Deep Purple, “=1.” For a band that’s been around for more than 55 years, Deep Purple has been on a bit of a hot streak for the past decade. Its three albums of original material over that span—-2013’s Now WHAT?!, 2017’s inFinite and 2020’s Whoosh!—weren’t just artistic achievements for…

One could ask whether the world needs another cover of “Rockin’ Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu,” “See See Rider”  (part of Mitch Ryder medley “Jenny Take a Ride”) or “Let the Good Times Roll.” You could ask that about any number of Chuck Berry songs, too, but you…

Mars rover Perseverance, courtesy: NASA/JPL-Caltech. I’m losing my mind over here and it’s gonna be at least a month or two until I’m vaccinated. So it’s important to take time to focus on the positive: Mars. Humanity landed another robot on Mars. This one is an atomic-powered, car-sized Mars…

Smoke on the water. The western span of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge photographed on Sept. 9, 2020. Jane Hu/STAFF. There’s a lot going on in the world that could inspire a column, even if I already wrote one of them in advance. But, like most of the rest…

Along with Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, Deep Purple invented heavy metal. Their 1970 album, In Rock, along with Sabbath’s Paranoid from the same year and 1969’s Led Zeppelin II set the blueprint that the genre has been building upon ever since. Whoosh! Deep Purple earMusic , Aug. 7 8/10 Unfortunately,…

Nine Inch Nails, Courtesy: John Crawford. I think we all need a break, so this column isn’t about the obvious. In fact I’m not even going to mention it. Consider this your oasis from the chaos storm. You’re welcome. That said, I understand people have had some time on…

We were also shocked to learn that there was an era of Sammy Hagar that did not include the goatee. It’s hot. After a rainstorm in the Bay and snow in the Sierras for Memorial Day, we skipped spring entirely and leapt dramatically into summer. It’s going to be…

The bad news for music lovers is that the quality of songs is starting to decline from the 1970 peak.  The good news for me is that the quality of songs is starting to decline so I don’t have 20-plus song shortlists anymore. Don’t get me wrong, the songs are still…

Ah, 1968. So long ago, so different. Back then tensions were rising with North Korea, the United States was losing more and more troops in an unwinnable war, and black athletes were taking a controversial stand at major athletic events. Wait…huh… Anyway, the music was definitely better. Like last week’s…

After releasing 2015’s Shockwave Supernova, legendary shred lord Joe Satriani began to feel his highly conceptual prog-rock opuses becoming impersonal—battling the fantastical characters he conjured with his acrobatic riffs for ownership of his personhood. This epiphany fueled Satriani’s pursuit of music about “a human being, two feet on the…