Concerts

FLEET FOXES at THE FILLMORE | 7/21/11The Fleet Foxes didn’t pull any punches during their two-hour performance at the Fillmore Auditorium on Thursday night. The sextet’s set featured dizzying turns of instrumental skill, carefully layered compositions and fast-paced rhythmic stretches…

So even though it’s barely in the rearview, we just confirmed the date for next year’s Showcase. Got your calendar? Good. Whip out your red Sharpie and put a big old circle around Saturday, June 23. That’s right: Same weekend next year. Don’t worry, you’ll get plenty of reminders between…

It is hard to believe Seattle’s Fleet Foxes (playing the Fillmore Auditorium tonight with Alela Diane) was ever known as Pineapple. Luckily, another local band was using the same moniker, forcing the baroque-folk sextet to come up with something else, and thus Fleet Foxes was born…

Chances are that unless you’re a big record collector, you haven’t heard the name Alex Steinweiss until now. Steinweiss died on July 18 in Sarasota, Florida at age 94. A designer for Columbia records, Steinweiss invented the creative album cover in the 1940s. Before then, albums were usually drab cardboard…

A Tribe Called Quest is a group that will forever go down as one of the greatest hip-hop groups of all time. And its album, The Low End Theory, is among the game’s best and most influential albums. As we approach the twenty-year anniversary of its release, DJ Mu$a is…

Born as a side project for Casey Crescenzo’s work that didn’t quite fit in with the sound of the Receiving End of Sirens, his post-hardcore band, the Dear Hunter (playing Summit Music Hall tonight with Kay Kay & His Weathered Underground, O’Brother and The Outfit), quickly grew into Crescenzo’s main…

When entrepreneur Francois Safieddine started thinking about Chloe, his new venture that opens Thursday, July 21, in the former Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse, 1445 Market Street, he researched what the nightlife crowd was looking for downtown — and wasn’t already being offered. “What my research led me to is there was…

Kyle Person doesn’t look like what most people think of when they think “musician,” and that will probably work well in his favor in the long run. He also doesn’t make music like the average musician. Anyone who’s seen his shows these past few years may have witnessed someone who…

Alela Diane was born in the small town of Nevada City, California, where she got a nudge from her friend Joanna Newsom to perform her solo material for the first time. After issuing her debut album, Forest Parade, in 2003, Diane recorded and self-released her followup, 2004’s The Pirate’s Gospel,…

The artist known as Buckethead is an unusual variant on “guitar hero.” He knows six-string constructs like a salamander knows wet leaves, but few know the face, or identity, of Buckethead (due to his ever-present bucket-shaped hood). Buckethead’s style is forged from the metallic assaults of Slayer and Steve Vai,…

The members of Acrassicauda learned about heavy metal from bootleg tapes they were able to get during the regime of Saddam Hussein. And just like many heavy metal bands in America, the group was accused of worshipping Satan. Except that in Iraq, this meant credible death threats. The trials and…

Of all Madonna’s children, Katy Perry is the fastest addiction: The first artist to not leave the Top 10 for a full year, she’s all stadium-bright hooks, with a disco bounce like United State of Electronica on a Pentagon budget. She’s also the hardest crash: “Firework” is at once industrial-strength…

As my semi-autistic friend Steve once observed, Time Is Numbers — and that’s true enough, but it’s also true that people don’t really like to think about the latter that much, because, well, math is boring and generally only enjoyed by nerds. That’s why it’s convenient, if you are ever…

Oh, sure, from the jump this album screams “21st century post-punk!” And, yes, it was recorded by the Faint’s Kyle Petersen. But there is something more desperate, spooky and urgent in these songs. “Stars” breaks out of any expected mold with a dissonance that seems to warp out of the…

En Stereo, the brainchild of Mane Rok and Prime Element producer Es-Nine, is the quintessential tribute to the DJ/MC combination. Mane’s writing is determined, and his execution on each track is classic, reminiscent of the rapping style that birthed hip-hop. Es-Nine, who crafted all the beats, exhibits an especially strong…

After several years as director of show development for the Up With People organization — where he was charged with writing songs, co-producing shows and worked in talent development — Pat Murphy got back in the local music scene and started playing with the Nacho Men around 2004. On his…

Sarah Slaton’s West Texas EP couldn’t be any more nondescript: Aside from two stamps, one in black and bearing Slaton’s name, and the other in red with the title of the record (which, incidentally, is inspired by the ill-fated show Friday Night Lights and the idealized love depicted between Coach…

Eric Johnson has only released a handful of studio recordings over the past three decades. Although hailed as a guitar virtuoso, Johnson has also been known as something of a perfectionist when he’s in the studio, which might explain the four- and five-year gaps between albums. Johnson took a slightly…

Team AG has been bringing in some big names for its Thursday-night shows at the Jet Hotel, from Mark Farina to Doc Martin to Sunshine Jones, who’ll perform his special blend of live PA and mixing there on July 21. Best known for his longtime association with Moonbeam (he was…