The Venues

Greater SF Bay Area bars, clubs, restaurants, auditoriums and other venues
that regularly book the musicians on the Hicks with Sticks Bands page.

Bands, scroll to the bottom for other live music venues that are likely to book your Americana thang if contacted.

Founded in 1853, the friendly, divey 7 Mile House, just over the SF border in Brisbane where Geneva meets Bayshore, offers good late night food, cheap drinks and a variety of live music.   The Dave Crimmen Band and the Country Casanovas are among the bands that have played at this historic gin joint which takes its name from being seven miles from S.F.’s Ferry Building.

19 Broadway is divided into four comfortable spaces: the main bar, the smoking patio just off the main bar, and a sizable music area with a dance floor.  They book the western swing Lonestar Retrobates every third Sunday, Marin homeboys Chrome Johnson, and touring bands, like The Comets and Wanda Jackson.

The historic 23 Club in Brisbane is the last surviving honky-tonk from Brisbane’s post-WW2 country heyday.  It changed hands several times between 1997-2007 but lately the club has settled back in to being something of its old self.  The GoldDiggers and B-Stars have played there, and independent producers like Cherrybomb Productions, The Bombshells, Wild Records and various car clubs will present local, and touring bands including Marti Brom and The Go-Getters.

Every Monday Amnesia features either bluegrass or acoustic country; and stages one or two other Americana nights, touring and local, every month.  This Mission neighborhood bar has a large selection of beer and an ever-comfortable vibe.  Whisky Richards, Royal Deuces,  and many others listed on the Hicks with Sticks Bands page have trod the boards upon Amnesia’s stage.

Amoeba in SF and Berkeley is known for free showcases of touring and local bands releasing CDs.  These afternoon events feature great bands for the financially impaired.  Amoeba has the best selection of records, CDs and DVDs around so get ready because even though the show is free there’s always something in Amoeba that you’ve absolutely got to have.  Find their dynamically updated calendar in the upper right corner of their home page and well-produced videos like this one of Devil Makes Three elsewhere on the site.

It takes a little luck to know that Apple Jacks even exists, but the Country Casanovas have found it and you should too.  It finally got a website in 2008 but hasn’t updated it since.  It’s nestled in the redwoods by a mountain creek up on the Skyline Highway in the San Mateo County town of La Honda.  It has a down-home atmosphere, raw wooden floors, porch chairs notched from redwood trunks, and the occasional biker or stray dog.  Either the biker or the dog might look you over if you’re not a local, but neither will do you harm and if you buy one or both of them a beer, you could wind up with friends for life.

The Ashkenaz sometimes books western swing for dance shows, but the general absence of twanging roots Americana is unusual given the club’s friendliness toward Cajun/zydeco, swing, blues and other Americana music styles.   Our best guess is that nobody from the twang community is contacting them.  It’s a little more Berkeley than thou but there’s a friendly staff, light food, beer and wine, a good sound system and nice dance floor to make up for whatever politics it wears on its sleeve.

The Atlas Cafe usually books bluegrass for its regular Thursday 8-10 shows, but bands with an acoustic country side, like The Saddle Cats and The Meatwoods find their way to  the Atlas on a regular basis.  Jimbo Trout of Fishpeople fame does the booking and also organizes the monthly jam which is built around the long-running Atlas house band, and which has been known to pick a country tune or two or three.

The Blank Club is almost single handedly keeping club life alive in San Jose.  It is  spacious and comfortable with a full bar and a solid sound system.  Visitors to the club, however, need a word of warning about SJPD which has played a major role in killing club life in California’s third largest city.  Avoid Santa Clara Avenue, First Street and Almaden Boulevard (one block west of Almaden Avenue where the club is located.  Check the back routes to bypass heavy-handed SJPD policing on Friday and Saturday nights which pulls people over at random for cheap-shot DUIs.

The mid-Peninsula has finally found life at the British Banker’s Club in Menlo Park.  It opened as a fern bar in the ’70s and has changed for the better by booking non-fern bands like the Careless Hearts, Miss Fire and the Detonations and the Chop Tops.  There’s still plenty of Tiffany lighting and a old school, full back bar.  The BBC has full food service, DJed nights, and a quaint red British phone booth for the land line in your life.

Cafe du Nord, located on outer Market Street, is a mid-sized club with food, a full bar and music seven nights a week.  The club will hold 300 comfortably in its bar and as hosted Red Meat, the Pine Box Boys,the Cowlicks and even the Supersuckers in their twang configuration.  Independent producer Shelby Ash has been putting on some great shows there.  DuNord also has a pool table, cozy nooks, and tasty, reasonably priced food.

Cafe Royale is a strong supporter of the arts including music, art and literature.  This venue is looking for mainly acoustic music.  Yard Sale, Misner & Smith, Fancy Dan Band and 77 el Deora (acoustic) have played there.  Everything about Cafe Royale suggests a place that cares about what it’s doing, and it does.  Works from local fine artists rotate through the club on a monthly basis.

Thai restaurants are not known for their dance floors or booking Western Swing/Americana bands like the Polka Cowboys, but the Polka Cowboys do indeed play Champa Thai every fourth Wednesday of the month.  Why don’t more twanging bands play Champa Thai?  Well, nobobdy thinks to call a Thai restaurant in an El Sobrante strip-mall when looking for a gig.  Still, it is there.  Every fourth Wednesday like clockwork.  Good food that’s reasonably priced.

Don Quixote’s, located near Santa Cruz, is similar to Berkeley’s Freight and Salvage in their varied and high quality booking policies, support for touring and local bands, and keeping the mainstream music industry at arm’s length.  Red Meat, Gayle Lynn and the Hired Hands, and one-off events like a Bobby Black/Joe Goldmark/David Phillips steel guitar summit are some of the  local bands that have played the venue.  Big Sandy and former Commander Cody guitar gunner Bill Kirchen are among the touring band featured at Don Quixote’s.

El Rio, “Your Dive,” is a strong supporter of roots Americana music.  The annual Memorial Day and Labor Day 5-band, gumbo & patio parties are perhaps the best known El Rio twang shows, but every second Tuesday Los Trainwreck provides the back-up for those who sign-up to sing or play.  Every first Wednesday Larry Bob Roberts hosts three bands that include Americana styles as diverse as folk, honky-tonk and Cajun.  Lariats of Fire, Mighty Slim Pickens, Fancy Dan Band and many others have played El Rio.

The Freight & Salvage specializes in quality music by touring performers.  Iris Dement, the Austin Lounge Lizards and Robbie Fulks have played there, as have locals from Lost Weekend‘s big ol’ Texas swing band down to the Honky Tonk Dreamers‘ four-piece.  “The Freight” has been around for decades, occupying a warehouse-like space before moving to its current downtown, BART-friendly, location.  It’s a great place to see a show (HWS Reveiw).  Refreshments include coffee, teas and snacks.

Complaining neighbors ran Peter Bernato out of McGrath’s, but they didn’t stop him from opening the Frog and Fiddle in a more club-friendly part of Alameda.  Same owner, different name, and still the strongest supporter of Americana music in the East Bay.  Bluegrass bands and bands with a kinder, gentler country side like the Saddlecats or Honky-Tonk Dreamers find a warm welcome here.

One of the places in SF’s North Beach booking twang, Giordano Brothers is a wine, beer and sandwiche place with a Pittsburgh twist.  Steeler memorabilia is prominent throughout, and a Giordano’s sandwich is something a linebacker would love.  Califia, Misisipi Rider and Montana Slim have played there, usually for afternoon/evening shows.  They don’t keep much of a calendar on their site or MySpace page, but Hicks with Sticks will list their twang shows when we find them.

Christine Lavin once remarked that the rococo Great American Music Hall reminded her of a cigar box that a kid glued macaroni to then spray painted gold.  This mid-sized venue books touring twang occasionally with some local supporting acts.  Red Meat, the Whoreshoes and the Shut-Ins have played there as have Dave Alvin and Jim Lauderdale.  There’s a full bar, food service, great sound and stage lighting, and a nice dance floor when it isn’t too crowded.  The club reserves tables for those who come for dinner and a show.

The Hotel Utah dates back to SF’s Barbary Coast days and the walls still are not talking.  These days it is known for its old-school full bar, home cookin’ and forward-thinking booking policy.  The club is always ready to give new performers a chance, and some big names like Whoopi Goldberg and Robin Williams have taken that opportunity to the Hotel Utah’s stage.   Locals like Hang Jones and Porkchop Express have played the Utah, as have touring bands like Eilen Jewell.  They’vr got old school pinball too.

After decades as an Irish Nationalist bar, an ownership change in 2007 brought Ireland’s 32 into the 21st century without costing the club it’s 19th century roots.  Rusty Evens and Ring of Fire play Ireland’s 32, as have the Plain High Drifters.  Touring California bands, including favorites Craic House and The Good Luck Thrift Store Outfit have also passed through I-32.

Jupiter is a pub/restaurant with music that favors jazz and some funk, but during Summer, they also book acoustic-flavored twang like Jeanie and Chuck’s Country Round-Up.  Two floors make it a roomy place, and they have a full menu and good selection of beer and wines.  Their beer selections include a dozen of their own brews.  Music at Jupiter, as is the case with many restaurants, is more background than entertainment.  There’s no stage, bands bring their own PA, and the sight lines for viewing a band there are not the greatest.  Still, it is a welcoming place for those with food, drink and music on their minds.

The Knockout is just about everything a Mission neighborhood dive bar should be.  It’s one of the Bay Area’s best supporters of live twanging music, yet its all-around eclectic events, including Thursdays’ beer-soaked bingo and mixmaster dX the Funky Grandpa, are what keep the customers coming back.  The Royal Deuces, Hi-Rhythm Hustlers, Kit and the Branded Men many others, local or on tour, have found their way to The Knockout.  Along with the music, a pool table, incredibly strange videos, $2 tall Tecates, and a photo booth await your pleasure.

The Last Day Saloon has firmly established itself as Santa Rosa’s leading night spot.  Wayne “The Train” Hancock, Bluenotecats and The GoldDiggers have played there.  There is a restaurant, full bar and reserved seating for those who sign up for dinner and a show.  Less than a decade old since it moved to Santa Rosa, the Last Day Saloon was a fixture on Clement Street near 5th Ave. in SF since the ’60s, man.

Little Switzerland is so unhip, it’s cool.   It is one of the few surviving old school restaurants in the Bay Area and everything about it — like it’s high-ceiling bar, its restaurant with ancient Swiss travel posters and hand-painted alpine murals above its wainscoting — is a throwback to 1951.  Lost Weekend, Buckshot Boys and the Bluenotecats are among the bands that the dancing fired up on the restaurant’s big floor.  Sundays are reserved for a polka blowout in the spacious patio which has a dance floor too.

The Make-Out Room is a fine dive in the Mission tradition.  The club features live and DJed music, a full bar, pool table, booths, and minimal political correctness.  A bear hide hangs on one wall and on another is a deer head that’s almost invisible under the mound of bras that customers have flung on its antlers.  The Patsychords, Rumble Strippers and the Bootcuts have played there; DJ Neighbor Nick spins country vinyl every 2nd Tuesday from 6-9.

The Mojo Lounge is a happening little bar in Freemont that books a lot of blues, but doesn’t shy away from rockabilly.  They’re looking for bands that can keep things moving on the Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays that they book live music.  The RevTones, Dave Crimmen Band, and Los High Tops have played the Mojo, as have some of the Bay Area’s top bluesmen like Ron Thompson and Steve Freund who also runs one the Tuesday night blues jams.

The Brothers Comatose have found Murphy’s which is party headquarters in quaint downtown Sonoma with a lively crowd of locals and music from Thursdays through Sundays.  Thursdays are usually folk, Fridays and Saturdays bluegrass and Sundays Irish, but the schedule is not that firm so they can slip in a blues or country band every now and again.  We see few Hicks with Sticks-type bands there because most do not know the club exists, which is a shame because where else can you get an award-winning cucumber martini.

The Mystic Theater, a former movie house, books mainly touring bands.  The interior has been reworked to include tables and a dance floor.   Big Sandy and the Fly-Rite Boys, Wayne Hancock and Bill Kirchen have played there, but when the venue does book locally, it tends toward cover and tribute bands.  Local twang bands usually support touring bands, though Red Meat has headlined. The Mystic is managed by McNear’s Bar and Restaurant which is a full service restaurant next to the showplace.

West Marin is a different state of mind from east Marin, and 30 miles up winding Highway 1, where the Old Western Saloon in Point Reyes Station can be found, seems so far into the country that it’s hard to believe San Francisco is as close as it is.  The Billy Boys, B-Stars and Big B and his Snakeoil Saviors are among the bands that have played this twang-friendly venue.  There’s a full bar and pool tables in the back room.

Thee Parkside features twang every Sunday from 4:00 to 7:00 and almost every group on the HWS Bands page has played there.  This club has regained much needed traction after a few ownership changes.  The food service has settled in too with burgers, sandwiches, fries, and specials like the pulled pork.  They run mainly punk and alt-rock shows, but Quarter Mile Combo, Blue Diamond Fillups, Mandatory Merle and the touring group Cash’d Out have played non-Sunday shows as well.  Plenty of  parking, a large patio and improved sound have this club back on stride in the 2010s.

There’s nothing fancy about Peri’s Silver Dollar, not that there needs to be.  Located in the heart of Fairfax, the club features a full bar and music all week long.  Rusty Evans and Ring of Fire, Slim Jenkins, Danny Montana & the Montara Mountain Boys and Whiskey Pills Fiasco play there as do many other north county twangers.  It has a large open patio for smoking or just taking a break from the music.

The Plough and Stars in SF, not to be confused with the Starry Plough in Berkeley, was remodeled in 2005 which gave the place a nice lift.  It has a full-service bar and pool table and it, along with Ireland’s 32, are the top Irish cowboy bars on this page.   The club is friendly to start-up bands too.  The Shut-Ins and Whiskey Richards have played there and every first Saturday Shelby Ash Presents 2-3  bands on “Americana Jukebox.”

Rancho Nicasio is 11 miles off Highway 101’s Lucas Valley Road exit.  This former roadhouse is a great place to enjoy dinner and a band.  ‘70s bands including the Amazing Rhythm Aces, Asleep at the Wheel and New Riders of the Purple Sage have played there, as have more recent bands like  Big Sandy and the Hacienda Brothers. Locals like Red Meat and The Jenny Kerr Band have played there as well.  In summers they have BBQ’s on the lawn with outdoor concerts set in the midst of Marin’s rolling hills where hawks soar.

Head west on Taraval.  If you reach the Farallon Islands you’ve gone too far, but not by much.  The Riptide might be “out there,” but it’s worth the trip.  The club’s heads-up booking policies bring great music to this out-of-the-way bar’s non-stage.  Joe Goldmark and the Seducers play every second Sunday, while others, like Matt Lax and the Nearly Beloved or Big Smith from Missouri check in from time to time.  The club itself is warm, friendly, and only a block from Ocean Beach.

The Rite-Spot is a bar/restaurant that supports a wide selection of music on the acoustic side.  Bands like Yard Sale, Axton Kinkaid, Toshio Hirano and the Hotsy Totsy Hillbilly Jazzbos play this low-key 17th and Folsom establishment.  There’s a full bar and food.  Wine drinkers can get a break at the Rite-Spot since this is one of a handful of places that offers decent whites and reds by the glass.  The works of Bay Area artists rotate through the club from month-to-month.

The Russian River Brewing Company is the most popular Saturday night live music venue in Santa Rosa and the place to go for bands like the Buckshot Boys and 1/4 Mile Combo. It is a brew pub with a large selection of custom micro-brewed beers that includes ales that have been aged in wine barrels.  Though roomy, tables are right up to the stage so there’s no need to pack your dancing shoes.

The Saloon is a classic North Beach dive that books blues.  However, the rockabilly/vintage rock band The Bachelors play there (and not much of anyplace else) every Monday night.   Full bar, cheap drinks, and no cover Sunday through Thursday.  It is the oldest bar in SF, and the second oldest bar west of the Rockies, dating back to the 1860s when SF’s “Barbary Coast” waterfront was a cove and North Beach was on the north side of that cove which was filled-in with rubble from the 1906 quake.

Slim’s is sizable club, and sister club to the Great American Music Hall. Like GAMH, it’s mainly interested in booking touring twang like Dave Alvin and the Guilty Women or The Gourds. Both are good-sized venues and though we’d like to see them book more roots Americana, they’ve got to pay their bills.  If local twang gets booked at Slim’s, it’s usually in support of a touring act.  The club has a full bar, food and reserved seating with dinner reservations.

Established in 1851, Smiley’s is all the West Marin dive you’d want it to be.  It can be a little tricky to find because peace-loving locals keep tearing down the Caltrans sign that directs travelers off Highway 1 to Bolinas.  There’s something poetic about having to know where you’re going before you leave.  The Burning Embers, Whoreshoes and Jimbo Trout and the Fishpeople have played there.  The place is a hotel too and they usually put the band up for the night.

Speisekammer is a restaurant with strong support for local music.  There’s an outdoor beer garden, cozy, low-lit dining areas, and regular, live entertainment in the bar.  Kit and the Branded Men, the Saddle Cats, and California Honey Drops play there, often all during the same month.  They serve German food with a California touch, so the meals, while satisfying and reasonably priced, are not the heavy uber-food many have come to associate with German fare.

The Starry Plough is one of the dwindling number of places in the East Bay that regularly books amplified twang music.  They’ll host touring bands like Robbie Fulks or Split Lip Rayfield, and locals like Loretta Lynch, Mars Arizona and 77 el Deora. The bar serves beer and wine, and the kitchen dishes up burgers and pizza until 10:00.  Both food and drinks are reasonably priced and cover charges barely exceed $5.  The club has had a major upgrade to its interior, PA and booking policies, all of which will hopefully keep it going strong for its next 35 years.

Toot’s Tavern in Crockett at the south end of the Carquinez Bridge has been a speakeasy and a bordello.  These days it’s a bar with live and DJed music including DJ Jett spinning her vintage rockabilly on vinyl every Wednesday.  Big Sandy and Dave Gleason’s Wasted Days are among the bands that have played there, but this is another one of those places that most Bay Area bands don’t know about.  It’s also the only bar we know with bullet holes still in it.  There’s also supposed to be ghosts, but we know how that is: whenever business falls off don’t give up the ghost, get one.

The Twin Oaks is at 5745 Old Redwood Highway in Penngrove northeast of Petaluma.  They book Americana from folk to rockabilly, and the place remains in the pre-Internet Age.  It’s a no site, no calendar, no t-shirt, kick back and drink kind of place.  If you want to know who’s playing or how to get booked just call them up and ask them at 707-795-5118.  Otherwise, this bare bones Yahoo link is as much as the ‘Net can offer.

The Uptown came alive in 2007 thanks to a change in ownership.  This Oakland club is a sister to the Blank Club in San Jose which gives both a leg up on booking.  They can, and do, book touring bands on Friday and Saturday in both clubs.  Deke Dickerson, Big Sandy and Wayne Hancock are regulars.  Both clubs claim a good track record for booking local bands too.  Full bar, large separated band room, smoking patio.

Clubs that might book more roots Americana if someone would just contact them.

Beale Street Bar & Grill, SF
Blackthorne Tavern, SF
Blue Macaw, SF
Clayton Club Saloon, Clayton (Concord)
Iron Springs Brewery, Fairfax
Maggie McGarry’s, SF
Murphy’s, Sonoma
Pier 23, SF
The Sleeping Lady, Fairfax
St. James Gate, Belmont