Jack White

The 2013 Grammy Awards: Few Surprises Despite Lots of Fun.

The Grammy Awards are dull and insipid every year, but at least for the last two years the Recording Academy managed a few surprises: In 2011, Arcade Fire won Album of the Year, providing a climactic reality-check for thousands of indie partisans; in 2012, the awards attempted to both grapple with t ... More >>

Without Borders

The First Listens of 2012: What We Got Right, What We Got Wrong

As evinced bu my initial take on Tyler, the Creator's Goblin and my final opinion, a lot happens between one's first listen to an album and their final conclusion after taking it in several times. What I love about writing these features is that you get to read my pure, unvarnished thoughts about a ... More >>

The Killers and M83 Rule Day 2 of Not So Silent Night, 12/8/12

The Killers, M83, Passion Pit, Tegan and Sara, Grouplove, Imagine Dragons Live 105's Not So Silent Night Saturday, Dec. 8, 2012 Oracle Arena Better than: The Not So Silent Night lineup from 10 years ago, which featured Moby, Disturbed, Sum 41, Papa Roach, Good Charlotte, Jurassic 5, and the Donnas. ... More >>

Ke$ha's Warrior: A First Listen

A quick scan of the titles on Ke$ha's second album means it better be her pop masterpiece -- nothing looks as hilarious or striking as "D.I.N.O.S.A.U.R." or "Party at a Rich Dude's House." But even those of us who wanted to love her found that debut fucking annoying. I was finally converted by the f ... More >>

Grace Potter and the Nocturnals Lead a Rock 'n' Roll Revival at the Fox, 11/3/12

Grace Potter and the Nocturnals Saturday, Nov. 3, 2012 Fox Theater, Oakland Better than: Believing rock is dead. Grace Potter is an old-school rockstar. With golden locks veiling her eyes and mile-long thighs in leather short-short shorts, she calls to mind Nancy Wilson in her "Barracuda" days. Bu ... More >>

The Top 6 New Green Day Songs, and How to Remember Them

It's only a few weeks until Green Day begins firing its trio of new albums -- ¡Uno! ¡Dos! and ¡Tres! -- out into the world. And surprisingly, given the stature of the band, a great deal of the new songs have already been posted or leaked to the Internet. With ¡Uno! due Sept. 25, it's high time w ... More >>

Old Versus New at Outside Lands 2012, With Old the Heavy Favorite

It was around 8:30 p.m. on Sunday night at Outside Lands, when Stevie Wonder and his band went into "Living For the City," that the festival's reverence for the past became most painful. Over on the Twin Peaks stage, Skrillex, the black-clad millionare monster at the top of EDM food chain, was just ... More >>

Even Scalped Outside Lands Tickets Are the Best Festival Deal of the Summer, Experts Say

If you didn't manage to get Outside Lands tickets before they sold out, and you still want to go the festival, we've got some good news for you: Experts say that even a scalped ticket to the three-day festival this weekend is the best music festival deal of the summer. The data comes courtesy of Se ... More >>

25 Gorgeous GIFs From Lollapalooza 2012

By REED FISCHER See Also:Ten things your Lollapalooza outfit says about you[Slideshow] Lollapalooza 2012 Day One: The Music[Slideshow] Lollapalooza 2012 Day Two: The Music [Slideshow] Lollapalooza 2012 Day Three: The Music[Slideshow] Lollapalooza 2012: The PeopleReady for some GIFs? To quote Ozz ... More >>

It's Outside Lands Week in S.F., and We'll Be Covering it All Right Here

The fifth-installment of the Outside Lands music festival begins this Friday, Aug. 10 -- which, hey, is only three days from now! To get you ready, we'll be previewing the confab all week here on All Shook Down, with artist interviews, advice on which acts to catch, info from the festival organizers ... More >>

Sizzle & Fizzle: Highs and Lows from the Last Week in S.F. Music

Outside Lands 2012 Set Times Are Out: Here's a Look at the Conflicts

Scheduling a festival like Outside Lands is never easy -- there's always going to be some fans who want to see two acts that happen to be playing at the same time. But judging by the set times released today, festival organizers have done a pretty decent job of minimizing the conflicts. As we wrote ... More >>

Going for Guinness: Five Artists Into Breaking World Records

If there was a chart depicting competitiveness in the world of music, there would be three levels on it. Stage 1: The Pearl Jam -- for artists who neither want nor need your stinking awards, and will merely shrug at the world when they accidentally win one. Stage 2: The Taylor Swift -- for artists w ... More >>

SF Weekly Letters

Van Halen's Reunion Tour Runs Aground on Reality

Outside Lands 2012 Lineup: Reactions From the Twitterverse

The Outside Lands lineup was announced this morning, which means music fans all over the world will spend a good chunk of today discussing it on Twitter. This year's lineup -- which includes Neil Young, Skrillex, Metallica, Beck, Jack White, the Foo Fighters, and many, many more -- seems to have pro ... More >>

Alert: SXSW Coverage Ahead

"What I want from each and every one of you is a hard-target search of every gas station, residence, warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse and doghouse in that area." -- Tommy Lee Jones, The Fugitive You don't have to spend much time at South By Southwest to know that all of the above building ... More >>

Ballet Sampler

The Black Keys' El Camino: A First Listen

No matter what you've read, the Black Keys are as generic as Kings of Leon. The super-successful Brothers was a good record, but didn't escape its own sameyness by the time you're waiting for it to be over. And their success only speaks to the market's sore vain need for a famous rock band right no ... More >>

Top 10 Weirdest Recent Couples in Music

We found out last week, from a variety of tabloidy sources, that 50 Cent and Chelsea Handler are currently -- well, not exactly hooking up, but having intimate conversations in a bar and talking about maybe hooking up. W.T.F. people? We'd like to take this opportunity to pat Chelsea on the back for ... More >>

Winter's Fall: Like a Cross Between Cormac McCarthy and Ray Bradbury

Winter's Fall performs at Rickshaw Stop next Wednesday, October 6​Berkeley indie-rock quartet Winter's Fall fuses Americana hooks and electronic atmospherics to create soaring anthems and graceful, high-energy rockers. The band's new album, At All Angles, delves into structural experimentation whi ... More >>

The Black Keys Have to Enjoy Doing This, Right?

Richard Haick​The Black KeysNicole AtkinsSeptember 29, 2010@ The Fox Theater, OaklandBetter than: Listening to old biker dudes noodle blues drivel in Guitar Center.Dan Auerbach couldn't squeeze out a smile on stage last night, but his band stuck one onto the face of every broham and babe in t ... More >>

Exclusive DJ Mix: K Avalon Gets Wild

K Avalon​San Francisco is brimming with bright, young talent precociously teetering on the edge of social obscurity and becoming your new favorite DJ/producer/party-starter. One such up-and-comer is recent Arizona import Kahley Emerson, or -- as she's referred to on the flier for Zoology, her new ... More >>

Play That Bluesy Music

10 Things To Do For Under $10: KISS Cover Love, Screaming Females, World Cupping

Screaming Females play tonight at Hemlock​There seems to be something cheap for everyone this lovely first weekend of June. Art openings, the ultimate underground foodie event, plenty of live music and D.J.s ready to vie for your attention -- and it's all for less than the cost of a quality six-pa ... More >>

Show preview: Karen Elson

Going to Coachella vs. the S.F. staycation

Q&A w/ Joyo Velarde of Quannum Projects

​Joyo Velarde is taking a break from being everybody's back-up singer. After incessant touring with Jurassic 5, the Living Legend Crew, Blackalicious, Michael Franti, Zion I, Ozomatli, and husband Lyrics Born, among many others, the classically-trained, Pleasanton-based, Quannum Projects vocalist ... More >>

Arthouse movie listings for December 16-22, 2009

Summer of Salvation

The film snob's guide to the best cinema the season has to offer.

Special Guests Announced For Tom Morello's Slim's Show

EKAphotographySomebody's Watching You: Tom Morello Back in the pre-Obama days, Tom Morello was like, the only guitar god with a conscience. While Slash and Jack White were doing bumps off of stripper tits, Morello was playing demonstrations outside the Democratic National Convention (with Rage Agai ... More >>

Treasure Island picks: in haiku form!

Dolly Parton, Free Agent

Some Country for Old Men

Seniors Scorsese and the Stones are together again.

Walk Hard: The first biopic to address bad tripping with the Beatles and slicing your sibling in half

Vanilla Ice Tells SFWeekly His Top Nine Records of '07

My Tunes: Lyrics Born

Quannum projects star and alt-rap icon

Fleecing Ourselves

Billy Childish: The art world's unpretentious snob

White Stripes

Icky Thump (Third Man/ Warner Brothers)

Jimi Eat World Saxophone Quartet

Why it makes perfect sense to find a jazz troupe playing Hendrix

Hear This

Pelican exhibits why it's joined Chicago's post-rock pantheon; the Greenhornes open for the White Stripes, and maybe show them up

This Week's Day-by-Day Picks

Dark Knight

Audacious art at Modern Times

Hear This

Like punk rock conga lines and dissing Moby? This show's right up your alley.

SF Weekly Music Awards 2003

Americana DJ/Selector/Turntablist Electronic/Electro Hard Rock/

Metal Hip Hop/Rap Jazz Latin/

International Lifestyle Music New Genre/Beyond Pop Punk Rock/Indie Rock Soul/Funk/ R&B

If music be the brandy of the damned, then we're drunk off our asses

House of Tudor

A Deadhead's Songcatchers and the best rock band in America

The White Stripes

Elephant

Riff Raff

The Gavin Seminar

Charmed

The amazing transformation of Carmen Policy, defender of mobsters, babysitter to flashy kid moguls, and now savior of the Cleveland Browns