Garage-punk band Shannon and the Clams celebrate New Year's in Napa
One of the most beloved local bands on the Bay Area punk scene, Shannon and the Clams play songs from their latest effort The Moon Is In The Wrong Place when they headline Jam Cellars Ballroom in Napa on New Year's Eve with support from acclaimed psychedelic-surf group La Luz.
Mixing of '50s and '60s sounds -- elements of early rock and roll stylings (particularly Buddy Holly and Roy Orbison), doo-wop, girl groups, surf and R&B -- with more modern garage-punk grit, singer/bassist Shannon Shaw and singer/guitarist Cody Blanchard first started playing music together in 2007 while students at Oakland's California College of the Arts. They would fill out the band's line-up with drummer Ian Amberson, eventually signing with local record store-affiliated imprint 1-2-3-4 Go! Records for their retro-tinged debut I Wanna Go Home that featured Shaw's raw, emotive delivery at the center of the band's original tunes.
A number of singles and their second effort Sleep Talk followed, with the band eventually moving to Seattle-based Sub Pop subsidiary Hardly Art for the more polished Dreams in the Rat House in 2013. By the time they released Gone By Dawn two years later, drummer Nate Mahan had taken over for the departed Amberson (the later addition of singer/keyboardist Will Sprott would cement the band's current line-up). The group had by then established itself as a powerhouse live act, growing its national fan base and earning invitations to perform at Coachella and Hardly Strictly Bluegrass.
The discovery that Black Keys guitarist Dan Auerbach was a fan would lead the quartet to being signed by his Easy Eye Sound label and him producing their next album, the stellar Onion in 2018. Shaw would also record her solo debut Shannon in Nashville with Auerbach producing and co-writing a majority of the songs on an effort that couched her brassy, powerful voice over lushly orchestrated '60s pop and country arrangements backed by a band of Nashville session legends including drummer Gene Chrisman (Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis) and keyboard player Bobby Wood (Elvis, George Jones, Tammy Wynette).
The group would reunite with Auerbach to record their most recent effort, 2021's Year of the Spider that saw Shannon and the Clams pushing their sound ever forward. Shaw performed with her own band at the Mosswood Meltdown in July, but tragedy struck the singer in August when her fiancé and the drummer in her group Joe Haener -- a scene fixture who had played in such notable bands as the Gris Gris, Battleship, the Rock n' Roll Adventure Kids and others -- died in an Oregon car crash just months before their wedding. While Shannon and the Clams would cancel a number of scheduled appearances, they made an emotional return to the stage at the 2023 edition of Gonerfest in Memphis.
Channeling their heartbreak in the studio, the band released its latest effort The Moon Is In the Wrong Place in May. The collection of gorgeous tunes eulogize Haener and find the Shannon and company emerging from the loss with a transformative work of art that is being hailed by many as the most powerful album of their 15-year career. For this New Year's Eve show at Jam Cellars Ballroom in Napa on Tuesday night, the will be joined by northwestern psych-surf quartet La Luz.
Founded Seattle in 2012 by guitarist/lead singer and sole constant Shana Cleveland, the band was initially a collaboration with drummer Marian Li Pino -- her former bandmate in noirish indie-Americana outfit The Curious Mystery -- keyboard player Alice Sandahl and bassist Abbey Blackwell. La Luz got its start exploring a mix of '60s influences that focused on instrumental surf and the girl-group sounds of The Shirelles. Their self-released EP Damp Face garnered the attention of Seattle-based Sub Pop affiliate Hardly Art, which released La Luz's debut album It's Alive in 2013.
The quartet's dreamy, evocative songs and sweet vocal harmonies quickly earned them a solid local following and wider notoriety. Late that year while on tour opening for indie rockers of Montreal, the band faced a major setback when their van was in a serious accident that left members with injuries and destroyed their instruments and band merch. Blackwell would depart the band prior to the recording of their next album, with bassist Lena Simon stepping in.
Surviving the crash would color the band's sophomore effort in 2015, the darker, louder, more fuzz-drenched Weirdo Shrine that was recorded in Los Angeles and produced by noted garage-psych artist Ty Segall. The album succeeded in capturing the more raucous side of the quartet's live performances and earned them another round of glowing reviews.
Though it would take a few years before La Luz would release their follow-up third album Floating Features, it would prove to be well worth the wait for fans. Moving away from the stripped-down, lo-fi sound of earlier releases, the recording saw the band working with another high-profile producer -- Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys -- and shifting its sound to a richer, more nuanced (if still surf-tinged) style of psychedelia.
The band has since graduated to recording for Sub Pop, putting out a pair of records including this year's transporting effort entitled News of the Universe. Marking the first appearance by new drummer Audrey Johnson and the farewell recording from Simon and Sandahl, the recording finds Cleveland ruminating on light and dark, having been diagnosed with breast cancer two years after the birth of her son.
Drawing more heavily on the mind-altering sounds of latter-era Beatles and Brazilian psych icons Os Mutantes as well as the hypnotic pulse of '90s synth-drone heroes Stereolab, the album has earned La Luz some of the best reviews of the band's career. The band's new line-up featuring bassist Lee Johnson and keyboardist Maryam Qudus (aka solo artist Spacemoth) played to packed houses touring to promote News of the Universe last fall, including a sold-out show at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco.
Shannon and the Clams with La Luz
Tuesday, Dec. 31, 9 p.m. $55-$125
Fox Theater
