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Recent Articles
Culture,
Summer Guide
Summer fun tends to revolve around water. Because we live on the largest Pacific estuary in the Americas, you'd figure our Bay Area would be no exception — and you'd be right. In fact, due to our temperate weather, the…
by Mike Rowell
June 20, 2012
Tags: Summer Guide, Reviewed, Major League Baseball, National League (MLB), NL West, San Francisco Giants
Culture,
Summer Guide
So you've got some friends visiting. They're of discriminating tastes, and expect you to show them the town. Sure, you could take them to Fisherman's Wharf and Alcatraz; those places have their own amusing, semi-ironic merits, and the Alcatraz headphone…
by Mike Rowell
June 22, 2011
Tags: Summer Guide, Stage, Westlake Joe, Alcatraz, San Francisco, Margaret Keane
Music,
All Shook Down
You may never have heard of Omar Souleyman, but he's something of a folk hero in his native Syria. Since 1994, he and his musical compatriots have released hundreds of cassette albums of predominantly live recordings, which have long been…
@All Shook Down
by Mike Rowell
June 6, 2011 @ 8:45 am
Tags: Show To Know, Omar Souleyman, Sublime Frequencies, Syria
Music,
With an aesthetic that ranges all over the sonic map, hitting rhythmic postpunk and layered psychedelic drone, Oakland trio Clipd Beaks can be difficult to pigeonhole. Not that journalists haven't tried, sometimes with rather inaccurate results — giving the band…
by Mike Rowell
January 27, 2010
Tags: Music, Feature, Scott Ecklein, Ray Benjamin, Oakland, Piedmont, Hemlock Tavern
Music,
All Shook Down
mr. Gnome @ Elbo RoomThe new album by Cleveland duo mr. Gnome, Heave Yer Skeleton, is a surreal rock listen. Largely recorded at the Los Angeles studio of Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme, the band's sophomore full-length…
@All Shook Down
by Mike Rowell
November 23, 2009 @ 8:00 am
Tags: Music, What to Do
Music,
The new album by Cleveland duo mr. Gnome, Heave Yer Skeleton, is a surreal rock listen. Largely recorded at the Los Angeles studio of Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme, the band's sophomore full-length contains layers of echoey,…
by Mike Rowell
November 18, 2009
Tags: Music, Feature, Nicole Barille, Cleveland Cavaliers, National Basketball Association, NBA Central Division
Music,
Hear This
Since launching in 1992, Tokyo's Melt-Banana has become Japan's quintessential No Wave spazz-punk outfit. While effects-whiz guitarist Agata and bassist Rika surgically intersplice short, incendiary song blasts, vocalist Yako shrieks twisted English lyrics like a bonkers banshee. It's always a…
by Mike Rowell
October 28, 2009
Tags: Hear This, Show Preview, Melt-Banana, Tokyo, Japan
Music,
Hear This
San Francisco has seen a psychedelic renaissance in recent years, with a bumper crop of artists channeling styles from surrealist pop to acid rock. Last year, Ripley Johnson of hypnodrone masters Wooden Shjips and music journalist Richard Simon dedicated an…
by Mike Rowell
October 7, 2009
Tags: Hear This, Show Preview, San Francisco, Richard Simon, Ripley Johnson, Powell St. John, Thee Parkside
Calendar,
Night&Day
Tokyo’s MONO is one of those “ya gotta see 'em live” bands. Sure, the instrumental quartet’s recordings are lovely, filled with long tracks of glistening neoclassical compositions featuring fragile, Brahms-lullaby melodies slowly crescendoing into epic, crashing rock. And other groups…
by Mike Rowell
September 30, 2009
Tags: Night&Day, Highlights, Tokyo, Maserati SpA, Chicago, Louisville (Maryland)
