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Avi Salem on June 29, 2016
When it comes to picking songs for that carefree, windows-down summer playlist, front seat selectors would do well to consider The Mowgli’s. With acoustic anthems about holding hands beneath a California sunset and disco-punk celebrations of kissing in the dark, the SoCal indie-pop outfit have built a career upon songs in praise…
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Stacy Torres on June 22, 2016
Of all the incredible blues performances Dan Ross has seen in his time, there is one he will never forget. “It was just fantastic when John Lee Hooker came out and basically rocked 3,000 people with his boot,” Ross says, recalling one of the two times the blues legend performed at the…
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John Flynn on May 18, 2016
In January of 2014, San Jose emcee Rey Resurreccion told Metro that his then-brand new Heart of the City was the first record he’d made after carefully studying what his fans liked. Considering that, his new EP—Sweet Tooth Tony, released earlier this month—makes total sense. At less than 30 minutes, his latest…
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John Flynn on May 11, 2016
After laying down beats, hooks and verses for six songs, Traxamillion got tired of his own voice. So he tapped three friends to feature over his hard-knocking trap tracks. After that, he threw the snack-sized project up on Soundcloud, tweeted it to his 25,000-plus followers and kicked back as the internet distributed…
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Nick Veronin on May 4, 2016
Plenty of people dread their 40th birthday, but according to Ian Bavitz—better known by his stage name, Aesop Rock—the idea of being “over the hill” was particularly distressing. “Being an older dude in a younger dude’s game, it just loomed,” the indie emcee and producer says. “I think it caused a lot…
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John Flynn on April 20, 2016
On the cover of his latest album, Think Bigs, San Jose rapper Andrew Bigs wears wire-rimmed glasses and channels Steve Jobs in the iconic, if grammatically incorrect, “Think Different” Apple campaign. On the aptly titled release, Bigs distills his singular experience of growing up on the East Side, then attending private school…
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Nick Veronin on April 20, 2016
We walk around with the entire internet in our pockets, calling up ride-sharing services from our mobile devices and perusing menus online whilst en route to our favorite restaurants. The world is at our fingertips and waiting… well, that is so 20th century. The organizers of the annual SoFa Street Fair certainly…
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Anna Bagirov on April 13, 2016
Most gringos know very little about Selena, other than what they may have picked up from the eponymous biopic on the Spanish- and English-language pop singer. However, among Latinos of a certain age, Selena Quintanilla-Perez is much more than the character that launched Jennifer Lopez’s career—she is a diva, on par with Madonna.…
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Nick Veronin on April 13, 2016
Jeff Evans, owner of On the Corner Music, estimates that he has somewhere between 4,000 and 5,000 records boxed up and ready to be tossed out on the pavement outside his Campbell storefront, weather permitting. The vinyl merchant isn’t giving up on his enterprise. On the contrary, he’s planning to cash in—50…
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John Flynn on April 6, 2016
In the era of performative wokeness, it didn’t take long for the Internet to explode in a fit of raging think pieces over the second single from Macklemore’s second LP, This Unruly Mess I’ve Made. The eight-minute “White Privilege II” finds the white Seattle rapper taking a long, hard look in the…
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