Andrew St. James performs with Fast Times at The Independent in San Francisco on Feb. 25, 2020. Derek Tobias/STAFF. San Francisco musician Andrew St. James is launching a monthly virtual concert series with The Chapel to benefits the concert venue’s staff, as well as a different local nonprofit with…

DJ Aaron Axelsen performs at the Rickshaw Stop in San Francisco on Sept. 16, 2016. Alessio Neri/STAFF. Former longtime ALT 105 music director Aaron Axelsen, who was laid off last spring as part of numerous layoffs by owner ENTERCOM, has been named head of programming for a new streaming…

San Francisco Symphony Chinese New Year Virtual Celebration: Year of the Ox. For the first time in 21 years, the San Francisco Symphony‘s annual Lunar New Year concert will not be held in front of an audience at Davies Symphony Hall. Instead, the program, which will be hosted by…

Taylor Swift: “Fearless.” Taylor Swift’s long-anticipated campaign to re-record and reissue her first six studio albums began tonight with the release of a new version of “Love Story,” now conspicuously named “Love Story (Taylor’s Version).” The version plays essentially identically to the original. Swift didn’t change the music or…

Chick Corea performs at Blue Note in Milan, Italy, on March 8, 2013. Photo: Sergione Infuso/Corbis. When I covered several Grammy Awards presentations in Los Angeles over the last decade, there were few people as prevalent at every turn down a walkway or media work room than Chick Corea.…

Mary Wilson of The Supremes in 1994. Courtesy: Kingkongphoto/Wikicommons. Mary Wilson, who, along with Florence Ballard, Diana Ross and Betty Martin, founded The Supremes in 1961, died suddenly in her home Monday night, her family has announced. Progenitors of “The Motown Sound,” The Supremes went on to become the…

Motown Records on Friday announced it’s re-launching its Black Forum label with Martin Luther Ling, Jr.’s “Why I Oppose The War In Vietnam” speech, followed by spoken word albums by Stokely Carmichael, Langston Hughes and Margaret Danner, and Ossie Davis. The label imprint was founded by Berry Gordon in 1971.…

The Smashing Pumpkins perform at Oracle Arena (now Oakland Arena) in Oakland on Aug. 27, 2018. When will concerts return to such a high-density attendance? Alessio Neri/STAFF. In 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic, Ineffable Music booked and oversaw 1,100 concerts at the five venues it either owns or at which…

Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit performs at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley on June 8, 2019. Joaquin Cabello/STAFF. The producers of Moon Crush, touted as a “music vacation” in Florida, are inviting frontline workers to enter a giveaway for tickets and vacation accommodations to the physically distanced five-day…

Dr. Frank performs at Bottom of The Hill in San Francisco on April 1, 2017. He will appear at a Lookout! Records artist reunion live-streamed event on Jan. 31, 2020. Lookout! Records, the label that launched Green Day and Operation Ivy into the world in the early ’90s before…