Darren Hanlon
May 5th | 10:30pm | $5

Darren Hanlon – If not for his delightfully saccharine and whimsical vocal ability, Queensland, Australia’s Darren Hanlon can be further judged by the cream-of-the-crop sampling of Portland/Pacific Northwest musical company he keeps. His most recent album “I Will Love You At All” was produced by Adam Selzer (M. Ward, the Decemberists) and features collaborations from drummer Rachel Blumberg (Bright Eyes, She & Him) and Cory Gray, the venerable Carcrashlander. Hanlon has that Jack Johnson quality to him – he makes it look almost impossibly easy and carries that untouchable air of sonic incorruptibility.

For fans of: Jack Johnson, John Butler, M. Ward

LISTEN:  “All These Things” :: I Will Love You At All

Shelley Short
May 5th | 9:30pm | $5

A member of similar circles in the Portland scene, Shelley Short seems to be fluttering above the omnipresent cloud coverage in Rip City. It’s hard to imagine an overcast day when listening to her delightfully hushed country prairie melodies and luscious folk styling – the kind of music that throws a wrench in the gears of the urban rat race, forcing it to slow to a carefree stroll and enjoy the simple pleasures again.

Eliza Rickman
May 5th | 9:00pm | $5

Somewhere, a child is missing his or her two-octave toy piano, perhaps discarded to a thrift store or neighborhood garage sale without hesitation when they grew out of it. One person’s junk is another’s treasure, as almost on a whim, L.A.’s Eliza Rickman picked up the youthfully janky instrument, and it now remains the centerpiece of her arrangements – the inner-child’s innocence to her big-girl, Feist-like vocal gallops and seasoned string arrangements.

Pat Hull
May 6th | 10:30pm | $5

The kind of stratospheric vocal heights that Thom Yorke could only dream about in his most strenuous, throat-crackling (and possibly drug induced) fantasies are just the kind that gush freely out of the curiously original Pat Hull. Perhaps the biggest staple of the Chico music scene since the earliest days of the Mother Hips, Hull’s tunes are a thick jungle of tangled instrumental harmonies and sharp guitar hooks that you think will require some serious hacking through, yet somehow clear into a pleasantly shady grove of inventive folk and acoustic rock – the kind of natural oasis for those who have had their fill of Club Med.

For fans of: Neil Young, David Gray, Ray LaMontagne

LISTEN:  “Get Out Of My Head” :: Live In Studio A

Smoking Flowers
May 6th | 9:30pm | $5

Somehow, the old adage of husbands and wives being better off not living and working together doesn’t seem as drastic when both are playing in the same band, have a radiant musical kinship, and both love them some Neil Young. Self-dubbed as “Southern gothic folk,” the Smoking Flowers were formed after years of collaboration between Scott and Kim Collins in Pale Blue Dot, and now performing as a couple, are serving up the love, the shared passions, the struggles, the fights and the make-up sex in a package that ties together the loose ends between Young’s “Harvest” and “Prairie Wind” albums.

Ash Reiter
May 6th | 9:00pm | $5

If Ash Reiter was reaching over for an acoustic guitar, but accidentally grabbed an electric hollow-body and started playing anyway, would she even know the difference? It’s entirely possible she wouldn’t. One of the rising indie folk rock stars of the Bay Area, this Sonoma County native leaves little evidence of any distinction between her spunky, spiked-edged rock and roll side and her honey-infused softer side – at times, the two sides are skipping arm-in-arm, and at others, they’re brawling in an alley.

The Definite Articles
May 7th | 11:30pm | $5

San Francisco art rock band the Definite Articles album “King Merriweather” was an album three years in the making, inspired by a single song written by lead singer Shawn Alpay – and the results are wholly indicative of the care and detail that went into it. While Alpay may not quite be in position to be crowned “the next Colin Meloy,” the comparisons to the Decemberists cannot be ignored in this delightful outfit. Lush instrumental and symphonic arrangements are the backdrop to jangly, wanderlust melodies that could serve as the soundtrack for virtually any journey you could possibly take, by land, sea or air.

For Fans of: Decemberists, Polyphonic Spree

LISTEN:  “Bumbershoot” :: King Merriweather

Cowboy & Indian
May 7th | 10:30pm | $5

A combat intensive game of Cowboys and Indians was never played quite like this when we were kids, scraping knees and running around the backyard. Simulated sounds of guns blazing are replaced by subtle and jovial percussion, the whips and snaps of bows and arrows supplanted by juke joint electric riffs and campfire strums, and war whoops and “yee-haws” bumped by dual vocal harmonies, reminiscent of a peaceful Old West where we were all merely drinking buddies.

J. Irvin Dally
May 7th | 9:30pm | $5

“Daydreams for 19 Years” is the first song on J Irvin Dally’s debut album – it’s hard to say whether that song title, or the title of the album itself, “Kicking an Alive Horse” is more indicative of this enigmatic young singer. His flying-high vocal pitch and creative plucking are indeed like the soundtrack to one of those daydreams you just can’t explain, and he’s enough of an original to avoid kicking the proverbial dead horse. The living horse has yet to buck him.

Winter’s Fall
May 13th | 11:00pm | $3

It’s the fight between Jim James and Jeff Tweedy that no one ever thought would happen, and the one that they would decide to settle with a game of Quarters rather than sonic fisticuffs. Berkeley’s Winter’s Fall are loaded with the kind of urban dusty roads alt-country and thinking-man’s Americana that have made the likes of Wilco and My Morning Jacket such critical darlings, souped-up with heavy amp, classic blues rock riffs ranging from rebel-era Rolling Stones to the up to San Francisco’s the Stone Foxes.

For fans of: My Morning Jacket, Wilco, the Mother Hips.

LISTEN:  “Anyways” :: At All Angles

McDougall
May 13th | 10:00pm | $3

Hailing from Portland, this one-man band is like the history professor who gets fired for drinking with the co-eds. He’s the guy who spends hours researching old volumes of long forsaken texts gathering dust in the back corner to turn them into songs. He’s one part William Elliott Whitmore, one part Walt Whitman and one part Tyler Durden – just listen to anti-suburbia, inner-beast tunes like “Ones and Twos” and you’ll understand why he’s opened his own musical Fight Club.

Shayna & The Bulldog
May 14th | 11:00pm | $5

It’s probably a good thing this sun-drenched indie pop act from Davis isn’t on a bill alongside San Francisco’s Birds & Batteries – you might think there’s been a glitch in the Matrix. While there is certainly no deliberate attempt to copy and each of these delightful groups maintains their own identity, Charles Caskey’s swooning vocal delivery is eerily reminiscent of B&Bs Mike Sempert, and the spit-shined pop rock melodies, a la Tom Petty or Neil Young & Crazy Horse, are similarly awash in a sea of swan-diving electronic loops and personably quirky effects.

LISTEN:  “Open Spaces” :: Shayna & The Bulldog

Caught In Motion
May 14th | 10:00pm | $5

It’s a good band name for this acousatic pop rock outfit (the moniker of singer Banah Winn) that shares time between Oakland and Portland – the songs are indeed always in motion, but you’re never quite sure what direction they’re headed. It all depends on where you catch them, whether in the form of a stripped down, washed out and sanded off version of Smashing Pumpkins, or tailgating Ben Folds Five right up until they make that hard right turn over to Ego-town.

Odawas
May 20th | 11:00pm | $5

“The contemporary sound for the new adult.” Please pardon Berkeley’s Odawas for making themselves sound like a cult. However, a whimsical journey is sure to ensue if you do in fact drink the Kool-Aid. Formed in Indiana, Odawas is the fruit born from the formidable partnership of songwriters Michael Tapscott and Isaac Edwards, who lay down murky, lush landscapes of focused and emotionally intense indie rock, like taking laborious steps through mucky and snarling swamplands while trying to run towards the sunny meadow on the horizon – but it seems oh so far away.

LISTEN:  “Secrets Of The Fall” :: The Blue Depths

Exray’s
May 20th | 10:00pm | $5

Who would win in a wrestling match between city and nature? This frisky San Francisco outfit might just be trying to find that out, but is probably also completely ambivalent to the outcome. The “city” might just put “nature” down on the mat with super sharp and ultra hip electronic beats (the kind you might hear in a club that has no sign on the door), but “nature” could spring back up with the swirling vocals and wanderlust electric folk spirit that is the core energy behind this head-scratcher of an act.

Kevin A. McLemore
May 20th | 9:00pm | $5

A Chicago native, Kevin moved to California in 2008 to see how life in the Golden State might influence his songwriting. Still characterized by folk open tunings, his songs now have an undercurrent of noise below the surface, a sound informed by the tule fog that haunts the Central Valley. For fans of Red House Painters and Slowdive.

Drew Grow & The Pastors’ Wives
May 21st | 11:15pm | $5

Some of the most beautiful dreams started in the garage, as did the worst nightmares. Drew Grow and his band of miscreants are that dream you wake up from wondering what the hell you ate (or drank) before you fell asleep, and wondering where to get more of it so you can hopefully have that dream again. Zigzagging from irreverent and maniacal sonic tomfoolery to drop-tempo, rough-edge indie folk meanderings, this group wants nothing to do with squeaky clean hi-fi or soundboard trickery – their hearts (and other organs) will do the talking.

LISTEN:  “Bootstraps” :: Drew Grow & The Pastors’ Wives

Nick Jaina
May 21st | 10:00pm | $5

Portland's Nick Jaina's A Bird In the Opera House gives listeners catchy tunes with an authenticity, immediacy and almost-tangibility afforded by a very confidently naked means of record making. In the past, the band has spent time recording and mixing live in Type Foundry Studios in Portland and performed “in the moment” minus any over-dubbing, giving their label’s namesake, Hush, a twinge of irony.

S. Carey
May 25th | 10:00pm | $6

You’ve got to give a guy credit for going on his own after taking part in one of the more manically adored indie outfits on the planet – especially as the drummer. After cutting his teeth behind the skins with Bon Iver, Sean Carey has dished up the luscious “All We Grow,” demonstrating that he did indeed have a lot of his own lyrical and rhythmic poetic prowess to express, while spending his time playing the instrument that is widely regarded as the hardest to express one’s self on. His gushing of introspective spirit is indicative of a man just finding his footing, but is also about to break into a full-on sprint.

LISTEN:  “In The Stream” :: All We Grow

Other Lives
May 25th | 11:15pm | $6

With no disrespect to S. Carey, whom the band is flanking on their current tour, you have to give nod to a group that’s recently scored slots opening for the likes of the National and the Decemberists. Stillwater, Oklahoma’s Other Lives is the kind of outfit that doesn’t bother with musical mission statements or directional gameplanning. They’re an ensemble of indie folk rock in the truest sense, whisking introspectively intense and frequently dark orchestral arrangements into ribbons of acoustic rock that play like shreds of the Shins braided with Neutral Milk Hotel.

Tor House
May 25th | 9:00pm | $6

Make fun of English majors all you want for having a limited choice of careers with their degree. Tor House, a.k.a. Daryl Lazaro, is taking his B.A. in English from UC Davis for a spin around the block, and the destination appears far from working at a drive-thru. Tor House claims (via Facebook) to be working on a cover of Fleet Foxes “Helplessness Blues” for his set – to listen to his syrupy and nautrally ethereal vocals, it almost sounds as if the Foxes’ Robin Pecknold may have been his faculty advisor while working on that degree.

Larry & His Flask
May 26th | 10:30pm | $5

It is absolutely no coincidence that Larry & His Flask have been invited to share the stage with thrashgrassers Trampled By Turtles; it is similarly no coincidence that the work “flask” appears in the band name. They’re kind of band that agreed to take a blindfolded Pepsi challenge with different instruments, and didn’t care if someone handed them a banjo or a Les Paul, a mandolin or a Flying V. They play with the same fire-bellied intensity that could produce either a string of blood-in-the-mud punk rock or a boot-stompin’ high plains hootenanny – and the two get along like a couple of toothless miners drinking moonshine and coffee on the front porch and yelling “hey you kids…get up here and jam with us.”

LISTEN:  “Ready Your Roommates” :: EP

My Life In Black & White
May 26th | 9:30pm | $5

In the land between Social Distortion and NoFX lies – well, pretty much all punk rock that’s worth their weight in leftover dance floor sweat and cheap domestic beer. Portland’s My Life in Black and White is a band very similar in poise and precision. They’re the kind of punk band that plays punk because that’s what they’ve chosen to play, not because it’s really all they’re capable of or have the inclination and motivation to pay reverence to.

Or, The Whale
May 27th | 11:00pm | $5

Undeniably one of San Francisco’s fastest rising bands, and one poised to make a potentially major breakout, the enigmatic Or, The Whale is walking a fine tightrope: They’re not quite off-the-beaten-path enough to really be considered “alternative,” and not quite radio-ready enough to be considered country. Somewhere between the two mediums, they’ve taken the alt-country circuit (a territory trolled by the likes of Wilco, Uncle Tupelo and the Cowboy Junkies) by the throat with the single “Datura” and the rest of their throwback yet modern ‘twang. His-and-hers vocals, slide guitar, deserted highway riffs and broken hearted lyrics make it tough for even the “I listen to everything but country” folks to turn a scornful ear.

LISTEN:  “Datura” :: Or, The Whale

Olin & The Moon
May 27th | 10:00pm | $5

The danger any band like LA's Olin & the Moon runs into is that, any group that’s going to pack this much combustive emotional pomp into their music is going to run the risk of getting slapped onto the soundtrack of your average teenage melodrama television series. It’s easy to see them being picked up as the soundtrack to first loves lost and coming of age angst, but this group has long since grown into their big boy pants with dense and lushly refined guitar riffs and masterfully sculpted songwriting, in the vein of Ryan Adams or a less morose Conor Oberst.

The Bye Bye Blackbirds
May 27th | 9:00pm | $5

When you take your name from a pop rock standard of a song, you’ve pretty much locked yourself into a certain breed of rock and roll, but it does not appear that Oakland’s Bye Bye Blackbirds are looking around for the key. At their heart, this formidable five-piece is a British Invasion themed power pop and guitar rock powder keg, riffing out piles of chords that heap into the kind of rock and roll that made the likes of Richard Thompson and the Kinks worldwide names, but doesn’t wait around in ambivalence of U.S. of A. pop and rock like that of the Beach Boys or (slightly north of the border) the Band.