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Making a Buzz

DJ MikeBee keeps electronic connoisseurs on their toes.

By Toph One

Published: March 12, 2008

I swear sometimes it feels like my head will fall off, what with all these cockamamie subgenres of music. Thankfully, we have DJ MikeBee to help us sort it all out. As a regular on Andrew Jervis...

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The Devil and Doctor Octagon: Kool Keith returns

By Toph One

Published: March 12, 2008

From his 1988 landmark album Critical Beatdown with Ultramagnetic MCs to the groundbreaking collaboration with S.F. producer Dan the Automator as Dr. Octagon, the rapper Kool Keith has covered...

Night&Day;

Parade Grounds

By Toph One

Published: February 20, 2008

San Franciscans turn ordinary events into grand spectacles. Every May, up to 100,000 costumed (and possibly drunk) runners race across town, and each month hundreds of bicyclists take over the city...

Reviewed

Cheb i Sabbah

Devotion (Six Degrees)

By Toph One

Published: February 6, 2008

While Algeria-born, San Francisco–based DJ and producer Cheb i Sabbah is known far and wide for his ecstatic "1002 Nights" events featuring live musicians, vocalists, and dancing, his latest...

Reviewed

Top'R

The Marathon of Shame (Zero Friends/Gurp City)

By Toph One

Published: January 30, 2008

San Francisco rapper Top'R has spent the last 15 years rocking walls with the Lords graffiti crew and stages with the Earthlings and Gurp City collectives. Along the way, he's released a...

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Underwater sirens stir local act Kitka to song

By Toph One

Published: January 2, 2008

In Slavic folklore, rusalki are mythological female creatures of the sea who, after suffering untimely deaths as humans, become ghosts whose mesmerizing songs lead unsuspecting men to their...

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The Melvins melt your noggin this New Year's Eve

By Toph One

Published: December 26, 2007

On first hearing Ledisi 's major-label debut, Lost and Found , you might think that the New Orleans–born, Oakland-raised jazz and R&B; singer is attempting to make more radio-friendly...

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Punk Royalty Still Reigns Supreme: Naked Raygun and Suicidal Tendencies

By Toph One

Published: November 28, 2007

One day in 1970, Japanese singer Kenji "Damo" Suzuki was heard busking on a Munich street by members of innovative German rockers Can. That very night, Suzuki became Can's new frontman, his...

Reviewed

The Shotgun Wedding Quintet

The Shotgun Wedding Quintet (Jazz Mafia)

By Toph One

Published: November 21, 2007

The Shotgun Wedding Quintet is an engaging jazz and hip-hop group in the same Bay Area tradition that birthed the likes of Alphabet Soup and the Broun Fellinis. On the band's debut disc, MC Dublin...

Night&Day;

Hopa!

By Toph One

Published: November 7, 2007

It's easy to forget yesterday's tragedies, as so many new ones quickly take their place. But the organizers of Kafana Balkan hope you won't forget the thousands of refugees and orphans from the...

Reviewed

Clipd Beaks, Hoarse Lords

By Toph One

Published: October 31, 2007

The members of Clipd Beaks grew up playing in prog-rock, art-core, and jam-type bands in their native Minneapolis. Bassist Scott Ecklein and drummer Ray Benjamin have known each other since grade...

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Hear This

By Toph One

Published: October 24, 2007

On its 2005 debut for Jagjaguwar, Canadian collective Black Mountain brewed up an intoxicating batch of homegrown rock. Stephen McBean's soulful voice and hypnotic song-visions create a...

BeatBox

Q-Tip and Trentemoller

By Toph One

Published: October 3, 2007

Call off the genre holy wars — Anders Trentemøller preaches an electronic gospel that even the far-flung tribes of Technopolis can agree upon. The Danish producer's albums (like the...

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Finntroll; Download Festival; Bill Callahan; Black Crowes; the Go-Gos

By Toph One

Published: October 3, 2007

In the forsaken hinterlands of Finland roams a band of evil trolls who sing in Swedish (one of the country's two national languages), and consume copious amounts of beer. Forging an unusual merger...

Reviewed

Balkan Beat Box

Nu Med (J-Dub)

By Toph One

Published: September 26, 2007

Imagine the frantic live drumming of Crash Worship mixed with the chorus girls from a Russian circus, throw in some wailing Eastern European horns, and you've got the tip of the Balkan Beat Box...

Reviewed

Chemical Brothers

We Are the Night (Astralwerks)

By Toph One

Published: September 26, 2007

On their sixth album of new material, the Chemical Brothers aren't breaking much new ground. But if you've been a fan of their big, floor-filling anthems from records past, you'll find plenty of...

Music

Bizarre World Harmony

Gogol Bordello's mutant genre blowout

By Toph One

Published: August 22, 2007

As a Croatian-American electro-funk DJ with a powerful thirst for liquor and trouble, I knew I'd like Gogol Bordello from the moment I heard about the group. The act's pulsing Mediterranean sound...

Music

Sibling Mastery

The Rondo Brothers move from indie producers to a powerful pop force

By Toph One

Published: July 11, 2007

Since their inception a mere four years ago, the Bay Area-based Rondo Brothers have gone from unknown bedroom producers to a pair of go-to industry veterans. These days they busily tour the globe,...

Reviewed

Bravez Team Hyphy

All Systems Go (Stand Up Entertainment/ Green Light Records)

Toph One

Published: May 30, 2007

It's hard to look at the cover of BTH's debut and not think that these kids are just some bubblegum grommets. The Bay Area group sports the grills and chains, the boy-group baby faces, the chrome...

Reviewed

Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Ray Price

Last of the Breed (Lost Highway)

Toph One

Published: April 11, 2007

Country music gets a bad rap from all the commercial bullshit that clogs the airwaves, but if you want to hear the real deal, it doesn't get any more pedigreed than Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard,...