Of Note
In an election year, each candidate argues that his or her vision of America is the real one and that the other candidate’s is not. But there are 300 million of us, and there are …
The Marsalis brother they don’t much talk about is Jason. Wynton Marsalis, 51, once considered the savior of all jazz has gotten celebrity ink to the point that he trips my odious meter. Branford, 52, …
I often hear Three Mile Pilot described as influential, but it’s hard to say what that means. Since their ’90s heyday as a pillar of San Diego’s indie-rock reputation, nothing has sounded quite like the …
“You won’t believe all that sound is coming from two people!” People always say that about rock duos — and there are a lot of rock duos these days. But the truth is, you usually …
When punks do folk music: Fat Opie is Scott Mickelson, Robin Hildebrant, and Dave Tavel, and punk-folk, if that’s even possible, is how they sound. And by that I mean not just a punk band …
The Offspring have been out of the spotlight for several years, but it doesn’t seem that way. Radio support for the best-selling punk band is enduring. “Come Out and Play,” for example, still gets regular …
If you hadn’t heard her music, you would be forgiven for thinking that Jessica Lea Mayfield makes traditional singer-songwriter music, but you would be wrong. Mayfield began her music career at age 8, playing in …
“What’s in it for someone with nothing to do? What’s in it for me?” asks Avigdnor Zahner-Isenberg in the debut single of his band Avi Buffalo. Indeed, Avi Buffalo was apparently born out of times …
Dax Riggs used to front a Louisiana sludge-metal band in the ’90s called Acid Bath. From then to now, I don’t think he’s changed all that much. Riggs might disagree, but I still hear the …
Lucy Michelle and the Velvet Lapelles started out their career playing for spare change on the University of Minnesota campus, and — in a move that is exceedingly rare among college-campus buskers — they soon …
It’d be a stretch, but you could say that Dead Feather Moon started in an Escondido high school. “That’s where I met two of the guys who are in the band,” says Justen Berge, who …
Calen Lucas and I had lunch with Chris Hillman once. “The Byrds guy, right?” he says. Exactly. We’d both been invited to a private luncheon with Hillman and his wife that preceded the Rock and …
The Intelligence’s new Everybody’s Got It Easy But Me begins with “I Like L.A.” and, in a way, the song tells the story of the band. Lars Finberg’s sardonic lyrics and nicotine-stained voice seem to …
In Retromania: Pop Culture’s Addiction to Its Own Past, music critic Simon Reynolds writes, “When I look back at the development of pop and rock during my lifetime...what perplexes me is the slow but steady …
Sometime in 2001, I was at a party in San Francisco when someone introduced me to Jason Hammel, one-half of the keyboards-drums duo Mates of State, which had recently moved to the Bay Area and …
“We wanted the sound of early Buffalo Springfield or the Small Faces.” This is Ray Wylie Hubbard, on the phone from Virginia City, NV, to talk about his 16th studio album, Grifter’s Hymnal. Ian McLagen …