The Sacramento Beat: From Chalk It Up! to Porchfest, September is packed with music

A memo to September: Please take it easy on those hundred-degree days that August brought us, since we’re starting out this month with one of Sacramento’s favorite outdoor music and art festivals (Chalk It Up!, natch). Plus, there’s a few more multi-act shindigs on the calendar as the month rolls on (more on that later) that could use some of that fall weather. Spare us!

Local artists, message me on Instagram if you have upcoming shows, @adavis_threetosee.

Labor Day weekend means, of course, the venerable Chalk It Up! Art & Music Festival at Fremont Park, with a square block of chalk art wrapped around three full days of music (and one of the city’s best temporary beer gardens, if you’re into that sort of thing). Artists from Girls Rock Sacramento kick off the music Saturday, with performances that day including local stalwart Autumn Sky Hall and hip-hop maven J Ross Parelli with Bru Lei. Sunday’s slate includes the indelible Jonah Matranga, Ghost Town Rebellion and the Pikeys, with a spitfire Monday lineup including the likes of Bellygunner, Freebadge Serenaders, Loose Engines, the Me Gustas and Mariachi Bonitas de Deborah Klinger. As always, it’s free! (chalkitup.org).

If you fancy a more “getaway” festival experience, the annual four-day Dry Diggings fest up in Grass Valley has a brimming reggae-rock lineup that pretty much runs the genre’s gamut, with Pepper, Damian “Jr. Gong” Marley, Rebelution and Iration as your daily headliners. Matisyahu, Fortunate Youth, J Boog, Mike Love, Passafire, the Movement, Katchafire, Common Kinds, the Expendables and loads more perform throughout the event (Sept. 1-4. www.drydiggingsfest.com).

Fortunately, nothing major for Wednesday, Sept. 7. That’s the night of the U.S. Open Cup final. Go Republic!

No lie, I’m having a very hard time getting past the vittles on that food menu at the Crawfish & Catfish Festival to focus on anything else, but that’s another reporter’s beat! Blues supergroup Blind Lemon Peel, Zydeco Flames, funk machine Big Sticky Mess, BeaufunK (with former Tower of Power vocalist Michael Jeffries) and omnipresent local second line troupe Element Brass Band are just a few of the names packing two spicy stages of music to go with all that food. See, can’t stop with the food! (Sept. 10 & 11 at Southside Park. $20. craw-fest.com).

Corey Feldman is performing music at Goldfield Roseville on Wednesday, Sept. 14. What else can really be said — except that, yes, it’s that Corey Feldman, and it is not his noted doppelganger, Skrillex. Google it. (with Fire in the Ashtray and Zach Van Dyke. $18. goldfieldtradingpost.com)

Gigs from legendary Sacramentan Kevin Seconds are fewer and farther between nowadays, so you don’t wanna miss them. That’s especially true when he trots out Kevin Seconds & Whole Damned Family (featuring Allyson Seconds, David Houston, Brent Wiggans and Mark Harrod) for a midweek helping of Sacramento music lore, with Forever Goldrush (playing as a duo) lending support (8 p.m. Wed. Sept. 14 at the Torch Club. www.torchclub.net)

Now an L.A. resident, Juliana Lydell — formerly of feisty Sacramento duos Paper Pistols and The Dreaded Diamond — is making her first formal musical pilgrimage back to town since pre-pandemic with her latest project, June Swoon. For an amuse-bouche, do yourself a favor and queue up their “Live at Yellow House” session (available at linktr.ee/juneswoon), ideally on our first available breezy Sunday afternoon when you need to forget you have to work the next day (or that you even have a job). This wistful autumnal dreamscape is a stirring quarter-hour of effervescent anywhere-but-here indie rock, that still manages to remember that “here” remains a strangely beautiful place. A sophomore June Swoon offering is in the works, following up 2019 debut “This Town Could Be Big Enough for the Both of Us,” eyeing a late 2022 release. (with Oh Lonesome Ana and the Snares. 7:30 p.m. Friday Sept. 16 at the Russ Room, 730 K St. $10. www.solomons.co/the-russ-room).

Red Ex Vol. 5 is the fifth installment of The Red Museum’s annual single day indie festival featuring two stages, art installations, food, wine, cocktails and local vegan food. As usual, it’s a fundraiser to help the indispensable DIY haven keep its lights on. Eighties-stylized electro-pop vortex Automatic headlines along with Death Insurance, DEFEM, XOR, Pilot Waves, the Snares, Tassit and Noise of Approval, with an after party with Kris Anaya & Dusty Brown (4:30 p.m. Sat. Sept. 24. 212 15th St. $25 adv./$30 door. theredmuseum.com).

Speaking of Kris Anaya, his new spacious indie-folk pop act Best Move releases its debut full-length “Relational Memory” on Sept. 16, celebrating with a Oct. 1 release show at Old Ironsides. Yes, music at Old I is back! (7:30 p.m. Sat. Oct. 1. 1901 10th St. $10. linkin.bio/oldironsidesbar)

The ascension of the Farm to Fork Festival’s Capitol Mall main stage has been quite fun to track over the last few years, as recent lineups have featured a number of indie rock and pop acts with noticeable it factor. Assuming that’s a deliberate progression, they struck major gold here with a headlining set from alt indie-pop titans Japanese Breakfast on Sat. Sept. 24, flanked by the National Parks and Jocelyn & Chris. Gregory Porter, Southern Avenue, the Last Bandoleros and Carter Faith perform on Fri., Sept. 23. (www.farmtofork.com)

Speaking of it factor, Sacramento snags a tour stop from rabidly popular electronic duo ODESZA, whose “The Last Goodbye Tour” stops off at Heart Health Park, with a star-studded support cast featuring Sylvan Esso, Elderbrook and NASAYA (6 p.m. Thurs. Sept. 29. $65 www.ticketmaster.com).

There is an almost-terrifying prodigiousness swirling about meteorically rising star Billy Strings. The spirits of bygone bluegrass titans (Bill Monroe, Earl Scruggs, Doc Watson, Ralph Stanley, take your pick) are likely engaged in supernatural fisticuffs over space on his shoulders, so that they might whisper shards of their legacies into either ear, forging an insurance policy for their own immortality. Would any of them care if they’re in the role of the angel or the devil on the shoulder? Probably not. They know he can carry plenty of water floating amid the clouds or slogging through fire and brimstone. We say “terrifying” because his bluegrass wizardry, appallingly flawless though it is, all might actually be a Trojan horse for this admitted rock and metal fan, and because those catching him in Sacramento will be doing so five days shy of his 30th birthday (8 p.m. Wed. Sept. 28 at Memorial Auditorium. $47.50. www.ticketmaster.com).

In one of the more high-profile acts to grace Rocklin’s Quarry Park Amphitheatre stage, say hello to resilient pop-rock act Plain White T’s (7 p.m. Friday Sept. 30. 4000 Rocklin Rd. $29. www.eventbrite.com). No official word on new music from them in 2022, but they punched out a new single, “Winter Wonderland,” last year. It’s currently only about 827 million Spotify streams behind “Hey There Delilah.”

Finally, the month closes out (technically starting the next one) with one of the city’s glistening gems, Sac Porchfest, which finds a bevy of local musicians taking over porches, front yards, stoops, lawns — heck, just about anywhere where they won’t block the street — on and near the corner of 21st and I St. in Midtown. As of this writing, the formal lineup has not yet been announced, but it’s always packed with local favorites. Also, it’s free! (Sat., Oct. 1. www.sacporchfest.com)

Grab bag: It won’t get much more fun than Bowling for Soup and Less Than Jake co-headlining at Ace of Spades (6 p.m. Thurs. Sept. 8. $32.50. www.aceofspadessac.com); Blues staple and harp master Charlie Musselwhite visits Grass Valley’s Center for the Arts (8 p.m. Fri. Sept. 16. $45-$55), as does Americana mainstay The Lone Bellow (7:30 p.m. Sun. Sept. 18. $37. thecenterforthearts.org/events); Irish-rock rebel rousers Flogging Molly set up camp at Heart Health Park with Tiger Army, the Skints and the Interrupters (6 p.m. Tues. Sept. 20. $45. www.ticketmaster.com); Blistering art-rock madmen black midi show off their wild-eyed new release “Hellfire” at Harlow’s (with Black Country and New Road. 8 p.m. Wed. Sept. 28. $25 adv/$30 door. www.harlows.com).