​Oakland district’s next Live in the Laurel concert coming up

By Lou Fancher

​Two years ago, when the Laurel District Association began to develop a new music series to be held in the Oakland neighborhood along MacArthur Boulevard, events planner Jody Colley had no list of local bands. In 2023, having launched the six-month Live in The Laurel music series May 19 and preparing for the second show June 24, Colley’s contact list boasts more than 170 local bands and solo musicians.

“I’m not a music promoter,” Colley said in an interview. “This isn’t me going out and soliciting; I just used social media. Since then, it’s getting easier to find and book bands because the musicians are spreading the word.

“You’d think they’re competitive and trying to get all the gigs, but they’re not. They’re community-oriented, and I know that’s true because a lot of the applicants say they heard from other bands about the series.”

The artists applying to perform are likely to be attracted by a signature feature of the series. Instead of formal venues like concert halls or stages in noisy bars and clubs, the shows take place “behind the scenes,” meaning in the rarely seen backyards, rear patios and private parking lots of businesses located along the busy commercial corridor. Free from stuffy or chaotic environments, the intimate spaces focus audience attention on enjoying music in a community of like-minded people.

“You might not see it driving down MacArthur Boulevard, but many businesses have renovated these spaces to be beautifully, wonderfully designed,” Colley said.”Vetiver is a spa and salon and renovated the backyard for outdoor massage experiences. It looks like a tropical Zen garden. They share the space with a wine distributor, so it’s a great event space for live music because they can also do wine tastings.”

Nearby, Mischief is an arts-and-crafts shop that offers gifts from more than 125 Bay Area makers and hosts creative workshops.

“They’re backyard is big. We don’t do loud bands, but if you have a little bit of amplified sound, there are no neighbors it will bother,” Colley said.

Colley works with several district associations and said finding places for small-scale music events that aren’t bars, nightclubs or venues with hefty rental fees is difficult. She said finding these spaces in the Laurel district that are removed from noisy traffic and where small groups and families can gather satisfies three of the association’s goals: benefiting neighborhood businesses, supporting local artists and providing family-friendly, inclusive, welcoming events.

Guitarist Arnoldo García, whose talents include work as a visual artist, poet and writer, will perform June 24.

“What is key in any setting is being able to establish a relationship and rapport with the audience,” he said.

Garcia said he prefers to welcome a crowd, then “read the audience” while playing. He might keep talking to a minimum, only checking to make sure the audience is hearing his music well. Performing outdoors can be tricky and requires skill because sound waves can “crash and burn to the ground” or be absorbed by the surroundings and flatten the music, he said.

That’s not likely to happen when he bursts into his inventive, lively setlist of cúmbias, boleros and rhythm and blues selections he performs with guitarist John Dovales Flores and vocalist Marta Verde.

“The music I play, whether playing blues or huapangos, is formed in relationship to my migrant roots,” Garcia said. “I am from a place that no longer exists and from a people that has been dispersed, disappeared or transformed because some of her members were forced into migration to survive. Some of the songs I do in English I first heard in a migrant camp, and they carry me there any time I listen to them. Some songs I compose narrate the nomadic (life) and the borders that follow me wherever I go.”

Composer, performer and educator Anaís Azul, a Peruvian immigrant who uses they/them/their pronouns, is a classically trained pianist and vocalist, Fulbright Scholar, community arts organizer and holds a bachelor of music degree in music composition and theory from Boston University and a master of fine arts degree in music from the California Institute of the Arts.

Asked about their involvement in the June series, Azul said, “I like playing in more intimate venues because I enjoy inviting audience members to sing along and participate in the music performance directly. I like feeling my performance is a magic-generating conversation.”

As a bilingual, Peruvian immigrant in the LGBT community, Azul said identity definitely influences the music they play.

“Over the past year, I have been studying the charango, an instrument from the Andes mountain region in South America, as a way to connect to my indigenous heritage. My desire to connect to my ancestry was so deep I applied (and received) a Fulbright scholarship to make an album of 10 multilingual reinterpretations of Andean music using vocal looping and electronically processed charango.”

The vocal looping improvisations Azul performs often include words audience members provide.

“I love connecting, and the audiences I have played for have responded very well to that,” they said. “I talk about music as spell-casting. I invite listeners to take each song as an opportunity to set an intention. For example, every time I sing “En Mi Cantar” (from Azul’s debut EP, “Vulnerable”), I ask people to send love to someone far away, whether someone who has passed away or someone who is in another time zone.”

Colley from the Laurel District Association said the inaugural show in the series last month had one band performing and a respectable 40-plus people in the space behind Vetiver. Expecting the Live in the Laurel series to grow, she said plans to make it year-round are under discussion.

Already, the association has partnered with Degrees Plato, a taproom and bottle shop that serves fresh, made-from-scratch Mexican-leaning food and bills itself as a “community gathering restaurant.” Their newly renovated large backyard stage features a wooden floor and shiny silver Airstream as a backdrop.

“The location is prime, and the stage professionalizes the atmosphere,” Colley said. “They’re going to book bands on a regular basis, and we’ll play some role in that.”

Expansion of the series will require additional funding, and Colley’s list of sponsors is already growing. Laurel Ace Hardware, for example, came in with $5,000 to support the series and the Laurel Street Fair.
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“We’re applying the if-you-build-it-they-will-come philosophy,” Colley said.