Ava Mendoza demonstrates the all-important whammy bar.

How do electric guitars work, anyway? Why do they all look and sound so different? What do those switches and knobs even do?

If you've ever wondered about these and other mysteries regarding the electric guitar, a new video from the Exploratorium has you covered. This latest installment of the newly relocated museum's Science in the City series gets local axe-wielders Ava Mendoza, Henry Kaiser, and legendary guitar shop owner Fat Dog to investigate -- and demonstrate -- the many different factors that go into electric guitars sounding like they do. And what a fun investigation it is. Even if you understand how the instruments work (hint: it's pretty simple), there are enough killer licks in this clip to make it well worth watching. Check it out:

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After releasing a stunning debut album and signing with vaunted indie label Merge Records, San Francisco rocker Mikal Cronin today releases his second album, MCII. The 10-song collection continues where his debut left off, with driving, hugely melodic pop-rock songs and even more instrumental subtleties. The video experts over at Yours Truly used the occasion to make one of their finest films yet, following Cronin around his adopted home of S.F. for a day, and capturing performances at his home basement. Cronin's performances are intimate and lovely, and the footage of him in the city is gorgeous. This clip is definitely worth its seven minutes:

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Ryan Dickie

Helado Negro's Robert Lange

You can feel the humidity in the music of Helado Negro. Every spare electronic beat hits inside a languid haze. Florida-via-Brooklyn musician Roberto Lange, singing in Spanish and English, sounds weighed down by heat, distance, feeling. The songs on his latest album, Invisible Life, propel forward at medium tempos, often with only skeletal elements, forming seductive, subtle atmospheres of electronic pop. There's a loneliness to this music, but that doesn't keep Lange from arriving at what feel like breakthroughs, albeit sweaty ones. "Dance Ghost" breaks the heat fever most decisively, landing, as the title suggests, just on the danceable side of Lange's often meditative sound. The video contributes its own sense of solitude, following a character through the pastel condo towers and lurid nightclubs of Miami. Check it out below. You can inhabit Helado Negro's seductive humidity tomorrow, May 4, at Rickshaw Stop, with Javelin, Silver Hands, and Epicsauce DJs.

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Tony Molina in "Don't Come Back"

Bay Area native Tony Molina is unabashedly fond of confessional pop, brooding hardcore, and Taco Bell. As principle songwriter of prolific San Francisco group Ovens, he recorded hundreds of poignant, brief pop songs with thick guitar riffs and blistering leads. But Molina simultaneously fronted a number of ferocious hardcore bands like Lifetime Problems and, currently, Caged Animal. "Don't Come Back" is the lead single from his solo debut LP, Dissed and Dismissed, which continues Ovens' basic, hook-laden guitar pop. But the acoustic intro heard in this video is actually a separate, 12-second track on the album entitled "Sick Ass Riff." The video is directed by Hannah Lew from San Francisco post-punk trio Grass Widow, whose resume also includes videos for the Mallard and Wax Idols.

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There's practically an entire genre of music video that revolves around two basic elements: San Francisco at night, and black-and-white imagery. The latest quality contribution comes from fast-rising Bay Area rapper IamSu!, who finds Union Square, the Stockton Tunnel, and the general vibe of the nighttime city in monochrome a perfect setting for this moody cut off his $uzy 6 $peed mixtape. "Losin' Ft. CJ" finds the rapper in introspective mode, rhapsodizing about the sacrifices he's made to rise in the rap game. That sweet vocal hook and swirling background sample -- basically the whole backing track -- comes from Rochelle Jordan's song of the same name. But IamSu! and CJ definitely add some lyrical edge to Jordan's smooth nightscape. Check it out:

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Priceless Da Roc, creator of "Hella Saucy."

In advance of his Underground Celebrity EP, which will be available on iTunes and Amazon on April 16, rapper, dancer, and San Francisco State student Priceless Da Roc dropped an EA-Ski-produced single called "Hella Saucy" that features an accompanying dance video.

Priceless and Richmond DJ J12 are the duo behind last year's infectious J12 dance craze. After hearing "Slow Down" by Clyde Carson and the Team, Priceless and J12 made their own version of the song with a guest verse by Priceless and dance moves the two created for the track. Carson embraced the version and made it an official release many months after the original dropped, a wise move that gave his song a large boost. He also featured the J12 dance in the video -- by which time it had already spread through Bay Area schools and dancefloors.

As it turns out, though, the J12 was just the first move.

See also:
* Learn the J12, a New Bay Area Hip-Hop Dance Anyone Can Do

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Legs is a newish indie-pop band from Oakland whose two original members, Jeffrey Harland and Matt Bullimore, met in a parking lot while trading Weezer bootlegs. They eventually started the band that became Legs -- a melodic low-key five-piece that will release its debut album on Loglady Records April 23.

First single "Two Colours" features sometime-vocalist Ameilia Adams on the low vocals, and puts all this band's strengths on display: buoyant melodies, understated (nearly lo-fi) production, and an interesting major/minor tension. The video is rather odd, but suits the song well: It consists of one steady shot of Adams, with colorful washes of smoke wafting around, and blends in footage of other members playing their instruments. Check it out, and catch Legs performing at an afternoon show this Sunday, March 24, at the Knockout with Pink Films and Reds, Pinks, and Purples.

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Antwon

Behold, Antwon. The San Jose rapper's End of Earth mixtape made our list of the best local rap releases of 2012, and his latest tape, last week's In Dark Denim, is even better. (Grab it here.) The highlight and first video is "3rd World Grrl," a gritty party-funk beat that features Antwon getting explicit about his sexual pursuits. That would be a fairly accurate description of all of In Dark Denim, but (as SPIN's Brandon Soderberg has noted), Antwon's sex raps stand apart: They come off less as annoying braggadocio and more as desperate liberation. There's a pleasure to lines like "We fuckin' in the morning like who cares who we waking," sure, but it comes in lieu of the darker moments that surround "3rd World Grrl" on In Dark Denim. Suitably, then, this song has an all-fun video, where a puppet Antwon gets his silly-ass mack on in the club. Watch it, grab In Dark Denim, and let's all wait excitedly to see where Antwon goes next.

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League510 in "Representa."

Oakland's League510 starts off the year with a new video for their single "Representa". Using a hook cleverly cribbed from Kreayshawn's "Gucci Gucci" ("I put that on my potna, I put that on my family/ Oakland city represent, address me as 'Your Majesty'"), "Representa," which first dropped as just a song in April 2012, frames "The Town" as a place of pride. There's no boasting about pimping or gunplay, just a genuine happiness to hail from such a vibrant place. TK, Mont, Mr. Knowitall, and DJ Blacksmith bring this to light in the video not only with its many glimpses of the physical beauty of Oakland, but by expressing their enjoyment of themselves and their art.

See Also:
- League510 Drop New Song/Video: 'Never Change'
- Kreayshawn Producer DJ Two Stacks on the Making of "Gucci Gucci"
- Kreayfish's "Fishy Fishy" Video Parodies (Duh) Kreayshawn's "Gucci Gucci"

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Cohen and Reagan, a weird juxtaposition

Has anyone ever gone to a wax museum and not left feeling creeped out? Seems unlikely, and even more so after this gorgeous -- if somewhat unsettling -- new clip from Magic Trick, the solo project of Fresh & Onlys frontman Tim Cohen. Directed by Ryan Browne, "Weird Memory" casts Cohen as a baseballer halfway between a feeling and a memory, lost among the waxy faces of ex-presidents and international revolutionaries and grand dames of the screen. (That's when he's not alone in the dark, being hypnotized by the 'tube.) The video was actually filmed at The Wax Museum at Fisherman's Wharf, where the odd juxtapositions (Einstein, Jesus, Reagan?) well suit the glassy melancholy of the song. Speaking of which, this is one of the prettiest Magic Trick tunes we've heard yet, all beachy guitar melody and shimmering chords. Check it out:

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