tofu and whiskey: bleached for san francisco bay guardian

Love spells trouble

For Bleached, LA is the city of sisterly love. Plus Stero Total, Mariee Sioux, Mike Patton, more 

TOFU AND WHISKEY The twin star driving forces behind Bleached have been around. Not in a cruising with delinquents kind of way, but that's probably where their music is best blasted — careening down the California coast in a shiny convertible with a shitty ex-lover or two, rooftop down, an open bag of Flamin' Hot Cheetos, lipstick-stained cola can, and the stereo crackling [...]

tofu and whiskey: life coach for san francisco bay guardian

How to make it in rock'n'roll

Phil Manley's Life Coach, Anna Hillburg's solo album, King Khan and BBQ Show return 

TOFU AND WHISKEY "I felt like, if I don't put these songs out, they're just going to fade away," Phil Manley says from the enclosed playground in the Panhandle. He's doing double-duty as an artist on an interview and a father watching his 15-month-old daughter in the park. And he's prepping for a show at the Knockout later in the night [...]

tofu and whiskey: stranded and 1-2-3-4 Go! for san francisco bay guardian

Vinyl addicts 

Record shop timeline: Youngster store Stranded hosts a reading, 1-2-3-4 Go! celebrate five years 

TOFU AND WHISKEY "Rock and roll has never been remotely monolithic," early Rolling Stone columnist Greil Marcus writes in the introduction to the 1978 book he edited, Stranded: Rock and Roll for a Desert Island (Da Capo Press). "There have always been countless performers to pin your hopes on; though one may have found identity as a member of an audience, one also found it by staking a place in that audience, defining one's self against it." [...]

tofu and whiskey: the residents for san francisco bay guardian

Freak show

The Residents talk eyeball masks, $100,000 box sets, and their 40 anniversary tour. Meanwhile, Beak> gets weird(er) 

TOFU AND WHISKEY As Homer Flynn describes to me the Bay Area musical landscape during the time when iconic, experimental music-arts collective the Residents first rolled into town in 1966, I can't help but picture a tiny gold hammer cracking the earth wide open like it was a piñata, with glitter, powdered wigs, freakish masks, oversized eyeballs, and gingerbread men spewing out in a magnificent tangle [...]

tofu and whiskey: bikini kill, lady gaga for san francisco bay guardian

Rebel Girls

Bikini Kill's Kathi Wilcox, the Lady Gaga experience, a soul troubadour, and the demise of a local punk band 

TOFU AND WHISKEY You should know how significant the forthcoming sentence is for me. Like, when I think about it, my heart speeds up a tick. I get that fluttery, crush-style, first-discovering-feminism blood pumping something fierce. Here it is: so, I was talking to Kathi Wilcox, of Bikini Kill, the Frumpies, the Casual Dots, and Julie Ruin...that's about as far into it as I can get for now.

Take a breath. I'll start again. The music that Wilcox helped create in the early 1990s riot grrrl scene along with Toby Vail and Kathleen Hanna deeply affected, empowered, and inspired a generation of women — and continues to do so. Bikini Kill technically existed from '90 through '97, now however, there's a new chapter. The former Kill Rock Stars group started its own label — Bikini Kill Records, naturally (www.bikinikill.com) — and it recently began re-releasing albums, beginning with the 20th anniversary reissue of the band's debut 12-inch EP. As a fan who became aware of the band the very year Bikini Kill fizzled (I was 13), it's been my cruel fate to forever be indebted to a dormant group. Until late last year [...]

tofu and whiskey: vetiver and howlin rain for san francisco bay guardian

Gentle Mosh

Vetiver and Howlin Rain team up for a troika of shows 

TOFU AND WHISKEY Vetiver and Howlin Rain have both been haunting around the Bay for the better part of a decade. Sonically split, playing tender Americana folk and 1970s-tinged psychedelic rock, respectively, the bands share a common thread of superior musicanship and drive — each releasing a landmark album in the past year or so (Howlin Rain's The Russian Wilds and Vetiver's The Errant Charm). The other link? Mutual admiration [...]

tofu and whiskey: thrill jockey for san francisco bay guardian

Thrill ride

Wooden Shjips and Barn Owl celebrate Thrill Jockey's 20th, Eliyahu Sills' reed flute record, the Babies and Antibalas return

TOFU AND WHISKEY Arbiter of good taste, Thrill Jockey Records is officially 20 years old. In another era, in another business, this would merely be a back-slapping milestone. In the present stuck-barreling-downwards roller coaster of the music industry, it's an anniversary worthy of widespread jubilation.

"It's a mind-boggling number of years," label founder Bettina Richards says during a phone call from the main office in Chicago, where the label's been based since 1995 [...]

tofu and whiskey: ash reiter for san francisco bay guardian

You'll be a woman soon

Hola, California! Singer Ash Reiter pens a love letter to her home state -- as the controversy about women in rock limps along.

TOFU AND WHISKEY The phrase "'woman' is not a genre" has been popping up again. It's been in articles, board threads, and subsequently, conversations I've been a part of. It's a good one. Kind of an earworm of a saying, because on its face, it's implicit, simplistic, obvious, even. But it's a good mantra, for music writers. "Woman" is not a genre.

Maybe it's a backlash against Rolling Stone's recent, ridiculous "women who rock"package, which sought out the "best" woman in rock with votes from readers, and somehow ended up with cloying pop act Karmin plastered across the cover, cleavage-y as all Rolling Stone cover ladies. Can you imagine a "best white guy in rock" contest in RS? [...]

tofu and whiskey: ssion, misfits cover bands for san francisco bay guardian

Candy apples and razor blades

SSION, Crypts, Hunx, and Misfits cover bands bring out our Halloween spirit 

TOFU AND WHISKEY While I don't miss living in Long Beach, Calif. too much (save for some particular pals and the endless flat biking roads), I do sorely yearn for the yearly costumed Halloween performance — at steak restaurant/dive bar the Prospector — of the Shitfits, a Misfits cover band made up of local musicians. Luckily, in San Francisco, there are numerous bands-costumed-as-other-bands shows in late October, including at least one Misfits tribute: Astrozombies, a full-time tribute act, which will do the horror-punk legends right at Hemlock Tavern [...]

tofu and whiskey: george chen and comedian-musicians for san francisco bay guardian

Cynic cave of actualized dreams

Underground musician-comedian George Chen, Club Chuckles, stand-up and burritos, Treasure Island Music Fest, Sic Alps, more music

TOFU AND WHISKEY Kyle Statham, from the Oakland band Fuck, once gave Hemlock booker Anthony Bedard some laconic advice: "Music is easy, comedy is hard." What's interesting to me, is the comedian who brings a guitar to the stage, or the seasoned noise composer who tries his hand at stand-up; it has a boot-strapped vaudevillian, winking variety show appeal. And are you aware that cheeky, string-bean comedian Kerri Kenney-Silver, of The State andReno 911, was once in a riot grrrl band called Cake Like? But I digress [...]

tofu and whiskey: preservation hall west at the chapel for san francisco bay guardian

Reborn on the bayou

The birth of Preservation Hall West, the death of Warren Hellman, the life of Toys That Kill, more music

Tofu and Whiskey There are loud grinding noises and those cinematic electric sparks shooting from a machine below a church pew-like balcony. It's musky and filled with dark bordello wood. The arched main room, the one you see when you walk in the front door of 777 Valencia Street and turn a quick corner, is outlined in bright, bloody red, and there's a stage.

Despite this transitional state a few weeks back, this stage at brand new Mission venue, Preservation Hall West at the Chapel — named after the jazzy New Orleans venue that inspired it — will hold star-powered spillover from Hardly Strictly Bluegrass (www.hardlystrictlybluegrass.com) this week, beginning Thu/4; the fest itself is Fri/5 through Sun/7. The Preservation Hall Jazz Band of New Orleans will perform each night of the long weekend with double-dipping special guests including Elvis Costello, Robert Earl Keen, Justin Townes Earl, and Steve Earle. Maybe this means we'll see a bespectacled Costello riding a bicycle from Golden Gate Park to the Mission, with a guitar slung on his back? One can dream [...]