is, as the track's title might suggest to those who are hip to the locational acronym game, a Texan via French Canada who has been building a rep and a fan base here in Austin through a consistent, quality output of tracks (a ton of his stuff is free on SoundCloud) and some big damn shows like an appearance at the 2014 X Games out at that big fuckoff rich person racetrack thingy. "YUL to DFW" is catchy like some kinda head-noddin' virus and does everything a truly good freestyle does- it's fast, smart as hell, it sounds so clean and put together it's hard to believe it's all off the dome, and you wanna jam it again a few times just to catch everything.

Freestylin' should be part approachable shit, like references to pop culture and current events or common daily life shit, and part personal perspective and peaks into the rapper's life. Shabani knows this, flows this and nails this, dropping in everything from bits on Star Wars, Anita Baker, Montreal not having an NBA team and even looking for the remote in the couch while sticking in personal shit like a bit on his life story, such as in the hook (the part that'll definitely get stuck in your head) where he lays out he went from "Montreal to Hamilton/Hamilton to Dallas/Dallas down to Austin/Feelin' good, feelin' awesome." That call-out to these four heavily populated areas should make it instantly dig-able by anyone with the good fortune to live in any of em, and should especially hit with Austinites, this city being so full of transplants and all (for better or worse, though in Shabani's case certainly for the better).

Let Shabani get up in your head and move that mildly great Drake piece right along into the museum of old freestyles where it belongs, and also get introduced to one of Austin's solid young rappers heading up the Most Likely to Succeed pack in this city's scene with this freestyle below, as well as his other tracks over at the internet's home for new hip-hop tracks before Meek Mill just loses it and tries to burn down their server warehouses.

The San Francisco based record label, Tricycle Records is in search of submissions for their upcoming compilation, The Friends of Tricycle Records Compilation. This will be the 5th compilation in the label's series. If you want to send your music to the label for consideration, go directly to their submission page!

http://www.tricyclerecords.com/friendssubmission/

The Friends of Tricycle Records Compilation is about building the Bay Area music scene. We are looking for new and/or unreleased songs from Bay Area / Northern California artists only. All genres accepted. This is offered as a free promotional download to help artists gain visibility in the local and national music scene. - Julie Schuchard Co-Founder Tricycle Records

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