With The Punches, courtesy. This week we feature the nostalgic reflections of the Bay Area’s Mickelson, the skate-punk revival of The Venomous Pinks and With the Punches, and the inventive verses of Lyrics Born (also a local!), YXNG K.A and Ez Mil. Lyrics Born featuring Sitcom Dad and Dan the Automator, “This…

It’s almost 2020. We’re living in an era when many of science fiction’s classics are supposed to take place. As a science fiction writer and a scholar who studies the genre, I’m acutely aware that we are not yet living in the stainless steel techno-utopia we were promised. Where’s…

In the late ’90s, word about Dr. Octagon was passed from person to person, on burned CDs and dubbed tapes. He was a larger-than-life cult figure, with a following of hip-hoppers and punks alike. He was a new Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, a new Captain Beefheart; an avant-garde rapper whose…

Attendees at Outside Lands on August 11, 2017. With the first day of the 10th Outside Lands in the books, I thought it might be a good idea to look back on the five best things I saw today. But since I’m a generally cranky person you also get the five…