Sizzle & Fizzle: Highs and lows from the last week in S.F. music

Sizzle

Romana Machado

The Finnish Metal Tour brought Rotten Sound to S.F. last week.

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• Metal and Hardcore

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• Thee Oh Sees, Sic Alps, Ty Segall, and the Sandwitches delivered a fantastic primer on S.F. rock during a Coalition for the Homeless benefit show last week. Hint: We like it loud, primal, and chaotic.

• In a stunning surprise and major victory for independent labels and bands, Arcade Fire won the Grammy for Album of the Year. The ceremony on Sunday was still a largely infuriating spectacle, but at least it wasn't hopelessly irrelevant.

• The Finnish Metal Tour, featuring a bunch of bands like Barren Earth and Rotten Sound, came to S.F. last Thursday, giving us an excuse to wear black and terrorize a moshpit. What joyous, violent therapy it proved to be.

• Oakland rap duo Zion I announced plans last week to drop another album with local rapper the Grouch, called Heroes in the Healing of the Nation. Considering the fruit of their last collaboration, that's great news.

Fizzle

• Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett hinted to Rolling Stone that the band was heading into the studio this spring to record another project — but, he said, "It's not really 100 percent a Metallica record." What does that mean? We have no idea, but here's hoping it's not a Rod Stewart–style album of Great American Songbook covers.

• S.F. trumpeter Allen Smith, who helped break the color barrier in S.F. jazz clubs, died earlier this month at 85. According to his obituary in the Chronicle, Smith played with legends like Benny Goodman, Tony Bennett, and Ella Fitzgerald, along with many Bay Area bands.

• KUSF still held its rock 'n' swap — one of the largest record and memorabilia sales in the state— on the USF campus this past weekend. We're happy the long-running sale is still on, but the pain of losing KUSF's broadcasts is still fresh, both for us and for the Board of Supervisors, who passed a resolution last week opposing the sale of the station's FM broadcast license.

• Local DJ and Mezzanine booker Brian Tarney, aka BT Magnum, had all of his vinyl stolen on a train ride to Amsterdam. "If you are over in that neck of the woods and you see someone pedaling [sic] raw, sick-ass heat, please bring it to the attention [of] authorities," he wrote on Facebook.

For more on S.F. and Bay Area music, check out All Shook Down, our music blog.