Striding onto the East Bay’s summer festival scene, the 10th annual Montclair Beer, Wine & Music Festival has multiple reasons to boast.
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The free, six-hour, family-friendly event happening Saturday in the Oakland hills’ Montclair Village business district offers an unlimited tasting package of more than 50 artisan beers and wines; a Family Fun Zone with activities for all ages; food and goods presented by participating local restaurants, small businesses and independent vendors; and live music from the Jazz Education Ensemble, Wolf Jett and Bay Area rock band Skip the Needle.
The festival is partly meant to showcase the big-hearted nature of Montclair’s small business community. Local sponsors will step up with literal action such as Meet the Core Pilates’ cyclists powering the main stage and Embodied Groove and Jessie Nakamura’s Hip Hop Group leading interactive dance and a flash mob in the Kids Zone.
Financial support, volunteers or in-kind contributions also arrive from Ken Betts Co. (the festival’s main sponsor), F&M Bank, Mister Beever’s Paws & Claws, Montclair Sports Tennis & Pickleball, Red Oak Realty, The Grubb Company, Oakland Center for Spiritual Living, Daughter Thai Kitchen, Farmstead Cheese & Wines, Montclair Presbyterian Church, Oakland Fire Department, Winter Williams Presents and others.
Proceeds will benefit the nonprofit Montclair Village Association (MVA), which has advocated the local business community for 75 years. MVA board member and festival organizer Winter Williams says she’s excited about landing the band Skip the Needle (skiptheneedle.com/bio) for the festival.
Williams says she discovered the band at Albany’s woman-owned Ivy Room venue and that their fine musicianship and songs themed on social justice and environmentalism will strike synergistic chords with festival-goers. Co-founded by drummer/vocalist Kofy Brown with bassist/vocalist Vicki Randle, the Oakland-based queer female quartet includes guitarist/vocalist Katie Cash and guitarist/vocalist Shelley Doty. In a recent interview, Doty said visibility is everything for musicians.
“As a child of 14, one of the reasons I picked up a guitar is because I saw other women playing guitar. I grew up on jazz; I listened to Jeff Beck. But it wasn’t until I saw Nancy Wilson from Heart playing guitar that I said, ‘Dang, I want to do that’ and not just listen to it.”
Doty says her mission has become not just refining and expanding her work as a professional musician, but also flipping the switch for others.
“Hopefully, I’ll inspire that person, that kid who never imagined doing it, to decide they can do it too. That’s why our band’s byline is ‘Black Dyke Rock.’ By being unequivocally ourselves, we give folks the thumbs-up on being unequivocally themselves.”
Doty says people tell her they follow the band because they exude authentic passion, joy and intensity. That kind of energy is tied into the band members’ nervous systems, she suggests.
“I get to play music with Kofy, Vicki and Katie — all freaking tremendous interpreters of music whose joy is palpable.”
Often, in rehearsals, every time they take a break from playing, there is conversation interspersed with peels of laughter, she says.
“Especially in this world, when people are feeling so much despair, divisiveness and say there’s nothing we can do about it — I don’t agree with that. The most important thing to do first is to just feel.
“I can talk from a political standpoint, but the fact is we need to be connected to want to survive. We’re on a precipice right now. We have to work, agitate, be an activist, but also get to the point where you want to do that.”
Children can’t always come to some of their shows, like the band’s upcoming June 29 gig at the Ivy Room or Cash’s participation July 5 in “Ivy Riot!” at the same venue.
“That’s why the Montclair festival is crucial: we get to play for kids,” says Doty.
She’ll also have opportunity to hold the kinds of conversations that happen mostly with women, but also, with anyone who plays guitar.
“People come up and tell me I’m a great guitarist, and then they say, ‘I play guitar, but I’m not very good.’ I ask them if they enjoy playing guitar. They say, ‘Oh, I love it.’ Then I tell them that means they’re good.
“There’s no actual metrics for what makes a good musician. I can’t play (works by Spanish classical guitarist Andrés) Segovia, because that’s not where I put my energy. I’m the only one who plays like Shelley Doty. If someone wants to hear Shelley Doty, they have to come see me. For you to be good, you just have to know what you want to do and enjoy it.”
Skip the Needle’s four-part vocals, hard-driving drumming and epic, supercharged guitar licks and riffs revolve through the rock genre with vestiges of funk, soul and jazz. Out of that comes music Doty says audiences need.
“We need joy and passion, and we bring that to the stage. People always respond to that. We are all women and mostly Black women, and we’re getting to do what some people think is out of character for some of the things rock is. We are inspiring for people who don’t toe the line.”
Doty says in addition to the festival and Ivy Room shows, the band in recent engagements has been highlighting their newest album, “Octavia of Earth, Volume Two.” The six-track recording is based on the life of Black feminist icon and writer Octavia Butler.
Meanwhile, they are in the studio laying down a new album during a residence at Women’s Audio Mission. The organization offers creative technology training, work experience, career counseling and job placement to women, girls and gender-nonconforming people working in music, radio, film, television and online. In October, Doty’s stage musical, “We Three,” will receive a reading by Berkeley’s Shotgun Players theater company.
Doty says that true to their nature as activists who care about and fight for better resolutions to how people live in society, they hope their music inspires everyone to “stay engaged, find better ways to move through the planet and keep our society from descending into a fascist morass. Skip the Needle is groove, love and joy-spreading. That’s us.”
Skip the Needle will perform from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. Saturday at the festival. For online details visit montclairvillage.com/beer-wine-music-festival.
Lou Fancher is a freelance writer. Reach her at lou@johnsonandfancher.com.