It’s going to be nearly impossible to miss Brent Rademaker at this year’s Huichica Music Festival in Sonoma.
The Los Angeles–based musician will be hitting the stage at least three times over the festival’s two days: with his country band Beachwood Sparks; alongside brother Darren in surf-psych project the Tyde; and leading his throwback folk-rock outfit GospelbeacH.
“I’m going to be like [David] Crosby at Monterey [Pop Festival],” Rademaker says. “Except that I’m not going to take acid.”
GospelbeacH is Rademaker’s main focus these days. The band’s sophomore album,
Another Summer of Love, is out June 16.
“I had been listening to so much ’70s rock over the last couple years,” he says, “I really wanted to make an album that sounded like it could have been from 1975–80.”
GospelbeacH succeeds wildly in capturing authentic-sounding analog atmospheres, and slight fuzz buffers the sunny acoustics throughout to form a hazy, ethereal bubble around the entire record.
Like the title implies, Another Summer of Love‘s classic folk and rock sound is in line with the likes of the Grateful Dead, though it’s not exactly a retread of 1967. “I wrote a song that referenced it about a year and a half ago, and I saw all the things coming up about the 50th anniversary, but [the album’s title] really wasn’t about that,” Rademaker says. Rather, the album is more accurately a nod to the nostalgic summers of the musician’s youth, and the soundtracks that accompany those memories. “Every summer you seem to fall in love.”
Rademaker also credits classic movies like Summer Lovers among his list of influences, lending a coming-of-age attitude to the new record. This weekend, GospelbeacH continues its own coming-of-age at Huichica, while Beachwood Sparks, which has largely been on hiatus since 2013, makes a rare appearance.
“With Beachwood, we never did anything for the fans,” Rademaker says with a laugh. “We never played encores or our singles. This time around, we thought about what people really want to hear, so we’re learning all the fan favorites and the hits.”
Rademaker is a veteran of Huichica, and he praises the venue’s unpretentious and intimate vibe. “We’ve played a lot of festivals, and they’re all giant herds of people,” he says. “Huichica is not like that.”
This year’s lineup also features Robyn Hitchcock, Cass McCombs, Marty O’Reilly, Allah-Las and Dean Wareham playing Galaxie 500 songs. “It’s like a giant mix tape,” Rademaker says. “If you can’t enjoy yourself there, something’s wrong.”
