You can file this under: sure, why not? Spirited Thee Oh Sees frontperson John Dwyer has “inspired” a new custom pedal for Death By Audio, called Thee Fuzz Warr Overload.

The pedal is limited to 500, and so says Death by Audio, once they’re gone, they’re gone. The Brooklyn-based effects pedal company also put out a signature Ty Segall pedal (Sunshine Reverb) which sold out in a day. Read more »

All photos by Chris Stevens

By now you’ve read all about the second annual Music Video Race. No? Well get on that. And then check out these additional photos, all shot on location at the SUB-Mission space by Chris Stevens. Read more »

Dear 2 Chainz: we’d like to formally apologize on behalf of our city, if you were indeed robbed at gunpoint (details are a bit murky at this point). Terrible things happen in every city, and San Francisco is no exception. But we must trundle forward, as a city of sonic fiends who love this place called home, always exploding with new bands, and welcoming traveling acts from around the world.

This week, we celebrate a particularly beloved member of own pack: Sonny and the Sunsets has a new record, and it’s a leap in yet another direction for the singer-songwriter and his crew. There’s also a Date Palms album release, a visit from New Zealand rockers the Bats (locals the Mantles open), the return of Cold Cave, some existential slop-punk from the Trashies, and a tribute to “rock‘n’roll specialist” Buddy Holly. Music lives on, despite despair.

Here are your must-see Bay Area concerts this week/end: Read more »

Admit it, there was a time when a Nine Inch Nails album was the hardest music in your CD collection. You slipped your Downward Spiral disc in to drown out -- or perhaps embolden -- the bitter angst seething within. That was likely in the 1990s and you got way more hardcore following elementary school. Read more »

When does cute become cloying? Because this newly viral video of a baby playing along to the Beatles with his dad is seriously tickling me pink -- it's pretty damn adorable -- but after watching it a dozen or so times, it’s left me longing for something noisy and gross, just to wash off the darlingness of it all.

And the best shows this week are something of demonstrative polar opposites as well. There’s sugary Australian pop act Lenka, and fellow Aussie post-punks Total Control, then global dream popsters Trails and Ways, and metal battlecruiser Slough Feg, Americana punks Parquet Courts, and the Sunset Island fest, known as the "electronic music picnic." They are all in the mix.

Here are your must-see Bay Area concerts this week/end: Read more »