Explore Marin’s music scene at some of our favorite venues. Here’s the best live performances happening in April.
El Radio Fantastique with The Happys
April 1
Sweetwater Music Hall
Doors 8 p.m. / Show 9 p.m. — $18
The band hails from Point Reyes Station and is led by its founder, Giovanni Di Morente, with its core members making music together for over 15 years. Their eclectic sound is part David Bowie and part Beatles, mixed with Frank Zappa and an alternative theatrical punk, rockabilly vibe. The band has released four albums and is about to release their third single.
Daniel Rodriguez of Elephant Revival
April 1
HopMonk Novato
Doors 7 p.m. / Show 8 p.m. — $20
Rodriguez released his debut collection of songs as an EP titled Your Heart, The Stars, The Milky Way on February 15, 2019. His debut full-length album, Sojourn of a Burning Sun, was released on August 28th, 2020 on BMG Records and his new album, Vast Nothing, debuted March 1 of this year. Rodriguez and his band opened for The Lumineers on their sold-out BRIGHTSIDE World Tour in July and August of 2022. He has also performed with some of his talented friends such as Gregory Alan Isakov, John Craigie, Todd Snider and many more.
Joe Pug
April 6
Sweetwater Music Hall
Doors 7 p.m. / Show 8 p.m. — $25
A singer-songwriter known for his lyrical acumen and plaintive harmonica style, since 2008 he has released a string of critically-acclaimed albums and toured heavily in the U.S. and abroad. Paste Magazine wrote of his music: “Unless your surname is Dylan, Waits, Ritter or Prine, you could face-palm yourself to death trying to pen songs half as inspired.” Joe Pug has toured with Steve Earle, Levon Helm, The Killers, Justin Townes Earle, Sturgill Simpson and many others.
The Crooked Stuff
April 7
Papermill Creek Saloon
Show 9 p.m. — $10
The Crooked Stuff is a mix of electronic rock, funk, heavy soul and sub-bumping beats, with eclectic influences including The Doors, Devo, Daft Punk, LCD Soundsystem, and more – the end result a wholly unique blend of electronic and analog worlds.
Zepparella
April 7 and 8
Sweetwater Music Hall
Doors 8 p.m./ Show 9 p.m. — $32
Founded in 2005 by drummer Clementine, Zepparella is a renowned all-female Led Zeppelin tribute band, complete with the fire and complexity comparable to the original! Gretchen Menn delivers a driving guitar thread while bassist Holly West rounds out the sound with a passionate bass line, creating a foundation for lead singer Anna Kristina to drive it all home.
Mustache Harbor
April 8
HopMonk Novato
Doors 8 p.m./ Show 9 p.m. — $22.50
Mustache Harbor is a group of dedicated and talented musicians brought together by their astrological signs and a love for vintage soft rock and sweet stashes. Their mission, their destiny, is simple: to build a mustache army and create a Soft Rock Explosion the likes of which has not been seen since the days when Christopher Cross, Steely Dan, Ace, Kenny Loggins and The Little River Band ruled the airwaves.
AJ Lee and Blue Summit with Wolf Jett
April 15
Sweetwater Music Hall
Doors 8:30 p.m./ Show 9 p.m. — $15
AJ Lee and Blue Summit made their first appearance in Santa Cruz in 2015 and have since taken the bluegrass world by storm, performing on stages internationally. The band is currently touring all across America in support of their latest full length project, I’ll Come Back, which debuted in August 2021.
Jon Chi
April 15
Mac’s at 19 Broadway
Doors 7 p.m./ Show 8 p.m. — $20
Wildfires, floods, quarantine and isolation, protests, riots, and raising children who are coming into awareness of these issues all influenced Jon Chi as he wrote the words and music to his 3rd solo album, River of Marigolds. The Marin County-based songwriter’s lyrics, at times dark and moody and at others hopeful, meld with a musical blend of spacious Americana and psychedelic soul. Much of the album features Dave Schools (Widespread Panic) on bass along with long-time rhythm collaborators John-Paul McLean and Jeremy Hoenig (Melvin Seals and JGB), Jordan Feinstein and Mike Emerson on keyboards, and pedal steel ace Dave Zirbel. River of Marigolds has recently been nominated for Album of the Year on Americana Highways. This show marks the one year anniversary of his monthly residency at Mac’s.
PSDSP
April 21
Peri’s Tavern
Show 9 p.m. — $10
Physical Suicide Deterrent System Project (PSDSP) is an avant-grunge band from the Bay Area. PSDSP combines heavy riffs, melodious, spacy vocals, surprising lyrics, and virtuosic musicianship for a sound that picks up where Soundgarden left off. With lead singer Eli Carlton-Pearson on guitar, Brian Wilkerson on bass and Michael Pinkham on drums, the band has become a cult favorite in their native Bay Area.
Danny Schmidt
April 30
HopMonk Novato
Doors 6 p.m./ Show 7 p.m. — $20
Named to the Chicago Tribune’s “50 Most Significant Songwriters in the Last 50 Years,” Austin, TX-based singer/songwriter Danny Schmidt has amassed a cult following for his poetic, poignant lyrics and been compared to Leonard Cohen and Townes Van Zandt, and with Sing Out Magazine proclaimed that: “Schmidt is a force of nature: a blue moon, a hundred-year flood, an avalanche of a singer-songwriter. His songs are a flood of poetry, mythology, folk wisdom, and surprise. He is perhaps the best new songwriter we’ve heard in the last 15 years.”
Emilie Rohrbach has taught music and theater to grades pre-school through 8th in San Francisco and Marin counties for the last 20 years. She has been a freelance writer for Divine Caroline for five years, and her writing has appeared in Narratively, Hippocampus, Common Ground, Travelers’ Tales, and Marin Magazine, among others. She is passionate about Room to Read, Shanti Bhavan, and Destiny Arts and serves on the board of Knighthorse Theatre Company.
