Winter Fest is barely in the rear view mirror, but San Jose Jazz is already announcing it’s preliminary lineup for its flagship Summer Fest. This year, things are gonna be funky; George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic are topping the bill, along with Chris Botti, Maceo Parker, and The Whispers.
Continue reading »
by
Diana San Juan on March 9, 2017
A great song has the power to transcend time and space. A rich harmony, an infectious melody, a sick beat, a beautiful lyric: they all work together to move a listener—whether on the dancefloor, emotionally, or both.
Continue reading »
In 1969, Dr. J. Allen Hynek delivered an address titled Twenty-one Years of UFO Reports to the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In it, he developed the language that is still in use today to describe sightings of the unexplained. “I divide the close encounter cases,” Hynek wrote, “into three…
Continue reading »
by
Diana San Juan, Vicente Serna, Benjamin Siepak, Nick Veronin on March 8, 2017
Sheltering two illegal immigrants from postwar Italy comes with unexpected consequences for Eddie and Beatrice Carbone in Arthur Miller’s A View From The Bridge, opening this week at The Pear Theatre. Also this week: John 5, guitarist for Marilyn Manson and Rob Zombie brings big, scary guitars to The Ritz Dash Berlin…
Continue reading »
Speaking with Derek See and Maxwell Borkenhagen, guitarists for local psych rock quartet The Gentle Cycle, it seems that place may be the chief bonding agent in their music’s winding lysergic chain.
Continue reading »
by
Diana San Juan on March 2, 2017
Everybody needs a hero, according to Bardo Martinez. Not all wear red capes, sport spit curls and swoop in to save damsels in distress. Some have brown skin, wear frilly Austin Powers shirts and serve Mexicans, Mexican-Americans or Spanish-speakers all over America—or, as Martinez says, “La Raza.”
Continue reading »
by
Diana San Juan, Vicente Serna, Benjamin Siepak, Nick Veronin on March 2, 2017
For those who weren’t moved by the mascara and brooding synth experimentation of bands like Depeche Mode and The Cure, or the caustic affront of hardcore punk bands like Black Flag and Bad Brains, the 1980s marked a dark time for popular, guitar-driven music. By ’81—the year The Rolling Stones released their…
Continue reading »
For Sanae Yamada—keyboardists and one half of psychedelic rockers Moon Duo— the most surreal aspect of relocating from the Bay Area to Portland a few years back was the difference in seasons. Portland’s were pronounced, but she had barely noticed the cyclical shifts in San Francisco. Over time, her memories of Northern…
Continue reading »
There’s just something about the horn line that comes in at about the 32-second mark of “All That Glitters”— the lead-off track from North By North’s excellent sophomore album, Last Days Of Magic—that screams The Blues Brothers. But maybe that’s just a symptom of some sort of rock-writer confirmation bias, owing to…
Continue reading »
by
Vicente Serna on February 16, 2017
Starting this week, San Jose Jazz Winter Fest returns with three weekends of great jazz, both old and new. With shows scheduled in downtown San Jose and in Palo Alto, the annual celebration has its sights set on bringing all of Silicon Valley into the fold. As is the case with all…
Continue reading »
