Music

Followers of Sacramento’s underground hip-hop and spoken word circuits may recall the smooth, slick-talking voice of Rasar Amani, formerly Random Abiladeze. He was one of the kids behind the cash register at Dimple Records more than 10 years ago, the only MC on Sacramento sensation Joe Kye’s EP Joseph in…

2016 has been a terrible year for iconic musicians. David Bowie, Lemmy Kilmister, Prince and Keith Emerson, just to name a few, have all left us, and now someone much closer to home is gone as well. Johnny “Guitar” Knox, the legendary Sacramento bluesman, died last week of natural causes…

Auditory adventures await, if you so choose. Every year experimental musicians from all over the nation (and even the world!) descend upon Sacramento for the annual Norcal Noisefest. Sometimes loud, sometimes quiet, often weird, Noisefest is not for the faint of heart. If you consider yourself an adventurous consumer of…

After a decade spent rising through the ranks of Sacramento’s rock scene, members of the band Hero’s Last Mission recently announced a hiatus in order to start a new project with a new sound, from the ground up. “This band has been going for 10-plus years and has been through…

In the summer of 2006, RX Bandits released their fifth album, titled …And the Battle Begun. That was 10 years ago, a time when the music industry (as a profit-generating entity driven primarily by CD sales) was clamoring for ways to fend off its impending death-by-advancing-technology. Online piracy and the…

The story of Fleetwood Mac is really the story of two very different types of bands. Or, it could be the story of three types of bands if you count the fake Fleetwood Mac that toured in 1974. This fact goes beyond mere personnel. The original Fleetwood Mac was led…

Local groove masters The Bumptet are kicking off a new residency at Shine Cafe this week that looks to get you through the mid-week hump with a healthy dose of jazz and funk. “Humpday Funk” officially launches this Wednesday, Sept. 14 and will continue every second and fourth Wednesday after…

With both members still being under the age of 21, Sacramento-based punk-rock sister duo Dog Party sure has a lot of major accomplishments checked off the ol’ bucket list. They have toured all across the United States and Europe, released albums on such notable labels as Asian Man Records and…

I discovered Tech N9ne in the same way I imagine a lot of suburban kids did in 2006: drinking crappy beer in a friend’s bedroom, laughing while a friend butchered the staccato machine gun chatter and the bombastic call-outs from Tech N9ne’s first certified gold record “Caribou Lou.” “Get the…