Heavy metal hasn’t been this much fun since Van Halen made it music that a person could sing along to. In general, the genre takes itself far too seriously. Metal music comes couched in grand …

“Good music for bad people,” is how Brenna Red once described her band’s oeuvre. The Last Gang is an Orange County punk trio born almost an entire generation after the West Coast’s punk scene faded. …

“Me? I’m in a rock and roll band.” Willie Nile sings that line from “Sweet Jane” almost as good as did the song’s creator, Lou Reed. Now 69, Nile, looks like he could be Reed’s …

Vincent Herring is a part of the grand inventory of straight-ahead jazz alto saxophone players. His is not a name that leaps out, perhaps, which reduces Herring’s significance not one bit. The trouble with the …

What came to mind the first time I heard JD McPherson’s band? My childhood. He reminded me of being four years old and leaving out of Texas in ‘57 with my mom and the music …

In 1964, the Kinks invented garage rock. Even though garage was more or less finished by 1968, the concept never really went away. Las Rosas, a Brooklyn trio, knows this. The heart of that ancient …

When Madeleine Peyroux comes around this time, she’ll be travelling light. It’s a trio gig with guitar, acoustic bass, and her voice to support the jazz-and-blues singer’s 20 years of recordings. I think her own …

“Our career was a skyrocket.” It’s Bob Berryhill, the last original member of the Surfaris, phoning the Reader from his home in Laguna Beach. “We started in December of 1962.” The band was Jim Fuller, …

“Hot Snakes?” my pal said. “I totally loved that band. Are you going?” That’s been the standard comeback among friends who were club-age back during the 1980s and 90s, when San Diego’s indie punk scene …

Just as Joey, Dee Dee, Johnny, and Tommy were not really Ramones, Jon, Barry, and Mince Fratelli aren’t related, and they aren’t Fratellis. It’s an inside joke. Remember the bad guys in The Goonies? That’s …

The name of the band says it all: Pink Talking Fish is three tributes in one. The band re-creates the music of Pink Floyd, Talking Heads, and Phish. But not by playing one song at …

“Andres Segovia on steroids.” Shred metal guitarist and Megadeth front man Dave Mustaine’s own words, when asked to describe bandmate Kiko Loureiro. That would have been back in 2015, following the announcement that Loureiro had …

Fruition is a five-piece act that is often labeled a bluegrass-alt country-jam band, and depending on one’s point of reference, the band can fit into any or all of those genres. Fruition’s three-piece vocal harmony …

Livin’ for today / singin’ for tomorrow... Is it safe to say that some of the world’s best New Orleans-style funk and soul bands come from the West Coast? Probably no. But our track record …

The last time the soul band Southern Avenue blew through town, I commented in these pages that maybe a decade on the road would put grit into their sound. Sounds like they’ve done it in …

As the gods of metal age: the short list includes Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Saxon, Black Sabbath, Udo Dirkschneider, and those other German head-bangers, the Scorpions. Most of these bands have retired, thought better of …

“There’s live jazz every night here in town.” When I arrive, Robert Dove, a tenor sax player, a jazz guy, is waiting at the Ken Club’s bar. We pool our resources: between us, $22 dollars. …

“It’s like no other scene. It’s an audience that’s appreciative,” Peter Marin says, “but, in another way.” Marin, 63, is a jazz singer. He performs at venues throughout San Diego, including senior retirement homes. “For …

You could call this story “Just Being There.” It’s about how Matt Hensley, from Vista, went from pro skater to being a working member of Flogging Molly. “The only odd thing,” he says by phone, …

“Life is confused,” Langhorne Slim sings, “and people are insane.” Slim’s a 37-year-old singer/songwriter oft-branded as alt country. “Can we be happy for a while/ Can we just sit down and shut up and smile?” …

Readying to tour in support of her newest release, Love Is an Army, Janiva Magness checks in from her Culver City digs. We talk about artistic development. Magness is a blues singer. Electric blues at …

Right about the point when you’re thinking this is a band that should have never left the garage, Grails delivers. The band has a sound that is its own: in this case, nuanced, shadowy, ominous …

Possibly the most baffling love song ever recorded comes out of Ohio. It was released sometime during the early 1970s, and just about anyone from back then will know these words: “I can see why …

Your basic acoustic piano is a bunch of wires strung at varying degrees of tension across an iron frame sandwiched inside of a wooden box for resonation. One controls said machine via 88 keys laid …

Live electro-fusion throwdown: in the band Kung Fu’s own words, they describe themselves as a part of the new-funk movement. Not that funk didn’t need revising — it did. Consider that the funk of old …

You can’t make this stuff up. John Hiatt, from Indianapolis, left home as a teen troublemaker in a rock band. He landed work in Nashville — not as a dishwasher or a grocery bagger, but …

No, not a CD-release party, although jazz music will be played live. It’s a book-signing party, the author of which is central to the band. Anthony Smith’s back in town after four years in New …

We’re going to have a lot of musicians here tonight, and they all get a turn. Okay?” A half dozen men circle around a thin man with a top bloom of white hair in long-sleeved …

It was a dark month, October. When reports of Tom Petty’s sudden death got leaked by the press, the loss felt personal. In the minutes and days and weeks to follow, Swiss psychiatrist Elizabeth Kübler-Ross’s …

Alas, the public imprint from having notable parents. I’d resolved not to make mention of mother Ingrid, the famous restaurateur, nor Jim, the famous singer who died in his prime. But in the end, I …

“Expect 30-something minutes of reverb,” L.A. Witch frontwoman/guitarist Sade Sanchez has said of her band’s debut release. The L.A. music scene has long gone stale, but with this kind of raw music coming out today, …

It’s almost as if Starcrawler read the list of how to be a ’60s American garage rock band. Loud-ass lead guitarist with much skill and many exciting poses? Check. Smokin’ rock and roll rhythm section …

Some years ago I was invited to sit in on a masterclass taught by blues guitarist Coco Montoya. I play blues sax. Possibly the organizer thought I’d gain some new insights. “I bet each of …

“I don’t like to be told to turn my amp down.” This is Andrew McKeag on the phone. “People don’t understand how much fun it is to hear a loud rock band.” Some of you …

“It’s a celebration of my new music,” is how pianist Joshua White describes 13 Short Stories when he checks in by phone. “The new album, it tells a story of the band, of us as …

Chad VanGaalen’s got a troubling voice. The Canadian singer/songwriter sounds like a cross between another Canadian named Neil Young and a smoke alarm. He uses that singing voice to bait a listener into simple-sounding little …

Who didn’t see it coming? If you witnessed Tal Wilkenfeld in concert with Jeff Beck in the past couple of years and thought of her as the bass player, you were only partly right. Yes, …

The road to Sharon’s Worm World is in turn blacktop, gravel, then finally Ramona dirt. Sharon McLaughlan, the worm farm’s founder and namesake, is waiting at the crest of the dusty lane that ends at …

Blues for millennials. Which is another way of saying blues for an audience that doesn’t necessarily dig the blues. Or gospel either, for that matter. No bad on millennials. Blues, gospel, and soul is not …

Different, yes, but not so much so as to strand a listener in that “I want to like this band, but...” purgatory. The World Is a Beautiful Place and I Am No Longer Afraid to …

I used to think the Black Crowes were a loud band until I experienced Mastodon. The back story: I’d been granted a working-category stage pass back when San Diego still hosted Street Scene weekend concerts. …

“I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warnin’/ Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world.” Not surprised to hear Bob Dylan early in the soundtrack of …

I’m going out on a limb to say this, but I hear echoes of ABBA here and there in Walter TV. Which is not meant as a bad thing. In fact, it’s the haunted-house version …

“They’ve been calling me blues all these days,” says Len Rainey. “But I do a lot of R&B, some soul, some rock. I even used to play jazz fusion,” he says, sounding a little surprised …

“The band never went all the way away.” Vaden Todd Lewis would know. As one of the Fort Worth band’s founding members, he is also one of its survivors. The band broke out in 1994 …

Southern Avenue is the name of a street in Memphis. On it, at 1932, is Soulsville, the original home of the legendary Stax Records. It is also the name of a band, a brand new …

After publishing this preview, the Dennis Quaid and the Sharks show was canceled so a benefit could be held for the victims of Hurricane Harvey. Art imitates life, which is busy imitating art: not exactly …

Thundercat claims Miles Davis as an inspiration, along with jazz bassist Ron Carter and a pianist named Mary Lou Williams who was mostly active during the golden era of jazz, but you’d have to dig …

If there is any truth to the rumor, the last thing Joey Ramone heard in this life was U2’s In a Little While. He died in a New York hospital in 2001. But, there are …

Pure and greasy, raw, nasty, sexy, down-home Texas-style blues: there are possibly three or four authentic blues performers in San Diego, and Lafayette Falkquay is at the top of the stack. He’s a product of …