by
Metro Staff on October 23, 2019
Some people think of the ukulele as a souvenir, says the Hawaiian born uke virtuoso Taimane. She doesn’t take offense. In fact, she likes it, as it sets audience expectations low. That’s when she comes in and blows minds. With well over two decades of experience on the diminutive “underdog of instruments,”…
Continue reading »
by
Jeffrey Edalatpour on October 23, 2019
Lynn Nottage’s 2017 Pulitzer Prize-winning drama takes place during the Great Recession of 2008. A group of co-workers, friends and family members struggle to find jobs or cling to the ones they have. When someone is given a chance to move off of the backbreaking factory floor and into a management position,…
Continue reading »
by
Metro Staff on October 23, 2019
This ain’t your grandfather’s rock opera. The 50th anniversary tour of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s take on Jesus’ last days sports a contemporary look—including a clean-shaven Christ (Aaron LaVigne)—that uses updated production values to crank up the spectacle and appeal to today’s audiences. The story, told from the perspective of…
Continue reading »
by
Metro Staff on October 23, 2019
In its time, the Cactus Club (1988-2002) did everything that a rock & roll club should: It pissed off the neighbors, the city and square authority figures all over San Jose. It also served as the glue holding together the city’s local music scene, drawing rising midsize headliners and giving regional groups…
Continue reading »
by
Bill Kopp on October 23, 2019
Over the course of its three decades performing, progressive metal outfit Dream Theater has periodically created concept albums. Their 1999 LP, Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory, was the band’s first concept album and marked the debut of Jordan Rudess as the group’s keyboardist.
Continue reading »
by
Nick Veronin on October 16, 2019
Holding court over his kit, drummer and composer Kendrick Scott proves that percussion is about so much more than keeping time. On his 2016 composition, “Philando,” the Houston-born musician improvises over an ambient drone and a recording of the Philando Castile shooting, heightening the emotional narration of Castile’s girlfriend Diamond Reynolds with…
Continue reading »
by
Mike Huguenor on October 16, 2019
It was 60 years ago this Sunday that KFJC first broadcast from a broom closet at Foothill College. In six decades that followed, the humble station has become synonymous with adventurous tastes and documenting the bleeding-edge of underground music, both at home and on location around the world. In the process, KFJC…
Continue reading »
by
Conor Agnew on October 16, 2019
Mark Farina has been spinning records for a long time. Born and raised in Chicago, the tastemaking Bay Area transplant helped shape the San Francisco electronic scene in the early ’90s. Whether you find him at the helm of a pulsating house mix or weaving together a more downtempo groove, it is…
Continue reading »
by
Conor Agnew on October 16, 2019
Trailblazing emcee, producer and Bay Area legend Lyrics Born has always had great taste in collaborators. Perhaps best known for the hit 2003 single “Callin Out,” the Japanese-born hip-hop head has worked with DJ Shadow, Blackalicious, Lateef the Truthspeaker and many others over the course of his 25-year career. His latest choice…
Continue reading »
by
Metro Staff on October 16, 2019
Honoring the past while looking to the future, sjDANCEco opens its 17th season with Etched in Time, a program featuring “The Exiles,” a Paradise Lost masterwork by José Limón, and a world premiere piece based upon the experiences of a DACA-Dreamer immigrant living in the US. The world premiere is by Gabriel…
Continue reading »
