French Cassettes, courtesy Marisa Bazan French Cassettes have had an eventful summer. It began in June with the release of their third studio album, Benzene, and a North American tour. Now they’re back home in the Bay Area and playing Outside Lands for the first time after nearly two…

Pinkshift, courtesy. John’s Hopkins is known for fostering the careers of medical professionals, not post-punk rockers. At least until now. Pinkshift has entered the chat. “In college, I really couldn’t find a group of people that were into the same type of music,” guitarist Paul Vallejo said. “There’s no…

BALTHVS, courtesy Santi Pulecio. After listening to their newest album, Harvest, one might not think that the good musical vibes of BALTHVS could be produced by a bassist who only learned to play the instrument over the past few years, a drummer who purchased his first kit in 2020…

DARUMAS; L to R: Ceci Leon, Vedala Vilmond and Aldana Aguirre. Courtesy Lucía Olmos. The musical backgrounds of the members of DARUMAS are as diverse as their roots and upbringing. The Latin-American funk and pop trio consists of Cuban American guitarist Ceci Leon, bassist Aldana Aguirre, who is from Argentina but…

System of a Down, courtesy. There’s an interconnectedness to the each of the branches that grow from the creative organism of System of a Down bassist Shavo Odadjian. Whether it’s gigging with the band he’s played with for nearly three decades, launching new band Seven Hours After Violet, cheering…

Lake Street Dive, courtesy. Akie Bermiss says Good Together, the new album by Lake Street Dive, is all about joyful rebellion against the heaviness of the world right now. The band knew it wanted to focus on keeping the music fun, according to the keyboardist and vocalist. Lake Street…

Megan Moroney, courtesy CeCe Dawson. When Georgian Megan Moroney moved to Nashville in 2020 to pursue a music industry career, she wasn’t completely sure what that would mean. So the University of Georgia grad, who hadn’t written her first song until three years earlier in her freshman year, set…

Lindsey Stirling, courtesy. Fans of Lindsey Stirling get to see different versions of the violinist and dancer in the video for “Eye of the Untold Her,” a single from her new album, Duality. There’s the young Stirling mocked by judges of “America’s Got Talent” in 2010 and at various…

Akira Galaxy performs during BottleRock Napa Valley at the Napa Valley Expo on May 24, 2024. Courtesy. NAPA, Calif. — Akira Galaxy Ament had moved to Los Angeles to pursue her music career, but it wasn’t until the pandemic had struck in 2020 and she went back home to…

Hootie and The Blowfish perform at Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, Calif. on June 29, 2019. Steve Carlson/STAFF. Back when Hootie and the Blowfish were first blowing up, after the release of their 1994 debut album, Cracked Rear View, their big tours consisted of crisscrossing the country on a…