When Jeff Brummett isn’t busy working at Streetlight Records, he’s playing guitar and singing in Doctor Nurse, one of San Jose’s best indie rock bands, featuring heavy psychedelic and folk influences and a balance of lush vocal harmonies and carefully textured instrumentation. Their song craftsmanship is surprisingly sophisticated, better even than a… » Read More

I won’t mince words: Kimbra’s debut album “Vows” is profoundly boring, though it shows potential. The twenty-two-year old jazz songstress from New Zealand emerged victorious in her duet with Gotye on “Somebody That I Used to Know.” While that song’s expiration date was many moons ago, there’s a chance Kimbra’s for now… » Read More

Summer means big music festivals, and this year the South Bay has more than ever. Here are six covering genres from rock to hip-hop, metal, blues and more (go here for a rundown of this summer’s jazz events). I Love This City Fri-Sat, May 25-26; Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View Things got a… » Read More

It took years of hard work and gigging in the Bay Area before freak-metal outfit—and unlikely rock stars—Primus blew up in the ’90s. Spazzy, weirdo bass player/frontman Les Claypool started the band in the early ’80s with guitarist Todd Huth. In 1988, literally months before Primus released their first album, Suck on… » Read More

Sometimes it’s difficult for a band to find their target audience. Rich Ajlouny and Anthony Gullicksen of San Jose’s Stock Foto found it in the place they least expected: Santana Row. “There were these 16 and 17-year-old girls from a prom or something, and they loved it. We were surprised by that,… » Read More

San Jose jazz/fusion drummer Wally Schnalle is celebrating the release of his latest album Saturday at the Theatre on San Pedro Square. The album, Wally Schnalle Live at Yoshi’s, is a top-notch example of up-tempo jazz fusion recorded in Oakland. Schnalle is joined by other talented Bay Area jazz musicians—Dann Zinn on… » Read More

One of the biggest hip-hop shows of the weekend arrived at an unlikely venue yesterday as Bay Area rap legend E-40 headlined Stanford’s BlackFest with one of L.A.’s hottest new MCs, Kendrick Lamar. Metro photograph Aron Cooperman was at the university’s Frost Amphitheater to catch the action, which also included dance performances,… » Read More