logo
Underground Music Showcase preps for its swan song

Underground Music Showcase preps for its swan song

Axios24-07-2025
The sun will soon set on the Underground Music Showcase.
The big picture: The indie music festival announced earlier this year its 25th edition would be its last — and organizers are planning an epic swan song starting this Friday.
What they're saying:"We can't predict the future — but we can promise this: The final UMS in its current form will be legendary," its website reads.
Why it matters: The musical spectacle on South Broadway will be sorely missed in a city with few major music festivals, and one that made it its mission to elevate independent and new, rollicking voices.
State of play: More than 200 artists will perform across four stages and 12 venues over the weekend.
Three local acts to check out:
DeVotchKa: Founded in Denver, these UMS headliners playing Sunday on the Showcase Stage are perhaps best known for providing the uplifting sound behind the popular indie film "Little Miss Sunshine."
Nina de Freitas: The Brazilian-born singer will perform Friday and Sunday, serenading the crowds with her soulful, longing ballads.
Keenan TreVon: Hailing from Aurora, TreVon makes his UMS debut this year, bringing his upbeat, poppy, occasionally bedroom-rock to the Hi Dive on Friday.
If you go: Weekend passes are still available starting at $150, including ticket and fees, while single-day tickets start at $88, including fees.
The festival runs along South Broadway between Sixth and Alameda. Hours will vary from Friday (4pm–2am), Saturday (2pm–2am) and Sunday (2pm–11pm).
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

MC Hammer sued after allegedly falling behind on car payments
MC Hammer sued after allegedly falling behind on car payments

San Francisco Chronicle​

time4 hours ago

  • San Francisco Chronicle​

MC Hammer sued after allegedly falling behind on car payments

MC Hammer is once again facing financial trouble after allegedly failing to pay off a Land Rover he bought in 2023. JPMorgan Chase Bank is suing the Oakland-born rapper, claiming he still owes $76,732.79 on a $114,376.90 loan he took out to purchase the vehicle. According to the complaint, filed on July 31 in San Joaquin County Superior Court, Hammer agreed to 60 monthly payments of $2,433.97 beginning in May 2023. But the 'Too Legit to Quit' hitmaker, whose real name is Stanley Kirk Burrell, stopped making regular installments in May 2024. He reportedly last paid the bill on July 14. Though the bank said it has 'demanded possession' of the vehicle, the complaint claims the 'defendants have not surrendered' the car. MC Hammer, as he is legally referred to in the court documents, and U Can't Touch This LLC are listed as defendants. Hammer, who rose to fame in the late 1980s for his catchy hip-hop anthems and signature parachute pants, currently lives in Tracy. A Google Street View image of his property shows six vehicles in the driveway, including a light green Land Rover Defender. This isn't the first time that the 'U Can't Touch This' musician has experienced serious financial troubles. Hammer filed for bankruptcy in 1996, less than a decade after reaching the peak of his career, because his luxurious lifestyle sank him into roughly $13 million of debt. He was eventually forced to sell his Fremont mansion to relocate to a three-bedroom home in Tracy. The Grammy-winning artist has since made strides to reconstruct his public image and has become active in Christian ministry. He returned to his musical roots with a tour in 2019, his first major North American outing since 1991.

Meet the NYC artist turning Manhattan's streets into viral masterpieces: ‘A lot of people know me now'
Meet the NYC artist turning Manhattan's streets into viral masterpieces: ‘A lot of people know me now'

New York Post

time9 hours ago

  • New York Post

Meet the NYC artist turning Manhattan's streets into viral masterpieces: ‘A lot of people know me now'

For this artist, New York City is the only canvas big enough. When Benny Cruz picked up a paintbrush for the first time, he had no idea that his art would catapult him to the highest heights of social media. 'I always wanted to be a painter, until I reached a point where I wasn't going anywhere with my art,' the Swedish-born artist, 49, told The Post. 11 Artist Benny Cruz has found his rightful place in the New York City art scene. Courtesy @johnjohnsonphoto 'That was tough. Then and there, I started painting for myself.' Cruz, also known as 'Your Local Benny' on his social media, discovered only later in life that his work spoke to millions — many of them New Yorkers. 'I saw that a lot of people who followed me were from New York, and they started buying my art,' he said of his popular subway collection, pieces that sell for hundreds to thousands of dollars. 11 One of Cruz's window displays in NYC reads, 'New York is a [love] story worth telling.' Courtesy @johnjohnsonphoto 11 The Brooklyn artist works with text-based art using acrylics and markers on sustainable paper. Courtesy @johnjohnsonphoto 'So to think I felt I was going nowhere with my work, to now is a big difference. I started to get more and more relevant. I felt total darkness before, and New Yorkers brought the light.' The Brooklyn-based artist, who currently divides his time between New York and Sweden, where his family resides, experienced a boon to his career after picking up MTA subway maps and experimenting with text work over them. Cruz, who uses acrylics and markers on sustainable paper, has gained notice for his Manhattan street art in recent months. The pieces, spotted on subway cars across the Big Apple, soon reached every corner of social media, with many gathering thousands of likes, as well as New Yorkers — past, present and future — liking, sharing and posting his work. 'I felt total darkness before, and New Yorkers brought the light.' 'With New York, I feel an enormous sense of gratitude,' he said. 'I wanted to express my emotions, so I thought about the most symbolic aspect of the city: the subway. The subway connects every part of New York. From there, I found the map and started to make my art.' The prolific pieces soon racked up thousands of impressions on social media, making Cruz synonymous with subway-inspired artwork now woven into the city's fabric. 'These went completely viral because a lot of people, even people that live in New York, embraced it. And that's a huge scale of people. It's powerful, and there is emotion behind it. And I think that's the reason people resonate with my art,' added Cruz, who boasts 40,000 Instagram followers. 11 'The truck was the perfect canvas for me. I had been spotting this structure for a long time and finally asked for a permit from its owner,' Cruz told The Post. Courtesy @johnjohnsonphoto 11 Cruz, 49, garnered global recognition for his Manhattan street art in recent months. Courtesy @johnjohnsonphoto Cruz, who was once an apprentice under the late Chilean artist Alfredo Mosella, said he's finally found an artistic purpose. 'With text, I found home. It's the most simple but most complex way to express my emotions,' he said. 'I wasn't going to have a future with my art, but New York changed everything.' After obtaining a permit to write on a 'perfect' blank canvas — in the form of a truck parked outside 14th Street — Cruz crafted a message to New Yorkers who pass the stationed vehicle on their everyday commute. 'I'm aiming so high I keep forgetting I'm already living my dream,' reads text emblazoned on the truck, an Instagrammable backdrop for passersby. 11 The artist experienced a career boost after picking up MTA subway maps and experimenting with text over them. Instagram / @bennycruz 11 'I wasn't going to have a future with my art, but New York changed everything,' he said. Courtesy @johnjohnsonphoto It is one of Cruz's most recognizable artworks, calling it his proud 'donation to the people of New York.' When asked about his favorite piece, he couldn't choose just one. 'I have several, but the first one for me is the one that went completely viral online. It says, 'New York, I have so much to thank you for.' I mean, that really went viral,' he explained. 11 His most viral piece to date is text that reads, 'New York, I have so much to thank you for.' Instagram / @bennycruz 11 'It's the most simple but most complex way to express my emotions,' Cruz said of his text-based art. Instagram / @bennycruz 'This other one I love says, 'She's got a soft heart but is New York tough.' And that one was successful because much of my audience is female. 'New York is a place you feel connected, and art connects people,' he added. 'I'm getting more involved with the city, and a lot of people know me now. Either they know me or my art.' Asked what he hopes his art will achieve, Cruz admits that legacy was never the goal for him. 'To be honest, I haven't thought about that. This started out because I wanted to express how I feel, and that's the core of my history. I still make art that is emotional and true to my expression. 'The only thing is, my relationship with New York has changed, but in a good way.' Still, Cruz revealed plans to host a large-scale art show in the Big Apple as soon as 2026 as his social media presence evolves. 11 His truck, parked on 14th Street, proudly serves as a backdrop to one of Cruz's most famous artworks. Courtesy @johnjohnsonphoto 11 Cruz said his art is his proud 'donation to the people of New York.' Instagram / @bennycruz 'I wasn't going to have a future with my art, but New York changed everything,' he said. 'And it's like my artwork says, 'I'm aiming so high I keep forgetting I'm already living my dream.''

An English writer on a mysterious Mexican sojourn yields an absorbing new novel
An English writer on a mysterious Mexican sojourn yields an absorbing new novel

Boston Globe

time10 hours ago

  • Boston Globe

An English writer on a mysterious Mexican sojourn yields an absorbing new novel

Penelope's three-month hiatus in Fonseca, along with Valpy, forms the spine of Kane's novel. Evoking real-life events and how they fired the crucible of an artist's imagination, Kane's technique is delicate yet astute, recalling Elizabeth Strout. Mirando is a sprawl of rooms, 'a heavy rounded balcony that reminded Penelope of a pulpit,' Kane writes. 'There were several tall chimneys, two dormers, and a number of mullioned windows in various sizes, all shuttered. Old, twisted pecan trees on the street further darkened the front.' Penelope jots down the occupations and habits of her fellow residents at Mirando: an impoverished organist and his wife, a pompous Irish tutor, and a dashing cousin, New Jersey-born and raised, called 'the Delaney.' There's also a surly gardener and a cook who spoils Valpy with sweets and gossip. Other vague connections flow among the frayed furniture. All are vying for the fortune. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Doña Elena is imperious, Doña Anita deferential — think Christine Baranski and Cynthia Nixon's characters in HBO's ' Advertisement Kane intersperses her pointillist chapters with present-day correspondence from Valpy and Tina, blending fact and fiction. (Fonseca's actual name was Saltillo, for instance.) The emails sent by the Fitzgerald children, now retired, map a counter-narrative, a playback in reverse, skewing the plot — something about a murder? What manner of story is this? 'Fonseca''s tensions break the fourth wall, arousing our suspicions while undermining the very structure of the book. Advertisement Kane could have piled on the textures and sensory details of Mexico — the tang of queso fundido, shadows scattered across stucco arches — but maintains a supple restraint. Less is more. 'Fonseca' is a portrait of the artist as a young woman, the internal on-the-one-hand-on-the-other-hand common among women who strive for balance between familial obligations and creative desires. Compromises are frustrating, unwanted, and inevitable. As Penelope's pregnancy advances, as the Doñas guess her secret, she stares down these challenges. Desmond lingers offstage yet he permeates Penelope's thoughts at Mirando. 'Fonseca,' then, is a welcome diversion from our rage-soaked, polarized culture: a fable with heart and a searching investigation into what makes a marriage endure. A market saturated with divorce memoirs can only benefit from Kane's candor, despite the occasional sentimental note amid her prose. Like heroines before her, Penelope faces a choice. 'Maybe if Desmond didn't love poetry. Maybe if he didn't write so well. Maybe if they hadn't stayed up so many nights when they were younger talking about painting and music and architecture,' she mulls. 'Maybe if he became unpleasant when he drank. If he got angry or loud instead of quiet and sad. Maybe if he hadn't cried with happiness when Valpy was born. Maybe if he didn't hold Tina so gently and read stories aloud so well.' Advertisement Kane bases 'Fonseca' on Fitzgerald's 1952-53 trip, which seems to have been cloaked in mystery, and the result is a book brimming with entangled fiction, history, and biography, the unexpected treasures a writer unearths at the convergence of genres. Kane is true to the muse at the center of her novel, highlighting not only Penelope Fitzgerald's stature and vision but also the necessity of literature in an era of university budget cuts and social-media distractions. FONSECA By Jessica Francis Kane Penguin Press, 272 pages, $28 Hamilton Cain is a book critic and the author of a memoir, 'This Boy's Faith: Notes from a Southern Baptist Upbringing.'

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store