Inside the Art of Outside Lands
Outside Lands came and went last weekend, blowing in and out of the Golden Gate Park with the signature stomp, rock, and dazzle that’s it’s become equanimous with since Another...
High Sierra Highlights: Top 10 of 2013
High Sierra Music Festival is easily one of the happiest places on earth. People return year after year (after year). They bring their kids. They fill up inflatable pools. They...
Live Music: Alt-J at the Fillmore, San Francisco
Alt-J (so named for the neato triangle you can make using your keyboard—∆) headlined a sold-out show at the Fillmore the other night. The band got together in 2007 at...
Live Music: Les Claypool’s Duo De Twang @ Terrapin Crossroads
Les Claypool is truly a singular artist. He’s transcended his various projects over the decades to become a sound, a style, a genre, all his own. When Primus was signed...
SnowGlobe Music Festival: 13 Highlights for 2013
Partying for three days straight in single digit temperatures? Who wouldn’t be at least a wee bit trepidatious about uncomfortable at best, unbearable at worst, conditions for a music festival?...
Live Music: The Motet in San Francisco
Just before Christmas, the Motet lit up a little pocket of San Francisco, bringing a much-needed boost of merriment to a holiday season that felt to me more sad and...
Live Music: Leonard Cohen @ HP Pavilion, San Jose
Only Leonard Cohen could transform a space as impersonal and corporately stamped as the HP Pavilion into a dazzling concert hall on a tired Wednesday night. Suburban yuppies filed in...
Woods at the Preservation Jazz Hall West at the Chapel, San Francisco
Last week, Woods had the honor of being among the first bands to play San Francisco’s newest venue: The West Coast outpost of New Orleans’ legendary Preservation Jazz Hall. “The...
Live Music: Father John Misty @ the Independent, San Francisco
Father John Misty played a total of four public shows in San Francisco over the past month and a half. The initial interest in his music was likely in part...
Looking Back on Outside Lands: A Reckoning
I didn’t intend for this lapse to happen, but it’s taken me over a week to get around to writing my Outside Lands coverage. Yeah, I happened to have a...
High Sierra Music Festival: Highlights and Recaps
For the past 22 years over the 4th of July, 10,000 music loving souls have descended on the little community of Quincy, California transforming the Plumas County Fairgrounds into a...
Film Review: “Moonrise Kingdom”
You don’t go see a Wes Anderson movie expecting much in the way of depth or character development—or at least, I don’t. I enter the theater or select the rental...
Live Music: Jeff Mangum @ The Fox Theater, April 10, 2012
Most people even a little familiar with indie rock know the story of Jeff Mangum. As the man behind Neutral Milk Hotel, one of the ‘90s more brilliant and original...
Live Music: The Polyphonic Spree @ Great American Music Hall, April 3, 2012
The Polyphonic Spree have only released three full-length studio albums in the 12 years since their inception, but I don’t think that relatively limited output has in any way impeded...
Live Music: Beats Antique @ The Fox Theater, March 30, 2012
Beats Antique pulled out some special treats for their sold-out show at Oakland’s Fox Theater this past weekend. The glitz, glamour, and expansive performance could be credited in part to...
Live Music: The Lumineers @ Cafe Du Nord, March 24, 2012
The Lumineers are among the latest and greatest of the new generation of rootsy folk-rock bands that have kept Americana fresh and captivating through the years. Like those musical contemporaries...
Live Music: The Jayhawks @ The Fillmore, February 4, 2012
I didn’t even know who the Jayhawks were in the ‘80s and most of the ‘90s, arguably the band’s defining years. I was a small town kid on the east...
Live Music: The Pimps of Joytime @ The Independent, January 28, 2012
The Pimps of Joytime lit up Divisadero Street in San Francisco this past weekend, playing back-to-back sold-out shows at the pristine sounding Independent and giving all the patrons in attendance...
Film Review: “The Artist”
Don't say a word...
Live Music: Iggy Pop and the Stooges @ the Warfield, December 6, 2011
Earlier this week, I saw Iggy Pop and the Stooges perform live at the Warfield to an audience of about 2,000 people. The band was supposed to swing through San...
Live Music: The Budos Band and Afrolicious at Mezzanine, November 19, 2011
The funk tends to bring the fun, and Saturday night’s installment of San Francisco’s 10th annual Funk Festival lured the city’s dance party people out to help Afrolicious and the...
Live Music: Future Islands @ Bottom of the Hill, November 15, 2011
Straight out of Baltimore by way of Greenville, North Carolina, Future Islands brought their own brand of crazy to Bottom of the Hill on Tuesday night. The show, headlined by...
Live Music: The Felice Brothers @ Great American Music Hall, October 27, 2011
At San Francisco’s Great American Music Hall late last week, the Felice Brothers proved themselves a long way from the early busking days that broke them onto the music scene...
Where Revelers Gather and the Dust Comes to Life
I just got back from the desert, and chances are, you know someone else who has as well. It’s taken 25 years for Black Rock City to become a major...
