Vampire Weekend

Last Night: Vampire Weekend at the Independent

Coachella 2008 Lineup Announced

Last Night: Dirty Projectors at the Independent

Justice, Hot Chip, Spiritualized, Raconteurs at Treasure Island

Hey DJ! Friday Q&A: Aaron Axelsen

Last Night: Treasure Island Day 2

Our picks from Noise Pop’s local launch pad

Afropop in 2008

Buy the book

Two mediocre adaptations by two directors who really should have known better.

International crate digging gets new life online

Two mediocre adaptations by two directors who really should have known better.

Islands

Arm's Way (Anti-)

The Bookish Bunch

Vampire Weekend's shaky smart-aleck stand

Suck on It

Vampire Weekend's shaky smart-aleck stand

King Sunny Adé's legnthy reign

Vampire Weekend's shaky smart-aleck stand

The Dodos 

Time to Die  (Frenchkiss)

Here Comes Christmas: Your Seasonal Nightlife Picks

The Golden Girls, S.F.-style​It's a shame to start the holidays with so much news about shopping when there are plenty of other ways to milk December for all its worth.Personally, I'm a big fan of The Golden Girls - The Christmas Episodes. In the hands of comedic drag queens Cookie Dough, Matthew ... More >>

December's best holiday music events

The Golden Girls, S.F.-style​It's a shame to start the holidays with so much news about shopping when there are plenty of other ways to milk December for all its worth.Personally, I'm a big fan of The Golden Girls - The Christmas Episodes. In the hands of comedic drag queens Cookie Dough, Matthew ... More >>

Friday Night: Not So Silent Night at Oracle Arena

Christopher VictorioEmily Haines of Metric​View more photos in Christopher Victorio's "Not So Silent Night @ Oracle Arena."Not So Silent Night w/ Muse, AFI, 30 Second to Mars, Vampire Weekend, and MetricFriday, Dec. 11, 2009Oracle ArenaBetter Than: What else is there to do on a rainy Friday night? ... More >>

Monday Morning Hangover: Drunk Santas, Lusty Ladies and Not So Silent Night

The Holidays are creeping up on us, and that not only means more drinking, but more drinking in Santa hats. Red and green tinged parties are hard to avoid right now, and we went to more than a few of them over the weekend.Hanna Quevedo​In some parts of the country, the beginning of the Christmas s ... More >>

Get A Streaming Preview of the New Vampire Weekend

​San Francisco seems to love Vampire Weekend. The band comes to town, the show quickly sells out. The New York pop prepsters also inspire a love 'em or hate 'em outpouring of opinion, though (the recent New Yorker piece on the group included a backhanded slap of a quote from Pitchfork). Personally ... More >>

Coachella Brings Pavement, Jay-Z, Them Crooked Vultures, Thom Yorke, and Girls Together

PavementMarcus Roth © 1999​Pavement's first West Coast date of its 2010 reunion tour was announced today, as the Coachella lineup went live with the indie rock giants as Sunday's big headliner. The news will likely send the group's many geeked out fans into organizing the So Cal caravans for the ... More >>

Bay Music Linx Roundup: Burning Crud, Amoeba Relief, & Ye Olde Music

Pigs (www.myspace.com/oaklandsswinest)​Searching for the Mission's best karaoke [Mission Mission] Oakland act Pigs: "My mom always thought it would be a cool band name. That and 'Burning Crud." [SF Gate] Amoeba takes Haiti relief online [Bay Bridged]Vampire Weekend cover Rancid [Stereogum] ... More >>

Sasquatch! Music Festival Lineup: Pavement, Dam-Funk, Girls, Massive Attack, the XX

Joseph SchellEdward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros: festival favorites​More music news today for festicationers: Sasquatch! Music Festival laid out its lineup last night at a party at Seattle's Crocodile Cafe. This Memorial Day Weekend (May 29-31) the indie rock caravans will head to Washington's ... More >>

String Theory

Joseph SchellEdward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros: festival favorites​More music news today for festicationers: Sasquatch! Music Festival laid out its lineup last night at a party at Seattle's Crocodile Cafe. This Memorial Day Weekend (May 29-31) the indie rock caravans will head to Washington's ... More >>

SXSW Roundup Thursday PM Pt. 2: Surf City NZ

Levi's took over the east side of Austin for all of SXSW, creating a semi-private world of tight pants and tall beers, a denim labyrinth where the 45-minute line to grab a wristband was made slightly more entertaining by a DJ who loved Michael Jackson. Loved him so much he told the crowd repeatedly, ... More >>

Last Night: Vampire Weekend and Abe Vigoda at the Fox

Photo of a previous Vampire Weekend show by Moses Namkung​Vampire WeekendThe Fox TheaterApril 19, 2010Better Than: getting bitten by a vampire wearing high-tops, skinny jeans, and shaggy bangs.Last night, the Columbia grads of Vampire Weekend, led by frontman Ezra Koening and his impressive falset ... More >>

Last Night: The Very Best and Black Nature at The Independent

Esau Mwamwaya of The Very Best​The Very Best Black Nature (Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars)Disco Shawn@The Independent May 31, 2010 Better than: What could be better than The Very Best? Seriously. When the music world gets tired of arguing over M.I.A. and her dubious authenticity, it oughta pau ... More >>

Last Night: Local Natives at The Rickshaw Stop

Photo by Chris Stevens​Local Natives @ The Rickshaw Stop June 2, 2010 Better than: Cavil at Rest Local Natives might just be the most hyped band since...that last overly hyped indie band. Thanks to a stellar performance at this year's Coachella music festival and media comparisons to Arcade Fi ... More >>

Top Five Songs For Vampire Hipsters

photo via Flickr/spacedustdesign​Justin Bieber is no vampire. Tina Fey had it right when she said he's like a dreamy Christmas elf. But Rolling Stone disagrees. The magazine's site is running a photo gallery on its home page of several pop star portraits that have been mutated to include razor sha ... More >>

Bridge School 2010: Last Grizzly Bear Show for 'Quite Some Time'

Grizzly Bear has a sense of humor. Witness it soon or wait a while.​Yesterday, we posted the facial-expression-inducing lineup for this year's Bridge School Benefit concert, where Neil Young and Stephen Stills will likely draw thousands of former Bay Area hippies with a Buffalo Springfield reunion ... More >>

Menomena, Suckers, and Tu Fawning Play Lots of Things at Once at Great American Music Hall

Menomena​Menomena Suckers Tu Fawning September 14, 2010 @ Great American Music Hall Better than: Combing through Pat Metheny's man-fro to get a glimpse of his instrumental clusterfuck.Whatever happened to musicians playing just one instrument? These new music school grads- ... More >>

This Week In Bewildering Band Names: Deafheaven? Spidermeow?

"I know those words, but that sign makes no sense."​Maybe it's to be expected on a week ending with the Folsom Street Fair on one side of the city and Oktoberfest by the Bay! on the other, but noodle-scratching contrast reigns free this week. Below are ten bands or lineups notable for their surrea ... More >>

Eight Great Moments In Musical Punctuation History

Courtesy nationalpunctuationday.com​September 24 is National Punctuation Day, at least according to a guy with a cape in Northern California. (He's still probably cooler than Lynne Truss.) Today is the day that we brittle purists may with impunity box the ears of apostrophe abusers, comma splicers ... More >>

Magic System: Show Preview

Courtesy nationalpunctuationday.com​September 24 is National Punctuation Day, at least according to a guy with a cape in Northern California. (He's still probably cooler than Lynne Truss.) Today is the day that we brittle purists may with impunity box the ears of apostrophe abusers, comma splicers ... More >>

French Miami Turns Up the Tropical with 'Older'

French Miami​Here we go with a little something to get the blood flowing: "Older," a jaunty track from the Brooklyn/S.F. trio French Miami's upcoming album Motor Skills, which drops November 16. Imagine Surfer Blood on a musical journey with King Sunny Ade and you're probably hearing this in your ... More >>

Pitchfork's Best Albums List: What It Got Right and What It Got Wrong in 10 Sentences, Pt. II

​Yesterday, we offered our own take on Pitchfork's list of the best albums of 2010 -- or at least the parts of it that had been revealed so far. Today, with the web site's top 20 albums made public, we offer 10 more sentences of agreement, disagreement, and generally glib mischief. Our own list of ... More >>

The Top 6 Weirdest Actor Cameos in Music Videos

What did we do on Christmas after we'd eaten a mountain of food and watched a giant stack of movies? Looked for actors in music videos, of course! Here are six of the weirdest cameos big-name actors have made in music videos. 6. Christopher Walken in Fatboy Slim's "Weapon Of Choice"
 Up until t ... More >>

A Postcard from the Future

Or, how 2011 was the year everything changed in music.

Blisses B: Show Preview

Or, how 2011 was the year everything changed in music.

In Print: DMX's Personal Struggles, Our Predictions for Music in 2011, and More

​In SF Weekly's latest print music section:Our cover story on DMX:  Looking at rapper DMX's life is like watching someone punch himself in the face repeatedly. You can easily picture a cherubic angel sitting atop one of the big black guy's shoulders, telling him not to snort that line of coke ... More >>

Welcome to the Music Industry, 2011: Records Don't Sell, Touring Can Make Bank, and Major Labels Are (Mostly) Useless

​For whatever reason, today seems to be the day that the music industry reminds us that it's still in total upheaval. Soundscan tells us that relatively few people actually bought music in 2010, unless they were fans of Eminem and Katy Perry. Dave Matthews spent the last 10 years collecting $500 ... More >>

Friday Night: Ra Ra Riot & Givers Unleash Sound and Fury at Great American Music Hall

Ra Ra Riot at Great American Music Hall on Friday​Ra Ra RiotGiversJanuary 21, 2011@ Great American Music HallBetter than: The Sound and the Fury, which haunts my forgotten-homework dreams.In the one-for-all, all-for-one spirit that defines the Ra Ra Riot working philosophy, we interrupt this regul ... More >>

Wild Nothing and Abe Vigoda Reveal Common Ancestors at Rickshaw Stop

Abe Vigoda at Rickshaw Stop last night​Wild Nothing Abe Vigoda March 3, 2011 Rickshaw Stop Better Than: Wasting half a day and a bunch of dollars shopping for vintage 4AD vinyl. Separated by three thousand miles of flyover country and once parted by a decade's worth of musical influences, Thursda ... More >>

"Submarine": Highly Stylized Brit Teen Dramedy Scores Big

Abe Vigoda at Rickshaw Stop last night​Wild Nothing Abe Vigoda March 3, 2011 Rickshaw Stop Better Than: Wasting half a day and a bunch of dollars shopping for vintage 4AD vinyl. Separated by three thousand miles of flyover country and once parted by a decade's worth of musical influences, Thursda ... More >>

'Slightly Damaged': A Conversation with Iggy Pop

Abe Vigoda at Rickshaw Stop last night​Wild Nothing Abe Vigoda March 3, 2011 Rickshaw Stop Better Than: Wasting half a day and a bunch of dollars shopping for vintage 4AD vinyl. Separated by three thousand miles of flyover country and once parted by a decade's worth of musical influences, Thursda ... More >>

Girls' Father, Son, Holy Ghost -- A First Listen

​ I've been everywhere with the San Francisco band Girls: Love 'em, hate 'em, find them overhyped, find the detractors overly cynical. I think they like it that way. Girls' hugely-acclaimed 2009 Album blew me away for a week. Then I found myself having trouble rekindling that need to hear it a ... More >>