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Alec Adams on January 12, 2022
This writer is utterly devastated to realize that early 2010s music has now come around for its time in the nostalgia spotlight. The once forward-thinking jams of MGMT, STRFKR, Foster the People and alt-J now bring listeners back to a simpler time, when one could dance with friends and do crazy things…
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Alec Adams on December 15, 2021
On paper, cover bands are a win-win situation: the band gets to play their favorite artist’s material, and the audience gets to relive their favorite musical memories. But not just anyone can do it. Audiences can sniff out a poser from a mile away, and only the greatest can truly live up…
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Alec Adams on December 8, 2021
In the 1998 action comedy movie Six-String Samurai, a Buddy Holly stand-in wields a katana slaying Mad Max pastiches of rock and rolls greatest legends. During a bar fight scene, a band plays with an outlandish look and ferocious style on oversized instruments. You’d think this band would be an invention of…
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Aaron Carnes on November 17, 2021
Ryan DiBiase was blown away that 225 people showed up to The Ritz in 2017 to see his latest skate video, Toga 4. By then, he’d been doing it for a while, but that one was quite the jump. He premiered his first video, More Like Toga, in 2011 at a friend’s house…
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Kyle Martin on November 10, 2021
Kolohe Kai’s show in San Jose has been hotly anticipated and quickly sold out. The island reggae band was started in 2009 by lead singer Roman De Peralta from Oahu. Popularly known for its sunny pop songs such as “Ehu Girl” and “Cool Down,” Kolohe Kai also has more roots-rock and skankin’…
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Mat Weir on November 3, 2021
Remember in the original Matrix when our hero, Neo—played by Keanu Reeves—tells the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar he saw the same black cat walk by twice? His crewmates grow anxious as he describes the experience, telling him: “déjà vu is usually a glitch in the Matrix. It happens when they change something.”
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Alec Adams on November 3, 2021
Oakland’s Morty Orkin has been dedicated to honoring the work of the great pop artists by way of tribute bands for a long time, moving from Michael Jackson to Neil Diamond to the one and only Prince. The Purple Ones have been in the game since 2012 and their commitment to doing…
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Kyle Martin on October 20, 2021
This Saturday, the smooth, velvety tones of Trish Toledo will bless The Ritz, a downtown San Jose staple which only recently reopened its doors after the pandemic. Toledo, an Ecuadorian and Guatemalan soul singer and artist from Carson, has a powerful voice that looms over the soft and steady beat of her…
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Bill Kopp on October 13, 2021
Though he was already well-established as a metal guitarist, when Miguel Iniguez launched Starfarer in 2017 he was a total newcomer to the world of electronic music. Memories of 1980s horror and sci-fi soundtracks fired his imagination, inspiring him to take his new project in a radically different direction.
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Jay Edgar on September 15, 2021
By marrying a variety of Latin American rhythms—including Mexican and Colombian cumbia, bossa nova, bolero and tango—with rock, soul and R&B, La Santa Cecilia have created a sound that’s truly pan-American. The LA-based sextet initially reached a larger audience in 2013 with their anti-migra protest hit “Ice el Hielo.” Then, in 2017,…
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