By Nicholas Palmer You can buy a lot of things with millions of dollars, but no amount of money can replace magic that’s discovered, fought for, bled over and perfected inside the padded walls of a music rehearsal space. What Lennon Studios has been to local maestros of pitch and

I have a love-hate relationship with creating TOP 20 playlists of local bands. On one hand, the playlist becomes my favorite thing to listen to for the next year. Additionally, it makes it super easy for me to recommend bands to friends. I also love posting a link to the playlist in my friend’s Facebook feeds when they say, “tired of my music, I need a new playlist.”

I’m a huge fan of Bender’s Bar and Grill. It’s one of the last great divey rock n roll bars that’s still left in San Francisco. I’ve rhapsodized about them before, but to be succinct, I love that the drinks are cheap, the food is good, and the bartenders are the perfect mix of sweet and surly. Also, the walls are covered in signs from many of my favorite businesses that have closed.

The Y Axes are a San Francisco-based indie outfit who play a unique blend of dreamy, synth-glossed pop and rhythmically muscular rock. Having initially formed as a recording project by vocalist Alexi Rose Belchere and guitarist Devin Nelson, the duo decided to take on the project full time after premiering a

As Radical Face, Ben Cooper has written song after song about a fictional family. They make up not just one album but a trilogy of them, called The Family Tree. All of the characters on the first two albums, The Roots and The Branches, were made up. But then, Cooper was forced to confront some very

Patrick Watson is a Canadian singer-songwriter from Montreal, Quebec. It also refers to the eponymous band formed by Watson, whose blend of cabaret pop and classical music influences with indie rock. Tuesday, January 21, 2020 | August Hall | Tickets can be purchased here [promosimple id=”f62b”]

With their ninth studio album, Nada Surf—Matthew Caws, Daniel Lorca, Ira Elliot, and their longtime friend and collaborator Louie Lino—continue pursuing their humanistic vision of the world through hooky, catchy rock songs with sharply drawn, yet tenderly felt lyrics. Never Not Together, out on TK DATE, is a wide-ranging collection

by Jonas Barnes Last year I saw that one of my favorite films of all time was being turned into a Broadway musical. I’d never been a huge musical fan in general, but I was still really excited by the news. Here I was, living in New York City, finding