AltWeeklies Wire
Hear Me Howling!new
Arhoolie Records looks forward by preserving the past.
San Francisco Bay Guardian |
Nicole Gluckstern |
05-31-2011 |
Profiles & Interviews
Who the Hell is Esinchill?new
East Oakland's best kept hip-hop secret finally gets a deal -- will he get the respect he deserves?
San Francisco Bay Guardian |
Garrett Caples |
10-21-2009 |
Profiles & Interviews
The Mantles Keep it in the Family and Create a Cali Pop Classicnew
Fueled by friendship and romance, the Mantles are relaxed enough to enjoy absurdity, whether it arrives in the form of a shirtless dude in a Yoda mask or entails playing the role of "psychedelic band" and "mid-tempo downer" at a sweltering garage rock party where people are doing cannonballs into a pool.
San Francisco Bay Guardian |
Johnny Ray Huston |
09-16-2009 |
Profiles & Interviews
Tags: The Mantles, indie pop
Jarvis Cocker Takes Delight in 'Knowing All This is Crap'new
I could talk to Cocker on a plane, I could talk to him on a train, and I could talk to him about blues music being "used to sell a hell of a lot of cars" in the passenger seat of an Audi tearing back to SF from Point Reyes, via iPhone and earplugs, while tapping on the trusty laptop. He's that good, that much of a closet mensch keeping it as real as a man of style and taste can.
San Francisco Bay Guardian |
Kimberly Chun |
07-22-2009 |
Profiles & Interviews
Disco Popsters the Juan MacLean Are Only Human -- More or Lessnew
Although it has taken on a massive life outside of the new album, the teaser single "Happy House" shows what the Juan MacLean is capable of: namely, superb pop that uses dance music's production techniques and structures.
San Francisco Bay Guardian |
Brandon Bussolini |
06-03-2009 |
Profiles & Interviews
Thrills and Chills and Disco Ball Spills — That's What the Horrors Are Made Ofnew
In contrast to the easy-sleazy comic-book corn of today's prominent goth-punk purveyors, Primary Colours boasts driving tunes carved from silvery synth textures and Jesus and Mary Chain-like buzz-saw pop that thumps with creative negativity.
San Francisco Bay Guardian |
Kimberly Chun |
05-20-2009 |
Profiles & Interviews
Four Tet Jumps Genres, But Its Meaningful Abstractions Stick Like Gluenew
Four Tet's music is sticky. The word works as a description of Kieran Hebden's gluey way of making precious, melodic samples adhere to languid hip-hop beats. It also conveys that Four Tet's sound not only bears down into your memory, it also becomes a medium for memories in its own right.
San Francisco Bay Guardian |
Brandon Bussolini |
03-18-2009 |
Profiles & Interviews
The Amazements Marvel With Storytelling, a Skate Anthem, and Fearsome Songsnew
An Amazements song sounds like little else: they feel Shaggs-y in their odd, homegrown sense of rock, but they definitely aren't making music in a vacuum.
San Francisco Bay Guardian |
Michael Harkin |
02-04-2009 |
Profiles & Interviews
Tags: indie rock, The Amazements
Scoping Out the Wild World of Blog Darlings Vivian Girlsnew
Since their self-titled debut sold out its original 500-copy run on Mauled by Tigers in just 10 days earlier this year -- it has since been reissued by In the Red -- the attention has snowballed around their rather meek undertaking to, as Kickball Katy said, "sound like the Wipers."
San Francisco Bay Guardian |
Michael Harkin |
11-19-2008 |
Profiles & Interviews
Tags: Vivian Girls
This is Marnie Stern -- Long May She Shrednew
The electric feminist explosion that is This Is It masks deep personal anxieties, something she describes as a "combination of zen and extreme loneliness." It's why she lyrically reaches for zen bliss. It's the musical equivalent of making lemonade from lemons.
San Francisco Bay Guardian |
Mosi Reeves |
11-12-2008 |
Profiles & Interviews
Taking Apart Rock Journalism and Loving Country with David Berman of Silver Jewsnew
Berman is a really fun -- gabby, even -- intelligent, well-read, and eminently likable dude, willing to break it down with sincere, self-effacing erudition and venture off on thoughtful tangents.
San Francisco Bay Guardian |
Kimberly Chun |
09-24-2008 |
Profiles & Interviews
Flip the Switch and Begin Anew with TV on the Radionew
If Cookie Mountain closed a chapter for TV on the Radio's alabaster soul, then Dear Science signifies a new direction. Tunde Adebimpe calls it "brighter and cleaner," shorn of the dense layers of distortion of the past. The music is wide open. The future is wide open.
San Francisco Bay Guardian |
Mosi Reeves |
09-17-2008 |
Profiles & Interviews
Tags: TV on the Radio, Dear Science
Serena Southam Conjures that Old-Timey Magicnew
Going by Serena Jean & the Whiskey Trippers' first, eponymous self-released EP -- brimming with rich, autobiographical songs only six months into their collective career -- it's safe for me to rephrase Alfred Stieglitz on Georgia O'Keeffe: "At last, a woman on wax!"
San Francisco Bay Guardian |
Kandia Crazy Horse |
08-21-2008 |
Profiles & Interviews
Rock Riffs Meet Classical Chops in the Hands of Judgement Daynew
For a mutant that's half-string quartet, half-power trio, this triple threat of violin, cello, and drums turns out to be mighty tough.
San Francisco Bay Guardian |
Dina Maccabee |
08-13-2008 |
Profiles & Interviews
Tags: Judgement Day
Oakland Hyphy God Keak da Sneak Drops a New Full-Lengthnew
While major-label discs by Mistah FAB and Clyde Carson continue to languish, Deified could be the breakthrough everyone's hoping for. With his diehard local following, plus an instantly recognizable, burbling, volcanic growl spewing out new slang like "hyphy" and "fasheezy," Keak has a real shot at shattering the glass ceiling frustrating the Bay's national ambitions.
San Francisco Bay Guardian |
Garrett Caples |
07-02-2008 |
Profiles & Interviews
