Queens of the Stone Age performs during Aftershock Festival at Discovery Park in Sacramento on Oct. 8, 2023. Courtesy. SAN FRANCISCO — As Bay Area temperatures soared, Queens of the Stone Age brought their own heat to Bill Graham Civic Auditorium on Friday night. Josh Homme, the band’s frontman,…

Sufjan Stevens, “Javelin” Evolutionary biologists contend that in nature, living things tend to evolve from simple to complex. This natural growth in complexity is seen in single-cell organisms evolving into multi-cellular creatures and eventually into plants and animals over millennia of millennia. But you can also find this increasing…

SAN FRANCISCO — Psychedelic musical chameleons Osees played the first of four sold-out shows at The Chapel on Sunday night. One of the busiest bands in show business, was fresh off the release of new album Intercepted Message and a string of shows in Europe, with the San Francisco…

“Peter Frampton at Royal Albert Hall.” Frampton Comes Alive has sold more than 20 million copies since its release in 1976. Any full and complete reckoning of the cultural impact of rock superstar Peter Frampton‘s double live album would have to include all the awesome vans inside which the…

OSEES, “Intercepted Message.” There are certain things we’ve come to expect in the late summer: mostly short vacations, climate emergencies and back-to-school sales. But ’tis also the season for a new Osees album. Since 2003, John Dwyer and company have released at least one album per year, first as…

Sonic Youth, “Live In Brooklyn 2011.” Sonic Youth was my generation’s Camelot. Too young to see Kennedy in the White House, our fin de siècle kingdom was a prolific noise band helmed by grunge’s ultimate power couple, Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon. The band meant a lot of things…

Neil Young, “Chrome Dreams.” Expressionist painter Vincent Van Gogh told his brother Theo to never let anyone see his paintings. Luckily for us, Theo didn’t listen. In 1977, Neil Young made the inexplicable decision to shelve an album of songs recorded between 1974 and 1977. Chrome Dreams Neil Young…

Tori Amos performs at Masonic Auditorium in San Francisco, Calif. on July 26, 2023. Nate McKinley/STAFF. SAN FRANCISCO — As Tori Amos began her show at the Masonic in Wednesday night, she first paid tribute. “She warned us of the abuse in the church,” Amos said of Sinéad O’Connor,…

Tony Bennett. Photo by Virginia Sherwood/NBCUniversal. Singer Tony Bennett died Friday at the age of 96. The legendary crooner’s 85-year career garnered worldwide acclaim and 18 Grammy awards. Born Anthony Dominick Benedetto on Aug. 3, 1926 in Queens, New York, Bennett has been a household name for more than…

Nina Simone, “You’ve Got to Learn.” In February, vocalist Nina Simone would have turned 90 years old. The jazz legend, who passed away in 2003, released records for decades. As part of the year-long celebration of Simone, Verve Records is releasing a newly unearthed six-song set Simone performed at…