So Blue: Still Flyin' at Ocean Beach.

Having had dozens of synth-pop bands who ape the sounds of the '80s for one long, lame "ironic" joke, there's now another good one doing it for serious. And S.F.'s Still Flyin' even started as a gag -- with band leader Sean Rawls assembling more than a dozen rotating friends to play in what was envisioned as a joke reggae band, complete with its own festival held on a cruise ship (or, fantastically, under the sea).

But there's almost nothing jokey about the band's second full-length album, On a Bedroom Wall, which comes out today: Assembling lean, danceable pop out of the familiar '80s-era tools -- chorus-drenched guitars, pastel synths, Rototom rolls -- Still Flyin' turn out 10 songs that feel indebted to the John Hughes decade, but not quite of it. Tunes like "Big Trouble in Little Alabama" and "Spirits" exude an adolescent naivete cast in bittersweet tones. The sense of hopeless yearning -- "I don't wanna need a jacket in July," Rawls whines on the final track, like a true San Franciscan -- is so blunt that it's disarming. Still Flyin' capture you with their charm. And the songs are positively addictive, especially first singles "Travelin' Man" and "Spirits":

More >>

The Dandy Warhols at the Fillmore last night.

The Dandy Warhols
Sleepy Sun
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
The Fillmore

Better than: Smelling like teen spirit.

At last night's sold-out show at the Fillmore, the Dandy Warhols' frontman Courtney Taylor-Taylor couldn't resist wearing his black Brian Jonestown Massacre parody T-shirt. The bands, forever tied by the 2004 documentary Dig!, played the Fillmore within a week of one another and we couldn't resist comparing the shows. (Read my review of The Brian Jonestown Massacre.)

After 18 years together and only one lineup change (drummer Brent DeBoer joining in 1998), Taylor-Taylor's claim of being "the most well-adjusted band in America" seems to hold true. Last night, the Dandys tightly gathered on stage in front a massive fabric backdrop with the band's name and under a strobe, making it feel like a 1990s prom. They delivered a two-hour set packed with fan favorites -- and seemed to have fun doing it, too.

More >>

There's a glorious sense of mystery, a rightfully rarefied air, reserved for the masters of American soul. It's not just that the genre is called "soul," although that's got to be part of it. The greats of the music are held in special regard because playing soul well is something akin to magic, a little more so than other genres. Soul musicians get the same notes as everyone else, of course, but the best practitioners shade them differently, imbue them with a raw humanity that comes through disarmingly clear, probably because the music is purpose-built to exhibit it.

The power of the music is expressed most clearly through soul singers, like Otis Redding, or Sam Cooke, or Stevie Wonder. But soul instrumentalists deserve to occupy this realm, too. As the longtime bass player for the house band of Stax Records, Donald "Duck" Dunn -- who died Sunday in Japan at age 70 -- lent low notes to the songs of Redding, Sam and Dave, Wilson Pickett, Carla Thomas, and others. An instrumentalist for some the genre's greatest moments, it's no surprise that Dunn's recordings, at least, will be remembered. But what's notable about Dunn's playing wasn't how well it stood out -- his bass rarely announced itself -- but the superlative job it did of blending in, of holding together the rhythms and melodies that made those songs so powerful.

More >>

Brian Jonestown Massacre
The Blue Angel Lounge
Friday, May 11, 2012
The Fillmore

Better than: An MTV reality show reunion special.

It's been eight years since documentary Dig! became our generation's Gimme Shelter. A violent ride about the rise of bands the Brian Jonestown Massacre and the Dandy Warhols, Dig! is a shadow both groups have been crawling out from under ever since.

The bands' respective frontmen, Anton Newcombe and Courtney Taylor-Taylor, have both renounced the film, in which they fight like spoiled children over artistic achievements, fame, and piles of cocaine. It's a low-budget reality show with an R rating, and Newcombe suffers the worst of it, ending up depicted as a drug-fueled madman and deadbeat musician. At Friday's sold-out show at the Fillmore, Newcombe continued to suffer, but gratefully, the music hasn't.

More >>

In the two decades since its release, My Bloody Valentine's Loveless has become a Teflon-coated favorite; sharp criticism of the album never sticks. So in honor of the '91 classic officially getting the remaster treatment this week (also slated for release: a remastered version of Isn't Anything, as well as a new compilation featuring the group's first four EPs, and rare and previously unreleased tracks), the cranky critic in us felt a need to counter the shower of superlatives. Here then are four reasons why the praise commonly heaped on Loveless is excessive.

1. The Loveless creation myth? Not all that mythical.
The second paragraph of Shields' obituary will mention that he pissed away $250,000 of Creation Records' money to produce Loveless, nearly bankrupting the label. Few music artists are so tightly connected to a particular narrative; few albums boast such an oft-cited backstory. The truth is, Shields' audaciousness in the name of art was hardly this heinous -- or this captivating.

More >>

Hanson!

Music critics are misleading you. Their lists are cataloged lies. The greatest single of all time is not "Fight the Power," or "Love Will Tear Us Apart," or "Johnny B. Goode," or "Anarchy in the U.K.," or "Billie Jean." The deception is strategic; uncovering the truth would only upset their carefully constructed pop music hierarchy. They don't want you to know that the greatest single ever released was written and performed by three lily white, chaste, evangelical hayseeds from a podunk town in Oklahoma.

Yes, I'm referring to Hanson and to its No. 1 smash "MMMBop," released 15 years ago this week. The reasons for this song's unparalleled magnificence are nearly infinite. For the sake of brevity, we shall select four.

More >>

An actual garage rock record.

Will everyone please stop misusing the term "garage rock"?

The phrase -- which once referred to maladjusted social deviants conjuring the feral essence of rock 'n' roll -- is now used by fans and critics alike to indicate any group of vintage retail employees recording mild pop music on a low-tech tape machine. When did perky summertime positivity and stoned kitten admiration replace damaged screeds that obliterated VU meters and explored the fringe of rock's primal potential? And who let this happen?

Granted, pop has its own insidious appeal. Syrupy hooks with no frills can satiate a certain desire in almost any human's psyche. We do not mean to disparage pop groups in any sense. It's the classification of pop bands as garage bands -- and the increasing encroachment of pop and psychedelic tropes upon traditionally savage music -- that we object to.

More >>

Our sympathies to the members of the Morning Benders, who recently chose -- but were basically forced -- to change their band name. In a note posted to their old website over the weekend, the members explained that since "bender" is a widely used derogatory slang term for "homosexual" in the U.K. and parts of Europe, they felt they could no longer go on using it. Controversy over the band name was distracting the press and potential fans from the music, and of course the Berkeley-born trio didn't want to offend the gay community.

All of which is fine -- unfortunate but understandable. What's not fine, though is the name that singer Chris Chu and Co. chose to replace the Morning Benders: "Pop Etc."

"We wanted a name that was short and simple. Secondly, we wanted a name that was descriptive of the sound," Chu told Billboard. "It's our band name, but it's also the kind of music we play: pop, etcetera."

Now, there's a long history of brilliantly glib band names in music. The Pop Group. The The. Television. !!!. But Pop Etc. does not come across like a band being cleverly economical with its moniker. It sounds like the kind of half-assed blogspeak that regrettably passes for cultural criticism in 2012.

More >>

Christopher Victorio

Counting Crows at Slim's on Friday.

Anyone hoping for a live performance of August and Everything After at Counting Crows' intimate Slim's show on Friday -- or even a tour through some of the band's biggest, best songs -- was in for a pretty big disappointment.

Granted, the show wasn't billed as one of those concerts where an older band performs one of its early, beloved albums in full. But fans who paid at least $45 to see these Berkeley grunge-lite stars headline a smallish S.F. club deserved to hear "Mr. Jones," the band's breakout hit, and probably "Round Here," and "Omaha" as well.

More >>

Adele performing "Rolling in the Deep" at the 2012 Grammy Awards.

Every once in a while, you come across a performance that reaches into your body, grabs your soul with two hands, and shakes you back into full awareness of the seriously insane power of music.

It sounds sappy and clichéd, and it is. But that's exactly what Adele did at the Grammy Awards yesterday.

There will be plenty of things to remember about this year's Grammys, including Adele making off with seemingly all of them. But in terms of rewarding artistry, these industry awards are just one level above total bullshit. Complaining about who got them or didn't get them is fun, although useless. But despite the arbitrariness and artifice, the Grammys pageant occasionally manages to honor -- or air -- a performance that exhibits the mysterious, almost scary sway that music at its best has.

More >>