Latest posts by Zack Ruskin

The days when Caleon Fox’s dad would bring him to tailgates at Raiders games are not far behind him, yet Oakland no longer resembles the birthplace of hyphy that once played host to parking lot sideshows. As the landscape has changed, so have the artists who live there. For a rapper on the rise like […]

Have you ever smoked a song? That may sound like the idle musings of someone who has ingested a bit too much THC, but thanks to a three-way collaboration between the band Thievery Corporation, vaporizer titans PAX, and Oakland’s Blue River Extracts, the opportunity to take a puff of “Lebanese Blonde” is very much a […]

When Japandroids guitarist Brian King and drummer David Prowse played San Francisco’s Hemlock Tavern nearly 10 years ago, they already had their sights set on the Fillmore. “The Fillmore is a legendary venue,” King says. “When we were playing the Hemlock all those years ago, at the time, we were thinking that maybe one day […]

  For many pot enthusiasts, 420 will always be a day to gather with hundreds of fellow stoners and smoke a truly staggering amount of cannabis. However, for dispensaries, the occasion also offers a chance to make big sales and hopefully welcome some new customers into the fold. On Friday, cannabusinesses across the Bay Area […]

While Californians prepare to celebrate 4/20, the cannabis industry finds itself at a crossroads. It’s been nearly four months since adult-use marijuana became available for sale in cities across the state, but bureaucratic red tape and cumbersome taxes remain major roadblocks on the path to a fully realized market. When Berkeley Patients Group COO Sean […]

While the bedrooms that first played host to Dashboard Confessional posters may now be vacant — their former occupants now off to college or settling into marriages and first careers — fans of the emo rock outfit anchored by Chris Carrabba are returning to the flock. Since 2003’s A Mark, a Mission, a Brand, a […]

With the legalization of recreational cannabis in California now fully in effect, it was only a matter of time before pot culture made a drastic leap forward as well. April 20 has long been celebrated as a stoner holiday. There are reggae concerts and organized smoke-outs on college campuses and a massive gathering at San […]

Aaron Axelsen’s office at Alt 105.3 (née Live105) is a shrine to local music. There are shelves tightly packed with countless records, and the walls are covered with concert posters. An autographed setlist from The Killers rests in a frame. At the center of it all is Axelsen, a man with multiple careers that all […]

To see arch-conservative Grover Norquist and former NAACP president Ben Jealous in the same room sounds like the set-up to a bad joke. However, on April 20, they will both appear as part of Washington, D.C.’s first annual National Cannabis Festival Policy Summit. Meant to “highlight progress in reforming cannabis laws around the country,” the […]

Doug Guy doesn’t consume cannabis — but he believes in its power to heal. A friend who wanted to grow marijuana in Massachusetts got him thinking about the plant for the first time. “My friend was talking about putting tents in people’s yards and then doing a co-op grow and splitting the yield,” Guy says. […]