Another Planet Entertainment and the Fox Theater – Oakland are committed to producing safe events. All patrons attending events at the Fox Theater on or after 9/15 are required to show proof of full vaccination (must be 2 weeks past final dose). Per Alameda County, masks are also required. For more information, visit our Health & Safety page.
* Policy is subject to change
This event is all ages.
$35.00 – General Admission Floor
$35.00 – Reserved Balcony
*plus applicable service fees
For an additional $60.00, you can opt in to upgrade your experience to include access to the exclusive Telegraph Room before, during and after the show! Please note all Telegraph Room upgrades are subject to availability.
Join us at The Den one hour before doors for food & drinks!
All doors & show times subject to change.
The Wood Brothers
The Wood Brothers didn’t know they were making a record. Looking back, they’re grateful for that.
“If we had known, we probably would have been too self-conscious to play what we played,” reflects bassist/vocalist Chris Wood. “At the time, we just thought we were jamming to break in our new studio, so we felt free to explore all these different ways of performing together without worrying about form or structure. It was liberating.”
Recorded live to tape, those freewheeling, improvised sessions became a vast pool of source material from which The Wood Brothers would go on to draw ‘Kingdom In My Mind,’ their seventh studio release and most spontaneous and experimental collection yet. While on past records, the band—Chris, guitarist/vocalist Oliver Wood, and drummer/keyboardist Jano Rix—would write a large batch of songs and then record them all at once, ‘Kingdom’ found them retroactively carving tunes out of sprawling instrumental jam sessions like sculptors chipping away at blocks of marble. A testament to the limitless creativity of the unharnessed mind, the record explores the power of our external surroundings to shape our internal worlds (and vice versa), reckoning with time, mortality, and human nature. The songs here find strength in accepting what lies beyond our control, thoughtfully honing in on the bittersweet beauty that underlies doubt and pain and sadness with vivid character studies and unflinching self-examination. Deep as the lyrics dig, the arrangements always manage to remain buoyant and light, though, drawing from across a broad sonic spectrum to create a transportive, effervescent blend that reflects the trio’s unique place in the modern musical landscape.
“My brother came to this band from the blues and gospel world, and my history was all over the map with jazz and R&B,” says Chris, who first rose to fame with the pioneering trio Medeski Martin & Wood. “The idea for this group has always been to marry our backgrounds, to imagine what might happen if Robert Johnson and Charles Mingus had started a band together.”
‘Kingdom In My Mind’ follows The Wood Brothers’ most recent studio release, 2018’s ‘One Drop Of Truth,’ which hit #1 on the Billboard Heatseekers Chart and garnered the band their first GRAMMY nomination for Best Americana Album. NPR praised the record’s “unexpected changes and kaleidoscopic array of influences,” while Uncut hailed its “virtuosic performances and subtly evocative lyrics,” and Blurt proclaimed it “a career-defining album.” Tracks from the record racked up roughly 8 million streams on Spotify alone, and the band took the album on the road for extensive tour dates in the US and Europe, including their first-ever headline performance at Red Rocks, two nights at San Francisco’s legendary Fillmore (captured on their 2019 release, ‘Live At The Fillmore’), and festival appearances everywhere from Bonnaroo to XPoNential.
Brett Dennen
Brett Dennen See the World (Mick Music) Brett Dennen is telling us to get out and see the world at a time when we need it more than ever. Flame-haired, six-foot-five, and with a singular gift for meditating on life’s most meaningful subjects with equal parts innocence and razor sharp wit, you know Dennen from his decade-plus career as a singer/songwriter. With a successful string of albums and four Top Ten AAA singles like “Make You Crazy,” “Wild Child,” and 2018’s “Already Gone,” which achieved his highest chart position yet, Dennen has cemented himself as a fixture in American folk music. What you may not know about Brett is that he did not set out to be a professional musician. It is a surprising revelation for someone who embodies the best of songwriting: singular storytelling, singability, and the unique capacity to hold up a mirror to our lives, our society, and the greater world.
Before all that, he was a painter – a skilled visual artist with a well-honed perspective and a style very much his own. Perhaps it is not so surprising, then, that his lyrics have always seemed to bloom before one’s eyes, somehow both stark and colorful, intricately constructed and sweeping in their scope.
And before all that he was a young, avid outdoorsman who spent his childhood camping with his father in and around the Sierra Nevada Mountains, learning the intricacies of the natural world in his native California. Dennen’s greatest passion then and now has perhaps been the earth – and it was only as a camp counselor, in front of a roaring campfire with the wilderness unfolding in the background, that he fell in love with the idea of playing music. As an adult he has climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, trekked in Nepal, and is a fierce advocate for environmental protection. He even wrote the new Smokey Bear theme song for Smokey’s 75th birthday.
In recent years, Brett Dennen has started to let the world in on his secrets. In 2017, he created the “Lift Series” and “Vacationer Series,” two annual tours wherein he combines shows in ski and beach towns with conservation initiatives and education in each locale. An avid skier and surfer as well as a conservationist, Dennen works with local organizations to spearhead beach clean-ups and educate young people to become climate stewards, driving awareness through his music and marrying just a few of his many sides in one effort to help drive positive change. He has also begun to sell some of the hundreds of paintings that accumulate in his California home; he has even let us all in on his artistic process through an Instagram video series called Paint and Play. He recently launched Dennen Goods Co., a lifestyle brand that aims to inspire.
Somewhere in all of that, there is still very much the music. Dennen’s next release, See The World, is due out July 23rd on Mick Music. Like the man, himself, the new album is potpourri of experiences and sometimes seeming contradictions. In the album opener and title track, Dennen sings of “diamond beaches” and “prism streams,” and reminds us that “You don’t have to be rich to get around / There are mansions growing out of the ground.” In the refrain, he urges “Days go by / Get out and see the world with your own eyes.”
In “Paul Newman Daytona Rolex,” we dive into Dennen’s signature witticisms. Over an insistent, light-hearted groove, he opens the song, “I never been accused of being fancy / I’m not stupid with my money honey, I could be stupid for free.” The song is ostensibly a love letter to a rare watch, one which Dennen does not, in fact, own. Really it is an irresistible, irreverent meditation on what we value as human beings. As Dennen puts it, “the things you can’t put a price on should be the things you value the most… to me it’s all about self worth and peace of mind.”
“Cayamo,” a song about the festival-on-a-cruise-ship of the same name is a musing on being overlooked as a musician. He sings, “I ain’t your rockabye / Or indie darling guy / Or the train wreck / That makes you feel better / ‘Bout your own life.” It is funny and biting and self-deprecating but, like all of Dennen’s work, it is infused with tremendous heart and an internal call for growth. He sings on, “Everyone has something / That no one else has / They should share it.”
Brett Dennen doesn’t take his time on his beloved earth for granted. He is intent on exploring the world and exploring himself in the process. Hence, See The World. The album also happens to come at what we hope will be a turning point for all of us – where we all hope to be doing just what Brett wants for us – seeing the world. Quite tangible in the title track and the album as a whole is Dennen’s newest and greatest pursuit – that of father to his young son, Van, for whom this song was written. But it is also easy to imagine him writing it for all of us, gently encouraging us to pick up the paint brush, jump in the ocean, and climb whatever mountain lies in front of us. Peppered in equal parts with shrewd quips and vulnerable admissions, the album is ultimately an exploration of life’s deepest meaning. And that is certainly emblematic of Brett Dennen, who spans wide as both an artist and a human being – sometimes biting and somehow always generous of spirit – his arms out to meet you where you are. See The World is, in short, reflective of a life well-explored, a life well-pursued, and, we can hope, a life well-lived.