Jello Biafra has called Legendary Shack Shakers vocalist J.D. Wilkes “the last great rock and roll front man.” I don’t know about the “last” part, but I agree that there are not many singers left …

The Electric Prunes are best known for their 1966 hit “I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night),” a great song and a fantastic example of psychedelia kitsch. With its backwards-playing guitars and unusual echo …

It’s probably a bad idea to name your band with a Beatles reference, especially if you write melodic, exquisitely arranged guitar-pop songs with lots of vocal harmonies. That’s like having a Led Zeppelin-y hard-rock band …

Of all the bands to come out of the Los Angeles punk scene, the Germs were always the best cut out for a tacky biopic. Their story had it all: the male-female lineup, the tragic …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

Belly Up Tavern, Sunday, November 18, 8 p.m. 858-481-8140. $6. There are now more bands with the word "wolf" in their name touring North America than there are actual wolves in the wild. But Los …

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 …

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 …

Tegan and Sara Quin have been playing music professionally long enough to have long since moved on from their folk-rock days (they played one of the Lilith Fair tours -- remember those?) and to develop …

"If you like Hendrix, you'll like this," my guitar teacher said, handing me a cassette of the Psychedelic Furs' second album, Talk Talk Talk. More than 20 years later, I have no idea what he …