The Sacramento Beat: It’s festival season (and the city has money to put on more shows)

With all the love for our good friends producing grandiose music events like Aftershock and BottleRock, we’re also big fans of the region’s small DIY festivals and block parties. So too, it seems, is the city of Sacramento. The city has grant money available for event organizers via the City of Festivals 2022-2023 Citywide Special Event Support Program. Deadline to apply is Friday, June 3 — check out sacramentofestivals.com.

We’re eyeballing a ton of local festivals and events in June (many coming back from pandemic hiatuses), and of course some good ol’ fashioned concerts. Local artists, message me on Instagram if you have upcoming shows, @adavis_threetosee.

Jazz Fest by the River sports an indoor and an outdoor stage, and the eight bands on the lineup will do a set at each (sweet format!). You’ve got outlaw alt-country from Geoffrey Miller, crooner Todd Morgan, the Sun Records revivalist sheen of Dyana & the Cherry Kings, Crescent Katz and more (10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday, June 4 at Sacramento Yacht Club. $65. jazzfestbytheriver.org).

Nevada City’s Miners Foundry hosts the second installment of the Deer Creek Music Festival at Pioneer Park (3 p.m. to 10 p.m. Sat. June 4, 421 Nimrod St., Nevada City. $25 adv./$30 door. minersfoundry.org) with performances from Tim High and The Mighty with Bob Woods, Jay Tausig, Tyler Foote Walkers, Majik Band and Caltucky.

The beloved Davis Music Fest finds a platoon of familiar faces sprawled out on nine stages, including a who’s-who of local stalwarts in Dog Party, Band of Coyotes, Element Brass Band, Gold Souls, Ideateam, Jessica Malone, Boot Juice and more. Out-of-towners (we’ll safely call many of them Davis regulars) include ramshackle indie rockers Foxtails Brigade, funk-charged Vaudevillian troupe Royal Jelly Jive, psych act King Dream and junkyard street soul collective Wolf Jett (June 17-19. $40 adv./$50 door. davismusicfest.com).

The Cosmic Family Summer Solstice Celebration offers up a psychedelic jaunt off of this spinning blue rock with seven bands and two DJs over two days, including swirling soul jazz troupe Mookatite, funk juggernaut Smokey the Groove, Butter Pump (members of Big Sticky Mess), KNUF, Love Mischief and more (June 17-18 at Sacramento Rehearsal Studios. Free. https://www.facebook.com/events/748584876394037).

The California’ Bluegrass Association’s beloved Father’s Day Festival (June 16-19 at Nevada County Fairgrounds, Grass Valley. californiabluegrass.org) has Grammy-nominated Della Mae atop a lineup that also includes the indelible Peter Rowan, sonic historian Dom Flemons (formerly of Carolina Chocolate Drops) and enrapturing “emerging artist” A.J. Lee & Blue Summit. Do yourself a favor and look up Lee’s almost offensively perfect cover of Neil Young’s “Harvest Moon,” recorded with Brothers Comatose.

Party in the Park, Auburn’s free summer tradition, offers Sonoma County-bred and foothill favorite Americana-blues barnstormers Poor Man’s Whiskey coming out of retirement(ish) with support from Hackensaw Boys (5 p.m. Fri. June 17 at Regional Park. partyinthepark.net)

The Walnut Jam is a single-day hootenanny at Two Rivers Cider (1 p.m. Sat. June 18. $25. www.tworiverscider.com) featuring the likes of ACME Soundtracks, Forever Goldrush, Skyler’s Pool, Watt Ave Soul Giants, Loose Engines and Drupo Biko (you may know them by their former name, Sexrat!).

Oroville’s two-day Harambee Festival — harambee means “all pull together” — boasts renowned effervescent reggae stars Anthony B and Don Carlos leading a dozen live performers on Saturday with a platoon of DJs hosting a dance party event Friday (June 17-18 at Sunset River Resort. www.harambeemusicfestival.com.

The Mountain Vibe Music Festival will be held at a new venue (Robbs Resort in Crystal Basin) and has reggae-rock titans the Expendables headlining a multi-band slate that includes local standouts such as Arden Park Roots, Ghost Town Rebellion and Island of Black and White (June 23-26. mountainvibemusic.com).

Finally, the team at Flamingo House (née True Love Coffee House) is spilling into the block in front of their neon-drenched K Street haunt for Banana Sundaes, a two-day electronic music festival with Fracesca Lombardo and Ivy Lab topping a bill of nearly two dozens acts (June 25-26 at K and 24th St. $45. www.instagram.com/bananasundaes916).

Whew! OK, on to some “regular” concerts:

Bozeman’s Laney Lou & the Bird Dogs clearly love to sneak out the back gate, find a rough-and-tumble hooch parlor and raise some hell on a Saturday night. But the catalog they take out feels born from the comfort of kiddie pools and lounge chairs in the afternoon sun before they left the yard — a fresh cold one never out of arm’s reach (9 p.m. Thurs. June 2 at Torch Club. $8. www.torchclub.net).

Grateful Dead acts — there’s too many of them already, right? Don’t tell that to the fellas of Grateful Shred. They’ve become an unlikely sensation as a faithful and razor-sharp Dead rendition behind a retooled lineup that features “second drummer” Alex Koford of Phil Lesh and Friends and Adam MacDougall of Circles Around the Sun (June 2 and 3 at Center for the Arts, Grass Valley. $28-$36. thecenterforthearts.org). Also, former Shreders Clay Finch and Sam Blasucci are now fully geared into their delectably woven Gram Parsons-tilted folk-rock project Mapache, which releases the titillating “Roscoe’s Dream” on June 10 and celebrates at the Starlet Room (8 p.m. Sun. June 19. $20 adv/$25 door. www.harlows.com)

Just try to figure out just what exactly veteran Sonoma County indie/alt-rock trio The Velvet Teen actually is. Go ahead, we dare you. Your mind will get stuck in a frenetic gravity wrap, spinning frantically amid the time shifts and riffs while trying to find the ground, lest you tumble out into space, marooned for all eternity — which is probably what they had in mind all along (7:30 p.m. Thurs. June 16 at the Russ Room, with Tomo Nakayama. $15. www.solomons.co). If you miss tickets on this one, they’re back in town Oct. 5 opening for Girls Against Boys at Harlow’s.

This is not a league game, Smokey, it’s a revival of the collaboration between country-rock axe wizard Dave Alvin and Jimmie Dale Gilmore. The latter is best known in film cult circles as “The Big Lebowski’s” most famous conscientious objector and in music cult circles as an inexplicably unheralded singer-songwriter. The pair revives its chiseled 2018 record “Downey to Lubbock,” a meticulous historical romp through the music of the American West, nary a square mile unexplored (mark it 8 p.m. dude! Wed. June 22 at Harlow’s. $30 adv/$35 door. www.harlows.com)

The Wednesday evening Blues & Bourbon series (yeah, it’s pretty much exactly what it sounds like) at Starlet Room is back in swing with Spanish harpman Quique Gómez (June 1), electric groovers the Orphans (June 8), jump blues from Two Tone Steiny & Danny Sandoval (June 15), the indestructible Mark Hummel & the Deep Basement Shakers (June 22) and aforementioned throwback crooner Todd Morgan & the Emblems (June 29). www.harlows.com.

Camino’s Delfino Farms brings back their plush and cozy Saturday “Folk on the Farm” series, kicking off with funk/soul act the Charities on June 4. Country spitfire Whitney Rose is next June 11. (You can also catch her at Folsom Hotel on June 9.) Rose is followed by Lilly Hiatt (daughter to John) on June 18 and the Wilder Blue June 25. delfinofarms.com/folkonthefarm.

Grab Bag: Electro funk inferno Pimps of Joytime comes to Harlow’s (June 10 with Lantz Laswell and the Vibe Tribe. $20/$25. www.harlows.com); Harpist and frequent Kurt Vile collaborator Mary Lattimore appears at Starlet Room (June 12 with Flowertown. $16/$20. www.harlow’s.com); Singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist John McCutcheon performs a fundraiser for beloved foothill radio station KVMR (June 12 at Center for the Arts. $30-$40. thecenterforthearts.org); indie/electro-rock titans STRFKR at Ace of Spades (June 15. $22.50. www.aceofspadessac.com); Billy Howerdel of A Perfect Circle lands at Goldfield Roseville (Thurs. June 16. $30. www.goldfieldtradingpost.com).

This story was originally published May 26, 2022 at 9:14 AM.