Category: Music
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My First Earthquake at the Bottom of the Hill
Quick, what band do you associate with San Francisco’s Mission District? As bands come and go, the answer will of course say more about you — your tastes, your “era” — than the neighborhood. For me, one of the bands that made a tectonic shift in the Mission’s sound when I first arrived here was…
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Nine Inch Nails – “Peel It Back” tour
When booking my trip to Los Angeles this year I discovered it happened to coincide with the final show of Nine Inch Nails’ Peel It Back tour. If there was ever an omen this was it; I had to book a ticket to the show. And what an expensive ticket it was! Somewhere along the…
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Is “We Built This City” the worst rock song ever made?
I recently read that Starship’s “We Built This City” is considered to be one of the worst rock songs ever made, mostly because of the disconnect of its anti-corporate message and the undeniable fact that it sounds like a cheesy advertising jingle. Let’s dig deeper. Perhaps its worst offense is that they named the entire…
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How I built my own electric guitar from a kit
Why did I build an electric guitar from a kit? Let me admit upfront that I can barely play a guitar at all. For me, building an electric guitar was on my bucket list for several years. I like the idea of building things from scratch to learn about what makes them work. But building…
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What is it a nice day for?
Near 24th and Folsom I encountered the above pull-tag flyer, which sports an old photo of Billy Idol along with the heading “It’s a nice day.” The pull-tags include the following phrases: If you’ve somehow never encountered the 1982 hit song this is referencing, here’s the music video for your enjoyment. Have a nice day!
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Some love song titles
Are you a songwriter? Are you incredibly lazy? Good. This blog post is for you. As a songwriter you probably have too many things to worry about — like making your songs sound good — to worry about the lyrics. Fortunately that’s why love songs were invented: you can just say some general things about…
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Handwritten song lyrics taped to pole
I’m not entirely certain what compels someone to write out the lyrics to the 2005 hit Hope There’s Someone by Antony and the Johnsons, then tape the page to a pole in a BART station. Perhaps they were inspired by the recent Avicii version? In all likelihood we’ll never know. It will remain as one…
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Green Day sells out
Remember when Green Day’s pop-friendly rock took over the airwaves in the mid 90’s? Well, times have changed. Billie, Mike, and Tre must have fallen on bad luck, as they’re now licensing their band’s name out for banana chips. If you want to be an American Idiot and try these yourself, they’re sold at Walgreens.
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Yet another punk show at 16th Mission Bart
Yesterday evening we had another little punk show at the 16th Mission Bart stop. Unlike many previous shows, this one was right in the middle of things; not much buffer zone between the audience and the band. I wasn’t there when they finished up, but I hear that things ended quite early.
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Run DMC on Reading Rainbow
While we’re on the subject of hip hop and filling our blog with embedded YouTube videos, did you know Run DMC was once on Reading Rainbow? But you don’t have to take my word for it. My only complaint is that Jordi LeVar Burton didn’t rap along with them. It could have been something like…
About Eric
Travel, movies, comedy, tech, and whatever I find on the streets of San Francisco.
Contact: mrericsir “at” gmail.com
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