Get SF Weekly Newsletters
Loading...
59 results
    Music, Reviewed Or, the Whale

    Or, the Whale

    Light Poles and Pines isn't the freshest bread in the bakery. Or, the Whale self-released the album in 2007. A year later, the local septet signed to Seany Records, but instead of inaugurating its relationship with a disc of new…
    Tags: , , , , ,
    Music, Reviewed Blitzen Trapper

    Blitzen Trapper

    Let's set the record straight. Despite a long list of rock writers claiming the contrary, Blitzen Trapper is not an Americana band. Sure, the band tinkers with roots rock: a little Creedence twang here, some Crazy Horse crunch there. But…
    Tags: , , , , ,
    Music, Reviewed Growing

    Growing

    Social Registry puts out some righteous jams: Gang Gang Dance, Telepathe, and Psychic Ills are all top-shelf freaks. But the Brooklyn imprint shit the bed when it signed Growing last winter. Despite creating some killer drones in '03 and '04,…
    Tags: , , , , ,
    Music, Reviewed Magik Markers

    Magik Markers

    On the surface, drawing comparisons between the Motor City Five and Magik Markers seems absurd: The former are proto-punk icons from the Vietnam era; the latter are modern indie upstarts. On the other hand, the two share key strengths and…
    Tags: , , , , ,
    Music, Reviewed Oakley Hall

    Oakley Hall

    Defining rock music as a common language for the American masses is the stuff of fiction, not the people's actual history, which tells us that rock has always been a fragmented tribe of competing subcultures. But every now and then…
    Tags: , , , , ,
    Music, Reviewed D. Charles Speer

    D. Charles Speer

    Some Forgotten Country opens with picket-fence guitar, Harry Smith banjo, and a bluesman spitting marbles: "Going to Atlanta just to look around ... " I've heard this stoned baritone before, almost 40 years ago. He's the willing trucker "smuggling smokes…
    Tags: , , , , ,
    Music, Reviewed Flying Canyon

    Flying Canyon

    Singer-songwriter Cayce Lindner sports a thick gray beard, calls Northern California home, and plucks an acoustic guitar. This means most music writers are gonna describe his new project, Flying Canyon, as a symptom of this whole freak-folk, indie-hippie fad. And…
    Tags: , , , , ,
    Music, Reviewed Various Artists

    Various Artists

    The Hightone Records Story is extremely likeable in concept. The imprint is a hardworking indie out of Oakland that has spent the last 20 years documenting modern roots music. In fact, Hightone has released records by some of the last,…
    Tags: , , , , ,
    Music, Reviewed Tuxedomoon

    Tuxedomoon

    Bardo Hotel Soundtrack is Tuxedomoon's first locally recorded disc since the band relocated to Europe more than 25 years ago. This fact is noteworthy because the group, which began life opening for Devo and recording for the Residents' Ralph Records,…
    Tags: , , , ,
    Music, Reviewed Brightblack Morning Light

    Brightblack Morning Light

    Brightblack Morning Light actually sees itself as some kind of rural commune. Its core members sport robes 'n' beads, call a teepee in the NorCal woods home, and claim to steer clear of "city babylons." But there's nothing at all…
    Tags: , , , , ,
    Music, Reviewed Vodka Soap

    Vodka Soap

    No Bay Area outfit is more mind-fuck cozmic than the duo of Spencer Clark and James Ferraro, the Skaters. But regardless of just how out there among the stars and nebulae — or in here (as my index finger touches…
    Tags: , , ,
    Music, Reviewed Whirlwind Heat

    Whirlwind Heat

    None of you should be reading about Whirlwind Heat. That's because this trio of emaciated shaggy hairs from Grand Rapids, Mich., was never anything but utterly banal. Back in 2000 — as young upstarts — the group played a brand…
    Tags: , , , , ,
    Music, Reviewed Kalas

    Kalas

    Kalas is Matt Pike's new outfit, and for the Bay Area quintet's nine-track debut he wields his ax only on a single cut ("Frozen Sun"). That's because Pike's primary role is that of a lead vocalist, which is kinda fucked-up.…
    Tags: , , , ,
    Music, Reviewed Ministry

    Ministry

    Leather-clad Al Jourgensen, the man who invented the faux-human-skull-lined-microphone-stand-on-wheels, is fuckin' pissed at our warmonger president. So much so that Ministry's new disc, Rio Grande Blood, is a virulently anti-Bush, anti-Iraq invasion song cycle. Now I don't deny that Jourgensen…
    Tags: , , , ,
    Music, Reviewed The Herms

    The Herms

    The Herms' full-length debut, Record Machine, has a fitting title. Most indie rock bands these days are like computers, extracting hooks 'n' sounds from their fave records and craftily synthesizing them into catchy, patchwork pop — something this San Fran…
    Tags: , , , , ,
    Music, Reviewed Psychic Ills

    Psychic Ills

    Psychic Ills is a relatively new quartet from New York developing an indie rock hybrid of Confusion Is Sex-era Sonic Youth (the shattered rhythms and screaming feedback), throbbing psychedelia à la Spacemen 3 and My Bloody Valentine, ghostly reverb-soaked post-punk…
    Tags: , , , , ,
    Music, Reviewed Prince Douglas

    Prince Douglas

    For the past several years, Basic Channel, a European label specializing in minimal electronics, has been reissuing a slew of roots records originally recorded in the late '70s and early '80s by Jamaican-born producer Lloyd "Bullwackie" Barnes in his Bronx-based…
    Tags: , , ,
    Music, Reviewed Pearls and Brass

    Pearls and Brass

    Pearls and Brass is a grungy stoner-rock trio from Allentown, Pa., and as is the case with most modern groups working from an early-'70s boogie-rock template, I guzzle a brew, dig a couple of its jams, and then my attention…
    Tags: , , , , ,
    Music, Reviewed Robert Wyatt & Friends

    Robert Wyatt & Friends

    The lineup Robert Wyatt utilized for this rare live performance in '74 is a who's who of the mid-'70s English progressive-rock scene. There is Wyatt himself (a founding member of Soft Machine) on synthesizer and vocals, Laurie Allan and Nick…
    Tags: , , , , ,
    Music, Reviewed Rodd Keith

    Rodd Keith

    In the early '70s, Rodd Keith was a deadbeat dad who fled his Pentecostal life in Michigan for Hollywood. There, he regularly devoured PCP, claimed he was "God's chosen," and composed hundreds of song-poems -- cheaply recorded pop tunes produced…
    Tags: , , , , ,
    Music, Reviewed Judy Henske & Jerry Yester

    Judy Henske & Jerry Yester

    In the late '60s, Warner Bros. formed this subsidiary, Straight Records, in order to release albums by that maestro of scatological art-rock Frank Zappa, as well as an assortment of visionaries and eccentrics Zappa was then digging: Tim Buckley, Captain…
    Tags: , , , , ,
    Music, Reviewed Samara Lubelski

    Samara Lubelski

    Samara Lubelski is an accomplished singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and recording engineer from New York City, who has spent the past decade playing in a couple of psych-folk outfits (Hall of Fame and Tower Recordings), as well as working with such underground…
    Tags: , , , ,
    Music, Reviewed Thuja

    Thuja

    Pine Cone Temples is a massive chunk of environmental music -- moody field recordings by four nature-loving experimental musicians from California retreating to the woods or a cavernous loft space and freely playing amplified sticks, stones, trees, archaic stringed instruments,…
    Tags: , , , ,
    Music, Reviewed Todd Tamanend Clark

    Todd Tamanend Clark

    The widely accepted notion that the mid-'70s were the doldrums of rock is pure myth. Some indispensably bizarre music was created during these years, with the comic book-inspired, electro-psychedelic glam-rock of one Todd Tamanend Clark serving as serious proof. Emerging…
    Tags: , ,
    Music, Reviewed Lightning Bolt

    Lightning Bolt

    Over the past decade, Lightning Bolt -- that mighty bass-and-drums duo from Providence, R.I. -- cultivated a brand-new form of underground rock, a powerful fusion of free noise, pounding dance grooves, the technical precision of metal, the low-end thump of…
    Tags: , , , ,

Concert Calendar

Find Any Show in Town

Slideshows

  • clipping at Brava Theater Sept. 11
    Sub Pop recording artists 'clipping.' brought their brand of noise-driven experimental hip hop to the closing night of 2016's San Francisco Electronic Music Fest this past Sunday. The packed Brava Theater hosted an initially seated crowd that ended the night jumping and dancing against the front of the stage. The trio performed a set focused on their recently released Sci-Fi Horror concept album, 'Splendor & Misery', then delved into their dancier and more aggressive back catalogue, and recent single 'Wriggle'. Opening performances included local experimental electronic duo 'Tujurikkuja' and computer music artist 'Madalyn Merkey.'"

Like us on Facebook

Popular Stories

  1. Most Popular Stories
  2. Stories You Missed