Music

“Nowadays, they’ll find any excuse in New Orleans to throw a second line parade,” says Justin Au, trumpet player for Element Brass Band. And that’s because of the energy that hiring a second line band brings. Element Brass Band’s fresh and evolving take on this NOLA tradition combines letting inhibitions…

At a Carmichael hole-in-the-wall named Granite’s Subs and Wing Shop, local rapper Igwe Aka walks in. When I greet the 19-year-old Aka, real name Anthony Aka, he goes in for a hug rather than a handshake, like a good acquaintance you haven’t seen in a while. It was comforting. He…

In case you haven’t picked up our last couple issues or aren’t following us online (which you should be!), Submerge turns 10 years old in 2018! Yes, time sure flies when you’re always on a deadline. It was way back on Feb. 4, 2008, when we distributed our first issue…

Whenever and wherever Sacramento’s Screature take the stage, they bring a 4 a.m. world of dread with them, embodying completely a dark strain of rock music that first sparked in the underground nearly 40 years ago. They are the bony gait of Famine’s horse, Alice’s final rabbit-hole descent into Hades….

Twenty-five years after the inception of the experimental noise band Instagon, their one-of-a-kind performances are still consistently blowing audiences away with out-of-the-box creativity and impromptu songwriting. Lob Instagon, the curator of the group, has had more than 700 different musicians join him on stage over the past quarter-century, with each…

Prepare for a night of face-melting riffs and debaucherous rock when Queens of the Stone Age, along with their partners in crime Eagles of Death Metal, come to Sacramento. Since forming out of the ashes of frontman Josh Homme’s former band Kyuss in the mid-1990s, QOTSA has seen its share…

We all look for different things in live music. Some want a full show—blaring speakers and bright lights behind a pop star flanked by a fleet of dancers or backup singers, the kind of high-energy performance that’s nothing short of exhilarating. Then there’s the other side of the spectrum: the…

Monopoly capitalism poisons everything. It has turned Hollywood into a sequel/reboot machine. But it goes further than that. Our food is garbage; our elections are farcical, and even the drinking water isn’t safe to drink. Rock ‘n’ roll was once the fertile soil for all sorts of rebellion, but overproduction…

At the dawn of the decade—a blink of an eye ago, and yet seemingly a bygone era—South Florida’s Surfer Blood seized the indie blog zeitgeist with their brand of perpetually sunny, reverb-drenched power-pop, spearheaded by singles like “Swim” and “Floating Vibes,” the choruses of which are still echoing in fan…

After combing through more than 800 artist submissions, Danielle Vincent—founder and producer of Sacramento’s mostly-local grassroots music and arts event, First Festival—has somehow narrowed things down and has the final lineup all set. And while the festival’s impressive headliners had previously been announced (more on them below), the rest of…