The Culture Circuit, Sept. 10-18
What to do this week in Albany, Berkeley and around the East Bay.
Punk history, Appalachian fiddle tunes, soul, hip-hop and more: Here’s what’s happening around the East Bay this week.
Please help keep this weekly list lively and well informed by sending details about upcoming concerts, readings, performances and workshops to events@albanyscanner.com.
Can anarchy and archiving co-exist?
The Berkeley Public Library presents Anna Brown, editor of Hail Murray! The Bay Area Punk Photography of Murray Bowles, 1982-1995, in conversation with Tom McEnaney and Judith Peraino, authors of We're Having Much More Fun, a deep dive into how punks have built and documented their collectives since the mid-1970s while reshaping the worlds of music, art, fashion, and writing. They’ll focus on archiving and uncovering punk history in the East Bay and beyond. A Q&A with the authors follows the talk, and books will be available for purchase courtesy of Mrs. Dalloway’s Bookstore. A Berkeley native now working as a teacher and artist in Oakland, Brown came of age on the East Bay punk scene. McEnaney is also the author of Acoustic Properties and has published articles about Spotify, This American Life, and David Lynch's use of sound. Peraino is the author of Listening to the Sirens and has profiled Blondie, PJ Harvey, Pussy Riot and Lou Reed. Thursday, Sept. 10, 6 p.m. North Branch (Berkeley). Free
Eureka Day returns to the East Bay
Oakland playwright Jonathan Spector’s Eureka Day, which earned the 2025 Tony Award for best revival of a play, returns to the East Bay for a two-week run in El Cerrito, uncomfortably close to the blast radius of a play set at a fictional private progressive Berkeley school where an outbreak of mumps leads to conflict over vaccination policies, personal freedom, and the limits of tolerance. A prescient satire that takes a bigger bite of flesh in the aftermath of Covid, Eureka Day premiered in 2018 at Berkeley’s lamented Aurora Theatre, which co-produced an acclaimed production at Mill Valley’s Marin Theatre shortly after the Tony triumph. Directed by Enrico Banson, the comedy captures the vulnerability of ostensibly shared values when stress-tested by fear, misinformation, and ideology. Friday, Sept. 11, 7:30 p.m., through Sunday, Sept. 27, 2 p.m. Contra Costa Civic Theatre (El Cerrito). $30-$60
A soul-powered double bill in Point Richmond
One of the East Bay’s best free summer concert series concludes with a talent-packed double bill pairing Los Nadies, a Latin dance band that blends cumbia, rock, and Caribbean grooves, and the Anthony Paule Soul Orchestra featuring vocalist Willy Jordan. Led by Paule, a wicked rhythm guitarist, the horn-powered APSO has earned international respect with annual appearances at the Porretta Soul Festival in Italy. The band played a key role in reviving the career of the powerhouse Minneapolis soul singer Wee Willie Walker (and advancing the career of Oakland’s Terrie Odabi). Since Walker’s death in 2019 the orchestra has backed the versatile soulman Jordan, who’s featured on the band’s latest album What Can We Do? on the New Orleans label Nola Blue Records. Soul music aficionado Van Morrison was so keen on Paule’s work that he invited him to play on his 2026 blues release Somebody Tried To Sell Me A Bridge, and the guitarist will be joining him in London at month’s end for a five-night residency at a major new venue. Friday, Sept. 11, 5:30-7:45 p.m. Point Richmond Music. Free
From Albania to Appalachia with Janam
The fractious history of the Balkans lent the English language a term for division and strife, but the region’s music has long served as a unifying force in the Bay Area, bringing together disparate musicians drawn to the intermingled peoples’ overlapping traditions. With its blend of Balkan grooves and keening melodies with American roots music, Janam has forged a singular sound with a brilliant body of original songs. Over the past two decades the band has played folk dance sessions, sit-down concerts, and cultural events around West Coast with songs keyed to late-night revelry, love-besotted balladry, existential crisis, and unbridled passion. Featuring Dan Auvil on percussion and vocals, Kitka’s Juliana Graffagna on vocals, accordion, and tambura, Shira Kammen on violin, harp, and vocals, guitarist Sal Beeby, and string wizard Gari Hegedus on oud, saz, mandocello, and mandolin, the concert benefits Community Kitchens an Oakland nonprofit whose mission is "to bring together our whole community to harness the power of food to change lives, uplift communities and protect our environment." Saturday, Sept. 12, 8 p.m. The Back Room (Berkeley). $35-$40
An apocalyptic lesson from Theresa Wong
Back in the late aughts Berkeley cellist and composer Theresa Wong started working on a riveting song cycle, The Unlearning, with violinist and vocalist Carla Kihlstedt, who had gained widespread renown for her work with chamber ensemble Tin Hat and art rock band Sleepytime Gorilla Museum. Inspired by Francisco Goya’s 1810 series of etchings "Los desastres de la guerra" (The Disasters of War), Wong’s songs reflected on Goya’s stark imagery’s resonance with our contemporary world. She recorded the music on a 2011 album of the same name for John Zorn’s Tzadik label, and she’ll be revisiting the work with Kihlstedt as part of programming for the exhibit "Some Particular Heaven: Ideas of Utopia in the BAMPFA Collection," which includes several of Goya’s etchings. "It has been a long-time dream of mine to perform these songs alongside Goya’s masterpieces," Wong said. Saturday, Sept 12, 2 p.m. Berkeley Art Museum. Free with museum admission
Hank Williams, still the life of the honky-tonk at 103
Hank Williams’ death in 1953 at the age of 29 deprived American music of one of its greatest troubadours. Arguably country music’s first superstar, he created an incomparable songbook that toggles wildly between good-time come-ons and end-of-the-rope desolation. A prodigious line up of Bay Area talent delves into both sides of Williams’ oeuvre while celebrating his 103rd birthday at this afternoon shindig organized by Nashville Honeymoon, a stellar Berkeley combo led by the husband-and-wife duo of guitarist Hank Maninger and vocalist Lynne Maes. The bountiful program includes the great Oakland vocalist Margaret Belton (whose annual Patsy Cline celebration has been a highlight of the Freight’s spring season for the past dozen years), razor-sharp Berkeley singer/songwriter Maurice Tani, and the twangy country music couple of vocalist Jill Rogers and guitarist Myles Boisen. Sunday, Sept. 13, 2 p.m. The Ivy Room. $15.24-$18 (21+)
Spelling it out with hip-hop pioneers
The pioneering combo Alphabet Soup is indelibly linked to the Mission District, where it brought a vivifying jolt of hip-hop energy to San Francisco’s burgeoning acid jazz scene of the early 1990s. But initial spark the kindled the fire under the Soup took place on the UC Berkeley campus, and many of the players were living in the East Bay. Among the first bands to combine a combustible instrumental ensemble with rappers, Alphabet Soup became an underground phenomenon, influencing an array of better known acts. In a rare reunion, the band plays a 35th anniversary show with a bevy of original members, including keyboardist Dred Scott and saxophonist Kenny Brooks, both longtime New York City residents, electric bass master Victor Little, Primus, RatDog and Furthur drummer Jay Lane, and the hot-and-cool MC tandem of Chris Burger and Michael Blake, as well as special guests. Monday, Sept. 14, 8 p.m. The Ivy Room. $20 (21+)
A good old time in Berkeley
Back in the early aughts, Suzy Thompson had an epiphany that harkened back to the Berkeley folk scene of the 1960s. The fiddler, guitarist and vocalist often gathered with musician neighbors to play American roots music, and she wanted to bring that front-porch experience to the rest of the East Bay, which led her to relaunch the Berkeley Old Time Music Convention in 2003. It’s expanded over the years and now encompasses workshops, dancers, jams and concerts at venues around Berkeley from Sept. 16-20, with numerous opportunities for aspiring musicians of all stripes to participate. The festival’s centerpiece features East Bay-reared old-time legend Alice Gerrard, best known for her partnership with the late Appalachian singer Hazel Dickens in the 1960s and ‘70s. She performs with Thompson and multi-instrumentalist Reed Stutz at the Freight. The program also features North Carolina fiddler Justin Robinson, best known for his work with the Carolina Chocolate Drops, and Forty Drop Few, a string band that specializes in idioms from the early 1900s. Wednesday, Sept. 16, through Sunday, Sept. 20. Various Berkeley venues. Free-$39
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