Just as San Francisco’s late-’60s psychedelic scene was winding down, legendary concert promoter Bill Graham helped raise the Bay Area’s collective consciousness by bringing in artists such as Miles Davis, Sam & Dave, Otis Redding and B.B. King. By the time Oakland’s Tower of Power hit the scene in the…
The New Pornographers have a leg up on most groups, in that two of their members are accomplished solo artists: Neko Case has her alt-country thing, and Dan Bejar has Destroyer, his retro-weirdo Bowie thing. Together with New Porns principal A.C. Newman, they make near-perfect power-pop albums, culminating with 2005’s…
Take three Long Island-bred white girls, send them to Vassar, Oberlin and NYU, then bring them back together in New York to make some hip-hop tracks. Sounds like a recipe for precious, pretentious and potentially offensive disaster, right? Well, Northern State has been pulling this off since 2000 with mostly…
If Jad Fair had access to all the electronic gadgets and gizmos the Tudaloos have at their disposal today, the music he wrote back in the early ’80s might have sounded a lot like this. To call what the Tudaloos are doing simply indie pop would be to ignore the…
During a 2006 interview with Westword, blues legend Buddy Guy praised John Mayer for introducing his favorite genre to today’s listeners. Strange as it might seem, he’s got a point — but the problem is, newer blues-inspired acts often wind up sounding more like Mayer than Guy. Which isn’t to…
The Defectors, Bruised and Satisfied (Bad Afro). This slide-show of B-movies and ’60s garage punk has just enough menace to incite real fear. The cartoon “Bring on the Dancing Ghouls” seems goofy, but the underlying threat has to be taken seriously. Elsewhere, the nightmare-inducing “Bruised and Satisfied” could be the…
When McCoy Tyner, longtime pianist with John Coltrane’s quartet, says Terell Stafford is one of the great players of our time, that carries some serious weight. Tyner, who’s been playing professionally for fifty years, knows a good player when he hears one. He thought enough of Stafford’s playing to recruit…
With a bevy of ex-punk rockers and faux bohemians exploring electro-pop and hip-hop these days, the field is getting a bit crowded. All Teeth and Knuckles sets itself apart by bringing a defiant, energetic attitude and an undercurrent of irreverence to its songs. Seldom has such a scathing set of…
The Sex Pistols gave anarchy a headline and a splashy photo, then left it to the caustic Crass to do the research and provide the content. Subhumans then took that message and packaged it into a more palatable form — not unlike the Pistols — spinning parables, with typical dry…
Buffalo, New York’s It Dies Today takes inspiration from a strikingly wide range of sources. For instance, The Caitiff Choir, the five-piece’s 2004 disc, is named for a passage from Dante’s Divine Comedy (“Commingled are they with that caitiff choir/Of angels, who have not rebellious been/Nor faithful were to God,…
With the title of his 2006 CD, Clifford Harris, who goes by T.I., declared himself King, and unlike so many boasters before him, he backed up his braggadocio with bullion; the disc shifted more than a million units. His followup, T.I. Vs. T.I.P. , hasn’t been as widely embraced, in…
Over the past week, I’ve spent more time on the 1900 block of Market Street than I have over the past ten years or so — if you don’t include my regular Sunday-night stops at El Chapultepec (1962 Market Street) for live jazz. The ‘Pec, which has been around for…
Breathe Carolina plays a particular brand of synth pop that has worn so thin, it’s practically transparent. Yet in the hands of the group’s architects, David and Kyle, the songs, which are tinted with a swirl of screamo, work in curiously refreshing ways. Recalling Jeff Lynne’s joyful abuse of pop…
Luke Solomon has carved out a unique niche in the dance-music pantheon by spinning an enchanting, intriguing mix of tunes. He starts with a typical funky, soulful and slightly jazz-inflected deep house blueprint of laid-back beats, funky bass lines and groovy percussion. To this standard plan he adds science-fiction synth…
Although our August 23 interview with Tower of Power founding member Emilio Castillo mostly focused on the band’s new album, the sax player also talked about the early days of playing in Bay Area, coming in at the tail end of the psychedelic scene and having the group’s first record…
Korn guitarist Munky appeared to be more than a little befuddled during a conversation with Westword for an August 24 profile. A sizable percentage of questions during the interview (which took place on August 1, the day after the release of Korn’s eighth studio disc, Untitled) seemed to confuse him,…
The Dave Navarro who was interviewed by Westword for the August 23 Message column is very different from the one who chatted with the paper by phone in late 1990. During that conversation, he was slurring his words, sniffing loudly, bumping into furniture, losing track of his thoughts and otherwise…
Slide Show “This song is not a rebel song. This song is ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday!’” This song is beset by incorrectly tuned guitars. But let’s not get too nitpicky about local U2 tribute band Under a Blood Red Sky’s performance of “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and the rest of their act…
Backyard Tire Fire, Year Long Disaster, Clutch August 20, 2007 The Boulder Theater Better than: an actual backyard tire fire or yearlong disaster When I first saw Clutch in Austin in 1994, the audience was mostly clad in backward baseball caps and was there as an alternative to bar fighting…
Pelican, Clouds, Your Black Star August 19, 2007 Marquis Theater Better Than: The spiciest hot wings you ever ate. First to the stage was Louisville’s Your Black Star, a power trio that seemed to have an instrumental thing going at first, but a promising lead on some psychedelic and noisy…
The Ron Miles Group Saturday, August 18 Dazzle Better than: A mint julep on a hot summer day Trumpeter Ron Miles has style, man. And that tone, that gorgeous tone, it’s just downright classy. And to hear him do mainly a stylish, subdued set of ballads during Saturday’s 9 p.m…
Jim Bianco, Paper Bird, Bitter:Sweet August 15, 2007 The Walnut Room Better than: Any variety show I’ve ever seen. Question: What do you get when you add a musical comedian, an old-timey girl group and a smooth, downtempo chanteuse? Answer: Last night’s show at the Walnut Room. It started an…
