Nelsen & Farney consists of San Francisco based singer/songwriters, Devin Farney and Mark Nelsen. You may know Mark from the heavy psych rock band, Electric Shepherd and Devin as the keyboardist of the 60s revivalist band, The Love Dimension.

We're always excited to share new music and Nelsen & Farney have given us the honor of premiering their latest musical effort entitled, One For Many Roads. If you like Simon and Garfunkel-esque folk music, you'll be into this record.

"We're a songwriting project and live acoustic band that began in 2013, peripherally to our respective solo work. We have since played a handful of local shows while working on our debut LP, "One for Many Roads" - produced by Devin at his home studio. This collection of songs contains melodically rich vocal harmonies and heavy Americana/folk + British/indie-psych-pop influence. Some key inspirations for Nelsen & Farney include CSNY, Lennon/McCartney, Simon & Garfunkel, Dirty Projectors, Everly Brothers, and Kings of Convenience. The songs on "One for Many Roads" were individually written by me and Devin, but shaped together as a band." - Mark Nelsen

"… It's good to have finally found a home for these songs, some of which have been lying around dormant for the better part of a decade. It took a while to finish, but it happened very organically, which is how it had to be." - Devin Farney

Take a listen to the album in its entirety and don't miss the duo's album release show at The Lost Church in San Francisco on September 30th!

Editor's Note: Jonathan Cárdenas of Pow Magazine and San Francisco Great Society put a lot of time into curating this exclusive peek at the upcoming festival, Gathering of the Tribes. This fest celebrates and works to promote and preserve the spirit of psych music in San Francisco. Founder, Dennis Gonzales is very passionate about his work and his efforts to support psych musicians from all over the US. The Bay Area is lucky to have him and the community of amazing promoters and musicians who help keep the spirit and tradition of supportive, familial music and arts communities alive and well. -je

The Gathering Of The Tribes is a festival centralized exclusively in itself and its own breed of musicians and artists. San Francisco has had other festivals in past years, but this one aims to showcase the Bay Area’s breed of psychedelia and its sub-genres, as well as celebrate its musical and artistic ancestry. The name is borrowed, or you could even say revitalized—resurrected—from the Human Be-In that took place in Golden Gate Park, January 14, 1967. This is when Haight-Ashbury became symbolically immortalized as a counter-culture mecca. Our festival celebrates San Francisco’s past and present, and aims to push forward its music and arts in a positive and progressive direction, preserving it for the good of the Bay Area and to keep things groovy.

“We are the San Francisco Preservation Society—God save the Acid Tests, Beatniks and notoriety.”

Hopefully you got that reference. But no, we’re the San Francisco Great Society. 

Founder, Dennis Gonzales: I've been running Pow Magazine since 1986 and being entrenched in the music community for several years as a social media journalist, I can tell you SF music is not only alive, it is about to explode into a new movement unlike anything seen since the first music scene in 1965. Everything about our Society and our festival is a familial, grass roots effort.  Amoeba is sponsoring the event—they too have promoted it on their Facebook page as well as Twitter. Pow Magazine, Counter Culture Artist Management, and Innerlight Presents are altogether presenting this festival. We have reached out to the best of the Bay, and most have said “yes.”

Clay Andrews of The Spiral Electric and Innerlight Presents: If the festival is comprised of bands that are all touring and far away, and everybody has all their records—that’s great and all; you have to bring people to the event, but at the same time it’s like—don’t just throw a fest where you just bring an import of things because that’s not really doing anything for the local scene. It’s not exposing people to what’s actually happening right now in their backyards.

Derek See SF DJ, musician and music collector: One thing I’m especially excited about is hearing and meeting bands that I don’t know even though they're local. Because of what i do for a living, i have to get up real early in the morning on weekends—I do go out and see live music when I can, but never as much as I’d like to, whereas at this festival I’m just super stoked to be able to experience and hang out with like-minded folks.

Performing at SFGS: Gathering of The Tribes
at Public Works in San Francisco on September 13th

The Gentle Cycle
Buzzmutt
The Spiral Electric
LSD and the Search for God
Down and Outlaws
Cellar Doors
Down Dirty Shake
The Love Dimension
Mark Nelsen
Sea Dramas
California Raga Association
Lee Gallagher and the Hallelujah
The Green Door
Carlton Melton
Mystery Flavors
The She’s
Electric Shepherd
Zodiac Death Valley

Visuals by:

White Light Prism - vimeo.com/user6728976
Mad Alchemy - www.madalchemy.net
Andy Puls - www.videopaws.com

DJs:

Abel Oleson
Derek See
Michael Tarin

Tomorrow night - if you choose to attend you'll be in for a fine night of music and partying at the Milk Bar in San Francisco. The reigning Deli Magazine San Francisco Artists of the Year, Down Dirty Shake will be celebrating guitarist, Kyle DeMartini's birthday.

This will be an auspicious occasion as the local veteran psych band, Electric Shepherd will perform a tailor made set of covers for the night. Local bands, Trendy Dad and Peachelope are great performers so we're letting you know that this birthday bash laced with a strong local line up will give you licence to party as hard as you like.

Give Kyle happy bday wishes and support local bands who will come together to celebrate with him.

Come out to Slim’s this Wednesday for a night of excellent local garage rock with the Coo Coo Birds, Down Dirty Shake, Electric Shepherd and Major Powers and The Lo Fi Symphony!

Headliners, Coo Coo Birds are a group of psychedelic garage rockers and self-proclaimed “natural enemies of human mothers and boyfriends.” The band’s sunburnt vocal melodies and seasick guitar tones make them one of the most sonically exciting garage acts in the Bay Area. Down Dirty Shake will bring their own '60s influenced rock and roll to the party, sounding like Glen Danzing fronting The Kinks. Electric Shepherd’s garage-prog sound combines revivalist tones with expansive arrangements and instrumentation. Rounding out the line-up is Major Powers and The Lo Fi Symphony, who might best be described as a talented and demented version of Queen.

Make sure you make it to Slim’s on March 26th to experience an amazing live local line up. - Ethan Varian

Whoever said psych rock should have stayed in the ‘60s? Certainly not us. The newest split between San Francisco’s own Electric Shepherd and  Fox and The Law is a musical collaboration that has definitely caught our eye. At over 7 minutes, Electric Shepherd’s side featuring “ Glass Devil Blues is epic. The heavy, psych-infused garage rock track is powerful in its execution. Like many psych bands, the song wouldn’t be complete without getting a sludgy jam session or two in. The guys in Fox and The Law may know a few things about heartache, as indicated by its song Drops of Water. The bands portion of the split rings in as loud yet fuzzy, with gut wrenching blues vocals layered over. Needless to say, we’re digging this split.

Give this free download courtesy of the Funk Farm music collective a listen! -Erin Dage