Subject: M.I.A. (Musician)

• Bird Flu Creator M.I.A. Infects SF's Rickshaw Today

  July 28, 2007

• Live 105's summer concert lineup lacks luster this year

  April 14, 2008

• Last Night: M.I.A. at the SF Design Center

  May 22, 2008

• The Year in Music: 2008's Top Ten Pop Songs

  By Annie ZaleskiPop music often gets a bad rap for being disposable or vapid, and in many cases that's true. (Katy Perry, Danity Kane and the Pussycat Dolls, step right up!) But every year, a few irresistible bits of innovative ear candy rocket up the charts and seep into our subconscious. The following ten singles saturated the Top 40 -- or what passes for hit-oriented radio in this topsy-turvy musical climate -- while proving that accessibility doesn't necessarily preclude creativity. CHRIS

  December 17, 2008

• Top Ten Dance Collections of 2008, Both Mixed and Unmixed

  By Randall RobertsAny knucklehead with DSL and a laptop can now make an electronic track. With a half hour of clicking and fiddling, you can sample enough cheesy beats and mashups to clog arteries from here to Berlin. Simple dropdown mouse maneuvers can transform electro tracks into progressive house tracks (from dry and synthetic to wet and gushy), rhythm tracks can be tempo-tweaked with an upward toggle to change a Timbaland beat into a Chromeo one. Add some T-Pain-esque pitch-correction vocal

  December 22, 2008

• Last Night: Tom Morello, Steve Earle, Wayne Kramer, Sammy Hagar, Boots Riley, Corey Taylor, Joe Satriani and Damian Kulash

  Tom Morello, Steve Earle, Wayne Kramer, Sammy Hagar, Boots Riley (The Coup), Corey Taylor (Slipknot), Joe Satriani, and Damian Kulash (OK Go) Thursday, March  26, 2009Slim'sBetter than: Playing Guitar Hero.It was midway through the Tom Morello hootenanny when Rage's shredding machine grinned at the crowd and said, "Let me remind you, you all paid $15 to get in tonight. That's like a buck a superstar." Actually, if you were gonna  do the math, by the end of the night, we'd been entertai

  March 26, 2009

• Sound System Gonna Bring Me Back Up

  April 8, 2009

• Tom Morello and Boots Riley rage as one in Street Sweeper

  April 1, 2009

• Club Collector

  October 29, 2008

• Santogold: pop's new Gwen Stefani

  June 4, 2008

• Rapper Dizzee Rascal Hopes Third Time Is the American Charm

  May 14, 2008

• Lif Off

  January 23, 2008

• Tormenta Tropical and Bersa Discos bring Buenos Aires cumbia to the clubs

  January 9, 2008

• The new Fox Theater, the arty Red Poppy, and the hustlin' Demolition Men

  The Bay is looking up in 2008

  January 2, 2008

• My Tunes: Lyrics Born

  Quannum projects star and alt-rap icon

  December 5, 2007

• Motor and Guns 'n' Bombs: greasy hump-tech for your body-pumping pleasure

  September 19, 2007

• Gimme Indie Rock!

  Local promoters take a big risk to give S.F. a music fest that will restore the city's cool cred

  September 12, 2007

• M.I.A. crams global jams into an intimate local venue

  July 25, 2007

• The Good Magazine Block Party

  Everybody's a GOOD Samaritan these days: the music trend of worthy causes

  July 11, 2007

• It's so easy being green: Jim Henson's lasting music legacy

  June 20, 2007

• MIDI Me

  March 14, 2007

• Boss S-O-V

  Lady Sovereign conquers America, yeah?

  November 8, 2006

• Miss Violetta Beauregarde

  Odi Profanum Vulgus Et Arceo (Temporary Residence Ltd.)

  October 4, 2006

• The Boys (and Girls) From Brazil

  Diplo, Bonde do Role, and CSS bring on the funk

  August 9, 2006

• A&R Q&A

  Never mind the guys in Wolf Parade, here's an interview with their A&R guy

  December 28, 2005

• What's in store for indie rock and prime time in a post-O.C. universe

  October 19, 2005

• Maple Leaf Boogie-Woogie

  A cheat sheet of bands from the new Seattle -- that's right, Canada!

  September 14, 2005

• Hipster San Diego

  It's not all surf and silicone in America's Finest City

  June 29, 2005

• BeatBox

  The pioneering Platinum Pied Pipers give neo-soul its due; "The Club Scene" at the Endup is the real deal

  June 1, 2005

• Best Music Promoter

  May 11, 2005

• The United Colors of M.I.A.

  This Sri Lanka-born, London-based MC knocks down more walls than our global village can even think to put up

  March 9, 2005

• Delicate Cutting

  May 6, 2009

• Last Night: Santigold at the Warfield

  SantigoldThursday, May 21, 2009The Warfield TheaterReview by Jesse Ducker Better Than: A bloodless M.I.A. concert "It feels like the first day of school!" Santigold told a screaming, full house at the Warfield last night, on the opening date of her national tour. "We've got new outfits and everything!" Bay Area residents turned out in droves to see Santigold, packing the music hall to the rafters. And while a good amount of the fans were the to-be-expected twentysomething hipster crowd, a

  May 22, 2009

• Cheap Musical Thrills

  June 24, 2009

• Our picks for Spectrum, the weekend’s big dance party

  June 24, 2009

• Outside Lands Asks Public for Headliner Suggestions

  Now that the Beastie Boys have pulled out of Outside Lands, announcing the bad news that MCA has to undergo treatment for cancer of the parotid (salivary) gland, the festival has turned to the public to ask what artists should be considered as replacements for Sunday night's big finale. Outside Lands' Twitter feed posed the question, "Ranger Dave is diligently working to replace the Beastie Boys. Any suggestions?" Got some ideas? Tweet back--and make sure they're not the same acts performing at

  July 21, 2009

• Masters of Puppets

  July 29, 2009

• Jega's SF Record Release Party this Saturday

  Pensive: Jega​ I've always thought IDM--intelligent dance music--to be somewhat of a strange name for a microgenre. Its implications seem rather assumptive, namely that most dance music (and, by extension, dance music audiences) is stupid. Also, since dance music's primary function is to move our bodies, does the brain even need to be engaged? Doesn't rhythm happen on an instinctual/synaptic level? And can one wear black turtlenecks with silver go-go boots? Furthermore, while artists like

  August 19, 2009

• Amanda Blank: indie dance star in the making

  August 19, 2009

• M.I.A. Bashes Tenacious D on Twitter

  EKAphotography copyright 2007. all rights reservedHatin' on the D: M.I.A.​ Courtesy of Perez Hilton via Prefix magazine, SriLankan/UK rebel rapper M.I.A. has dropped the Twitter equivalent of a stink bomb on her fellow Outside Lands performers Tenacious D, who had the misfortune to replace the ever-popular Beastie Boys at this weekend's massive San Francisco music festival. "IM TAKIN BIRD FLU OUT OF THE SET ! JUS TO MAKE A POINT," M.I.A. Tweeted in all-caps, showing her apparent anger at pr

  August 25, 2009

• Outside Lands Picks Part 1: Five Ways to a Fitter You

  August 26, 2009

• Outside Lands Trivia Challenge

  Zap Mama​ The headliners for this weekend's Outside Lands festival--Pearl Jam, the Dave Matthews Band, Black Eyed Peas, Thievery Corporation, Tenacious D, and M.I.A.--need little introduction. But what about the undercard? One of the coolest things about this event is the sheer number of acts playing, not to mention the tremendous range and diversity of style. Since it's impossible for any one person to know everything about every act playing, we thought we'd give ya a little trivia quiz to he

  August 26, 2009

• Outside Lands Day Two: Street Sweeper Social Club, Trombone Shorty, Black Eyed Peas, The Mars Volta

  EKAphotography​Outside Lands Day 2: Street Sweeper Social Club, Trombone Shorty, Black Eyed Peas, The Mars Volta, & more, Saturday, August 20, 2009.Better Than: sitting in the park, waiting for you.The first day of Outside Lands was a huge freakin' success, especially if you stayed at the Twin Peaks stage (like I did). The opening night salvo of Zap Mama-Midnite-Q.Tip-Thievery Corporation was a potent one, to be sure. But how would Day Two line up? First of all, unlike the first day, there

  August 30, 2009

• Dead Prez Boots Riley Tonight @Black Dot

  EKAphotographyRBGz at YBG: dead prez @G4G's solar-powered concert​ Outside Lands, Shmoutside Lands. The hundreds of folks who came out to Yerba Buena Gardens to see dead prez and Mistah F.A.B. perform for free yesterday may have gotten a better deal than the tens of thousands who shelled out $90 to see M.I.A., Lucinda Williams, the Dead Weather, and Tenacious D. I'm not saying that just because - full disclosure - I worked the PR for this event, a solar-powered hip-hop concert presented by Gr

  August 31, 2009

• Outside Lands Post-Script

  EKAphotographyVinyl Vamp: Zap Mama​ Fickle weather and last-minute headliner replacements aside, Outside Lands was a success, by most yard sticks. Here's what folks are saying about the three-day extravaganza, which drew more than 100,000 people to Golden Gate Park: Local reaction: The Chron's Aidin Vaziri noted the lack of "urgency in the air" for big-ticket headliners, but added that the event itself was the event: "unlike last time, when people stampeded for hot commodities like Radio

  September 1, 2009

• Music Awards: Lazer Sword

  October 14, 2009

• Weekend Chatter: Buraka Som Sistema Q&A

  ​Lisbon-based Buraka Som Sistema headlines Mezzanine Saturday night, bringing its mashup of vocal percussion with zombified, broken-legged dance contortions. The foursome who leapt into global view with 2008's Black Diamond is now making its second SF visit. The group will batter crowds with dissonant siren-thumps and crawling Portuguese slang, fitting within the same seismic frame as sometime-collaborator M.I.A. and African soukous giant Koffi Olomide. Buraka are today's leading practition

  November 12, 2009