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Metro Staff on February 18, 2020
“Ten Japanese-American Concentration Camps,” featuring photos by photographer, teacher and mixed media artist, Renee Billingslea. The exhibit revisits F.D.R.’s Executive Order 9066, which authorized Japanese Relocation in 1942. Billingslea contrasts current day images of the camps with photographs from 75 years ago. The artist wants viewers to remember this chapter in our “shared history.” Billingslea is a senior lecturer in art and art history at Santa Clara University. The exhibit runs through April 19. Continue reading »
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Wallace Baine on February 12, 2020
San Jose Jazz Winter Fest returns to downtown Feb. 14. This year, as always, the festival features a lineup of traditionalists and forward-thinking rule-benders. Here are just a few of this year’s acts. For more info on tickets and the performers, go to sanjosejazz.org. Continue reading »
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Metro Staff on February 12, 2020
With gently warbling organ, warm tube amps, The Band-esque vocal harmonies and the kind of resonant, straight-to-tape tom-toms that would make Levon Helm swell with pride, these Philadelphia indie-rock veterans prove it’s possible to teach an old pooch new tricks. After tracking Abandoned Mansion in 2014 only to shelve it until 2017, releasing the long-lost Psychedelic Swamp in 2016 and taking a break from touring—Dr. Dog are recalibrated, recentered and reinvigorated, touring behind 2018’s Critical Equation. “I feel like I’m in a totally new band right now,” says guitarist and singer Scott McMicken. Continue reading »
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Metro Staff on February 12, 2020
San Jose’s pioneering craft-cocktail bar teams with The Francis Experience Trio for a series of live music, poetry and storytelling—all paired with the bar’s top-shelf libations. As the resident house band, The Francis Experience will back a number of local performers on select Sundays through April. The first installment of The Haberdasher Shows series, slated for Feb. 16, showcases pianist, emcee and songwriter Bennet Roth. Next up, on March 29, is singer, songwriter and vocalist Ren Geisick. And on May 3, multi-instrumentalist Ian Santillano is the guest of honor. Visual artists and poets will also share the spotlight each evening. Continue reading »
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Metro Staff on February 12, 2020
It’s been a little over two years since hyphy-heavyweight Keak da Sneak was nearly murdered in Richmond. The man was shot no less than eight times. “Can’t kill hyphy!” were his words two months later, as he dropped Withdrawl, his first album in five years. After recovering from the shooting, Keak, landed behind bars on a weapons-possession charge. However, the rapper is free, optimistic and continuing to rock shows despite serious mobility issues stemming from the targeted attack. “I’m so blessed,” he told CBS San Francisco in October of last year. Continue reading »
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Metro Staff on February 12, 2020
The Trims have played melancholic post-punk with pop ambitions for nearly a decade now, and if you’ve ever seen one of their high-energy live performances, you know they’ve got the chops. While frontman Gabe Maciel’s confessional poetry has always been concerned with loss, regret and heartbreak, sonically the band’s latest record Julian Street finds the San Jose natives embracing increasingly bright hooks. The results are decidedly danceable. Think Two Door Cinema Club if they bled Orange Sauce. Grab a drink with the band at The Branham Lounge at this post-Valentine’s Day show. Continue reading »
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Metro Staff on February 12, 2020
The great family norteño band from San Jose known as Los Tigres Del Norte return for a hometown show with their friends, Los Tucanes—another norteño group from Tijuana—and Joss Favela, a rising Sinaloan musician who trades in the traditional Mexican folk traditions of banda and norteño. Los Tigres is among the most popular Latino bands in the world with a real-world focus on struggle and pride in their work, often taking on subjects such as the drug trade and immigration in their music. Late last year they released a documentary about their recent performance at Folsom Prison. Continue reading »
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Metro Staff on February 12, 2020
A staple of the operatic repertoire, Giuseppe Verdi’s turbulent tale of love, revenge and the power of music, Il Trovatore, comes to the California Theatre. The opera tells the tale of a woman following her own heart despite various and violent patriarchal obstacles and features an emotional, heart-stopping score conducted by Joseph Marcheso, Opera San José’s music director and principal conductor. The production is directed by Brad Dalton, whose résumé includes San Francisco Opera, the Metropolitan Opera, Washington National Opera and many other international companies. The production runs through March 1. Continue reading »
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Anne Gelhaus on February 12, 2020
It’s hard to fathom how many “scenes from a hat” Ryan Stiles and Greg Proops have done, given that they’ve been appearing on Whose Line is it Anyway? since its original BBC incarnation in 1989. After more than 30 years of improvising comedy sketches for small screens on either side of the pond, Stiles and Proops—joined by fellow “Whose Line” regulars Jeff B. Davis and Joel Murray—are touring with a stage version of the show that’s a bit less family-friendly than its TV counterpart, but still asks audiences to come up with ideas for scenes to pull from a hat and other sketches. Continue reading »
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Metro Staff on February 12, 2020
Richmond Virginia metalcore outfit Bad Omens blend melodic vocals and ethereal keys with crunchy, soaring guitar leads and throaty screams—using personal despair and inner demons to inspire defiant songs of hope and transcendance. They are currently touring behind their 2019 full-length, Finding God Before God Finds Me. Direct support comes from Oh, Sleeper, a Fort Worth texas metalcore outfit featuring former members of Between the Buried and Me and As Cities Burn. Thousand Below, Bloodline and the San Jose-based Demon in Me share the bill. Continue reading »
