Of Note
Belly Up Tavern, Thursday, December 20, 8 p.m. 858-481-8140. $17. Jackson Browne says they're one of his favorite bands, and he compares their vocal harmonies to Crosby, Stills, and Nash -- an appropriate choice, because …
It's hard to talk to blues singer Janiva Magness and not bring up the rub board. "It's custom made," she says. "The patent is owned by a woman from New Orleans." Magness tells me where …
Back in the mid-'90s, Imperial Teen charmed critics and indie audiences with their simple, hook-filled songs and friendly stage presence. The band members, Roddy Bottum, Will Schwartz, Lynn Perko, and Jone Stebbins, traded instruments and …
The music that Ahmad Jamal was making in the early 1970s spoke of kinder days ahead. Jamal's jazz at that time was more cushion than intellect. Things were looking up: a bloody decade of civil …
San Francisco has been a big town for Britpop since before they called it Britpop. I don't know why; my guess is that it has something to do with the fog. Ordinarily, this simply means …
Belly Up Tavern, Monday, December 3, 8 p.m. 858-481-8140. $15 Iggy Pop and Frank Black and the Violent Femmes all have Jonathan Richman in common, but you're not likely to get the connection without having …
The Casbah, Sunday, December 2, 8:30 p.m. 619-232-4355. $12. In October, New Yorker magazine published "A Paler Shade of White: How Indie Rock Lost Its Soul," an article by Sasha Frere-Jones in which the always-provocative …
4th & B, Tuesday, November 27, 8 p.m. 619-231-4343. $20. There are many singer-songwriters trying to sound like the new Nick Drake, but that goal comes with some serious side effects. Fully inhabiting the role …
Anthology, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, December 21-23. 619-595-0300. $21 to $63. The trick of the jazz big-band ensemble is to sound as one, such that the individual instruments are indistinguishable. Not counting the soloists, the intention …
AcousticMusicSan-Diego, Saturday, November 17, 7:30 p.m. 619-303-8176. $18 or $22. I thought Sing You Sinners was a fearless gesture, given Erin McKeown's catalog of funky, hip-hoppy (and sometimes countrified) folk/punk/swing. She belongs to that musical …
House of Blues, Friday, November 9, 7 p.m. 619-299-2583. $15. From the moment I first heard the song "Ageless Beauty" from Stars' 2005 album Set Yourself on Fire, I was smitten. I kept on being …
The Casbah, Friday, November 9, 8:30 p.m. 619-232-4355. $12. Heavy Trash (Jon Spencer and Matt Verta-Ray) is like a snapshot of a familiar subject taken from a different angle and in harsh lighting. The Beat …
In the early 1960s SDSU Professor Emeritus Joel Henderson stayed for a while in Boston. "I was probably living the life," he says, "that Jack Kerouac wrote about." He took a room over the Golden …
New York band Robbers on High Street gets a lot of comparison to Spoon (for Robbers drummer-singer Benjamin Trokan's raspy voice and the band's taut rhythms) and the Kinks (for Trokan's smart, detail-rich lyrics) and …