On their last album (2002’s Title TK) the Breeders outfit always seemed like a rusty spark plug spurting inspiration here and there but never switching on to the full alt-rock blast that songs like “Cannonball” and “Divine Hammer” portended. Of course a lot has happened since the mid-1990s when the band formed as a side project for Kim Deal (bassist for the Pixes). For fans that grumbled over the last break between Breeders albums, the six-year hiatus between the disappointing...

I remember my first night at the Hotel Café back in early 2001. A friend of mine had recently watched Donnie Darko on DVD and was struck by the cover of Tears for Fears’ “Mad World” that played at the end. After scanning the credits and discovering it was a dude named Gary Jules, he was surprised to find out that this guy was actually playing that very same night at a new place called the Hotel Café. He called...

At 10am on Thursday, April 10, multiple tour buses blocked traffic outside The Warfield and husky men unloaded gear for the kick off of the Honda Civic Tour featuring Panic at the Disco, Motion City Soundtrack, The Hush Sound and Phantom Planet—a lineup whose fanbase may or may not be old enough to actually drive. 12 hours later, inside The Warfield, screaming teens flanked the stage, standing beneath a projector screen displaying text messages sent by people in the audience....

The more you listen to Saturdays = Youth the more it sinks its hooks into you. As with all of Anthony Gonzalez' albums, it's richly cinematic in sound. And this one definitely lives up to its title with songs that range from 90s-era shoegaze jams like "Dark Moves of Love" and "Highway of Endless Dreams" to tunes like "Kim & Jessie," which sound like a B-side to a John Hughes film. Saturdays = Youth features more female vocals than his...

It has been four years since R.E.M. last released a studio album and fourteen since the band put out a record that showed any sparks of rock ‘n’ roll passion or volume. The last four albums, while excellent sets of reflective songwriting, were all fairly muted and/or electronic affairs, but the one thing that R.E.M. has always consistently illustrated is that they know where home is and how to get back there. That’s what Accelerate is—a long-awaited, much-anticipated return to...

When you spend your entire career exposing the dark side of the human psyche and don’t pay for it with your life, something’s got to give. You either have to lighten up to give some contrast or continue on and risk the very real possibility of being viewed as a mawkish, two-dimensional sham. People will usually cut it short and just call you a joke. Last year found Nick Cave cutting loose from his Bad Seeds to jam out some...

Testament, Sadus, Laaz Rockit and Vicious Rumors all on the same bill. Believe it or not, this show did not take place at The Stone in 1986, but at The Independent on March 30, 2008. How can that be, you may ask? Well, the San Francisco metal scene has experienced a bit of a revival as of late, and living in the heart of this great city I have been lucky enough to witness it all for the second time...

Ministry shows have always been hit or miss for me. After witnessing their all-out assault on San Francisco in 1990 for the Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste tour (complete with a drunken El Duce), they’ve let me on more than one occasion with their lackluster shows of their later years. Understanding that this is claimed to be Ministry's last tour (hence the name of the tour: C U LaTour), I thought it might be good to see them...

A few months ago, in my discussion of bootleg albums, I made the distinction between bands who play the same set every night, and bands who mix it up, play a different show for every audience. Now I need to make another distinction, between bands who merely alter which songs they play on given night, and bands who alter how they play their songs. That is, bands who actually improvise on stage. Improvisation is, of course, one of the fundamentals...

While other big-draw names in music have rebelled against the major-label machine recently by releasing their music independently just to prove (maybe even to themselves) that they can (Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead are the biggest names to do so), Raconteurs masterminds Jack White and Brendan Benson chose to flex their muscles and throw their weight around a little in a totally different way: two weeks before its ultimate release, the duo shipped their side project’s new a lbum, Consolers...