Incorporating a host of musical styles and influences, such as reggae, rock, punk and hip-hop, the Dirty Heads produce a sound that evokes a vision of what one could imagine it’s like hanging out in their hometown of Huntington Beach on a breezy summer evening.

The quintet’s new album, Cabin by the Sea—an ever so appropriate title—came out in June, and features a variety of feel-good tracks designed to transport listeners to a sunny beachside state of mind. The band plays alongside The Shins, Jimmy Cliff, Tegan and Sara, Alison Krauss and Matisyahu at Harmony by The Bay at Shoreline this Saturday.

GIVEAWAY: Enter to win two tickets for Harmony By the Bay

“I think a positive message in music is always going to work,” says singer Jared Watson over the phone from a noisy tour stop in Las Vegas.

“It was lacking a little bit for a while with the whole emo phase—there was a huge depressed, ‘blah’ kind of music scene—and I think people just got over it, especially with all of the stuff going on in the world.”

That infectious and uplifting spirit echoes throughout the 11-song collection, the group’s more laid-back, sophomore effort. “We wanted this album to be more organic,” Watson says, “and if things weren’t perfect, then we left them not perfect as long as they felt good, we just had a lot of fun with it.”

He adds, “I think with the first album we were a little nervous and a little scared. This time we were just a lot more comfortable in our skin, we knew what we were capable of, we learned a lot, and we matured a lot.”

The Dirty Heads have played a fair amount in the Bay Area and toured across the country several times now, but they are particularly excited to be performing at Harmony by the Bay. “Festivals are cool because you get to play in front of people that wouldn’t necessarily come and see you,” Watson says. “It’s a really cool opportunity to get some new fans, and show other people our music—and vice-versa. Some fans that come to see us might find another band that they had never heard of and they end up loving by the end of the day.”

Later this year, the Dirty Heads will be playing a series of shows opening for Sublime with Rome in Brazil—something that Watson can’t wait for. “That’s really my ultimate goal for the band, is to be able to travel the world and play shows—to be able to spread our message and music on a worldwide stage.”

Silicon Valley hosts a strong lineup of fall concerts with some of the biggest names in pop, indie rock and electronic music and the debut of SVSX.

Wobbleland
Aug. 31, 7pm; San Jose Civic; $50-$70. Some fans of Wobbleland have expressed disappointment that this year’s lineup isn’t loaded with the same dubstep star power as one that took San Francisco by storm in 2011. But they’re missing the point—nobody on that bill was famous yet outside of the electronic underground. Wobbleland is an underground party designed to let thousands of scantily clad fans get their spines rocked by these artists before they become phenoms. This year’s rave will pump untold decibels of bass into the San Jose Civic courtesy of headliner Flux Pavilion. Flux is best known for his Bassnectar-type dubstep anthem “Bass Cannon,” but fans of Kanye and Jay-Z are more likely to recognize his track “I Can’t Stop,” which was sampled on their “Who Gon Stop Me” album last year. The rest of the Wobbleland roster, aside from maybe Cypress Hill’s DJ Muggs, comes straight from the underground: Zomboy, Barenoize, Bare, Grizzly, NastyNasty, Megalodon and more.

VivaFest!
Sept. 8-16; downtown San Jose; Sept. 16 HP Pavilion show, 7pm, $30 and up. Creative director of VivaFest!, Dan Guerrero, has brought an epic vision and a flair for spectacle to what started out a couple of decades ago as a folksy tribute to the well-known but poorly understood Mexican mariachi tradition. Guerrero is the kind of producer who believes that if something is worth doing, it’s worth doing bigger, so it’s no surprise that the centerpiece of his show this year has Gigante in the title. I mean, the organizers of any festival celebrating Mexican culture would be beside themselves to have Latin music star Lila Downs; Chicano Cali favorites Ozomatli; Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlan, which was responsible for popularizing mariachi internationally in the 1980s; and legendary cantina chanteuse Paquita la del Barrio. But Guerrero has wrapped all four of them into one show at HP Pavilion on Sept. 16, “Domingo Gigante: A Night of Stars.” The festival will also feature their yearly free Outdoor Feria del Mariachi the same day on HP’s arena green. Besides the Super Sunday extravaganza, there will be a film series, historical walks, mariachi and dance workshops, and more.

SVSX
Sept. 22; downtown San Jose
The South Bay music scene thrives off the intersection of underground culture and high-tech empire. It’s no surprise that in the land of start-ups, the music revolution of the last few years has been born in the garages and on the laptops of a new generation of talent. The Silicon Valley Sound eXperience—SVSX—is a showcase for that revolution, supporting the local music scene with stages on which to make the next advance. This debut year will feature the first SVSX music awards and a club crawl brimming with the best and brightest on the South Bay scene. Artists like Will Sprott, whose unique songwriting and arrangements with the Mumlers opened the floodgates to the wave of eclectic and sometimes unclassifiable bands that have risen up here in the last few years. Like Anya and the Get Down, whose mash-up of rock, reggae and dubstep threatens to break big at any moment. Like Careless Hearts, the Shitkickers and the other bands scheduled to perform. They are all the sound of the Silicon Valley experience.

Harmony by the Bay
Sept. 29, 2pm; Shoreline, Mountain View; $49.50-$79. The Harmony Festival in Santa Rosa was known for a weird mix of performers; last year’s bill featured the Flaming Lips, Primus and breakbeat master Chango B, along with bluegrass and Afrobeat. In March, organizers announced that, after 33 years, money woes had done in the three-day festival, at least for the time being—and then surprised everyone with the debut of this South Bay spin-off festival, a joint venture among Harmony’s organizers, KFOG and Live Nation. Pared down to a one-day, two-stage setup, HBTB attempts to carry over the eclecticism of its namesake, with alt headliners Kimbra, the Shins, Tegan and Sara, plus reggae-rockers the Dirty Heads, bluegrass fixture Alison Krauss, electro-tribal strangesters Beats Antique and reggae legend Jimmy Cliff.

Considering the pummeling KFOG has taken in the last few weeks over its morning show catastrophe, perhaps it sees the new Harmony By The Bay Festival as a way to win back some goodwill. The new music event on September 29 at Shoreline will try to fill the void left by the cancellation—after 33 straight years—of Santa Rosa’s Harmony Festival, and is a joint venture between Harmony’s organizers, KFOG and Live Nation. Performers will include The Shins, Tegan and Sara, Kimbra, Alison Krauss & Union Station, Beats Antique, Matisyahu and many more.

In March, organizers of the annual three-day Santa Rosa music festival announced it would not be returning to the Sonoma County Fairgrounds this summer due to financial trouble. However, they left open the possibility the festival would return as early as next year, and wrote in a statement: “Please trust that we have spent many months creatively exploring dozens of promising options in the hopes that we could keep this magical event alive this year. We know this news is a great disappointment to the entire Harmony team and the community at large, and we share your feelings of disappointment. We ask that we work together to move beyond this stage, toward hope and optimism for future Harmony Festivals.”

Apparently, the future is now. This one-day, South Bay version features the same eclectic mix of genres and cultures in its line-up, from the bluegrass of Krauss to reggae legend Jimmy Cliff, with a lot of indie rock in between. Organizers promise “Two stages of diverse music, creative food, crafts, sustainability education, shopping and good vibes.”

Tickets go on sale Friday, June 29, at 10am.

Confirmed Performers:
The Shins
Tegan and Sara
Alison Krauss & Union Station featuring Jerry Douglas
Beats Antique
Matisyahu
Jimmy Cliff
Kimbra
More TBA
The Dirty Heads, The Givers