year in music: ty segall for san francisco bay guardian

YEAR IN MUSIC 2012: Sinner's exit

After another prolific year, San Francisco's beloved garage rock star waves goodbye to the Bay

YEAR IN MUSIC "We weren't supposed to be allowed to play live on the morning news," Ty Segall says just moments after finishing a meal at In-N-Out, on his way down the coast from San Francisco, the city he can no longer afford to live in, to pick up his 16-year-old sister from his hometown of Laguna Beach. "Giving a bunch of long-haired weirdos really loud amplifiers and free reign on the morning news is just stupid. So I thought that was a great opportunity to do whatever the hell we wanted."

"And I'm really happy we did that," he says of the Ty Segall Band's bizarrely mesmerizing performance of "You're the Doctor" off this year's Twins (Drag City), on the Windy City'sWGN Morning News in October. It ended with screeching feedback and Segall repeatedly screaming "Chicago!" into the mic. "It was way too early, so we were already feeling a little weird." The weirdness rubbed off on the news anchors, who, when the camera panned back to them mid-song, were throwing papers up in the air and pogoing behind their desk. It made for a great split second [...]

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 holiday guide for san francisco bay guardian

Gabba gabba buy 

What to buy your headphone-obsessed loved one? Our picks, from boxed sets to lovely local scores

TOFU AND WHISKEY'S HOLIDAY GUIDE Before I expound on anything, I've got to spit this out: buy local. If you're going to buy something; in particular, if you're going to buy actual vinyl records or CDs or books or musical equipment, get them from an independent store in the Bay Area.

Support Aquarius, Amoeba Music, Black Pancake Records, GROOVES, 1-2-3-4 GO!, Recycled Records, Rooky Ricardo's, Rasputin's, Streetlight, and the smaller mom-and-significant-other type stores; otherwise, the brick and mortars will slowly die and we'll be stuck rifling only through the virtual library, which will inevitably lead to a host of other problems (loneliness, fatigue, hive mindedness) [...]

goldies 2012: waters for san francisco bay guardian

GOLDIES 2012: WATERS

Salty sea-referencing lyrics; grungy, fuzzed out guitar-work; and seriously tripped-out music videos

GOLDIES "It's been a great year for me," says Van Pierszalowski, slightly out of breath after pushing his bicycle up a seriously steep hill. "It's been the first year that I've lived anywhere in a long time" [...]

goldies 2012: the mallard for san francisco bay guardian

GOLDIES 2012: The Mallard 

The band makes "inside-out-echo-laser-garage-psych-rock" 

GOLDIES You always hear of those artists that simply must keep creating, regardless of location, monetary resources, health, or free time. It's the urge, the craving, something deep in the pit of their being. Idle hands and all that. I get the feeling this is just how it is for Greer McGettrick, the Mallard's lead vocalist-guitarist. There's a fire in her belly, and it burns from a sonic tinder [...]

kitty pryde Q&A for san francisco bay guardian (web)

Kitty Pryde on Riff Raff, candy, and going viral

What exactly does it mean to be a pop star these days? Does it mean you have masses of eager (young) fans, breathless feature articles, and a healthy growing buzz on so-called tastemaker sites? Can you do it without a major label, without a proper album, without really touring? Seems like the answer for now is...maybe. It's a world we're all just beginning to crack open. One thing I know for sure, Florida teen rapper Kitty Pryde wouldn't have blown up quite like this before the web [...]

pink thunder cover story for san francisco bay guardian

Hi-fidelity weather

Michael Zapruder's 'Pink Thunder' project blends poetry, free-verse pop, and hard-wired found art

MUSIC Shellacked gummy worms, cherubic Ebay'd figurines, one of those ships in a glass bottle usually reserved for nautical-themed offices, a red bike reflector, a holarctic blue copper butterfly, a vintage stenograph. The physical items sit on separate pedestals as part of the release for Michael Zapruder's newest album, Pink Thunder [...]

tofu and whiskey: zammuto for san francisco bay guardian

Lightning strikes twice

Catching up with Zammuto, plus a new Future Twin track and Woodkid's next concert

TOFU AND WHISKEY If experimental artist Nick Zammuto was pulling from a storied sample library after all those years with beloved former band the Books, he's now building from scratch with his new band, Zammuto. The first Zammuto record sprang from a more angsty place, a fear of the unknown after the breakup of the Books. Skyping from a McDonald's in Springfield, Mass., a humble Zammuto admits to fears about "lightning striking twice," regarding his musical evolution [...]

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: savanna jazz, hardly strictly bluegrass for san francisco bay guardian

Raise your skinny fists 

Savanna Jazz struggles to keep its building, Clarion Alley Block Party is coming, Dirty Three and Saint Vitus hit SF, Godspeed releases its first album in a decade

TOFU AND WHISKEY Sitting on a pilled blanket out in Golden Gate Park, watching Australia's folk-noise instrumental outfit Dirty Three tear shit up on violin, petting my SPCA-adopted chug and sipping my homemade beer, I thought, "this is magic." And then, "I'm pretty drunk." And finally, out loud, "I'm a cliché right now."

No mind. This is San Francisco. We all fall prey to a rainbow of snarky categories. And this was the breezy, free Hardly Strictly Bluegrass. Gooey, grey-streaked hippies were dancing all around me. So I'm a cliché and late feminist punk icon Poly Styrene's magnificent screeching vocals ring through my ears every time the thought returns: "I'm a cliché/I'm a cliche," (off Germ-Free Adolescents).

Just a few ticks after the 1977 punk era that spawned Styrene, an LA doom metal band called Saint Vitus arose in '78. Last Tuesday, a configuration of that heavy, Black Sabbath-loving, long-haired freak band played the Independent, much to my delight [...]

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 [...]

chickfactor for san francisco bay guardian

Pop love Celebrating its 20th anniversary, chickfactor throws parties for music nerds

There was a time, not so long ago, when the fanzine was a glittering portal. It was the best avenue for learning about new, underground, innovative music across the country, before the all-powerful grip of the Internet forced us to idly click our way through back catalogs. The ink and paper projects were passed to friends in the same manner one traded handmade mixtapes. [...]

Dream of the '90s

Antwon and Pictureplane flip inspiration from another decade 

By now, Antwon's mug has probably nestled somewhere in your brain. It's hard to take your eyes off him in the Brandon Tauszik-directed video for Antwon's song "Helicopter," slowly spitting rhymes over a screaming alarm of a beat, wandering Oakland, drinking on porches, pouring hot sauce on breakfast in between scenes from the classic film, Bullit (1968). Or as one media outlet breathlessly noted, "Malt liquor, Steve McQueen, and Sriracha!" [...]