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Matei Predescu on January 8, 2020
Hailing from San Jose, Stickup Kid draws inspiration from other energetic Bay Area pop-punk crews like Green Day. It’s no surprise, then, that they were signed to Oakland’s Adeline Records, founded by the Billie Joe Armstrong, before the record label folded in 2017. Stickup Kid has been gigging since the 2009 release…
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Matei Predescu on January 8, 2020
Tony-award winning playwright and composer William Finn recounts his tribulations with a brain aneurysm in his semi-autobiographical 1998 musical, A New Brain. Protagonist Gordon, a composer, grapples with anxiety and existential angst as he tries to keep his cool before a dangerous brain surgery that threatens his life, and with it, all…
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Metro Staff on January 8, 2020
In the wake of Elon Musk’s meme-worthy cyber truck unveiling, this year’s Silicon Valley Auto Show is sure to be buzzing with both futuristic wheels and good old-fashioned, gas-guzzling muscle. All the name brands will be there—Bentley, Lamborghini, Maserati, Rolls Royce—along with the most dazzling examples of bleeding-edge technologies including electric vehicles…
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Matei Predescu on January 8, 2020
With a deadpan delivery and a look reminiscent of Mitch Hedberg’s, stand-up comic Dusty Slay is an expert at making light of uncomfortable situations. Raised in a trailer park in Alabama, Slay likes to poke fun at his experience of growing up poor, his many shitty restaurant jobs (he loves working them…
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Bill Kopp on January 8, 2020
Pat Travers was part of a wave of late-’70s guitar heroes—artists who, in the wake of Peter Frampton’s runaway success, seemed poised to break out in a major way. But just as things got rolling for Travers, a combination of changing fashions, the corporatization of rock radio and plain bad luck blunted…
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Metro Staff on December 30, 2019
Two rising women of country music come to San Jose to kick off 2020. The KRTY-hosted night begins with dance lessons from 7:30pm to 8:30pm. That’s followed by a set from Stephanie Quayle. “If I Was a Cowboy,” the most recent single from the Bozeman, Montana native, bucks back at the tired…
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Wallace Baine on December 30, 2019
Bay Area novelist Tara Sim caught the attention of young adult readers back in 2016 for her historical fantasy set in Victorian London, The Timekeeper—the first of a trilogy of groundbreaking LGBTQ fiction. Now she’s back with a new novel titled Scavenge the Stars, which borrows the general outline of The Count…
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Wallace Baine on December 30, 2019
Scotland-born singer and songwriter KT Tunstall might get lost in the avalanche of awesome spawn-of-Patti-Smith/PJ Harvey female rockers of the 2010s. But she’s matured and flourished since her chart emergence back in 2004, mixing her obvious ear for the pop hook with lean arrangements and a serious plunge into artistic expression. She…
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Metro Staff on December 30, 2019
A bit of a throwback to the indie rock of the mid-aughts, Wayfairy blends acoustic instruments—such as banjo, fiddle, accordion and washboard—with a punk sensibility and activist message. The Oakland-based band brings its radical vision of peace, love and the abolishment of private property to San Jose’s DIY-tastic Playback Studios. Also on…
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Metro Staff on December 30, 2019
Over the course of seven full-length records, San Jose skate punks Jonny Manak and the Depressives have built a reputation for living fast, playing fast and skating fast. None of that’s really changed—except for the fact that frontman and bandleader Manak has put down the bottle and picked up his skateboard. You…
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