iggy pop for san francisco bay guardian

Keep it raw

Does the Godfather of Punk really need an introduction? It's Iggy Pop. He's been doing this — this meaning spitting out underground ethos in a signature growl and writhing shirtless — for nearly 50 years. With the untimely death of original Stooge guitarist Ron Asheton, Pop regrouped and tapped Raw Power-era player James Williamson to rejoin the band a couple of years back.

I spoke to Pop in Paris over the phone -- his current world tour was supposed to land in San Francisco on Sept. 12 and 13 [...]

glowing stars for san francisco bay guardian

Reprogramming the hardware

The Glowing Stars want you to make chiptune music, too.

Technology can be so existentially mystifying. One minute you're a kid in the back seat of your parents' car with thumbs aimed and eyes glued to the screen of your modern handheld gaming console, the next you're on stage with blinding lights and an audience, smashing into a modified old-school Gameboy on a snare drum. One second you're doubled over in bed with the stomach flu, the next you're in a box on Google+, simultaneously interviewing two band members from their respective Bay Area cities [...]

kreayshawn for san francisco bay guardian

Kreayshawn gets some lady love at Slim's

It was just fine, really. Oakland-bred rapper Kreayshawn's big, sold-out show at Slim's last night was amusing, mildly enjoyable, and packed with good people watching. Rapping over prerecorded beats, elfin Kreayshawn and her Chipmunks White Girl Mob (V-Nasty and Lil Debbie) ran through what I suspect is the gamut of their songs in a brief, hyper set [...]

il gato cover story for san francisco bay guardian

Bravo, il gato

FALL ARTS PREVIEW: The baroque San Francisco band is about to have its best season yet

The clouds hang over San Francisco like a brumous, early evening warning sign. It's late summer on the back patio of popular Mission street bar El Rio. Small pockets of people huddle near outdoor heaters, and vintage pop songs come pumping through the speakers. Three men dressed neatly in sweaters and hoodies sit at a long picnic table clutching cheap beers.

This is the story of il gato, a San Francisco band that describes itself as indie-baroque-folk. Its music is baroque in the sense that it's melancholic yet upbeat, lyric-heavy yet leans towards the classical, and highly decorated with a wide array of instrumentation. The band's 2010 long-player, All These Slippery Things (self-released), and similarly-named followup EP All Those Slippery Things (released last month) feature banjo, mandolin, piano, a string quartet, and trumpets, along with aggressive acoustic folk guitar, looping pedal, upright and electric bass, and complex drumming [...]

tri angle records showcase for san francisco bay guardian

Drag me from hell
Witch house — or whatever you care to call it — is far from dead

MUSIC Noah "DJ Dials" Bennett Cunningham wants to galvanize your pleasure center.

"You know how you can think back to that one night? That punk show or cool house party or the first time you saw Björk, and it's just, the night you'll never forget? I want to do that for other people. I want to make lasting memories," he says from his perch in Four Barrel Coffee as he grabs Rosamunde french fries from his bag [...]

outside lands wrap-up for san francisco bay guardian

Outside Lands, day three
Ah, Golden Gate Park on a crisp, sunny Sunday morning. Well, afternoon. There's nothing else like it. When I finally made my way out to Outside Lands, the highly recognizable vocal stylings of tUnE-yArDs were piping through the brush and bramble. Sweaty, shirtless men – fried to a near-crisp – rain danced far back from the Sutro Stage. And those free-jazzing saxophonists that I mentioned in the pre-festival rundown were indeed beside Merrill Garbus [...]

king lollipop for san francisco bay guardian

Sticky fingers
Cody S. Blanchard moonlights in a junkyard candy-land band

Remember the raw, heart-thumping heat of the Jukebox Jamboree in John Waters' 1990 cult classic Cry-Baby? A steamy musician (Johnny Depp) strums and snarls towards a crowd of excited nogoodniks. There was a similar scene a few Saturdays back at a garage rock show in Oakland, thanks largely to Cody S. Blanchard [...]

chelsea wolfe for sf weekly

Chelsea Wolfe, Demon Girl
Chelsea Wolfe's newest album, Apokalypsis, begins with a bang. But it's not so much a literal bang as an otherworldly howl. It's like she's exorcising demons before the record can begin [...]

urban adamah cover story for j. the jewish news weekly

Nurturing their roots: Fellows flock to Berkeley’s Jewish urban farm
It’s 9 a.m. on a brisk Monday morning and Aliza Gazek and Molly Fischman are happily plucking kale from the earth.

They laugh and chat about the day’s activities while harvesting the kale, along with chard and red-leaf lettuce, to donate to the LifeLong Medical Care Clinic. Beyond them, Berkeley’s morning commuters whiz past a chain-link fence [...]

limp wrist for sf weekly

Queercore Band Limp Wrist on Playing Live Again
The song "I Love Hardcore Boys, I Love Boys Hardcore" is a given at most Limp Wrist shows. The brief, screamy hardcore anthem was written early in the band's career (late '90s) but it remains a mainstay, a memorable chant that crowds of sweaty punks cheer for. Not that they often have the chance to [...]

seaweed sway for sf weekly

Seaweed Sway's Jessie Woletz on Seven Years of Putting on S.F. Shows
Local promoter and show booker Jessie Woletz is sort of an oxymoron. She's a powerhouse hippie. She's constantly in motion -- booking, presenting, and promoting two to eight eclectic new weird folk shows a month at various San Francisco venues. Yet she's also peacefully in touch with her chakras (she teaches gentle hatha yoga) [...]

cibo matto for sf weekly

Cibo Matto on Returning to Music, Its Unorthodox Sound, and the Joys of Food
After a decade apart, Yuka Honda and Miho Hatori, founders of art-pop outfit Cibo Matto, are reuniting for a minitour that includes at stop at Bimbo's this Saturday. The Japanese expats began playing concerts together again under less than ideal circumstances -- tsunami benefits -- but now that they're officially back, they're ready for it all: tours, albums, "the whole shebang" [...]

honored: the big jewcy list

From Jewcy.com
The Big Jewcy: Emily Savage- Covering Bay Area Jews, Vegan Food, And Music With Equal Vigor
I’m normally threatened by people that share my first name, but Emily Savage has quickly managed to prove that she deserves the name as much as I do. Readers of Jewcy may know her as the Photo Editor and columnist for San Francisco’s J. Weekly, but she also regularly contributes culture writing to SF Weekly and is the San Francisco Editor at Poor Taste Mag [...]

From J. Weekly:
J. photo editor, writer on ‘Big Jewcy’ list
Jewcy.com, a website for hip young Jews, has honored j. photo editor and columnist Emily Savage with a spot on its 2011 “Big Jewcy,” an annual list of people admired by the site’s writers. The list of 88 was revealed in sections from June 1 to 15.

In addition to her work at j., which includes authoring the Jew Tunes blog at Jweekly.com, Savage is a culture writer for S.F. Weekly and the editor of the San Francisco edition of Poor Taste magazine. A longtime vegan, she also writes a column for Poor Taste under the heading “Tofu Dearest" [...]

oran hesterman for j. the jewish news weekly

The right to eat well: Access to healthy food options is Berkeley native’s dream
Growing up in two very different spots in Northern California in the 1950s, Oran Hesterman had a dual life — city kid, country kid.

During the school year he lived in Berkeley, attended Hebrew school at Congregation Beth El and was active in Young Judea. But during every school vacation and the long stretches of summer, he worked with his father, a Jewish cattle rancher, on their family farm in Mendocino County’s Potter Valley. There he herded cattle, fixed the irrigation system and learned what it meant to be a working cowboy [...]

tofu dearest: mexican sweet potatoes for poor taste magazine

Batata! Sweet potatoes, spiced up Mexican-style
“Only a vegan!” my coworker chirped cheerfully when I told her what I was warming up for lunch: the spicy sweet potato taquitos I had made at home the night before. I instinctively thought, “you should be so lucky” as it is my first reaction whenever someone questions something so delectable on my plate. Really, what could be better than a spicy Mexican meal that incorporates such a distinctive flavor as sweet potato [...]