A Bandgeeek year-end wrap up, or some thoughts on 2025.

Here's to the New Year y'all.

Dec 28, 2025

Something to know about me: I have a bad sense of linear time. That is, once something happens, it gets filed into a running archive loosely labeled as “the past.”

Yes, I drop things somewhat sequentially (this happened before that) and I am sure I can differentiate the recent past from those things that happened decades ago. But there’s so much in my head that placing things to a specific year (2025 vs. 2024 or 2023, for example) can be cumbersome.

Which makes doing a weekly newsletter nice, because at the end of the year there’s a sequential list of the things I thought noteworthy as they were happening (with headlines even). I checked through that list to preparing this post.

Local bands/releases/performers

The big news in the local performer category is Ralph Edwards’ run on “The Voice.” After a dozen years of auditions (and rejection) the Vibe Check front man finally got called to the stage.
And he made the most of it.
Even if he didn’t win, he was runner up, which means multiple weeks worth of mention (and praise) on national TV. And that is a win for Fresno and the Central Valley.
Strange Vine released its long-awaited debut album (well, sort of). Fans of the band (and observers of the scene) have been waiting nearly two decades for new music from the duo. They got in the form of three singles, released on streaming services in advance of the full album, which will be out (on CD and vinyl) in 2026.
For the minutiae of the scene (which is really all of it, I suppose), I’ll defer to Laura Ramirez of the Valley Echoes newsletter. She has established herself as the go-to for new releases (via her monthly playlists) and weekly live events. She also has a keen sense of knowing who’s getting shit done (she tipped me to this new record label out of Clovis)

In memoriam, or who we lost in 2025

Forgive the foul language, but 2025 was a fuck of a year in terms of losing loved ones. I’m speaking personally, obviously, but it translates here, too.

Coleman Head was a Fresno musician and songwriter who came up playing with Bruce Conte in the late ’60s and later penned songs for Tower of Power. He died Jan. 1.
Mike Kenney was a guy with some deep knowledge of Fresno’s music scene. He got that by being there, as country player from way back (OK, the 1970s). He died Feb. 17 at 70 years old.
John Shafer may have been the busiest drummer in Fresno. And that’s saying something. Before his death March 26, he played and/or record with Blake Jones and the Trike Shop, the Vince Warner and Richie Blue bands, Evo Bluestein’s Badboy Zydeco, the Neptunes, Scott Oliver (on his “Desert Union” project), John Clifton (who he toured with extensively) and any number of unnamed others.
Larry Bastian probably existed under the radar of most people, though they certainly knew his work. After all, he wrote tunes for Buck Owens, Conway Twitty, Sammy Kershaw and, most notably, Garth Brooks, who had a string of Bastian-penned hits, including Unanswered Prayers,” “Rodeo,” “The Old Man’s Back in Town.” More recently, the Porterville native co-wrote “Mañana Es Para Siempre,” with Omar Nare.
Bastian died April 6.
Derrick “Aesop” McElroy was an archetype of an underground artist; a successful (legendary, even) rapper who still (also?) just a dude from the neighborhood (in this case the Tower District). His death Aug. 17 hit hard both with folks locally and within the larger hip-hop community.
Mike Briggs was a musician, in that he had a degree in classical guitar and listed his profession as guitarist during the first of runs at Fresno city council. But his big contribution to the scene came from CentralValleyTalk.com, the internet TV station he started in 2008 in the garage of a house on Van Ness Avenue. He died Aug. 31 at 66 years old.
Victor Conte’s death on Nov. 3 was noteworthy, but not because of his musical contributions, which included a stint playing bass with his cousin (and fellow Fresno native) Bruce Conte on Tower of Power’s 1978 album “We Came to Play.”
No, it was that other thing.
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Out at the venues

This was a good year for venue activations in Fresno.

We saw major entertainment at almost every level.

Obviously, the big news came in the form of Shakira taking over Valley Children’s Stadium. The concert broke a decades-long embargo on live music at the venue and opened up new possibilities for the region.
We also got big news from the Warnors Theatre, which partnered with Ineffable Live for its talent booking. That is already seeing some dividends.
The theater also had at least two major sell-out performances (Morrissey in April and comedian Rene Vaca earlier this month).
Sadly, we lost Buck Owens Crystal Palace (in Bakersfield) and Destructive Warehouse. But we gained The 101, the Belmont, the 458 Venue, PM Lounge and the Sanctuary (and probably others I am missing/don’t know about yet).

There was also the return of Audie’s Olympic (in the form of Summer Fox Brewing Company) and live music to the Crest Theatre. Also, Visalia got a Porch Fest. So …

If you want to get into the weeds with numbers and such, keep tabs on The Fresno Bee this week for my reporting on the biggest live entertainment of 2025.

Bandgeeeek!

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