Authors

Sophia Vaccaro

Sophia Vaccaro writes fantasy books for teens and annoys her roommate Sam by playing punk music really loudly while making eggs. Occasionally she can be found annoying her roommate Sam by playing punk music really softly.

musician Squirrel Flower, wearing a denim jacket, stands partially turned away from the camera, with bright glare from the sun partially obscuring the image

Interviews

Squirrel Flower Burns Rubber on New LP Planet (i)

“I just allow my impulses and my desires to affect the actions I take.” She’s discussing the beating heart track of her newest album, Planet...

Interviews

Feral Reflects on TikTok Fame, Mental Health, and New Music

“But it’s not the only thing I am.” It's been nearly a year since our last interview, and Ferrell—who goes by the...

Playing The Bay

Christian Singles Ruminate on Family Ties with Maybe Another Time LP

There is something deeply comforting about Maybe Another Time, the new LP project from Oakland's Rob I. Miller (under the name Christian Singles). Created in the wake of his father’s returning cancer diagnosis, no listener would come in expecting that — understandably so, as examining complex...

Playing The Bay

Plush Palace Screams It Out on Debut EP

I love 2020. No, really — though to be clear I don’t mean in a political, interpersonal, or general sense; only in a musical one. Only in 2020 would someone have to audacity to refer to themselves as “introspective indie punk” in their Bandcamp bio. Genre, like the concept of hugging your loved...

Playing The Bay

Sonia Espiritu Eases Into Comfort Zone on New EP

I don't know if this is a nostalgia thing for me, or perhaps something deeper and more insidious, but one of my most obsessive phases of music consisted of, for two straight years, listening to every song The Front Bottoms had ever put out on repeat. The Front Bottoms are the king, queen, and court...

Playing The Bay

July Debuts with Delicate, 60s-Inspired Self-Titled LP

San Francisco's Kate Sweeney has returned with a new LP after a period of brief hibernation from indie folk band Magic Magic Roses. This time, she emerges with a new moniker, July, but a similar attitude. The self-titled LP is the epitome of dreamy and delicate with its no-caps titles and...

Playing The Bay · Regionals

Shutups Take Mundane Missteps and Make Them Worth a Dance on EP 5

Oakland band Shutup's new EP 5 is a very adult piece of work. This isn't to say that it is frigid or stuffy, but moreso that it provides a rollicking rock foray into the complexities of adulthood. Some of this grown-up feeling comes from Shutups' desire to not waste time. Almost every song on the...

Playing The Bay

Nketiah Creates a Lush Electronic Soundscape with Mauve

I have to say it: I do not like long albums. If an album goes over twelve tracks, the synapses of my brain will cross and I will be lost in an impenetrable fog. I’ll probably start the album late or end it early upon repeated listens, depending on which half I liked more, and live out the rest of...

Playing The Bay

The Leave Me Alones Waver and Warble on New EP

“Do I make you more interesting?” asks The Leave Me Alones lead vocalist Hayley on the Oakland band's new EP, Be Alone. This line, from opening track “Bad News,” is a testament to the strength of this EP’s lyrics, which pack their punch not with poeticism so much as the bracing directness that...

Interviews · Playing The Bay

Fantastic Negrito on his New LP and the "Amazing Garden" of Black Roots Music

“I’m a busker at heart,” says Oakland’s Fantastic Negrito. “I started this [project] five years ago, busking — and I wanted to talk to people. The one thing I realized [is] that we need each other as people living on this planet…and if we don't talk to each other, we don't have anything.” Fantastic...

Playing The Bay

Two New Bay Area Singles To Get You Dancing in the Light from Your Firmly-Closed Windows

Feeling extra trapped, Bay Area? It's fire season again, and this year, the smoke feels particularly disheartening and apocalyptic. Before the doom sets in, check out the following tracks - they're guaranteed to provide a little distraction, and may even help you get on your feet. First up is...

https://faultradio.com/editorials/2020/7/26/album-review-alleyes-manifest-otoo

Playing The Bay

Alleyes Manifest Artfully Melds Past and Present on James Wavey LPs

Babe, the new album by James Wavey/Alleyes Manifest, is a worn patchwork quilt come to life in ten warm, layered tracks. “Love songs for listeners” is how Oakland’s Michael Bridgmon (Alleyes is his producer name, while James Wavey is his performance persona) describes it on Bandcamp. This is...

Playing The Bay

Trimmo's Experimental Electronica Manages both Warmth and Resonance on twin sister LP

DIY and electronica have always gone hand-in-hand. With only a computer and some music software, you can create tracks from basically nothing; you don’t need a good voice, and you don’t need to be good at playing an instrument. But here’s the thing - regular musicians don’t need that shit either....

Playing The Bay

Y2K Kitsch and Bedroom Rap Bravado Meet on Debut Brujita EP Cyber Angel

@akabrujita on Twitter While doing my preliminary research for this article, I double checked the meaning of the word “Brujita.” In Spanish, “Bruja” means witch, but a few websites suggested that “brujita” (“little witch") can also be a term of endearment, like calling someone a scamp. This is...

Playing The Bay

Berkeley's Brutally Honest Feral Approaches Personal Trauma with Unyielding Precision

Her music is, if anything, brutally honest. Feral's most recent release, a four-song collection of demos recorded on...

Playing The Bay

Maggie Gently Unpacks the Pain of a Dissolving Friendship with Good Cry EP

Created during the various phases of a friendship dissolution, Gently isn't trying to convince others that closure is imminent, so much as she's...

Playing The Bay

Project Poppa Reflects on the Impact of Violence with Emotionally Vulnerable New Track "I Can't Breathe"

Project Poppa is settling into venerability. His latest release, “I Can’t Breathe,” sees the East Oakland rapper’s voice choked with emotion as he details the complexities and dangers of being a young Black man in America. “A lot of people like to say how are we mad what’s goin’ on/when we doing it...

94134691_2566189563697567_3796876425399631872_o

Playing The Bay

Freddie is Ready for Their Closeup with Melanin Monroe EP

You know you are in for something good the moment that Oakland singer Freddie’s voice comes in on their EP opener “Oblivion.” Later in the song, their rich, evocative voice moves to deliver that ever-elusive diva wish: “I wanna be adored by ya/I wanna be adored by everyone.” It almost sounds...

Playing The Bay

The Bay, Black Lives Matter, and Bandcamp: Local Resources and Ways to Help

Hey Bay Area, It's been a rough week. It's also been, hopefully, a first step in a greater reckoning regarding racial justice, discrimination, and police brutality in America. Black people are suffering even as they are mobilizing, speaking out despite years of attempted silencing, and working...

Playing The Bay

Margalee Offers a Tender Slice of Familial Love With Let the Mad World Spin

This “tidbit” style of album creation appeals to me for a variety of reasons, but the biggest one, I believe, is that it normalizes the process of creation. By no means am I suggesting making a themed or shorter...

Interviews

Jess Day is On Her Way to Achieving Pop-Rock Hook Mastery, One Single at a Time

Jess Day does it all herself. “I remember having a conversation with a guy once, trying to explain that my band members are essentially session musicians and I teach them all the parts... and he couldn't comprehend that I wrote the instrumentation,” the Australian musician says. And while she...

Playing The Bay

Sacramento's Destroy Boys Confront Adulthood with Latest Singles

'Cause I have a lot to say,” says Alexia Roditis, lead singer of Sacramento band Destroy Boys. It would be easy (and sloppy) to take a band with a name like Destroy Boys and just slap them...

Playing The Bay

SOAR Leans on Friendship as Foundation for New LP soft dial tone

Sonic texture for sure, like the gentle feedback whine that marks the opening of the album. It took me a while to realize what it reminded me of. When I finally figured it out, I was...

Playing The Bay

Katsy Pline's In This Time of Dying Reflects Our Bizarre Reality With a Folky Spin

Katsy Pline has made a folk album for the apocalypse. Or, more accurately, a folk-rock-syth album for the apocalypse, like Pline was watching fiery destruction from on high, fingers smashing the keys of an electric piano while warbling over a lost love. If you want another song to add to your...

Playing The Bay

Everything Sucks But At Least We Still Have Music

Boy Scouts - Taylor Vick portraits Hey Bay Area music lovers, It's been a rough week. Most of us are stuck inside with naught but our family, roommates, or pets to entertain us. It's easy to get caught in a worry spiral, but, as always, music comes through to save us all from ourselves (or our...

Playing The Bay

Grumpster Finds Solance On the Edges of Debut LP Underwhelmed

Over deli sandwiches, Falyn Walsh of Grumpster told me that she thinks some people are meant to become friends. I had met her, along with Lalo Gonzalez Deetz (guitar) and Noel Agtane (drums) at Gilman Brewing some hours earlier, where we discussed the Oakland band’s debut album, Underwhelmed. The...

Playing The Bay

Morning Hands Get Mystical on New LP

Morning Hands' self-titled LP sounds as though someone’s Dungeons and Dragons wizard character made an ‘80s synth-pop version of his spellbook. Maybe that's a bombastic statement for the opening sentence of a review, but once I got to track four, “Moving Through Water,” I knew my initial inklings...

Playing The Bay

Mysterious Indie Pop Outfit smiles Shines on Slumberland 7"

Oakland band smiles are elusive - despite releasing a steady stream of stand-alone singles throughout the summer via a bandcamp account that stretches back to 2014, there isn't much available information on who is behind the music. Melters, the San Francisco record shop distributor of one of...

Playing The Bay

Nu Normol Embrace Lo-Fi Sass on no love songs EP

Listening to San Francisco band Nu Normol’s new EP, no love songs, is akin to having a cassette tape slipped through your mail slot. Peel away the Scotch tape and recycled wrapping paper and you’ll know: you’ve been visited by the spirit of DIY rock n’ roll, conveyed in a conveniently-sized...

MAIN - Boy Scouts - Photo Credit Ulysses Ortega 6

Playing The Bay

Boy Scouts Artfully Embraces Resignation on New LP Free Company

Taylor Vick of Boy Scouts. Photo Credit: Ulysses Ortega It’s hard not to heavily associate new music with the time of year that you first heard it, where a few notes or a chorus can propel you back in time to months before, your eyes and ears filling with the sounds of springtime or the...

Playing The Bay

Sleepover Balances Musical Influences on New Self-Titled EP

The self-titled debut EP from Bay Area band Sleepover starts with the kind of intro you would expect to hear on a Best of the '50s compilation album. Take me with you, begs lead singer Pakayla Biehn on the cheekily-named “Lullabye,” the instrumentals slowly racking up in intensity before diving...

48184538_1915907058517554_9091860992949747712_o

Album Review

Microwave Solidifies Lyrical Superiority on Death is a Warm Blanket

It’s inevitable that your favorite bands will eventually release an album that challenges you in some way. Georgia band Microwave’s newest release, Death is a Warm Blanket, is certainly one of those albums for me. Their 2016 LP, Much Love, a heartrending thirty minutes of beautifully written and...

43646109_693329114374607_9105969243257569280_n

Playing The Bay

Half Stack Has One Foot Out the Door in New EP Single "Goner"

“Goner,” the new single from Oakland band Half Stack, comes two years after their last release, 2018’s full-length Quitting Time. With an easy narrative and simplistic lyrics, it's the first track from their upcoming EP, Aw Hell. Half Stack have always played on the contrast of their youth with the...

Charly Bliss - Young Enough _ Press Pic 5, Credit to Ebru Yildiz

Interviews

Eva Hendricks of Charly Bliss is an East Coast Glitter Witch of Empathy

She talks about of the power of creating a persona for performances with more than a hint of amusement. “In my wildest dreams, I want to be descending...

Playing The Bay

Polkadot Spins Folktales Among the Flowers on Spring Songs EP

Polkadot’s most recent EP, Spring Songs, is a brief affair at four minutes and thirty-nine seconds. However, the two-song EP creates an immediate sonic landscape, an echoing folktale peeled from the page and delivered through ones and zeroes. With a stripped-down delivery and a slow, two-person...

Playing The Bay

Grumpster is "Crumbling" in New Video

In the music video for “Crumbling,” by Oakland punk band Grumpster, lead singer Fayln Walsh tears off her baggy '80s color-block shirt during the final breakdown, flinging her limbs with detached singularity in front of a golden-hour graveyard. Cut in between shots of the band playing live, this is...

Playing The Bay

Sour Widows Want You In On Their Townie Vibes

“[Our music] has this lackadaisical, small-town vibe to it” says Maia Sinaiko, singer and guitarist for the three-piece Bay Area band. This can certainly be said of "Tommy," the preview single for...

67361573_369641380401787_5897861821150265344_o

Playing The Bay

Twin Peaks Promoters Expand Community With Two-Day Twin Shrieks Fest

Twin Peaks Sessions organizers Jonathan Abrams, Rianne Garrido and Michael Donnelly. Photo by Trevor Skinner. While ascending the steps to the upper level at Twin Shrieks fest, I almost knocked over someone's plate of watermelon. "Sorry!" I mouthed into the dark, settling down to watch the next set...

Playing The Bay

Oakland's Skip the Needle Are Done Holding Anything Back

As Bay Area music industry veterans, the four members of Skip the Needle have run the gamut through the bullshit and, according to the lead single from their newest full-length project, they ain’t never going back. “We Ain’t Never Going Back” is the title track from Skip the...

Playing The Bay

10 Years On, Burger Boogaloo 2019 Must Reconsider Its Relationship With The City It Loves

all photos by Sophia Vaccaro Walking up to the MacArthur entrance of the 10th annual Burger Boogaloo festival was akin to walking under the big top of a circus tent, the everyday machinations of Mosswood Park suddenly swathed by a curtain of pounding drums as children twisted on swing sets, their...

Playing The Bay

Kevin Nichols Rocks the Hallowed Grounds of 924 Gilman

Kevin Nichols wanted to know how much time he had left on stage. “Till you puke!” cried the man behind me. This was met with silence, perhaps one nervous laugh, but I couldn’t help but appreciate the purity of an old punk sentiment in a an old punk stomping ground, even as...

51620238_571275396721877_8624152626512003072_o

Playing The Bay

Thank You Come Again Find Potential in Contrast On Debut EP

The debut EP from San Francisco-based band Thank You Come Again occupies an interesting space between old-school rock n’ roll and something newer and more intimate. EP opener “Creature” starts us off with a grungy guitar riff that takes its time burrowing into one ear before the rest of the...

Playing The Bay

Madi Sipes and the Painted Blue Find the Beat of a "Heavy Heart"

Credit where it’s due to Madi Sipes and The Painted Blue for maintaining a consistent aesthetic. The album art for the last few singles look like snapshots from the underground parlor of a lovelorn 1940s tattoo artist who hasn’t skipped a day of adding her beauty mark in the last 10 years. Their...

Playing The Bay

Slumped Prepares for Summer Onslaught with Self-Titled LP

What do we do with the remnants of ourselves left over from winter and spring? If you’re heartbroken or enraged or otherwise blasted to bits, the long, sun-soaked hours...

Playing The Bay

MUSH Delivers "A Night of Black Magic" with Maya Songbird and Ah Mer Ah Su

Last week I traversed to Jack London Square for the second show of BFF.fm’s summer concert series, MUSH. With the goal of highlighting the diverse sounds of the Bay Area music scene, MUSH promises a small outdoor concert experience a stone’s throw from the Jack London square eateries and nearby...

Playing The Bay

Psych Rockers Cellar Doors Take a Ride on Self-Titled Debut

Cellar Doors play a show at Milk Bar, with projections by Mad Alchemy. Photo by Tyler Loring. Hello Audiofemmes! I’m Sophia, your new Playing the Bay columnist. I am: native Berkeley garbage, a sweet-n-sour enthusiast, and a novice mosher. Got some good bands for me to check out? Let me know on...

Live Review

SHOW REVIEW: Daddy Issues, Foxing, and Now, Now Deliver a Divine Performance At August Hall

I’m not a very religious person, but I do think that whatever I’ve lost from not going to temple I’ve gained back at all the live shows that hit me hard. That’s certainly what happened to me last Wednesday night at at the small-but-mighty August Hall, where I caught Foxing and Now, Now on their...

Only Noise

How PUP - and Punk Rock - Changed My Relationship with Physical Intimacy

PUP photo by Vanessa Heins. ONLY NOISE explores music fandom with poignant personal essays that examine the ways we’re shaped by our chosen soundtrack. This week, Sophia Vaccaro finds empowerment and personal autonomy in the mosh pit, with PUP providing the punk rock release. The mosh pit at a PUP...

Get on our list for artist resources, events, and more AF content.

Contact

Emerging Artists of Audiofemme, Inc.
45 Main St Ste 240
PMB 474693
Brooklyn, New York
11201-1098