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Boys don't cry, except when it's with the Cure

By Ezra Gale

Published: May 28, 2008

When the Cure canceled last year's entire North American tour at the last minute, the news was enough to make longtime fans smear their lipstick and wear their best mopey Robert Smith impression...

Music

Wallpaper brings the ‘80s party as it spoofs a new decade of greed

By Ezra Gale

Published: May 7, 2008

The music comes crashing out of your speakers like shoppers out of a Macy's sale starting line. The band is Wallpaper, its trashy synth-pop riding garage-sale drum machine beats as a singer wails...

Feature

Best of the Fest

Our critics' recommendations from this year's films.

By Ezra Gale

Published: April 23, 2008

Alexandra (Alexander Sokurov, Russia) Spare yet tactile, a mysterious mixture of lightness and gravity, Alexander Sokurov's Alexandra is founded on contradiction. Musing on war in...

Feature

Glass, Jazz, and Black Francis

Music takes the stage at the Film Fest.

By Ezra Gale

Published: April 23, 2008

That was an unusual one, because we were really equals," composer Philip Glass says of his collaboration with director Godfrey Reggio on the landmark 1982 film Koyaanisqatsi. "Normally it's not...

Music

How to Tell Your Hippies from Your Heshers from the Black Keys

By Ezra Gale

Published: April 2, 2008

Those dang kids have mucked everything up. It used to be easy to separate the hippie bands from the hard rockers, the indie-alternative darlings from the classic dinosaurs, the exploratory jazz...

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Surf Rock Safari: The Cuban Cowboys

By Ezra Gale

Published: April 2, 2008

The six-piece Syracuse-based Ra Ra Riot formed in 2006, but a lot has happened since then. The band released a self-titled EP and blew away festivalgoers at South by Southwest and CMJ last year....

Night&Day;

Nights of the Golem

By Ezra Gale

Published: March 19, 2008

If you're planning on attending any of the Jewish Music Festival 's myriad concerts this week solely to soak in some sentimental Klezmer songs that'll make you want to reach for a bagel and lox,...

Music

Bing Ji Ling: from ice cream funk to tasty soul

By Ezra Gale

Published: March 5, 2008

The band onstage on this wet February night sticks out from the parade of earnest singer-songwriters who normally grace Rockwood Music Hall on New York's Lower East Side. The loose-knit four-piece...

Reviewed

Terrence Brewer

QuintEssential (Strong Brew Music)

By Ezra Gale

Published: February 27, 2008

There's a moment about midway through "Decidedly Mopey," the first track on guitarist Terrence Brewer's new album, QuintEssential , where the Alameda local's fleet-fingered solo gives way to a...

Reviewed

Michael Wolff Trio

Jazz, Jazz, Jazz (Wrong Records)

By Ezra Gale

Published: February 20, 2008

In a perfect world, Herbie Hancock smacking down Amy Winehouse and Kanye West to win album of the year honors at this year's Grammys would mean a flood of new jazz releases from a record industry...

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Mexican six-string superheroes Rodrigo y Gabriela

By Ezra Gale

Published: February 6, 2008

Berkeley resident Sean Smith and the U.K.'s James Blackshaw are part of the underground acoustic guitar network, descending stylistically from American iconoclast John Fahey. Like Fahey, Smith...

Music

Howard Wiley Gains Inspiration from an Unlikely Locale: Angola Prison

By Ezra Gale

Published: January 30, 2008

"All American music originates straight from here," says 27-year-old tenor saxophonist Howard Wiley. He's discussing the music behind his Angola Project, a large, unusual ensemble he formed two...

Music

Mercury Soul Merges Visual Art with Classical Music and Contemporary Electronica

By Ezra Gale

Published: January 30, 2008

Forecasting the Doom of Classical Music is its own cottage industry, from cocktail party chatter lamenting the genre's graying audience to statistical evidence that younger recruits would largely...

Music

The new Fox Theater, the arty Red Poppy, and the hustlin' Demolition Men

The Bay is looking up in 2008

By Ezra Gale

Published: January 2, 2008

After a month of looking backward, it's time we started moving forward. This week we offer a survey of organizations that will help inspire the local music landscape in 2008; not the bands,...

Music

Grammy nominees Spanish Harlem Orchestra serve Latin music raw

By Ezra Gale

Published: December 19, 2007

"The Spanish Harlem Orchestra is no doubt one of the best salsa bands in the world," enthuses Oscar Hernández from his home in Los Angeles. He should know. Ever since the ensemble was...

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Hear This

By Ezra Gale

Published: December 5, 2007

Film School has found its niche preserving the shoegazer aesthetic. The band recognizes that great pop songs sound much better when obscured by a mess of ear-splitting guitars. While the group...

Reviewed

The Mitch Marcus Quintet

The Special (JazzCubed)

By Ezra Gale

Published: November 14, 2007

You could tattoo the entire population of Black Rock City with the amount of ink that's been spilled bloviating on the Music Business 2.0: Internet decentralizes distribution, so major record...

Reviewed

Herbie Hancock

River: The Joni Letters (Verve)

By Ezra Gale

Published: November 7, 2007

Noted jazz pianist records pop icon tribute, endures cries of 'sellout' from the jazz community, laughs all the way to the bank. You'd be forgiven for assuming Herbie Hancock's new River: The...

Music

Brave New Whirl

Guitarist Shan Kenner sees the future of music -- in a live jazz/ electronica hybrid

By Ezra Gale

Published: May 9, 2001

It's a chilly, inhospitable Monday night in North Beach. Tourists, yuppies, and transfixed listeners dot the plush couches and faux-fancy Holstein chairs of the Black Cat's Blue Bar lounge. On the...

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Adam Lane's Full Throttle Orchestra

By Ezra Gale

Published: April 18, 2001

In San Francisco, where there are seemingly as many polite dinner-jazz acts as there are trendy new restaurants, Adam Lane's Full Throttle Orchestra stands out like a red balloon in a white poppy...