I cannot believe she programmed those drums (not to mention everything else) all by herself. They sound live, crisp, and swinging, ever more complex with each listen. I better believe, though, that after 33 years …

Interview with Grossmont College’s Raul Sandelin, who is near completion of the film A Box Full of Rocks: The El Cajon Years of Lester Bangs. Sandlein: "I'm an El Cajon cheerleader."

Smeary, I was going to say. But smeary implies an overall indifference to control. This stuff, collected from 1969 in Europe, demonstrates control on multiple levels — if it achieves smeariness, it does so if …

“Alive, alive, alive, alive/ Alive, alive, alive, alive-o/ Alive-o,” she finishes. And if that sounds too simple, remember it’s shorn of her melody. Remember, too, that after Boston, after Waco (again), after Washington D.C. (why …

Drummer Paul Motian died in New York City in 2011, on the 48th anniversary of John Kennedy’s assassination. He carried one cymbal around with him for the last 30 of his 80 years on Earth, …

Rosie Flores apologizes for not making her scheduled gig at Queen Bee’s last year, but she got a counteroffer to play with Chuck Berry at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

John Cale is not psychic! (Unless he is.) The man couldn’t have predicted Steve Albini’s second-motioning those mundane haters of Cher’s “Believe”; but he intuited that tipping point where the hip(sters) went (reflexively) bleech at …

Seventeen years ago I put on Scott Walker’s album Tilt for the first time; the real-life Phantom of the Opera began to sing as I watched a storm overtake a city center, from my picture …

The famous title track scared the shit of me as a kid, still alarms me, and was, of course, meant that way. The “aqualung,” I’ve finally decided, signifies the title wino’s capacity to live under …

“It’s very short, as I recall,” said the resident jazz expert in my life, about McCoy Tyner’s piano solo in this half-hour spiritual yearning — recorded in 1965 but not released until 1968, a year …

Fabiana Passoni moves to Oceanside with her triplets.

So, Wayne Shorter remembers how he’d step up to the mic and the rhythm section — that’s Herbie Hancock on piano, Ron Carter on bass, Tony Williams on drums — would mostly or even almost …

So, he's recutting almost everything here even though he didn't lose the rights to his songs to himself — just because he can. That's an Ant man for you. Opener "Losing You Makes Crucifixion Easy" …

UCSD composer, performer, and teacher Christopher Adler talks about San Diego New Music, a local nonprofit.

Rock critic Richard Meltzer talks about his former columnist gig at the Reader and his new project with Mike Watt: Spielgusher.

San Diego public defender Tim Riley on the gee-tar.

Technique, writes pianist Kenny Werner in his liner notes, "clears all the brush, so to speak, between the player and his instrument." And I read that at first as "clears off the brush," but I …

Charles Lloyd, American, not only the most lyrical but frankly the most conversational of jazz saxophonists, is a musical orator and curator of quiet fire. Maria Farantouri, well on her way to legend in her …

Key concept for 21st-century Vince (Clarke) & Andy (Bell): convergence. That's right, everything's getting closer together, in the mix, in the lyrics, and not so as to stumble and fall, but so as to stand …

Yes, his name is Boo Boo, except on legal documents. But the technically James Davis never went to school (or so sayeth his press kit), so he can't read legal documents. So, he's better off …

As I've mentioned elsewhere, this music produced a profound spiritual experience wherein I, a proud atheist, felt an overwhelming connection to the One, something beyond space and time, in a perpetual state of being and …

"Alrightfellas, holditrighthere, waitaminute!" That's "Wheel of Fortune," roughly 2:40 in, where the Genius needs to reign in the horns, somewhere in 1972. But that's only an especially fine specimen of the bold yet effortless idiom …

Note to the warm, dear, swing-dancing friend of mine who lamented, "Charlie Parker killed everything I love": you probably won't listen to this alto-sax/two-upright-basses/one-cello session, but I thought of you. I thought of you since …

How badly do we need Jonathan Richman now? After Election 2008, I was ready to say, "Not as much as before," given that the government (at least) no longer promulgated that eight-year Dominant Paradigm of …

Catching up with a so-called one-hit-wonder band 29 years down the line is a little like checking in on a former beauty-pageant winner or somebody who got kicked by the president. You wonder how (if) …

Were I the man on the deck at the college radio station, I'd first throw on track two, "Mine As You Ever Were." Not so direct as the opener "One of One," this "Mine" nevertheless …

I hope people don't write off the Smoosh record because it's self-released. Or because it's a mostly web release. Or because it sounds more mainstream than the last two. Or because they're young. Or because …

She beguiles me. She fascinates me. Her knack for hovering right outside a lyric, desire pressed to the emotion(s) within (a scenario she evinces literally for "Goodbye, Little Yellow Bird") reminds me of no one …

Anton Barbeau’s last one, Plastic Guitar, defied most expectations. Specifically, I didn’t expect a pop-monger to get funky courtesy of a few stealth Cake members, and the Jesus thing, while left-field, seemed sincere. Barbeau seems …

I went through Tift Merritt's new one while reading John Glatt's Lost and Found — that's the true story of Jayce Lee Dugard, who, should you not recall, was/is the girl kidnapped off the streets …

OMD's first album since 1996. The first classic-lineup album since 1986. "New Babies: New Toys" comes in clean like a virtual world sunrise then fuzz-rubbers the bass, toughs up the drums, throws words like "shit" …

It's 1972. Marc Bolan, born Mark Feld, son of a truck driver, sits on top of the fricking world. Or, at least, on top of as much of the world as matters to him — …

Top ten reasons why Meat Loaf made the best album of 2010 bar none with his latest (last?) (and, yeah, I'm squinting at you Kanye West):• Meat sings "I put my pants on" and• "I …

At 5:19 into the first cut, Simmons’s alto and Barbara Donald's trumpet hit a huge skidding smear — a show-off driver on a slick road, hopped up maybe, hits the brake and the gas at …

A song cycle, as I hear it, about an aspiring Jersey Girl — aspirant to Jersey City, at least, and Anything With Capital Letters Above All (Even If She Hasn't Thought That Through). She runs …

On Elizabeth Cook's last album, Balls, she sang "Sometimes it takes balls/to be a woman" — the record's only good joke — and the Velvet Underground's "Sunday Morning," the record's only earworm melody, and it's …

Longtime San Diego resident Gary Wilson, conceptual artist and second-generation lounge musician, has been an underground legend since his 1977 lounge/soul/freakout debut LP You Think You Really Know Me. His new album, Electric Endicott (named …

"Everything that rises must converge" — so wrote paleontologist and priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955), who envisioned an "Omega Point" right before Christ turns on his light and we all fly unto it. I'm …

On their sixth studio set, Rasputina’s dropped the cello-femmes-trio bit. A lot of the cello here comes from Daniel DeJesus, who doubles on a two-stringed Chinese instrument called an erhu. The three-cellos bit was fine …

Vince Clarke, modern-day Bach? For those of you not tuned when Yaz (Yazoo in the U.K.) did this the first time around, I figured I'd get your attention. Realistically, Vince Clarke (the half that doesn't …

I've loved Patty Griffin since 1996's Living With Ghosts, where she premiered a voice that could purr and whisper and insinuate on its own successful terms, but rose to quick, sharp stabs, as if the …

Seventy-nine-year-old drummer Paul Motian makes his intentions known 15 seconds into the opener, "Mode IV," one brush slap on one drum head repeated, re-repeated, then the whole pseudo-echo empties out into a burbling cymbal brook. …

In a word: soapy. That's Giuseppi Logan's saxophone tone in one word, although soap, when you think on it, can do so much. His intonation, indeed, squirts away from notes like a bar of Irish …

Like he's never been away. That simple. That gobsmacking. Which is why I can't get, along the subject of gobs, with all this lukewarm mumbling about "pretty good for outtakes," which of course means pretty …

Float like a butterfly, abrade like sandpaper. Thus, the curious and fascinating dichotomy between band and bandleader on this, Marion Brown's second album for ESP-Disk as a leader. Originally released 42 years ago in '68, …

Charlotte Gainsbourg put forth 5:55 with some help from her French compatriots (electroduo Air) and her U.K. ones to boot (Nigel Godrich at the board, Jarvis Cocker and Neil Hannnon on lyrics). She brought forth …

The Smoke Fairies had me at "Frozen Heart." Actually, on more comprehensive listening to their collection of bits ’n’ pieces, they had me at "When You Grow Old." Will you remember me, the singer wonders. …

Ratt left San Diego in the ’80s and scrabbled to the big prize in L.A. with their triple-platinum debut LP. After years of decadence, a few more albums, and the eventual drug death of guitarist …

Susan Boyle's victory is Revenge of the Nerds writ large. Writ gloriously large. If you've ever been ditched by your "best friend" on a cold, rainy night with no easy way to get home; ever …

"This 'stereo' recording," states the back cover of Barrence Whitfield's comeback album, "is suitable for playback on today's hi-fidelity systems without adverse effect to the stylus." Good thing most of us aren't (I hope) stupid …