By Jacob Sprecher If you were trying to sum up with one word the first half of the season the 2012 San Francisco Giants, well, I’m not so sure you could. As I write this column, the Giants have just been swept by the Washington Nationals, and are losers of five out of the last [...]
By Spencer Rouse Time to pack up your animal costumes, glitter and hula hoops and make the trek up to Quincy for the High Sierra Music Festival (HSMF). Not only will you get the opportunity to see nationally touring acts like Ben Harper, Galactic, Soulive and Toots and the Maytals in intimate settings, you also [...]
By Jacob Sprecher Dabbling in a mixture of hard rock and psychadelia is a tenuous tightrope. The peaks are incredibly high, while the lows are flat-out embarrassing. Both genres have overwhelming qualities of ambiguity, and it’s the few and the proud that are able to avoid tired clichés and pull off genuine sensibility. Sleepy Sun [...]
By Jacob Sprecher A few years ago a good friend of mine gave me any extra copy of an old KXLU compilation. KXLU is a non-commercial radio station down in L.A., and this particular disc came out in 199, Volume 4 in a series of live, in-studio recordings. It features the likes of Beachwood Sparks, [...]
By Jacob Sprecher For the eighth largest city in the entire United States, San Diego tends to fly well under the national musical radar. I’m not saying that San Diego is anything like San Jose, where being in a band worth one single damn is apparently outlawed; I’m just saying that for a populace of [...]
By Jacob Sprecher Of all the alternative bands to explode onto MTV and into the mainstream in the early ‘90s, you’d have a hard time coming up with one more bizarre and seemingly off-putting than Primus. From Les Claypool’s guttural and impossible bass mastery to the helter-skelter squeals of Larry LaLonde’s guitar to the monkey-wrench [...]
By Emerald Behrens Who wouldn’t want an 18-inch pink bust of Ronald Reagan in their living room? Frank Kozik, designer of in-your-face toys such as the Smorkin’ Labbit and Wacky Dictators, brings you the opportunity with his exclusive pink Gipper bust. Kozik, who is an internationally recognized pop artist best known for his rock posters, [...]
by Jacob Sprecher I’m not really sure what to make of President Obama’s recent statement in support of same-sex marriage. Anyone that’s not 80 years old or a brain-dead hillbilly knows full well that marriage should be legalized across the sexual board, and, thusly, we should all be gleeful at the “evolution” of President Obama’s [...]
By Jacob Sprecher Oh, the sweet lullabies of an English voice sung in the key of pop. Well, Elizabeth Morris is actually a Queenslander, but after relocating to the United Kingdom seven years ago and jumping full-force into the vast musical pool, she pretty much qualifies. As for the group she fronts alongside Paul Rains, [...]
By Eric Wendt Escape the Fate is a paradox. They have rabid, die-hard fans the world over, yet many people have never heard of them. Judging by the name of their current co-headlining tour, “This World is Ours,” it looks like the band is aiming to change that. Synthesis spoke with the post-hardcore 5-piece’s frontman, [...]
