A little bit of country, a little bit of rock & roll and a little bit of hip-hop swagger. For the second summer in a row, alt-rock hit-machine Cake joins forces with singer, songwriter and piano-pop powerhouse Ben Folds—hitting the road with guitars, trumpets and vibraslap in tow.

Cake was founded three decades ago in Sacramento and ascended the alternative rock charts with a bright and bubbly antidote to grunge’s dour and sour sounds. For every sludgy riff, Cake had a crisp and spritely rebuttal; to each downer lyric, Cake responded with wit.

“I want a girl with a short skirt and a looooooooooooonnng… jacket!” frontman John McCrea exclaimed, stretching his signature monotone for emphasis on “Short Skirt/Long Jacket” from the band’s 2001 Columbia Records debut, Comfort Eagle.

Ever since its first record, 1994’s Motorcade of Generosity, Cake has delivered consistently catchy melodies, driving basslines and poetic metaphors that are as clear as they are zany.

Perhaps it is something about California’s Central Valley. In the same way that the Modesto-bred Grandaddy so expertly channeled the existential dread of internet-connected suburban sprawl with songs about robots working in the dark, Cake zeroed in on toxic masculinity through the prism of high-powered automobiles. “Race Car Ya-Yas” is a brilliant take-down of machismo, road rage and commuter culture, while “Going the Distance” is the tale of a man racing against himself in an empty arena as his lover languishes in the cold shadow of his ambition.

Though the band hasn’t released a full-length album since 2011’s Showroom of Compassion, there were hints of new music with the release of “Sinking Ship” last August, the lead single from their yet-to-be-released seventh studio album.

This summer’s tour also comes on the heels of Folds’ first major book release, a memoir titled A Dream About Lightning Bugs.

A North Carolina native, Folds first achieved national success as the frontman of Ben Folds Five. The band’s 1997 single “Brick,” from the album Whatever and Ever Amen, lit up alternative rock and pop radio all over the country with bouncy keys. As a solo artist, Folds has performed with William Shatner, Regina Spektor and even authors like Neil Gaiman. His impressive resume doesn’t stop there: Folds was a main contributor to the soundtracks of two of the mid-2000s most quirkiest films—Hoodwinked! and Over the Hedge—and even served as a judge on NBC’s a cappella competition show, The Sing Off.

Cake & Ben Folds
Sep 13, 7pm, $35+
Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View

When it comes to truly prolific bands, examples abound. From The Rolling Stones to Radiohead, we all know and love groups with deep catalogs and decades-long careers. But few veteran bands have flown so gracefully under the radar and for so very long as CAKE. How fitting is a name that means to collect and stick, to “cake onto” something, for a band that has managed to cling to massive notoriety while just barely dipping into the mainstream of radio rock for over more than 20 years?

In that time, the Sacramento band has managed to trudge the rocky road of a music industry in flux. They’ve stayed the course without ever compromising their unique and utterly quirky aesthetic—a poppy amalgam of hip-hop beats, rough-hewn indie-rock, Jonathan Richmond-esque absurdist lyricism, and a sprinkling of no-nonsense country sensibility, which they will bring with them when they play the City National Civic this New Year’s Eve.

It hasn’t always been easy. CAKE first hit it big in the mid-’90s, just a few years before Napster and iTunes flipped the recording industry on its head. In the ensuing years, the band found that many labels were wary of taking a chance on them, despite the successes of massive early hits like “I Will Survive” and “The Distance.”

“They barely knew that we existed,” says John McCrea, CAKE’s frontman and maestro. “It’s just a corporate culture. People come and go and there’s not a real relationship between people.”

The band finally got tired of the dance and decided to start their own label, Upbeat Records, in 2007.

“We didn’t want to sign to a label and then have them close down or be bought by another label,” McCrea says. “There’s been just so much upheaval over the last 10 years.”

While some bands are excited to operate their own label and relish the creative control it affords, McCrea sees it as just another necessity to survive.

“I’d rather—to be honest—not have to (form a label), but in the current precipitous decline of the music business, I think it’s the only responsible thing to do,” McCrea says.

This responsibility is perhaps a lesser known trait on the list of what makes CAKE unique. While the group distinguishes itself musically with an eclectic mix of horns and country western influence—still somehow managing to qualify as alt rock in the process—a social- and eco-conscious identity certainly sets them apart as well.

Building a solar-powered recording studio, using their website to promote voter registration and community banking, and passing out sequoia trees at shows may seem strange for a band that doesn’t sound very political. And McCrea admits it might not be the smartest move for bands out to become household names.

“I’m sure it hurts us commercially,” he says. McCrea confessed they suppressed the urge to assert themselves on issues they cared about for years before deciding it was too important.

“We know that we’re just musicians and the prime directive of our band is to play music and entertain people.” McCrea says. “But a certain amount of our biases are going to slip through no matter how hard we try.”

Agendas aside, CAKE is currently recording their latest album since 2011’s Showroom of Compassion. While this undertaking is still in the very early and rough stages, McCrea still has plenty details with which to tease us.

“I think there will be some things (on the new album) that will be surprising to people,” he says. “Certainly things that have never happened before with CAKE will happen.”

If one thing is true of CAKE, they have a formula—the country western and alt rock with trumpet chaser—and they generally stick to it. But it may be going out the window this time around.

“I just thought some of these songs needed, well, strings,” McCrea reveals. “It just kind of happened. I’ve always been stalwartly opposed to that for this band but I want to do the right thing for each song. What I hate is what happens with concept albums where people try to bend a song to the will of some over-arching, intellectual narrative when the song doesn’t want to do that.”

Whichever direction CAKE is headed musically, it clearly isn’t a means with which to break through into super stardom. It’s safe to assume they are content with where they are and what they are—a band many seem to know but rarely talk about.

As with everything else, McCrea has an eloquent answer for this, too.

“Maybe something that gets too popular has a very short shelf life,” he says. “Perhaps the fact that we were never hugely, explosively popular has actually allowed us to survive.”

CAKE play the City National Civic Auditorium in San Jose on Dec. 31. More info.

If you’re the kind of person that scoffs at the notion of devoting an entire night of your life to celebrating something as arbitrary and contrived as beginning of a new year, then you might consider catching the Sacramento-based sultans of sarcasm, CAKE, as they ring in NYE 2015 at the City National Civic in San Jose.

For 20 years CAKE front man John McCrea has fused country, hip-hop, Mariachi and soul—among other wide-ranging and seemingly unrelated genres—into a cohesive catalog six full-length records, all of which cogently, colloquially and caustically deconstruct the modern human condition.

Indeed, if there is anyone with whom you might trade sardonic one-liners bemoaning the utter triviality of toasting to yet one more lap around the sun, McCrea is your man.

Watch the video for “Federal Funding” from CAKE’s latest album, Showroom of Compassion.

If it weren’t for recent alternative hitmakers The Naked and the Famous and Silversun Pickups, the main stage at BFD 2012 on June 2 at Shoreline Amphitheater would feel like a 1990s time machine. Jane’s Addiction, Garbage and Cake will headline the festival, Live 105 has announced.

Jane’s Addiction originally broke up in 1991 at the height of their popularity, They have reunited, broken up and reunited again since then, with no letup in the accompanying drama. Last year, they released just their fourth album in the over 25 years since the band was founded, The Great Escape Artist.

Garbage peaked in the mid-’90s with hits like “Stupid Girl” and “Only Happy When It Rains”; they never officially broke up, but have gone on “hiatus” several times. They are set to release their fifth album, Not Your Kind of People, next month.

Of the returning ’90s alt-rock soldiers, only Cake has been active continuously since they formed in 1991. Best known for their 1996 hit “The Distance,” their sixth record Showroom of Compassion debuted at #1 on the Billboard charts in 2011.

New Zealand’s the Naked and the Famous formed in 2008, the same year Jane’s Addiction reunited for the second time. Sounding eerily like Passion Pit’s long-lost twin band, they made the alt-radio Top 10 in 2010 with “Young Blood.” Fellow indie rockers Silversun Pickups, best known for “Lazy Eye” and “Well Thought Out Twinkies,” will release their new album, Neck of the Woods, next month.

Some of the festival’s coolest offerings are in the Subsonic Tent, which has become a magnet for up-and-coming, electro-friendly acts. This year Oakland’s Wallpaper, who are suddenly all over the late-night-television circuit and even have a song in the Top 40 despite an expletive in its title, will play there, as well as San Francisco’s budding girlrap star K. Flay, who killed last year on the local stage. Subsonic Tent mainstays the Limousines will do something slightly different this summer, spinning a DJ set. Other tent acts include Knife Party, Dragonette, and AmpLive of the Oakland duo Zion I performing with Eligh.

On the Soundcheck Local Band Stage this year are two South Bay bands, The Holdup and Young Science. The Stone Foxes, A B & The Sea, New Diplomat, Dirty Ghosts and more will also perform on the local band stage.