Smalltown Society

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🌙 SMALLTOWN LAB // JULY 8 🌙Join us for another evening of music, conversation, creativity, and community as we welcome B...
06/16/2026

🌙 SMALLTOWN LAB // JULY 8 🌙

Join us for another evening of music, conversation, creativity, and community as we welcome Boyhood to the LAB stage.

Led by Bay Area singer-songwriter Alex, boyhood blends indie folk warmth with alternative rock energy, crafting songs about growing up, finding your place, and making sense of life in the modern world. What began as a DIY home-recording project has evolved into a full band whose live performances feel equally intimate and expansive.

Their music carries the spirit of backyard shows, late-night conversations, and the kind of honesty that reminds us we’re all figuring things out together.

But the night doesn’t end there.

The second half of LAB transforms into an Open Mic & Works-in-Progress Showcase, where artists, musicians, poets, writers, comedians, and creators from across our community are invited to share what they’re currently working on. Whether it’s a finished piece, a rough draft, a new song, or an idea still taking shape, LAB is a place to experiment, receive encouragement, and grow alongside fellow creatives.

Hosted by Paul Keim and Michael K-E , this evening is about highlighting voices and process—creating space for new voices, bold ideas, and meaningful connections.

🎶 Featuring: Boyhood
📅 Wednesday, July 8
📍 Smalltown LAB
🚪 Doors: 7:00 PM
🎵 Music: 7:30 PM

☕ Community • Conversation • Creativity

Bring a friend, grab a seat, and discover your next favorite local band.

!!! ATTENTION !!!!You do not want to miss this powerhouse event featuring the amazing and June 18th this will be a ...
05/25/2026

!!! ATTENTION !!!!

You do not want to miss this powerhouse event featuring the amazing and

June 18th

this will be a night for the rest of the year!

more info to come! Be there!

The LAB: June 10 featuring On Wednesday, June 10 at 7:30 p.m., The LAB welcomes back The Cires to The Clinic in Castro V...
05/11/2026

The LAB: June 10 featuring

On Wednesday, June 10 at 7:30 p.m., The LAB welcomes back The Cires to The Clinic in Castro Valley!!

Made up of four brothers from Hayward, The Cires have built a sound that draws from classic rock, Latin rock, and vintage pop influences—channeling artists like The Beatles, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Los Freddys, and Los Enanitos Verdes into something distinctly their own. Their live performances carry an unmistakable sense of chemistry: rich harmonies, sharp musicianship, and the feeling of a band deeply locked into one another.

The group will also be performing material from their forthcoming album, set for release later this year, making this one of the first chances to hear where their sound is headed next.

The second half of the evening opens into The LAB’s community open mic, where local artists, songwriters, poets, and musicians share works in progress, new ideas, and songs still finding their shape.

Hosted by Paul Keim and Michael Kim-Eubanks.

If you’ve seen The Cires before, you already know. If you haven’t, this is the night to catch them.

Presented by Smalltown Society

Smalltown Society continues our Writing Jam series, a free two-hour creative gathering for writers, poets, and anyone wh...
05/08/2026

Smalltown Society continues our Writing Jam series, a free two-hour creative gathering for writers, poets, and anyone who’s ever felt the pull to put words on a page.

Hosted by author and story doula Amy Henderson of Writing One True Thing 
the evening offers a welcoming space to follow your creative impulse, write in short bursts, and (for those who wish) share your words — not to impress, but to be authentic.

Whether you’re an experienced writer or just beginning to explore your voice, the Writing Jam invites you to take creative risks, reconnect with your truth, and rediscover why your words still matter. RSVP on Eventbrite (Smalltown Society’s Writing Jam) Starts at 7:30 PM. Everyone’s welcome.

The Uppercut — Smalltown’s Comedy LAB
Wednesday, May 27 | 7:30 PM | 
The Clinic, Castro ValleySmalltown Society presents...
05/08/2026

The Uppercut — Smalltown’s Comedy LAB
Wednesday, May 27 | 7:30 PM | 
The Clinic, Castro Valley

Smalltown Society presents The Uppercut, a monthly gathering for anyone passionate about the craft of comedy—whether you’re brand new or looking to sharpen your next set.

This isn’t your typical open mic. The Uppercut offers dedicated stage time and the option for instant feedback from a supportive room of fellow comics and comedy lovers. Whether you’re into stand-up, sketch, character work, or something experimental, this is a space to take creative risks and test new ideas in good company.

Led by James Strawser, a local comedian with over a decade in comedy, The Uppercut is rooted in the belief that funny thrives in community—not in isolation.

No judgment. No pressure. Just a mic, a room, and people who love to laugh.
Try something new. Bring something weird.

All levels welcome. All styles encouraged.

How to Find The Clinic: We work out of a space in First Presbyterian Church, but are not a part of the church. To find our office, park in the lot behind Trader Joes, near the Gymnasium. Find the string lights and you will see a door that has a sign that says “Clinic”.

EastBayCreatives NewVoicesInComedy CreativeCommunity

Smalltown Society invites you to join the Resistance ChoirWednesday, May 20
7–9 PM
@ The ClinicIn every generation, when...
05/08/2026

Smalltown Society invites you to join the Resistance Choir
Wednesday, May 20
7–9 PM
@ The Clinic

In every generation, when the world has grown weary with violence, injustice, and division, communites have found a way through with songs.

Songs have carried protest through the streets, through churches, through jail cells, through picket lines, through marches, and through movements. They have helped people survive what was meant to break them. They have turned grief into courage, isolation into community, and ordinary voices into a force that cannot be easily silenced.

We need songs that can carry our protest when words alone are not enough. Songs that help us stand against empire, racism, greed, and every story that teaches us to fear one another. Songs that do more than resist what is wrong—they point us toward what is possible. A more just world. A more human world. A world where our communities are not divided, disposable, or forgotten, but alive with dignity, belonging, and collective power.

The Resistance Choir is a space to lift our voices together in that spirit.

No experience is required. You do not need to be a trained singer. You only need to come ready to sing with others, to listen, to learn, and to add your voice to something communal, creative, and alive.

Come sing against despair.
Come sing toward justice.
Come sing the world we still believe is possible.

Introducing Ideas LAB - An open mic for ideasMAY 13/7:30pm@ The ClinicSmalltown Society is launching a new kind of LAB: ...
05/08/2026

Introducing Ideas LAB - An open mic for ideas
MAY 13/7:30pm
@ The Clinic

Smalltown Society is launching a new kind of LAB: a space for the ideas you’ve been carrying, wondering about, dreaming through, or trying to bring into the world.

Ideas LAB is a gathering for brainstorming, collaboration, conversation, and creative possibility. It’s a place to bounce a new idea, share something half-formed, ask better questions, connect with others, and begin moving an idea from your head and heart into existence.

At Smalltown, we believe creativity is not just about songs, poems, films, or paintings. Creativity is also how we imagine new ways of living, building, organizing, healing, gathering, and seeing the world.

Bring an idea for a project, event, business, artwork, community effort, movement, invention, story, or anything else that might generate positive change for our communities.

You don’t need a finished plan. You just need a spark.

🌹REQUIRED READING FOR THE FALL OF EMPIRE 🌹In a world obsessed with speed, consumption, and endless extraction, Simone We...
05/07/2026

🌹REQUIRED READING FOR THE FALL OF EMPIRE 🌹

In a world obsessed with speed, consumption, and endless extraction, Simone Weil asks a quieter, and far more dangerous, question:

What does it mean to be truly rooted?

This month’s featured book is:
The Need for Roots
by Simone Weil

Written in the shadow of war and collapse, Weil’s masterpiece explores the spiritual crisis beneath modern society: uprootedness. She argues that people do not live by bread alone, but in belonging, meaning, beauty, responsibility, memory, and connection to place and community.

Long before conversations around alienation, empire, ecological collapse, and disconnection became common, Weil saw clearly what happens when human beings are severed from land, labor, culture, and one another.

This is not a nostalgic call backward. It is a radical invitation to rebuild society around human dignity instead of profit, attention instead of distraction, and obligation instead of domination.

Read this if you’ve ever felt that something essential has been stolen from modern life, and if you’re searching for language for what comes next.

Smalltown Society invites you to join the Resistance Choir! No experience required, just come ready to sing with others ...
04/27/2026

Smalltown Society invites you to join the Resistance Choir! No experience required, just come ready to sing with others in our creative community. Lift your voice in song to fight against hatred and division.

Friday, May 1st from 7-9pm.

Curious about shooting and editing film? Want hands-on experience capturing live events, creating music-based content, a...
04/15/2026

Curious about shooting and editing film? Want hands-on experience capturing live events, creating music-based content, and helping tell the story of a creative community?

Whether you’re just starting out or already have experience behind the camera, VideoLAB is a place to learn, collaborate, and plug into the work of Smalltown.

Join us Wednesday, April 22 at 7:30 PM at The Smalltown Clinic as we dive into what we do, how we do it, and what’s next — with your help.

Come create with us.

VideoLAB
April 22 @ 7:30 PM
The Smalltown Clinic
Register on Eventbrite: link in bio

Address

2490 Grove Way
Castro Valley, CA
94546

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