Mikaiah and Anaiah Lei of The Bots are used to throwing people off. For starters, the two brothers are of mixed Taiwanese and Caribbean descent. Their complexion and hair texture often leads to them they’re being mistaken as black, which, in the past has led to some assuming they make rap music.…
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At the turn of the millennium, popular music was heading into a dark place. Cheesy boy bands and bling-obsessed hip-hop ruled MTV, and the only rock music cracking the Top 40 was abysmal—literally and figuratively. Fortunately, we had Incubus and Deftones.
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After playing together for eight years, switching majors, and changing their band’s name in order to prevent their YouTube clips from showing up next to Donald Duck cartoons, the founding members of the San Jose-based band, Starover Blue, are finally starting to feel like they are making headway.
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Judah Nagler doesn’t like to repeat himself. In an effort to keep things fresh, the founder and frontman of the Santa Rosa-based baroque-indie-pop trio, The Velvet Teen, says he once wrote a song on a left-handed guitar—which he played upside-down and right-handed—Dick Dale-style.
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by
Andrew Lentz on August 12, 2015
In the summer of 1998, in the midst of the nü metal explosion, Orgy broke from the pack. Shirking the then-in-vogue look of oversized jeans, overlong shorts and overwide laces, the quartet of eyeliner-wearing dudes from L.A. took their musical and sartorial cues from the new wave and new romanticism movements of…
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Odd Future offshoot The Internet sprang onto the scene in 2011, around the same time that another OFWGKTA associate, Frank Ocean, and a Drake-approved mystery-man (known back then only by his moniker, The Weeknd) began releasing throbbing, druggy, downtempo jams for free online. The music blogosphere quickly pounced. Music writers observed that The Internet—who…
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Making music with another person isn’t all that different from making love, according to Lisa Light, half of the Oakland-based dance-punk duo The Lovemakers.
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Fans of ‘cholo goth’ duo, Prayers, turned out in force at Back Bar SoFa to catch songs from San Diego group’s new, Travis Barker-produced EP, ‘Young Gods.’ The show—hosted by the San Jose-based alternative Latino music collective, Sonido Clash—also featured an opening set by Xuxa Santamaria, and DJ spots by Cutso and…
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In an era where mainstream alternative radio is ruled by fuzzy, garage revivalists and stimulant-fueled electropop, and all the cool kids seem to have time for is jangly indie rockers singing sardonically about sex, drugs and the rock & roll lifestyle, Rex Goliath is a breath of fresh air—a deep breath. You know,…
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Some musicians seek inspiration in literature. Others find it in love or loss. Still others might listen to music in search of a creative spark. But whenever Pete Rice is looking to get his juices flowing, he usually turns to one of two muses: Sega Genesis games and cult ’80s flicks.
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