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Mike Huguenor on February 17, 2021
Electronic musician Kazuma Matsui holds a lotion bottle to the microphone. The cap pops open with an audible snap. As one half of the group Happy New Year, “Cupertino’s only ambient band,” Matsui is demonstrating one of their preferred instruments. “I’ll edit it to the point where it sounds like a kick…
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Mike Huguenor on February 10, 2021
On Christmas Day, San Jose emo group Awakebutstillinbed surprised fans with new EP, Stay Who You Are, their first new set of songs since 2018’s striking debut album What People Call Low Self-esteem is Really Just Seeing Yourself the Way Others See You (the band stylizes its name and album titles in…
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Mike Huguenor on January 20, 2021
Last July, as the local economy scrambled to survive the third month of the coronavirus pandemic, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek took to Twitter with some economic figures of his own. “Excited to announce our Q2 numbers showing strong growth across the board,” Ek tweeted on July 29, 2020. Linked in the tweet…
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by
Mike Huguenor on June 17, 2020
Last Friday, The Chinkees, Mike Park’s all-Asian ska-punk band, unexpectedly put out their first new set of songs in 18 years. K.A. Music, the blazing four-song EP, was released by Park’s Monte Sereno-based Asian Man Records and quickly sold out of its initial vinyl pressing.
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Mike Huguenor on April 21, 2020
In the months before the sudden outbreak of COVID-19, Montalvo Arts Center in Saratoga launched a new thematic that would prove eerily prophetic: “SOCIAL: Rethining Loneliness Together.”
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Founded in 1972, the Swiss mask theater group Mummenschanz made a name for themselves by doing a lot with a little. Dressed in black spandex suits, the performers practically disappear on the all-black stage, as the eye is drawn to the wild masks and colorful props the members use to accentuate and…
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Wallace Baine on March 11, 2020
Straight out of the musical hotbed of Austin, Texas, comes Steel Betty, an all-acoustic trio of multi-instrumentalists who reflect the crazy quilt of today’s American roots music. Their music is a tasty stew of country and Western, Tex-Mex conjunto, three-part harmony folk and, most prominently, old-timey mountain bluegrass—these guys can totally rip…
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by
Metro Staff on March 11, 2020
Norm Macdonald is a cult hero. Most die-hard fans know the oddball Canadian as the Weekend Update anchor who ruthlessly skewered everyone from Hillary Clinton to O.J. Simpson. Alas, much of Macdonald’s post-Saturday Night Live career saw aborted TV series or roles in toothless Hollywood comedies—ironic considering the dry-as-a-bone Macdonald can draw…
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The mysterious, balaclava-sporting Malaa brings his ambiguous identity and hard-hitting ghetto house tunes to Sunnyvale. The producer and DJ has managed to keep his given name under wraps for five years, even as his stature has grown. Some suspect Malaa is the singular name of multiple big-name selectors, including DJ Snake, Tchami…
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by
Wallace Baine on March 11, 2020
Dreamers’ Circus is a trio out of Copenhagen, Denmark that fuses classical music and Nordic folk (with jazz influences as well), a formula that has made them one of the most big-ticket acts in their home country. Using the basic ingredients of piano/accordion, violin and cistern (a string instrument similar to a…
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