Kate Radley and Jason Pierce

According to Greek mythology, the muses were the genius-sparking goddesses of song, poetry, and the sciences. Recently, the muse has more earthly origins; male recording artists often indicate that a particular woman was essential in stimulating the creative process. The Guardian's Germaine Greer described the modern female muse as such: "In a reversal of gender roles, she penetrates or inspires him and he gestates and brings forth, from the womb of the mind."

In honor of this week's 20th anniversary of Spiritualized's Lazer Guided Melodies -- one of the best muse-inspired records in recent memory, an album notably influenced by Jason Pierce's devotion to girlfriend Kate Radley, an album that was as spiritual as it was psychedelic -- we present you five other notable music muses. Spiritualized performs tonight at the Fillmore.

1. Juanita Naima Grubbs

Here is testament to the eternal beauty and emotional intensity of John Coltrane's "Naima," written for his first wife, Juanita Naima Grubbs, in 1959: Long after the two separated, the song remained part of the jazz legend's live repertoire.

Coltrane's wistful yet dynamic solos are played over a bass pattern that was carefully rehearsed by the tenor saxophonist and bassist Paul Chambers. "Naima" saunters along slowly, almost like a blues. Lewis Porter's book, John Coltrane: His Life and Music, describes the song as one that goes beyond mere balladry -- "There is no touch of that 'Oh baby, I miss you' feeling," wrote Porter -- and crosses into the realm of hymns.

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"Cocaine," as Rick James famously said, "is a helluva drug." Yup: The white powder's effects have left an influence that's both sublime and downright hideous on decades of pop music. So what happens when you give already-famous musicians a quick burst of energy, ego, paranoia, and euphoria? Most of them will instantly become convinced that that whatever they're doing is just fucking great, man [sniff] -- and will then fall down a rabbit-hole of addiction that lasts years, if not decades. Sometimes that leads to interesting music; more often, as this list will demonstrate, it leads to self-indulgence, irrelevance, and rehab. But now that we've warned you, here are the 15 records from all sorts of pop genres that most sound like they were made in a blizzard. Enjoy.

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* The Top 15 Most Cocaine-Influenced Albums of All Time, Nos. 15-11
* The Top 15 Most Cocaine-Influenced Albums of All Time, Nos. 10-6

Here we are, at the end of the blizzard: the final installment of our list of the most coked-out records ever made. Less an endorsement than an assessment of the diverse, usually negative effects of white powder on music-making, this project has so far reviewed the works of Waylon Jennings, Sly and the Family Stone, Art Pepper, and Raekwon, among others. Join us as we conclude with the most cocaine-influenced albums of all time, numbers five through one. And remember, kids: drugs are bad.

5. Black Sabbath, Vol. 4
In 1971 England's Black Sabbath opened up its third album, Master of Reality, with "Sweet Leaf," an ode to marijuana. In one fell swoop the band invented stoner rock, and publicly expressed what turned out to be a prodigious taste for drugs. It was different foliage, however, that would define 1972's Vol. 4. Recording in Los Angeles, flush with Master of Reality cash, the members of Sabbath had access to the finest in processed coca leaves, and these mounds of cocaine resulted in an album that was almost named "Snowblind" after the amounts of blow that fed the sessions. (That title remains as a song). Between Master of Reality and Vol. 4, bassist Geezer Butler was seen performing with a white bass emblazoned with a sticker that read "Enjoy CoCaine" in the shape of the Coca-Cola logo. If that wasn't enough to solidify the album's place in the 'caine canon, there's the thin, uneven production -- the result of drug-induced shifts in perceived volume -- and the prevalence of rushing, spiral guitars and flares of percussion, which stand in contrast to the previous album's down-tuned sludge. The record contains its share of heavy-riff Quaalude-influenced come-down jams, but is most remembered for a feeling of divergent chaos rather than hazy dread. And, besides, only a coke-addled band would think Vol. 4 is a compelling title. -- Tony Ware

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* The Top 15 Most Cocaine-Influenced Albums of All Time, Nos. 15-11
* The Top 15 Most Cocaine-Influenced Albums of All Time, Nos. 5-1

Yesterday, we began our countdown of the 15 most coked-out albums of all time, finding plenty of snow in the music of Waylon Jennings, Mötley Crüe, and Miles Davis, among others. Today we continue our journey through the musical blizzard with numbers 10 through 6 on our list. Remember, kids: Cocaine is a helluva drug, and we mean that mostly in a bad way. Come back tomorrow for the final installment of our list.

10. Art Pepper, Thursday Night at the Village Vanguard, Friday Night at the Village Vanguard, et. al
Since the best LPs of what should have been his prime were recorded when heroin had him so out of it he struggled with rehearsals or basic saxophone holding, and since his excellent 1960 off-to-jail album was actually titled Smack Up, it's probably not much of a surprise that these first of alto-sax genius Art Pepper's post-prison, post-rehab, back-to-business comeback records were fueled by drugs -- this time a stimulant rather than an opiate.

Fired not just by coke but by the intense need of a great artist who had blown his shot but was still determined to haul himself into the pantheon anyway, Pepper played through this long '77 weekend of live sets with all the new urgency and emotion that would distinguish his late-career comeback -- and forever differentiate him from the cool, aloof style of the L.A. jazz scene he hailed from. He smokes through bop classics like "Anthropology," burns through new blues charts he'd written out on all-coke/no-sleep nights in his hotel room, and positively kills on the ballads "Goodbye" and "Over the Rainbow," where his tone is anguished and searching, yet touched with a hard-edged hope. In his astonishing autobiography, Straight Life, he confesses to taking a swing at his wife Laurie the third night, then passing out, and having to be hauled to the club. He then spent the rest of his life making up for it -- and still, somehow, swinging at this level. -- Alan Scherstuhl

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See also:

* The Top 15 Most Cocaine-Influenced Albums of All Time, Nos. 10-6
* The Top 15 Most Cocaine-Influenced Albums of All Time, Nos. 5-1

"Cocaine," as Rick James famously said, "is a helluva drug." Yup: The white powder's effects have left an influence that's both sublime and downright hideous on decades of pop music. So what happens when you give already-famous musicians a quick burst of energy, ego, paranoia, and euphoria? Most of them will instantly become convinced that that whatever they're doing is just fucking great, man [sniff] -- and will then fall down a rabbit-hole of addiction that lasts years, if not decades. Sometimes that leads to interesting music; more often, as this list will demonstrate, it leads to self-indulgence, irrelevance, and rehab. But now that we've warned you, here are the 15 records that most sound like they were made in a blizzard, entries 15 through 11. We'll continue this list every day this week.

15. Mötley Crüe, Girls, Girls, Girls
If the opening riff of "Wild Side" doesn't make you feel instantly like a snowblind fiend, the lyrics to Girls, Girls, Girls' first track will. Apparently intended to portray the dark side of life in the fast lane and criticize the glamorization of coke, the song does a better job of making it sound exhilarating. Recorded at the height of Mötley Crüe's infamous decadence, Girls, Girls, Girls is a coke album through-and-through -- one made by powder experts, not newbies: "It wasn't like a glass of champagne and a little line of cocaine," the band's now-sober Nikki Sixx told VH1. "It was half a pound of cocaine and the whole champagne truck." We maybe ought to have ranked it higher on this list, except that even for a coke album, Girls, Girls, Girls is still spectacularly annoying. -- Ian S. Port

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See also:
* Gotye Shows Up To San Francisco Pub Trivia Night, Kicks Everyone's Ass
* Australia's Gotye on Taking His Offbeat Pop to the Top of the U.S. Charts

With Gotye's arrival, the musically cognizant American populace has begun to give some attention to Australia. This is a fine start, but adventurous listeners will likely discover that Gotye's minimal pop is but a miniscule cog plucked out of the larger apparatus of Australian music. With that in mind, we selected five newer groups carrying on the boundary-pushing rock lineage of the continent that, thankfully, are not Gotye.

Royal Headache
Descriptions of this band typically begin with "members of," but this new Australian group's self-titled 2011 LP stands alone without having to run off its members' credentials. With a vocal delivery similar to the soulful stylings of Paul Weller, relatively clean guitars, a dreamy tempo, and syrupy hooks, this is a modern power-pop band that isn't trying to be. They play melodious pop songs with hyperventilating conviction and a flippant disregard for the pastiche posturing that haunts many self-declared "power-pop" groups.

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See also:

* The Top 20 Greatest San Francisco Musicians: Honorable Mentions

Here they are -- the 20 greatest San Francisco musicians ever:

Cameron Paul

20. Cameron Paul
Lists of pioneering American DJs often mention the usual suspects in New York and Chicago, but go back to the '70s and '80s and you'll find a small but innovative group of S.F. spinners that laid the foundations for what would later become turntablism. In his day, Cameron Paul was a local legend, a powermixer par excellence, who held storied residencies at Studio West and City Nights, as well as influential radio shows on KMEL and the now-defunct KSOL. Cutting with godlike ease through electro, new wave, hip-hop, hi-nrg, and disco, his sets were met with reverential awe, inspiring an entire generation of DJs to hit the decks and start scratching. Yet, far from just being a local legend, Paul took the nation by storm with his Grammy-nominated, platinum-selling remix of Salt-N-Pepa's "Push-It" (aka, the version you know), and a highly sampled back-catalog of essential DJ tools on his Mixx-It label. While others might have gone on to more fame, it simply wouldn't have happened without the man who started it all. -- Derek Opperman

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See also:

* The Top 20 Greatest San Francisco Musicians: Honorable Mentions

* The Top 20 Greatest San Francisco Musicians, Nos. 20-16

* The Top 20 Greatest San Francisco Musicians, Nos. 15-11

* The Top 20 Greatest San Francisco Musicians, Nos. 10-6

Here it is: After a week-long countdown, we bring you the last installment of our list of the 20 greatest San Francisco musicians of all time. Let's find out who's in the final five:

5. Bob Weir
Bob Weir was one of the founding members of The Grateful Dead, probably the most influential American band of the 1960s, and the first jam band. The singer, songwriter, and guitarist was born in San Francisco and grew up playing folk music. When he was 16, he met guitarist Jerry Garcia and founded The Grateful Dead. Weir sang lead and pioneered the complex, melodic rhythm guitar style that became the hallmark of The Dead's arrangements, along with Garcia's free-form lead work. He added slide guitar techniques to his music in the late 70s, also incorporating elements of bop, ragtime and classical music into his expanding musical palette. Ace, his first solo album, was released in 1972. When The Dead took time off from their relentless touring, Weir played with the roots rock outfit Kingfish, the more pop inspired Bobby and the Midnights, the free flowing RatDog and as a jazzy acoustic duo with bassist Rob Wasserman as Weir/Wasserman. Since Garcia's death in 1995, Weir has played with other members of The Grateful Dead as The Other Ones and The Dead. In 2009, he started Furthur with bass guitarist Phil Lesh; the band's songbook draws heavily on the music of The Grateful Dead. -- J Poet

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See also:

* The Top 20 Greatest San Francisco Musicians, Nos. 20-16

* The Top 20 Greatest San Francisco Musicians, Nos. 15-11

* The Top 20 Greatest San Francisco Musicians, Nos. 10-6

We're almost to the end of this week's list of the 20 greatest musicians of all time. Before we get to the final five, though, we want to pause and look at some of the S.F.-affiliated artists that didn't quite make the top 20, but are worth celebrating nonetheless. After this, you'll have plenty of clues about who will make our top five best S.F. musicians of all time when the list goes up tomorrow. But right now, stop and appreciate some great locals:

Stephan Jenkins
Sure, you're probably remembering Stephan Jenkins at this moment as a little bit of an asshole. It's not that you're wrong about this, just that you're underestimating the extent to which he's an asshole you want in your life. Not in the "Deep Inside of You" sense, but in the sense that he is the rare kind of guy who can blithely, even earnestly write a song called "Deep Inside of You." Third Eye Blind, the band Jenkins started here in 1993 and still mobilizes today for the odd concert or political fundraiser, is one of the spurned essentials of the 1990s: an impeccably tuneful, unexpectedly muscular rock band that, thanks to Jenkins' borderline-TMI brand of rock-star candor, was never quite freaky enough to be marginalized and never quite refined enough to taken truly seriously. Not to put too fine a point on it, but that's what this entire city is like on its best days. And you're a fool if you think "Semi-Charmed Life" won't be in ten years where "Don't Stop Believing" is today. -- Daniel Levin Becker

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See also:

* The Top 20 Greatest San Francisco Musicians, Nos. 20-16

* The Top 20 Greatest San Francisco Musicians, Nos. 15-11

Throughout this week, we're counting down the greatest San Francisco musicians of all time. Having already honored the likes of Etta James, Mike Patton, and Michael Tilson Thomas, today we break the top 10. All of these artists have ties to the city of San Francisco itself, and have made significant contributions to the local musical culture. Here go with entries 10 through six:

10. Dan the Automator
The beat designer born Dan Nakamura has been involved in so many off-kilter hip-hop-oriented outfits that it's difficult to keep them all straight. Dan the Automator has been part of Deltron 3030 (with Del the Funky Homosapien and Kid Koala), Crudo (with Mike Patton), Lovage (with Mike Patton, Kid Koala, and others), and Handsome Boy Modeling School (with Prince Paul), the last of which had a tongue-in-cheek performance art angle that led to Nakamura assuming the alias of Nathaniel Merriweather. Nakamura was also part of one of the earliest incarnations of Gorillaz, playing a key role in shaping the 2001 record the world remembers best for "Clint Eastwood."

In the more traditional role of producer, he's worked with a remarkably diverse lot: Kool Keith's Dr. Octagon project, Galactic, Kasabian, Ben Lee, Cornershop, the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Primal Scream, Jamie Cullum, and Redman. It's not hard to figure out why all these folks have wanted a piece of his time, since his alluring beats demonstrate great care and restraint. Grab a cigar, throw on Handsome Boy's "I've Been Thinking," stare into space, and let the moment lift you. - Reyan Ali

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