Sonic Youth

The Wizard of Wilco: A Conversation with Guitarist Nels Cline

Album of the Year: Handicapping the Race for the Best Record of 2011

It's almost November -- the month when music scribes pull their ears out of whatever Sonic Youth/Public Enemy/Kate Bush playlist they normally exist to and begin cramming for that all-important professional exercise: The annual Best Of list. Picking the 10 or so best new albums of the year and placi ... More >>

The Top 50 Songs To Get High To

As you might imagine, combing back numbers of my Listen to This While High column and my own vast library for a reasonable stab at the Fifty Stoniest Songs Ever is a labor and hashish intensive experience. Preliminary fossickings unearthed these half-hundred favorites, many of which may seem unfamil ... More >>

Six Reasons to Love Crime (the Band)

Crime​ 1. San Francisco's Crime was the first West Coast punk band. Or at least the first to put out a record. (The Nuns and the Avengers were early, too.) Established in the summer of 1976 by Johnny Strike and Frankie Fix, Crime put out its first single, "Hot Wire My Heart" b/w "Baby, You're ... More >>

Yuck Leads a Roadtrip to Nostalgia at the Independent

​ Yuck Unknown Mortal Orchestra July 26, 2011 @ The Independent Better than: Listening to Yo La Tengo records and wishing you were 16 again. Barely post-adolescent British kids Yuck released a self-titled debut album this year on Fat Possum, and holy shit, do I love it, and holy shit, does i ... More >>

Six Extremely Weird Cover Songs, Featuring Bill Shatner, Dolly Parton, and ... Pat Boone?

Between Miley Cyrus covering Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and now Ben Folds covering "Sleazy" by (our guilty pleasure du jour) Ke$ha, we felt it was only appropriate this week, that we compile some other unexpected covers. Here are six of the weirdest we can think of. 6. Sonic Youth do ... More >>

Diamond Rings Gets Gloriously Androgynous at Rickshaw Stop

Diamond Rings at Rickshaw Stop last night.​Diamond Rings P.S. I Love You March 7, 2011 @ Rickshaw Stop Better than: Relying on the ballet or pastoral art scenes to get your fix of pretty. There's an argument floating around amongst a certain segment of indie rock fans that the genre has become ... More >>

Sic Alps: Show Preview

Diamond Rings at Rickshaw Stop last night.​Diamond Rings P.S. I Love You March 7, 2011 @ Rickshaw Stop Better than: Relying on the ballet or pastoral art scenes to get your fix of pretty. There's an argument floating around amongst a certain segment of indie rock fans that the genre has become ... More >>

Watch Sic Alps Grainy, Disorienting New Video for 'Do You Want to Give $$?'

He wanted to give.​Now here's a video that fits well with the accompanying song -- we can't get a clear grip on either. Sic Alps new album Napa Asylum (out tomorrow) is a bewildering, dirty, vaguely depressing slog, and we mean that in a good way! So the video for its first single, "Do You Wa ... More >>

White Cloud's Interests: Taxidermy, Absurd Realism, Psychedelic Art-Pop

White Cloud​A band with members from Kenya and Argentina -- and whose musical interests include doom metal, blues, and Krautrock -- could only have originated in a hotspot of diversity like the Bay Area. White Cloud's supernatural smoothie of Sonic Youth-influenced squalls, crashing unpredictabl ... More >>

Saturday Night Fever Indie Division

How the hipster set learned to shake their skinny jeans.

Wild Nothing Gets a Dance-Happy Popscene Crowd Swooning

​Wild Nothing@ Popscene September 16, 2010 Virginia's Wild Nothing probably could have picked a more appropriate venue for its San Francisco live debut. This Pitchfork-adored new wave outfit seemed as humble and shy-spoken as C86-influenced bands come. And the band's jangly bedroom po ... More >>

Cornershop To Play S.F. on First U.S. Tour in Eight Years

​You remember Cornershop, don't you? "Brimful of Asha," and all that? Indian-influenced/descended Brits doling out pleasantly funky Britpop/dance-twee/multi-culti grooves? Pretty much inescapable on late-'90s radio?So what if When I Was Born For The 7th Time came out in -- *shudder* -- 1997? It br ... More >>

Lux-urious Noise

​You remember Cornershop, don't you? "Brimful of Asha," and all that? Indian-influenced/descended Brits doling out pleasantly funky Britpop/dance-twee/multi-culti grooves? Pretty much inescapable on late-'90s radio?So what if When I Was Born For The 7th Time came out in -- *shudder* -- 1997? It br ... More >>

Concept Concert

Stars perform their hook-heavy new record from start to finish on their current tour.

Rock Mountain High

Stars perform their hook-heavy new record from start to finish on their current tour.

Last Night: Noisettes at the Rickshaw Stop

​Noisettes Rickshaw Stop July 28, 2009 Better than: Any show I've seen in a long time. America hasn't yet fallen under the spell of London trio Noisettes, but it's gonna happen soon. They are well known in their homeland, and their latest single, "Never Forget You," leaps out of my speakers whe ... More >>

Peep This

​Noisettes Rickshaw Stop July 28, 2009 Better than: Any show I've seen in a long time. America hasn't yet fallen under the spell of London trio Noisettes, but it's gonna happen soon. They are well known in their homeland, and their latest single, "Never Forget You," leaps out of my speakers whe ... More >>

Neptune's Gravitational Pull

​Noisettes Rickshaw Stop July 28, 2009 Better than: Any show I've seen in a long time. America hasn't yet fallen under the spell of London trio Noisettes, but it's gonna happen soon. They are well known in their homeland, and their latest single, "Never Forget You," leaps out of my speakers whe ... More >>

The War on Drugs

Wagonwheel Blues (Secretly Canadian)

High School Grotesque

Wagonwheel Blues (Secretly Canadian)

No Wave book helps define the anti-genre’s sound

Wagonwheel Blues (Secretly Canadian)

Dildo Dave Navarro Tells SF Weekly His Top Music Faves of 2007

Wagonwheel Blues (Secretly Canadian)

Thurston Moore

Trees Outside the Academy (Ecstatic Peace!)

Magik Markers

BOSS (Ecstatic Peace!)

The snorification of indie rock

BOSS (Ecstatic Peace!)

Killing your idols and your enemies

BOSS (Ecstatic Peace!)

The devil and death-metalheads

BOSS (Ecstatic Peace!)

Beth Orton

Comfort of Strangers

Psychic Ills

Dins

Hear This

Electrelane proffers that come close/go away rock; punk paragons the Leaving Trains do the "all original members" thing

Sightings

Arrived in Gold

CD Gift Box

Arrived in Gold

Hear This

The 3rd Annual Noise Rock Picnic wreaks havoc on unsuspecting families. Black Dice and Animal Collective bring the Brooklyn noise.

Treasure Hunt

It's hard to figure Demonlover out, but it's fun to try

To the Lighthouse

Not too long ago, in a studio far, far away, Iceland's múm developed a transcendental brand of indie-electronic music

War, What Is It Good For?

Absolutely nothing -- unless you're Clear Channel Communications

Reps Etc.

Absolutely nothing -- unless you're Clear Channel Communications

What's the Frequency, Kenneth?

Can Live 105 become a kool thing again?

Hear This

Can Live 105 become a kool thing again?

The Velvet Underground

Bootleg Series Volume 1: The Quine Tapes (Polydor)

Chaos Theory

KaitO is the successor to musical noisemakers like Sonic Youth and Stereolab

Unwound

Leaves Turn Inside You (Kill Rock Stars)

Ulan Bator

Ego: Echo (Young God)

House Of Tudor

Stinky's Peep Show Four-Year Anniversary; The Gossip; "Live From the 215"

Acetone

York Blvd. (Vapor)

Blonde Redhead

Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons
(Touch and Go)

Perfectly Weird

Happily, Zmrzlina's members aren't sure what their own music sounds like

Review

The Promise Ring's Very Emergency!

Recordings

The Promise Ring's Very Emergency!