Courtesy of Noise Pop
The Closer: Les Savy Fav
Get ready, San Francisco. That annual extravaganza of musical zanyness, alt./indie hiptitude, and overall sub-mainstream coolness known as Noise Pop is only three short weeks away! As always, attending a festival with so many performances in so many different venues requires plenty of pre-planning, so it's not too early to save your pennies, mark your calendars, and begin mapping out your N-Pop strategy.
This year's festival looks
Rocket Fuel, Straight Up: Kool Keith We've always thought of indie rock as being perfectly matched with cheap beer, rotgut whisky, and hangover-inducing vodka. And certainly, you'll find a lot of two-buck Chuck in the places where musicians live. But now, you can have a nice merlot or cabernet alongside your feedback, distortion, and shoegazing, thanks to a recently-announced venture between Noise Pop and Karl Wente, the fifth-generation winemaker behind Livermore's Wente Vineyards. Starting wit
Bob MouldBob Mould and Mark Eitzel
Swedish American Hall
February 28, 2009
Review by Vicky Walker
Better Than: All those weedy so-called "emo" musicians who wouldn't recognize tragedy if it bought them a beer.
Misery loves company, it's said, so I'm not surprised to see a sellout crowd at the Swedish American Hall for the myrmidons of melancholy, Bob Mould and Mark Eitzel. Round-shouldered young men in dark clothing huddle next to young women in sharp bangs and paisley-swirled frocks. Balding
Words by Jenna Humphrey (photo by
Peter Beste)
Loney DearMay 15, 2009Bottom of the Hill
Better Than: Pretending that you actually like to play beer pong.
It happens. Music that seems young and raw initially sounds like adult contemporary soft rock the more you hear it. Furthermore, you start thinking that it would be nice to actually sit down at a show. There was no sitting at Bottom of the Hill last night--this was a rock venue, people--but the evening was not an edgy one. Gone were
Autumn de WildeJay Farrar (left) and Ben Gibbard​We reported earlier that Death Cab For Cutie's Ben Gibbard and Son Volt's Jay Farrar teamed up on the soundtrack to a new Jack Kerouac documentary, One Fast Move or I'm Gone: Kerouac's Big Sur. (The movie and the soundtrack come out Oct. 20). Now the musicians have planned a live tribute to the Beat legend with a performance at Bimbo's on Oct. 24.The music uses lyrics based on Kerouac's 1962 novel Big Sur--which was written from the vacation cab
foam order.com
