live shots: css for san francisco bay guardian

Lovefoxxx makes SF love her at the Fillmore

By the end of last night at the Fillmore, CSS's dynamic lead vocalist-party rioter Lovefoxxx was stripped down to a black tank top and ripped up jean shorts over fishnets, her raccoon eye makeup smeared across her face, fluffed pink hair electrified out of its sockets [...]

men for san francisco bay guardian

Feminist dance pop: Q&A with MEN's JD Samson
Just as she did with Le Tigre, JD Samson blurs the lines between feminist theory and modern pop music with her most recent musical endeavor, MEN. The experimental art-pop band, which began in 2007, is a collective with fellow Le Tigren Johanna Fateman – among others – that's as subversive as it is danceable [...]

beirut for san francisco bay guardian

The instruments of my life: Q&A with Beirut's Zach Condon

Zach Condon, the pied piper of Beirut, is known for a great many things – his quavering voice and heart-tugging music (watch the new video for “Santa Fe” and try not to weep, I dare you), the global journeys on which he embarked to gain such a worldly sound, and, perhaps above all else, his skilled takes on an array of string and horn instruments. He employs their use to enable listeners an audio-vacation: the far corners of Eastern Europe and the Balkans, to the chateaus of French chansons, to his mariachi-filled hometown of Santa Fe, New Mexico [...]

great integration for san francisco bay guardian

Chamber hip-hop opera 'Great Integration' returns with a second act

Perhaps you've seen the billboard on your daily Bay Bridge commute: simple white background, a hand with two fingers pressed together, and in bold type, the words Great Integration: A Chamber Hip-Hop Opera [...]

mike apocalypse for san francisco bay guardian

Legends of the underground

Gehenna's Mike Apocalypse doesn't care what you think

"There are people like us who decide we no longer want to deal with what is fed to us through commercial forces," says infamous hardcore singer Mike Apocalypse, "We strive to create new things — if I couldn't create new music, I would fall apart in a month's time." [...]