Celebrate 20 years of Mortified in the bay area with an incredible lineup of epic proportions.
This show will highlight some of the best and most outrageous pieces from the past 20 years, a guest appearance from the founder of the show with the letter that started it all, and will feature the reunion of our greatly missed improvisational freestyle rap band: THE FREEZE!
Since 2005, Mortified has been showcasing adults reading their awkward, embarrassing, and hilarious teenage diaries, poetry, letters and more to sold out shows in San Francisco and the East Bay.
As seen on THE MORTIFIED GUIDE TV Show, and heard on THE MORTIFIED PODCAST, witness what promises to be our best show ever, with our best pieces, incredible house band, our founding piece, contests, and much more!
Briscoe built their grassroots following the old-school way: by carving out a sound that nodded to the golden era of folk, rock, and pop music, then getting onstage and building a genuine relationship with their audience.
A reason for us to enjoy the music:
Two stars from One Tree Hill return to the stage… this time with guitars in hand.
Join Tyler Hilton and Kate Voegele, both beloved for their roles on the iconic CW series, as they perform live, blending their acclaimed musical talents with the nostalgia of when every song has a coda… a final movement.
Spanning a wide range of collaborations and influences, Gunn’s work has a special mark in contemporary guitar music and innovative songwriting. Even after more than a decade, Gunn is still moving along—shaping his influences into a unique and ever-evolving output.
combining Hip-hop, Exotica, Tropicalia, and Soul. Monster Rally creates tracks that manage to maintain a surprisingly organic sound that is inherently nostalgic
One of the Midwest’s most prolific and passionate songwriters, May Erlewine has a gift for writing songs of substance that feel both fresh and soulfully familiar.
Her ability to emotionally engage with an audience has earned her a dedicated following far beyond her Michigan roots.
This year, May is teaming up with Chicago guitar wizard, Packy Lundholm.
The heart forward power duo will be offering their music in the name of love, service and rock & roll.
As crushed, musicians Bre Morell and Shaun Durkan make maximalist dream pop music for themselves. Recording out of various homes, not fixed to any single location (Morell from Texas, now based in Los Angeles, and Durkan in Portland, Oregon), they write the songs they want to hear, tuning from shared taste for trip-hop, Britpop, electronica, and the canon of ‘90s alt radio, a desire for emotionality, and an instinct for when it sounds right and honest; when it means something real to them.
Two iconic voices of indie folk share one stage for a rare night of music.
Dan Mangan has managed an enviably strong creative ethic, and his integrity as both a singer and songwriter has only strengthened with age. The big picture cohesiveness of his new album harkens to a pre-streaming with album-focused sensibility. Mangan’s lyrics act as a gondolier for the journey, reassuring the listener that it’s cool to care. His live shows are known for their warmth, wit, and raw connection.
He’s joined by Israel Nebeker, the heart of Blind Pilot, the Portland-based band whose lush, poetic songwriting has earned them a worldwide audience. With a voice equal parts tender and timeless, Nebeker creates moments that feel deeply personal and universally shared.
Together, they’ll craft a set unlike anything else on tour, trading songs, harmonizing on each other’s work, and opening a window into their artistry. It’s a chance to experience two singular talents weaving their catalogs into something new.
Dev explores contrast pretty heavily in this album, and showcases her versatile range when it comes to the different sounds she has tapped into. She is building an unsettling world through a variety of visceral images and visuals that go along with the music.
Come feel it in real time: Olivia Barton’s unflinchingly tender, and unforgettable music
Olivia’s music is a delicate collection about queer love, family life, heartbreak, aging, anxiety, and body image that are startling in their directness and crushing in their emotional weight.
With lyrics that cut straight to the heart and a voice that makes you lean in closer, Olivia’s live show is as raw and powerful as her songs.
HAFFWAY is the artist half of producer and songwriter Sam Westhoff, crafting what he calls “folkternative” — intimate songs blending cinematic folk and alternative soul. His debut album, Wither, captures the beauty and ache of emotional honesty across collaborations with Brent Cobb, Benjamin Francis Leftwich, and Bo Staloch.
Westhoff bridges sensitivity and sonic precision, crafting songs that feel like secrets you’ve been meaning to tell someone.
In one form or another, Tijuana Panthers have existed most of its members’ lives and eventually becoming one of the shining stars of the twenty-first century garage-rock revival scene—a (relatively) chill surf-rock-inspired complement to the ruckus of acts like Ty Segall and Thee Oh Sees. But while many of their initial contemporaries have gone through lineup changes or thrown in the towel, the Panthers are hanging tough—and, in a sense, just hitting their stride.
Nashville-based Hana Eid wants to write songs that feel like “the love letters you’re too afraid to send.”
Combining confessional lyricism with raw vocal performances and earworm melodies, her emotive indie rock sound takes inspiration from the likes of Briston Maroney, Wednesday, and Big Thief.
Joan Shelley is a songwriter and singer who draws inspiration from traditional and traditionally-minded performers from her native Kentucky, as well as those from Ireland, Scotland, and England, but she’s not a folksinger.
Her disposition aligns more closely with that of, say, Roger Miller, Dolly Parton, or Tom T. Hall, who once explained—simply, succinctly, in a song—“I Witness Life.”
Christopher Owens, the celebrated singer-songwriter and former frontman of beloved indie rock band Girls, is set to be a part of the amazing @noisepop festival lineup.
Lyrically, as with the prior catalog, many of Glitterer’s songs on the new record are sharp, dialectical considerations of the countless daily miniature panic attacks that attend the rigorously examined life.
Lew Sid brings “The Art of Perseverance” Tour to San Francisco for an intimate, high-energy night of hip-hop, storytelling, and celebration.
From viral anthems like “Fried Rice” to the soul-soaked “I Just Want You To Know,” Lew Sid’s set dives into resilience, love, and giving people their flowers while they can still smell them.
This night is for anyone who’s ever had to push through and still chose to shine.
The Joy Formidable step back onto the stage for the first time in two years. These intimate, stripped-back nights offer songs and stories up close and a moment to reconnect before the next chapter unfolds in 2026.
Lola Kirke brings an unique blend of classic country tropes and ethereal sonic landscapes that is dazzlingly clear.
With an unmistakable voice like “gravel on silk”, and a colourful landscape of tightly-crafted lyrics, driving rhythms and uplifting melodies, Canadian singer-songwriter AHI (pronounced “eye”) is creating folk music the whole world can sing to.
Bringing music that channels its own large-scale Baroque eclecticism, the Family Crest brings a sound so big, it feels like it could collapse in on itself at any moment to form a black hole with explosive music perfect for a live setting.
The Family Crest deliver complex arrangements with such confidence that each varying sound produced is done with effortless intent and is never perceived as an afterthough (PopMatters).
Rogue Wave with TWO unique performances on March 1!
Early Show playing Out of the Shadow with Meric Long
Late Show playing Descended Like Vultures with Caleb Nichols
In every Lady Blackbird song is the unmistakable sound of freedom.
Harnessing a mighty voice that effortlessly embodies buffeting power, heart- rending yearning and soft, whispered balladry, Lady Blackbird has imbued her compositions since 2021’s critically acclaimed debut Black Acid Soul with a journeying independence.
Hers is an instantly-recognisable sound capable of evoking joy one moment and heartache the next, a musical embrace of genres as varied as jazz, classic soul, gospel, psychedelic rock and pop.
It is the hallmark of a visionary voice, on an Album that has landed on several ‘2024 Best Albums of the Year’ charts.
From infectious energy and soulful chords to soft, woozy vocals, together Bricknasty’s music effortlessly traverses RnB, neo soul, jazz and psych citing influences such as D’Angelo, MF Doom, and Timbaland.
With humble small-town beginnings, Canadian singer-songwriter, Alex Sampson knew he was born to perform at just nine years old when he entered a school talent show for the first time singing GOLD by Owl City.
Everything changed once he posted his first cover on the social media giant, Tik-Tok in early 2019 which led him to release his first single Stay Here has made thousands fall in love with his beautiful lyrics, voice, and personality.
Josh Levi unlocks an escape hatch. Once the music starts, pure feeling bleeds through his dynamic vocals as soulful spirit, R&B production, and alternative undercurrents coming in one wave.
Named by PEOPLE as one of 2021’s “25 Emerging Musical Artists You Should Add to Your Playlist” and one of EBONY’s “9 Artists Need Your Attention All 2024,” Los Angeles-based singer, songwriter, and actor Josh Levi immediately captivates with each inhale of experience and exhale of emotion.
Jonah’s unique artistry extends beyond his deep, universally resonant songwriting. He is also a skilled guitarist and instrumentalist, having played many instruments since childhood. And to round out his self-sufficiency, he has taught himself how to produce every note, most recently in an Airstream that he transformed into his personal mobile studio:
With his electrifying energy, sincere songwriting, and genre-defying sound, Jonah Kagen is one to watch.
From Melbourne, HighSchool are Rory Trobbiani and Luke Scott, a band whose debut EP, Forever at Last, is a lo-fi, post-punk gem. Featuring the singles ‘New York, Paris and London’, ‘Frosting’ and ‘Sirens’, the EP felt perfectly crystallized on release, serving as a brilliant introduction to an essential new band being championed by the likes of NME, The FADER, Clash, DIY, PAPER and So Young.
Lillie West has always made her music in response to an itchiness to always be moving, but as she developed a burgeoning desire to settle, she found the surprise realization that steadiness can beget creativity. That evolutionary tension is what fuels much of her new album as Lala Lala, Heaven 2.
Singer and songwriter runo plum, gracefully captures the contraction, expansion and release of an intense period of emotional repair, in soft-edged, radiating indie rock.
A lush debut statement born from heartbreak, patching is filled with rich sonic moments that balance out emotional vacancies, creating expansion from an ending.
Step into Pearly Drops’ dreamworld ✨ This Helsinki duo blends misty pop, surreal storytelling, and shimmering electronics into a sound both strange and beautiful.
Nep has been building an audience for years, long before any records were even finished. Short clips and demos posted to TikTok racked up over 5 million likes, drawing fans to her mix of sardonic humor, brutal honesty, and a quirky charm that makes even her darkest songs feel oddly uplifting.
She quickly translated that online energy to the stage, selling out early headline shows in Los Angeles, New York City, and Chicago, and touring alongside Ricky Montgomery, mxmtoon, and Grent Perez.
Joanna Wang weaves bits of Americana with baroque pop, rock, punk, video game soundtracks, jazz, and folk into whimsical and irreverent tunes that often approach the themes of innocence and cynicism.
Bre Kennedy is a Nashville-based singer-songwriter acclaimed for her introspective storytelling and evocative performances.
Known for her powerful live shows, she has headlined sold-out performances at Nashville staples like Exit/In and The Basement East, and supported artists such as NEEDTOBREATHE, Stephen Wilson Jr., The Paper Kites, Joy Oladokun and Sheryl Crow at the Ryman Auditorium.
Romantic nostalgia is the central theme for Pop/R&B artist Jesse Gold. With over 1M combined followers online, Jesse is most at home while on stage.
Jesse strives to make his records feel as organic and intimate as his live shows and his content – blending warm, natural production with raw, emotive vocals.
Skullcrusher returns with a haunting, shape-shifting body of work that drifts between vaporous folk and crystalline electronics. Written after leaving Los Angeles for the quiet isolation of New York’s Hudson Valley, Helen Ballentine captures the ache of grief, change, and memory through sound that blurs the line between human and machine.
Each song feels like a slow attempt to trace the ungraspable with a circle drawn around fleeting moments and the spaces they leave behind.
Mild Universe fuses 90s house influence with disco, soul, and post-punk + Theodor’s contemporary sound while showcasing admiration for 60’s Jazz and 70’s soul and funk recordings.
The band Schoolgirl Byebye started because two best friends fell in love. Schoolgirl Byebye is an indie-pop band insisting on using as few effects as possible to create beautiful melodies. Over the past seven years, they have proved that soul mates do exist in this world. Indeed, musical composition makes up the life of this young couple.
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Imagine stepping into a gig to see Barry White and Love Unlimited jamming with Mac DeMarco, or TOPS teaming up with Ween to play through Marvin Gaye’s ‘I Want You’. And centre-stage stands an unlikely lothario, who somehow makes playing such luscious, lustrous sounds look effortless – all with a shot of spirituality thrown in for good measure. Welcome to the world of Brad Stank.
Songwriter Al Olender tries to grasp the brief, beautiful moments that make up our lives in slow-motion but finds that the tighter she holds on, the more these frames fall into a soupy blur.
Olender captures the anxieties of an ever-moving world with a sweet and silly sincerity on her second full-length album The Worrier, never shying away from staring the truth right in the face. Exploring anxiety, sexuality and anarchy, both in herself and in her relationships, Olender’s acoustic, bluesy melodies point to the butterflies of first crushes, the gut-punching realities of responsibility and the eternal romance of friendship.
Known for blending raw emotion with a simplistic yet innovative approach to music and art, Pity Party (Girls Club) continues to evolve, captivating audiences and shaping the indie rock landscape.
Winyah is a 5 piece band from a small town in South Carolina that combines a distinctive blend of indie and southern rock.
Lauded by Rolling Stone as “an ambitious, entrepreneurial guitar heroine primed to bring back the pop-country glory of the Nineties,” Caroline Jones is a country singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist whose musicianship has led her to becoming a full-time band member of Zac Brown Band and to building out an impressive solo career, co-producing alongside industry veterans Brandon Hood and Ric Wake.
Whether he’s singing an ode to “queer tattoos,” telling his potential paramour all the things he won’t be doing for her (he ain’t fightin’ no Lion), or lamenting his new vegan lifestyle (“Tofurkey? Tof**k yourself- I want some meat”), Stephen Lynch will always consider himself “a musician trapped in the body of a comedian.”
His unique blend of musical based comedy has earned him fiercely loyal fans around the world who live to experience his sold-out live shows, six best-selling CDs, his RIAA-certified Gold DVD and his top-rated Comedy Central Specials.
Isaac Slade, best known as the former frontman of the Grammy-nominated, multi-platinum band The Fray, steps back onto the stage after four years with his first-ever solo tour in 2026.
The Songs I Know tour will take audiences through his emotionally resonant songwriting and the life journey that shaped his music.
Slade’s performances bring listeners into his intimate, cinematic vocal style, featuring formative songs and stories, his genre-defining hits, and the music that inspired him through the years.
Coma Cinema is committed to fighting entropy by the alchemy of art, bringing thoughts to life in Cothran and his listener’s minds with a spirit of deep gratitude for those who have listened to and shared his music for many years.
Coma Cinema remains independent and happily obscure in an ever dulling world.
the Irish band had become masters at creating haunting noise rock, Katie Ball’s bewitching vocals swirling amongst the sounds like smoke. Their music is defined by a maelstrom of dark industrial noise and dreamy textures, explored themes of grief and longing, with imagery of being submerged deep underwater and gasping for air.
Ike Dweck stands poised to become one of the most compelling new voices in modern indie-folk:
Brooklyn-born and raised, rising independent singer-songwriter Ike Dweck is building a reputation for deeply personal lyrics and unflinching introspection. Since debuting in 2023, he’s continued to shape a sound that blends raw vulnerable folk with a modern, aggressive rock, inviting listeners into the heart of his experiences.
Arts Fishing Club is more than just a band; they are storytellers, explorers of the human condition, and purveyors of living life boldly.
The boldness that compelled such an adventure is felt in AFC’s electrifying live shows where the band weaves the raw energy of rock and the introspective lyrical honesty of folk to create a sound that is timeless and refreshingly original.
Leah Kate is a billion-streaming pop artist who broke through with her certified Platinum single “10 Things I Hate About You,” a Top 15 U.S. Pop Radio hit, the most added song at Top 40 during its impact week, and a UK Top 40 hit. She has headlined tours worldwide and joined bills alongside artists like Madison Beer, Chase Atlantic, and Anne-Marie.
