Sound Advice: Not all that jazzed

Stay for cabaret: The 41st annual Sacramento Music Festival takes over Old Sacramento this holiday weekend, and its main selling point seems to be: “More music than you can possibly see in 4 days!”

This is true. With nearly 100 bands and around 20 locations, you get a lot of bang for your buck timewise. A four-day pass runs about $100, or $40 a day for adults.

But the quality this year? Yikes.

Traditionally the festival, previously known as (among other incarnations) the Old Sacramento Jazz Festival and Jubilee, used to be all about jazz and its various forms. In recent years, the festival shifted focus, got a new name and started booking some serious legends, like leading rockabilly singer Wanda Jackson, and superclassy blues stars John Lee Hooker Jr. and James Hunter.

This year, the festival is stressing more modern acts. It’s an admirable effort, but not when the headliners are ’90s band Collective Soul and singer-songwriter Mat Kearney. If I’m spending my whole day tapping my feet to jazz standards and doing the Lindy Hop, I don’t want a soft-rock ballad to be the grand finale.

Trombone Shorty plays on Friday night—and I’m a real sucker for his New Orleans funk—but he can’t carry the whole festival on his own. Other acts playing the main stage are local bands Mumbo Gumbo, and Joy and Madness. Talented, of course, but they play around town all the time.

There are a few shining lights, though. I highly recommend checking out Meschiya Lake & the Little Big Horns, who play multiple times Friday through Sunday. Meschiya is a former circus performer who toured through New Orleans, fell in love and made it her home 10 years ago. She put her powerful, rich, ragtime voice to work and now sings with a band of brass behind her.

Expect solid, spunky sets from Red Skunk, who return to the festival with ’30s European-inspired swing and vintage theatrics. It plays multiple times, all four days.

But for ’30s New Orleans jazz and a full-blown narrative to go along with it, look no further than Vaud and the Villains. The 19-piece orchestra and cabaret show should be a wild, costumed spectacle, with fiddle, banjo, harp and plenty of brass. Catch them on Saturday and Sunday.

If this all sounds fun, but maybe not $100 fun, consider attending the Sacramento Music Festival kick-off party on Thursday, May 22, at the Starlite Lounge (1517 21st Street). It starts at 5:30 p.m., and Oakland-based, Delta-blues trio HowellDevine headlines the soiree. It’s a fun band. With a washboard. Oh yeah, and it’s free.

The other music festival: With a focus on punk, metal, rock and reggae, the Sacramento Colonial Music Fest last weekend was pretty intense—and a steal at $35 for presale tickets for three fulls days of music.

The bill was stacked with more than 60 mostly local bands, and they played in the historic Colonial Theatre down on Stockton Boulevard. I dropped by and caught a few sets Sunday night. About 20 people stood at the foot of the stage, with 40 more seated and scattered throughout the vast, 600-person room. Sitting back in a wooden box seat was a strange match for the music, and there wasn’t enough space up front for a mosh pit—though a few certainly tried.

Honestly, I was most captivated by the go-go dancers—and the idea of go-go dancers at a hardcore show. Two ladies from KV Entertainment jumped up onto speakers for a few songs each set. Usually the dancers appear at dance clubs and electro parties, wearing neon and glitter. But, apparently, a quick costume change to black boots, fishnets, black underwear and studded belts makes them totally metal. I giggled at the contrast between the scantily clad and the men of local metal band Solanum—even though they were similarly thrashing their hair around.

The dancers actually caused the singer of Sour Diesel to pause mid-song and say, “Oh, wow.” Twice. The specific song was a version of Run-D.M.C.’s hit “It’s Tricky.” But as a weed-themed, rap-meets-rock-meets-mock band, the lyrics didn’t repeat “To rock a rhyme.” Instead: “It’s time to toke.”

Fittingly, the fest awarded a most-valuable player award to a musician who played in three different bands over the three days. And when asked what advice he had for aspiring rockers, he hardly hesitated: “Smoke weed all day, every day.”