• Hardell Media

Open Streets With Social Antidote
This summer a popular feature on Main Street will return, and on June 4 - 5, it will be for Pride. If you didn't wander it last year, Open Streets is a multi-org collaboration between Social Antidote, The Blocks and the Downtown Alliance that shuts down most of downtown Salt Lake City's Main Street to traffic, leaving space for folks to wander between the lanes and train tracks, across the streets into bars and restaurants, or to watch the Social Antidote performances that fill the town with sound. Born from COVID-conscious entertainment efforts, the event is now part of a growing movement for those streets to stay closed, forever. If a less car-congested downtown sounds like heaven to you, make sure you get down there for this Open Streets Pride extravaganza, and experience just how walkable our downtown really is! Open Streets' Pride edition will feature Social Antidote's The Cube installation, with sounds from NewCityMovement. Pride weekend strollers can look forward to stumbling into DJ sets starting at 7 p.m. on Friday, June 4, from Pierce Anthony, Mathew Fit and Jesse Walker, followed by Typefunk, Red Spectral and Gizmoe on Saturday, June 5, all centered in Exchange Plaza. After 10 p.m., follow the music to nearby bar Twist, where on Friday, AleAngel, Not That Jennifer (of Boise-based queer music collective NANCY) and Orographic (of Portland-based queer DJ collective Bridge Club) will keep the party going. On Saturday, the same Twist-ed rules apply, but with entertainment from locals Stakx, Gizmo, Choice and Artemis. Follow Social Antidote online on Instagram at @socialantidote.live for updates and details.

Rock Camp Returns
Last year, just two months into the pandemic, City Weekly wrote about Rock Camp, and what it would look like going virtual in the beginning of what would become a very stifling year for youth everywhere. They were already on the virtual train, hosting online classes centered around music-making, of course, but also around wellness, dancing, co-songwriting and the like. The kids camp—which centers teaching girls, transgender, non-binary and gender-expansive youth about music—capped its 2020 week of virtual classes with an online virtual festival, which helped them raise funds to carry on with their programming this year. And they've done it! Rock Camp is back at it in real life this year, though they're swapping spring for late summer, with camp dates planned for the week of Aug. 1 - 6. The camp teaches basically everything rock 'n' roll—not just how to play the instruments, but how to have the confidence, creativity and collaboration skills required to be in a band. Unlike many of the other local organizations that bring music to interested kids, Rock Camp is a brief, one-week affair with an intentional focus on the kinds of kids who often get excluded from making music, and which gives them role models to teach them—grown women and queer adults just like them. Right now, they're working out how best to execute their first real-life endeavor since the pandemic began (including questions about whether or not to still include virtual programming). But if your kid is already a Rock Camp alum or this sounds like something your kid would want to do, visit them at rockcampslc.com or follow them on Instagram at @rockcampslc for updates on enrollment.

• Payton Slay

Bad Heather Releases Self-Titled Debut EP
Bad Heather's singles have been hitting the streets hard the last few months, in an anticipatory lead-up to the release of his debut, self-titled EP, out June 4. His criminally catchy single "Honest" soundtracked the trailer to MTV's Catfish, but the focus on the song's earnest refrain, "I just want you to be honest about me," almost eclipses the quality of the writing that surrounds that central part. The rest of the EP functions that way, too, and from song to song, Bad Heather's Porter Chapman shows that he's really a hell of a songwriter. He stylistically lifts from weirdo-sad-boy pop á la The 1975, but with fresh, edgy qualities that reveal his relative youth—via production, via ripping guitar, via his lyrics. And that youth springs out all over the EP, mainly by way of tangible uncertainty. On "Honest" he's paralyzed on the sofa, waiting to find out a bad truth he already suspects to be true; on "20," he fixates on the lost simplicity of childhood, swapped for a rushed independence and the depressing realities of being in one's early 20s. Punchy drums and slick '80s aesthetics keep the latter song from being a total bummer, though, and it leads to "Juliet,'' the most up-beat track on the EP. "Juliet" details the frustration of young lust in the same manner that his single, "Your Sorry," does. The "fuck you" break-up single has a whiff of bitterness that's reasonably redeemed by smirking lines like "you're showing off so you can add me / to the body count list you save as your lock screen." It's definitely satisfying to see all those months of enticing singles turn out to be a solid collection for Bad Heather's debut. Listen wherever you stream, and follow Bad Heather on Instagram at @badheather.

• David Arellano

Weekends at Trellis
As if you probably aren't already playing catch-up with your social life, SKY SLC has a new way to keep the party going with their new rooftop venue, Trellis. One thing is for certain: If there's one good thing that came out of this pandemic, it's more cool outdoor spaces like this one populating downtown SLC. Trellis, besides offering wonderful views of the city, also offers up some of SLC's best DJs for your enjoyment. They kicked off their Send It Saturdays on May 22, featuring DJs Bangerang and Teddy, and the next Send It can be found on June 12 at noon, with free entry for anyone who signs up to the guestlist. Following that, on all Sundays going forward, SKY has teamed up with Live Night Events and NewCityMovement for their evening Sunsets series. Scheduled every Sunday night from 6 p.m. - 10 p.m., the series is also free with guestlist signup, and features a changing roster of DJs and artists each week. It kicked off Sunday, May 23 with DJs Typefunk and Mr. Gizmoe, for a Social Disco Club takeover. Upcoming Sunday Sunsets include local DJs Wyatt Weston June 6, Justin Cornwall on June 13 and more dotting each Sunday of the summer through September. Find them all listed at skyslc.com/events, and get yourself down to the newest free way to have a low-key little summertime hang.

Song of the Week: "Tinseltown in the Rain" by The Blue Nile
The Blue Nile released their debut album A Walk Across the Rooftops in 1984, the same year that Prefab Sprout released their debut, Swoon, which would set the stage for their fame for years to come. People who were my age in the '80s are probably already aware that the two were contemporaries, both born out of the age of Roxy Music's romanticisms and the drama of Peter Gabriel. But as for me, born in the '90s and always learning, I've just realized that Scotland's The Blue Nile is the answer to my near-constant pangs for more of mid-'80s British Prefab, and it's been a lovely discovery. I've lately been listening to that debut album of theirs, which is full of tightly-composed songs rippling with the groovy, oh-so-'80s energy of low and heavy bass pulled right up to the front, starry synth keys and sweeping strings. In "Tinseltown in the Rain," those strings come to dart quickly, amping up the stakes as vocalist Paul Buchanan sings, "Do I love you? Yes I love you! But it's easy come, and it's easy go," with the kind of unhemmed earnestness and excitement that for some reason is a signature of so much '80s pop. But The Blue Nile, like my beloved Prefab Sprout, conveys even more of that earnestness thanks to intentional, lovingly meticulous production. The catchiness is in the instrumental melodies, and after getting hooked in there, the dynamics of the song, carried by that bouncing, rhythmic bass, keep you fully locked into the drama. Ah, to have lived when this song was charting—lightly—on the radio. These days, you can stream it wherever you stream, or perhaps find it in a bin at Randy's.