The term “emo” has become synonymous with whiny, tight-jeans-wearing 13-year-olds with asymmetrical haircuts. (Thanks, Hot Topic.) But stereotypical B.S. aside, in the beginning, emo — short for “emotional punk rock” — was a compelling music movement in the early 1990s and 2000s typified by melodic guitar, motley rhythms, and expressive, pour-your-heart-out lyrics. “It went from… [Read more…]
June 29, 2011
Hunter Mack is many things — visual artist, U.C. Berkeley mechanical engineering PhD, new dad — but music fans know him best as the owner and president of Oakland-based, 7-inch-centric Gold Robot Records. The indie label’s releases include the now-disbanded Volunteer Pioneer, San Francisco’s Man/Miracle, and Bonnie “Prince” Billy of Drag City Records, among others.… [Read more…]
April 28, 2011
“It’s $40 for one game with shoes. Or, $38 for one hour and shoes,” says the Serra Bowl cashier with mild frustration while he Lysols a pair of freshly-worn bowling shoes at the counter. Gabe Turow, percussion, keys, and back-up vocals for the chamber pop-turned-funk duo King Baldwin, turns to me, perplexed. Which is the better… [Read more…]
April 4, 2011
RECORDING SESSION “It’s one of those things you say in an interview and then regret two years later,” sighs Meric Long, vocalist and guitarist of San Francisco pop folk duo the Dodos, when asked about the influence of West African drumming on the group’s music, a factoid that saturates the blogosphere. “As a band, in… [Read more…]
March 29, 2011
Because of the rusty pieces of corrugated sheet metal crudely affixed to its exterior, I almost mistake Tiny Telephone, a recording studio, for a very large, dilapidated storage unit. But on a brick-red door, alphabet letter magnets spell out “tiny,” and only bits of dried glue and fragments of “telephone” remain. This must be it.… [Read more…]
September 20, 2011
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